Gary R, Jon, list, The passage you quote, Jon, represents one pole of a spectrum of concepts of consciousness (or at least uses of the word) that Peirce expressed from time to time. At the other end, perhaps, is his remark in the Additament to his “Neglected Argument” essay of 1908:
“Since God, in His essential character of Ens necessarium, is a disembodied spirit, and since there is strong reason to hold that what we call consciousness is either merely the general sensation of the brain or some part of it, or at all events some visceral or bodily sensation, God probably has no consciousness” (EP2:447). In the middle is the graded concept of consciousness that he refers to as a “bottomless lake.” Whether these are three different aspects of “consciousness” or three ways of talking about it is hard to say, in my opinion. Love, gary f. Coming from the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jon Alan Schmidt Sent: 13-Dec-24 13:08 To: Peirce-L <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Conscious is ubiquitous: Rumi and Peirce Gary R., List: Rumi's first quoted remark is indeed reminiscent of this passage by Peirce. CSP: But there is another class of objectors for whom I have more respect. They are shocked at the atheism of Lucretius and his great master. They do not perceive that that which offends them is not the 1ns in the swerving atoms, because they themselves are just as much advocates of 1ns as the ancient Atomists were. But what they cannot accept is the attribution of this 1ns to things perfectly dead and material. Now I am quite with them there. I think too that whatever is 1st is ipso facto sentient. If I make atoms swerve--as I do--I make them swerve but very very little, because I conceive they are not absolutely dead. And by that I do not mean exactly that I hold them to be physically such as the materialists hold them to be, only with a small dose of sentiency superadded. For that, I grant, would be feeble enough. But what I mean is, that all that there is, is 1st, Feelings; 2nd, Efforts; 3rd, Habits--all of which are more familiar to us on their psychical side than on their physical side; and that dead matter would be merely the final result of the complete induration of habit reducing the free play of feeling and the brute irrationality of effort to complete death. (CP 6:201, 1898) He does not mention consciousness here, but in accordance with tychism, he maintains that "atoms swerve" because "they are not absolutely dead," i.e., their habits have not reached a state of "complete induration" and will not do so until the infinite future. This entails that they are "ipso facto sentient," but not because "a small dose of sentiency" has been "superadded" to their physicality. On the contrary, in accordance with objective idealism, he views "the physical law as derived and special, the psychical law alone as primordial," such that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.24-25, EP 1:292-293, 1891). In that sense, mind is ubiquitous, along with consciousness understood as synonymous with feeling, but not self-consciousness. "What is meant by consciousness is really in itself nothing but feeling. ... What the psychologists study is mind, not consciousness exclusively. Their mistake upon this point has had a singularly disastrous result, because consciousness is a very simple thing. Only take care not to make the blunder of supposing that Self-consciousness is meant, and it will be seen that consciousness is nothing but Feeling, in general" (CP 7.364-365, 1902). Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt <http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt>
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 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.
