Jon, Gary f, List,
Thank your for this very instructive exchange of ideas today, well
supported by apposite Peirce quotations.
I found this juxtaposition especially interesting:
JAS:. . . according to Peirce, mathematics is *strictly deductive* in its
method and *strictly hypothetical* in its subject matter.
GF: So the “very peculiar” kind of observation in mathematics is
observation *of imaginary objects*, while phaneroscopic observation is of
*any *objects that can be “before the mind” regardless of whether they are
imaginary or not.
If each of these statements proves correct -- which it seems to me likely
-- then it would appear then that *both* the *methods* and *subject matter *of
mathematics and phenomenology are different. This shouldn't be surprising.
Subject matter: Mathematics: strictly hypothetical (imaginary) objects
Phaneroscopy: anything whatsoever that comes
before the mind
Method: Mathematics: Deduction
Phaneroscopy: 'pure' observation
This could probably be summarized better, especially as there remains the
matter of how *prescission* fits into the methodological part of
phanersocopy -- if indeed it does. Or, as I've argued, if phaneroscopic
observation is to be kept 'pure' (including free from logical moves -- and
prescissive abstraction is such a move even when employing only a *logic
utens*), then is another branch of phenomenology necessary if it is to
become a fully developed science?
But at this point in the slow read I mean only to point to what juxtaposing
these comments suggests about the very real differences between both the
subject matter and methods of these two sciences (one, a fully developed
science; the other, a 'science egg').
Best,
Gary R
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 5:08 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Gary F., List:
>
> GF: Maybe he [Vehkavaara] just invented it ["negative science"] to
> distinguish it from “positive science.”
>
>
> That is what I suspect, as well, and it is not a very apt choice. Peirce
> defines a "positive science" in one place as "an investigating theoretical
> science which inquires what is the fact, in contradistinction to pure
> mathematics which merely seeks to know what follows from certain
> hypotheses" (CP 5.13n, c. 1902); and in another as "an inquiry which seeks
> for *positive *knowledge; that is, for such knowledge as may conveniently
> be expressed in a *categorical proposition*," whereas mathematics is a
> "Conditional or Hypothetical Science" (CP 5.39-40, EP 2:144, 1903).
>
> GF: So the “very peculiar” kind of observation in mathematics is
> observation *of imaginary objects*, while phaneroscopic observation is of *any
> *objects that can be “before the mind” regardless of whether they are
> imaginary or not.
>
>
> I agree, thanks for the clarification.
>
> GF: What we usually call the “empirical” sciences generally observe
> objects that are not imaginary in the sense that mathematical constructions
> are.
>
>
> Indeed, and what Peirce calls "empirics" in c. 1896 seems to go well
> beyond what he calls "phaneroscopy" several years later--also encompassing
> logic, metaphysics, and the special sciences, but presumably not the
> normative science of ethics, which seems to fall under "pragmatics" instead.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 12:59 PM <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote:
>
>> Well, I guess I underestimated how eager we are to focus on the
>> classification of sciences! A couple of brief questions before I post the
>> slides on that:
>>
>> Robert, thanks for attaching the Tommi Vehkavaara diagram. In it
>> mathematics is labelled “negative science.” This is a new term for me, and
>> I haven’t found it in any of Peirce’s texts, so it would be helpful if you
>> explain what it means, or else point us to the paper where Tommi does so.
>> (Maybe he just invented it to distinguish it from “positive science.”)
>>
>> Jon, you wrote that “what mainly distinguishes it [phaneroscopy] from
>> mathematics is observation vs. imagination; or rather, observation as
>> *including
>> but not limited to* products of the imagination” — but for the very
>> reason you give after the semicolon, I wouldn’t want to frame the
>> distinction as “observation vs. imagination.” Peirce says that even
>> mathematics is observational, in a quote that Robert posted earlier:
>>
>> CSP: The first [ science ] is mathematics, which does not undertake to
>> ascertain any matter of fact whatever, but merely posits hypotheses and
>> traces out their consequences. It is observational, in so far as it makes
>> constructions in the imagination according to abstract precepts, and then
>> observes these imaginary objects, finding in them relations of parts not
>> specified in the precept of construction. This is truly observation, yet
>> certainly in a very peculiar sense; and no other kind of observation would
>> at all answer the purpose of mathematics. (CP 1.239)
>>
>> GF: So the “very peculiar” kind of observation in mathematics is
>> observation *of imaginary objects*, while phaneroscopic observation is
>> of *any* objects that can be “before the mind” regardless of whether
>> they are imaginary or not. (What we usually call the “empirical” sciences
>> generally observe objects that are *not* imaginary in the sense that
>> mathematical constructions are.)
>>
>> Gary f.
>>
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