List, This post follows up on Gary Richmond’s post from yesterday, but I’ve altered the subject line to eliminate some redundancy and the reference to EGs. I’m also assuming that Peirce’s definitions of phenomenology and of the phaneron, which are easily found and quoted, are not enough to give a firm grasp of what these ‘things’ are.
First — Gary mentions a page on my site, https://www.gnusystems.ca/PeircePhenom.htm, as “a nice introduction to Peirce's Phaneroscopy.” Actually I’d forgotten that essay was still on my site; I wrote it up several years ago just to formulate my own understanding of what Peirce’s phenomenology was, then became dissatisfied with it and started a revision, then abandoned the whole project, and I hadn’t looked at it for years until today. I do think it can be useful as an introduction and could spark some discussion of the issues involved and the many Peirce quotes in it. There’s a very different approach to the core phenomenological issues in Chapter 5 of my book Turning Signs, http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/nsd.htm. There are other references to Peircean (and other) phenomenology scattered here and there throughout Turning Signs, because in the context of trying to comprehend the nature of experience and cognition in human and other animals, I found some phenomenological investigation absolutely necessary. I started with Merleau-Ponty, actually, and I don’t share Gary’s belief that Peirce’s practice of phenomenology differs radically from that of other investigators who have called their discipline by that name. His theory sounds quite different because his approach to it is more mathematical and analytical than most, but what he was trying to direct our attention to (the object of his signs in that field) is not so different from the object of Merleau-Ponty’s signs on the subject, for instance. I have some slight acquaintance with Husserl, Heidegger and a few others that Gary mentioned, but not enough to compare their work with Peirce, whom I have studied much more intensively over the past two decades or so. I don’t consider Joe Ransdell’s article (which Gary cited) a very good guide to what Peirce’s phenomenology was all about, and I agree with Frederik Stjernfelt and several others that the difference between Husserl and Peirce on these matters is much less than Ransdell says it is. All this is just to give you some inkling of where I’m coming from on these issues. Richard Kenneth Atkins’ book on Peirce’s Phenomenology, which I just finished reading, has filled in many gaps in my study of the subject, but I’m relieved to see that its treatment of the subject is quite consistent with what I’d derived from my own study of Peirce’s writings. (I thus feel relieved from the responsibility of revising what I’ve written on the subject in my book and blog over the past few years.) I think Atkins gives a pretty nearly definitive account of the subject, with the exception of his remarks on the “material” categories, which strike me as much weaker than the rest. Finally — 15 years or so on this list has given me the impression that some of its major contributors have either no idea of, or no interest in, Peirce’s phenomenology/phaneroscopy and what is useful about it. I don’t expect this situation to change, because phenomenology is a very peculiar science in some ways and a very difficult one in others. But I trust that those who aren’t interested will allow the rest of us to discuss some of Peirce’s specific statements on the subject without complaining that it’s useless because they have no collateral experience of what we’re talking about — or because they don’t recognize that experience as such. We all have different ways of connecting our private experience with public language, and we never know in advance whether the attempt to bridge these gaps will be worth the effort. So it goes. My next post in this thread, if there is one, will be shorter and more specific. Meanwhile any questions arising are welcome. Gary f. From: Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> Sent: 20-Feb-19 16:58 To: Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu> Subject: The Nature of Peirce's Phenomenology, was: [PEIRCE-L] was EGs and Phaneroscopy Jerry, list, Let me begin by addressing very briefly, then in greater detail, your three short paragraphs. Some of what follows may be well known to many members of this forum, but as they may not be true of others, this post in a newly named thread is meant in part as a kind brief, albeit personal, reflection on the nature of Peirce's Phenomenology. I hope and expect that others here will correct any errors on my part and I apologize if this turns out to read like Phaneroscopy for Dummies. It will undoubtedly be quite incomplete, especially as to relevant sources, something which I hope others will fill in. Jerry wrote: JC: Your post raises many questions in my mind; they all seem to involve the meaning of the term “phenomenology” in your usage of the term. When I write "phenomenology" without qualification, I am referring to Peirce's--not Hegel's, nor Husserl's, nor any of the myriad contemporary versions of--phenomenology. One can hardly keep up with, especially, the European varieties of phenomenology and I've stopped trying. Peirce sometimes uses the alternative term phaneroscopy, in part to distinguish his work from Hegel's, but especially to point to the object of phenomenological observation, the Phaneron, a term coined by him ". . .in order to avoid loading ‘phenomenon,’ ‘thought,’ ‘idea,’ etc., with multiple meanings" (The Century Dictionary Supplement, Vol. II, CDS 2:978, 1909, in the Commens Dictionary). But, surprise! he is not always consistent in his terminology. Nonetheless, here's a definition which gets at the essence of this science as well as its first and quintessential finding, viz., the three Universal Categories. Phenomenology is the science which describes the different kinds of elements that are always present in the Phenomenon, meaning by the Phenomenon whatever is before the mind in any kind of thought, fancy, or cognition of any kind. Everything that you can possibly think involves three kinds of elements (1903, Lowell Lectures, in Commens). There are some scholars who imagine that all the important work of Peircean phenomenology was accomplished in Peirce's discovery that all thought "involves three kinds of elements," that is, the categories. I am most emphatically not one of them. Indeed, I follow Andre de Tienne in seeing Phaneroscopy, that is, observation of the phaneron, as only the first observational branch of Phenomenology. See: http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/detienne/isphanscience.pdf As I've previously noted, de Tienne adds a second possible branch which he calls Iconoscopy, but which he suggests he might have more property termed Imageology (or something like that) because of his emphasis on images. H See: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/rssi/2013-v33-n1-2-3-rssi02379/1035282ar/. He conjectures that this hypothetical branch might serve as a bridge between Phanerscopy and Logic as Semeiotic. From the Abstract: The mature writings reveal the important role the notion of image plays in this transition. Peirce indeed develops a pragmatic conception of image that turns the latter into the fundamental ingredient of the concrete experience of signs. An image in this sense is not a drawing or a picture, but at first a logical concept with a mathematical basis that helps explain the psychological phenomenon. The image is at the junction between the percept (phaneral element) and the perceptual judgment (the most elementary kind of semiotic event) through the percipuum, and it can be observed through a special kind of activity called iconoscopy. In any event, de Tienne certainly holds that Phaneroscopy is a positive science, albeit a peculiar one, and writes in "Iconoscopy" (footnote 9): Peirce conceived of it as an activity that was to be conducted through and through in a scientific spirit, both regarding its methods of observation and description (mathematically grounded and diagrammatic), and regarding its strenuous ethics of honest and unbiased reporting to a community of inquirers and fellow observers. Thus, the place occupied by phaneroscopy in the classification of the sciences is fully justified : it is the first of the positive science, in that its object is actually an inquiry into the very nature of positive experience, one that is preliminary to any more particular inquiry into its myriad embodiments in the esthetic, ethical, logical, metaphysical, psychical, and physical realms. I have suggested that a third branch may be needed to fully develop Phenomenology as a science, a branch which Joe Ransdell suggested that I call Category Theory (I sometimes refer to it as Trikonic because of the kind of iconic diagrams involved). It is principally concerned with diagramming trichotomies, groups of related trichotomies, vectors (paths) through some trichotomies, etc. See: http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/richmond/trikonic.htm Work in Iconoscopy and Category Theory has barely begun, and the truth is that Peirce's Phaneroscopy itself hardly been considered, let alone developed Be that as it may, Peirce places Phenomenology directly after Mathematics in his Classification of Sciences as the first of the Coenscopic (Philosophical) sciences. As such according to what Richard Atkins has termed "the principle of principle," Phenomenology offers principles to all the sciences below it in Peirce's classification, which is to say, to virtually all other sciences whatsoever excluding pure mathematics. Now, considering Peirce's own writings on Phenomenology, it's no doubt best to look first at the source material. One good place to start to get a handle on what Peirce means by Phenomenology (aka Phaneroscopy) is to read the material on phenomenology in Vol. I of the Collected Papers, Book III. Phenomenology. CP 284 to 353. Here one finds discussions of the phaneron, valency, indecomposable elements, and the three categories. While not strictly phenomenololgic, one also finds in Book III is A Guess at the Riddle (CP 453 to 416) with an introductory chapter titled "Trichotomy," by which Peirce applies category theory (trichotomic) to everything from 'reasoning' to 'biological development'. In addition, one of the most important theoretical discussions of the categories, "The Logic of Mathematics: An Attempt to Develop My Categories from Within" (CP 417 to 520) is also found in Book III on Phenomenology. Gary Fuhrman, in this forum, offers a nice introduction to Peirce's Phaneroscopy here: https://www.gnusystems.ca/PeircePhenom.htm I haven't yet finished it and so can't yet recommend it, but you might take a look at Richard Atkins recent book, which several of us on this list are reading or have read: Charles S. Peirce's Phenomenology: Analysis and Consciousness as it might suggest the state of current scholarship in Phenomenology. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/charles-s-peirces-phenomenology-9780190887179?cc=us <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/charles-s-peirces-phenomenology-9780190887179?cc=us&lang=en&;> &lang=en& JC: Could you explain the meaning that you wish to convey in terms of other philosophers usage of the term? That is, historical? or contemporary? For now I'll only say that Peirce phenomenology appears to me so completely different from Hegel's, Husserl's, Merleau-Ponty's, Heidegger's, Levina's, Varela's, etc. that there's very little to compare. And the work of the above mentioned writers on phenomenology have themselves for the most part very different emphases and methodologies from each other (although there is some overlap in some of their work, and the dominance of Husserl's work until fairly recently is patent). Furthermore, the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology offers at least seven or eight distinct schools of phenomenology. See: https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780792329565 Some contemporary phenomenologists seem more directed to semiotics than to phenomenology. So, for example, while Maurita Harney's paper, while "Naturalizing Phenomenology" purports to bring together Merleau-Ponty's and Peirce's work in phenomenology, in my view there isn't much phenomenology in it--much more semiotics. See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610715001182?via%3Dihub You might be interested in a recently published paper, "Phenomenology and Biosemiotics" by Morten Tonnessen, Timo Maran, and Alexei Sharov to see how phenomenology might be being dealt with in biosemiotics. Incidently, they reference the work of Maurita Harney, mentioned above. I have only had time to skim through it, but it does point out that some biosemioticians are indeed employing Peirce's phenomenology in their work. However, this remark is a bit off-putting: "Many biosemioticians, as well as other semioticians, regard the ‘Phaneroscopy’ of Charles Sanders Peirce as the semiotic counterpart to phenomenology." Huh? So, phenomenology and semiotics conflated again? See: https://www.academia.edu/38372367/Phenomenology_and_Biosemiotics?email_work_card=title Joseph Ransdell's paper, "Is Peirce a Phenomenologist?" does, however, do a decent job o contrasting Husserl's and Peirce's work. http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/PHENOM.HTM JC: The meaningfulness of a future inquiry here depends to a large extent on the perceptions of the meanings of “semiotics” and “phenomenology”. I agree and, again, I hope that the thread that Gary Fuhrman anticipates commencing will help towards clarifying those meanings. Best, Gary R
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