Jon, list, You’ve been pointing out an apparent discrepancy between “New Elements” (and other 1904 texts) and MS 283 of 1906 (selection 27 in EP2), which I’ve been quoting in this thread. The question is whether Aristotelian matter and form correspond to Peircean firstness and secondness respectively, or the other way round. I’ve argued that this is a metaphysical question and it’s better for a logician to “remain aloof” from it, as Peirce said, rather than try to settle on a definitive answer — especially considering the fact that Peirce does not explicitly mention “firstness” or “secondness” in either “New Elements” or MS 283. Now I’d like to suggest an alternative to the question.
In his defining phaneroscopy at CP 1.284 (1905), Peirce says that “So far as I have developed this science of phaneroscopy, it is occupied with the formal elements of the phaneron” (my italics). My suggestion is that Peirce’s three categories or “elements” can be regarded as elements of Aristotelian Form: Quality is the Firstness of Form, Actuality is the Secondness of Form, and Growth is the Thirdness of Form. As for Aristotelian Matter, it is simply indeterminate substance, or the capacity to be determined (by Form), thus gaining embodied individuality or determinate existence. We could use entelechy instead of Growth for Thirdness, with the understanding that it is a process (“perfecting growth” as Peirce says in MS 283) rather than the completed (or ideal) form at the end of the growth process, which is what Aristotle seems to mean by ἐντελέχεια. That could also explain the difference between a sufficiently complete sign — well defined, I think, in your response to Jerry (below) — and the perfect sign which Peirce describes in MS 283. The perfect sign is never complete but always in a process of becoming; the complete sign which comprises both denotation and signification is a kind of hypostatic abstraction, conceived as an entity which plays a key role in semiosis. We had a brief discussion offlist in which you raised some other important points, but I’ll have to leave that to you, as I’m being called away right now … Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> Sent: 15-Dec-18 19:36 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] the sexuality of methodeutic Jerry C., List: In this context, I understand "sufficiently complete" in two ways. 1. A pure Icon would signify something without denoting anything, while a pure Index would denote something without signifying anything (cf. EP 2:307; 1904). Only a Symbol is sufficiently complete to do both. 2. A Replica of a Rheme, by itself, has only an Immediate Object and an Immediate Interpretant--a range of things and characters that it possibly could denote and signify, respectively, within the Sign System to which it belongs. It is only when it is employed in an Instance of a Dicisign that it has a Dynamic Object and Dynamic Interpretant--individual thing(s) and character(s) that it actually does denote and signify, respectively, on that particular occasion. Only an Instance of a Dicisign is sufficiently complete to be an event of semiosis, although it always involves Instances of Rhemes. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
----------------------------- 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 . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
