Stephen, Our evolution can be understood as having a direction without the
belief that it will or can reach an end. We might be heading asymptotically
toward that end.
It occurred to me that you might not be using the term realism in the way
Peirce did. He used the term as it's mostly used in philosophy, as a
philosophical position maintaining that universals are real as opposed to
merely nominal.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good article on the realist
vs nominalist debate, titled Universals.
Matt
> On Jun 18, 2014, at 6:17 AM, "Stephen C. Rose" <stever...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Where does the word realism come in? In Law of Mind Peirce describes his
> synechistic philosophy as follows: "first a logical realism of the most
> pronounced type; second, objective idealism; third, tychism, with its
> consequent thoroughgoing evolutionism." While I have indeed seen pragmaticism
> as linked to what I think and do, I have been scrupulous in the obvious
> rejection of the notion that I am qualified to or have a desire to, represent
> Peirce as a scholar might seek to do. Here is what I mean in the text cited
> regarding us and reality. Precisely because I see us as involved in an
> evolutionary process I assume that the reality of which we in any conscious
> sense are a part is bound by a beginning and that it is likely to be bound by
> an end. If anything I have said suggests that reality can be separated from
> that process or that it does not contain it, I reject it. Reality and us is a
> unity and to say it circumscribes us is to say what within that unity we are
> an event, endowed with the capacity to understand ourselves as part and
> parcel of all that is. Triadic Philosophy is principally a method which
> should be obvious from the excerpts I am posting here. It is a means of using
> memorial maxims to improve one's life. There is plenty in Peirce to suggest
> the usefulness of such an effort and plenty to discuss regarding the veracity
> of its underlying premises. But it seems to me that the notion that us and
> reality are somehow separated within triadic philosophy is simply not the
> case.
>
> @stephencrose
>
>
>> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 11:33 PM, Matt Faunce <mattfau...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Jerry asked,
>>
>>> What is your understanding of your usage of the term "us" in your sentence?
>>> Could you find a better articulation of your intended meaning(s)?
>>
>>
>> My usage was in response to what Stephen said, quoted here:
>> "Pragmaticism is a bastion against the dominant notion that we are all
>> reality is. We are not all of reality. Our individual perceptions are not
>> all reality. Before we are, reality is. After we are, reality remains."
>>
>> The part of my response Jerry asked me to better articulate:
>> "The Buddhist logicians Dignaga and Dharmakirti, who were objective
>> idealists, concluded that there could never have been a before "us" and
>> there will never be an after us. I came to see things their way."
>> And I defined 'we' as "those of us whose essence is our mind."
>> In another post I wrote:
>> "Regarding what I meant by 'essence of mind,' Peirce did say 'Matter is
>> effete mind', but I think he could have also said the reverse, that 'Matter
>> is nascent mind.' Maybe some minds are hardening into nothing but habit,
>> i.e., matter, and some minds hardened into habits are transforming into what
>> most people would recognize as minds."
>>
>> Now, why idealism? We have to choose between these three philosophies:
>> idealism, where everything is mental; materialism, where everything is
>> material; and pluralism, eg., dualism says part of the world is ideal and
>> the other part is material. If you admit the importance of simplicity, in
>> Ockham's Razor, then you should admit that is everything is continuous,
>> since the alternative is only more complicated. That leaves the first two
>> mentioned which are monistic. Since in anyone's thinking the material world
>> is derived from their ideas, it seems simpler to choose idealism, and admit
>> the mental as the primordial stuff of reality and the physical as a special
>> case of the ideal. To infer that in our evolution, somewhere along the line,
>> particles snapped together and produced ideas seems to gratuitously give the
>> common notion of mind, e.g., that animals have a mind but non-animals don't,
>> a privileged status analogous to the idea that the current human form
>> couldn't have evolved from an extremely simple past so it must have snapped
>> together from God's command; anything that preserves our nobility.
>>
>> I used "we" as in "those of us whose essence is our mind" in a way I
>> understand Peirce. He was an idealist, as I am, which means we believe
>> reality is mental. I used 'we' in the widest sense because there is no value
>> in Stephen Rose's statement if the term is taken in a narrower sense. Here's
>> why i think that: If he claimed pragmaticism was a bastion against solipsism
>> he would've use the term 'I' or 'you' in the singular. If he meant some
>> narrow use of 'we' like 'all Americans', or 'all humans over the age of
>> two,' etc., it would be a worthless statement—everyone knows that reality
>> kept going after great grandma and grampa's death. But if he meant it in the
>> widest sense Mr. Rose's statement does have value but it directly
>> contradicts Peirce's idealism, so he shouldn't identify the idea with
>> pragmaticism. The widest sense of 'we' is everything, and to a synechistic
>> idealist that means all minds, which encompasses reality.
>> The idea that Reality is the container of everything but separate from
>> everything is absurd: There is something in addition to everything? It also
>> contradicts synechism in that it assumes a dualism, i.e., that there is a
>> fundamental, unbridgeable, difference between the container and the contents.
>>
>> Matt
>> --------------------------------------------
>>
>>> On Jun 15, 2014, at 2:12 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Matt:
>>>
>>> It is a question of the relation between your usage of the term "us" and
>>> how I understood your sentence.
>>>
>>> My comment was based on my understanding of the term "us" as a 1 st person
>>> pronoun. I have copied the entry for "us" from the Apple dictionary below.
>>>
>>> What is your understanding of your usage of the term "us" in your sentence?
>>> Could you find a better articulation of your intended meaning(s)?
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Jerry
>>>
>>>
>>> us |əs|
>>> pronoun [ first person plural ]
>>> 1 used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself and one or more other
>>> people as the object of a verb or preposition: let us know| we asked him to
>>> come with us | both of us . Compare with we.
>>> • used after the verb “to be” and after “than” or “as”: it's us or them |
>>> they are richer than us.
>>> • informal to or for ourselves: we got us some good hunting.
>>> 2 informal me: give us a kiss.
>>> PHRASES
>>> one of us a person recognized as an accepted member of a particular group,
>>> typically one that is exclusive in some way.
>>> us and them (or them and us )expressing a sense of division within a group
>>> of people: negotiations were hampered by an “us and them” attitude between
>>> management and unions.
>>> ORIGIN Old English ūs, accusative and dative of we, of Germanic origin;
>>> related to Dutch ons and German uns .
>>> usage: Is it correct to say they are richer than us , or is it better to
>>> say they are richer than we (are) ? See usage at personal pronoun and than.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Jun 15, 2014, at 10:31 AM, Matt Faunce wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Please explain or cite the scientific facts that are opposed to the idea
>>>> that minds always were and always will be.
>>>>
>>>> To answer what I think you meant: The big-bang and accelerating expansion
>>>> of the universe do not refute the idea that minds always were or that
>>>> minds won't adapt to the expansion. I can only imagine you would say what
>>>> you said because you either have a definition of "mind" much narrower than
>>>> Peirce's, or a weltanshauung very different from his so to interpret
>>>> scientific facts as opposing the idea that minds always were and always
>>>> will be.
>>>> Regarding the weltanshauung, maybe you assumed science agrees with
>>>> Cartesian dualism and disagrees with the idealist side of
>>>> objective-idealism.
>>>> Regarding what I meant by "essence of mind," Peirce did say "Matter is
>>>> effete mind", but I think he could have also said the reverse, that
>>>> 'Matter is nascent mind.' Maybe some minds are hardening into nothing but
>>>> habit, i.e., matter, and some minds hardened into habits are transforming
>>>> into what most people would recognize as minds.
>>>>
>>>> Matt
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On Jun 15, 2014, at 12:05 AM, Jerry LR Chandler
>>>>> <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Matt:
>>>>>
>>>>> Scientific facts are in opposition to your conclusion.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>
>>>>> jerry
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jun 14, 2014, at 5:11 PM, Matt Faunce wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Stephen, It appeared to me that you had hijacked the term
>>>>>> "pragmaticism", and I still think you might have. Peirce was an
>>>>>> idealist, and the idea that 'we are reality,' if "we" means those of us
>>>>>> whose essence is our mind, is a cornerstone of pragmaticism. In this
>>>>>> sense there never was a reality before we came into being and there
>>>>>> would be no reality after us.
>>>>>> The Buddhist logicians Dignaga and Dharmakirti, who were objective
>>>>>> idealists, concluded that there could never have been a before "us" and
>>>>>> there will never be an after us. I came to see things their way.
>>>>>> (Although I was warned that my source, the translations and explanations
>>>>>> by Th. Stcherbatsky, circa 1932, are too "post-Kantian".) I'm not sure
>>>>>> what Peirce thought of the time before us but I suspect he agreed with
>>>>>> the Buddhist logicians.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Matt
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Jun 13, 2014, at 10:51 PM, "Stephen C. Rose" <stever...@gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "All people" is my definition of "we" in the following statement: "We
>>>>>>> are inevitably social. We are capable of achieving a sense of
>>>>>>> universality. This universal sense distinguishes Triadic Philosophy."
>>>>>>> Triadic philosophy regards most accepted divisions among human beings
>>>>>>> as secondary to a fundamental unity which transcends them all.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> @stephencrose
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 9:38 PM, Matt Faunce <mattfau...@gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Stephen, please define "we" as you used the word below.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Matt
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Jun 12, 2014, at 5:10 PM, "Stephen C. Rose" <stever...@gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Triadic Philosophy honors Peirce by claiming that it is a tiny
>>>>>>>>> offshoot of what he came to mean by the term pragmaticism. This term
>>>>>>>>> was his evolution of pragmatism. Pragmaticism is a bastion against
>>>>>>>>> the dominant notion that we are all reality is. We are not all of
>>>>>>>>> reality. Our individual perceptions are not all reality. Before we
>>>>>>>>> are, reality is. After we are, reality remains. Pragmaticism opens
>>>>>>>>> the door to a metaphysics based precisely on the premise that by our
>>>>>>>>> fruits we shall be known. It is a now metaphysics. It proves out. It
>>>>>>>>> is not supposition.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> We are inevitably social. We are capable of achieving a sense of
>>>>>>>>> universality. This universal sense distinguishes Triadic Philosophy.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
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