List
My question about 'pure theorizing' so to speak, also arises from
the quote below:
"Now the whole process of development among the community of
students of those formulations by abstractive observation and
reasoning of the truths which must hold good of all signs used by a
scientific intelligence is an observational science, like any other
positive science, notwithstanding its strong contrast to all the
special sciences which arises from its aiming to find out what must
be and not merely what is in the actual world. (CP 2.227, c. 1897; my
emphasis]
My question is - with reference to these abstract theories - how
does one know that the theory has any validity?
After all - since mankind's emergence- we have had multiple theories
about our reality - most of which have a logical basis, are reasonably
coherent and yet - have no capacity other than their own insistence
and our acceptance - to move out of a pure Argument and into the real
world of Secondness and explain what is going on in this real world.
As Peirce noted - even pure abstract theorizing is an 'observational
science' and therefore, must be grounded in contextual reality. The
contextual reality can't be constant references to the text - ie, the
Peircean texts, for this is merely a circular argument - but has to
be within the real world.
My second concern is that, if we focus on the real world and our
theories about how it operates, then, I think we have to acknowledge
that we can use different words and terms for these actions. That is
- many different research disciplines are exploring this real world -
and their vocabulary differs - even though they are talking about the
same processes! Therefore - I think that the Peircean world should
not reject the research of other disciplines merely because the terms
are different. The analysis is dealing with the very same processes -
and it can be shown that the logical and pragmatic infrastructure of
the Peircean framework is similar to that of these other disciplines.
Edwina
On Sat 02/05/20 7:07 AM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent:
Jon, I see where you’re coming from. But when it comes to the
practice of theorizing, the Peirce advice that has most leverage on
me is this: “ every kind of proposition is either meaningless or
has a real Secondness as its object. This is a fact that every reader
of philosophy should constantly bear in mind, translating every
abstractly expressed proposition into its precise meaning in
reference to an individual experience” (EP2:279). I simply find
myself unable to come up with an individual experience that could be
referred to as a “sign token” and has no context. Every example
of a sign that I can remember or imagine experiencing has some kind
of context which limits the kind of interpretant(s) it can generate.
Maybe I’m just not equipped to think like a mathematician about
semiosis. My apologies for laying my cuckoo egg in your (and
Robert’s) nest.
Gary f.
From: Jon Alan Schmidt
Sent: 1-May-20 20:56
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Different Semeiotic Analyses (was
tree-structure)
Gary F., List:
GF: First, in the real world there is no disembodied mind and no
disembodied semiosis. Hence there is no context-free semiosis.
Now the whole process of development among the community of students
of those formulations by abstractive observation and reasoning of the
truths which must hold good of all signs used by a scientific
intelligence is an observational science, like any other positive
science, notwithstanding its strong contrast to all the special
sciences which arises from its aiming to find out what must be and
not merely what is in the actual world. (CP 2.227, c. 1897)
I agree, but as I stated, "My purpose is to analyze the process of
semeiosis in general"; i.e., the aspects of semeiosis that are
operative in every context. I also admitted that this is "a much
more abstract pursuit" that falls "within speculative (i.e.,
theoretical) grammar, rather than a special science." I had in mind
this particular passage by Peirce.
CSP: Logic, in its general sense, is, as I believe I have shown,
only another name for semiotic (σημειωτική), the
quasi-necessary, or formal, doctrine of signs. By describing the
doctrine as "quasi-necessary," or formal, I mean that we observe the
characters of such signs as we know, and from such an observation, by
a process which I will not object to naming Abstraction, we are led to
statements, eminently fallible, and therefore in one sense by no means
necessary, as to what must be the characters of all signs used by a
"scientific" intelligence, that is to say, by an intelligence capable
of learning by experience. ... Now the whole process of development
among the community of students of those formulations by abstractive
observation and reasoning of the truths which must hold good of all
signs used by a scientific intelligence is an observational science,
like any other positive science, notwithstanding its strong contrast
to all the special sciences which arises from its aiming to find out
what must be and not merely what is in the actual world. (CP 2.227,
c. 1897)
The fundamental difference between the normative science of
semeiotic--specifically its formal branch, which is speculative
grammar--and any special science is that they have different
purposes. According to Peirce, "all the special sciences" aim to
find out "merely what is in the actual world." That is where
semeiosis is analyzed in various specific contexts, as an application
of semeiotic. By contrast, semeiotic itself employs abstraction to
formulate, explicate, and evaluate plausible but "eminently fallible"
hypotheses about "what must be the characters of all signs" and "the
truths which must hold good of all signs," regardless of the context.
Here is how Peirce described the requisite task of "abstractive
observation" at the ellipsis in the quote above.
CSP: As to that process of abstraction, it is itself a sort of
observation. The faculty which I call abstractive observation is one
which ordinary people perfectly recognize, but for which the theories
of philosophers sometimes hardly leave room. It is a familiar
experience to every human being to wish for something quite beyond
his present means, and to follow that wish by the question, "Should I
wish for that thing just the same, if I had ample means to gratify
it?" To answer that question, he searches his heart, and in doing so
makes what I term an abstractive observation. He makes in his
imagination a sort of skeleton diagram, or outline sketch, of
himself, considers what modifications the hypothetical state of
things would require to be made in that picture, and then examines
it, that is, observes what he has imagined, to see whether the same
ardent desire is there to be discerned. By such a process, which is
at bottom very much like mathematical reasoning, we can reach
conclusions as to what would be true of signs in all cases, so long
as the intelligence using them was scientific. (ibid)
The only qualification here is that the signs being studied are
those "used by a 'scientific' intelligence ... capable of learning by
experience." However, this is not really much of a limitation, and by
no means confined to human intelligence. In fact, there is a sense in
which the evolution of the entire universe is an ongoing process of
"learning by experience." As I have often suggested before, since
"Logic may be defined as the science of the laws of the stable
establishment of beliefs" (CP 3.429, 1896), "Logic ... is ... another
name for semiotic" (CP 2.227, c. 1897), and "The essence of belief is
the establishment of a habit" (CP 5.398, EP 1:129, 1878), semeiotic
may be defined as the science of the laws of the stable establishment
of habits. Moreover, "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits
becoming physical laws" (CP 6.25, EP 1:293, 1891), such that the
habits of matter are outcomes of semeiosis--i.e., interpretants--just
as much as the habits of mind.
GF: I quoted an example of semiosis which Peirce analyzed: a bit of
conversation with his wife. ... If, as you said, you do not find that
analysis helpful, i think it's because you are trying to construct a
context-free analysis, based on an abstract mathematical schema. I
just don't see how that kind of analysis serves any pragmatic
purpose.
Although in the past I have found that particular example more
perplexing than enlightening, I took a stab at analyzing it in
accordance with my own speculative grammar in a recent List post,
resulting in some conclusions that were consistent with Peirce's own
remarks and others that were inconsistent with them. As I have
acknowledged repeatedly, my speculative grammar is not identical to
his, but I sincerely believe that it remains recognizably Peircean.
In any case, again, my purpose is primarily theoretical rather than
pragmatic; and as such, it is indeed "based on an abstract
mathematical schema" resulting from "abstractive observation," as
Peirce himself advocated.
GF: In that same post i gave another example, this time of
perceptual semiosis, which is embodied quite differently from
communicational semiosis. This is the one you were referring to when
you wrote that “Gary F.'s stated purpose is to analyze 'a semiosic
process going on in a single brain'"--as if that were the only kind
of semiosic process I had in mind. That was a misreading on your
part.
My apologies, I did not mean to imply that it was "the only kind of
semiosic process [you] had in mind"; just that it was the specific
kind of semeiosic process you had in mind with that specific example.
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