Gary f, Jon, Andre, List,
Gary f wrote:
". . . the core practice [of phanerscopic observation] isn’t really
*observable*, not even by introspection. That makes it difficult to design
replicable experiments! Lately I’m thinking that “training” in the practice
would have to be something like guided meditation, with the guide acting as
a mentor."
Guided phaneroscopic practice may be an approach worth exploring. But who
shall be "the guide acting as a mentor"? Certainly Peirce didn't have one,
and neither did you (I think) nor I. At the moment I wouldn't know how to
begin to 'guide' someone in the core practice, but it's definitely
something worth considering, and so I intend to. At one point in my life I
was leading groups in guided meditation, but at the moment I don't see how
that skill might transfer to guiding phaneroscopic practice. But it's
definitely worth thinking about as, for one thing, I could definitely use a
collaborator or two to help develop this project!
As for 'replicable experiments', I agree that such experiments would be
extremely difficult to devise. Perhaps two or more people could choose some
phenomenal 'field' to jointly observe, jot down what they prescind from
their observations, and share notes. Still, I tend to think of
phenomenology more as a solo activity in which the *iconoscopic* and
*trikonic* 'results' could, perhaps, serve as the basis for other's
observations. I say this because it was my experience that once I had in
mind some of Peirce's categorial 'characters' I could, for example, observe
and prescind the phaneral character of specific qualities,
actions-reactions, and thoughts. In any event, that was all I had to guide
me at the time.
Gf: "[T]he actual practice is more like an art than a science." I would
tend to strongly agree. This echoes Andre's comment in the letter I posted
to the List:
AdT: "Usually such [elusive, phaneal] things are captured by poets, without
their knowing they are good at phaneroscopy."
I certainly have found something like this to be so, and it may be that the
poets (in several arts) may be some of our best guides towards developing
phaneral competency, if you will, suggesting in their work what might be
possible to observe in the phaneron as well as the kind of language which
might best capture such phaneral 'things'.
Recently, the Franciscan mystic, writer, and teacher, Fr. Richard Rohr,
quoted Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel as writing:
Rabbi Herschel: " The prophet is a poet. His experience is one known to the
poets. . . .What makes the difference between the prophet [or poet] and the
ordinary person is the possession of a heightened and unified awareness of
certain aspects of life. Like a poet, [the prophet] is endowed with
sensibility, enthusiasm, and tenderness."
I recall Peirce writing something to the effect that religion at its most
authentic is like poetry, but poetry completed (something like that). Be
that as it may, it has certainly been my experience that certain poetry and
prophetic literature which I have been responsive to has a tendency to
inspire me to engage in phaneral observation. It feels something like a
challenge the poet or prophet puts before me -- I, who am anything but
either of these! -- to observe the phaneron 'as it is', simply,
respectfully.
Jon, thanks for reiterating and, so, emphasizing Gary's point that the
categories are "irreducible elements all of which are present (in varying
proportions) in *every* phenomenon in the universe of discourse." That this
is so makes not only phenomenology a difficult science to work in, let
alone develop, but every Peircean science which employs the categories is,
or at least ought to be, similarly challenged.
I might add to another comment by Gary f:
Gf: "[The categories] are ordered not serially but subsumptively, so we
have to *prescind* the Secondness of a phenomenon from its Thirdness, and
its Firstness from its Secondness."
While I certainly don't disagree with that comment whatsoever as it relates
to categorial 'subsumption' (as you noted, Peirce uses the term
'involution') as such, *that* involutional order is but one of six
possible 'orderings', what I call paths (or 'vectors') through the three
categories as I've argued this in my "Outline of *trikonic*" paper (and in
sections of other papers) as well as numerous times on Peirce-L.
I have been gratified to see you, Jon, employ the vectors in at least one
of your papers.
I diagram the categorial vectors as follows in the *trikonic* paper:
[image: image.png]
Shortly after that paper was published I realized that by 'analysis' I
meant what Peirce analyzes in his paper, "The Logic of Mathematics; An
Attempt to Develop My Categories from Within," namely, 'involution'. As he
uses both terms ('analysis' and 'involution') in describing that path,
3ns-2ns-1ns (in that paper it is contrasted with its inverse, Hegelian
dialectic, what I call the *vector of order*, namely 1ns-2ns-3ns), I
thought that to avoid confusion that it was prudent to rename that
analytical path the *vector of involution* to distinguish it from other
forms of analysis (although, in a sense, it refers to these as well). It is
the only vector name which I have changed since the paper was published.
[Incidentally, before 'Outline of *trikonic*' was published I had been
calling what is now termed the *vector of process *in the diagram above*,* the
*vector of evolution*, but I came to believe that *process* is the more
inclusive term).
JAS: . . . that since all other sciences of discovery in Peirce's
classification depend on phenomenology/phaneroscopy for their own
principles, [the principles discovered in phenomenology] should be
recognized and treated as fundamental principles of *every *science (except
pure mathematics). . .
I agree that it is most certainly the case that Peirce made clear that
principles discovered in the sciences earlier in the classification ought
to provide principles to those following--Peirce is quite clear on that.
But you continued.
JAS: [Involution] needs to be maintained whenever we discuss or apply the
three categories.
Now while involution is something of the understructure of the categories'
triadicity (again, as Gary f put it, the categories are "
<https://www.academia.edu/2435636/Non_linear_Process_in_Peirce_the_end_second_the_middle_third_>irreducible
elements all of which are present. . . in *every* phenomenon"), yet, it
seems to me that in many cases of tricategorial analysis that one (or even
more) of the other vectors needs to be considered as well, and this is
especially the case in categorial vector analysis.
<https://www.academia.edu/2435636/Non_linear_Process_in_Peirce_the_end_second_the_middle_third_>
For example, each of the three forms of inference, abduction, deduction,
and induction, follow a different vector (abduction--*vector of
representation*; deduction--*vector of involution*; induction--*vector of
determination*). Yet when these types of inference are considered together
in the design of what Peirce calls "a complete inquiry," they follow a
fourth path, the *vector of process*, 1ns - 3ns -2ns, so that *abduction*
(1ns; the forming of a hypothesis) is following in such an inquiry by
*deduction* (3ns, analyzing the hypothesis as to what might be testable in
it) followed by *induction* (2ns, the actual experimental testing of what
should be confirmed should the abduction be true). I should add that, as
we've discussed here in the past, in John Sowa's view (with which I concur)
the experiment the cycle of research does not stop with the experimental
results and their interpretations.This process vector is the subject of a
paper by Jamin Pelkey, "Non-linear Process in Peirce: 'the end second, the
middle third'." However, Pelkey seems unaware -- or at least doesn't touch
upon -- the other vectors, even the *vector of involution*, nor does he
acknowledge how the *vector of order*, which he seems to disparage, has its
proper logical function. But he does note that, while there is "well worked
out" among Peirce scholars a general understanding of the irreducibility of
triadic relations, a thorough review of the literature reveals that an
understanding
of "triadic interdependence" lags far behind.
JP: The necessity of triadic relations, and their irreducibility, are now
well worked out; but our understanding of triadic interdependence
(relations between relatives), by contrast, may still be in its infancy.
I have no idea how this situation might improve, but it is my sincere hope
that others will take up in earnest the study of tricategorial "relations
between relatives," and first within phenomenology.
Best,
Gary
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 1:36 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Gary F., Andre, List:
>
> I am generally not a fan of "me too" posts and try to avoid sending them
> myself, but in this case I believe that the following statements bear
> repeating and cannot be emphasized enough.
>
> GF: [T]he Peircean categories are not a set of three separate bins into
> which we sort things or parts of processes. They are irreducible elements
> all of which are present (in varying proportions) in *every* phenomenon
> in the universe of discourse. And they are ordered not serially but
> subsumptively, so we have to *prescind* the Secondness of a phenomenon
> from its Thirdness, and its Firstness from its Secondness.
>
>
> I will even go so far as to suggest that since these are fundamental
> principles of phenomenology/phaneroscopy, and since all other sciences of
> discovery in Peirce's classification depend on phenomenology/phaneroscopy
> for their own principles, they should be recognized and treated as
> fundamental principles of *every *science (except pure mathematics).
> Peirce's preferred term for "subsumption" was "involution" and Robert
> Marty's is "presupposition," but whatever word we use for it, that notion
> needs to be maintained whenever we discuss or apply the three categories.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 9:32 AM <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Gary, thanks for posting Andre’s impromptu letter on “phaneroscopic
>> analysis” to the list (and to Andre for giving permission to do that). It
>> offers some good explanations both of what this practice is (and isn’t),
>> *and* of why it’s so hard to describe. We can give some suggestions as
>> to what to do, as I did in *Turning Signs* (sometimes without calling it
>> “phaneroscopy” — in Chapter 2 <https://gnusystems.ca/TS/dlg.htm#trans> for
>> instance), but the core practice itself isn’t really *observable*, not
>> even by introspection. That makes it difficult to design replicable
>> experiments! Lately I’m thinking that “training” in the practice would have
>> to be something like guided meditation, with the guide acting as a mentor.
>> Then it could be usefully correlated with observables such as brain
>> activity (as in Francisco Varela’s “neurophenomenology”).
>>
>> For those of us who learn mostly by reading and writing, I think
>> description or explanation of the actual practice is more like an art than
>> a science. One has to give a peculiar twist to ordinary language now and
>> then (as Andre did a few times in his piece.) My own favorite artist in
>> this respect is Dogen Zenji, whom I quote in my book for that purpose. Once
>> Peircean category theory has emerged from the practice of phaneroscopy and
>> iconoscopy, then the logic of science takes over and we can apply them to
>> classification of signs or whatever. But that logic can go astray if we
>> forget that the Peircean categories are not a set of three separate bins
>> into which we sort things or parts of processes. They are irreducible
>> elements all of which are present (in varying proportions) in *every*
>> phenomenon in the universe of discourse. And they are ordered not serially
>> but subsumptively, so we have to *prescind* the Secondness of a
>> phenomenon from its Thirdness, and its Firstness from its Secondness.
>>
>> I don’t suppose I’m saying anything original here, so I might as well
>> stop. I don’t have much to say about the applications of Peircean category
>> theory anyway, so I’ll leave that to you (Gary and Andre) and others who
>> have taken it much further than I have.
>>
>> Gary f.
>>
>>
>>
>> } (Stoop) if you are abcedminded, to this claybook, what curios of signs
>> (please stoop), in this allaphbed! [*Finnegans Wake* 18] {
>>
>> https://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ living the time
>>
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