Jon, Gary F., List, Firstly, thank you both for your clarification(s).
Just two quick questions: Gary F writes: "...but the pure “first” is conscious even for Adam before he had become conscious of his own existence. This is a broader usage of “consciousness” than we usually find in cognitive science or psychology, where many virtually identify it with self-consciousness." Is it safe to read this pure "first" as pure qualitative possibility (i.e., the pure possibility of firstness as a kind of semeiotic "consciousness" [corresponding to logic, maybe] so that self-consciousness may or may not be realised but we can take its possibility of being so realised (its potential) as an instance of "consciousness" in the Peircean sense? Secondly, JAS writes: "As embodied minds, our actual thinking always takes place in time, but we can nevertheless prescind reasoning from time--"the time-element may be omitted," because thought is logically possible without time. After all, Peirce states elsewhere, "A disembodied spirit, or pure mind, has its being out of time" (CP 6.490, 1908)". This I find to be very useful insofar as it corresponds to other types of theory: the idea of a frozen chronotope, for example, in Bakhtinian studies, but also the concept of grammar [as structure] being logically out of time (Silverstein/Jakobson write on this extensively, as you will probably already know). It's an interesting area of overlap, albeit not necessarily directly analogous. JAS: "No, because we are not saying that we cannot access reality, just that in phaneroscopy we are not concerned with whether what is present to the mind is reality or figment." Yes, I think I understand. Joseph Ransdell notes that Peirce is not “concerned only with entities which satisfy some metaphysical condition [such as] being physical realities”, which seems to echo your point (Randsell 2013: 542). I don't want to jump ahead (or behind) but regarding precision, I had one comment. Following the train of Peirce's thought from CP 1.288: "I invite you to consider, not everything in the phaneron, but only its indecomposable elements, that is, those that are logically indecomposable, or indecomposable to direct inspection. I wish to make out a classification, or division, of these indecomposable elements; that is, I want to sort them into their different kinds according to their real characters. I have some acquaintance with two different such classifications, both quite true; and there may be others. Of these two I know of, one is a division according to the form or structure of the elements, the other according to their matter". (CP 1.288). There were comments made previously regarding the precision of "vivid" qualities from "weak" contexts (I'm interpreting the memory/frame as the context and the sensation -- whether red, hot, cold, etc., -- as the quality). This seems to me as if "weak" memories can carry "strong/vivid" perceptions. Without getting bogged down in quantity/quality, this also seems to correspond to a qualitative abstraction whereby the "narrative" matter (its "syntactic", "quantitative", or indeed "metrical" value) is parsed for a qualitative element which so predominates as to transcend its original context (almost as if we "prescind" the paradigmatic element/quality from its "syntactic" structure). As an example (and examples of this type proliferate throughout the part of Peirce's CPs I have so far managed to read, as well as within this slow-read) we can know what it is to have the sun hit our eyes disagreeably without ever being able to recall a singular instance of this happening. This again seems like a vivid quality carried forward from a "weak" memory. I'm not sure if this is strictly what you all mean when you speak of precision (I'm guessing to "prescind" is more logically "neat" than I here conceive of it). I might be completely misreading all of this as philosophy/logic is not my mainstay and Peirce comes to me very much secondhand; but I appreciate this slow-read and each of you taking time to respond. Best Jack ________________________________ From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> on behalf of Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2021 7:58 PM To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [EXTERNAL] RE: André De Tienne: Slow Read slide 8 Jack, Gary F., List: JC: Isn't it a fact, though, that thirdness is the irreducible mode of consciousness? I agree with Gary F.'s response. As we discussed a few slides back, Peirce identifies not just one but three modes of consciousness that align with his categories, calling them primisense/altersense/medisense in c. 1896 and qualisense/molition/habit-consciousness (the last is my shorthand) in 1909. JC: I was wondering whether it is possible to prescind "time" from "thought"? As I discuss in my "Temporal Synechism" paper, Peirce seems to have it the other way around--"logical sequence is a simpler concept than temporal sequence ... and can be prescinded from it accordingly" (https://rdcu.be/b9xVm, p. 25). CSP: The idea of time must be employed in arriving at the conception of logical consecution; but the idea once obtained, the time-element may be omitted, thus leaving the logical sequence free from time. That done, time appears as an existential analogue of the logical flow. (CP 1.491, c. 1896) CSP: For we never think at all without reasoning; and if we try to do so, the attempt merely results in our reasoning about reasoning. Now reasoning takes place in Time; and so far as we can understand it, in a Time that embodies our common-sense notion of Time. (R 300:54[53], 1908) As embodied minds, our actual thinking always takes place in time, but we can nevertheless prescind reasoning from time--"the time-element may be omitted," because thought is logically possible without time. After all, Peirce states elsewhere, "A disembodied spirit, or pure mind, has its being out of time" (CP 6.490, 1908). JC: Also, if we say there is "more to the phaneron than what we call reality", are we also not moving in the direction of Kant's "thing as such" or thing in and of itself? No, because we are not saying that we cannot access reality, just that in phaneroscopy we are not concerned with whether what is present to the mind is reality or figment. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 9:38 AM <g...@gnusystems.ca<mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca>> wrote: Welcome to the conversation on the Peirce list, Jack! I hope your post will inspire some of the other “novices” to join in as well. You may get a reply from Jon when he has the time, but for now I’ll just offer my own response to one key point in your post: JC: Isn't it a fact, though, that thirdness is the irreducible mode of consciousness? GF: Thirdness is the predominant mode of cognition and of semiosis, but not of consciousness according to Peirce’s usual employment of the term: “Consciousness may mean any one of the three categories” (CP 8.256, 1902). Secondness is felt or sensed as “dyadic consciousness” (R 300, 38) before it is abstracted and named as a category. As for Firstness, CSP: Stop to think of it, and it has flown! What the world was to Adam on the day he opened his eyes to it, before he had drawn any distinctions, or had become conscious of his own existence — that is first, present, immediate, fresh, new, initiative, original, spontaneous, free, vivid, conscious, and evanescent. Only, remember that every description of it must be false to it. (W6:171, CP 1.357, 1887-8) GF: Description, being semiosic, is ‘contaminated’ with Thirdness; but the pure “first” is conscious even for Adam before he had become conscious of his own existence. This is a broader usage of “consciousness” than we usually find in cognitive science or psychology, where many virtually identify it with self-consciousness. But it’s the appropriate usage for phaneroscopy, where direct “observation” of the phaneron has to come before “generalization.” In the latter stage, where a “doctrine of categories” emerges, there does seem to be a kind of “feedback loop” where the investigator has to go back and forth between theory and observation in order to “test” the theory, as in any positive science. But preconceptions are not supposed to interfere with phaneroscopic “observation” proper. We should also address the questions you raise about time and about the Kantian thing-in-itself, but since André addresses that one directly in the next slide (9), I think I’ll wait until that’s been posted. Gary f. } This sentence contradicts itself—or rather—well, no, actually it doesn't! [Hofstadter] { https://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ living the time From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu<mailto:peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> <peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu<mailto:peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu>> On Behalf Of JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY Sent: 29-Jun-21 17:21 To: g...@gnusystems.ca<mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca> Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu<mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [EXTERNAL] RE: André De Tienne: Slow Read slide 8 Gary, list, GF: That’s why we can prescind Firstness from Secondness (or Thirdness), but we can’t prescind Secondness from Firstness, because Secondness is not logically possible without Firstness. And that’s why there must be more to the phaneron than what we call reality, even though phaneroscopy (unlike mathematics) is a positive science, and indeed the first of the positive sciences. Isn't it a fact, though, that thirdness is the irreducible mode of consciousness? That we can metaphorically arrive at ideas of firstness, Secondness, and so on, but always from the vantage point of thirdness? I might have this wrong, but if not it would seem to suggest a kind of feedback loop in attempts to prescind Secondness from Thirdness or Firstness from Secondness. Reading Jon Alan Schmidt's article, Temporal Synechism: A Peircean Philosophy of Time, I was wondering whether it is possible to prescind "time" from "thought"? I'm thinking of this in synechist terms (i.e., "Time is no exception; in fact, it is 'the continuum par excellence, through the spectacles of which we envisage every other continuum' (Peirce in JAS 2020: 12). The problem being that surely "time" is, in phenomenological terms, "thought"? Kant makes time the precondition for the possibility of existence (or something along those lines) which seems to merely reify its a priori status (along with space). And whilst we can take time and space as a priori categories, it doesn't seem to me that we can "literally" do this - that is, time and space are a priori for no one even though we suppose they must, logically, be a priori for everyone. We know it/each only through experience so that whilst we can suppose that time/space exist prior to our experience of it as such, such judgement must still be made from within that experiential prism. So, in essence, how can we usefully prescind one from the other when the two are either mutually constitutive (dialectical) or a kind of monadic firstness to which we have no real access (except through consciousness which is always at the level of mediation - of Thirdness)? Also, if we say there is "more to the phaneron than what we call reality", are we also not moving in the direction of Kant's "thing as such" or thing in and of itself? Again, absolute novice here but I do know that Peirce in general seems opposed to traditional "metaphysics" and "metaphysicians" which an attribution of there being "more to the phaneron than... reality" would suggest. This may just be a long-winded way of saying that there may be value in disregarding too rigidly defined conceptions of temporality. Thanks Jack
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