Dear Gary and List, I'll never forget the transcendent experience I had when I read the passage in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, where he endeavors to account for his left hand's touching the right hand's touching something else.
I agree that the mystery of Merleau-Ponty's continual process of perception, and Peirce's' intrinsic independence of reality from human consciousness are sibling renderings of experience, both recognizing the limitations of the Kantian Age's attachment to "Das Ding an Sich." Even the most atomic of conceptions in science have prototypes, indeterminate conditions, and histories. There are bundles of shared interests, habits, and commitments that inform them. These factors constitute what Peirce calls “the social impulse” at the base of any concept. When we treat a theory as if it were an absolutely determinate, individual state, we cover over the vagueness involved in implementing it, and we ignore its general significance. We neglect the social impulse. The essence of pragmatism, I would say, lies in grasping not only that there is no scientific practice independent of the open system, wherein we can draw probabilistic inferences based on hypotheses and inductions, but also that there is also no theory independent of the practices that inform it. Appreciative regards, Martin Kettelhut ________________________________ From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> on behalf of Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2024 4:10 PM To: g...@gnusystems.ca <g...@gnusystems.ca> Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] the logic of vagueness [Note: I'd like to replace my earlier response to Gary Fuhrman's post with this one. The first was written in haste and, in fact, I'd forgotten I'd sent it as it was nothing but a rough draft of some of the ideas I wanted to reflect on. I hope that the present post will offer something of substance to discuss. GR] gary f., List, I'm sorry to have taken so long to respond, but I've been unexpectedly busy dealing with off List issues (plus a bout of Covid 19 -- I'm finally testing negative). Your post is such a rich cornucopia of ideas that I've decided to focus on just a short segment of it with some comments centered around the quotations by Merleau-Ponty, Peirce, and William James. I'll start with what amounts to little more than a paraphrase of the two quotations by M-P and Peirce which you juxtaposed. Merleau-Ponty remarks that our experiences are given as a unified whole with synthesis occurring, not because they express a fixed quality or identity, but because they are gathered together in an elusive 'ipseity'. Each perceived aspect of a thing only serves as an invitation to perceive beyond it. This leads to a continual process of perception [and of semiosis?] If it were possible for the thing to be fully grasped it would cease to be a thing since its reality lies precisely in that 'mystery' which prevents us from fully possessing it. On the other hand, Peirce's statement defines the real as that which maintains its characteristics regardless of our thoughts or perceptions. It suggests that the true nature of something is independent of our subjective interpretations or opinions about it. Even if people have diverse opinions regarding something, even if they want something to be different, its fundamental characteristics remain what they are. So while both excerpts emphasize the elusive nature of attempting to grasp reality within the limitations of human perception, both putting forth the idea that reality is not dependent on our thoughts or interpretations, Merlea-Ponty focuses on the continual process of perception and the 'mystery' surrounding the ipseity of things; while Peirce emphasizes the intrinsic independence of reality from human consciousness. There is certainly some considerable correspondence here, however. I have been a bit perplexed by M-P use of 'mystery' which always sounded rather too 'literary' for the topic. In a review of Bryan E. Bannon's, From Mastery to Mystery: A Phenomenological Foundation for an Environmental Ethic https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/from-mastery-to-mystery-a-phenomenological-foundation-for-an-environmental-ethic/ , Michael E. Zimmerman finds the source of M-P's notion of 'mystery' in Heidegger. Counseling attunement to the "mystery" of things, a mystery that techno-science cannot countenance, Heidegger surmised that modernity's one-dimensional understanding of being is only temporary. In a few centuries, he prophesized, the clearing may be altered, thereby making possible a non-domineering relationship between human Dasein [and nature]. This emphasis on the 'mystery' of nature challenges the idea of the "mastery" of nature. Bannon proposes that intertwining the views of Latour, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty "opens the possibility for us to experience certain kinds of feelings toward various human behaviors," feelings that might challenge the idea of mastery "by embracing nature's mystery." Perhaps my earlier parenthetical question as to whether 'continuous perception' ties up with 'continuous' (sometimes termed 'infinite' semiosis) might be worth exploring in this regard. Does continuous perception 'married' to continuous semiosis lead to this growth of human consciousness (in the sense that 'symbols grow') towards a better balance with nature? A related question (at least in my mind) is: Have we already passed the tipping point where our attempt to master nature is leading to imminent ecological disaster? That is, that we don't have the several centuries Heidegger suggested we needed. Be that as it may, I agree that, as you commented, the statements of M-P and Peirce are consistent with each other, however with a subtle difference of emphasis, M-P stressing the experience, Peirce the reality underlying the experience. And, yes, James offers a decidedly different, decidedly psychological take on the matter, emphasizing the fluid nature of knowing, suggesting that most of what we perceive and understand remains in a state of flux, never fully solidified or 'settled'. Rather, he highlights the tendency for most people to accept new experiences without often challenging or verifying them. Well, that also suggests to me something of the psycho-social reason why we may be approaching an ecological crisis: we accept technological advances willy-nilly, but question earth/ecological science. So, I'd be especially interested in thoughts on what role science, and philosophy (including phenomenology and semeiotic) might have to play in the current ecological crisis we find ourselves in. Best, Gary R On Sun, Apr 21, 2024 at 10:04 AM <g...@gnusystems.ca<mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca>> wrote: List, After so much striving for precision, perhaps a shift to the subject of indeterminacy would be in order. The following is excerpted from Content and Context (TS ·15) (gnusystems.ca)<https://gnusystems.ca/TS/xtn.htm#vgn>, where it includes a dozen or so links to its larger context (omitted below). I don’t think it says anything controversial among Peircean specialists, but it does make a salient point about ordinary everyday communication. — gary f. _____________________________________ According to Peirce, ‘No concept, not even those of mathematics, is absolutely precise; and some of the most important for everyday use are extremely vague’ (CP 6.496, c. 1906). Genuinely informative communication depends on taking this necessary vagueness into account. Properly understanding any utterance requires us to interpret it with the degree of vagueness appropriate to the situational context. To meet this requirement, every language user has to develop a sensitivity to context at an early age, though few are conscious of it. [[ The perspectival nature of linguistic systems means that as children learn to use words and linguistic constructions in the manner of adults, they come to see that the exact same phenomenon may be construed in many different ways for different communicative purposes depending on many factors in the communicative context. ]] (Tomasello 1999, 213) To construe is to simplify, and to simplify is to generalize: a symbol, by referring to a type of experience, can thus refer to many tokens of it on various occasions, including future occasions. Even proper nouns (names of specific things, places, people etc.) are general signs insofar as each implies the continuity of its object through time: each momentary manifestation of the object is a token of that type, and some features of it may vary from one occurrence to another – especially if the object is a complex adaptive system. Things we talk about, whether we perceive them to be in the external or the internal world, are already construed, categorized and “framed” by the time we mention them. But each actual reference to them can affect our framing habits; and these in turn affect our way of talking about them, or hearing others talk about them. Since everyone has a history of cycling through such loops countless times, and this history determines for each a “natural” idiom, synchronizing reference between speakers is not always easy. The upshot of this in communication is that in trying to connect words with referents or experiences, ‘all sorts of risks are taken, assumptions and guesses made’ (Sperber and Wilson 1995, 19). This is the only practical way to reduce the many possible ‘construals’ of phenomena – or meanings of words – to the simplicity required for the maintenance of a conversation. Sperber and Wilson take this as an argument against what they call ‘the mutual-knowledge hypothesis,’ but they are using the word knowledge here in an absolute sense, as equivalent to objective certainty (Sperber and Wilson 1995, 19-20). In reality, the common ground that people must have in order to carry on a conversation is a network of rather vague default assumptions. Actual conversation often consists of attempts to render some of the ‘mutual knowledge’ more precise, but in the actual context, there are pragmatic limits to this precision. William James, in typically elegant fashion, gives a more psychologically realistic account of cognition as ‘virtual knowing’: [[ Now the immensely greater part of all our knowing never gets beyond this virtual stage. It never is completed or nailed down. … To continue thinking unchallenged is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, our practical substitute for knowing in the completed sense. As each experience runs by cognitive transition into the next one, and we nowhere feel a collision with what we elsewhere count as truth or fact, we commit ourselves to the current as if the port were sure. We live, as it were, upon the front edge of an advancing wave-crest, and our sense of a determinate direction in falling forward is all we cover of the future of our path. ]] (James, ‘A World of Pure Experience’) Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception takes a slightly different perspective: [[ My set of experiences is presented as a concordant whole, and the synthesis takes place not in so far as they all express a certain invariant, and in the identity of the object, but in that they are all collected together, by the last of their number, in the ipseity of the thing. The ipseity is, of course, never reached: each aspect of the thing which falls to our perception is still only an invitation to perceive beyond it, still only a momentary halt in the perceptual process. If the thing itself were reached, it would be from that moment arrayed before us and stripped of its mystery. It would cease to exist as a thing at the very moment when we thought to possess it. What makes the ‘reality’ of the thing is therefore precisely what snatches it from our grasp. ]] (Merleau-Ponty 1945, 271) This is, in context, quite consistent with Peirce's definition of ‘reality’: [[ I define the real as that which holds its characters on such a tenure that it makes not the slightest difference what any man or men may have thought them to be, or ever will have thought them to be, here using thought to include, imagining, opining, and willing (as long as forcible means are not used); but the real thing's characters will remain absolutely untouched. ]] (CP 6.495, c. 1906) None of this denies that thoughts can make a difference to the future character of real things. Nor does it deny Peirce's assertion that ‘we have direct experience of things in themselves’ (CP 6.95). Experience is not knowledge, although it is involved in knowing, as Secondness is involved in Thirdness, which in turn will determine ‘future facts of Secondness.’ In the process of inquiry or of learning, what James called ‘our sense of a determinate direction’ is a feeling of being about to know more than we did before, or getting closer to the Truth. But semiotic experience teaches that our knowledge is never completely determinate. [[ No cognition and no Sign is absolutely precise, not even a Percept; and indefiniteness is of two kinds, indefiniteness as to what is the Object of the Sign, and indefiniteness as to its Interpretant, or indefiniteness in Breadth and in Depth. ]] (CP 4.543, 1906) Any knowledge that will prove useful as guidance into the future must be general, and thus indefinite in that sense. [[ Yet every proposition actually asserted must refer to some non-general subject …. Indeed, all propositions refer to one and the same determinately singular subject, well-understood between all utterers and interpreters; namely, to The Truth, which is the universe of all universes, and is assumed on all hands to be real. But besides that, there is some lesser environment of the utterer and interpreter of each proposition that actually gets conveyed, to which that proposition more particularly refers and which is not general. ]] (CP 5.506, c. 1905) That ‘lesser environment’ is evidently what Peirce elsewhere called ‘the common stock of knowledge of utterer and interpreter’ (EP2:310), i.e. the commind or commens (EP2:478). Its particular subject may be ‘determinately singular,’ but predicates are always general to some degree, so the proposition actually conveyed still involves some indeterminacy. Thus we can't say that a proposition is necessarily and absolutely either true or false unless we deny the reality of indeterminacy, i.e. of both generality and vagueness. This denial is formulated as the “principle of excluded middle.” [[ To speak of the actual state of things implies a great assumption, namely that there is a perfectly definite body of propositions which, if we could only find them out, are the truth, and that everything is really either true or in positive conflict with the truth. This assumption, called the principle of excluded middle, I consider utterly unwarranted, and do not believe it. ]] (Peirce, NEM 3:758, 1893) Even if the dynamic Object of a symbolic utterance is a fully determinate singular, the sign itself is still ‘indefinite as to its Interpretant’ (as explained above). ‘No communication of one person to another can be entirely definite, i.e., non-vague’ (CP 5.506). ____________________________________ Love, gary f. Coming from the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg } Everything is involved which can be evolved. [Peirce] { https://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs<https://gnusystems.ca/TS/> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at https://cspeirce.com and, just as well, at https://www.cspeirce.com . It'll take a while to repair / update all the links! ► 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<mailto:peirce-L@list.iupui.edu> . ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu<mailto: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.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at https://cspeirce.com and, just as well, at https://www.cspeirce.com . It'll take a while to repair / update all the links! ► 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.
