John, List:
JFS: But nothing in that argument that depends on the nature of the
creator as benign or malevolent, perfect or imperfect, necessary or
contingent.
I have not claimed otherwise, except to quote Peirce himself as stating
explicitly that God is *Ens necessarium* ("A Neglected Argument") and
possesses the attribute of Infinite Benignity (manuscript drafts).
JFS: You quoted Peirce, but you claim that the argument is unavoidable.
No, I do not. For the third time, what I have said is that my Semeiotic
Argumentation provides what *seems to me* to be the unavoidable *answer *to
the question, "If the entire Universe is a Sign, then what is its Object?"
JFS: The absence of any hint in any of his MSS raises a serious doubt that
Peirce would approve the reasoning that led to that argument.
As Peirce himself surely would have recognized, this is an argument from
silence, which is not logically valid. He never claimed to have
worked out *all
*of the ramifications of his own thought during his lifetime; on the
contrary, he said more than once that he was *counting *on future
generations to *continue *the work that he had started, especially in
Semeiotic.
JFS: Ideally, that would require a translation of each premise and every
step of the reasoning to existential graphs and an application of the EG
rules of inference.
I thought that it was obvious that the *form *of my Semeiotic Argumentation
is *identical *to Peirce's simple example of reasoning with EGs in his
letter to Mr. Kehler (NEM 3:168-169; 1911 June 22), where S = the entire
Universe, M = a Sign, and P = determined by an Object other than itself.
JFS: 1. The claim that the object of every sign must be in a different
universe of discourse than the physical sign of that object ...
I'll accept the point that the object of a sign must be different from the
sign itself.
I have never made the first claim, only the second--that the Object of
every Sign is *external *to, *independent *of, and *unaffected *by the Sign
*itself*, as Peirce himself *explicitly *stated.
JFS: 2. The claim the Creator (God, Satan, or some demiurge) cannot be in
the same universe as the creation.
3. The claim that Peirce's three universes (Possibility, Actuality, and
Necessity) are insufficient as a home for the Creator.
The relevant claim is rather that the Creator of the three Universes of
Experience and "every content of them without exception" cannot be *within *any
or all of those Universes; i.e., God is "*not *immanent in" them, as Peirce
explicitly stated.
JFS: I forgot to mention that I had uploaded some of Peirce's definitions
to http://jfsowa.com/peirce/defs/ See sign1.jpg and sign2.jpg .
Thank you for the link; I agree that all of those 1890s definitions apply
only to Sinsigns/Tokens, presumably because Peirce did not recognize the
reality of Qualisigns/Tones and Legisigns/Types until 1903.
JFS: CSP, Century Dictionary for 'universe'--1. The totality of all
existing things; all that is in dynamical connection with general
experience taken collectively--embracing (a} the Creator and creation; or
(b) psychical and material objects, but excluding the Creator; or (c)
material objects only.
When I refer to "the entire Universe" in my Semeiotic Argumentation, I mean
all three Universes of Experience taken together; i.e., what Peirce *himself
*called "the entire universe--not merely the universe of existents, but all
that wider universe, embracing the universe of existents as a part, the
universe which we are all accustomed to refer to as 'the truth'" (CP
5.448n, EP 2:394; 1906). That means sense (b) above plus the first
Universe of Ideas/Possibles, assuming that we can take "material objects"
to be the constituents of the second Universe of Actuality/Existents and
"psychical objects" to be the constituents of the third Universe of
Signs/Necessitants.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
On Mon, May 20, 2019 at 10:56 AM John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> wrote:
> Jon,
>
> > Anyone is welcome to claim that Satan (or anything else) is that
> > Object [of the semeiotic proof], but thereby accepts the burden
> > of making a case for it based on the attributes that such an Object
> > must have. I suspect that it would amount to nothing more than
> > equating the proper names "Satan" and "God."
>
> That's true. But nothing in that argument that depends on the nature
> of the creator as benign or malevolent, perfect or imperfect, necessary
> or contingent. In the Timaeus, Plato attributes the creation to a
> demiurge (craftsman) who seems to be distinct from the supreme God.
> To explain the origin of evil, the Gnostics later claimed that the
> demiurge was flawed, imperfect, or even malevolent.
>
> The Neoplatonists, following Plotinus, identified the creator with
> the omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God (which they called The One
> -- to Hen). The Neoplatonists had a strong influence on both
> Christianity and Islam. ('Al Lah' is Arabic for 'The One'.)
> Nothing in the semeiotic argument depends on any of these issues.
>
> > I have consistently referred to my Semeiotic Argumentation...
> > What I have said is that Peirce affirmed each of its premisses,
> > and I have provided ample evidence from his explicit statements
> > to support that claim.
>
> You quoted Peirce, but you claim that the argument is unavoidable.
> Peirce was the world expert in logic and semeiotic. He also had
> a high regard for Thomas Aquinas, who is generally regarded as one
> of the most profound theologians who ever lived. If there was
> any "unavoidable" argument that linked those topics, Peirce would
> certainly have noticed it.
>
> The absence of any hint in any of his MSS raises a serious doubt
> that Peirce would approve the reasoning that led to that argument.
> Such a strong claim requires a methodeutic for exact thinking:
> "What is needed above all, for metaphysics, is thorough and mature
> thinking; and the particular requisite to success in the critic of
> arguments is exact and diagrammatic thinking." (CP 3.406)
>
> Ideally, that would require a translation of each premise and every
> step of the reasoning to existential graphs and an application of
> the EG rules of inference. But the critical step, which is necessary
> for EGs, predicate calculus, or clear thinking in any language, is
> the selection of a set of predicates. The next step is to restate
> each of Peirce's statements in terms of the names of those predicates
> and no words other than the six basic words of first-order logic:
> and, or, not, if-then, some, every. Instead of pronouns, use letters
> (AKA selectives in EGs or variables in predicate calculus).
>
> If you perform this translation, that would make every step of
> reasoning so clear that any logician could translate the argument
> to his or her favorite version of logic. In fact, you would even
> have a publishable paper.
>
> But -- and this is a very big **BUT** -- there are three critical
> assumptions, which I have been criticizing in every one of my
> notes about this argument:
>
> 1. The claim that the object of every sign must be in a different
> universe of discourse than the physical sign of that object.
>
> 2. The claim the Creator (God, Satan, or some demiurge) cannot
> be in the same universe as the creation.
>
> 3. The claim that Peirce's three universes (Possibility, Actuality,
> and Necessity) are insufficient as a home for the Creator.
>
> I'll accept the point that the object of a sign must be different
> from the sign itself. But every proposition of any kind and every
> step of any argument can be stated on a single sheet of assertion.
> I doubt that Peirce would accept assumption #1.
>
> For #2, note that Peirce allowed modal statements on the same SA
> as ordinary FOL statements. That means that a single universe of
> discourse may include a mix of statements from more than one of
> his three universes.
>
> For #3, any reasoning must be carried out on a single SA. That
> implies a single universe of discourse. Any reasoning that could
> not be stated on an SA would violate the foundations of Peirce's
> logic. If he had ever considered such a violation, there would be
> many hints and comments scattered throughout his thousands of MSS.
>
> > JFS: Look at the eleven senses of the word 'sign' that Peirce defined
> > for the Century Dictionary. Each one defines 'sign' as a physical
> > thing. None of them mentions the word 'percept'.
> >
> > JAS: I would be glad to do so, if you would be so kind as to quote
> > them.
>
> I forgot to mention that I had uploaded some of Peirce's definitions
> to http://jfsowa.com/peirce/defs/ See sign1.jpg and sign2.jpg .
>
> For Peirce's definition of 'universe' in the Century Dictionary, see
> defs/universal.jpg. The same page includes the definition of universe.
> In that definition, Peirce included all the senses that were in common
> usage in the 19th c. He distinguished three major senses, with God
> included in 1a, excluded in 1b and 1c:
>
> CSP, Century Dictionary for 'universe'
> > 1. The totality of all existing things; all that is in dynamical
> > connection with general experience taken collectively -- embracing
> > (a} the Creator and creation; or (b) psychical and material objects,
> > but excluding the Creator; or (c) material objects only.
>
> Then in sense 3, he defines the universe of discourse in logic, and
> includes quotations by De Morgan and Venn.
>
> Sense 1 describes common usage with variations that include and
> exclude God. Sense 3 describes the universe of discourse in logic,
> but it does not mention his own variation with a universe of all
> possibilities, a universe of actualities, and a universe of
> necessities. Which version applies to the following?
>
> CSP (EP 2:304)
> > The entelechy of the Universe of being, then, the Universe qua fact,
> > will be that Universe in its aspect as a sign, the "Truth" of being.
> > The "Truth," the fact that is not abstracted but complete, is the
> > ultimate interpretant of every sign.
>
> This does not sound like senses 1 or 2 from the Century Dictionary.
> The words 'fact', 'sign', and 'truth' indicate that Peirce is
> talking about a universe of discourse that could be described by
> the EGs on a Sheet of Assertion.
>
> I admit Peirce wrote those definitions in the 1890s, before he
> developed his EGs and his more profound semeiotic. But they
> show that he was aware of the issues about God and the universe.
> He could not have avoided any "unavoidable" implication.
>
> I also admit that a doubt is not a refutation. But any claim
> that the argument follows from his writings requires a detailed
> methodeutic to make the ideas clear. It must be stated in terms
> that could support diagrammatic reasoning, and it must answer
> the three criticisms above.
>
> John
>
-----------------------------
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 .
