Jon,
I agree that my comments were about methods of reasoning rather than
specific issues about Lane's book. So I changed the subject line.
JAS
As for this thread, it is supposed to be about Peirce's views on
realism and idealism as explored by Lane in his recent book, not
our different purposes and respective approaches for studying and
discussing Peirce's views on those topics (and others).
I'm not talking about your preferences or mine. I'm talking about
the long-established conventions for scholarship: Maintain a sharp
distinction between an author's "ipsissima verba" and any commentary
about them. If an author did not state something explicitly, any
claims about the text are opinions of the commentator. Opinions
are never acceptable in a court of law or in a scholarly edition.
JFS: The term 'objective idealism' could characterize a huge family
of theories from antiquity to the present.
JAS: Sure, but we are only discussing the particular theory that
Peirce called by that name in 1891.
My complaint was not about the topic, but about the method
of reasoning. The following example illustrates the issues:
JAS
The whole point of CP 6.24-25 (1891) is that once dualism is
dismissed in favor of monism, there are only three options--mind
and matter are independent (neutralism), matter is primordial such
that mind depends on matter (materialism), or mind is primordial
such that matter depends on mind (idealism). Peirce unambiguously
endorsed the last alternative and rejected the others, and as far
as I know, he never abandoned that view.
My concerns: CP 6.24 is quite clear as Peirce stated it; there is
no need for a paraphrase to make it clearer. But this paraphrase
distorts CP 6.24 in several ways:
1. The phrase "the whole point" implies that there is no other
useful information in CP 6.24-25. But the last sentence of
CP 6.25 makes an important point about Peirce's methodology:
"But before this can be accepted it must show itself capable
of explaining the tridimensionality of space, the laws of
motion, and the general characteristics of the universe, with
mathematical clearness and precision; for no less should be
demanded of every philosophy."
2. The phrase "there are only three options" is an unduly precise
grouping of the huge number of issues that have been debated
since antiquity. It's true that Peirce only mentioned three,
but he added the phrase "it seems" to each of the first two.
That sounds far more tentative than an unambiguous endorsement.
3. He calls the third option "the only intelligible theory" but adds
the qualification mentioned in point #1: an explanation of 3-D
space, laws of motion, and everything with "mathematical clearness
and precision". That would require a huge amount of work.
4. Since Peirce never accomplished the tasks in point #1, it would be
premature to claim that he "unambiguously endorsed" that option.
Einstein made more progress on those issues than Peirce did, but
there are still many unanswered questions today.
5. In the statement "matter is effete mind" (CP 6.25), the words
'effete' and 'mind' are extremely vague, and the definitions
of 'matter' have changed enormously since the 19th century,
and new developments are continuing to make revisions. Those
words are so vague that "it's easy to be certain".
6. I also wrote that point #5 is so vague that any of the following
terms would be just as certain as Peirce's 'objective idealism':
Theos = Logos = Tao = Dharma = God of Spinoza = pantheism.
JAS
In any case, what I characterized as "unambiguous" was not Peirce's
statement itself, but his endorsement of objective idealism...
The best possible proof that Peirce endorsed objective idealism is
an exact quotation of CP 6.24-25. No paraphrase by anybody is
acceptable in a court of law or in a scholarly analysis.
JAS
but how about dealing with the substance of my posts, rather than
continually nitpicking at my methodology and choice of words?
Peirce's devoted his life's work to nitpicking. That is the essence
of logic and semeiotic: Developing and justifying precise methods
for analyzing language, thought, and reasoning down to the smallest,
most precisely defined and justified steps (AKA nits).
As for substance, I have been begging you to drop the phrase
"harmonize and synthesize". The only things you are harmonizing
are your own opinions. No refereed publication would ever accept
anybody's claim of "harmonizing" anybody else's writings.
JAS
Why did you append a lengthy piece by Einstein?
Three reasons: (1) Einstein was addressing similar issues, and he
started from the same physics that Peirce knew; (2) he adopted the
strategy that Peirce stated in CP 6.25; and (3) he made far more
progress in "explaining the tridimensionality of space, the laws
of motion, and the general characteristics of the universe, with
mathematical clearness and precision."
In fact, Peirce's foundation in logic, mathematics, philosophy,
science, and religion was closer to Whitehead than Einstein. It's
no accident that Charles Hartshorne, who was the primary editor of
CP vol. 6, adopted a version of Whitehead's process theism.
See "Peirce and religion: Between two forms of religious belief"
by Hartshorne (1995), Ch. 20 of _Peirce and Contemporary Thought_,
ed. by K. L. Ketner. Also note "The response to Hartshorne" by
V. G. Potter in Ch. 21:
Hartshorne: "I shall be comparing three doctrines, Peirce's
theism, classical theism, and my neoclassical or somewhat revised
Whiteheadian theism."
Potter: "I agree almost completely with Hartshorne's assessment of
Peirce's strengths and weaknesses. I thoroughly agree that Peirce
might indeed be characterized as between two worlds -- the world of
classical theism (from which he moved away) and the world of process
theism (at which he had not yet arrived)."
For a more detailed comparison of Peirce's objective idealism with
Whitehead's process philosophy, see "The problem of novelty according
to C.S. Peirce and A.N. Whitehead" by Maria Regina Brioschi:
https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/264520/367902/phd_unimi_R09823.pdf
In summary, Hawthorne and Potter agreed on the "strengths and
weaknesses" of Peirce's claims about objective idealism. Since
the issues are still debatable, Peirce's weaker claims are more
acceptable than any "unambiguous" version.
JAS
Why did your article, "Peirce's Tutorial on Existential Graphs,"
include so much commentary--most of the total content, in fact
-- rather than merely providing a bare transcription of his
original text and diagrams?
That's a good question. In fact, that article is an extension of
my comments on Michel Balat's version of R 514, which he transcribed
at Houghton Library. In my original version, all the text by Peirce,
including quotations from his other writings, is in black. And my
commentary is in red. For that version, with some revisions over
the years, see http://jfsowa.com/peirce/ms514.htm
For the published version, the journal did not support "rubrics"
(commentary in red). See http://jfsowa.com/pubs/egtut.pdf
In this version, I made a clear distinction between the quotations
by Peirce, and I never made any claims that my examples and
commentary were intended by Peirce or that I was "harmonizing"
anything Peirce wrote.
But what I did do is something that William James told Peirce
not to do (for his 1898 lectures in RLT): use mathematical
(algebraic) notation. That may be the reason why Peirce did not
show the mapping between his EGs and his algebra of 1885.
That was probably a good strategy for the audience of the lectures.
But it was a disaster for anybody who had learned and used the
algebraic notation. Christine Ladd Franklin, for example, was
one of Peirce's best students, but she never understood the EGs.
But just look at the tables on pp. 5 to 9 of egtut.pdf. They show
how to translate each of the EGs to Peirce-Peano algebra. Those
tables are essential for modern (21st c) readers.
Except for some explicit quotations, my presentation of what Peirce
wrote ends at Fig. 16 on page 13. It's quite possible that he may
have some unpublished remarks related to what I wrote. If so, I'd
love to see them. But I don't make any claims about his intentions.
Section 6 (pp. 22 to 27) covers advanced topics in modern logic.
It shows how Peirce's EGs and rules of inference can clarify and
simplify developments 20 or more years after he died.
John
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