Jon, List I'd like to point out that sometimes I agree with one of Jon's notes. I believe that Peirce's three "universes of discourse" constitute the best resolution of the debates between Plato and Aristotle: the universe of pure possibilities (mathematics); the universe of actuality (everything in space and time); and the universe of necessitants (the laws of nature, which govern the development of actuality). Plato said that the first and third were really real. Aristotle emphasized the second. Peirce said that all three are real. That point is consistent with what Jon wrote below. Unfortunately, I must also add a "but" about the following sentence: "They are thus real possibilities (1ns), but not forms that exist in some immaterial realm." The universe of possibilities is an immaterial realm, and mathematicians use existential quantifiers when writing about the mathematical patterns (forms) in it. John _________________________________I agree that Peirce was not at all a Platonist, but nevertheless uses the expression "Platonic idea" in a peculiar way. The passages that come to my mind are where he describes Platonic ideas as the constituents of the first universe of experience.CSP: Some words shall herein be capitalized when used, not as vernacular, but as terms defined. Thus, an "idea" is the substance of an actual unitary thought or fancy; but "Idea,"--nearer Plato's idea of ἰδέα,--denotes anything whose Being consists in its mere capacity for getting fully represented, regardless of any person's faculty or impotence to represent it. ...Of the three Universes of Experience familiar to us all, the first comprises all mere Ideas, those airy nothings to which the mind of poet, pure mathematician, or another might give local habitation and a name within that mind. Their very airy-nothingness, the fact that their Being consists in mere capability of getting thought, not in anybody's Actually thinking them, saves their Reality. (CP 6.452&455, EP 2:434&435, 1908)They are thus real possibilities (1ns), but not forms that exist in some immaterial realm.Regards,Jon Alan Schmidt
Jon, List
I'd like to point out that sometimes I completely agree with one of Jon's notes. I believe that Peirce's three "universes of discourse" constitute the best resolution of the debates between Plato and Aristotle: the universe of pure possibilities (mathematics); the universe of actuality (everything in time and space); and the universe of necessities (the laws of nature, which govern the development of actuality). Plato said that the first and third were really real. Aristotle emphasized the second. Peirce said that all three are real. That point is consistent with what Jon wrote below.
John
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