(I've changed the subject line because i see no connection to "New
Elements" here.)
Jerry, i wonder if i can ask you to clarify your "two wide open
questions":
[[ Was the motivating force for Peirce's synthesis of his logical system
the chemical symbol system?
What argues AGAINST this possibility? ]]
If you are really asking about motivation, then you're raising a
psychological question. Peirce was introspective enough to write about
his own motivations in a number of autobiographical texts. If he thought
that "the chemical symbol system" was his motivation, surely he would
have said so in one of those texts. Until someone can produce such
testimony from Peirce, the very absence of it argues against the
possibility -- unless you propose that Peirce may have been unaware of
his own motivation.
However, the earlier parts of your post suggest another possibility. If
(following Peirce) we use Aristotelian terminology, a "motivation" is
the psychological equivalent of an "efficient cause"; but your
explication seems to suggest "the chemical symbol system" as a *formal*
cause "for Peirce's synthesis." In other words, your suggestion seems to
be that Peirce found some formal structure specific to "the chemical
symbol system" which he could then generalize to elucidate the logic of
all sciences. Would that be an accurate paraphrase of your proposal?
If so, your proposal regarding Peirce's logic is even more problematic
than a proposal about his psychology. The essential form underlying his
"logical system" was something Peirce wrote about constantly (not just
occasionally, like his motivations) -- from his 1867 paper "On a New
List of Categories" to the end of his life. If it's unlikely that he
would have been silent (or wrong) about his motivations, it's even more
unlikely that the real basis of his semeiotic/logic would have been
other than what he said it was -- namely, his triad of categories. If
that's the real basis of it, then the logic of chemistry would be (for
Peirce) just another specific application of that generic logic, and not
the source of it.
Peirce's special interest in chemistry could then be accounted for as
Max Fisch says: "Chemistry at that time offered the best entry into
experimental science in general, and was therefore the best field in
which to do one's postgraduate work, even if one intended to move on to
other sciences and, by way of the sciences, to the logic of science and
to logic as a whole. Moreover, chemical engineering was then the most
promising field in which to make a living by science, if one had no
opportunity to do so by pure science or by logic." Fisch makes it quite
clear that logic itself, and not any of its applications, was seen by
Peirce himself as his destiny, from the time that he first read
Whately's _Elements of Logic_ ("within a week or two of his twelfth
birthday, in 1851"). "Since that time, he often said late in life, it
had never been possible for him to think of anything, including even
chemistry, except as an exercise in logic. And so far as he knew, he was
the only man since the Middle Ages who had completely devoted his life
to logic." There is nothing here to indicate that his either his logic
or his devotion to it stemmed from his studies in chemistry.
If this analysis is accurate, then it's up to you to demonstrate, from
Peirce's own texts, evidence that "the motivating force for Peirce's
synthesis of his logical system" was "the chemical symbol system". Since
this would run very much against the grain of Peirce's general
testimony, what need is there for anyone to argue AGAINST it?
Let me emphasize again that i'm not trying to offer an answer to your
questions -- i'll leave that to those with more authority and expertise
in Peirce's writings than i can claim. I'm merely asking for
clarification by trying to show why it's needed.
gary F.
}Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of
the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. [Thoreau]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson & Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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