Frances to Thomas and listers... There may for many persons be some things that are outside the scope and venue of objective semiotics or logic and not be prone as objects of study to the laws of scientific belief, such as articles of religious faith for example, but not for Peirce and his brand of idealist and realist pragmatism.
Within a Peircean framework, let us ask whether the inner subjective phobias and pains of individual persons are absolute states that are never confused as being anything else, or are they referent signs that stand objectively for something else? Since according to Peirce all phenomenal things that are sensed are representamens and existent objects, then they must necessarily be signs, and signs that refer to other objects. Now, if a person is unconscious or conscious of their own inner state, such as pain for example, which they do not confuse as being anything other than pain and only the pain of their own self and not the pain of another person, the only way that subjective state can be a sign is if it were falsifiable and fallible in some way. In other words, if the pain of the self as sensed was actually mistaken in that it was a referred phantom pain, of say an amputated limb, then that state is not absolute, and in fact is a sign. To the extent therefore that some consciousness is interpretable and translatable, then it is all conceivably and probably an objective logical construct. Indeed, all of subjectivity would then fall under this phenomenal umbrella, which is existential and experiential. Thomas writes... Frances partly wrote: "It would seem that objective logic must hence allow and admit some degree of psychologistic subjectivism after all." Frances also partly wrote: "Human logic according to Peirce is thus seemingly an obstinate and degenerate form of pure logic that thinkers discover. What is likely found however is not a rigid mechanical world predetermined to exist by some agent of design, but rather is a dispositional tendency for the natural world to simply evolve logically. The human aquisition and utilization of pure logic is perhaps one of intermediate phenomena, acting as a bridge laying related between say immediate nomena and mediate epiphenomena, if it can be put in those terms within a Peircean framework." In CP 4.80 Peirce writes: "Second intentional, or, as I also call it, Objective Logic [...]" I do not have much use for the distinction between "subjective" and "objective" in your sense, though I do seem to understand very well what you mean, Frances. The problem is: the more subjective people are in one sense, the more objective they are in another sense. Take phobias. Very subjective thing. Usually I couldn't produce such effects personally with me. But being afflicted with it there is a button and each time it is pushed: whooom. It happens. Very mechanistically. Each time the very same thing. On and on. Many years ago I learned to do "psychotherapy". What clients try to do is change habits. That's learning, often very serious learning, and that interested me. In the Freudian schools you learn beforehand what's good and what's bad. "Projection" is bad: You see your husband and then you see your stepfather in him and then you are in trouble etc. So far so bad. But then, perhaps we can put the very same effect to a good use. There is something interesting and maybe I got that from Fritz Pearls or Virgina Satir. I don't remember. It's this: Client tells you his or her problem. You don't understand what's going on. Neither does your client. And you'd better know that you don't know what's going on. For if you really know what's going on, you have the same problem as your client. Then you are usually not so particularly qualified to help, since you haven't been able to solve your own problem. If, on the other hand, you hear what is said and then say: Ah, that's easy, you don't have to have that problem, since I do not have it. Here is my good advice. I'll tell you... Well, then your client will go away. And for very good reasons. If your client stays for some reason, the best you could do, is teach him a new language, with words like "suppression", "resistance", "Ego", "Superego", Gestalt etc etc in it. The client then has her problem, as before, and a new foreign language to talk about it. More problems, not less. And when you have even a Latin name for your problem and it's a scientific thing, you can't simply forget, in a natural way, to have your problem. It will never leave you. It's Latin, you know. That's more confusion and not less and not at all what the patient came for. So I hear what the description of the problem is and let's say it's about grandma, father and poor me and so on. Then I'd say: OK, let's see what you have in your pockets. And there is a knife, a handkerchief, a coin, etc. And we put things on the table here and there and there and the handkerchief is poor me, the coin is grandma and so on. I don't understand what that means but so be it. But then I get that look in my eyes and I tell the client: It's time isn't it? What about your watch? Client: I don't know? What is it about my watch?! Me: I don't know, you know. Client: I don't know either! Me: Yes, I know. Put it on the table. Client: Where and what is it. Me: Just guess where it should go. You don't know and you perfectly well know that you don't know, so you guess. And then you tell me what it is, this watch, that it is time for now. That doesn't make much sense what I say. So: the step is abduction. I help the client to make an abduction and then this watch is "my love for..." some generalization of something in relation to the other things already on the table. And then we arrange and rearrange, things appear and disappear. "No, I always thought it were grandma, but in truth it is..." Things like that. For me grandma, father and poor me could as well be A, B, C,... But why not call a variable grandma? Why should I be afraid to do so? Only because my math teacher never did so? So my client solves, quite objectively, a problem and I do my purely fictional subjective math at the same time. All I do is see that there are all these necessary inductive, deductive and retroductive steps. With all these lovers of benefactors and non-lovers of servants of non-benefactors, etc. I see to it that the horse keeps going on the road of inquiry. Sometimes, when I perceive some interesting abstract pattern in these things on the table, I would even do some further steps with it, maybe proving an interesting theorem. But, of course, I translate things into grandma, father and poor me. Often the client is very surprised at first and then even more surprised that you understand such subtle aspects of the problem. Even interesting new aspects. So that's Voodoo magic, isn't it? Yes. You work with hypostatic abstractions. Dormitive virtue and such things. DRUGS! Thinking about thinking, i.e. second intentional thinking. Objectified. Why does this work miracles (given enough experience, keen observation, enormous personal flexibility and real human interest, compassion with your client)? Well, the answer you find substantially e.g. in Georg Cantor's famous mathematical papers and it is that if you take any number of objects then you will "thereby" have more relations (between objects) than you have objects. And if you reinsert some of these relations, which are interesting to you, as objects into the space of the other objects, you get still other relations. That's Peirce. Don't say that this is the same as Existential Graphs. Existential Graphs are much more sophisticated and elegant. But it hinges on the same point of hypostatic abstractions, second intentional i.e. objective logic. What else? He even says so. Constantly. I know, I probably shouldn't have written the above. It's not the scientific, philosophical way to do things. If you would trace out the above idea with the same energy, genius as a Charles Peirce, you would develop the logic of relatives and especially Existential Graphs. Sooner or later. Why not put it to use? Why not simply (try to) understand it? Why not a little bit of Pragmatic Maxim or Pragmaticist Maxim? No, no, not talking about it. You DO IT! Why not simply "do" it? Why not illustrate it in a dirty little, subjective way? Hm? So, in particular, I don't believe that all pupils and students are ill. Learning is not something to be ashamed of. So what is the criterion for success in a "psychotherapeutic" setting? I think it is that your client is not any more so very much interested in the "problem" he or she came with. They even tend to forget it as something only mildly interesting. But there are a lot of other interesting things he or she surprisingly can do now in seemingly totally unrelated aspects of his or her life. They will not run around now with a "solution" instead of a "problem" and the one is as boring as the other is, like the middle class gentleman, Monsieur Jourdain, in Moliere "been speaking prose all my life, and didn't even know it!" They will simply do interesting new things, whatever it is that interests them in "their" life. Not mine. In a sense all I want to do is get Peirce off of my back. ;-) P.S. The following I borrowed from the friendly people from The Metaphysical Club at the University of Helsinki (Thanks to them!) (http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/pragmatismmaxim.html) "In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception; and the sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception." (Pragmatism, CP 5.8-9, c.1905) "Pragmaticism was originally enounced in the form of a maxim, as follows: Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object. I will restate this in other words, since ofttimes one can thus eliminate some unsuspected source of perplexity to the reader. This time it shall be in the indicative mood, as follows: The entire intellectual purport of any symbol consists in the total of all general modes of rational conduct which, conditionally upon all the possible different circumstances and desires, would ensue upon the acceptance of the symbol." (Issues of Pragmaticism, CP 5.438, 1905) "According to the maxim of Pragmaticism, to say that determination affects our occult nature is to say that it is capable of affecting deliberate conduct; and since we are conscious of what we do deliberately, we are conscious habitualiter of whatever hides in the depths of our nature; and it is presumable (and only presumable, although curious instances are on record), that a sufficiently energetic effort of attention would bring it out." (Issues of Pragmaticism, CP 5.441, 1905) --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
