What struck me immediately about Thomas's quote from CP 4.546 was its
distinction between logical subjects and meta-physical Subjects, or
"substances". Just this morning i've been perusing the Century Dictionary on
"subject", "subjective" and "subjectivity", all of which are on the UQAM
word list indicating Peirce's authorship. Under "subject", entries 5, 6 and
7 give the usage in grammar, logic and metaphysics respectively. But instead
of quoting them all, i should first explain what i was looking for in those
definitions and how they relate to CP 4.546 and New Elements.
In current discourse about the mind, whether philosophical or psychological,
the term "subject" is mostly used in the Kantian sense epitomized by the
phrase "subject of experience". The operative distinction behind this usage
is the subject/object distinction, to which the distinction between
"subjective" and "objective" is closely related. But Peirce, even though he
uses "subjective" and "objective" pretty much like everybody else, almost
never uses "subject" in that Kantian or "metaphysical" sense; he uses it in
a grammatical or logical sense. (On the other hand, he hardly ever mentions
the grammatical sense of "object".) I couldn't help wondering why Peirce
would thus restrict his usage of "subject". (A question that probably
wouldn't occur to anyone but a novice in Peirce studies like me ... )
Now, for me at least, the question of "Existent vs. Real" is all about
*objects*. I found that most of my questions about the reality of "real
things" were cleared up by perusing the Commens entries on "object". But
this didn't answer my question about the usage of "subject" in New Elements
III.1, and there is next to nothing on "subject" in the Commens; so that's
why i turned to the Century Dictionary. And here we are getting into another
realm of reality, as it were.
New Elements III.1 has plenty to say about "real objects", but nothing about
"real subjects". And only once in all of CP does the phrase "real subject"
occur. That happens to be the 1885 review of Royce's _The Religious Aspect
of Philosophy_ (CP 8.41):
[[[ He seems to think that the real subject of a proposition can be denoted
by a general term of the proposition; that is, that precisely what it is
that you are talking about can be distinguished from other things by giving
a general description of it. Kant already showed, in a celebrated passage of
his cataclysmic work, that this is not so; and recent studies in formal
logic have put it in a clearer light. We now find that, besides general
terms, two other kinds of signs are perfectly indispensable in all
reasoning. One of these kinds is the index, which like a pointing finger
exercises a real physiological force over the attention, like the power of a
mesmerizer, and directs it to a particular object of sense. One such index
at least must enter into every proposition, its function being to designate
the subject of discourse. ]]]
Clearly the "subject of discourse" here represents the *object* of the index
which enters into the proposition. Most of Peirce's many references to "real
objects" in CP are likewise connected with some discussion of indexicality.
In these cases, "real" refers not to scholastic realism and Thirdness but to
Secondness and actuality. Peirce calls it a "polar sense" in the one passage
i've found in CP which clearly uses "subject" in the sense opposed to (and
paired with) "object": CP 3.380, from "A Guess at the Riddle":
[[[ One great psychologist has said that the will is nothing but the
strongest desire. I cannot grant that; it seems to me to overlook that fact
which of all that we observe is quite the most obtrusive, namely, the
difference between dreaming and doing. This is not a question of defining,
but of noticing what we experience; and surely he who can confound desiring
with doing must be a day-dreamer. The evidence, however, seems to be pretty
strong that the consciousness of willing does not differ, at least not very
much, from a sensation. The sense of hitting and of getting hit are nearly
the same, and should be classed together. The common element is the sense of
an actual occurrence, of actual action and reaction. There is an intense
reality about this kind of experience, a sharp sundering of subject and
object. While I am seated calmly in the dark, the lights are suddenly turned
on, and at that instant I am conscious, not of a process of change, but yet
of something more than can be contained in an instant. I have a sense of a
saltus, of there being two sides to that instant. A consciousness of
polarity would be a tolerably good phrase to describe what occurs. For will,
then, as one of the great types of consciousness, we ought to substitute the
polar sense. ]]]
As i said above, i think the Century Dictionary listings under "subject"
imply a fairly clear answer to my question of why Peirce so consistently
eschews reference to the "subject of experience", except in the above
passage. But i won't elaborate on that, as this message is quite long enough
already.
gary F.
}My only drink is meaning from the deep brain,
What the birds and the grass and the stones drink. [Seamus Heaney]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson & Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
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