[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: So what is it all about?

[Gary Richmond]

PS I should add, since I noticed that I commented on the classification of the sciences in my off-list note to Bernard, that when I wrote that Peirce's classification of the sciences was a "very trichotomic and catenaic thing" that I would emphasize the former suggesting that while there are perhaps catenaic divisions in the classification (for example, the division of the special sciences into physical and psychic "wings"--but note that even these are trichotomically arranged into nomonological, classification, and descriptive branches), Peirce's classification is, as he comments in one of his explications of it,  for the most part trichotomically divided because "the genus of relatively genuine Thirdness will subdivide by Trichotomy just like that from which it resulted. Only as the division proceeds, the subdivisions become harder and harder to discern." GR Peirce: CP 5.72 Cross-Ref:††     72. The relatively degenerate forms of the Third category do not fall into a catena, like those of the Second. What we find is this. Taking any class in whose essential idea the predominant element is Thirdness, or Representation, the self-development of that essential idea -- which development, let me say, is not to be compassed by any amount of mere "hard thinking," but only by an elaborate process founded upon experience and reason combined -- results in a trichotomy giving rise to three sub-classes, or genera, involving respectively a relatively genuine thirdness, a relatively reactional thirdness or thirdness of the lesser degree of degeneracy, and a relatively qualitative thirdness or thirdness of the last degeneracy. This last may subdivide, and its species may even be governed by the three categories, but it will not subdivide, in the manner which we are considering, by the essential determinations of its conception. The genus corresponding to the lesser degree of degeneracy, the reactionally degenerate genus, will subdivide after the manner of the Second category, forming a catena; while the genus of relatively genuine Thirdness will subdivide by Trichotomy just like that from which it resulted. Only as the division proceeds, the subdivisions become harder and harder to discern. Gary Richmond wrote: Bernard, list, Bernard, I trust you won't mind my copying the email I sent you the exact moment prior to receiving you message on list. I had just written to you (I've corrected one typo): [off-list] Dear Bernard, I'm "up to my neck in work" as we New Yorkers like to say, but I wanted to comment that this last message of yours was pure philosophy :-) brilliant, succinct (a quality I very much admire), while I concur with you in the matter. However, for this very reason (related to the catena idea) I still don't see why you recently expressed the notion that the New Elements concerns are essentially metaphysical, and I wonder this exactly in the light of Peirce's classification of the sciences (a very trichotomic and catenaic thing) which puts metaphysics after semeiotic, etc., so metaphysics employs all three elements and stages of the inquiry process, not just deduction, but first abduction, and finally induction expressed in an actual experiment (in metaphysics a mental experiment--the special sciences to follow will take up the concrete realities that can be discerned through special observations). You've suggested that metaphysics (like mathematics) is a deductive science. On what do you base that idea? Anyhow, this was mainly to express admiration and appreciation of your most recent post. Best regards, Gary orum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com