Dear Doctor Fuhrman,
The "metaphysical concerns", i.e., “internal characters of the subject in
itself”, come directly from Deely who relies a great deal on concepts from
Heidegger and especially from Heidegger viewed through a Thomistic lens -
especially Aquinas and again Aquinas through Jacques Maritain. Deely's first
book was a very good one on Heidegger, thoroughlyshowing his authentic
grounding in scholastic metaphysics.
-----
Now Deely’s dealing with “metaphysics” interprets Aquinas as an extremely
experience, sensation oriented way of thinking [all knowledge is literally
based on sense knowledge], not of building systems like castles in the sky
which Hegel has been unjustly accused of [but this is a difficult point to make
since Hegel, as the epitome of ‘metaphysician’, has been interpreted in so many
different ways – but Heidegger has written a notable essay on Hegel’s concept
of experience in PATHMARKS (Cambridge) demonstrating, tortuously, Hegel’s
profound and exact sense of the phenomenology of experience in the
PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT directly involving the notion of reflexivity of
consciousness directly developed by Aquinas – so this is a historically
developed venture].
---
Now Pierce’s phrase “internal characters of the subject in itself” could be and
probably is an unintentional mirror of Hegel in his PHENOMENOLOGY. Deely, on
page 647 of his FOUR AGES OF UNDERSTANDING quotes in a string ofPeirce
quotations which all sound like normal Peirce, as far as I know him, except for
this one which really stood out as if a quote from Hegel since Hegel could very
well have used exactly the same phrase.
---
And Peirce himself, not only originally being a student of Kant, but also
explicitly admired John Duns Scotus’ logic and terminology who can be as
tortuous as Hegel simply because experience being accurately expressed by
language is indeed tortuous which is one of the reasons Deely uses the term
“understanding” as a species-specific distinction for human being from other
animals. But Deely does have an explicit if not obtrusive theological agenda.
Neither Heidegger nor Kant have such an agenda, though they both think there is
something specifically different, specifically language, in “understanding”
that separates humans from animals. “Understanding” is used to delineated the
abstraction abilities of language, mathematics, and logic, without directly
tying it down to sensation. But neither Heidegger, Kant, nor even Aquinas would
consider “understanding” as not directly dependent upon sensation, just used in
a different way with humans
than animals.
---
That was why I have been asking if Peirce anywhere draws a strict line between
humans and animals in the use of perception, or is human perception in Peirce
simply a more highly developed but still purely animal ability? One can easily
see the necessity of, let us say, a lion in its perception necessarily
developing abstract abilities in determining estimation of the prey’s speed and
placement since it has to estimate a possible capture point according to its
physical abilities. So I see abstract thought as latent in a lion’s perception,
but lacking abstractions as something separate from perception. Now, personally
I am dubious that in reality abstraction can ever be purely “abstract” as
subtracted literally from physical experience. Physical sensation is always
there somewhere but necessarily so and never ‘spiritualized’ into pure
abstraction.
------------
Therefore having a clear statement of Peirce in full context on the issue, who
I understand was sympathetic to religion [but to what extent I do not know
either], would be of great interest to me.
----------
That it is hard even for an atheist like Umberto Eco to speak of language
without his “Dynamic Object” as a kind of initial cause for propelling the
actions of the universe I understand and sympathize with. And does not Peirce
originate the phrase “Dynamic Object” from whom Eco derives the term?
Regards,
Gary C. Moore
From: Gary Fuhrman <g...@gnusystems.ca>
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 8:39 AM
Subject: RE: [peirce-l] Fw: [peirce-l] Fw: [peirce-l] PEIRCE QUOTATION FROM
JOHN DEELY LOCATION
Gary M.,
The passage in Deely to which you refer defines Peirce’s concept of Firstness
by collecting several quotations from Peirce that refer to it. I’m not sure why
you have singled out one of those quotations in connection with “metaphysical
concerns”, but i think a better acquaintance with Peirce’s phaneroscopic
(phenomenological) categories would serve you better in the task of
interpreting both Peirce’s text and Deely’s. Both of them are referring
primarily to logic, i.e. semiotic, and while it is true that just about any
principle of logic “potentially refers to metaphysical concerns”, those
concerns are secondary and derivative. Comparisons with Heidegger’s terminology
are even more remote, in this context. I think you’d be better advised to
peruse Selection 28 in EP2; the passage from Peirce that Deely quotes from CP
5.469 is a variant reading from that same MS (318), the MS in which he
introduces the term “semiosis”.
Gary F.
} The confusions which occupy us arise when language is like an engine idling,
not when it is doing work. [Wittgenstein] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
From:C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf
Of Gary Moore
Sent: April-26-12 2:38 AM
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Subject: [peirce-l] Fw: [peirce-l] Fw: [peirce-l] PEIRCE QUOTATION FROM JOHN
DEELY LOCATION
Dear Doctor Rose,
Thank you for your reply!
--
The quote from John Deely had an important original context because it
potentiallyreferred to metaphysical concerns with “positive internal characters
of the subject”.
---------------
Now, in my incredibly small experience with Peirce, I have noticed there are
times when he pays strict logical attention and times when he is more
‘colloquial’. Sometimes the ‘colloquial’ is not just ‘ordinary discourse itself
– which I have argued elsewhere in relation to Umberto Eco ALWAYS triumphs over
philosophical discourse [which is always a mere interruption to ‘ordinary
discourse’ that always goes on to render philosophy insignificant] – but rather
refers to old style ‘metaphysics’ as he does here.
------------
Deely has several special [to himself] issues that would put the Peirce quote
into a completely different light possibly. One such issue is the theological
‘soul’. Another relates to his very good book on and continuing high regard for
Martin Heidegger. I would think neither Peirce nor Heidegger would accept
literally the metaphysical connotation of “positive internal characters of the
subject”. Heidegger, in whom Deely most properly and almost uniquely recognizes
the semiotic aspect of Heidegger [something I was lucky enough to see in
Heidegger’s 1916 doctoral thesis on the categories of John Duns Scotus whom
Peirce admired].
----------------
Heidegger would unreservedly reject any literal reference to “internal” and to
“subject” in his “Dasein” or Being-there since it is a field of experience
presented to the human being which, as far as it is ‘known’ is completely
‘external’ and open to be delimited by language. It would seem to me Peirce
would do the same since it seems to me that for him experience is an
undelimited whole or totality. But I could very well be wrong on this for
Peirce.
----------------
Heidegger does recognize obscurely an unknown aspect of Dasein. But since such
a ‘thing’ is not experienced directly and is not related to language as either
‘ordinary’ nor ‘philosophical’ discourse, it can only be approached obliquely
or asymptotically. The Heideggerian scholar William J. Richardson SJ does this
with Lacanian psychoanalysis which, it seems anyway, Deely disapproves of. The
point is, it seems with both Heidegger and Peirce, the popular phrase “What you
see is what you get” is taken in a strict and radical sense. I think also both
consider the ‘unconscious’ as a matter of historicity being logically being
teased out of the long dream of language which completely overwhelms any one
individual.
-----------------
Another issue with Deely and Heidegger related to this is Deely’s seemingly
strict separation between human consciousness, which dreams the dream of
language, and the ‘animal’ which largely does not do so. Heidegger also
separates the two but simply as an observation and method of trying to delimit
language within manageable bounds, and not because of a religious agenda since
he explicitly holds for an “atheistic methodology”. In other words, if he had
found another animal than human being he could converse with, he would have no
ideological or theological problem, being more attuned to Nietzsche in this
matter.
----
Therefore I raise another question: “Does Peirce raise a distinct separation
between the human being as the only linguistic animal, and if so, where, and if
not, where?”
-----------------
Gary C. Moore
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