Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
________________________________
From: JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY <jack.cody.2...@mumail.ie>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 5:31 PM
To: Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Aw: [PEIRCE-L] The Thing In Itself (Kant and Peirce -
Again).
Helmut, List,
It is certainly ancient (Grecian).
But it is absolutely true insofar as I have reasoned it after throwing Kant
away numerous times and then coming to a conclusion.
Kant's position, that things have an essence in themselves, thing in itself,
ding an sich - do away with the idea of "come from themselves" and assume they
only have an essence/value insofar as contiguity goes/combinatorial possibility
and the same result is derived. Element-Element' (E-E' where ' = infinite)
implies that all manner of combinations - assume infinite - produce all manner
of values. But that no number of value/combinatorial merry-go-rounds ever are
sufficient to give us the "total value" (essence) of any given thing in itself
(natural thing/organic). Now, that these things exist - obvious, else why
combinatorial? - individuated and contiguous, but that the combinations never
yield the total value of any thing as it is in itself (its essence now) is seen
to be true. And that is a long, long, debate made as simple as possible. I've
been turning the matter over for months and have realized that Kant was right.
He was pointing to that which cannot be represented (representational
inadequacy) and such explains the difficulty of Critique of Pure Reason.
It - Kant - needed Hegel/Darwin/Peirce/Godel/Chomsky (and so many others) to
clarify his position and make it simple (but still immensely confusing).
It is the only metaphysical proof - as far as I can see - ever given. And it
just has enormous consequences for all branches of "knowledge" (I have derived
a diagrammatic "free will" proof which is so simple but so impossible to refute
from this understanding of Kant via Peirce).
If anyone understands it, in gist, then the credit goes to people like Godel,
Russell, and Chomsky (system iconoclasts in their own fields - Wittgenstein,
too). The mathematical - ontological - fallout is simply immense. Dominoes have
fallen - whether we admit it now or in a decade - which take a long time to
rearrange.
As an example, positivism in politics is logically - in dialectical reasoning -
now out of bounds in ways which "organically" follow Kant's V(X) (mine, but
his) thing in itself proof.
One last note. Peirce was a chemist. He understood combinatorial possibility
and indexicality as a chemist understands these things. Which, simply, means he
knew that these qualities must exist in themselves (isolated - relatively
non-contiguous, except for human mediation, experience) but also that they
combine to produce other qualities). But - taking Turner, Victor, it is
demonstrably true - not even valid - that no number of possible combinations
can ever yield the essential property of any given "thing" or "quality" as it
is in itself. It is beyond human knowledge, forever, to do so, as Kant always
maintained.
You may know it - in the Hegelian sense/Peircean too - but you cannot represent
your knowing of it. If you can represent it, that is not it (the thing in
itself). I am still finishing a final draft of this and thus submit the general
idea to this list before continuing as I value the feedback (being Peircean).
It's not anti-Peircean, btw, as I know some will assume - for it proves a great
many things which Peirce assumed (such as "symbolic consolidation" - can't
recall if that's my term for something Peirce wrote or if I "stole" it from
Mauss/Errol Daniel). It brings, when understood - by others, not me - semeiotic
into the realm of science (as Peirce always said would happen).
________________________________
From: Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 5:14 PM
To: JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY <jack.cody.2...@mumail.ie>
Cc: Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Aw: [PEIRCE-L] The Thing In Itself (Kant and Peirce -
Again).
*Warning*
This email originated from outside of Maynooth University's Mail System. Do not
reply, click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know
the content is safe.
Jack, List,
"Essence" to me seems like an ancient concept, such as "ether". I think, any
thing is definerd as such (as this thing) by its position in a system´s
hierarchy (composition, definition, or subsumption). Some things, like "poison
for humans" are defined (and classified and subsumed) by the human specie`s
system. Others, like salt, are universally defined (and so on), because salt is
salt, everywhere in the universe. I guess, to say: ""A" has an own essence",
means, that it is universally defined(...). But "essence" suggests, that the
thing´s traits come from itself, and are independent of the universe, so, e.g.
salt would taste the same in another universe too. But that would be a
far-fetched assumption, which I donot see justified at all. So, sorry, I donot
see the "itself" or "essence" of anything.
Best Regards
Helmut
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 03. Mai 2023 um 17:37 Uhr
Von: "JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY" <jack.cody.2...@mumail.ie>
An: "Peirce-L" <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Betreff: [PEIRCE-L] The Thing In Itself (Kant and Peirce - Again).
I wanted to raise the topic of the ding an sich as it pertains to Peirce
visavis Kant.
This has been done to death here previously, but I believe I have a reached a
proof (which I need to formalize) of the necessity of Kant's noumenal/thing in
itself. The irony of this proof is that it comes via Peirce (his influence with
respect to contiguity and a whole lot more).
1. Salt-Snail-Poison
2. Salt-Human-Savoury
3. Salt-Human-Poison
A quick sketch.
In (1), the quality produced by the Salt/Snail interaction (with human
perspective implied, but presumed to persist if absent) is Poison. In (2), it
is Savoury. In (3) it is poison again.
Salt to snail and salt to human (2) and (3) all, then, produce different
qualities regarding the value of "salt".
Question: What does this say about salt in itself and the possibility of
knowing the essence of what salt is in itself?
For that has been the contentious area in Peircean discussions regarding Kant's
ding an sich (on this messaging list) for a long time. Peirce - and many here -
maintaining that you can know what a thing is in itself (calling Kant a
"confused realist" iirc).
But if Salt is poison for a snail, and savoury for a human (and then, also,
poisonous to some other humans, or even a different form of savoury), then what
is Salt in itself?
It cannot be what the human makes of it. It is not possible for it to be
whatever the human experiences/defines it as, because it is not a
anthropocentric thing. Which is obvious enough in the
perspectival/anthropological ethnographies which follow a loose or rigid Peirce
schema with respect to ontology (thinking of Kohn and South American studies
with regard to animal perspectives and flat ontoloogies).
Thus, what is salt? It has to exist in itself, for we cannot doubt that it
exist as an individual quality removed from "snail" and "human" and,
simultaneously, it has to exist in contigious relationship with the various
other minerals/subjects/predicates.
It seems very simple, and it is, but in extended diagrams/reasonings (proof,
imo, which I call the value/essence or V{X}) proof, it is not so simple. That
the thing in itself exists - something I had thrown away as I went with
Peircean phaneroscopy (a term I had forgotten) - is now beyond questioning to
me. Which leaves me with many questions - firstlly, what does this mean for
Peircean studies?
Peirce rejects the thing in itself, in Kantian form, twice, in his manuscript,
along the same basis. He views it as an absurdity (I'd have to check again).
But this puts him in the same category of post-Kantians
(Hegelians/neo-Hegelians) whom, to me, seem to take Kant's logic (formulae, as
Peirce does in tabular form with obvious Hegelian influence) but ignore the
primary metaphysical point which underpins everything Kant ever wrote. The
thing in itself. Because it is so hard to accomodate, even the Kantians confuse
it - Schopenhauer called it the "will" (which I am certain it isn't).
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Water
H20
No one doubts there is such a thing as "water" and few doubt the existence of
"hydrogen" and "oxygen". But water is not hydrogen nor oxygen - nor is hydrogen
nor oxygen what what they are, in themselves, to humans for the simple fact
that they predate human existence (taking evolutionary models) and exist
outside human contact of such elements, if you want some other model.
Thus:
Salt-Snail-Poison (value of-Salt/Snail-for-human = Poison) (essence of Salt
remains noumenal/thing in itself X).
The irony, for me, is that you cannot make sense of it without Peirce but have
to disregard Peirce's own disavowal of Kant's noumena/thing in itself to get
there.
What is Water to Fire, for example? Or even ice to a penguin? For ice to a
penguin cannot be what it is to a human but must be ice, all the same.
Peirce said you can "know" the thing in itself, I believe, but cannot represent
it? I went with that for a long time but am now of the opinion, that you cannot
know the thing in itself or represent it (the latter being most obvious).
If we assume that we can know the thing in itself, but cannot represent it, we
move closer to Peirce, I think, if only because his categories of firstness and
secondess as well as general phaneroscopy point in that direction.
Long story rendered short: salt is not the same thing to a human as it is to a
snail. And this isn't the usual perspectivalist deviation. It is rather the
affirmation of the Kantian noumenal. For salt must have its own essence in
absentia of all human existence - unless we become solipsist - and that
essence, therefore, is never what we make of it in our own representational
schemas.
This moves into mathematics/logic insofar as we consider received "arbitrary"
lexicals as mathematical discursivties and then Godel and his incompleteness
theorem as well as Russell's famous paradox. The discursive representation
(value, mathematical/logical, within/between a given system, logical or
mathematical) is never the essence of the thing therein represented [V(X)].
Russell's paradox, to me, is a paradox of received "reason" (the idea that sets
express something universal beyond the logical idiom) which is, in its own way,
highlighted by Godel's incompleteness theorem which I now contend holds not for
only some forms of mathematics/logic but for all.
Which gives way to Chomsky. Chomsky's idea of universal grammar, brought
forward from various contributors but made distinctly new, is that of an innate
(X) preload if you like which goes beyond any given "input/output" logical
categorization of the "essence" of language. Poverty of stimulus, for example,
demonstrates precisely the point I am trying to make: the Kantian metaphysical
apriori, formal, rhymes with Chomsky's universal grammar and poverty of
stimulus (it is the only, logical, way which, given a finite set of "data"
children may produce infinite derivations of said "data" including malapropisms
which are not taught but are logically "sound" if grammatically "incorrect").
That is, in a very long-winded post/message, Chomsky's UG (poverty of stimulus
and recursion) seems, now, to be proven beyond all doubt in its most simplistic
or "weakest" (general) form. It handles the Kantian apriori (metaphysical
essence) and retains Kantian objetivity 1.0 (fire is hot whatever it is in
itself, therefore we have minimal thresholds of objective understanding) whilst
also expressing the disjuncture between whatever the value of a given lexical
is and the essence of language (the first knowable and second, I think, forever
beyond human understanding - by infinite regressive definition, if made
"positive").
tl;dr
in a given series such as salt-snail-poison, the human "value" visavis
perspective/ontological is always presupposed but typically removed (not
present in the series).
Morever, from a position of pure contiguity, the universe itself, we infer a
kind of non-contiguous necessity (that which is beyond the walls of
intelligence, whether human or computational, insofar as intelligence implies
logic/reason for none of the values derives from logic/reason, whether science
or philosophy, are ever the essence of the "thing" which is valued but that
such a thing exists and necessarily has an essence is now beyond all doubt).
That is Peirce's contribution (via indexical-contiguity and general cosmic
outlook) to what I know to be a proof of the noumenal thing in itself (expanded
elsewhere in diagrammatic form).
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ â–º PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply
All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . â–º To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L
but to l...@list.iupui.edu with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the
message and nothing in the body. More at
https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . â–º PEIRCE-L is owned by
THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben
Udell.
________________________________
From: JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY <jack.cody.2...@mumail.ie>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 5:31 PM
To: Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Aw: [PEIRCE-L] The Thing In Itself (Kant and Peirce -
Again).
Helmut, List,
It is certainly ancient (Grecian).
But it is absolutely true insofar as I have reasoned it after throwing Kant
away numerous times and then coming to a conclusion.
Kant's position, that things have an essence in themselves, thing in itself,
ding an sich - do away with the idea of "come from themselves" and assume they
only have an essence/value insofar as contiguity goes/combinatorial possibility
and the same result is derived. Element-Element' (E-E' where ' = infinite)
implies that all manner of combinations - assume infinite - produce all manner
of values. But that no number of value/combinatorial merry-go-rounds ever are
sufficient to give us the "total value" (essence) of any given thing in itself
(natural thing/organic). Now, that these things exist - obvious, else why
combinatorial? - individuated and contiguous, but that the combinations never
yield the total value of any thing as it is in itself (its essence now) is seen
to be true. And that is a long, long, debate made as simple as possible. I've
been turning the matter over for months and have realized that Kant was right.
He was pointing to that which cannot be represented (representational
inadequacy) and such explains the difficulty of Critique of Pure Reason.
It - Kant - needed Hegel/Darwin/Peirce/Godel/Chomsky (and so many others) to
clarify his position and make it simple (but still immensely confusing).
It is the only metaphysical proof - as far as I can see - ever given. And it
just has enormous consequences for all branches of "knowledge" (I have derived
a diagrammatic "free will" proof which is so simple but so impossible to refute
from this understanding of Kant via Peirce).
If anyone understands it, in gist, then the credit goes to people like Godel,
Russell, and Chomsky (system iconoclasts in their own fields - Wittgenstein,
too). The mathematical - ontological - fallout is simply immense. Dominoes have
fallen - whether we admit it now or in a decade - which take a long time to
rearrange.
As an example, positivism in politics is logically - in dialectical reasoning -
now out of bounds in ways which "organically" follow Kant's V(X) (mine, but
his) thing in itself proof.
One last note. Peirce was a chemist. He understood combinatorial possibility
and indexicality as a chemist understands these things. Which, simply, means he
knew that these qualities must exist in themselves (isolated - relatively
non-contiguous, except for human mediation, experience) but also that they
combine to produce other qualities). But - taking Turner, Victor, it is
demonstrably true - not even valid - that no number of possible combinations
can ever yield the essential property of any given "thing" or "quality" as it
is in itself. It is beyond human knowledge, forever, to do so, as Kant always
maintained.
You may know it - in the Hegelian sense/Peircean too - but you cannot represent
your knowing of it. If you can represent it, that is not it (the thing in
itself). I am still finishing a final draft of this and thus submit the general
idea to this list before continuing as I value the feedback (being Peircean).
It's not anti-Peircean, btw, as I know some will assume - for it proves a great
many things which Peirce assumed (such as "symbolic consolidation" - can't
recall if that's my term for something Peirce wrote or if I "stole" it from
Mauss/Errol Daniel). It brings, when understood - by others, not me - semeiotic
into the realm of science (as Peirce always said would happen).
________________________________
From: Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de>
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 5:14 PM
To: JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY <jack.cody.2...@mumail.ie>
Cc: Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Aw: [PEIRCE-L] The Thing In Itself (Kant and Peirce -
Again).
*Warning*
This email originated from outside of Maynooth University's Mail System. Do not
reply, click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know
the content is safe.
Jack, List,
"Essence" to me seems like an ancient concept, such as "ether". I think, any
thing is definerd as such (as this thing) by its position in a system´s
hierarchy (composition, definition, or subsumption). Some things, like "poison
for humans" are defined (and classified and subsumed) by the human specie`s
system. Others, like salt, are universally defined (and so on), because salt is
salt, everywhere in the universe. I guess, to say: ""A" has an own essence",
means, that it is universally defined(...). But "essence" suggests, that the
thing´s traits come from itself, and are independent of the universe, so, e.g.
salt would taste the same in another universe too. But that would be a
far-fetched assumption, which I donot see justified at all. So, sorry, I donot
see the "itself" or "essence" of anything.
Best Regards
Helmut
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 03. Mai 2023 um 17:37 Uhr
Von: "JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY" <jack.cody.2...@mumail.ie>
An: "Peirce-L" <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Betreff: [PEIRCE-L] The Thing In Itself (Kant and Peirce - Again).
I wanted to raise the topic of the ding an sich as it pertains to Peirce
visavis Kant.
This has been done to death here previously, but I believe I have a reached a
proof (which I need to formalize) of the necessity of Kant's noumenal/thing in
itself. The irony of this proof is that it comes via Peirce (his influence with
respect to contiguity and a whole lot more).
1. Salt-Snail-Poison
2. Salt-Human-Savoury
3. Salt-Human-Poison
A quick sketch.
In (1), the quality produced by the Salt/Snail interaction (with human
perspective implied, but presumed to persist if absent) is Poison. In (2), it
is Savoury. In (3) it is poison again.
Salt to snail and salt to human (2) and (3) all, then, produce different
qualities regarding the value of "salt".
Question: What does this say about salt in itself and the possibility of
knowing the essence of what salt is in itself?
For that has been the contentious area in Peircean discussions regarding Kant's
ding an sich (on this messaging list) for a long time. Peirce - and many here -
maintaining that you can know what a thing is in itself (calling Kant a
"confused realist" iirc).
But if Salt is poison for a snail, and savoury for a human (and then, also,
poisonous to some other humans, or even a different form of savoury), then what
is Salt in itself?
It cannot be what the human makes of it. It is not possible for it to be
whatever the human experiences/defines it as, because it is not a
anthropocentric thing. Which is obvious enough in the
perspectival/anthropological ethnographies which follow a loose or rigid Peirce
schema with respect to ontology (thinking of Kohn and South American studies
with regard to animal perspectives and flat ontoloogies).
Thus, what is salt? It has to exist in itself, for we cannot doubt that it
exist as an individual quality removed from "snail" and "human" and,
simultaneously, it has to exist in contigious relationship with the various
other minerals/subjects/predicates.
It seems very simple, and it is, but in extended diagrams/reasonings (proof,
imo, which I call the value/essence or V{X}) proof, it is not so simple. That
the thing in itself exists - something I had thrown away as I went with
Peircean phaneroscopy (a term I had forgotten) - is now beyond questioning to
me. Which leaves me with many questions - firstlly, what does this mean for
Peircean studies?
Peirce rejects the thing in itself, in Kantian form, twice, in his manuscript,
along the same basis. He views it as an absurdity (I'd have to check again).
But this puts him in the same category of post-Kantians
(Hegelians/neo-Hegelians) whom, to me, seem to take Kant's logic (formulae, as
Peirce does in tabular form with obvious Hegelian influence) but ignore the
primary metaphysical point which underpins everything Kant ever wrote. The
thing in itself. Because it is so hard to accomodate, even the Kantians confuse
it - Schopenhauer called it the "will" (which I am certain it isn't).
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Water
H20
No one doubts there is such a thing as "water" and few doubt the existence of
"hydrogen" and "oxygen". But water is not hydrogen nor oxygen - nor is hydrogen
nor oxygen what what they are, in themselves, to humans for the simple fact
that they predate human existence (taking evolutionary models) and exist
outside human contact of such elements, if you want some other model.
Thus:
Salt-Snail-Poison (value of-Salt/Snail-for-human = Poison) (essence of Salt
remains noumenal/thing in itself X).
The irony, for me, is that you cannot make sense of it without Peirce but have
to disregard Peirce's own disavowal of Kant's noumena/thing in itself to get
there.
What is Water to Fire, for example? Or even ice to a penguin? For ice to a
penguin cannot be what it is to a human but must be ice, all the same.
Peirce said you can "know" the thing in itself, I believe, but cannot represent
it? I went with that for a long time but am now of the opinion, that you cannot
know the thing in itself or represent it (the latter being most obvious).
If we assume that we can know the thing in itself, but cannot represent it, we
move closer to Peirce, I think, if only because his categories of firstness and
secondess as well as general phaneroscopy point in that direction.
Long story rendered short: salt is not the same thing to a human as it is to a
snail. And this isn't the usual perspectivalist deviation. It is rather the
affirmation of the Kantian noumenal. For salt must have its own essence in
absentia of all human existence - unless we become solipsist - and that
essence, therefore, is never what we make of it in our own representational
schemas.
This moves into mathematics/logic insofar as we consider received "arbitrary"
lexicals as mathematical discursivties and then Godel and his incompleteness
theorem as well as Russell's famous paradox. The discursive representation
(value, mathematical/logical, within/between a given system, logical or
mathematical) is never the essence of the thing therein represented [V(X)].
Russell's paradox, to me, is a paradox of received "reason" (the idea that sets
express something universal beyond the logical idiom) which is, in its own way,
highlighted by Godel's incompleteness theorem which I now contend holds not for
only some forms of mathematics/logic but for all.
Which gives way to Chomsky. Chomsky's idea of universal grammar, brought
forward from various contributors but made distinctly new, is that of an innate
(X) preload if you like which goes beyond any given "input/output" logical
categorization of the "essence" of language. Poverty of stimulus, for example,
demonstrates precisely the point I am trying to make: the Kantian metaphysical
apriori, formal, rhymes with Chomsky's universal grammar and poverty of
stimulus (it is the only, logical, way which, given a finite set of "data"
children may produce infinite derivations of said "data" including malapropisms
which are not taught but are logically "sound" if grammatically "incorrect").
That is, in a very long-winded post/message, Chomsky's UG (poverty of stimulus
and recursion) seems, now, to be proven beyond all doubt in its most simplistic
or "weakest" (general) form. It handles the Kantian apriori (metaphysical
essence) and retains Kantian objetivity 1.0 (fire is hot whatever it is in
itself, therefore we have minimal thresholds of objective understanding) whilst
also expressing the disjuncture between whatever the value of a given lexical
is and the essence of language (the first knowable and second, I think, forever
beyond human understanding - by infinite regressive definition, if made
"positive").
tl;dr
in a given series such as salt-snail-poison, the human "value" visavis
perspective/ontological is always presupposed but typically removed (not
present in the series).
Morever, from a position of pure contiguity, the universe itself, we infer a
kind of non-contiguous necessity (that which is beyond the walls of
intelligence, whether human or computational, insofar as intelligence implies
logic/reason for none of the values derives from logic/reason, whether science
or philosophy, are ever the essence of the "thing" which is valued but that
such a thing exists and necessarily has an essence is now beyond all doubt).
That is Peirce's contribution (via indexical-contiguity and general cosmic
outlook) to what I know to be a proof of the noumenal thing in itself (expanded
elsewhere in diagrammatic form).
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ â–º PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply
All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . â–º To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L
but to l...@list.iupui.edu with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the
message and nothing in the body. More at
https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . â–º PEIRCE-L is owned by
THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben
Udell.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu .
► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu
with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the
body. More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html .
► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
