What sets Peirce apart from analytic philosophy is his acknowledgment that the INTERaction (of individual actualities) is general/lawful, and it is real.
Martin W. Kettelhut, PhD 303 747 4449 On Aug 9, 2018, at 12:46 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca<mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>> wrote: JAS, list What is going on here, is a situation where two people are using the same word - each with a different usage. So- we are talking past each other, and that's hardly productive. I use the term 'interact' to mean that two or more forces act on and have an effect on each other. But a key point: I do not confine the nature of these forces to actualities and so, I include the effect that a law can have on a particular object. I think that JAS uses the term 'interact' to refer only to an action between two actualities, two existent 'things'. Again, Jon, your quotes that you provided do not, in my view, contradict my use of the term 'interact'. I have always acknowledged that the general, the law, has no separate actuality in itself but is 'embodied' in an individual morphology. This is basic Peirce [and Aristotle]. BUT, I consider that the general, the law, as embedded, does act as a genuine informational force, and so it as itself, as its generality, acts, interacts...with individual morphologies. And this is not simply an act of constraint, but, in my view, of actual generative formation. That enables the increase of complexity - a basic conclusion for Peirce. This is something about which we have a basic disagreement. Edwina On Thu 09/08/18 2:28 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com<mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com> sent: Edwina, List: The point is that according to Peirce, as demonstrated by those quotations, only existential particulars can interact, and only with other existential particulars. A general cannot interact with anything as a general, so it does not interact with existential particulars; instead, it governs them. CSP: But a law necessarily governs, or "is embodied in" individuals, and prescribes some of their qualities. (CP 2.293, EP 2:274; 1903) CSP: By a proposition, as something which can be repeated over and over again, translated into another language, embodied in a logical graph or algebraical formula, and still be one and the same proposition, we do not mean any existing individual object but a type, a general, which does not exist but governs existents, to which individuals conform. (CP 8.313; 1905) Regards, Jon S. On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 12:06 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca<mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>> wrote: JAS, list I'm not sure of the point of your post. I suggested that we'd simply have to agree-to-disagree. Providing lists of quotations, all of which I fully agree with, doesn't change my view [and none contradict my view] - which I'll repeat below: " I don't agree that it implies that the "Type exists apart from its Tokens'. My view is that both are informationally functional and interact informationally - and this doesn't imply a separate individual existence for each. Informational action between information encoded as a general and information encoded as a particular is, in my view, quite possible." That is - Reality, which functions as a generality, DOES, in my view, interact with the existential particular. Edwina On Thu 09/08/18 12:52 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com<mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com> sent: Edwina, List: Any word with "act" as its root implies actuality, which is 2ns. CSP: Let us begin with considering actuality, and try to make out just what it consists in. If I ask you what the actuality of an event consists in, you will tell me that it consists in its happening then and there. The specifications then and there involve all its relations to other existents. The actuality of the event seems to lie in its relations to the universe of existents ... We have a two-sided consciousness of effort and resistance, which seems to me to come tolerably near to a pure sense of actuality. On the whole, I think we have here a mode of being of one thing which consists in how a second object is. I call that Secondness. (CP 1.24; 1903) CSP: That conception of Aristotle which is embodied for us in the cognate origin of the terms actuality and activity is one of the most deeply illuminating products of Greek thinking. Activity implies a generalization of effort; and effort is a two-sided idea, effort and resistance being inseparable, and therefore the idea of Actuality has also a dyadic form. (CP 4.542; 1906) CSP: The second Universe is that of the Brute Actuality of things and facts. I am confident that their Being consists in reactions against Brute forces ... (CP 6.455, EP 2:435; 1908) CSP: Another Universe is that of, first, Objects whose Being consists in their Brute reactions, and of, second, the facts (reactions, events, qualities, etc.) concerning those Objects, all of which facts, in the last analysis, consist in their reactions. I call the Objects, Things, or more unambiguously, Existents, and the facts about them I call Facts. (EP 2:479; 1908) Only Existents (2ns)--including Tokens--act, react, or interact; and they do so only on/with other Existents. For Peirce, this was literally the defining attribute of existence. CSP: The modern philosophers ... recognize but one mode of being, the being of an individual thing or fact, the being which consists in the object’s crowding out a place for itself in the universe, so to speak, and reacting by brute force of fact, against all other things. I call that Existence. (CP 1.21; 1903) CSP: The existent is that which reacts against other things. (CP 8.191; c. 1904) CSP: Whatever exists, ex-sists, that is, really acts upon other existents, so obtains a self-identity, and is definitely individual. (CP 5.429, EP 2:342; 1905) CSP: ... I myself always use exist in its strict philosophical sense of "react with the other like things in the environment." (CP 6.495; c. 1906) From such a standpoint, strictly speaking, Possibles (1ns) and Necessitants (3ns)--including Tones and Types, respectively--do not act, react, or interact on/with anything. That is why any Dynamic Interpretant (Experiential Information)--an actual feeling, effort, or further Sign-Replica--is always the result of a "then-and-there" Instance of the Sign (Token), while the Final Interpretant (Substantial Information) pertains to the non-temporal/non-spatial Sign itself (Type), and the Immediate Interpretant (Essential Information)pertains to the qualities/characters of its expression within a given system of Signs (Tone). Consequently, I do not see how anything except Tokens could "interact informationally" or engage in "informational action." Regards, Jon S. On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 8:26 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca<mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>> wrote: JAS, list I wasn't referring at all to the difference between reality and existence - and as I said in my post, I was indeed talking about Thirdness as mediation in a Legisign role. Obviously, then, I agree that the Representamen in a mode of Thirdness within the triadic semiosic process does not 'exist but governs existents'....So- I'm unsure of the reason for your comment. With reference to your problem with my use of the word 'interaction', which you confine to a mode of Secondness - I guess we'll just have to each agree to differ in our use of the word. I don't agree that it implies that the "Type exists apart from its Tokens'. My view is that both are informationally functional and interact informationally - and this doesn't imply a separate individual existence for each. Informational action between information encoded as a general and information encoded as a particular is, in my view, quite possible. Edwina On Thu 09/08/18 9:11 AM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com<mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com> sent: Edwina, List: I suppose we can say that a Type depends on its Tokens for its existence, but certainly not for its Reality, because the mode of Being of a Type is not reaction (2ns) but mediation (3ns). Consequently, I still think we should avoid saying that a Type "interacts" with its Tokens, because this implies that the Type exists apart from its Tokens, such that it can react with them. As the quote below from Peirce states, a Type "does not exist but governs existents" (CP 8.313; 1905, emphasis added); the Sign's unchanging ideal Final Interpretant logically/semiotically determines (constrains) its various actual Dynamic Interpretants, not the other way around. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.linkedin.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 8:39 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca<mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>> wrote: Gary R, JAS, list 1] I question the claim that "The Type is not dependent on its Tokens--past, present, or future--any more than the hardness of a diamond is dependent on its ever actually being scratched. Such is the nature of a Real "would-be." My view is that the Type - which I understand as a general, as laws, is most certainly dependent on being articulated as a Token, for generals do not exist except as articulated within/as the particular. And it is the experiences of the particular instantiation that can affect the Types and enable adaptation and evolution of the general/laws.since, as we know, growth and increasing complexity is 'the rule' [can't remember section..] "I do not mean any existing individual object, but a type, a general, which does not exist but governs existents, to which individuals conform" 8.313. That is - I think the relation between the law/general and the instantiation is intimate and interactive [there's that terrible word again!]. 2] Symbols grow' - which to me, means that they become more complex in their laws and their networked connections with other Signs. But I will also suggest that symbols must have the capacity to implode as well! Edwina ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu<mailto:peirce-L@list.iupui.edu> . 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