Re: The Nature of Peirce's Phenomenology, was: [PEIRCE-L] was EGs and Phaneroscopy

[Jerry LR Chandler]

List, Gary: 
> On Feb 20, 2019, at 3:57 PM, Gary Richmond  wrote:
> 
> JC: Could you explain the meaning that you wish to convey in terms of other 
> philosophers usage of the term? That is, historical? or contemporary?
> 
> For now I'll only say that Peirce phenomenology appears to me so completely 
> different from Hegel's, Husserl's, Merleau-Ponty's, Heidegger's, Levina's, 
> Varela's, etc. that there's very little to compare. And the work of the above 
> mentioned writers on phenomenology have themselves for the most part very 
> different emphases and methodologies from each other (although there is some 
> overlap in some of their work, and the dominance of Husserl's work until 
> fairly recently is patent). Furthermore, the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology 
> offers at least seven or eight distinct schools of phenomenology. See: 
> https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780792329565 
> 
Thank you for your thoughtful response, and especially the references. This 
encyclopedia appears very attractive and I am looking forward to exploring it. 
In my opinion, Husserl’s mind was a bit poisoned by set theory so the nature of 
the tensions among the forms should be entertaining.  

After comparing the Commens definitions with general dictionaries and 
encyclopedias, I almost agree that  "that there's very little to compare.”

In my view, these historical usages lead to an entanglement of mathematical and 
physical and chemical and biological concepts (arguments?) that intertwine, 
interweave and intersect one another linguistically and logically, creating an 
image of a “kitten playing in a ball of yarn”.

One can  make a word play out of this “Tower of Babel” (and several authors 
have) and use it to write algorithms (sorties). 

Cheers

Jerry





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[PEIRCE-L] Fwd. NYPF Event Update

[Gary Richmond]

Forwarded FYI. GR
Dear NYPF Members,

This email is an update to the New York Pragmatist Forum event this Friday,
Feb. 22nd.

*New info:* Kenneth Stikkers, Southern Illinois Univeristy, will be
presenting "Deweyan Democracy and the Mondragon Cooperatives"

Please feel free to pass along the updated information found in this email
as well as in the updated flyer attached!

Thank you and best regards,
Matt Glaser

*NEW YORK PRAGMATIST FORUM*

*Fordham University @ Lincoln Center *

*Lowenstein Building Room 708*

*9th(Columbus) Avenue at 60thStreet, New York, USA 10023*



*Friday, February 22, 2019*

*5:30 – 7:30 p.m.*

*Rethinking Property: *

*Pragmatism, Solidarism, *

*and Critical Theory*


*Nicholas Berry, Fordham University *

*“Problematizing Property”*

*- - - - - - -*

*Kenneth Stikkers, Southern Illinois University*

*“Deweyan Democracy and *

*the Mondragon Cooperatives”*

*- - - - - - -*

*Judith Green, Fordham University*

*“Advancing Substantive Social Freedom: *

*Rights to the City and to the Land”*


*For More Information: nypf.ace.fordham.edu *

*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Imitation as pragmatism and solution to entropy problem

[Jerry Rhee]

Dear list,



Stephen said:

Could imitation be so important, that this is the reason why we don’t
recognize it?



Although Peirce read and thought more about Aristotle than about any other
man, the Poetry, he knew nothing about.

That is, Peirce was not Greek-minded.



He then turns to a discussion of representation or imitation (μίμησις).



Tragedy is, then, a representation of an action that is heroic and complete
and of a certain magnitude.. And since tragedy represents action and is
acted by living persons, who must of necessity have certain qualities of
character and thought— for it is these which determine the quality of an
action;

indeed thought and character are the natural causes of any action and it is
in virtue of these that all men succeed or fail—

it follows then that it is the plot which represents the action.



By "plot" I mean here the arrangement of the incidents: "character" is that
which determines the quality of the agents, and "thought" appears wherever
in the dialogue they put forward an argument or deliver an opinion.

(~1450a, Poetics)



No doubt, Pragmaticism makes thought ultimately apply to action exclusively
- to conceived action.



For instance, we all know what he meant by conceived action, here.



With best wishes,

Jerry R

On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 3:24 AM Auke van Breemen 
wrote:

> Stephen, list,
>
>
>
> An interesting question. And an even more interesting approach: But this
> time, applying reverse logic, I asked myself… what are the illnesses that
> manifest because of a patient’s failure to imitate properly? I followed a
> similar strategy and found it most profitable for getting at the finer
> details of the semiotic framework to ask how a-typical behavior and
> mistakes can be understood semiotically.
>
>
>
> The text
> https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-642-55355-4_3.pdf
>
> contains theoretical considerations based on research I did amongst
> children that fall out of the schoolsystem in the Netherlands. Since I
> started with stories from parents, in the majority of cases the blame was
> put on schools not being able to deal with complexities of the child, not
> on children showing some sort of criminal behavior.
>
>
>
> Two labels were used most for the children that surfaced in the research:
> autism and highly gifted. With an autism - highly gifted ratio higher then
> 5 - 1. But one has to take into account that the IQ tests of the majority
> of autism pupils were above average, most of the time with a score on some
> sub-tests considerably higher, then on some other. And that some parents
> that called their children highly gifted based themselves on the average
> result of the wisc test solely. Disregarding enormous discrepancies on
> sub-tests (on a scale length of 19 two lowest score of 5 and two highest of
> 18, the remainder, if I remember correctly above 12) and without
> recognition of the tri-partite demand for highly gifted performance: inborn
> qualities, character of the child and environment.
>
>
>
> With autism the situation is even more complex regarding the feats that
> show themselves in different cases. Compare the child that does hardly
> communicate with the Asperger diagnosed student that follows multiple
> studies at the same time with good learning results or for that matter with
> the 18 years old who socially communicates on a level comparable in some
> respects to a 5 years old, but that at the same time mastered reading by
> himself before being 4 years old.
>
>
>
> The above is meant to underscore that I don’t profess to provide an
> answer, but only raise an alternative explanation.
>
>
>
> So, if it is a failure in the ability to mimic (icon based), it is a
> failure in some not all domains. This points in the direction of a
> background problem with the direction of attention (index based). I regard
> it feasible that autism semiotically can be understood by recognizing that
> a strong reliance on legisigns (types) and their habitually associated
> symbols prevent exploration of the rhematic (combinatoric) possibilities of
> new input signs. The adaptability to circumstances is seriously hindered in
> this way. And indeed, as you state, it appears as an inability  to mimic
> social wished behavior. Until, that is, one succeeds in getting attention
> for the social problems, in that case a social scientist may be the result.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Auke van Breemen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Van:* Stephen Jarosek 
> *Verzonden:* woensdag 20 februari 2019 7:58
> *Aan:* biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
> *Onderwerp:* [PEIRCE-L] Imitation as pragmatism and solution to entropy
> problem
>
>
>
> Dear Members,
>
> [This post carries on from our December thread “Systems theory, DNA
> entanglement, agents and semiosis”]
>
> I've been trying to put an article together, on imitation, for Gatherings
> in Biosemiotics 2019 in Moscow. But I don’t think I can put together
> anything of substance, in a format 

The Nature of Peirce's Phenomenology, was: [PEIRCE-L] was EGs and Phaneroscopy

[Gary Richmond]

Jerry, list,

Let me begin by addressing very briefly, then in greater detail, your three
short paragraphs. Some of what follows may be well known to many members of
this forum, but as they may not be true of others, this post in a newly
named thread is meant in part as a kind brief, albeit personal, reflection
on the nature of Peirce's Phenomenology. I hope and expect that others here
will correct any errors on my part and I apologize if this turns out to
read like *Phaneroscopy for Dummies*. It will undoubtedly be quite
incomplete, especially as to relevant sources, something which I hope
others will fill in.

Jerry wrote:

JC: Your post raises many questions in my mind; they all seem to involve
the meaning of the term “phenomenology” in your usage of the term.


When I write "phenomenology" without qualification, I am referring to
Peirce's--not Hegel's, nor Husserl's, nor any of the myriad contemporary
versions of--phenomenology. One can hardly keep up with, especially, the
European varieties of phenomenology and I've stopped trying.

Peirce sometimes uses the alternative term *phaneroscopy*, in part to
distinguish his work from Hegel's, but especially to point to the object of
phenomenological observation, the Phaneron, a term coined by him ". . .in
order to avoid loading ‘phenomenon,’ ‘thought,’ ‘idea,’ etc., with
multiple meanings" (*The Century Dictionary Supplement*, Vol. II,  CDS
2:978, 1909, in the *Commens Dictionary*).

But, surprise! he is not always consistent in his terminology. Nonetheless,
here's a definition which gets at the essence of this science as well as
its first and quintessential finding, viz., the three Universal Categories.


Phenomenology is the science which describes the different kinds of
elements that are always present in the Phenomenon, meaning by the
Phenomenon whatever is before the mind in any kind of thought, fancy, or
cognition of any kind. Everything that you can possibly think involves
three kinds of elements (1903, Lowell Lectures, in *Commens*).


There are some scholars who imagine that all the important work of Peircean
phenomenology was accomplished in Peirce's discovery that all thought
"involves three kinds of elements," that is, the categories. I am most
emphatically not one of them. Indeed, I follow Andre de Tienne in seeing
Phaneroscopy, that is, observation of the phaneron,  as only the first
observational branch of Phenomenology. See:
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/detienne/isphanscience.pdf

As I've previously noted, de Tienne adds a second possible branch which he
calls Iconoscopy, but which he suggests he might have more property termed
Imageology (or something like that) because of his emphasis on images. H
See:
https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/rssi/2013-v33-n1-2-3-rssi02379/1035282ar/
.
He conjectures that this hypothetical branch might serve as a bridge
between Phanerscopy and Logic as Semeiotic. From the Abstract:

The mature writings reveal the important role the notion of image plays in
this transition. Peirce indeed develops a pragmatic conception of image
that turns the latter into the fundamental ingredient of the concrete
experience of signs. An image in this sense is not a drawing or a picture,
but at first a logical concept with a mathematical basis that helps explain
the psychological phenomenon. The image is at the junction between the
percept (phaneral element) and the perceptual judgment (the most elementary
kind of semiotic event) through the percipuum, and it can be observed
through a special kind of activity called iconoscopy.


In any event, de Tienne certainly holds that Phaneroscopy is a positive
science, albeit a peculiar one, and writes in "Iconoscopy" (footnote 9):

Peirce conceived of it as an activity that was to be conducted through and
through in a scientific spirit, both regarding its methods of observation
and description (mathematically grounded and diagrammatic), and regarding
its strenuous ethics of honest and unbiased reporting to a community of
inquirers and fellow observers. Thus, the place occupied by phaneroscopy in
the classification of the sciences is fully justified : it is the first of
the positive science, in that its object is actually an inquiry into the
very nature of positive experience, one that is preliminary to any more
particular inquiry into its myriad embodiments in the esthetic, ethical,
logical, metaphysical, psychical, and physical realms.

I have suggested that a third branch may be needed to fully develop
Phenomenology as a science, a branch which Joe Ransdell suggested that I
call Category Theory (I sometimes refer to it as *Trikonic* because of the
kind of iconic diagrams involved). It is principally concerned with
diagramming trichotomies, groups of related trichotomies, vectors (paths)
through some trichotomies, etc.
See:
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/richmond/trikonic.htm

Work in Iconoscopy and Category Theory has barely begun, and the truth i

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Analyzing Propositions (was EGs and Phaneroscopy)

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

John, List:

JFS:  I suggest that you convert MEGs to conventional EGs by using the
triad Rel.


Your suggestion is duly noted, and I sincerely appreciate you now
recognizing that they are equivalent, rather than alleging (incorrectly)
that MEGs are "false."

JFS:  Please *study* my last two notes.  I have refuted all your claims,
and there is nothing more to discuss until you do your homework.


Why assume that I did not *already *study them carefully, *before *responding?
Which specific "claims" of mine do you believe that you have somehow
"refuted"?

In any case, such condescension is rather unbecoming.  I have expressed my
respect for you on multiple occasions during our recent exchanges, despite
our sharp disagreements.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:49 AM John F Sowa  wrote:

> On 2/20/2019 12:40 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
> > As Gary F. already pointed out, only when someone insists on
> > interpreting them as if they were /ordinary /EGs
>
> Yes.  I acknowledged that.  I suggest that you convert MEGs
> to conventional EGs by using the triad Rel.
>
> Please *study* my last two notes.  I have refuted all your claims,
> and there is nothing more to discuss until you do your homework.
>
> Then we can begin a more fruitful thread.
>
> John
>

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Analyzing Propositions (was EGs and Phaneroscopy)

[John F Sowa]

On 2/20/2019 12:40 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
As Gary F. already pointed out, only when someone insists on 
interpreting them as if they were /ordinary /EGs


Yes.  I acknowledged that.  I suggest that you convert MEGs
to conventional EGs by using the triad Rel.

Please *study* my last two notes.  I have refuted all your claims,
and there is nothing more to discuss until you do your homework.

Then we can begin a more fruitful thread.

John

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Analyzing Propositions (was EGs and Phaneroscopy)

[John F Sowa]

On 2/20/2019 12:22 PM, g...@gnusystems.ca wrote:
GF: I can’t find any trace of /phaneroscopic/ observation in that 
presentation, at the conclusion or anywhere else. What I see throughout 
is /observation of diagrams/ as a key element of formal or deductive logic,


Yes.  That was not the focus of the talk.  But the analysis of the
phaneron is a direct corollary.  See the citations in the last
few slides.

In particular, look at the article by the psychologist
Philip Johnson-Laird.  I have been discussing related issues
with him, and I sent him a copy of a recent article which
he liked very much.

See also "The virtual reality of the mind":
http://jfsowa.com/talks/vrmind.pdf

There's much more to say about all these issues.

John

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Analyzing Propositions (was EGs and Phaneroscopy)

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

John S., List:

JFS:  Every so-called Modified EG (MEG) is false.


As Gary F. already pointed out, only when someone insists on interpreting
them as if they were *ordinary *EGs, rather than incorporating the very
specific *modifications *(hence the M) that I spelled out--in particular,
that *there are no Lines of Identity or Ligatures*, only a single branching
Line of Relation.

JFS:  Peirce explained EGs in several different ways, but the first-order
core, the rules of inference, and the translations from one version to
another never changed.


I have never denied this; on the contrary, I have freely (and repeatedly)
acknowledged it.  I fully agree with you that R 514 as reproduced in NEM
3:162-169 serves as an excellent "tutorial," although it omits a few
helpful clarifications, such as the fact that a Line of Identity can always
be branched at a Spot of Teridentity and then extended inward through a Cut.

JAS:  In Peirce's "proper" or "ultimate" analysis of Propositions, "pure"
predicates are the only predicates.  Anything that refers to content in the
universe of discourse--i.e., anything that can only be understood by an
interpreting Quasi-mind that has had previous Collateral Experience with
it--is a Subject; it belongs to the Object of the Proposition.

JFS:  No.  That claim is false for many reasons.  First of all, The words
'proper' and 'ultimate' are both relative terms that depend on context.
And the contexts for those two words have nothing in common.


To clarify, are you only denying the first statement of mine that you
quoted?  Or are you also contending that discrete predicates (such as
"killing") somehow belong to the *Interpretant *of the proposition, rather
than its *Object*?  I have freely (and repeatedly) acknowledged that
"proper" and "ultimate" are *relative to a purpose*, and that mine is
different from yours.  Right now I am focusing on Peirce's concept of
Experience as reflected in this careful distinction between Subjects as
whatever *requires *Collateral Experience and the Continuous Predicate as
whatever the Proposition *itself *conveys, the form of relation that
"marries" the different Subjects.  *This *sense of "ultimate" is quite
"proper" for my purpose.

JFS:  To illustrate that point, let's turn to the MEGs.  Each one has a
teridentity or a ligature of multiple teridentities, which falsely state
that some wildly different things are identical.


No, again, MEGs cannot be interpreted as if they were EGs.  There is *no
such thing* as "a teridentity" or "a ligature" in MEGs, and in general they *do
not* state that anything is "identical" to anything else.  Discrete Points
correspond to different Subjects, which are "married" by the branching Line
of Relation that corresponds to the sole Continuous Predicate.

JFS:  For example, the MEG for "Brutus kills Caesar" has a teridentity,
which states that there is a single entity in the universe of discourse,
which happens to be identical to Brutus, Caesar, and the act of killing.
That proposition is false.


No, the MEG states nothing more or less than that Brutus stands in the
relation of killing to Caesar, which is *true*.  "Brutus," "killing," and
"Caesar" are all Subjects represented by Points; while the Line of Relation
represents the Continuous Predicate, "_ stands in the relation of _
to _."


JFS:  The second EG in brutus.jpg has one more logical subject, which is
the gerund 'killing' (a nominalization) with a line of identity that is
also attached to a triad named Rel.  I'm using the name Rel for the pure
predicate that Peirce defined in NEM 3:886, 3rd line from the top.  As
Peirce said, Rel is a pure predicate.  With Rel, the second EG states
"Brutus stands in the relation 'killing' to Caesar."


I agree, the second EG represents *exactly the same proposition* as the
MEG, using a three-Peg Spot for the Continuous Predicate and three Lines of
Identity for the Subjects.  My *personal *opinion is that MEGs *better
*represent
the *Indexical *nature of Subjects as *denoting the Object *of the
Proposition, as well as the *Iconic *nature of the Continuous
Predicate as *signifying
the* *Interpretant *of the Proposition.

JFS:  The Modified EGs are false, but most of them could be converted to
correct EGs by using the pure predicate Rel.


One more time--MEGs are *not *false when properly interpreted on *their own*
terms, which are *different *from those of EGs.  I agree that a multi-Peg
Spot can be used to represent a Continuous Predicate in an EG, since that
is essentially what Peirce scribed in his Logic Notebook.

JFS:  The sharp distinction between subjects and predicates implies that a
seme could never refer to a logical subject or a quasi-subject.


No, Peirce explicitly defined a Seme as "anything which serves for any
purpose as a substitute for an object of which it is, in some sense, a
representative or Sign" (CP 4.538; 1906).  That is *precisely *the function
of a Subject, especially *within *a Proposition.

RE: [PEIRCE-L] Analyzing Propositions (was EGs and Phaneroscopy)

[gnox]

John, a few responses:

JS: “Every operation that Peirce specified converted one EG to another EG that 
expressed exactly the same proposition with a different choice of relations.”

GF: As Gary R has pointed out (quoting Peirce), “All that existential graphs 
can represent is propositions, on a single sheet, and arguments on a succession 
of sheets, presented in temporal succession”; and Peirce says the same thing at 
CP 4.538: “An Argument is represented by a series of Graphs.” A succession of 
Graphs expressing exactly the same proposition cannot be an argument. The 
conclusion of an argument, which is the definitive part of it, must follow from 
the premises; it cannot merely restate them and claim to be an analysis of the 
thought process, i.e. of logical consequence, which is what Peirce intended his 
EGs for.

JS: “The word 'thought' is misleading for modern ears, since it sounds too 
psychological.  Peirce said that thoughts exist outside the mind. But most 
readers don't think in those terms.  It's better to use the neutral word 
'proposition'.”

GF: Most readers are not logicians or students of logic, and have little or no 
idea what the word “proposition” means in this context. When Peirce addressed 
himself to a broader audience than logicians, “thought” (capitalized or not) 
was the word he chose — for instance, look at the opening sentence of the 1906 
“Prolegomena.” Perhaps most of your readers are logicians, but I’m sure that 
most of mine are not. In my book, I did have to point out Peirce’s 
non-psychological use of the word thought, but I also had to give some 
explanation of what a proposition was, because I couldn’t take it for granted 
that my reader would know that.

GF (earlier): “I share with Gary R a deep interest in 
phenomenology/phaneroscopy — and especially the observational part (as opposed 
to the analytical part) of it.”

JS: “That's my motivation for the ppe.pdf slides.”

GF: I can’t find any trace of phaneroscopic observation in that presentation, 
at the conclusion or anywhere else. What I see throughout is observation of 
diagrams as a key element of formal or deductive logic, which of course it is, 
as Peirce made clear. Your slideshow is 100% logic, with the addition of some 
theoretical formulations drawn from psychology to show how logical diagrams 
might be applied to the study of cognition. As such, I think your presentation 
serves its purpose very well, but it has nothing to do with phaneroscopy as 
defined by Peirce, and certainly not with the kind of observation involved in 
that science, which in Peirce’s view is a prerequisite for logic. Or at least 
that was his view from 1902 on. But I’ll have more to say about that in another 
thread.

Gary f.

-Original Message-
From: John F Sowa  
Sent: 20-Feb-19 10:40
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Analyzing Propositions (was EGs and Phaneroscopy)

 

On 2/20/2019 9:20 AM,   g...@gnusystems.ca wrote:

> What you’ve said about Jon’s MEGs, though, is true only if we read the 

> lines in those diagrams as Lines of Identity; and the main 

> modification Jon made was to read the lines NOT as Lines of Identity 

> but as Lines of Relation.

 

I agree.  But it violates the principles of EGs, since it doesn't

put an explicit marker at the intersection.   With the label Rel

at the intersection, the MEGs become EGs.  Since Peirce never said that the 
result was a new kind of EG, that would be what he had intended.

 

> It’s not clear to me how sequences of MEGs could be used to analyze 

> the thought process into the smallest possible steps

 

Please drop the word MEG.  Every operation that Peirce specified converted one 
EG to another EG that expressed exactly the same proposition with a different 
choice of relations.  That puts the Aristotelian transformation into 
perspective:  it's replaces one relation with a copula.  Peirce learned that 
method at age 13, and he developed the idea over the years.

 

The word 'thought' is misleading for modern ears, since it sounds too 
psychological.  Peirce said that thoughts exist outside the mind.

But most readers don't think in those terms.  It's better to use the neutral 
word 'proposition'.

 

> The analysis of propositions is only one aspect of EGs as “moving 

> pictures of thought,” and the rules for permissible transformations of 

> graphs are the keys for analyzing the process of thought.

 

I strongly agree.  In fact, that's the motivation for a talk i presented at a 
Peirce session of the Vancouver APA in April 2015:

"Peirce, Polya, and Euclid:  Integrating logic, heuristics, and geometry"   
 http://jfsowa.com/talks/ppe.pdf

 

> I share with Gary R a deep interest in phenomenology/phaneroscopy — 

> and especially the observational part (as opposed to the analytical

> part) of it.

 

That's my motivation for the ppe.pdf slides.  See the concluding slide of 
ppe.pdf, whic

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Analyzing Propositions (was EGs and Phaneroscopy)

[John F Sowa]

On 2/20/2019 9:20 AM, g...@gnusystems.ca wrote:
What you’ve said about Jon’s MEGs, though, is true only if we read the 
lines in those diagrams as Lines of Identity; and the main modification 
Jon made was to read the lines NOT as Lines of Identity but as Lines of 
Relation.


I agree.  But it violates the principles of EGs, since it doesn't
put an explicit marker at the intersection.   With the label Rel
at the intersection, the MEGs become EGs.  Since Peirce never said
that the result was a new kind of EG, that would be what he had
intended.


It’s not clear to me how sequences of MEGs could be used to analyze
the thought process into the smallest possible steps


Please drop the word MEG.  Every operation that Peirce specified
converted one EG to another EG that expressed exactly the same
proposition with a different choice of relations.  That puts the
Aristotelian transformation into perspective:  it's replaces one
relation with a copula.  Peirce learned that method at age 13,
and he developed the idea over the years.

The word 'thought' is misleading for modern ears, since it sounds
too psychological.  Peirce said that thoughts exist outside the mind.
But most readers don't think in those terms.  It's better to use the
neutral word 'proposition'.


The analysis of propositions is only one aspect of EGs as “moving
pictures of thought,” and the rules for permissible transformations
of graphs are the keys for analyzing the process of thought.


I strongly agree.  In fact, that's the motivation for a talk i
presented at a Peirce session of the Vancouver APA in April 2015:
"Peirce, Polya, and Euclid:  Integrating logic, heuristics, and
geometry"  http://jfsowa.com/talks/ppe.pdf


I share with Gary R a deep interest in phenomenology/phaneroscopy
— and especially the observational part (as opposed to the analytical
part) of it.


That's my motivation for the ppe.pdf slides.  See the concluding slide
of ppe.pdf, which is attached as ppe.png.

There's much more to say, but I believe that EGs that contain arbitrary
icons (in any number of dimensions) can simulate the phaneron.

John

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RE: [PEIRCE-L] Analyzing Propositions (was EGs and Phaneroscopy)

[gnox]

John, list,

I think everything you’ve said about EGs here, and how they might represent 
continuous predicates, is exactly right. What you’ve said about Jon’s MEGs, 
though, is true only if we read the lines in those diagrams as Lines of 
Identity; and the main modification Jon made was to read the lines NOT as Lines 
of Identity but as Lines of Relation. It’s not clear to me how sequences of 
MEGs could be used to analyze the thought process into the smallest possible 
steps, which was the purpose for which Peirce invented EGs and made his own 
modifications to them. The analysis of propositions is only one aspect of EGs 
as “moving pictures of thought,” and the rules for permissible transformations 
of graphs are the keys for analyzing the process of thought. I’m doubtful that 
Jon’s MEGs can improve on Peirce’s EGs in that respect; but then this thread 
hasn’t done much to explain how EGs fulfill that purpose either.

I started an “EGs and Phaneroscopy” thread because I wanted to explore how EGs 
might be used to iconize the phenomenological categories (in addition to their 
main use, which is logical analysis of the thought process). I thought I saw a 
few clues in Peirce’s writings from 1906, but haven’t come up with an 
explanation of how they can be used for the analysis of experience into its 
elements. Nor have I seen anyone else come up with such an explanation. This is 
not surprising, since (as Atkins shows in his book) Peirce first arrived at his 
three categories by means of logical analysis, and only began to apply them 
more broadly in the 1880s, and did not see the need for a separate science of 
phenomenology until 1902 — and even then he remained primarily a logician, and 
his phenomenology consisted mostly of applying this three categories 
heuristically to the analysis of experience/phenomena, working on the 
hypothesis that the structure of experience itself must be analogous to the 
mathematical structures revealed by his analysis of the logic of relations.

Since I share with Gary R a deep interest in phenomenology/phaneroscopy — and 
especially the observational part (as opposed to the analytical part) of it — 
I’ll have to take that to another thread, if I come up with anything to say 
about it. Propositions appear, they are certainly phenomena, and I suppose they 
are the essential format of what we call facts (as Peirce said), but there must 
be more to phaneroscopy than the analysis of propositions; so I’ll leave that 
to you folks who have contributed to this thread.

Gary f.

 

-Original Message-
From: John F Sowa  
Sent: 19-Feb-19 23:34



Edwina, Gary R, and Jon AS,

 

Finally, this thread has reached the dénoument, when the pieces fall into place 
and the mysterious knots are untied.

 

Every so-called Modified EG (MEG) is false.  The file brutus.png shows how to 
replace MEGs with ordinary EGs that satisfy all of Peirce's criteria.  That 
method, when explained in Peirce's exact words, resolves the outstanding issues 
about what is proper or ultimate in various contexts.

 

But first, I'll comment on notes by Edwina and Gary R.

 

ET

> I see Peirce's work as evolving so that... I don't see Peirce 

> abandoning much at all. And when he finds himself as having clearly 

> been in error, he tends to explicitly state that along with his 

> corrected view...  Peirce is constantly experimenting; but, in my 

> opinion, one needn't take an experiment late in his life as 

> necessarily "abandoning" those undertaken earlier.

 

I strongly agree.  For logic, Peirce began with the 19th c. version of 
Aristotelian-Scholastic logic when he was 13 and Boolean logic a few years 
later.  During the next 60+ years, major breakthroughs occurred in 1870, 1885, 
and 1897.  After each one, he went through variations and interpretations.  But 
unless he explicitly corrected some error, he didn't reject the earlier 
versions.

 

The rock-solid stability of classical first-order logic from 1885 makes it the 
Rosetta Stone for relating Peirce's writings about logic and semeiotic at every 
period of his life.  It's also essential for relating his writings to every 
version of logic from Aristotle to the present.  Peirce explained EGs in 
several different ways, but the first-order core, the rules of inference, and 
the translations from one version to another never changed.

 

GR

> it seems to me that one remains squarely in the realm of logic as 

> semeiotic when one is working with EGs because, as now repeatedly

> noted: "All that existential graphs can represent is propositions, on 

> a single sheet, and arguments on a succession of sheets, presented in 

> temporal succession." CSP

 

I agree.  But logic as semeiotic is the foundation.  Without it, you get word 
hash with no criteria for evaluation or correction.

 

GR quoting CSP

>> CSP: The system of Existential Graphs (at least, so far as it is at 

>> present developed) does not represent every kind of Sign. For

RE: [PEIRCE-L] Imitation as pragmatism and solution to entropy problem

[Auke van Breemen]

Stephen, list,

 

An interesting question. And an even more interesting approach: But this
time, applying reverse logic, I asked myself… what are the illnesses that
manifest because of a patient’s failure to imitate properly? I followed a
similar strategy and found it most profitable for getting at the finer
details of the semiotic framework to ask how a-typical behavior and mistakes
can be understood semiotically.

 

The text
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-642-55355-4_3.pdf 

contains theoretical considerations based on research I did amongst children
that fall out of the schoolsystem in the Netherlands. Since I started with
stories from parents, in the majority of cases the blame was put on schools
not being able to deal with complexities of the child, not on children
showing some sort of criminal behavior.

 

Two labels were used most for the children that surfaced in the research:
autism and highly gifted. With an autism - highly gifted ratio higher then 5
- 1. But one has to take into account that the IQ tests of the majority of
autism pupils were above average, most of the time with a score on some
sub-tests considerably higher, then on some other. And that some parents
that called their children highly gifted based themselves on the average
result of the wisc test solely. Disregarding enormous discrepancies on
sub-tests (on a scale length of 19 two lowest score of 5 and two highest of
18, the remainder, if I remember correctly above 12) and without recognition
of the tri-partite demand for highly gifted performance: inborn qualities,
character of the child and environment.

 

With autism the situation is even more complex regarding the feats that show
themselves in different cases. Compare the child that does hardly
communicate with the Asperger diagnosed student that follows multiple
studies at the same time with good learning results or for that matter with
the 18 years old who socially communicates on a level comparable in some
respects to a 5 years old, but that at the same time mastered reading by
himself before being 4 years old. 

 

The above is meant to underscore that I don’t profess to provide an answer,
but only raise an alternative explanation.

 

So, if it is a failure in the ability to mimic (icon based), it is a failure
in some not all domains. This points in the direction of a background
problem with the direction of attention (index based). I regard it feasible
that autism semiotically can be understood by recognizing that a strong
reliance on legisigns (types) and their habitually associated symbols
prevent exploration of the rhematic (combinatoric) possibilities of new
input signs. The adaptability to circumstances is seriously hindered in this
way. And indeed, as you state, it appears as an inability  to mimic social
wished behavior. Until, that is, one succeeds in getting attention for the
social problems, in that case a social scientist may be the result.

 

Best,

 

Auke van Breemen

 

 

 

 

Van: Stephen Jarosek  
Verzonden: woensdag 20 februari 2019 7:58
Aan: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Onderwerp: [PEIRCE-L] Imitation as pragmatism and solution to entropy
problem

 

Dear Members,

[This post carries on from our December thread “Systems theory, DNA
entanglement, agents and semiosis”]

I've been trying to put an article together, on imitation, for Gatherings in
Biosemiotics 2019 in Moscow. But I don’t think I can put together anything
of substance, in a format that would interest the gathering. Nonetheless, I
remain of the opinion that imitation as a fundamental principle would
definitely have interested Peirce, especially from the perspective of
pragmatism. Perhaps something to explore at the Gathering?

Google brings up a great many references to imitation, but nothing on
imitation as a fundamental principle. But this time, applying reverse logic,
I asked myself… what are the illnesses that manifest because of a patient’s
failure to imitate properly? I’ve struck pay-dirt, particularly with
reference to autism. Is autism a disease directly attributable to imitation
deficit? Here are some links:

An examination of the imitation deficit in autism:

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-02466-009

The Social Role of Imitation in Autism:

https://depts.washington.edu/isei/iyc/21.2_Ingersoll.pdf

Does Impaired Social Motivation Drive Imitation Deficits in Children with
Autism Spectrum Disorder?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40489-015-0054-9

A great many references exist on imitation generally, but nothing on
imitation as a principle... for example:
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/personality-traits-contagious-among-child
ren/

Here is a nice overview of imitation from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imitation


SUMMARY OF SOME CORE ISSUES RELATING TO IMITATION

Autism is not a faulty-wiring/dysfunctional genes problem. AUTISM IS AN
IMITATION-PRAGMATISM PROBLEM. It is not a disease, sickness or patholo