List,
Are primisense, altersense, medisense the categorial parts of consciousness, or the categories in general, or the three categorial parts of the/a phaneron? I thought the first (consciousness). And when phaneroscopy became the topic, I was thinking, phaneroscopy is the science of what happens in the primisense. I think, in the primisense not only original qualities (qualia) appear, but also re-entered memories from the altersense and thoughts from the medisense, though iconicized, turned into quasi-qualities, to have a whole picture again, to be further processed again in altersense and medisense.
Best
Helmut
21. Juni 2021 um 19:19 Uhr
"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Gary R., List:
GR: First, "habit-consciousness" is not Peirce's term but your invention based on the phrase he used in outlining that trichotomy.
Peirce does not provide a single term for the 3ns counterpart of qualisense and molition in his 1909 letter to William James. Instead, he refers to "the recognition of Habit in any kind of consciousness" (CP 8.303) and "Consciousness of habit" (CP 8.304), prompting my equivalent use of "habit-consciousness." He defines it as "a consciousness at once of the substance of the habit, the special case of application, and the union of the two" (ibid). Admittedly, this only loosely matches his earlier definition of "medisense" as "the consciousness of a thirdness, or medium between primisense and altersense, leading from the former to the latter ... the consciousness of a process of bringing to mind ... the consciousness of means," as well as its division into "three modes, Abstraction, Suggestion, Association" (CP 7.551, c. 1896).
GR: And it is also the case that your final "fudging" of Peirce's two phaneroscopic trichotomies by combining them as you have ("we could replace "primisense" with "qualisense") will have to be treated with at least as much "contempt and indignation" as my seeing parallels in semeiotic terminology (viz., "sinsense" and "legisign" to go along with Peirce's "qualisense") which, rather than possibly conflating facets of the two sciences might possibly prove helpful in showing significant relations between them.
The difference is that "qualisense" is still Peirce's term, and at least arguably names the very same phenomenon. Moreover, he proposes it some 13 years later than "primisense," so we can plausibly interpret it as reflecting his more considered view of the matter. He invents "molition" on the same occasion for a very specific reason, defining it as "volition minus all desire and purpose, the mere consciousness of exertion of any kind" (CP 8.303)--desire and purpose manifesting 3ns rather than 2ns--as well as "a double consciousness of exertion and resistance" (CP 8.304), all quite consistent with "altersense" as "The sense of reaction or struggle between self and another" (CP 7.543). By contrast, he never uses "sinsense" or "legisense," and I am not yet convinced that borrowing prefixes from speculative grammar is a good idea within phaneroscopy. For one thing, I notice that you accidentally wrote "legisign" rather than "legisense" in this quoted statement.
Nevertheless, your other points are well-taken. Even in speculative grammar, Peirce replaces qualisign/sinsign/legisign (1903) with tone/token/type (1906-1908) and experiments further with alternatives for "tone." However, most of that is in unpublished manuscripts and personal letters, so it seems harsh to criticize him as violating his own ethics of terminology where he is not deliberately writing for the wider scientific community. In our current context, I fully agree that we are each making "good faith attempts to arrive at a terminology we can serviceably use in discussing Peirce's phaneroscopic practice."
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
On Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 12:35 AM Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> wrote:
Jon, Gary F, List,JAS: I did not say that the terminology of "qualisense," "sinsense," and "legisense" conflates phaneroscopy with semeiotic, I said that it runs the risk of fostering such conflation.GR: A subtle distinction; perhaps you are right. But I think that it's a slight risk and, as I've wrote yesterday, the very different roots ("sense" and "sign") not only make it quite unlikely that the terms will be conflated, but that the prefixes suggest a possible relation between those trichotomies, re: "senses" and "signs," in their respective sciences, viz., phenomenology and logic as semeiotic.Below you yourself suggest a trade off of terminology from one trichotomy to another. But first:Jon quoted me:GR: (2) primisense/altersense/medisense are yet three 'novel' terms to add to the already problematic neologistist terminology employed by Peirce.Then wrote:JAS:True, but "sinsense" and "legisense" are even more novel (and arguably even more problematic) as terms that Peirce himself never used. With that in mind, consider this passage from his text on the ethics of terminology [the complete Peirce passage can be found in JAS's post below].GR: Yes, that familiar, for Peirceans, rather famous passage on the ethics of terminology makes it imperative that not only does the scientist who introduces a new concept into a particular science have the right and duty to assign it suitable scientific terminology, and at least as important, that "it becomes the duty of all [. . .] to accept his [terminology and . .] that whoever deliberately uses a word or other symbol in any other sense than that which was conferred upon it by its sole rightful creator commits a shameful offense against the inventor of the symbol and against science, and it becomes the duty of the others to treat the act with contempt and indignation. (CP 2.224, EP 2:265, 1903)JAS: In short, we should not invent new names for conceptions that [have been] already introduced into science under other names, unless those original names are "utterly unsuitable." Accordingly, if we wish to preserve "qualisense" from 1909, it should be accompanied by "molition" and "habit-consciousness" as in that same passage, rather than the neologisms "sinsense" and "legisense." On the other hand, if we wish to preserve "-sense" as the consistent root word for all three categories, then we should stick with "primisense," "altersense," and "medisense" from c. 1896. Or I suppose that we could replace "primisense" with "qualisense" as a later and more descriptive alternative, giving us qualisense/altersense/medisense as a trichotomy that is even more suggestive of quality/reaction/mediation applied specifically to consciousness [bold emphasis added by GR].GR: First, "habit-consciousness" is not Peirce's term but your invention based on the phrase he used in outlining that trichotomy. I personally have no problem with this.And it is also the case that your final "fudging" of Peirce's two phaneroscopic trichotomies by combining them as you have ("we could replace "primisense" with "qualisense") will have to be treated with at least as much "contempt and indignation" as my seeing parallels in semeiotic terminology (viz., "sinsense" and "legisign" to go along with Peirce's "qualisense") which, rather than possibly conflating facets of the two sciences might possibly prove helpful in showing significant relations between them.But I hope and expect that neither of us -- nor others -- will see our separate attempts at developing a potentially useful phaneroscopic terminology as anything more nor less than that: good faith attempts to arrive at a terminology we can serviceably use in discussing Peirce's phaneroscopic practice.And, indeed, what I rudely referred to as your "fudging" ought to remind us that while Peirce may not have exactly "fail[ed] in his duty either by giving no name or an utterly unsuitable one," that he had a very strong penchant to reconsider and revise terminology that he has previously introduced. Perhaps there is no science in which this is clearer than in logic as semeiotic (I'm sure we could all provide examples of this), but it appears in other sciences as well -- including, as I've been arguing, phaneroscopy.So, in a significant sense one might say, that Peirce doesn't -- at least not strictly -- observe his own terminological ethic, and not doing so -- in his modifying and revising terminology throughout his career so that it becomes problematic to decide what terms to settle on -- makes it extremely difficult for us who come more than a century after him to settle on just that optimal terminology which he might approve of and which we might advantageously use to help further develop his phenomenology.I'll conclude this post with what I consider to be an important question: what is to be our ethics of terminology given this challenge which Peirce, a "backwoodsman" not only in semeiotic but also in phenomenology as well as other sciences, has perhaps inadvertently set before us?Your post is a bit too rich and complex for me to respond to in a single email, Jon, so I'll try to deal with the rest of it in another message.Best,Gary RBeauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria RilkeGary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York
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