Edwina, John S., List: As I have said before (more than once), my own purpose in focusing so much on Peirce's concepts and terminology in logic as semeiotic is not for its *own *sake, but primarily for the purpose of *making our ideas clear*. This is a necessary and important step *before *we can properly identify and explicate the resulting "pragmatic applications" in *other *fields, beginning with Metaphysics and continuing on to the Special Sciences such as biosemiotics. After all, Peirce *defined *pragmatism as "no attempt to determine any truth of things," but rather "merely a method of ascertaining the meanings of hard words and of abstract concepts" (CP 5.464, EP 2:400; 1907).
Also, as far as I know, no one on the List is advocating "Platonic idealism." Why keep bringing it up? Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 11:09 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote: > John, list > > Yes, but I'm trying to emphasize, or perhaps remind ourselves, that > Peircean semiotics is not expressed simply in language and/or logic, but in > its pragmatic application to material life. That is - there are three > 'parts' so to speak; language/logic/pragmatic application. > > My concern is that much of the focus of our examination of Peirce is often > on terminology, on which term he used for..___. Since Peirce often changed > these terms, then, to me, they are not the vital ground of Peircean > semiosis and even sidesteps the fundamental nature of Peircean semiotics - > which is its pragmaticism. > > And an ever-present danger when we confine ourselves to this rhetoric [but > not logic] - is that easy slip into Platonic idealism - which actually > denies pragmaticism because it separates Mind and Matter. > > Edwina > > On Thu 06/09/18 11:35 AM , John F Sowa s...@bestweb.net sent: > > On 9/6/2018 11:07 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote: > > I agree with your linking Peirce's semiotic with his logic, but > > my concern is that one can lose the vital nature of Peirce; namely, > > that his logic-as-formal semiotic is a pragmatic system. > > I agree with your concerns. I know many logicians who get lost > in the technical details and ignore all the issues about relating > logic to language, thought, and life. > > I also admit that it's much easier to write many pages of ordinary > language than to write a few lines of precisely stated mathematics > or mathematical logic. Peirce knew that. But he also knew that > precision required a restatement in terms of some version of logic. > > Basic point: It's vastly easier to translate logic to language, > than to translate language to logic. But the exercise of writing > the logic is necessary for precision. > > John > >
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