BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}JAS, Helmut, list
1] Your first quote [JAS's] where you quote Peirce that god is 'a
Spirit, or Mind" does not, as I interpret, mean that God is 3ns. I've
never viewed Mind as equated with 'Spirit' but as equated with Reason,
Logic, Laws.
2] You, JAS, are giving us only half of the quotation that defines
'Objective Idealism'. It says that "matter is effete mind, inveterate
habits becoming physical laws" 6.24.
My interpretation of the above is that this means that Matter
becomes Mind; and Mind becomes Matter. Neither is primary, neither is
derived of the other. Neither is separate. Again - the Peircean
quotation has two parts.
This does NOT mean, as you insist, that Peirce's 'objective
idealism' is equivalent to pure idealism, where, indeed, 'the
psychical law alone as primordial" with "the physical law as derived
and special". [6.24]. It means, as he wrote - that Matter becomes
Mind and Mind becomes Matter - and - as he wrote with his outline of
synechism, that the psychical and physical are not distinct/separate.
3] I see no evidence that Peirce introduced the term of 'objective'
to idealism merely to differentiate it from 'subjective idealism.
Subjective idealism, to my understanding, privileges Mind - and
considers that all material 'things' are mental constructs. That
sounds similar to Peirce's definition of 'pure' idealism in 6.24-
with the psychical as primordial, the physical as derived [from this
action of Mind].
Instead - as I read Peirce, he accepts that material objects exist
'outside of what you or I think of them..and therefore, not as
derived from Mind. And rejects Materialism, which sees that the Mind
has emerged from Matter.
His 'objective idealism, as I read it, is that double sentence, so
to speak: '"that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming
physical laws". That is Matter becomes Mind; Mind becomes Matter.
They are NOT separate - and therefore - Mind is NOT primordial.
But- as I read Peirce, both Mind and Matter co-evolve together in
self-organized complexity and neither is primordial.
Edwina
Helmut, Edwina, List:
HR: Well, this is just out of intuition: I would say, that "pure
mind" or "disembodied spirit" is not 3ns, but 1ns ...
Okay, but that is definitely not what Peirce said.
CSP: Thus, He [God] is so much like a mind, and so little like a
singular Existent (meaning by an Existent, or object that Exists, a
thing subject to brute constraints, and reacting with all other
Existents,) and so opposed in His Nature to an ideal possibility,
that we may loosely say that He is a Spirit, or Mind. (R 843:27[5];
1908)
He unmistakably associated mind and spirit with 3ns, since "a
singular Existent" obviously corresponds to 2ns and "an ideal
possibility" obviously corresponds to 1ns.
ET: I don't see that Peirce's cosmology has anything 'primordial'.
One more time, Peirce's position is quite plainly stated in the text
of CP 6.24-25--not dualism, neutralism, or materialism, but idealism;
specifically, objective idealism, which holds "the psychical law
alone as primordial" and "that matter is effete mind."
ET: But my understanding of objective idealism is that neither Mind
nor Matter are primordial and that neither is independent, but that
both co-emerge together when the Universe began.
Peirce recognized no such option. Either mind and matter are "two
radically different kinds of substance" (dualism), or they are "both
primordial" (neutralism), or one of them is primordial relative to
the other. Synechism rules out the first two options, leaving only
materialism and idealism as viable alternatives.
CSP: The paradox here has always been that mind and matter are of
disparate natures. But the maxim of continuity will say: this
disparateness is a mere matter of degree. Either mind is a peculiar
kind of matter, or else matter is a peculiar sort of mind. Which is
it? If mind is nothing but a highly complicated arrangement of
matter,--for which theory there is much to be said,--we are landed in
materialism, and nominalism is not much in error after all. But if, on
the other hand, matter is nothing but effete mind,--mind so completely
under the domination of habit as to act with almost perfect regularity
& to have lost its powers of forgetting & of learning, then we are
brought to the more elevating theory of idealism. (R 936:2-3; no
date)
From this quote, there can be no reasonable doubt that Peirce
considered the view that "matter is nothing but effete mind" to be
idealism--he said so explicitly, with no qualification whatsoever.
Again, he called it objective idealism in CP 6.25 in order to
distinguish it from subjective idealism, which denies the reality of
matter altogether.
ET: My reading of Peirce is that there is nothing primordial;
neither Matter nor Mind.
There is no such "reading of Peirce," just a predetermined
"interpretation" that can be maintained only out of sheer dogmatism,
employing the method of tenacity rather than the method of science.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]
On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 7:01 PM Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Helmut, list
I'd agree with you - I don't see 'pure mind' or 'disembodied spirit'
as 3ns. Thirdness, in my understanding, emerges WITH Matter and is not
separate from its existence. And yes, possibility/1ns is a state and
outside of time.
With regard to the concept of a primordial Mind - with which I
disagree and which I don't interpret Peirce as accepting [while JAS
concludes that Peirce does accept a primordial Mind] - I don't see
that Peirce's cosmology has anything 'primordial'.
As Peirce wrote - "we start with nothing, pure zero. But this is not
the nothing of negation - it is boundless freedom" 6.217
And "The initial condition, before the universe existed was not a
state of pure abstract being. On the contrary - it was a state of
just nothing at all" 6.215. I'd even read this as pre-Firstness!
And his outline, in this section and in 1.412, which both describe
the same development of the universe, as an action moving from this
'Nothing' to 'something, as a "general indefinite potentiality became
limited and heterogeneous" 6.199.
That is -3ns did not 'pre-exist' so to speak and there is no
primordial 'Mind' [3ns]. Instead - the beginning is that "general
vague nothing-in-particular-ness that preceded the chaos took a
thousand definite qualities 6.200. The potentiality/chaos was a state
of freedom, chance - which as Peirce outlines THEN developed habits of
continuity. So- habits/3ns/Mind - is not an a priori mode but one that
develops as Matter develops.
My reading of Peirce is that there is nothing primordial; neither
Matter nor Mind. As he says- before the universe began - there was
'nothing, zero'. I don't interpret him as does JAS, who sees
Peircean objective Idealism as the psychical as primordial with the
physical as derived from this.
But my understanding of objective idealism is that neither Mind nor
Matter are primordial and that neither is independent, but that both
co-emerge together when the Universe began.
And, again, Peirce explains his synechism where he will "not admit
that physical and phenomena are entirely distinct - whether as
belonging to different categories of substance of as entirely
separate sides of one shield but will insist that all phenomena are
of one character, though some are more mental and spontaneous, others
more material and regular."
Edwina
On Sat 03/08/19 5:53 PM , "Helmut Raulien" h.raul...@gmx.de [4]
sent:
Jon, list, Well, this is just out of intuition: I would say, that
"pure mind" or "disembodied spirit" is not 3ns, but 1ns: Possibility.
Possibility is a state, not a process, so it does not depend on time.
Maybe even not on space? But a 3ns includes 2ns, reaction, and
reaction is a process in time and space. On the other hand, one might
argue, that a possibility includes the foreseeing of reactions. So it
ideationally includes it, and is based on 3ns, so to say, that there
cannot be a 1ns without a 3ns. So maybe you are right, that there
must be a "pure" mind which is 3ns. But how can it be pure, if 3ns
includes 2ns? Which is not pure, but brute? To solve this paradoxon,
there are two ways: Either that there never has been a beginning, as
the buddhists say, or there is and has always been a God preceeding
everything. But that would just be a regress, not an explanation. God
cannot be explained.Trying to explain God would be blasphemy anyway
for belief, so what only remains regarding this topic is belief.
Belief, I guess, is that what cannot be talked about, and
Wittgenstein said that it should be shut up about. Not that I agree,
I am against thinking bans. I think that it is reasonable and good to
believe in God, but impossible to use God for argumentation. Likewise,
I think it is futile to discuss about whether mind and matter are
depending on each other, or there can be a mind without matter. It is
the same question like that, whether the buddhists or the theists are
right, or whether there has been a God preceeding the universe or
not. You just can not know, and never will know, so the discussion is
not leading anywhere. and: What would be the benefit, if the
discussion would come to an end? None. Even the question whether we
exist on after death does not depend on it. Best, Helmut
Links:
------
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'tabor...@primus.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[4]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'h.raul...@gmx.de\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
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