BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Gary R
Neither mind nor matter are primal; both co-exist and are necessary.
Mind cannot exist without matter; matter cannot exist without mind.
That - to me - is what 'objective idealism' means. [And I know that
JAS understands this differently].
And my selection of the necessitarian quote - and all quotes are of
course removed from context - does not deny the other quotes I
included about mind and matter.
And - whatever I say - does not merit the vitriol, the analogy with
Trump/lies [why on earth bring in such an analogy????] - the
accusations of deliberate 'disinformation' and
'misinformation'...that I find on this list.
The sky is not falling. And my point to Gary F that his assertion
that I ignore conceptual semiosis is of course wrong - and at least
two of my books [both in respectable refereed presses ] focus on the
conceptual! And..so what if my focus now is on the physical and
biological???
Edwina
On Wed 31/03/21 8:58 AM , Gary Richmond [email protected]
sent:
Auke, List,
I'm not sure what you're aiming at so I'll try a slightly different
approach.
A minute analysis of the passage in question is revealing.
[Gf quoting CSP] “Necessitarianism cannot logically stop short of
making the whole action of the mind a part of the physical
universe.”
[Gf] But in the text we are analyzing, this text is “quoted” as
follows: [note: here Gary f quotes ET for another message of hers]
[ET] "he whole action of the mind [is] a part of the physical
universe" 6.61.
In her misquote, it is clear that Edwina is aware of the entire
sentence since she modifies the fragment she includes by adding "is"
in brackets --so she writes: "mind [is] a part of the physical
universe" to make it grammatically correct.
To my way of thinking this strongly suggests that she was well aware
of the meaning of the entire sentence, choosing not to include the
first part of it as it would have contradicted her general way of
looking at mind/matter -- and despite some contradictory other
snippets and remarks in the email you quoted: she generally sees
mind is what today we'd call an 'epiphenomenon'. I am sure that if
someone had the time and interest that they could find her writing
something to that effect many times on the List. There are
suggestions of it even in the email you quoted in its entirety: ET: "
semiosis [. . .] inserts a mediative process within what is a dyadic
interaction."
I see the email taken as a whole as something of an anomaly among
her many comments on the list which hold matter as primal, mind as
secondary. So for me the message in the email you quoted was a
confusing mix of contradictions, especially when considered within
the context of the general thrust of her position on the matter as
expressed in many of the messages posted to the List, perhaps in
recent years especially those addressed to JAS.
It seems to me that ET's expressed view strongly tends towards the
theory that matter is primal and that mind emerges out of a material
substratum, that she is, to use Peirce's language, something of a
"necessitarian."
CSP “Necessitarianism cannot logically stop short of making the
whole action of the mind a part of the physical universe.” For ET,
"mind [is] a part of the physical universe"
If she has recently changed her mind about this, that would be most
interesting.
Best,
Gary R
“LET EVERYTHING HAPPEN TO YOU
BEAUTY AND TERROR
JUST KEEP GOING
NO FEELING IS FINAL”
― RAINER MARIA RILKE
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication StudiesLaGuardia
College of the City University of New York
On Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 3:38 AM Auke van Breemen wrote:
Gary R,
Since you are raising the issue of quoting lets first try to get
clear about the text(s) quoted from. I did a search in the archives
and found this mail from Edwina:
27. März 2021 um 19:55 Uhr
"Edwina Taborsky"
Terry, list
My view of the triadic semiosis is that it inserts a mediative
process within what is a dyadic interaction. Notice, using the ten
classes of signs 2.227 - that not all the mediation is in a mode of
Thirdness; it can be in 2ns or 1st. Indeed, in three of the ten
classes, mediation is in a mode of 2ns - the famous sinsign set.
That is, between the Object and the Interpretant is a process that
removes the dyadic interaction from being a purely mechanical
interaction and opens it to interpretation by both the Object and the
Interpretant sites/nodes. As Peirce says, semiosis is an action, an
influence, which involves co-operation of three subjects: O-R-I.
But the point is - the triad enables complexity-of-outcome. If you
have a universe that only operates by direct physical contact, then,
it will rapidly entropically dissolve. If you insert a capacity for
rejecting chaos, a capacity for laws that rule over the mechanical
contact, then, you enable continuity and reproduction and also,
diversity. You get a 'complex adaptive system', which inserts a
capacity for self-organization [that mediative process] and stops
entropy fast.
And since matter-is-mind within Peircean analysis, then, this
triadic process is operative throughout the physical, chemical,
biological and conceptual realms. 'Matter is effete mind" 6.25. And
"what we call matter is not completely dead bu is merely mind
hidebound with habits" 6.158. "he whole action of the mind [is] a
part of the physical universe" 6.61
No, 1ns doesn't become 2ns or 3ns. The experience itself goes
through various categorical phases.
Edwina
This is the mail Gary F takes as his matter for analyzis, which in
its turn instigated Edwina's Heh, this is fun message. Do we agree
upon this issue? Or do you have other sources to add?
Auke
Op 31 maart 2021 om 4:41 schreef Gary Richmond :
List,
For me at the heart of this troubling exchange, at least for me, is
a question raised concerning "quoting out of context." The Wikipedia
article on this defines it this way:
" Quoting out of context (sometimes referred to as contextomy or
quote mining ) is an informal fallacy in which a passage is
removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its
intended meaning."
This is a matter which I fear could get lost, or at least obscured,
in the sea of words being exchanged. I'd like to lay it out 'bare'.
so to speak, so that the parties involved in the dispute, as well as
List members, can better decide what's at stake here in this single,
critical point.
Here are the passages in Gary f's which prompted the reaction by
Edwina and further comments by Gary f, Jon Alan Schmidt, and others.
[Gf] The paragraph cited in the text above, CP 6.61, begins with one
of many reasons Peirce gives for rejecting the doctrine of the
necessitarians:
[Gf quoting CSP] “Necessitarianism cannot logically stop short of
making the whole action of the mind a part of the physical
universe.”
[Gf] But in the text we are analyzing, this text is “quoted” as
follows: [note: here Gary f quotes ET for another message of hers]
[ET] "he whole action of the mind [is] a part of the physical
universe" 6.61.
[Gf] The missing first letter of “the” is just an ordinary typo,
but the “quote” as a whole exemplifies the phenomenon of
misquotation. It not only represents the original text inaccurately,
it represents Peirce as asserting an idea which in fact he was
ascribing to the necessitarians, against whose doctrine he was
arguing. (The rest of Peirce’s paragraph goes on to explain why
that idea is untenable.) ⁂
Somewhat later in his message, after briefly discussing the matter
of Donald Trump's lie that the 2020 election was "stolen," Gary f
comments:
Gf: The question [of Trump's lie] is nowhere near so consequential
in the case of the misquotation we are analyzing, but it still makes
a pragmatic difference. If it was just an “honest mistake” on the
writer’s part, an honest scholar would own up to it when it was
flagged, and perhaps correct it. But if it deliberately
misrepresented Peirce’s views as conforming to the writer’s own
idea, then it would be much more damaging to the scholar’s
reputation for trustworthiness, at least among those familiar enough
with Peirce’s writings to recognize the misrepresentation.
There's more, but I think that enough to make the point I'm trying
to get at. Slightly after giving the definition quoted above, the
encyclopedia article adds this.
The problem here is not the removal of a quote from its original
context per se (as all quotes are), but to the quoter's decision to
exclude from the excerpt certain nearby phrases or sentences (which
become "context" by virtue of the exclusion) that serve to clarify
the intentions behind the selected words.
This, I believe, points to the central question which prompted this
exchange: the misquotation is used to support a view of Edwina's
which is just the opposite of Peirce's own, indeed exactly a position
he has been arguing against.
So, was this an honest mistake or was it calculated to mislead. Only
Edwina can answer that question.
Best,
Gary R
“LET EVERYTHING HAPPEN TO YOU
BEAUTY AND TERROR
JUST KEEP GOING
NO FEELING IS FINAL”
― RAINER MARIA RILKE
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication StudiesLaGuardia
College of the City University of New York
On Tue, Mar 30, 2021 at 6:40 PM < [email protected] [3]> wrote:
Auke, since you ask,
Reading Edwina's reply to my question do you still think to have
captured her intention?
Short answer: Yes.
Edwina’s replies to your question (both of them) are all about
“exegesis.” Her words that I was referring to have nothing to do
with exegesis, and neither did my insertion into the exchange between
Jon and Edwina have anything to do with exegesis. The whole subject is
a red herring, as far as I can see. My post that Edwina reacted to so
violently neither mentioned nor practiced exegesis, certainly not of
the writings of Peirce. It was all about a text that she had written
herself (though I didn’t mention that fact), considered as the
context of an example of misquotation. (Observing that it was a
misquotation hardly requires “exegesis”; it is obvious to any
reader of Peirce who looks at the text she was misquoting.)
The “pragmaticistic” part of my analysis went like this:
[[ A further question arises when we focus on the Thirdness of this
phenomenon, because then we have to consider the interpretant of the
text we are examining (as well as its putative object, “Peircean
analysis,” and the idea which it predicates of that object,
“mind-is-matter.”) If we take the interpretant as the information
conveyed to the reader, we ought to ask whether this particular
misquotation belongs to the species of misinformation or
disinformation . This distinction has become a matter of public
debate lately, especially in the U.S., where it makes a crucial
pragmatic difference whether a disseminated untruth is merely
mistaken or was actually intended to deceive. Donald Trump’s lies
about the “stolen election” are a paradigmatic example: were they
“honest mistakes” (because he was himself misinformed) or were
they criminal acts intended to subvert American democracy? Should
disinformation sites be shut down by the social media platforms on
which they appear?
The question is nowhere near so consequential in the case of the
misquotation we are analyzing, but it still makes a pragmatic
difference. If it was just an “honest mistake” on the writer’s
part, an honest scholar would own up to it when it was flagged, and
perhaps correct it. But if it deliberately misrepresented Peirce’s
views as conforming to the writer’s own idea, then it would be much
more damaging to the scholar’s reputation for trustworthiness, at
least among those familiar enough with Peirce’s writings to
recognize the misrepresentation. ]]
(Notice, by the way, the predominant presence of question marks and
if-clauses in that analysis.) Edwina’s response to this (assuming
she read it) was to say “I don't think that your outline is a
pragmatic analysis of what I wrote”. The logical implication is
that issues of misrepresentation in public discourse are not
“pragmatic” because they have no bearing on what she considers to
be the “real” world. I beg to differ on that point. If she thinks
her revised and reworded version of Peirce’s categories for the
purpose of applying them to biological and physical processes is more
pertinent to “the real world” than critical thinking about
patterns of public discourse, I differ on that point too. Anyway,
this is the basis of my opinion of her intended meaning in the text
you asked about. And again, the subject of exegesis has nothing to do
with it.
Edwina’s ad hominem attacks on me and others for allegedly
“sneering” at her ideas are even less pertinent to the real real
world. They are based entirely on her misreadings, not of Peirce, but
of other posts to this list. If I didn’t know better — as I do,
from many years of reading Edwina’s attacks on others, and her
complaints about list members not taking an interest in her favorite
adaptations of Peircean concepts — I’d think she was one of those
trolls on social media whose main objective is to raise the emotional
temperature of the dialogue and stir up controversy. But to me it
doesn’t matter any more what her motivations are. You shall know
them by their fruits.
Gary f.
From: [email protected] [4] On Behalf Of Auke
van Breemen
Sent: 30-Mar-21 13:27
To: [email protected] [6]; [email protected] [7]; Auke van Breemen
Cc: [email protected] [9]
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy, Iconoscopy, and Peircean
Category Theory
Gary F.,
You wrote:
Auke, to answer your question, yes, it is a sincere opinion about
the intended meaning of the word “real” in the words commented
upon in Jon’s post. (Intended by the author of those words,
obviously.)
--
Reading Edwina's reply to my question do you still think to have
captured her intention?
Best,
Auke
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