Jack, I appreciate your point that “we cannot have an epistemology without some form of "anthropology".” If I may extend the idea a little, we cannot hope to understand human nature, or why humans think and act the way we do, unless we can draw on insights emerging from biology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, phenomenology, semiotics, and the whole range of empirical sciences (“Idioscopy” was Peirce’s term). But the fact that all these disciplines have been hived off into academic special interests makes it difficult to integrate them all into a coherent system.
I happen to think that Peirce’s philosophy, especially his phenomenology and the semiotics which is quite explicitly based on it, is highly relevant to the challenges of living in our time — relevant just as it is, in the writings that Peirce left us. That’s why I included so much of it in my online book Turning Signs <https://gnusystems.ca/TS/> . My purpose there was to integrate it with more recent insights from the disciplines mentioned above, along with selections from ancient scriptures and Indigenous traditions. Jeremy Lent’s new book The Web of Meaning does much the same thing, and very well (I think), but leaves out the semiotics. So I think my book may have some added value, although Lent’s may be more accessible. I do not believe that studies of Peirce are relevant only when we can link them up somehow with current developments in our own specialized field (such as “Cognitive Science,” using John Sowa’s example). I think Peirce’s ideas, just as he expressed them, can and should be integrated with matters of living concern. I think they are “directly applicable to the conduct of life, and full of nutrition for man's highest growth,” as Peirce said of his “neglected argument” (EP2:435). The center of my own concern these days (as readers of my blog <https://gnusystems.ca/wp/> know) is the current global situation in which human activity is rapidly undermining our life support system. Since there is wide consensus on what needs to be done in this decade to have a chance of stabilizing our life support system, I am especially interested in what it is about human nature that has brought us to this pass and seems to be preventing us from doing what needs to be done. But I do not consider this to be a ‘special interest’; I think it is of general concern for all life forms on this planet. I have several reasons for thinking that Peirce’s work is highly relevant to this general concern. One is his emphasis on the continuity of semiosis; and closely connected with this is his psychological insight that human conscious reasoning is only the tip of the vast iceberg of semiosis (sorry about the hackneyed metaphor). I think recent developments in social psychology have borne out this insight — for instance, those summarized at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_intuitionism. I’d be happy to explore this further on peirce-l if there is interest (and not too many objections). Gary f. From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> On Behalf Of JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY Sent: 17-Oct-21 07:30 To: robert marty <robert.mart...@gmail.com> Cc: Margaretha Hendrickx <mahe3...@gmail.com>; tabor...@primus.ca; Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>; Gary Fuhrman <g...@gnusystems.ca> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [EXTERNAL] Re: Should we start a new email list (was Peirce's contributions to the 21st c Dear Robert, My point is definitely anthropological, but we cannot have an epistemology without some form of "anthropology" (Comte was a sociological philosopher after all). I don't know how to answer your questions, though you do raise some interesting points. If mathematics is defined as "the development of hypotheses", it would seem all other branches logically depend upon mathematics. On the other hand, how do we develop hypotheses if not via experience of and in the world of actuality and being? The relationship between empirics and mathematics seems more dialectical rather than strictly hierarchical to me, though from a purely (natural) "scientific" point of view, I can understand why such a hierarchy is both accepted and important. It becomes less easy to accept and defend when we move into the world of human action and interaction and so your comment re the sociological axis is indeed apt. Best Jack
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