Gary F.,Jon, list, I'll continue now with slow reading Joe's paper. Along with dealing with the paper, I wish to share at least parts of the method I I've used in my classes on text interpretation and argument analysis. So I'm just as interested in any comments on the method, as I am in any comments on my interpretations on the text at hand.
I'll start with stating some rules. (Very trivial ones, still to my mind worth stating).- Any method is about rules.) First rule: We must always start with what we have. - Not with what we think we have, but what we unequivocally have. We have a text, a writing. - What else? Just marks on a paper (or a screen) and our habits of interpretation. And we have a task. - Any method is related to a task.- That of interpreting (i.e. understanding) the text in a methodical, orderly way. Second rule: All interpretations of any text can be divided into five classes (the number of classes may be debatable): 1) Interpretations unequivocally evidenced by the text 2) Interpretations soundly and convincingly evidenced by the text 3) Interpretations weakly evidenced by the text 4) Interpretations poorly or not at all evidenced by the text 5 Interpretations proved false by the text Well, then: Most of our habits of interpretation are - as I would call them - quasi-instinctual, that it is they take place without awareness. They just occur to our minds. And we act on the basis of them. (Which is a state of things absolutely necessary for survival etc. ) We can't control what occurs to our minds. A side tract here: I once made experiments on word association, in 1980's. Back then, I frequently got comments like: What's the point, people will say whatever comes to their minds. - I then responded: Yes, they do. But there is one thing absolutely certain. No one can say anything which does NOT come to her/his mind. Peirce often took up the limits of our abilities with critical thinking in connection with what we can and cannot control. - Here, with this method, one aim is to make ourselves, anyone, better aware of the kinds of interpretations which come to mind as a matter of course, by making the demand of making clear to oneself (& others, if one chooses) how - exactly - the interpretation is evidenced by the text at hand. With the above classes in mind. In order to do this, a third rule is needed. Third rule: The text can and must be taken as evidence for (or against) the interpretation in an orderly, sequential manner, taking each unit of the text as answering to a specific subquestion of the (main) question the text as a whole can - on good and valid grounds - be taken as an answer for. Mind you, the result of the analysis may quite often turn out to be different from the question possibly stated by the author in the beginning as the question the text is supposed (by him or her) to give an answer. Well, with my classes I did not proceed in this - quite boring - manner. Now I'm trying to make explicit the rules I made them follow. I proceeded much more freely and spontaneously. Still sticking strictly to the rules. - And as a rule (pun intended), the students at first, when demanded to really stick to the rules, got annoyed, even exasperated. But soon (a gave very short tasks in the beginning) they got so surprised and delighted over the results of their work, that they became excited and really interested & wanted more. - That's why I took up writing this boring stuff to you listers in the first place. (I'll probably never write on this elsewhere in English.) Well, then. To the paper & the task at hand: The first unit of the paper is, of course, the title: "On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic". Unequivocally evidenced by it is that the focus of the paper to follow is on the concept of experience. Moreover, the title, just as unequivocally, gives a context, which is semiotic. Further, it gives a specification to the concept of experience to be dealt with, when stating "- paradigm of - - for -". Here I'm using the triad of "theme-rheme-seme", taking first up the second: "rheme" , though not in the manner I've seen Peirce use it, except his use of it as a method of erasing some parts of a proposition to clarify its logical form. I've generalized the use I've seen to apply for purposes I've not seen Peirce use it for. Anyone, who googles on Peirce and rheme, finds a rather hard-to-handle collection of definitions given by Peirce at different times and in different contexts. Here and now I take rheme as the second of the triad "theme-rheme-seme". In this triad I take "theme" as the topic under discussion, "rheme" as the logical form of the discussion on the theme, both in any unit of discussion, as well as in the argument (the paper in question) as a whole. For those googling i may add, that in the triad "seme-pheme- delome", the seme, which now, in this context, appears as the third, is taken as the first. Which changes a lot. Almost everything. In triadic thinking, when we choose the first, we choose what follows. With the second, there are two options, with the third, none. When choosing the second, the third just follows. - If we are logical in our triadicity, of course. (This has almost nothing to do with sign classification. All classifications have to take the perspective of secondness. Peirce's classifications of signs are trichotomic, not triadic.- Note "almost", though.) Back to the task at hand: I transformed the title using a rule of omission & replacement with - (when needed) to make a skeleton picture of the logical form of the thought expressed in the title. And came up with:- "-paradigm of - - for -", the line - representing something like "something", with the aim of making more clear a logical form. Not in the strictest sense, but not in a loose sense, either. In a sense adequate to the task, I would say. - Any objections? Here, the attribute "Paradigm" attached to "Experience" highlights the word "Experience" in a manner which gives it extreme importance. ( And with the for now omitted "On" in the beginning, the title says that this important issue is to be dealt with, though not conclusively). Then " - for -" gives the paradigm of experience a context, simultaneously the whole paper a context. which is "Semiotic". And the - preceding it in the skeleton form, replaced with the omitted word "Appropriate", gives evidence that a discussion on appropriateness for various conceptions of experience is to follow, evidencing that the question, for the author at least, is not a settled one. The results of this analysis of the first unit of the text is then taken to be something that we unequivocally have (unless the analysis is proven wrong, of course. But for the time being it is to be so taken.) As a rule, all following interpretations are to take the earlier results as starting points for the next steps. This is the fourth rule. Applying then the fourth rule to the first sentence of the first paragraph " The thesis of my paper is that it is doubtful that any distinction should be drawn between empirical and nonempirical semiotics or even between experimental or nonexperimental semiotics." The fourth rule guides attention to the fact that "experience", the highlighted topic of paper in the title -is NOT mentioned. Still, the first sentence, as a fact, states the thesis of the paper. - How is this to dealt with? Gary got stuck with the distinction between empirical and nonempirical semiotics, wondering why would Joe write a whole paper on a distinction he has never hear of. - In doing so, he took this part as the key part, perhaps inadvertently. - This i then attempted to question. Not very well, apparently, I'm sorry for that. Gary's question helped me in finding and pointing out the word I could then take as the key word in the first sentence, following the rules I've explicated here (+ perhaps some I have not yet explicated :)) The key word in the first sentence I now located is "any". With finding it I was guided by the title and the next sentence. Now I have to stop, having used all my energies & too much time. I'll just add: In experimental research there is the maxim: Anyone repeating the same experiment, should get similar results. The same experiment is utterly seldom repeated, mostly a host of somewhat similar experiments are conducted. Usually with a variety of results, quite often blatantly contradictory. With no ado about it. Now I wonder: With this task at hand, anyone following the same rules as I have followed, should, according to the maxim guiding experimental research, come to the same conclusion. Good night and sleep tight - whenever the time to rest may be in your part of the world. With best, Kirsti On 14.11.2011, at 4.37, Gary Fuhrman wrote: > Kirsti, > > I'll keep this short so that you can get back to the subject of Joe's paper. > You wrote, > [[ I'm sorry you did not find my post informative, but rather a distraction. > ]] > > What i wrote -- with emphasis added to correct the apparent misreading -- > was: "i wouldn't want *you* to be any further distracted by my question than > *you* already have been." Unfortunately your reply shows that you're still > distracted by it -- or rather by the one sentence you chose to pull from my > original post for special attention (for reasons still unclear to me). If you > disapprove of historical questions generally, or if the one i posted is as > bad as you say, why not just drop it and turn to something more productive? > As i said before, i look forward to your exegesis (or minute analysis or > whatever you have in mind) of Joe's paper. > > Jumping to your final paragraph (since it appears to ask for a reply from me): > [[ Joe's thesis in the first sentence may seem obvious to you. ]] > My comment did not refer to Joe's first sentence, but to the thesis of his > paper as a whole. > > [[ But if you take a look at the next sentence (a paragraph being the unit of > interpretation), you find there the distinction between the sciences and the > humanities. - Do you think this distinction is not generally made in the > community of inquiry? ]] > > The distinction is certainly a common one; but i'm not sure exactly what you > are referring to as "the community of inquiry". > > [[ Or do you think this distinction should not be made? ]] > > I don't have a problem with it, as long as it's not made "with an axe" (as > Peirce would say). Why do you ask? (Please ignore that last question if it's > a bad one!) > > Gary F. > > -----Original Message----- > From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On > Behalf Of Määttänen Kirsti > Sent: November-13-11 4:33 PM > > Gary F., list > > Thanks for an informative reply to my post. I'm sorry you did not find my > post informative, but rather a distraction. In many respects, you are right > to view it as such. I just hope you did not find reading it a waste of time. > > You wrote: >> GF: You seem to have a lot to say about the paper we are slow-reading, and i >> look forward to that. But since you have no information to offer in reply to >> my factual question about the occasion and audience of JR's paper, i >> wouldn't want you to be any further distracted by my question than you >> already have been. Indeed you've read so much into what i thought was a >> simple question that i'd better explain why i thought it so simple. > Here you say that your factual question was about the occasion and audience > of JR's paper. With all respect, this was not how you stated your question in > your earlier post. >> GF: Since i had never heard (until now) of anyone wanting to make such a >> distinction, i couldn't help wondering why JR thought it important enough to >> write a whole paper one the question of how (or whether) such a distinction >> should be made. > > Can you see the difference? > > In my post, I tried to warn you that no answer is to be expected. Instead, I > focused on slow read as a method, starting from the relation of your question > - as it was then posed - to the task of interpreting and understanding JR's > first paragraph. > > I agree with you in that : >> GF: ...for Peirce, semiotic is necessarily experiential... > But not with: >> GF: ...simply because it is a science. > I can't see anything simple in that. > > Nor do I see that: >> GF: It follows that terms like “experimental semiotics” and “empirical >> semiotics” would be simply redundant for anyone deploying a strictly >> Peircean conception of “experience” (as explicated by JR in the paper >> we are reading) > > Hm. There may be many who take themselves to be deploying "a strictly > Peircean conception of 'experience'" But, unhappily, there is no general > agreement in the community of inquiry what a strictly Peircean conception of > experience is. Not even on what Peirce's conception of experience strictly > taken involves. And, further, if and when the community of inquiry is taken > as including not only Peirceans, there is no general agreement (i.e. > something simple and self-evident to all) of a valid concept of experience > (which would necessarily involve a theory). > > To cut it short, I think you miss the main point in JR's introduction in the > paper. > > First: Note the wording in JR's title. It is not "The Paradigm of Experience > Appropriate..., but: "ON the paradigm of... > > Which is to interpreted - if the interpretation keeps strictly to the > evidence at hand (i.e. the title) - that JR was not giving a presentation of > THE paradigm (etc), but dealing with issues relevant FOR developing such a > paradigm. - So, there is no evidence in the title that the paper was meant > to be an explication of a strictly Peircean conception of experience. It is > only telling us that something relevant for developing such a paradigm is > dealt with. > > In his mature work, Peirce considered himself first and foremost a synechist. > That is, he took continuity as the most basic ground in his philosophy. (Not > classification of signs, for example, which has been so popular amongst > Peirceans. For a reason I can see, still not a good reason, I think.) > > One of all the myriads of aspects involved in continuity and synechism, is > that no jumps are allowed. - You make jumps, Gary. You jump into conclusions > and interpretations leading to premature questions. As we all do, most of the > time. But that is not a Peircean way. - The Peircean way, as I see it, > involves meticulous work and a critical stance to the workings of our own > minds, our own thinking. > > Which, then, involves a critical stance in relation with the questions we > pose, not only in relation to the answers, whoever gives them. - We > ourselves, or others. > > A critical stance towards ourselves, our own thinking and doing, is the > hardest part of the way. > > On some occasions Peirce laments that people ask him to give the evidence for > his theories, but when he proceeds to give it, they get bored and do not > listen. > > Peirce also wrote that no one should just believe what he wrote, but try it > out themselves. - This is a rule I have followed as best I can. - Therefrom > comes the understanding I have gained. > > You wrote: >> GF: You might ask why there's any need for such guesses about the occasion >> and audience of JR's paper. The simple answer is that Joe's thesis in this >> paper seems to me so obvious that i can't help wondering why he would bother >> to write a whole paper on it. > > > Yes, I do not see any need for such guesses. But, more importantly, I view > such guesses harmful to an attempt to understand the paper. That is what I'm > trying to convey, not only to you, but to those in the list who may be > interested. > > Joe's thesis in the first sentence may seem obvious to you. But if you take a > look at the next sentence (a paragraph being the unit of interpretation), you > find there the distinction between the sciences and the humanities. - Do you > think this distinction is not generally made in the community of inquiry ? - > Or do you think this distinction should not be made? > > These two questions are of a deeply and thoroughly different kind. > > The meaning of an answer always depends on the question it is an answer for. > > Kirsti > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L > listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to > lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of > the message. 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