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

[Gary Richmond]

Ben, You concluded: If Peirce was correct in what he offered, with a notable tone of scientific caution, as an explanation for science's finally having significant success, then what made the difference for science was the practice of verification, disconfirmation, etc. I believe that, if his semiotics omits such as a semiotic stage or element, then it is not logic. But the greatest logician since Aristotle in my opinion--I mean Peirce, not you :-) --the very inventor/discoveror of logic as semeitoic doesn't say that that there are no things like psychology and sociology, and especially psychic experience and social experience, life lived in the experimental laboratory, for example, something which is strongly suggested--at least to me--in the remark occurring just before the above quoted conclusion of your post: [BU] As a sign, man evolves, but man evolves as a sign because he evolves as a recognizant and as a semiotic and experiential subject. There are richnesses of life which go beyond mere logic as semeiotic (even for the logician and scientist!) and involve the "whole of life" & psychology & sociability including the pyschic and social confirmation of hypotheses through experiments leading to the development of new or transformed theories and methods following from these--and it's here that I believe you recongizant belongs. Of course there most certainly is a need in inquiry both formal and informal for the "stage or element" of verification, disconfirmation, etc. Still, I am still not at all convinced that it is an element of semiosis as such, rather it is itself (as you say) the result of & dependent upon semiosis--some actual fact of its occurring in some particular situation in some person or machine, say. Perhaps I have been guilty of confusing terminological matters somewhat, and especially in my early discussions (but even more recently) by myself trying to fit your "recognizant" into semiosis itself, wanting to find some place for what I still believe to be a powerful notion, but now not in relation to semeiotic as such, but in relation to the inquiry process as such, and to society, to the evolution of the individual (psychology) and community, etc. Perhaps when someone else on the list (or off) grasps what you're saying as being essential to logic as semeiotic--so essential, you hold, that if one "omits such as a semiotic stage or element, then it is not logic," and can perhaps rephrase or add to your argument in some way that clarifies and crystallizes it for those of us who just don't see this putatively fatal flaw in Peirce's semeiotic and the need for a fourth semeiotic element, then I will be forced to revise my thinking in the matter.  Certainly you are well aware that I've tried to grasp your argument over many months and in hundreds of hours of study but have not been able to the recognizant as a necessary element or stage of semeiosis (although undoubtedly a necessary one in inquiry). As I recently noted, this may be the result of a lack in me. But I would like to see you convince at least one Peircean of the truth of your argument concerning the inadequacy of a triadic semeiotic. As for my musings on hubris, which you mentioned in your long post, in that regard I am always thinking of this passage where Peirce reflects on his own intellectual habit to avoid this. CP 6.181  There is one intellectual habit which I have laboured very seriously to cultivate, and of which I have a number of times experienced advantages enough, each one of them, to repay all the work I have done toward acquiring it: I mean the habit, when I have been upon the point of assenting, in my own mind, to some conclusion, [and when] I knew that some other mind (whose ways of thinking were very unlike my own, but whom I had known to have reached, in his way, truths not easy to reach) had considered the matter and had reached a conclusion inconsistent with the one that was recommending itself to me, of pausing, endeavoring to put myself in that other's point of view, reconsidering more minutely my whole reasoning, seeking to weld it to other reasonings and reflexions which all sound thinkers would approve, and doing my best to find weak points in the reasoning I came so near to embracing. I should not venture to recommend the cultivation of this habit to any of those who set up their own accidental impossibility of conceiving, as a permanent and essential one, before which all other men ought to crook the knee; since the very essence of their mental malady consists in an exaggerated loyalty to their own principles, i.e. a heartfelt and rather intolerant religion whose divinity is their past mental selves. Perhaps I myself need to work harder to acquire this habit of great intellectual integrity. For the moment I'll conclude with some quotations from the Cambridge Conference Lectures of 1898 to perhaps suggest better what I meant above by saying that "there are richnesses of life that go beyond mere logic as semeiotic and involve the whole of life." These are meant as mere hints as to what I will try to get into more fully some time in the future, but for now they will have to stand without further comment. Although he is mainly concerned with a distinction between "matters of vital importance" and logic as such, they may have some relevance to the present discussion as pointing to the essential nature of the whole person in the social-psychic-factual context of life as it's lived in its fullness. CP 1.626  . . .[I]t is very easy to exaggerate the importance of ratiocination. Man is so vain of his power of reason! It seems impossible for him to see himself in this respect, as he himself would see himself if he could duplicate himself and observe himself with a critical eye. . . CP 1.627 . The mental qualities we most admire in all human beings except our several selves are the maiden's delicacy, the mother's devotion, manly courage, and other inheritances that have come to us from the biped who did not yet speak; while the characters that are most contemptible take their origin in reasoning. The very fact that everybody so ridiculously overrates his own reasoning is sufficient to show how superficial the faculty is. . . CP 1.628  It is the instincts, the sentiments, that make the substance of the soul. Cognition is only its surface, its locus of contact with what is external to it. [emphasis added] . . . . . ................. CP 1.630  Reasoning is of three kinds. The first is necessary,. . . The second depends upon probabilities. . .  The third kind of reasoning tries what il lume naturale, which lit the footsteps of Galileo, can do. It is really an appeal to instinct. Thus reason, for all the frills it customarily wears, in vital crises, comes down upon its marrow-bones to beg the succour of instinct. CP 1.631  Reason is of its very essence egotistical. . . . Men many times fancy that they act from reason when, in point of fact, the reasons they attribute to themselves are nothing but excuses which unconscious instinct invents to satisfy the teasing "whys" of the ego. The extent of this self-delusion is such as to render philosophical rationalism a farce. CP 1.632  Reason, then, appeals to sentiment in the last resort. Sentiment on its side feels itself to be the man. That is my simple apology for philosophical sentimentalism. [emphasis added] CP 1.633 . Sentimentalism implies conservatism; and it is of the essence of conservatism to refuse to push any practical principle to its extreme limits -- including the principle of conservatism itself [note: the above passages may also be found (pp 110-11) in the printed version of the 1898 lectures as Reasoning and the Logic of Things edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner with and introduction by Ketner and Hilary Putnam. ] Well, this wasn't actually the discussion & quotation I had in mind (when I find that I'll post it too), but it at least ought to suggest that there are dimensions of our employing logic as semeiotic which, as I've been arguing, "contextualize" sign/object/interpretant. For now, however, I'll have to let it stand mainly unargued as I find myself needing to make important preparations for the new college term which is rapidly approaching. Meanwhile, I very much hope to hear from other list members regarding your argument concerning a fourth element without which semeiotic"is not logic." Best, Gary --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com