Jeff, list
I repeat some of my points from a previous post - which is a focus on what I
see as a fundamental difference between Plato and Peirce - which is - the
direction, so to speak, of knowledge. In Plato and others, I understand that
knowledge is a priori and the existential world is a weak and possibly corrupt
version of this ‘wholeness’. Indeed, this assumption is a basic format of
most monotheistic religions!
Whereas, the sense I get from Peirce is a rejection of this concept - with its
an essential split between Mind and Matter - and an outline that almost rejects
full knowledge and instead, sets up an infrastructure where knowledge, which
includes the actual existential forms that matter can be, actually evolves and
increases and yes - even changes!
This is a huge difference.
The a priori Platonic universals [Forms] posits knowledge as a priori
timeless nature. This sets up a mindset focused around the concept of ‘purity’
and ’the ideal’. But the Peircean outline, to me, rejects this. My
understanding of Peircean universals is that they, as habits of Formation, are
generated within and by existential matter as it evolves and interacts with
other existents. [objective-idealism].
His whole outline of the emergence the universe [ 1.412] and 6.214—is as an
evolutionary cosmology [6.102] “where all the regularities of nature and of
mind are regarded as products of. Growth and to a Schelling-fashiooned idealism
which holds matter to be mere specialized and partially deadened mind” 6.102….
And “ideas tend to spread continuously and to affect certain others which stand
to them in a peculiar relation of affectibility. In this spreading they lose
intensity and especially the power of affecting others, but gain generality and
become welded with other ideas’. 6.104. In this reference, it seems to me that
generals actually evolve within the universe.
And since the three categories are basic modes within the universe - then, the
universe has its own capacity to self-organize and generate these universals -
as outlined in 1.412, where habits emerge and develop. And ’the unsettled is
the primal state”. 6.348 - which would be, I suggest, the opposite of
Platonism.
That is - Peirce sets up a semiosic infrastructure, which, in my view, enables
such an evolutionary and almost unknowable universe.
1] He defines the three categorical modes of being as basic to the universe.
These modes include teh capacity to change without intention [Firstness]; the
reality of existential individuality [ Secondness] and the reality of
commonality among these individualities [ Thirdness].
2] And Peirce’s outline of the Complete Sign as an irreducible triad as the
basic method of such adaptive evolution sets up a method for the informational
transformation of data from one Sign to another Sign, and, with the categories,
the transformation of their input data into generals. ]See outline in
6.142]…”the affection of one idea by another”… “It is that the affected idea is
attached as a logical predicate to the affecting idea as a subject”. And “No
sign can function as such except as far as it is interpreted in another sign’
{8.225f]….the essence of the relation is in the conditional futurity”.
3] I note again Peirce’s insistence that this semiotic triad is an active,
transformative function -
1908 MS[R]277
By a Sign is meant any Ens which is determined by a single Object or set of
Objects called its Originals, all other than the Sign itself, and in its turn
is capable of determining in a MInd something called its Interpretant, and that
in such a way that the Mind is thereby mediately determined to some mode of
conformity to the Original or Set of Originals. This is particularly intended
to define [very imperfectly as yet] a Complete Sign”. [my emphasis]. And “signs
…are triadic” 6.344..
3] The concept of the Dicisign -, ]See outline in 6.142]…”the affection of one
idea by another”… “It is that the affected idea is attached as a logical
predicate to the affecting idea as a subject”. ..
That is - Dicisgns, are not merely descriptive [ mental] of an object but are
indexically connected to that object. I stress this fact - that the dicisign is
materially, physically, connected…and is basic to the Peircean infrastructure.
If you add to this format, the categories, you produce a system where
existential information and knowledge can be both generated, increased - and
lost. {See Robert Marty’s The Lattice of Five Paths]/
As Peirce outlines in his description of a semosic interaction 8.314]…”The
Dynamic Object is the identity of the actual or Real meteorological conditions
at the moment” - ie - the DO is not an external object but THIS external object
with which I am interacting in THIS semiosic function. This thus moves the
information of the DO into a semiosic transformation.
As such, by continuous induction, “a habit becomes established [ 6.145].
….”Thus, by induction, a number of sensations followed by one reason become
united under one general idea followed by he same reaction”…6.146. This sets up
a habit or general…ie..one that is generated within existential matter by the
‘Mind’ that is operative within matter as Thirdness.
—————
My point is - that this system is the complete opposite of the Platonic system
- and - I’d say that the Platonic system with its concept of the ‘ideal ‘
[whether a priori or in the future] is grounded in much of the thought
processes of the world [ certainly in monotheism!] - and the Peircean system
is… very different.
Edwina_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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