Ben, Gary F, Jason, List,
Thanks for locating that post of mine on time, Ben. I'd hesitated contributing to this thread because I knew I'd written most of what I wanted to say regarding Peirce on time & the categories in that post, but having had no time (!) to hunt it up, I thought I'd postpone commenting until I had. So, again, much appreciated. You highlighted two key points in that earlier message, namely that for Peirce the instant is a mathematical abstraction, while the minimum of at least experiential time is the tripartite moment. In that earlier post I also noted that the vectorial movement of past (2ns) -> present (1ns) -> future (3ns) paralleled the famous of path of semiosis whereas the object (2ns) determines--in Peirce's non-mechanical sense of 'determination' discussed previously on the list--the sign (1ns) for the interpretant sign (3ns). In addition, as both Peirce and Bergson analyze it (and, btw, Peirce approved of Bergson's analysis of durée in *Time and Free Will* while finding it unduly complicated), there is an overlap of each moment with the next so that the *middle* of the the last moment becomes the *beginning* of the new, etc.). I should note at once that I see the 6 possible vectors as, perhaps, more logical than chrono-logical (temporal), although there is a strong sense of temporality in at least three of them (e.g., for the vector of process, 1ns -> 3ns -> 2ns, both of Peirce's most frequent examples of this vector--evolution and inquiry--exhibit a temporal character to some considerable extent). It also seems to me that there is most likely an interpenetration of hierarchies of vectorial relationship so that in any given experience one could analyze more than one genuine trichotomic relation or vector functioning all-at-once-together. I think something like this may be the case in consideration of Ben's suggesting that time, being the quintessential example of continuity for Peirce, might be analyzed (past/present/future) as comprised of the 2ns, 1ns, and 3ns of thirdness; and this *might* correspond to Gary F's notion: GF: The presence of Firstness is its spontaneity, but Secondness has a kind of actual ‘in-your-face’ presence too. The force of actuality makes things and events definite and determinate, and that’s what connects it with the past (while the future is indeterminate and the present instant doesn’t exist). But if i were making a chart like that i would put it like this: First - presence Second - occurrence Third - time GR: Certainly, the *lived* occurrence does have "a kind of actual 'in-your-face'" character which cannot be denied and which is *not* the third category. Still, one has to imagine that durée (cf. Peirce's 'moment') implies that the past en*dur*es in the present toward the future in, for prime example, the evolutionary sense that when a biological structure which did not previously exist but evolved, continues to function in the present towards future functioning. As for the 1ns of presence as it appears in Gary F's chart, those who meditate (or do a certain kind of phenomenology) might have a sense of his meaning here. Anyhow, Gary, I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm misinterpreting you in any of this. This thread again reminded me that St. Augustine (a profound analyzer of time in his own right) once remarked to the effect that time seems such a simple thing until one begins to reflect on it. Indeed! Gary R Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York E202-O 718 482-5700 *** *** *** *** >>> Benjamin Udell 03/17/12 1:00 PM >>> Jason, list, That's a good question. In the relevant paragraph (CP 7.536, of which I quoted only the last part), Peirce begins by saying: "It remains to be shown that this element is the third Kainopythagorean category. All flow of time involves learning; and all learning involves the flow of time." The element that he was discussing was a "continuity" which he had just called a "direct experience" (CP 7.535). (This is also another 'score' for Gary Richmond in his April 8, 2011 post http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/6995 to peirce-l, in which he said "It seems to me that for Peirce being present means being present to the flow, which flow implies all three modalities: past, present, and future....") I'm kind of reluctant to go out on a limb right now, having misinterpreted Peirce's Oct. 12, 1904 letter to Lady Welby and spent a number of posts cleaning up after myself. My guess is that, in virtue of their triadic parts in the flow of learning, inference, and representation and interpretation, all three times are Thirds, with Secondness, Firstness, and Thirdness strong but not overwhelmingly so in past, present, and future, respectively. In other words, learning-past as Secundan Third, learning-present as Priman Third, and learning-future as Tertian Third. But I have no strong opinion at this point! Best, Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: Khadimir To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2012 12:29 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] a question Would it not be fair to say that the conscious experience of the immediate present must always be at least a second? That is the view I hold. Jason H. On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote: Claudio, Eduardo, Diane, Gary R., list, I've found more of Peirce on the present-past-future trichotomy. This time, from Chapter 1 of the _Minute Logic_ (1902) manuscript, in CP 2.84 (on the past as Second), 2.85 (on the present as First), and 2.86 (on the future as Third). From CP 2.85: Let us now consider what could appear as being in the present instant were it utterly cut off from past and future. We can only guess; for nothing is more occult than the absolute present. There plainly could be no action; and without the possibility of action, to talk of binarity would be to utter words without meaning. There might be a sort of consciousness, or feeling, with no self; and this feeling might have its tone. Notwithstanding what William James has said, I do not think there could be any continuity like space, which, though it may perhaps appear in an instant in an educated mind, I cannot think could do so if it had no time at all; and without continuity parts of the feeling could not be synthetized; and therefore there would be no recognizable parts. There could not even be a degree of vividness of the feeling; for this [the degree of vividness] is the comparative amount of disturbance of general consciousness by a feeling. At any rate, such shall be our hypothesis, and whether it is psychologically true or not is of no consequence. The world would be reduced to a quality of unanalyzed feeling. Here would be an utter absence of binarity. I cannot call it unity; for even unity supposes plurality. I may call its form Firstness, Orience, or Originality. It would be something _which is what it is without reference to anything else_ within it or without it, regardless of all force and of all reason. Now the world is full of this element of irresponsible, free, Originality. Why should the middle part of the spectrum look green rather than violet? There is no conceivable reason for it nor compulsion in it. [...] Note that there he discusses "what could appear as being in the present instant were it utterly cut off from past and future. We can only guess; for nothing is more occult than the absolute present." Elsewhere, at the end of CP 7.536 in an undated manuscript, he says "The consciousness of the present, as the boundary between past and future, involves them both.": Thus, every reasoning involves another reasoning, which in its turn involves another, and so on _ad infinitum_. Every reasoning connects something that has just been learned with knowledge already acquired so that we thereby learn what has been unknown. It is thus that the present is so welded to what is just past as to render what is just coming about inevitable. The consciousness of the present, as the boundary between past and future, involves them both. Reasoning is a new experience which involves something old and something hitherto unknown. The past as above remarked is the _ego_. My recent past is my uppermost _ego_; my distant past is my more generalized _ego_. The past of the community is _our ego_. In attributing a flow of time to unknown events we impute a quasi-_ego_ to the universe. The present is the immediate representation we are just learning that brings the future, or non-ego, to be assimilated into the _ego_. It is thus seen that learning, or representation, is the third Kainopythagorean category. So that _consciousness of_ the present seems to match that which Gary Richmond said at peirce-l on April 8, 2011 about the present "moment" as distinguished from the present "instant," the present moment as a "triadic moment" http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/6995 I also find that, in Peirce's letter of Oct. 12, 1904 to Lady Welby, if I had looked at what he had written in the same (long) paragraph (CP 8.330) before the excerpt that I sent, I would have seen Peirce discusses Firstness of the quiet and Firstness of a shrill piercing whistle, and does so in a way that supports the idea of the present as a First. For it is the breaking of the quiet by the shrill whistle that he says involves Secondness, and that is the breaking of one moment by another, though each moment, taken apart, simply has its quality, its Firstness. Bet, Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: Benjamin Udell To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 7:10 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] a question --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
