Gary R, list:
1] Of course I know that the terms 1ns, 2ns, 3ns are your terms. But others who are not familiar with Peirce's work or the habits-of-this-list might not be so aware. So, nit-picking it may be, but I'll stand by my request to differentiate one's insertions from that of a copied text.
2] With regard to the 'reality' of God - I am aware that JAS is a deeply committed theist - but - I reject the view that Peirce Is such. Certainly Peirce wrote:
"I shall reply that the universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities" 5.119
He also wrote:: "The Universe as an argument is necessarily a great work of art, a great poem - for every fine argument is a poem and a symphony - just as every true poem is a sound argument. But let us compare it rather with a painting...".5.119
And - his discussion in 'the Reality of God [6.490 - compares this 'force with Pure Mind' -
So- I think one has to compare the descriptions of the common conception of 'god' s a metaphysical agency with Peirce's description - and there is frankly, nothing metaphysical about Peirce's description. Instead, Peirce roots the term 'god' in the operation of the three categories - which are NOT metaphysical but operations of pragmatic semiosis.
Edwina
On Fri 16/03/18 2:05 PM , Gary Richmond [email protected] sent:
Edwina, Jon, list,
Edwina wrote:
ET: 1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from Peirce, please do not add your comments within that quoted text. In the quote below from CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns] are NOT in the original text but are your own commentary. I'm not saying these are incorrect assumptions - but, I think the reader ought to know the clear difference between Peirce's text and your own additions to it. Therefore - please inform the reader that the bracketed terms are your additions...that's all.
To me this sounds like so much nit-picking. Not only does Peirce not use brackets in this way to my knowledge, but 3ns, 2ns, 1ns are abbreviations I invented a couple of decades ago and which some, including Jon, use rather than the more cumbersome thirdness, secondness, and firstness. I doubt that anyone on this list would think that 1ns, 2ns, 3ns reflect Peirce's own usage within or with out brackets.
ET: 2] I also don't agree with your analysis ...on God - but that's irrelevant, since both your analysis and my rejection of it are simply opinions.
Again, I completely disagree with you that Jon's analysis is simply an opinion. He brings together Peirce's own conception of "the Universe [as] a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's purpose" with recent discussions of and his own reflections on the Quasi-Mind, Utterer-Interpreter, and Perfect Sign--all from Peirce's late work in semeiotic and in the context of his extraordinarily compelling, in my opinion (and, of course, this is simply my opinion) analysis in his paper, A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of God (see the link below).
He does this--and even in this recent post--in a way which to my mind complements Peirce's own analysis of the universe as a symbol of God's work. Along with other better known Peircean phenomenological and semiotic notions (the categories, icon/index/symbol) he seems moving in the direction of a deepening of that part of Peirce's metaphysics which explicitly concerns God by applying these late semiotic ideas.
Finally, Jon offers this most recent message as the beginning of the unpacking of a hypothesis. JAS: "If my latest hypothesis is correct that the Universe is the Perfect Sign, what would be its Object?" You may argue against his analysis on phenomenological, semeiotic, or metaphysical grounds, but to dismiss it out of hand seems to me much more like mere opinion than Jon's message (which, as I see it, is not opinion at all). Peirce *was* a theist, and those who are theists (and even those who aren't) may find Jon's work of considerable interest as in effect developing and deepening these semeiotic/metaphysical ideas of Peirce. See, especially, A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of God, published recently in the journal, Signs.
https://tidsskrift.dk/signs/article/view/103187/152244
Best,
Gary
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New YorkOn Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:18 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:Jon, list:
1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from Peirce, please do not add your comments within that quoted text. In the quote below from CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns] are NOT in the original text but are your own commentary. I'm not saying these are incorrect assumptions - but, I think the reader ought to know the clear difference between Peirce's text and your own additions to it. Therefore - please inform the reader that the bracketed terms are your additions...that's all.
2] I also don't agree with your analysis ...on God - but that's irrelevant, since both your analysis and my rejection of it are simply opinions.
Edwina
On Fri 16/03/18 8:58 AM , Jon Alan Schmidt [email protected] sent:List:If my latest hypothesis is correct that the Universe is the Perfect Sign, what would be its Object? What is perpetually acting upon it with new Signs that give it fresh energy and kindle its previously dormant energy? What has the absolute freedom to introduce spontaneous changes into it? In other words, what sustains the Universe as something that is living and growing, rather than succumbing to "the complete induration of habit reducing the free play of feeling and the brute irrationality of effort to complete death" (CP 6.201; 1898)?
CSP: ... the Universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities. Now every symbol [3ns] must have, organically attached to it, its Indices of Reactions [2ns] and its Icons of Qualities [1ns]; and such part as these reactions and these qualities play in an argument, that they of course play in the Universe, that Universe being precisely an argument. (CP 5.119, EP 2:193-194; 1903)
Consistent with the conclusion of my recently published essay, "A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of God," the Dynamic Object of the Universe as the Perfect Sign is its perfect Utterer, God Himself, infinitely incomprehensible to us. Its Immediate Object is God's purpose, which is the development of Reason, including the growth of our knowledge of God and of this Universe that He has created--and is still creating.
CSP: This development of Reason consists, you will observe, in embodiment, that is, in manifestation. The creation of the universe, which did not take place during a certain busy week, in the year 4004 B.C., but is going on today and never will be done, is this very developement of Reason. I do not see how one can have a more satisfying ideal of the admirable than the development of Reason so understood. The one thing whose admirableness is not due to an ulterior Reason is Reason itself comprehended in all its fullness, so far as we can comprehend it. (CP 1.615, EP 2:255; 1903)
This is the summum bonum in accordance with the normative science of esthetics. Peirce went on to draw the corresponding ethical and logical implications, since what he described as "Practice" and "Theory" in EP 2:304 correspond to "embodiment" and "manifestation" here, respectively.
CSP: Under this conception, the ideal of conduct will be to execute our little function in the operation of the creation by giving a hand toward rendering the world more reasonable whenever, as the slang is, it is "up to us" to do so. In logic, it will be observed that knowledge is reasonableness; and the ideal of reasoning will be to follow such methods as must develop knowledge the most speedily. (CP 1.615, EP 2:255; 1903)
As embodied metaphysical Quasi-minds, we are both constituents and interpreters of the Universe as God's great Symbol and Argument. Furthermore, as morally responsible Persons, we can also be contributors to it--we have the opportunity (and privilege) to participate voluntarily in God's still-unfolding creative activity. The Perfect Sign thus serves as an ideal, or regulative hope, which would be achieved if all of us were to become fully welded with the eternal Mind who is our Creator.
Regards,Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
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