List, Slide 14 is the last in Part 2 of the slideshow, and Im sure many of us are eager to start on Part 3, which is about the place of phaneroscopy in Peirces mature classification of the sciences. So unless questions arise today about the specific content of this slide, Id like to post the next slide tomorrow, along with slides 16 and 17 (as a sort of triptych). They outline the two principles which guide Peirces classification of sciences, which I think need to be considered together. Heres why:
Peirces classification is mostly inherited from Auguste Comte, including the hierarchical order which places the most abstract sciences at the top, with the idea that they supply principles to the lower sciences. Comte also introduced the concept of positive science, which (for Peirce at least) means experiential science. (This usage of positive has nothing to do with positive logic (as opposed to negative logic.) Where Peirce differs from todays common usage is that he considered the normative sciences (esthetics, ethics and critical logic) to be positive sciences. He also argued, from 1902 on, that the normative sciences and especially logic depend for their principles on mathematics and phenomenology/phaneroscopy. We cant hope to understand the relationship in practice between mathematics and phaneroscopy by reducing either one to the other. That is Peirces point in asserting that phaneroscopy is a positive science while mathematics is not. The classification hierarchy in which order is determined by dependence for principles of the lower upon the higher does not reflect the procedural order in the practice of heuristic sciences. For example, Peirce says that the practice of phanerocopy consists of observation and generalization. Naturally we tend to assume that observation comes first and generalization later. But if we are practicing this science for the purpose of discovering the categories as elements of a phaneron which includes possibilities and actualities, we are quite likely to start with possibilities and then do a reality check to see whether our hypothetical schema applies as well to actualities; and the reality check must be a kind of observation, experiential like the surprising events that prompt us to come up with a hypothesis in the first place. Indeed all theoretical sciences, to the extent that their theories are testable, go through cycles of observation and generalization and testing and modification, or conjecture and refutation (Popper). In practice, then, sciences can precede each other so that there is no pragmatic significance in debates over which comes first. This is all a sort of prolegomena to Andrés outline of the two principles which, he says, guide the classification of sciences. I suppose those who consider themselves experts in that department (which I dont!) might want to skip Part 3 of the slideshow and jump ahead to Part 4, which is entitled From mathematics to phaneroscopy; but I think that would violate a cardinal principle which I just invented: Thou shalt not rush a slow read. Gary f. From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> On Behalf Of g...@gnusystems.ca Sent: 13-Jul-21 08:55 Continuing our slow read, here is the next slide of André De Tiennes slideshow posted on the Peirce Edition Project (iupui.edu) <https://peirce.iupui.edu/publications.html#presentations> site. Now that we have definitions of the three universal categories, the next step in chronological order is Peirces application of them to various aspects of logic. Gary f. Text: From the 1890s on: Peirce will be developing his mature theory of the three categories (and their degeneracies) extensively throughout numerous writings, from many standpoints, including the logic of relations, the logic of evolution, the logic of inferences, the logic of semiotics, metaphysics, and even the classification of sciences. One cannot discuss Peirces phaneroscopy without looking briefly at his classification of the sciences.
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