Gary: Thank you for these posts. I find them informative.
Nevertheless, in the absence of direct referral to relevant texts from Plato, they lack the necessary ingredients to start a conversation. Without this connecting semantic thread, I am without a syntactical / semiotic impulse. Cheers Jerry > On Nov 5, 2024, at 11:54 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote: > > List, > > Although there's been no response to my initial set of quotations regarding > Peirce's view of Plato's philosophy, I'll add a couple more today just in > case anyone is at all interested in the topic. Should there be no responses, > I may post a couple more, then end this thread, albeit somewhat disappointed > that there isn't more interest in how Peirce viewed Plato's philosophy. > > Summary of EP 2:40. Peirce describes the typical mathematician as a > "Platonist," seeing mathematics as discovering a "real potential world." Pure > mathematics thus seeks to understand an eternal cosmos, beyond the arbitrary > nature of physical existence. Comment: CSP: "The end that Pure Mathematics is > pursuing is to discover that real potential world." Suzanne Langer, at the > conclusion of her monumental Mind: An Essay in Human Feeling, arrives at what > might be seen as a complementary conclusion in suggesting that, as human > cognition evolves, mathematics might provide the tools for a new phase of > intellectual and emotional development. > The fashion in mathematics is to print nothing but demonstrations, and the > reader is left to divine the workings of the man's mind from the sequence of > those demonstrations. But if you enjoy the good fortune of talking with a > number of mathematicians of a high order, you will find that the typical Pure > Mathematician is a sort of Platonist. Only, he is /a/ Platonist who corrects > the Heraclitean error that the Eternal is not Continuous. The Eternal is for > him a world, a cosmos, in which the universe of actual existence is nothing > but an arbitrary locus. The end that Pure Mathematics is pursuing is to > discover that real potential world. Once you become inflated with that idea, > vital importance seems to be a very low kind of importance, indeed. EP 2:40 > Summary of EP 2:95: Peirce remarks on Plato’s commitment to reason, > particularly in the Timaeus, where he asserts ideas as true if they make the > world more rational. This would appear to be a very Peircean pragmatic > understanding. > Even Plato, in the Timaeus and elsewhere, does not hesitate roundly to > assert the truth of anything, if it seems to render the world reasonable. . . > EP 2:95 > Best, > > Gary R > > Reply > Forward > > Add reaction > > On Sun, Nov 3, 2024 at 4:54 PM Gary Richmond <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> List, >> >> I very much appreciate Jeff bringing up the topic of the influence of Plato >> on Peirce. Perhaps, like many Peirce scholars,I've been led (rightly or >> wrongly is the investigatory question) to think of Peirce as much more akin >> to Aristotle than to Plato and in some matters of logic he certainly does >> seem closer to Aristotle; and by his own admission. So I decided to do a >> keyword search of the EP and CP of 'Plato' (not Platonism, which I think is >> a very different matter with a strikingly different emphasis) in an attempt >> to discover for myself what he actually thought about Plato. I'm going to >> offer some of the passages I found to be helpful in my review -- and >> subsequent partial reconsideration of -- Plato's influence on Peirce.. >> >> Rather than present all the passages at once, I'm going to post two or three >> a day and, if I have the time this week, I'll send all my succinct summaries >> and sources of the quotations to come so that interested folk can read them >> in advance and in context should they wish to. >> >> Remembering reading philosophy texts in my 20's and 30's in libraries or >> used book stores, in old editions which occasionally had a short precis in >> boldface small print on the upper left side of each item, sometimes each >> paragraph, I've included my own succinct summary of each quotation so that >> forum members can quickly decide if they want to read that particular item. >> I have little doubt that some of my summaries may miss the mark and need >> correcting. Nonetheless, here are today's quotations preceded by my summary. >> >> ***** >> >> Summary of EP 2:35: Peirce argues that in Plato's later works he shifts from >> a Theory of Ideas to view eternal essences as mathematical, not as things >> with 'Actual Existence' but as having 'Potential Being'. Plato’s philosophy >> evolves to view ideas as mathematical forms with relationships akin to >> numbers, thus perhaps moving in the direction of seeing them as continuous. >> >> The dialogue of the Sophistes, lately shown to belong to Plato's last >> period,— when he had, as Aristotle tells us, abandoned Ideas and put Numbers >> in place of them,—this dialogue, I say, gives reasons for abandoning the >> Theory of Ideas which imply that Plato himself had come to see, if not that >> the Eternal Essences are continuous, at least, that there is an order of >> affinity among them, such as there is among Numbers. Thus, at last, the >> Platonic Ideas became Mathematical Essences, not possessed of Actual >> Existence but only of a Potential Being quite as Real, and his maturest >> philosophy became welded into mathematics. EP 2:35 >> >> Summary of EP 2:37-38: Peirce highly praises Plato’s vision of science, >> especially in so far as he corrected the Heraclitan error of "holding the >> Continuous to be Transitory and . . . making the Being of the Idea >> potential." But he also criticizes him for overlooking two types of >> causation and for making Matter a negative, "a mere non-Being." Plato >> focused only on internal causes (form and matter) while Aristotle pointed >> out the need to consider external causes (efficient and final), and Peirce >> slightly modifies Aristotle's assessment. Peirce suggests Plato’s philosophy >> is fundamentally about relationship (3ns), but Plato misunderstood his own >> ideas by focusing on duality and dichotomy. But neglecting external causes >> he is also actually overlooking 2ns. >> >> [I]n regard to the general conception of what the ultimate purpose and >> importance of science consists in, no philosopher who ever lived, ever >> brought that out more clearly than this early scientific philosopher [viz. >> Plato]. Aristotle justly finds fault with Plato in many respects. But all >> his criticisms leave unscathed Plato's definitive philosophy, which results >> from the correction of that error of Heraclitus which consisted in holding >> the Continuous to be Transitory and also from making the Being of the Idea >> potential. Aristotle for example justly complains that of the four kinds of >> causes Plato only recognizes the two internal ones., Form and Matter, and >> loses sight of the two external ones, the Efficient Cause and the End.Though >> in regard to final causes this is scarcely just, it is more than just, in >> another respect. For not only does Plato only recognize internal causes, but >> he does not even recognize Matter as anything positive. He makes it mere >> negation, mere non-Being, or Emptiness, forgetting or perhaps not knowing >> that that which produces positive effects must have a positive nature. >> Although Plato's whole philosophy is a philosophy of Thirdness,—that is to >> say, it is a philosophy which attributes everything to an action which >> rightly analyzed has Thirdness for its capital and chief constituent,—he >> himself only recognizes duality, and makes himself an apostle of Dichotomy,— >> which is a misunderstanding of himself. To overlook second causes is only a >> special case of the common fault of all metaphysicians that they overlook >> the Logic of Relatives. But when he neglects external causes, it is >> Secondness itself that he is overlooking. This self-misunderstanding, this >> failure to recognize his own conceptions, marks Plato throughout. It is a >> characteristic of the man that he sees much deeper into the nature of things >> than he does into the nature of his own philosophy, and it is a trait to >> which we cannot altogether refuse our esteem. >> EP 2: 37-38 >> >> Commentary: In his introduction to "The Seven Systems of Metaphysics" in the >> 1903 Harvard Lecture Series, Nathan Houser writes: "Peirce aligns himself >> with the seventh system, arguing for the reality of all three categories. . >> ." EP 2:179 Note: Both Plato and Aristotle are included in this system, >> Aristotelianism being characterized as "a special development" of the >> Platonic philosophy. >> >> The metaphysics that recognizes all the categories may need at once to be >> subdivided. But I shall not stop to consider its subdivision. It embraces >> Kantism,—Reid's philosophy and the Platonic philosophy of which >> Aristotelianism is a special development. >> EP 2:180 >> >> Best, >> >> Gary R >> >> > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > 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 [email protected] > . > ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] > 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 [email protected] . ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] 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.
