Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: { Information = Comprehension × Extension }

[Benjamin Udell]

Sorry, everybody. I admit I've been somewhat disengaged from peirce-l 
lately.
I mistakenly provided a link to a page of links to the slow read of 
Waal's _Peirce: A Guide for the Perplexed_, not to the slow read of 
Stjernfelt's _Natural Propositions_, for which we don't have a nicely 
organized page of links.


Best, Ben

On 6/28/2017 3:36 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


John, Jon, list,

We had a chapter-by-chapter slow read of Stjernfelt's _Natural 
Propositions_ here at peirce-l during January to June 2014. Arisbe has 
a page of links to the threads. (There are links to IUPUI archives, 
gmane archives, and mail archives. The gmane links mostly don't work 
but there still seems some effort to rebuild the gmane archive.)


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/PEIRCE-L/seminar-waal.htm

Over the years, slow reads at Arisbe have covered, among other things, 
"Kaina Stoicheia" (twice, I think) and all of Joe Ransdell's papers 
posted at Arisbe.


Best, Ben

On 6/28/2017 11:53 AM, John F Sowa wrote:


Jon,

That's an important topic to explore:

JA

we can take up the issue of propositions in more detail
as it arises in the relevant context.


For a good analysis of the issues, I recommend the following book:
Stjernfelt, Frederik (2014) Natural Propositions: The Actuality
of Peirce’s Doctrine of Dicisigns, Boston: Docent Press.

I wrote a 5-page article on propositions from a Peircean perspective:
http://www.jfsowa.com/logic/proposit.pdf

That article is based on Peirce's notion of equivalence (CP 5.569):

A sign is only a sign in actu by virtue of its receiving an
interpretation, that is, by virtue of its determining another sign
of the same object. This is as true of mental judgments as it is of
external signs. To say that a proposition is true is to say that
every interpretation of it is true. Two propositions are equivalent
when either might have been an interpretant of the other. This
equivalence, like others, is by an act of abstraction (in the sense
in which forming an abstract noun is abstraction) conceived as 
identity.


And we speak of believing in a proposition, having in mind an entire
collection of equivalent propositions with their partial interpretants.
Thus, two persons are said to have the same proposition in mind. The
interpretant of a proposition is itself a proposition. Any necessary
inference from a proposition is an interpretant of it.

When we speak of truth and falsity, we refer to the possibility of the
proposition being refuted; and this refutation (roughly speaking) takes
place in but one way. Namely, an interpretant of the proposition would,
if believed, produce the expectation of a certain description of 
percept

on a certain occasion. The occasion arrives: the percept forced upon
us is different. This constitutes the falsity of every proposition of
which the disappointing prediction was the interpretant. Thus, a false
proposition is a proposition of which some interpretant represents
that, on an occasion which it indicates, a percept will have a certain
character, while the immediate perceptual judgment on that occasion is
that the percept has not that character.

A true proposition is a proposition belief in which would never lead
to such disappointment so long as the proposition is not understood
otherwise than it was intended.


In the article, I formalize Peirce's notion of equivalence in terms
of *meaning-preserving translations* (MPTs), which specify a class
of equivalent sentences in some language or languages.  It's easy to
define MPTs for formal logics, but much harder for natural languages.

John




-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: { Information = Comprehension × Extension }

[Benjamin Udell]

John, Jon, list,

We had a chapter-by-chapter slow read of Stjernfelt's _Natural 
Propositions_ here at peirce-l during January to June 2014. Arisbe has a 
page of links to the threads. (There are links to IUPUI archives, gmane 
archives, and mail archives. The gmane links mostly don't work but there 
still seems some effort to rebuild the gmane archive.)


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/PEIRCE-L/seminar-waal.htm

Over the years, slow reads at Arisbe have covered, among other things, 
"Kaina Stoicheia" (twice, I think) and all of Joe Ransdell's papers 
posted at Arisbe.


Best, Ben

On 6/28/2017 11:53 AM, John F Sowa wrote:


Jon,

That's an important topic to explore:

JA

we can take up the issue of propositions in more detail
as it arises in the relevant context.


For a good analysis of the issues, I recommend the following book:
Stjernfelt, Frederik (2014) Natural Propositions: The Actuality
of Peirce’s Doctrine of Dicisigns, Boston: Docent Press.

I wrote a 5-page article on propositions from a Peircean perspective:
http://www.jfsowa.com/logic/proposit.pdf

That article is based on Peirce's notion of equivalence (CP 5.569):

A sign is only a sign in actu by virtue of its receiving an
interpretation, that is, by virtue of its determining another sign
of the same object. This is as true of mental judgments as it is of
external signs. To say that a proposition is true is to say that
every interpretation of it is true. Two propositions are equivalent
when either might have been an interpretant of the other. This
equivalence, like others, is by an act of abstraction (in the sense
in which forming an abstract noun is abstraction) conceived as identity.

And we speak of believing in a proposition, having in mind an entire
collection of equivalent propositions with their partial interpretants.
Thus, two persons are said to have the same proposition in mind. The
interpretant of a proposition is itself a proposition. Any necessary
inference from a proposition is an interpretant of it.

When we speak of truth and falsity, we refer to the possibility of the
proposition being refuted; and this refutation (roughly speaking) takes
place in but one way. Namely, an interpretant of the proposition would,
if believed, produce the expectation of a certain description of percept
on a certain occasion. The occasion arrives: the percept forced upon
us is different. This constitutes the falsity of every proposition of
which the disappointing prediction was the interpretant. Thus, a false
proposition is a proposition of which some interpretant represents
that, on an occasion which it indicates, a percept will have a certain
character, while the immediate perceptual judgment on that occasion is
that the percept has not that character.

A true proposition is a proposition belief in which would never lead
to such disappointment so long as the proposition is not understood
otherwise than it was intended.


In the article, I formalize Peirce's notion of equivalence in terms
of *meaning-preserving translations* (MPTs), which specify a class
of equivalent sentences in some language or languages.  It's easy to
define MPTs for formal logics, but much harder for natural languages.

John

-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:9235] Rupert Sheldrake TED Talk

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary, list,

My understanding is that "3. The total amount of matter and energy is 
conserved" is not a dogma of science and contradicts current physical 
theory, which argues that the total energy (including mass) of the 
universe increases as the universe expands, and would decrease if the 
universe were to contract.


Best, Ben

*On 5/31/2017 6:15 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:*

List,

As an addendum to my forwarded post, here are what Sheldrake claims to 
be 10 dogmas of science.


*1. Everything is essentially mechanical.
2. All matter is unconscious.
3. The total amount of matter and energy is conserved.
4. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at 
the beginning, and they will stay the same forever.

5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.
6. All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic 
material, DNA, and in other material structures.
7. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. 
When you look at a tree, the image of the tree you are seeing is not 
“out there,” where it seems to be, but inside your brain.
8. Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at 
death.

9. Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory.
10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.*

I had earlier written that dogma 9, seems not supported by Peirce's 
writings. Although he thought that such matters as telepathy ought be 
investigated, he seems not to have been convinced himself that such 
phenomena had been experimentally validated.


Perhaps I should have added that while his general anti-materialist 
tendencies as well as his views concerning the role of a kind of 
Lamarckian inheritance would tend to support 6., that the second part of 
that putative dogma is probably not what Sheldrake is emphasizing here 
(not to mention that DNA research hadn't begun in Peirce's time).


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*

*On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 2:21 PM, Gary Richmond **wrote:*


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] Re: Peirce archive MSS 1 to 1641 online

[Benjamin Udell]

ng out his philosophical ideas. The Peirce Papers in the
   Houghton Library at Harvard, therefore, contain thousands and
   thousands of drawings, ranging from meticulous and bizarre notation
   systems and variational sequences of Kandinsky-like line drawings,
   via intricate labyrinths and physiognomies, to idle doodles and mere
   scribbles. With a view to the sheer amount of drawings Peirce left
   behind, and, not the least, with a view to the nature of his
   thinking (accentuating as it does the iconic or visual aspects of
   cognition), it is surprising that, until now, there has been made no
   attempts at systematizing or making sense of these drawings. Even
   the ambitious Peirce Edition Project has decided to leave out the
   majority of Peirces sketches. John Michael Krois, co-director
   (together with Horst Bredekamp) of the abovementioned Collegium,
   initiated this workshop to start rectifying this. Similar attempts
   are made by the Graduiertenkolleg Schriftbildlichkeit at the Free
   University of Berlin, directed by Sybille Krämer, where Benjamin
   Meyer-Krahmer is currently pursuing a postdoctoral project focusing
   on Peirces notation systems.

   Speakers at the workshops were: Krois, Meyer-Krahmer, Helmut Pape
   (Berlin, Bamberg), Frederik Stjernfelt (Berlin, Aarhus), Mark A.
   Halawa (Duisburg), and Steffen Bogen (Konstanz). The discussants
   included Krämer, Bredekamp, Elise Bisanz (Lüneburg), Mirjam Wittmann
   (Wien), and Dieter Mersch (Potsdam).

   The tableau of Peirce drawings where put together by Moritz Queisner
   (Berlin), Franz Engel (Berlin) and Tullio Viola (Berlin).

   Tags: Berlin, diagrams, drawings, iconicity, Peirce, visual thinking

   [END QUOTE]

Best, Ben

*On 4/7/2017 6:33 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:*

List,

It seems that all of Peirce's manuscripts at Harvard are now viewable 
online at a Humboldt University site. Maybe they've put the old 
microfiche images online or maybe the images are recently made. Only a 
few (Robin Catalogue) MSS numbers seem missing.


https://rs.cms.hu-berlin.de/peircearchive/pages/home.php

It's part of the same project that led to the 2012 publication of a book 
about Peirce's drawings
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola 
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola>


Here's a page about the plan for the *Peirce archive*:
http://www.kunstgeschichte.hu-berlin.de/forschung/laufende-forschungsprojekte/digital-peirce-archive/

It says "The archive will assemble around 100,000 manuscript pages", 
and the archive now online says around 50,000 pages, so I guess the rest 
are innumerable drawings.


I've searched around for an announcement of its being put online but 
haven't found one.


Joe Ransdell would have been overjoyed at this achievement.

Best, Ben


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] Peirce archive MSS 1 to 1641 online

[Benjamin Udell]

List,

It seems that all of Peirce's manuscripts at Harvard are now viewable 
online at a Humboldt University site. Maybe they've put the old 
microfiche images online or maybe the images are recently made. Only a 
few (Robin Catalogue) MSS numbers seem missing.


https://rs.cms.hu-berlin.de/peircearchive/pages/home.php

It's part of the same project that led to the 2012 publication of a book 
about Peirce's drawings
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola 



Here's a page about the plan for the *Peirce archive*:
http://www.kunstgeschichte.hu-berlin.de/forschung/laufende-forschungsprojekte/digital-peirce-archive/

It says "The archive will assemble around 100,000 manuscript pages", 
and the archive now online says around 50,000 pages, so I guess the rest 
are innumerable drawings.


I've searched around for an announcement of its being put online but 
haven't found one.


Joe Ransdell would have been overjoyed at this achievement.

Best, Ben


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] Re: The Logic of Ingenuity

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon A., Jon S., list,

Jon A. you wrote,

   In practice the idea of satificing functioned more as a heuristic
   strategy, not unlike Polya's mental maneuvers, and it often served
   as a psychological jog or nudge for getting unstuck from the mires
   of perfectionism that often block inquiry.
   [End quote]

That's the feeling that I got in reading up on it (satisficing). So 
mainly practical applications, rather than theoretical deductive maths, 
seek satisficing as a third or middle way (between seeking an optimum 
and seeking just any or every feasible solution), although I'd guess 
that some deductive and inductive formalisms for satisficing can be, and 
have been, devised.


In any case, in the broad sense, optimization theory (longer known as 
linear and nonlinear programming) is considered to include theory of 
(multi-)constraint satisfaction (seeking the set of feasible solutions), 
since optimization generally involves finding the set of feasible 
solutions and selecting the optimal one(s), and to focus just on 
feasible solutions is to treat them as equi-optimal.


In the end — be they deductive, or "inverse" and inductive, and be they 
rigorous, or informal and heuristical — optimization, constraint 
satisfaction, and satisficing still seek to infer what would be the 
results of _/varied/_ trials (as opposed, but only generically, to 
probability theory and inferential statistics seeking to infer what 
would be the results of _/repeated/_ trials).


Thus optima, satisfactory solutions, and feasible solutions are all 
relevant to decision-making in terms of trade-offs, in design and 
so-called ruling arts in general as well as in the design aspects of 
engineering and of many other things. Despite the terminology of 
"optima" and "feasible solutions" (rooted, correct me if I'm wrong, in 
the field's early growth out of practical applications in WWI after 
Peirce died), it's applicable to any decision processes, not just human 
or societal ones. Physical laws sometimes mandate an "optimal" course 
but it is not called that, as in the extremization (usually a 
minimization) of action in the classical limit. Extremization as an 
operation in calculus and applicable to physics has long been around, of 
course, along with the calculus of variations.


Design and (so-called) ruling arts should not simply be applied 
optimization, just as engineering and productive arts should not simply 
be applied probability and statistics, and aesthetic art should not 
simply be applied information theory (and no effort to make it so has 
occurred, so far as I know). But there do seem rough correlations that 
seem to reflect how those arts differ from one another, even as they aid 
one another in interplay. The distinctions among those arts are not 
particularly Peircean when it comes to so-called "ruling" vs. 
"productive", as far as I know, but they are traditional, and are part 
of the terrain that Peircean classification addresses or will address.


Best, Ben>

On 3/4/2017 10:48 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:


Thread:
JAS:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg3.html
JA:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg5.html
JAS:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg9.html
JA:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00022.html
BU:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00025.html
JAS:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00028.html
BU:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00030.html
BU:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00035.html
JAS:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00039.html
JA:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00041.html
JAS:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00042.html
ET:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00043.html
BU:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00048.html

Ben, Jon, all ...

Getting whelmed over by the garden of forking paths now and
long ago lost the ability to jump on my horse and ride off
in all directions at once, so I'll just take this one off
the top and try to work backward.

In practice the idea of satificing functioned more as a heuristic 
strategy,
not unlike Polya's mental maneuvers, and it often served as a 
psychological
jog or nudge for getting unstuck from the mires of perfectionism that 
often

block inquiry.

Regards,

Jon

On 3/2/2017 6:55 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:

Jon S., list,

As far as I can tell, satisficing is just a third way between 
optimization and bare-minimum constraint satisfaction (any
feasible solution). Same forest of decision-making and trade-offs; 
different tree.


Herbert Simon: "...decision makers can satisfice either by finding 
optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by
finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world. Neithe

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Truth as Regulative or Real; Continuity and Boscovich points.

[Benjamin Udell]

etimes. A
   etaphysician may hold that this very forcing upon the
   mathematician's acceptance of propositions for which he was not
   prepared, proves, or even constitutes, a mode of being independent
   of the mathematician's thought, and so a _/reality/ _. But whether
   there is any reality or not, the truth of the pure mathematical
   proposition is constituted by the impossibility of ever finding a
   case in which it fails. This, however, is only possible if we
   confess the impossibility of precisely defining it.
   [End quote]

You wrote,

   Any ideas on the ontological status of Boscovichian points from your
   perspective of singularities?

   More precisely, what is the meaning of

   Synechism …   it is a regulative principle of logic, prescribing
   what sort of hypothesis is fit to be entertained and examined.??

   Is it possible that a “regulatory principle of logic” is a
   continuity in the sense of excluding Boscovichian points?

I don't see why any Peircean regulatory principle would exclude 
Boscovichian points.  In the sense that the regulatory principle itself 
is a continuum, it will not harbor or have room for Boscovichian points 
(point masses that can physically attract and repel), since it is not a 
physical continuum in the first place.


Best, Ben

On 3/2/2017 6:59 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


List, Ben:

Your recent posts contribute to a rather curious insight into CSP’s 
beliefs about the relationships between mathematics, chemistry and 
logic of scientific hypotheses.


On Mar 2, 2017, at 10:58 AM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


from MS 647 (1910) which appeared in Sandra B. Rosenthal's 1994 book 
_Charles Peirce's Pragmatic Pluralism_:


An Occurrence, which Thought analyzes into Things and Happenings,
is necessarily Real; but it can never be known or even imagined
in all its infinite detail. A Fact, on the other hand[,] is so
much of the real Universe as can be represented in a Proposition,
and instead of being, like an Occurrence, a slice of the
Universe, it is rather to be compared to a chemical principle
extracted therefrom by the power of Thought; and though it is, or
may be Real, yet, in its Real existence it is inseparably
combined with an infinite swarm of circumstances, which make no
part of the Fact itself. It is impossible to thread our way
through the Logical intricacies of being unless we keep these two
things, the Occurrence and the Real Fact, sharply separate in our
Thoughts. [Peirce, MS 647 (1910)]

In that quote Peirce very clearly holds that not all will be known or 
can even be imagined.


In MS 647, he compares a fact with "a chemical principle extracted 
therefrom by the power of Thought;”   That is, the notion of a fact is 
in the past tense.  It is completed and has an identity.  It is no 
longer is question about the nature of what happened during the 
occurrence. Thus the separation from:  "in its Real existence it is 
inseparably combined with an infinite swarm of circumstances, which 
make no part of the Fact itself.”


Now, compare this logical view of a chemical principle with the 
mathematical relation with the realism of matter in the synechism 
(EP1, 312-333.):


The things of this world, that seem so transitory to philosophers, are 
not continuous. They are composed of discrete atoms, no doubt 
*Boscovichian <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Joseph_Boscovich> 
points (my emphasis)* . The really continuous things, Space, and Time, 
and Law, are eternal.”


Do you believe that CSP is asseerting that there exist two clear and 
distinctly different notions of mathematical points?
That is, the Boscovichian points of discrete atoms as contrasted with 
the points of ”really continuous things, space, time and Law"?


What would be an alternative hypothesis? That true continuity does not 
contain points?
Would it be necessary for a legi-sign be something other than space 
and time because they would not be points??


Any ideas on the ontological status of Boscovichian points from your 
perspective of singularities?


More precisely, what is the meaning of

Synechism …   it is a regulative principle of logic, prescribing what 
sort of hypothesis is fit to be entertained and examined.??


Is it possible that a “regulatory principle of logic” is a continuity 
in the sense of excluding Boscovichian points?


Very confusing, to say the least.

Cheers

Jerry


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: The Logic of Ingenuity

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., list,

As far as I can tell, satisficing is just a third way between 
optimization and bare-minimum constraint satisfaction (any feasible 
solution). Same forest of decision-making and trade-offs; different tree.


Herbert Simon: "...decision makers can satisfice either by finding 
optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory 
solutions for a more realistic world. Neither approach, in general, 
dominates the other, and both have continued to co-exist in the world of 
management science." Even the general statement is of a setting for 
trade-offs.


Best, Ben

On 3/2/2017 4:52 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Jon A., List:

It was also Herbert Simon who (rightly, in my view) observed that 
design in general, and engineering in particular, is a matter of 
satisficing rather than optimization--"good enough" rather than "best 
possible."


Regards,

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


On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 3:40 PM, Jon Awbrey > wrote:


Ben, List,

I think it was Herbert Simon who I first recall lumping
engineering under the heading of the “design sciences”
but I don't know if that usage was original with him.

Coincidentally, again, if you believe in such things,
I've been reviewing a number of old discussions on the
Peirce List in preparation for getting back to my study
of Peirce's 1870 Logic of Relatives and there are a few
places where the exchanges with Bernard Morand branched
off onto the classification of signs.

Here is the initial exchange:


http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Talk:Peirce%27s_1870_Logic_Of_Relatives#Discussion_Note_10



Bernard gives his Table of the “Ten Divisions of Signs” here:


http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Talk:Peirce%27s_1870_Logic_Of_Relatives#Discussion_Note_13



Most of you know this is not really my thing — I prefer
to think of these taxonomies or typologies as detailing
the “Aspects or Modes of Sign Functionality” as opposed
to mutually exclusive and exhaustive ontologies of signs.
So I just submit them FWIWTWIMC ...

Regards,

Jon




-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Truth as Regulative or Real

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., list,

By jove, I think you've got it. I've just added it as a reference at the 
Synechism wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synechism#Hypotheses . - 
Best, Ben


On 3/2/2017 3:09 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:

Clark, List:

CG:  Yes, if there were a late quote along those lines that would
have answered my question directly. I suspect though that is just
someone assuming it’s merely regulative.


How about this one, from Peirce's definition of "synechism" in 
Baldwin's /Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology/ (1902)?


CSP:  It would, therefore, be most contrary to his own principle
for the synechist not to generalize from that which experience
forces upon him, especially since it is only so far as facts can
be generalized that they can be understood; and the very reality,
in his way of looking at the matter, is nothing else than the way
in which facts must ultimately come to be understood. There would
be a contradiction here, if this ultimacy were looked upon as
something to be absolutely realized; but the synechist cannot
consistently so regard it. Synechism is not an ultimate and
absolute metaphysical doctrine; it is a regulative principle of
logic, prescribing what sort of hypothesis is fit to be
entertained and examined. (CP 6.173)


Regards,

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


On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Clark Goble <mailto:cl...@lextek.com>> wrote:




On Mar 2, 2017, at 9:58 AM, Benjamin Udell mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:

In the Wikipedia article "Synechism," somebody wrote, without
providing a reference, "The fact that some things are ultimate
may be recognized by the synechist without abandoning his
standpoint, since synechism is a normative or regulative
principle, not a theory of existence."


Yes, if there were a late quote along those lines that would have
answered my question directly. I suspect though that is just
    someone assuming it’s merely regulative.


On Mar 2, 2017, at 9:58 AM, Benjamin Udell mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:

In his review "An American Plato" of Royce (1885 MS) W  5:222-235
(see 227-230), also EP 1:229-241 (see 234-236), Peirce says:


That’s a very good quotation. I’d forgotten about that since I’ve
tended of late to restrict myself too much to the later Peircean
writings. i.e. after 1895 when his ideas are more stabilized. Plus
of course it helps that EP2 is available on Kindle while
inexplicably EP1 is not.

But that’s a really good quote related to some other discussions I
was having over unknowable things and Peirce.


On Mar 2, 2017, at 9:58 AM, Benjamin Udell mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:

In that quote Peirce very clearly holds that not all will be
known or can even be imagined. What is left is the idea that
details may remain vague (as indeed a house that one sees is a
kind of "statistical" object, compatible with the existence of
innumerable alternate microstates and that, in any case, the
object as it is "in itself" does not involve the idea of some
secret compartment forever hidden from inquiry; it is instead a
matter of deciding which questions one cares about. Material
processes scramble information, and life interpretively
unscrambles some of it according to standards of value and interest.


An other excellent quote and helpfully quite late - almost 15
years into his modal realist period. I rather like his keeping
actuality and reality separate since that was what confused me the
most all those years ago.

What’s so interesting in that quote is that the realism seems
wrapped up in his modal realism yet recognizes something is
knowable in one possible world but not in the other. It’s hard not
to think of the hamiltanian equation in the wave collapse model of
quantum mechanics (say the Dirac Equation). There you have all the
possible states as real but not actual. As soon as one makes one
measurement then that constrains the possibilities. So Peirce is
recognizing on a practical economics of epistemology something
akin to uncertainty relations. (Here making just an analogy and
not saying they are really the same sort of thing)


On another note, Joe Ransdell used to insist that Peirce's
realism was stronger in the 1860s than it was when he wrote
things like "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878).


I think he was more of a platonist by way of Kant in that very
early phrase. Yet so many of the details weren’t worked out. I
tend to see h

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: The Logic of Ingenuity

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., list,

I just remembered that Bernard Morand, now retired, of Institut 
Universitaire de Technologie (France), Département Informatique, who 
used to be quite active on peirce-l, wrote a book published in 2004 
_Logique de la Conception: Figures de sémiotique générale d'après 
Charles S. Peirce _ [Logic of Design: Illustrations of General Semiotic 
After Charles S. Peirce] 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/pastbooks.htm#morand 
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/pastbooks.htm#morand> .


In 2004 I had no idea that it was about design, I didn't know that the 
French word _/conception/_ can simply mean "design." A few years ago I 
got him to agree to translate into English its foreword which was 
available gratis online. The English translation of the foreword is at 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/morand/conception-fwd.htm 
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/morand/conception-fwd.htm> 
.


He once provided us with this image of Peirce's diagram of the three 
sign trichotomies:

http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/attachment/220287/2-2/moz-screenshot-1.jpg
which now adorns the top of the Peirce Blog http://csp3.blogspot.com/

In his 2004 book, he makes an argument for the ordering of the ten 
sign-trichotomies as:

3-2-1-4-10-9-8-7-6-5

He discussed it at peirce-l in "Re: Symbol vs. iconized index" 
2008-10-27 16:23:57

http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=2105468#2105468

Here's a diagram that I made showing his view:
http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/attachment/207/2/10ad3.GIF

Best, Ben

On 3/2/2017 1:24 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Jon S, list,

In your Part 4 "Beyond Engineering", you wrote,

pronounced “rep-re-sen-TAY-men”

Happy to see the correct stress placement (as Peirce had it in the 
Century Dictionary, and John Deely pushed for it too), but it'd be 
even better if the "s" were a "z".


I'd guess that you'd count such "ruling arts" (their old label) as 
design, architecture, community planning, — arts of governing, being 
governed, and self-governing, — as parts of engineering (and other 
productive sciences/arts such as medicine) in some broad sense.


A decade or more ago, I used to argue here at peirce-l that there's 
difference between (A) will, decision-making, character,  ethics, 
etc., and (B) ability, carrying-out, competence, (and what I dubbed 
"cheiromenics"), etc.; for example, we don't regard flaws of character 
per se as flaws of competence per se, or vice versa (although for 
example a character flaw such as recklessness can lead to needlessly 
incompetent practice). Well, I got tired of arguing about it, obviously.


Anyway, I'd still regard design etc. as knowledge, or at least 
conception, of forces, strengths, impetuses, whereby to decide things 
or, at any rate, for things to get decided, as opposed to engineering 
etc. as know-how, knowledge of means. Apparently, at one time design 
was seen by many as simply the application of maths of optimization. 
Engineering obviously involves the application of probability maths 
and statistics, although in its design aspects it does get involved 
with optimization.


What I'm saying is that design, architecture, community planning, 
constitution-writing, education intending the building of character, 
etc., don't seem to be simply aimed, as in the old formula, at "useful 
+ beautiful", i.e., engineering with aesthetic art along for the ride 
in an added sidecar.


The distinction seems parallel to that between two kinds of 
decision-making itself (A) political (and martial) affairs 
(decision-making in regard to decision-making, deciding who or what 
gets to decide) and (B) economic, business, financial affairs 
(decision-making as to means, resources, etc.).


I seem to remember that I broached this subject with you once before, 
but I forget. I doubt that I'll convince any Peirceans that the 
will-ability distinction is quite basic (they tend to be satisfied 
with Peirce's trichotomy of will, feeling, and general conception), 
still I'd draw your attention to the above distinction as worth 
attention at some level, if not the most basic level, in your work and 
meditation on the logic of ingenuity.


Best, Ben

On 3/1/2017 10:59 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


List:

Part 4, subtitled "Beyond Engineering," is now online at 
http://www.structuremag.org/?p=11107 .  It discusses how /anyone / 
can use the logic of ingenuity to imagine possibilities, assess 
alternatives, and choose one of them to actualize.  I have argued for 
years that just as science is perceived as an especially systematic 
way of /knowing/ , likewise engineering could be conceived as an 
especially systematic way of /willing/ ; and if this is really the 
case, then the distinctive reasoning process of engineers /should/ be 
paradigmatic for other kinds of decis

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: The Logic of Ingenuity

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S, list,

In your Part 4 "Beyond Engineering", you wrote,

   pronounced “rep-re-sen-TAY-men”

Happy to see the correct stress placement (as Peirce had it in the 
Century Dictionary, and John Deely pushed for it too), but it'd be even 
better if the "s" were a "z".


I'd guess that you'd count such "ruling arts" (their old label) as 
design, architecture, community planning, — arts of governing, being 
governed, and self-governing, — as parts of engineering (and other 
productive sciences/arts such as medicine) in some broad sense.


A decade or more ago, I used to argue here at peirce-l that there's 
difference between (A) will, decision-making, character,  ethics, etc., 
and (B) ability, carrying-out, competence, (and what I dubbed 
"cheiromenics"), etc.; for example, we don't regard flaws of character 
per se as flaws of competence per se, or vice versa (although for 
example a character flaw such as recklessness can lead to needlessly 
incompetent practice). Well, I got tired of arguing about it, obviously.


Anyway, I'd still regard design etc. as knowledge, or at least 
conception, of forces, strengths, impetuses, whereby to decide things 
or, at any rate, for things to get decided, as opposed to engineering 
etc. as know-how, knowledge of means. Apparently, at one time design was 
seen by many as simply the application of maths of optimization. 
Engineering obviously involves the application of probability maths and 
statistics, although in its design aspects it does get involved with 
optimization.


What I'm saying is that design, architecture, community planning, 
constitution-writing, education intending the building of character, 
etc., don't seem to be simply aimed, as in the old formula, at "useful + 
beautiful", i.e., engineering with aesthetic art along for the ride in 
an added sidecar.


The distinction seems parallel to that between two kinds of 
decision-making itself (A) political (and martial) affairs 
(decision-making in regard to decision-making, deciding who or what gets 
to decide) and (B) economic, business, financial affairs 
(decision-making as to means, resources, etc.).


I seem to remember that I broached this subject with you once before, 
but I forget. I doubt that I'll convince any Peirceans that the 
will-ability distinction is quite basic (they tend to be satisfied with 
Peirce's trichotomy of will, feeling, and general conception), still I'd 
draw your attention to the above distinction as worth attention at some 
level, if not the most basic level, in your work and meditation on the 
logic of ingenuity.


Best, Ben

On 3/1/2017 10:59 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


List:

Part 4, subtitled "Beyond Engineering," is now online at 
http://www.structuremag.org/?p=11107. It discusses how /anyone /can 
use the logic of ingenuity to imagine possibilities, assess 
alternatives, and choose one of them to actualize.  I have argued for 
years that just as science is perceived as an especially systematic 
way of /knowing/, likewise engineering could be conceived as an 
especially systematic way of /willing/; and if this is really the 
case, then the distinctive reasoning process of engineers /should/ be 
paradigmatic for other kinds of decision-making, including ethical 
deliberation.


Regards,

Jon

On Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 7:50 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com>> wrote:


List:

Part 3, subtitled "Engineering Reasoning," is now online at
http://www.structuremag.org/?p=10592
. It discusses how engineers
use the logic of ingenuity to simulate contingent events with
necessary reasoning.  This is my attempt to explain Peirce's whole
notion of diagrammatic reasoning, using a variety of quotes from
his writings.

Regards,

Jon

On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 8:45 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt
mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com>> wrote:

List:

I meant to post this back around the first of the month, and
then kept forgetting to do so.  Part 2, subtitled "Engineering
Analysis," is now online at
http://www.structuremag.org/?p=10490
. It discusses how
engineers use the logic of ingenuity to solve real problems by
analyzing fictitious ones.  It mostly consists of quotes from
and comments on CP 3.559, which is part of Peirce's 1898
article in /Educational Review/, "The Logic of Mathematics in
Relation to Education"
(http://www.pragmaticism.net/works/csp_ms/P00653.pdf
). It is
the passage that opened up to me this whole understanding of
engineering thinking, when I first encountered it in the
volume edited by Matthew E. Moore, /Philosophy of Mathematics:
 Selected Writings/.

Regards,

Jon

On Sat, Sep 3, 2016 at 10:32 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt
mailto:jo

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: The Logic of Ingenuity

[Benjamin Udell]

Yes, and I remember years ago when researching for the "Abductive 
reasoning" article at Wikipedia, I found papers treating abduction as a 
way to infer how one might achieve a pre-designated goal or end, as 
opposed to inferring how nature or people did arrive at an observed 
outcome or phenomenon.


On 3/2/2017 8:45 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:

Thread:
JAS:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg3.html
JA:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg5.html
JAS:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg9.html

Jon,

Thanks for the reply.

When it comes to the complementarity between thought and conduct,
information and control, it is often forgotten — and indeed it was
only by coincidence or synchronicity that a discussion elsewhere on
the web brought it back to mind — the same double aspect is already
evident in Aristotle's original formulation of apagoge or abduction,
where he gives two cases (1) a problem of description or explanation
and (2) a problem of construction or invention, as geometers call it.

Here is a place where I discussed this before:

https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2016/02/17/abduction-deduction-induction-analogy-inquiry-3/ 



Aristotle’s apagoge, variously translated as abduction, reduction, or
retroduction, is a form of reasoning common to two types of situations.
It may be (1) the operation by which a phenomenon (a fact to grasp, to
understand) is factored through an explanatory hypothesis, or (2) the
operation by which a problem (a fact to make, to accomplish) is factored
through an intermediate construction.  Aristotle gives one example of 
each

type in Prior Analytics 2.25.  I give some discussion here:

Aristotle’s “Apagogy” : Abductive Reasoning as Problem Reduction
• 
http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Functional_Logic_:_Inquiry_and_Analogy#1.4._Aristotle.27s_.E2.80.9CApagogy.E2.80.9D_:_Abductive_Reasoning_as_Problem_Reduction


Regards,

Jon




-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Truth as Regulative or Real

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

That's a good question. I've tended to think of it this way. Truth 
enters logic as a regulative idea that one can hardly doubt in 
particular cases; in other words, one thinks that one's idea of truth is 
true in particular cases. In committing to inquire into various 
questions, one commits to the idea of truths about various questions. 
This commitment to the idea of truth applies even when the inquiry is 
about truth itself. One ends up with _/practical/_ certainty that there 
is truth even if, at the theoretical level, the principle remains 
regulatory, not speculative. In his brief intellectual autobiography 
(1904), Peirce says that philosophy concerns ideas whose truth or 
falsehood is the object of no science (i.e., no theoretical research) 
because they can hardly be doubted. Moreover, Peirce behaves as a 
serious theorist - from his ideas about truth, the real, and fallibility 
in particular, he draws nontrivial conclusions in metaphysics, involving 
continuity and spontaneity a.k.a. absolute chance. See Peirce (1897) 
"Fallibilism, Continuity, and Evolution", CP 1.141–75 
http://www.textlog.de/4248.html , placed by the CP editors directly 
after "F.R.L." (1899, CP 1.135–40) 
https://web.archive.org/web/20120106071421/http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm 
 
. I just don't know how far beyond  regulative conceptions he goes in 
that case. In the Wikipedia article "Synechism," somebody wrote, without 
providing a reference, "The fact that some things are ultimate may be 
recognized by the synechist without abandoning his standpoint, since 
synechism is a normative or regulative principle, not a theory of 
existence."


It's when one looks at the set of regulative ideas collectively and 
philosophically that one can entertain some sort of doubt and regard 
those ideas as hopes rather than as something surer. One keeps the door 
open to the idea that possibly there's something vaguely wrong in that set.


In his review "An American Plato" of Royce (1885 MS) W  5:222-235 (see 
227-230), also EP 1:229-241 (see 234-236), Peirce says:


   The problem whether a given question will ever get answered or not
   is not so simple; the number of questions asked is constantly
   increasing, and the capacity for answering them is also on the
   increase. If the rate of the latter increase is greater than that of
   the former the probability is unity that any given question will be
   answered; otherwise the probability is _/zero/_. [] But I will
   admit (if the reader thinks the admission has any meaning, and is
   not an empty proposition) that some finite number of questions, we
   can never know which ones, will escape getting answered forever.
   [] Let us suppose, then, for the sake of argument, that some
   questions eventually get settled, and that some others,
   indistinguishable from the former by any marks, never do. In that
   case, I should say that the conception of reality was rather a
   faulty one, for while there is a real so far as a question that will
   get settled goes, there is none for a question that will never be
   settled; for an unknowable reality is nonsense. [] In that way,
   if we think that some questions are never going to get settled, we
   ought to admit that our conception of nature as absolutely real is
   only partially correct. Still, we shall have to be governed by it
   practically; because there is nothing to distinguish the
   unanswerable questions from the answerable ones, so that
   investigation will have to proceed as if all were answerable. In
   ordinary life, no matter how much we believe in questions ultimately
   getting answered, we shall always put aside an innumerable throng of
   them as beyond our powers. [] From this practical and economical
   point of view, it really makes no difference whether or not all
   questions are actually answered, by man or by God, so long as we are
   satisfied that investigation has a universal tendency toward the
   settlement of opinion; and this I conceive to be the position of
   Thrasymachus.

   If there be any advantage to religion in supposing God to be
   omniscient, this sort of scepticism about reality can do no
   practical harm. We can still suppose that He knows all that there is
   of reality to be known. [] The scepticism just spoken of would
   admit this omniscience as a regulative but not a speculative
   conception. I believe that even that view is more religiously
   fruitful than the opinion of Dr. Royce.

A while back, Gary F. quoted from MS 647 (1910) which appeared in Sandra 
B. Rosenthal's 1994 book _Charles Peirce's Pragmatic Pluralism_:


   An Occurrence, which Thought analyzes into Things and Happenings, is
   necessarily Real; but it can never be known or even imagined in all
   its infinite detail. A Fact, on the other hand[,] is so much of the
 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Cyclical Systems and Continuity

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., Jeff,

Mathematical singularity theory may be relevant here. I've just now read 
some things on it including Bézout's theorem. If it is relevant, then I 
would wonder why Peirce didn't mention Bézout's theorem (he does mention 
Bézout a few times) or the like. Decades ago a topological singularity 
theorist told me that the theory provided ways to distinguish points 
that one would think were not distinguishable (or discernible). For 
example, think of a string that loops over itself on the floor, or a 
curve that loops through itself on a plane. The point of 
self-intersection is a point with "multiplicity two", since it 
corresponds to two different points along the curve. They both 
correspond to a single point on the plane (or floor). They are ordered, 
one coming earlier or later than the other, depending the direction in 
which the points along the curve are ordered. Another case of 
multiplicity two is that of the factor 3 in the equality 3×3=9. 
Deforming the string or curve so that it does not pass across itself 
does not result in our needing to attribute the former intersection 
point to just part of the loop or the other. Has the intersection point 
"exploded" into two points? But it always had multiplicity two. Peirce's 
example involves neither such a loop nor a cusp, but a simple circle. 
The circle gets cut by a line segment that is not a part of the circle. 
The loop cuts itself by intersection of two parts that "locally" are not 
part of each other. The multiplicity of the circle's cut point is not 
the multiplicity of an intesecting line segment's point coinciding with 
a point on the circle. Instead, Peirce cuts the circle show that any 
point on it is a kind of potential multiplicity of ordered points. He 
cuts the circle and widens it into a C, and if one closes it again, 
there is nothing to stop us from considering the rejoined end points as 
distinct but coinciding at a point on the plane, as long as we can find 
them again. But in making it back into a simple circle, we have melted 
them into each other. Instead, some re-interruption of the circle, some 
decision as to how to cut it, is required in order to revive the 
singularity and determine its actual multiplicity or, to put it another 
way, to determine what multiplicity has been actualized.


I hope that makes some sense. It's still kind of early in the morning 
for me.


Best, Ben

On 2/23/2017 10:28 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Jeff, List:

JD:  I'm wondering if anyone can explain in greater detail what 
Peirce is suggesting in this passage in making the comparison between 
the atomic weight of oxygen and the continuity of Time--or if anyone 
knows of clear reconstructions of what he is doing in the secondary 
literature?


Kelly Parker discusses the same passage on pages 116-117 of The 
Continuity of Peirce's Thought.


The continuum of time is a species of generality, and is present
in any event whatever.  Moreover, time is the most perfect
continuum in experience.  Accordingly, when Peirce defined a
continuum as that which, first, has no ultimate parts, and second,
exhibits immediate connection among sufficiently small neighboring
parts, he appealed to the experience of time to illustrate the
notion of immediate connection.  Time serves as the experienced
standard of continuity, through which we envisage all other
continua (CP 6.86).

There is an apparent circularity in using time to define
continuity.  The definition of continuity involves the idea of
immediate connection, immediate connection is clarified by an
appeal to the concept of time, and time is conceived as continuous
(CP 4.642).  In chapter 4, I sought to clarify the notion of
immediate connection /without/ an appeal to time, so as to break
this circle.  With the mathematical account of immediate
connection in hand, though, we can see that Peirce's appeal to
time identifies it as the experiential standard of continuity. 
Peirce asserts that to say time is continouos is "just like saying

the atomic weight of oxygen is 16, meaning that shall be the
standard for all other atomic weights.  The one asserts no more of
Time than the other asserts concerning the atomic weight of
oxygen; that is, just nothing at all" (CP 4.642).

Time, the standard of continuity, is the "most perfect" continuum
in experience, but should not be taken as an absolutely perfect
continuum.  The perfect /true continuum/ is only described
hypothetically in mathematics.  Peirce observed that time is in
all likelihood not "quite perfectly continuous and uniform in its
flow (CP 1.412). Phenomenological time does exhibit the properties
of infinite divisibility and immediate connection, but is probably
/not/ best conceived as an unbroken and absolutely regular thread.
The only constant we have noted in time is the regularity of
development or change, but 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Cyclical Systems and Continuity

[Benjamin Udell]

 received the proofs of the article, Peirce thought he 
could do better, and wrote three versions of an addendum for the 
published essay. The latest of the three, written on 26 May 1908, is 
included in this selection; it is the one that was completed and 
published. Peirce announces a new theory ory of continuity, based in 
topical geometry rather than the theory of collections. tions. A true 
continuum obeys the (corrected) Kantian principle that every part has 
parts, and is such that all sufficiently small parts have the same 
mode of immediate connection to one another. Moreover, Peirce asserts, 
all the material parts (cf. selections 26 and 29) of a continuum have 
the same dimensionality. Rather than explaining the central idea of 
immediate connection, tion, he notes that the explanation involves 
time, and answers the objection that his definition is therefore 
circular. It is perhaps an ominous sign that Peirce devotes to much 
space to what appears to be a somewhat manufactured tured objection: 
since he does not explain what he means by `immediate connection,' 
nection,' it would hardly have occurred to the reader that time was 
bound up with such connection, had Peirce himself not brought it up. 
(In selection 29, the involvement of time in `contiguity' is made 
clearer.) The excessive attention tion to side issues, when the main 
ideas are still so underexplained, would be less worrisome if Peirce 
had explained himself more fully elsewhere; but so far as we know, he 
did not.


  *   Charles S. Peirce. Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Writings 
(Kindle Locations 3293-3304). Kindle Edition.


Gary f.

From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:baud...@gmail.com]
Sent: 22-Feb-17 12:48
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Cyclical Systems and Continuity

Jeff D., list,

I agree with John S. and Gary F. about Peirce's not very detailed 
analogy between time regarded as continuous and oxygen's atomic weight 
regarding as 16 in Peirce's addition (beginning "_Added_, 1908, May 
26.") of "Some Amazing Mazes (Conclusion), Explanation of Curiosity 
the First". The addition is rather important, as it happens, because 
of what Peirce winds up saying in it.


Jérôme Havenel (2008): "It is on May 26, 1908, that Peirce finally 
gave up his idea that in every continuum there is room for whatever 
collection of any multitude. From now on, there are different kinds of 
continua, which have different properties." I don't remember whether 
Havenel gets into the analogy of continuity with atomic weight.


Havenel, Jérôme (2008), "Peirce's Clarifications on Continuity", 
_Transactions_ Winter 2008 pp. 68–133, see 119. Abstract 
http://www.jstor.org/pss/40321237


I think Matthew Moore also discusses the addition in his Peirce 
collection _Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Writings_ 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#peirce_moore , but I don't 
have it handy at the moment. The addition itself is there. You might 
also look into the collection, edited by Moore, of essays on Peirce, 
_New Essays on Peirce's Mathematical Philosophy_ 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#moore


Other links for interested peirce-listers:
Peirce (1908), "Some Amazing Mazes (Conclusion), Explanation of 
Curiosity the First", _The Monist_, v. 18, n. 3, pp. 416-64, see 463-4 
for the addition.
Google link to p. 463: 
https://books.google.com/books?id=CqsLIAAJ&pg=PA463
Oxford PDF of article: 
http://monist.oxfordjournals.org/content/monist/18/3/416.full.pdf

Reprinted CP 4.594-642, see 642 for the addition.

Best, Ben

On 2/22/2017 12:06 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:

List,

I've been trying to sort through the points Peirce is making about 
topology and the mathematical conception of continuity in the last 
lecture of RLT. In the attempts to trace the development of the ideas 
concerning the conceptions of continua, furcations and dimensions in 
his later works, I've been puzzled by some later remarks he makes 
about cyclical systems in "Some Amazing Mazes" (Monist, pp. 227-41, 
April 1908; CP 4.585-641).


In a short addendum, Peirce indicates that he has, in the year since 
writing the paper,  "taken a considerable stride toward the solution 
of the question of continuity, having at length clearly and minutely 
analyzed my own conception of a perfect continuum as well as that of 
an imperfect continuum, that is, a continuum having topical 
singularities, or places of lower dimensionality where it is 
interrupted or divides ." (CP, 4.642)


Here is a passage that has caught my attention:

Now if my definition of continuity involves the notion of immediate 
connection, and my definition of immediate connection involves the 
notion of time; and the notion of time involves that of continuity, I 
am falling into a circulus in definiendo . But on analyzing carefully 
the idea of Time, I find

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Cyclical Systems and Continuity

[Benjamin Udell]

Jeff D., list,

I agree with John S. and Gary F. about Peirce's not very detailed 
analogy between time regarded as continuous and oxygen's atomic weight 
regarding as 16 in Peirce's addition (beginning "_/Added/_, 1908, May 
26.") of "Some Amazing Mazes (Conclusion), Explanation of Curiosity the 
First". The addition is rather important, as it happens, because of what 
Peirce winds up saying in it.


Jérôme Havenel (2008): "It is on May 26, 1908, that Peirce finally gave 
up his idea that in every continuum there is room for whatever 
collection of any multitude. From now on, there are different kinds of 
continua, which have different properties." I don't remember whether 
Havenel gets into the analogy of continuity with atomic weight.


Havenel, Jérôme (2008), "Peirce's Clarifications on Continuity", 
_Transactions_ Winter 2008 pp. 68–133, see 119. Abstract 
http://www.jstor.org/pss/40321237


I think Matthew Moore also discusses the addition in his Peirce 
collection _Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Writings_ 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#peirce_moore 
 , but I don't 
have it handy at the moment. The addition itself is there. You might 
also look into the collection, edited by Moore, of essays on Peirce, 
_New Essays on Peirce's Mathematical Philosophy_ 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#moore 



Other links for interested peirce-listers:
Peirce (1908), "Some Amazing Mazes (Conclusion), Explanation of 
Curiosity the First", _The Monist_, v. 18, n. 3, pp. 416-64, see 463-4 
for the addition.
Google link to p. 463: 
https://books.google.com/books?id=CqsLIAAJ&pg=PA463
Oxford PDF of article: 
http://monist.oxfordjournals.org/content/monist/18/3/416.full.pdf

Reprinted CP 4.594-642, see 642 for the addition.

Best, Ben

On 2/22/2017 12:06 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:


List,

I've been trying to sort through the points Peirce is making about 
topology and the mathematical conception of continuity in the last 
lecture of RLT. In the attempts to trace the development of the ideas 
concerning the conceptions of continua, furcations and dimensions in 
his later works, I've been puzzled by some later remarks he makes 
about cyclical systems in "Some Amazing Mazes" (Monist, pp. 227-41, 
April 1908; CP 4.585-641).


In a short addendum, Peirce indicates that he has, in the year since 
writing the paper,  "taken a considerable stride toward the solution 
of the question of continuity, having at length clearly and minutely 
analyzed my own conception of a perfect continuum as well as that of 
an imperfect continuum, that is, a continuum having topical 
singularities, or places of lower dimensionality where it is 
interrupted or divides ." (CP, 4.642)


Here is a passage that has caught my attention:

Now if my definition of continuity involves the notion of immediate 
connection, and my definition of immediate connection involves the 
notion of time; and the notion of time involves that of continuity, I 
am falling into a /circulus in definiendo/ . But on analyzing 
carefully the idea of Time, I find that to say it is continuous is 
just like saying that the atomic weight of oxygen is 16, meaning that 
that shall be the standard for all other atomic weights. The one 
asserts no more of Time than the other asserts concerning the atomic 
weight of oxygen; that is, just nothing at all.


I'm wondering if anyone can explain in greater detail what Peirce is 
suggesting in this passage in making the comparison between the atomic 
weight of oxygen and the continuity of Time--or if anyone knows of 
clear reconstructions of what he is doing in the secondary literature? 
The claim that the continuity of our experience of time can serve as a 
kind of standard for measure is, I think, quite a remarkable suggestion.


--Jeff

Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354


From: Jon Awbrey 
Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2017 1:26 PM
To: Peirce List
Cc: Arisbe List
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: The Difference That Makes A Difference That 
Peirce Makes



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

[Benjamin Udell]

Eric, none of the statements that you quoted in your 2/14/2017 message 
originate with Peirce.


Peirce held that logic generally involves icons (including diagrams and 
not only graphic-looking ones), indices, and symbols, and he saw all 
three kinds of signs as needed. Remember also that Peirce so defined 
'symbol' that plenty of symbols are not words and some words are not 
symbols.


You wrote in your subsequent message:

   One can also find people with limited brain damage who (by all
   evidence) have lost their ability to coherently verbalize (i.e.,
   they cannot /do/ language), and yet those people otherwise seem to
   think perfectly well.

I remember a course on Merleau-Ponty decades ago in which the professor 
discussed patients who could no longer think about absent things. He 
said that they had lost their "symbolic function" - taking "symbol" in 
an old traditional sense as sign of something not perceived, especially 
something not perceivable, picturable, etc. I can't say off-hand whether 
those patients had completely lost their ability to think in symbols in 
Peirce's sense.


I don't know whether Peirce held that actual people usually think in 
words or in any particular kind of signs, and what basis he would have 
offered for the claim; anyway it wouldn't be a philosophical statement, 
but a psychological statement, and Peirce was as adverse to basing 
cenoscopic philosophy (including philosophical logic) on psychology as 
he was to to basing pure mathematics on psychology. When he discusses 
semiotics and logic, he is discussing how one ought to think, not how 
people actually do think.


Peirce said of himself:

   I do not think that I ever _/reflect/_ in words. I employ visual
   diagrams, firstly because this way of thinking is my natural
   language of self-communication, and secondly, because I am convinced
   that it is the best system for the purpose
   [MS 629, p. 8, quoted in _The Existential Graphs of Charles S.
   Peirce_, p. 126, by Don D. Roberts]

Google preview: 
https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4K30wCAf-gC&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=%22I+do+not+think+I+ever+reflect+in+words:+I+employ+visual+diagrams%22


Peirce described corollarial deduction as verbal and philosophical, and 
theorematic deduction as diagrammatic and mathematical. He seemed to 
have a higher opinion of the latter, which is not unusual for a 
mathematician.


Peirce left innumerable drawings among his papers. I somewhere read that 
a considerable percentage of his papers consisted in drawings, I seem to 
remember "60%" but I'm not sure. A project involving those drawings (and 
accumulating an archive of reproductions ofthem) resulted in the 
publication of a book:


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola 



   Das bildnerische Denken: Charles S. Peirce.  [Visual Thinking:
   Charles S. Peirce].Actus et Imago Volume 5. Editors: Franz Engel,
   Moritz Queisner, Tullio Viola. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, March 21,
   2012. Hardcover http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/224194

   346 pages., 82 illustrations in black & white, 31 illustrations in
   color.

Peirce, as you say, often focuses on clear thought, but he sometimes 
discusses vague thought, and says that vagueness is often needed for 
thought. For example in his critical common-sensism.


Peirce thought that there are logical conceptions of mind based not on 
empirical science of psychology nor even on metaphysics. See for example 
Memoir 11 "On the Logical Conception of Mind" in the 1902 Carnegie 
Application:


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-05.htm 



As to how linguistic people actually are or how linguistic one needs or 
ought to be, that will depend at least partly on the definition of 
language. In the quote of him above, Peirce uses the word "language" 
more loosely than some would.


Best, Ben

On 2/15/2017 11:16 AM, Eric Charles wrote:


Jerry, Clark,

Thank you for the thoughtful replies.

I have great love for Peirce and his work. But there are parts that I 
love less, particularly where Peirce ... seems to me to forget the 
parameters of his own argument. Peirce tells us what clear thinking 
is, while fully and responsibly acknowledging that most people do not 
think clearly most of the time. On that basis, if anyone thinks of 
anyone else's thoughts as entailing at all times the third degree of 
clarity, something is seriously amiss. Further, when Peirce elsewhere 
starts making broad pronouncements about "thought" it oftentimes seems 
that he is referring solely to those rare instances of clear thinking, 
but other times is referring to the typical thinking, or all thinking?


The later is particularly suspicious. Assertions regarding the nature 
of /all/ thinking would presumably be subject to extreme empirical 
scrutiny. As we have rejecte

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Possible Article of Interest - CSP's "Mindset" from AI perspective

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

I haven't read very much on the problem of reference and generality with 
respect to fictional characters, so I'm reluctant to say that it usually 
comes down to equivocation over terms. Also I have in mind Peirce's 
comment, I don't remember where, that the object determines the sign, 
even when the sign in some sense brings the object into being (as with 
fictional characters). There seems there something more in the 
problematics than a routine equivocation problem. So I'm feeling 
cautious on the subject.


Best, Ben

On 2/14/2017 12:42 PM, Clark Goble wrote:


On Feb 14, 2017, at 10:28 AM, Benjamin Udell  wrote:

You wrote, regarding universe of discourse, "Like you I tend to think 
most of the debate on all this depends upon equivocation over terms."


Actually I don't have an opinion on that, instead I thought that in 
the particular discussion of unicorns, it depended on a sometimes 
tempting kind of equivocation. We like ambiguities, puns, and so on. 
(Diving is okay, sinking is not so good.)


I was more thinking of the problem of reference & generality with 
respect to fictional creatures. Or was that what you didn’t have an 
opinion on? As I said I think pragmatic maxim offers the solution 
here. Although that too has some oddities in how Peirce applied it. 
(Thinking here of his example of the Phoenix)



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Possible Article of Interest - CSP's "Mindset" from AI perspective

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

Yes, the different kinds of universe of discourse is indeed a "tricky 
bit" as you put it. If the sign's object is ultimately the universe of 
which the special object is a member, or part, then is there any reason 
for the sign not to be the universe of signs of which the special sign 
is a member or part?


I guess that as a practical matter a given universe of signs would be a 
system of signs shared by utterer and interpreter. But how would it be 
picked out? A universe of objects is indicated, if not by an index in a 
proposition itself, still by an index in the environment, said Peirce. 
Then there is also the universe of marks a.k.a. characters. I guess 
various universes or systems of signs would be reduced versions of 
Peirce's third universe of experience. What about a univese of 
interpretants? Would this just be a universe of signs in a different 
relation? At least sometimes it could be a different system of signs. In 
"A Neglected Argument..." Peirce says, "The third Universe comprises 
everything whose being consists in active power to establish connections 
between different objects, especially between objects in different 
Universes."


You wrote, regarding universe of discourse, "Like you I tend to think 
most of the debate on all this depends upon equivocation over terms."


Actually I don't have an opinion on that, instead I thought that in the 
particular discussion of unicorns, it depended on a sometimes tempting 
kind of equivocation. We like ambiguities, puns, and so on. (Diving is 
okay, sinking is not so good.)


On 2/13/2017 6:54 PM, Clark Goble wrote:

On Feb 11, 2017, at 12:59 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:


On the sign's object as ultimately the universe of discourse of the 
(more explicit) object, I was discussing Peirce's view.


1909 | Letters to William James | EP 2:492 
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letters-william-james-6


A Sign is a Cognizable that, on the one hand, is so determined
(i.e., specialized, _/bestimmt/_) by something other than itself,
called its Object (or, in some cases, as if the Sign be the
sentence “Cain killled Abel,” in which Cain and Abel are equally
Partial Objects, it may be more convenient to say that that which
determines the Sign is the Complexus, or Totality, of Partial
Objects. And in every case the Object is accurately the Universe
of which the Special Object is member, or part), while, on the
other hand, it so determines some actual or potential Mind, the
determination whereof I term the Interpretant created by the
Sign, that that Interpreting Mind is therein determined mediately
by the Object.
[End quote]

For example, a perturbation of Pluto's orbit is a sign about Pluto, 
but not only about Pluto.


This gets at the importance of a kind of holism for Peirce that 
surprisingly doesn’t get remarked upon as much as Quine’s. (Even 
though people pointed out the parallel to Quine who then wrote a paper 
about his ignorance of Peirce)


The tricky bit is really the different types of universes of 
discourses. We talked about that just a few weeks ago so I’ll not 
bring it up again. But I completely agree with you that we can’t 
really separate out the type of generality and reality without talking 
about these universes. Like you I tend to think most of the debate on 
all this depends upon equivocation over terms. That’s why the 
pragmatic maxim comes in handy as it cuts confusion between say an 
unicorn of a novel’s fictional world from an unicorn in the regular 
world by asking how we’d measure it.



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Possible Article of Interest - CSP's "Mindset" from AI perspective

[Benjamin Udell]

Mike, list,

You wrote,

   I think this does place Horace before Descartes.

I can't beat that. If somebody says it's a bad pun, I say /the worse, 
the better/.  Even Jon Awbrey ought to be impressed. You wouldn't 
believe the elaborate puns he used to do here, only problem was that one 
needed to be pretty familiar with physicists' names and old American 
animated cartoons and the like in order to get them.  I think many 
didn't even realize what he was up to.


I think that you do get the ideas that I was trying to convey. There's 
just to be careful to avoid making it sound like the real depends on our 
particular opinions, though it does depend on representability in 
general, because that's part of what it is. I feel kind of weird, a 
semi-Peircean laying down the Peircean line. I feel like I ought to 
suggest or discern fruitful lines for further discussion rather than 
just "setting people straight". I've a notion that the general and the 
relations among experiences are "more" real in a Peircean sense than the 
individual, subjective perspective, but I don't know whether I'll end up 
saying anything definite about it. Joe Ransdell, who founded and long 
managed and moderated peirce-l, was good at going beyond "correcting". 
Ah well, I have to say something because I've gotten too delayed on this.


Best, Ben

On 2/11/2017 2:43 PM, Mike Bergman wrote:


Hi Ben, List,

Thanks for the thought and effort you put into this response. Your 
argument makes sense to me and is consistent with what else I know. I 
will definitely keep this response, which clears up many confusions 
that I had a part in this thread in perpetuating.


This argument, your argument summarizing your understanding of Peirce, 
strikes me as a likely true proposition and therefore real. The 
implication of the argument is that a something which is logical and 
not known to be false may be real. A unicorn or unicorns in general 
are not real. (The thought of a unicorn is real, but what is real is 
the thought, not the unicorn.) However, were we to encounter a unicorn 
in the woods, that would be a surprising fact that would cause us to 
re-assess that reality.


Another implication is that any supposition understood as logical with 
what else we know to be true for which we have no falsifying evidence 
is (may be) also real. I presume, prior to testing, that any 
legitimate abductive hypothesis would also be real (or should be, else 
we pose a false hypothesis). Testing may surface new falsities, which 
would cause cause the hypothesis to be rejected and then seen as not real.


Still another implication seems to be that reality should be treated 
in a similar way to how Peirce handles truth. That is, as limit 
functions; we may never be able to have absolute confidence. Only 
falsity or errors in logic can render something as not real, though 
our confidence in actual reality is dependent on the preponderance of 
evidence.


Do those implications sound about right?

So, I am satisfied that your argument fits within my understanding of 
fallibilism and Peirce's emphasis on the scientific method. Thanks for 
helping to clarify my thinking! I think this does place Horace before 
Descartes.


Best, Mike

On 2/11/2017 12:45 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Mike, list,

I think that you're putting the cart before the unicorn. The idea of 
the unreal a.k.a. fictitious in Peirce begins as the idea of the 
object of a false proposition, an idea rooted, for Peirce, not in 
ontology but in logic and its presuppositions, to which ontology is 
posterior. There are true general propositions if and only if there 
are real generals. There are false general propositions if and only 
if there are fictitious, a.k.a. unreal, generals. If there were no 
false general propositions, then science would have little if any 
purpose, since it would be unable to err about generals even if it 
wanted to. No more proofs by reduction to absurdity. The object of a 
sign is ultimately the universe of discourse of said object. If it is 
false that there has existed a unicorn, then a universe of discourse 
in which there has existed a unicorn is an unreal, fictitious 
universe of discourse. For Peirce, logic and reason presuppose that, 
for a proposition to be true, it must not depend on what we think of 
it, likewise for its object to be real, it must not depend on what we 
think of it; for it to be real, it must also be cognizable, such that 
sufficient inquiry would find it inevitably, sooner or later. The 
presuppositions of fallibilism and cognizabilism are both needed in 
order to keep the way of inquiry unbarred.


After that, we can bring all kinds of nuances in, e.g., a universe of 
discourse that is at least a coarse-grained version of our actual 
world in the vast majority of respects, except in containing a 
unicorn. People could argue about whether a unicorn

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

[Benjamin Udell]

Jerry, we've been through this many times. The pragmatic maxim 
recommends drawing a (pragmatically explicitative) consequent from an 
antecedent. The CP 5.189 form of abductive inference portrays finding a 
(naturally simple) antecedent ("A") for a consequent ("C"), going, thus, 
in the _/reverse/_ direction, hence Peirce for some time called it 
"retroduction."


The pragmatic maxim says to look for conceivable practical implications. 
Abductive inference involves looking for conceivable implicants, 
"impliers" if you will, that one could also call practical I guess, 
anyway for example ones that may conflict with each other as 
explanations, e.g., ideas of various mechanisms, insofar as the ideas 
are new to the data and are not already presented by the data. 
Conceivable practical antecedents, not conceivable practical 
consequents. Then one looks to deduce, compute, etc., conceivable 
practical consequents _/of/_ the abduced conceivable practical 
antecedent, towards possible tests of that antecedent (the hypothetical 
explanation).


Peirce recognized various senses of the word "syllogism."  In a broader 
sense that he discussed, an abductive inference is a kind of syllogism. 
But usually by the unmodified term "syllogism" people have long meant a 
deductive categorical syllogism: major premiss, minor premiss, conclusion.


Best, Ben

On 2/12/2017 2:07 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:


Jerry - I'm sure you are joking. The format of a syllogism is:

Major Premise
Minor Premise
Conclusion
...with the additional format rules about 'universal', distribution, 
negatives, etc etc..' Nothing to do with words per se.


Words are meaningful, in my view, only in specific contexts; they gain 
their meaning within the context...and the context operates within a 
format.


Edwina


- Original Message -
*From:* Jerry Rhee <mailto:jerryr...@gmail.com>
*To:* Edwina Taborsky <mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>
*Cc:* John Collier <mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Benjamin Udell 
<mailto:baud...@gmail.com>; Peirce-L <mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>

*Sent:* Sunday, February 12, 2017 2:02 PM
*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

Dear Edwina, list:

When you say it's not the words but the format that counts; is that 
like saying, it's not the argumentation but the argument that counts?


For example, do you mean that it's CP 5.189 that counts and not C A B?
But what is CP 5.189 without C A B?
And what is C, A, B, without
syllogism, CP 5.189, growth of concrete reasonableness?
pragmatic maxim, CP 5.189, growth of concrete reasonableness?

That is, if I were only to take you literally, then I could ask,

/Among all words, is there a word?/

Best,
Jerry Rhee

p>On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 12:38 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>> wrote:


Sorry, Jerry, I don't agree. It's not the words; it's the format 
that counts. People think, not so much in words, but in images and 
diagrams 


Edwina


- Original Message -
*From:* Jerry Rhee <mailto:jerryr...@gmail.com>
*To:* Edwina Taborsky <mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>
*Cc:* John Collier <mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Benjamin Udell 
<mailto:baud...@gmail.com>; Peirce-L <mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>

*Sent:* Sunday, February 12, 2017 1:25 PM
*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

Dear list:

If words are only birds, then:

“CP 5.189 is NOT a syllogism!”

“CP 5.189 is not *the* pragmatic maxim, nor even *a* pragmatic 
maxim in the same sense, so it is certainly not *the best* 
pragmatic maxim.”


5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. ~Tractatus

Best, Jerry R

On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 8:16 AM, Edwina Taborsky 
mailto:tabor...@primus.ca> > wrote: 

-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

[Benjamin Udell]

Even in the days of the Century Dictionary (late 19th to early 20th 
Century), "empiric" and "empirical" had rather negative connotations. 
See the definitions of "empiric," "empirical," and related terms that I 
compiled at a website some years ago:


http://peircematters.blogspot.com/#empir

So empiricists in the modern sense would not have been fond of calling 
themselves "empiricists" way back when.


Best, Ben

On 2/11/2017 2:06 PM, John Collier wrote:

The reference is to the method, not the word. There is an historical 
continuity between the Medieval empiricists like Roger Bacon, and 
Galen’s followers (he died about 299 AD (who go back to Arabic 
predecessors, perhaps influenced by Galen – medical usage, of course, 
but he seemed to extend it in his views of the natural world)  and the 
later ones who came to called The British Empiricists, though not by 
that name at that time. On source puts the general use of the modern 
accepted sense at 1796, well after the British Empiricists.


Typical definition:

empiricist
ɛmˈpɪrɪsɪst/
PHILOSOPHY
noun
1.
a person who supports the theory that all knowledge is based on
experience derived from the senses.
"most scientists are empiricists by nature"
adjective
1.
relating to or characteristic of the theory that all knowledge is
based on experience derived from the senses.
"his radically empiricist view of science as a direct engagement
with the world"

The term in its present form originated in 1660-70; some say about 
1700. If you think that words determine thoughts, than there was no 
empiricism except in medicine before these dates.


Aristotle had some things I common with empiricists, but his 
requirement for a rationalist/ essentialist middle term undermined 
that because it required the active nour. The Medieval ones gave that 
up. But so did many of the stoics, who were therefore empiricists.


The term goes back to the Greeks, not that I think that some magic 
connects terms to ideas:


Etymology
The English term empirical derives from the Greek word ἐμπειρία,
empeiria, which is cognate with and translates to the Latin
experientia, from which are derived the word experience and the
related experiment. The term was used by the Empiric school of
ancient Greek medical practitioners, who rejected the three
doctrines of the Dogmatic school, preferring to rely on the
observation of "phenomena".[5]

NB the restriction to medicine here, similar to the early restriction 
of semiotics to medicine.


Peirce relevance: Peirce is usually included among those who tried to 
combine elements of empiricism and rationalism, though for my money he 
doesn’t fit either camp very well


In any case, the recent attempts on this list to try to tie empiricism 
to the use of the word are pretty poor examples of scholarship.


John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate Philosophy, 
University of KwaZulu-Natal http://web.ncf.ca/collier


> -Original Message-
> From: kirst...@saunalahti.fi [mailto:kirst...@saunalahti.fi]
> Sent: Saturday, 11 February 2017 5:58 PM
> To: Jerry LR Chandler 
> Cc: Edwina Taborsky ; John Collier
> ; Peirce-L 
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Possible Article of Interest - CSP's "Mindset" from AI perspective

[Benjamin Udell]

Edwina, list,

On the sign's object as ultimately the universe of discourse of the 
(more explicit) object, I was discussing Peirce's view.


1909 | Letters to William James | EP 2:492 
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letters-william-james-6


   A Sign is a Cognizable that, on the one hand, is so determined
   (i.e., specialized, _/bestimmt/_) by something other than itself,
   called its Object (or, in some cases, as if the Sign be the sentence
   “Cain killled Abel,” in which Cain and Abel are equally Partial
   Objects, it may be more convenient to say that that which determines
   the Sign is the Complexus, or Totality, of Partial Objects. And in
   every case the Object is accurately the Universe of which the
   Special Object is member, or part), while, on the other hand, it so
   determines some actual or potential Mind, the determination whereof
   I term the Interpretant created by the Sign, that that Interpreting
   Mind is therein determined mediately by the Object.
   [End quote]

For example, a perturbation of Pluto's orbit is a sign about Pluto, but 
not only about Pluto.


I would confine the term "realism" to refer to the belief that there are 
real generals.


Some generals are particularly feasible for actualization, such as 
flying machines and perhaps unicorns (by genetic engineering if not by 
natural evolution). In that sense one philosophically could call those 
generals "more" real than generals of which instances are hardly 
feasible or probable. What stops me from calling such promising generals 
flatly real in conventional discussion is the English language.  I'm 
generally more willing to call even pure-mathematicals real than Peirce 
seems to have been.  But, if, before flying machines and unicorns come 
to be, I say that they are real, indeed even if I cast them as "generic" 
objects so as to state that the Flying Machine and the Unicorn are real, 
then people will take me to mean that actual instances of them have 
already come to be.


Best, Ben

On 2/11/2017 2:08 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:


Ben, list:

I am missing something..You wrote:

 "The object of a sign is ultimately the universe of discourse of said 
object."


My view is that the object of a representamen is NOT the 'universe of 
discourse'; that sounds, to me, like the Interpretant. I can see that 
the Interpretant, within a collective population, is 'the universe of 
discourse of said object'. Certainly, that Interpretant can then 
become the Object in the triad of O-R-I


I don't think that a unicorn has to materially exist in order to be 
'real'; it can be a mental concept that might, eventually, become 
material [as you note, by some evolutionary adaptation]. After all, at 
one time, the airplane was a concept and then, became materially 'real'.


I also still think there is a difference between the terms of 
'realism' and 'real' and if by 'real' we mean objectively materially 
existent - then, this confines the 'real' to the material world, and 
leaves out 'realism' which refers to generals..which can never 'exist' 
per se.


Edwina


- Original Message -
*From:* Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>
*To:* peirce-l@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
*Sent:* Saturday, February 11, 2017 1:45 PM
*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Possible Article of Interest - CSP's 
"Mindset" from AI perspective


Mike, list,

I think that you're putting the cart before the unicorn. The idea of 
the unreal a.k.a. fictitious in Peirce begins as the idea of the 
object of a false proposition, an idea rooted, for Peirce, not in 
ontology but in logic and its presuppositions, to which ontology is 
posterior. There are true general propositions if and only if there 
are real generals. There are false general propositions if and only 
if there are fictitious, a.k.a. unreal, generals. If there were no 
false general propositions, then science would have little if any 
purpose, since it would be unable to err about generals even if it 
wanted to. No more proofs by reduction to absurdity. The object of a 
sign is ultimately the universe of discourse of said object. If it is 
false that there has existed a unicorn, then a universe of discourse 
in which there has existed a unicorn is an unreal, fictitious 
universe of discourse. For Peirce, logic and reason presuppose that, 
for a proposition to be true, it must not depend on what we think of 
it, likewise for its object to be real, it must not depend on what we 
think of it; for it to be real, it must also be cognizable, such that 
sufficient inquiry would find it inevitably, sooner or later. The 
presuppositions of fallibilism and cognizabilism are both needed in 
order to keep the way of inquiry unbarred.


After that, we can bring all kinds of nuances 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Possible Article of Interest - CSP's "Mindset" from AI perspective

[Benjamin Udell]

Mike, list,

I think that you're putting the cart before the unicorn. The idea of the 
unreal a.k.a. fictitious in Peirce begins as the idea of the object of a 
false proposition, an idea rooted, for Peirce, not in ontology but in 
logic and its presuppositions, to which ontology is posterior. There are 
true general propositions if and only if there are real generals. There 
are false general propositions if and only if there are fictitious, 
a.k.a. unreal, generals. If there were no false general propositions, 
then science would have little if any purpose, since it would be unable 
to err about generals even if it wanted to. No more proofs by reduction 
to absurdity. The object of a sign is ultimately the universe of 
discourse of said object. If it is false that there has existed a 
unicorn, then a universe of discourse in which there has existed a 
unicorn is an unreal, fictitious universe of discourse. For Peirce, 
logic and reason presuppose that, for a proposition to be true, it must 
not depend on what we think of it, likewise for its object to be real, 
it must not depend on what we think of it; for it to be real, it must 
also be cognizable, such that sufficient inquiry would find it 
inevitably, sooner or later. The presuppositions of fallibilism and 
cognizabilism are both needed in order to keep the way of inquiry unbarred.


After that, we can bring all kinds of nuances in, e.g., a universe of 
discourse that is at least a coarse-grained version of our actual world 
in the vast majority of respects, except in containing a unicorn. People 
could argue about whether a unicorn's evolution is feasible or probable. 
If it were significantly feasible or probable, we could say that the 
unicorn species (as a kind of form) is a really feasible or probable 
possibility, and we could dub animals belonging to the predecessor 
species that would evolve into unicorns as "unicorniferous" or suchlike, 
and regard that as a property as real as the hardness of a diamond even 
if nothing ever happens to try to scratch that diamond. We could regard 
the capacity for harboring unicorns as a real property of the Earth. 
Suppose that a highly intelligent observer were on Earth hundreds of 
millions of years ago, when animals first emerged onto land. That 
observer might have predicted that flying animals would evolve some day. 
It's happened at least four times, so it seems quite feasible. A square 
circle, on the other hand, is _/necessarily/_ unreal by the definitions 
of the terms (if a square were defined not as an equilateral rectangle 
but as an equiangular equilateral quadrilateral, then I suppose 
something could be both a circle and a kind of degenerate square in some 
non-Euclidean space).  Even in mathematics it's not always so 
cut-and-dried, e.g., the case of zero to the zeroth power, and there the 
issue is not simply a touch of the arbitrary in the definition of an 
object (still, mathematicians seem to regard 0⁰ as most "naturally" 
equal to 1 rather than equal to 0 or undefined). Of course then there 
are the mathematical intuitionists. Most mathematicians aren't 
intuitionists, but the intuitionists and some others convinced most 
mathematicians to prefer constructive proofs. If we get into that 
subject, I'm afraid I'll get lost. The more specialized discussions of 
what is real in various domains usually involves some applications of 
philosophical thinking. I've seen the theory of limits referred to as 
"the metaphysics of mathematical analysis" and the philosopher Berkeley 
actually did motivate work there.


The idea that the unicorn or its species is real because of a 
corresponding factor or style in thought and culture involves the kind 
of equivocation about the term "unicorn" that people often delight in. 
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." 
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Yes%2C+Virginia%2C+there+is+a+Santa+Claus%22 
. The 1947 movie _Miracle on 34th Street_ plays on it too, particularly 
in the trial scenes. I used to go along with that kind of realism about 
Santa Claus, Cthulhu 
https://www.google.com/search?q=Yes%2C+Virginia%2C+there+is+a+Cthulhu , 
and others, in a kind of rebellious spirit, but their 'reality' depends 
too much on what actual people think of them. They are dreams, 
nightmares, make-believes, etc., real in the way that dreams and 
nightmares are, thoughts that take place on actual dates, classes of 
such thoughts, etc.


Best, Ben

On 2/11/2017 10:44 AM, Mike Bergman wrote:


Hi Edwina,

Thanks, I like your explanations, which probably fit better with 
standard Peircean arguments. Please see my comments below:


On 2/11/2017 8:04 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:

Mike, list:  I think that we are each using terms differently. As you 
say, these differences have to be made clear.


1) For example, my understanding of /realism/ is that it affirms that 
generals have a functional formative reality; this function is to be 
transformed from this potentiality into no

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Possible Article of Interest - CSP's "Mindset" from AI perspective

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon A, John S., list,

The traditional trichotomy that also includes proposition and argument 
includes term, not predicate, and "term" is the label that Peirce uses 
in his 1902 Carnegie application in which he begins to widen the 
meanings of "term, proposition, argument" beyond that of "symbol". (See 
Memoirs 17, 18, 19 at 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-06.htm 
 
) The term may be a subject term, as opposed to a predicate term, and 
may instance a proper name or a demonstrative. A proposition with the 
subject places left blank is a rheme (and that's a rhema in his 1906 
"Prolegomena...", wherein he calls "seme" that which he elsewhere calls 
"rheme") but a subject term is a rheme/seme, too (he also offered "seme" 
as an alternate term for "index" in 1903 but he later re-purposed it as 
aforesaid).


Best, Ben

On 2/10/2017 10:01 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:

John, List:

JFS:  For teaching Peirce's semiotic, I therefore recommend that
those five words should be replaced with terms that CSP himself used:
   mark, token, type;
   icon, index, symbol;
   predicate, proposition, argument.


I have no problem with mark/token/type, but "predicate" and 
"proposition" usually designate symbols.  What would be some examples 
of a predicate that is an icon or an index, or a proposition that is 
an index?  Demonstrative pronouns like "this" or "that" are usually 
classified as rhematic indexical legisigns, but it seems odd to call 
them "predicates" when their only function is to pick out subjects.


Regards,

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


On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 8:52 PM, Stephen C. Rose > wrote:


This is a salient post. I think icon, index, symbol is the most
useful of the nominated survivors though my own adaptation reality
ethics aesthetics suits me as a sort of every-person triad for use
in a daily discipline of conscious thinking which is what I have
been working to put forward. I think "triadic thinking" is also a
perfectly good term to set against binary thinking.

amazon.com/author/stephenrose 

On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 9:23 PM, John F Sowa mailto:s...@bestweb.net>> wrote:

On 2/8/2017 12:31 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:

The three triads of CSP,
   qualisign, sinsign, legisign;
   icon, index, symbol;
   rhema, dicisign, argument,
can be, in my opinion, a “recipe” for realism; that is,
the logical
association of antecedent observations (Qualisigns with
logical
consequences (legisigns))  What I find exceedingly curious
about the
(strange) words of this table is that only the last word,
“argument” is
used in logic. The other eight words are merely dictionary
words.
Clearly, some similarity with 21 st Century AI exists in
these three
19th Century triads.


I have discussed, written about, and lectured on Peirce's semiotic
to various audiences -- mostly in AI and cognitive science.  His
terminology is indeed a deterrent for many people.

One wonders why CSP’s three triads have not been adopted.


The words qualisign, sinsign, legisign, rhema, and dicisign have
no chance of being accepted.  Even Peirce scholars use them only
when discussing Peirce's writings.

The triad of icon, index, and symbol is the most widely
recognized,
cited, and used -- partly because the words are more common. 
Peirce's

terms 'type' and 'token' are widely used even by people who
have no
idea where they came from.  And the words 'predicate' and
'proposition'
are common in logic.

For teaching Peirce's semiotic, I therefore recommend that those
five words should be replaced with terms that CSP himself used:

   mark, token, type;
   icon, index, symbol;
   predicate, proposition, argument.

See Figure 2, page 5 of "Signs and reality":
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signs.pdf


For example, consider an index of species.

Is it real?
Or, ideal?


For both a nominalist and a realist, an index is something
observable:  a pointing finger, a pronoun in speech or writing,
or a physical occurrence of some kind.

But a species is a type, which is determined by some law
of nature.  A realist would say that

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Generals, Realism, Individuals, Nominalism

[Benjamin Udell]

ng that would 
allow it to serve as a useful arbiter in this case.


Etc., etc.

Whether or not 'generals' are 'real' doesn't necessitate my using - or 
rejecting the use of - those concepts in such an abstracted example. 
Or, to phrase it differently, whether I suspect that, in the end 
times, the opinion of honest investigators will allow for 'east' and 
'west', doesn't matter a lick to how divide up the field right now. 
This is similar to the how we can have fruitful discussions about the 
impact of race in America, and solutions to the problems race-based 
thinking has caused, all while also acknowledging that 'race' is a BS 
concept, which is likely to be done away with by honest inquirers long 
before the end times are here.


If you think that being a nominalist is likely to correspond to 
certain other tendencies, based on your observations of the 
distribution of ideas we happen to see in current society, that is 
another matter all together. Such matters are not logical consequences 
of adopting one view or the other, they are happenstance correlates, 
and so (as far as I understand it) would not count for Peirce's 
pragmatic maxim.





---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps

On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 11:48 AM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:


Eric, Jon S., list,

I don't think that the nominalist and realist views are
symmetrical as you suggest with regard to generals and
individuals. A Peircean realist will say that individuals have
some generality but still can only be in one place at a time,
unlike "more-general" generals, and would never say that every
term designating an individual is a mere _/flatus vocis/_ as many
a nominalist has called every general term. The individual in
Peirce's view is not a mere construct but instead is forced
indexically on a mind by reaction and resistance. Peirce somewhere
also says that a universe of discourse is likewise distinguished
indexically. For Peirce, the individual is the reactive/resistant,
and reaction/resistance is Secondness, a basic phaneroscopic category.

Let's bring into your apple-picker scenario some non-extraneous
generals that would make a difference between the two apple
pickers. For example, they get into an argument about which apples
each of them is allowed to pick. Apple picker Alf says that he's
allowed to pick any apples only in the eastern area and that apple
picker Beth is allowed to pick any apples only in the western
area, while Beth says that each of them should be able to pick any
apples anywhere in the area. Alf says that the rules prescribe the
east-west split, while Beth says that those rules are unfair and
should be ignored or evaded. Alf says not that the rules are fair
but instead that there is no such thing as "fair" apart from what
the rules state in individual documents or announcements. Beth
doesn't expound a full-blown doctrine of either natural law or
revolutionary justice, but simply insists, "fair is fair." I won't
say that Alf is a strict nominalist and Beth a strict scholastic
realist, but just that they tend respectively toward nominalism
(Alf) and realism (Beth). At their respective worsts, Alf promotes
conformity with a cruel and unjust regime, while Beth promotes the
breakdown of the rule of law. Alf's attitude is more congenial to
the idea that there is no idea of fairness above that of the
state. On the other hand, some nominalists would argue that
nominalism and the more-nominalistic brands of positivism are at
least a good holding action against the militant ideas that
contributed to the vast bloodshed in the 20th Century. My picture
doesn't quite converge with Edwina's picture but I don't mean to
deny her picture either. Nominalism and realism are pretty general
ideas that could get rooted in practice in disparate ways.

I once read a web page where somebody argued that HTML markup that
complies with official, explicit HTML standards is right "by
definition."  This was as if the standards themselves had not been
devised according to some more general and probably less definite
idea of what standards should be like and as if there could be no
idea of HTML rightness that would require the revision of the
official, explicit standards promulgated on individual dates in
specific documents by the World Wide Web Consortium. Now, for a
while the Mozilla Firefox browser adhered to the standards in
certain cases where the standards were problematic. I don't think
that the Firefox designers denied the need for revised standards,
based on a more general idea of standards, but they

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Generals, Realism, Individuals, Nominalism

[Benjamin Udell]

Eric, Jon S., list,

I don't think that the nominalist and realist views are symmetrical as 
you suggest with regard to generals and individuals. A Peircean realist 
will say that individuals have some generality but still can only be in 
one place at a time, unlike "more-general" generals, and would never say 
that every term designating an individual is a mere _/flatus vocis/_ as 
many a nominalist has called every general term. The individual in 
Peirce's view is not a mere construct but instead is forced indexically 
on a mind by reaction and resistance. Peirce somewhere also says that a 
universe of discourse is likewise distinguished indexically. For Peirce, 
the individual is the reactive/resistant, and reaction/resistance is 
Secondness, a basic phaneroscopic category.


Let's bring into your apple-picker scenario some non-extraneous generals 
that would make a difference between the two apple pickers. For example, 
they get into an argument about which apples each of them is allowed to 
pick. Apple picker Alf says that he's allowed to pick any apples only in 
the eastern area and that apple picker Beth is allowed to pick any 
apples only in the western area, while Beth says that each of them 
should be able to pick any apples anywhere in the area. Alf says that 
the rules prescribe the east-west split, while Beth says that those 
rules are unfair and should be ignored or evaded. Alf says not that the 
rules are fair but instead that there is no such thing as "fair" apart 
from what the rules state in individual documents or announcements. Beth 
doesn't expound a full-blown doctrine of either natural law or 
revolutionary justice, but simply insists, "fair is fair." I won't say 
that Alf is a strict nominalist and Beth a strict scholastic realist, 
but just that they tend respectively toward nominalism (Alf) and realism 
(Beth). At their respective worsts, Alf promotes conformity with a cruel 
and unjust regime, while Beth promotes the breakdown of the rule of law. 
Alf's attitude is more congenial to the idea that there is no idea of 
fairness above that of the state. On the other hand, some nominalists 
would argue that nominalism and the more-nominalistic brands of 
positivism are at least a good holding action against the militant ideas 
that contributed to the vast bloodshed in the 20th Century. My picture 
doesn't quite converge with Edwina's picture but I don't mean to deny 
her picture either. Nominalism and realism are pretty general ideas that 
could get rooted in practice in disparate ways.


I once read a web page where somebody argued that HTML markup that 
complies with official, explicit HTML standards is right "by 
definition."  This was as if the standards themselves had not been 
devised according to some more general and probably less definite idea 
of what standards should be like and as if there could be no idea of 
HTML rightness that would require the revision of the official, explicit 
standards promulgated on individual dates in specific documents by the 
World Wide Web Consortium. Now, for a while the Mozilla Firefox browser 
adhered to the standards in certain cases where the standards were 
problematic. I don't think that the Firefox designers denied the need 
for revised standards, based on a more general idea of standards, but 
they didn't like the idea of rebellion by browser designers (such 
rebellion does make it more difficult to design web pages that work in 
all browsers). But they took this "letter of the law" attitude to an 
extreme.  (I'm thinking in particular of how Firefox treated two or more 
directly successive hyphens in a hidden comment - IIRC, it treated them 
as a hidden comment's closing tag (except the double hyphen in the 
opening tag), whereas other browsers and most webpage designers treated 
-->, a double hyphen followed directly by a greater-than sign, as the 
one and only way to do a hidden comment's closing tag. For a while I 
found myself deleting or replacing with equals-signs many strings of 
hyphens that Joe Ransdell had placed between hidden-comment tags at 
Arisbe. Anyway, Mozilla finally gave in and said something like "We 
don't have to change our browser for this, but we will.")


Best, Ben

On 2/6/2017 9:58 AM, Eric Charles wrote:

JS said: In other words, the nominalist says that reality consists 
entirely of individuals, so generals are only names we use to 
facilitate discourse; while the (Peircean) realist says that reality 
consists entirely of generals, so individuals are only names we use to 
facilitate discourse.  If so, how does this help answer Eric's 
original question about the practical differences that one view 
manifests relative to the other?


Uh oh.

I was rather satisfied with having decided, aided by the list 
discussion, that - from a pragmatist perspective - nominalists were 
/just/ people who denied that collective inquiry into categories leads 
to convergence of ideas. But now (here and elsewhere) Nominalist

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [peirce-l] First, second, third, etc.

[Benjamin Udell]

Hi, Clark, list,

Clark, regarding a paper by De Tienne, you wrote,

   Does anyone happen to have a copy they could post to the list?

Gary and I would prefer that nobody attach and send a paper that's not 
their own to the list without permission of the 
author/copyright-holder.  It results not only in copies being sent 
without author/copyright-holder's permission to hundreds of people on 
the list, but also in the paper's being posted publicly at the peirce-l 
archive at IUPUI and wherever else.


Probably Jean-Marc should not have posted De Tienne's paper at his own 
public site at chalmers.se, but anyway I've scoured the lists of J-M's 
files there on the Wayback Machine and the Wayback Machine didn't store 
a copy that I could find.


Best,

Ben Udell, co-manager of peirce-l
Gary Richmond, moderator & co-manager of peirce-l

On 2/3/2017 10:57 AM, Clark Goble wrote:

On Feb 2, 2017, at 2:31 PM, Clark Goble  > wrote:


Here is an article that I scanned some time ago, it was written by 
Andre de Tienne:


http://www.medic.chalmers.se/~jmo/semiotic/Peirce_s_semiotic_monism.pdf 
 



the first page is missing, but I think than anyone interested in 
signs and in triadic relations should read it.


BTW - I meant to include a comment in that post yesterday afternoon 
but ran out of time. (I was writing at work)


The link is dead and I couldn’t find the paper anywhere. Does anyone 
happen to have a copy they could post to the list?



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Signs, Correlates, Triadic Relations

[Benjamin Udell]

And here's a Lyris peirce-l archive search that finds 23 results for
Orliaguet triad trichotomy

http://lyris.ttu.edu/read//vtable.tml?f=search::results&d=read/search&secx=1118ef1a&nsn=searchresultsviewtable&max=20&min=&rawresults=0&forum=peirce-l&words=orliaguet+triad+trichotomy&in=3&any=0&exclude=¬in=&q=&sm=1 



I don't know whether that gets all the threads about triad VERSUS 
trichotomy, but it gets many of them. A search on "Orliaguet triads 
trichotomies" (using plurals) leads to a subset of the same threads.


Note to peirce-listers, if you use the Lyris Advanced Search 
http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/search/advanced?forum=peirce-l , be sure to 
click on "all" in


   Show messages with any or all of these words:
  ◉ any ○ all

because the default is "any" as shown above.

Best, Ben


On 2/2/2017 4:08 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote:

Ben, Gary, Jerry, Kirst, List ...

I had one of those Deja Vu Groundhog Day impressions that
we had discussed this question of triadic vs. trichotomic
way back at the turn of the millennium, but many searches
under those keywords failed to turn up the relevant texts
until I remembered to search under 3-adic vs. 3-tomic and
more generally k-adic vs. k-tomic.  I found an old record
that looks like one of my best first statements about the
issue and I'll post a copy of that under a separate head.

Regards,

Jon




-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Sign Relations Archive

[Benjamin Udell]

Thanks for searching, Jon. I finally found it, it was between Orliaguet 
& Inna Semetsky, not & Kirsti. My bad. See the message that I just sent 
to peirce-l - Best, Ben


On 2/2/2017 10:56 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:

Peircers,

I went looking for the mentioned exchange between
Jean-Marc Orliaguet and Kirsti Määttänen and have
not found it yet, but I did run across an archive
of canonical selections from Peirce and previous
discussions on Sign Relations that may be of use.
It looks like I left off prettifying the content
a couple of years ago but I'll devote some more
effort to that as time goes by.

http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/User:Jon_Awbrey/Sign_Relations_Archive 



Regards,

Jon




-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations - The union of the units unifies the unity

[Benjamin Udell]

xample,"A Guess at 
the Riddle," CP 1.369-372)."


Yes, sometimes, as in "A Guess at the Riddle," Peirce uses the term 
"triad" to refer to a trichotomy that is not a triad of the three 
correlates of semiotic action. I was just saying that it's clearer to 
reserve "triad" for the semiotic triad, the correlates united in triadic 
action, and reserve "trichotomy" for division into three. Of course 
there's nothing about English or Ancient Greek that requires us so to 
reserve "triad," which in both langauges just means "trio" or 
"threesome." But Peirce's development of the semiotic triad in terms of 
an irreducibly "triadic predicate" as he consistently called it, 
reflecting irreducibly "triadic action" as he consistently called it, 
leads one to associate "triad" with that context, and I think it 
benefits clarity to adhere to it, even though Peirce sometimes used the 
word "triad" more generally. At one time I suggested the use of words 
like "triastic" and "triasm" to refer to both trichotomies and triads. 
Nobody liked it, and maybe just as well. A few years ago I looked up 
that which would be the normal root, if it existed, in Ancient Greek: 
_/triazo/_. It did exist, but it meant "destroy" — I guess as if by 
cutting in three.


You wrote, "certainly a trichotomy can be a simple, non-categorial 
division into three, but I don't see how one can claim this "generally" 
(including generally in semeiotic) /for Peirce/ even if particular 
passages might suggest otherwise."


I agree, "trichotomy" does not refer generally for Peirce to simple 
non-categorial division into three. Usually he's talking about three-way 
categorial divisions. I was just saying that it benefits clarity to 
habitually refer to them as trichotomies rather than as triads, and I 
took Kirsti to be saying that IS the distinction, to which I added that 
Peirce did not always follow that terminologically but instead sometimes 
referred to various categorial classificatory trichotomies as "triads".


Best, Ben

On 2/1/2017 9:57 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Ben, list

Ben, you wrote: ".[Orliaguet ]. . . . quoted a passage by Peirce that 
required understanding the term "triad" to refer to the three 
correlates in triadic action with one another — 
sign-object-interpretant — and not to any other trichotomy (three-way 
division); otherwise the passage by Peirce became nonsense. "


I've been a little "out of it" post surgery, but did someone earlier 
quote that passage? In any event, I can't find it in this thread.


However it may appear in /that/ passage, I do not believe that this 
holds for semeiotic "generally" (see, for example,"A Guess at the 
Riddle," CP 1.369-372). While the ordinary sense (that is, in the 
vernacular, and as it is employed in some sciences)  of trichotomy is 
"a three fold cut," trichotomy can and does refer in Peirce to /all/ 
tricategorial relations, including those which appear in semeiotic. 
(Note, however, that I agree with Kirsti that the trio "sinsign, index 
and dicisign" is NOT a trichotomy /because/ it does not involve a 
categorially triadic relation.)


Ben wrote: "Still it should be noted that on some occasions Peirce 
used the term "triad" to refer to a merely classificatory trichotomy."


On the other hand, on some (I mean many) occasions Peirce used the 
term "trichotomy" to refer to categorially triadic relations as in the 
ms "Trichotomic." I /always/ use "Trichotomy to refer to a genuine 
trichotomic relation (the elements of the triad involving all three 
categories in relation in any context, semeiotic or otherwise), 
while--as I would express it--not all triads are trichotomic. Again, 
certainly a trichotomy can be a simple, non-categorial division into 
three, but I don't see how one can claim this "generally" (including 
generally in semeiotic) /for Peirce/ even if particular passages might 
suggest otherwise.


Ben, am I missing something here?

Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond*

*Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690  *

On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 6:02 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Kirsti, Jerry, list,

Kirsti is generally correct. I remember years ago at peirce-l when 
Orliaguet made the same point (with superfluous sarcasm) to Kirsti. 
He quoted a passage by Peirce that required understanding the term 
"triad" to refer to the three correlates in triadic action with one 
another — sign-object-interpretant — and not to any other trichotomy 
(three-way division); otherwise the passage by Peirce b

Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations - The union of the units unifies the unity

[Benjamin Udell]

Kirsti, Jerry, list,

Kirsti is generally correct. I remember years ago at peirce-l when 
Orliaguet made the same point (with superfluous sarcasm) to Kirsti. He 
quoted a passage by Peirce that required understanding the term "triad" 
to refer to the three correlates in triadic action with one another — 
sign-object-interpretant — and not to any other trichotomy (three-way 
division); otherwise the passage by Peirce became nonsense. Still it 
should be noted that on some occasions Peirce used the term "triad" to 
refer to a merely classificatory trichotomy. But I think that, in 
Peircean contexts, Kirsti's point is not only supported in Peirce but 
also promotes much more clarity than does treating "triad" and 
"trichotomy" as interchangeable. Over the years commenters at peirce-l 
have tended to adhere to the distinction and FWIW I always stick to it.


Best, Ben

On 1/31/2017 5:22 PM, kirst...@saunalahti.fi wrote:

Hi,

I feel a need to point out that "sinsign, index and dicisign" presents 
a trichotomy of signs. Not a triad, but a tree-part division, a 
classification, if you wish.


All triads and triadicity involve mediation. Triadicity also involves 
meaning, not just signs.


Kirsti



Jerry LR Chandler kirjoitti 26.1.2017 21:07:

List, Franklin, Frederik:

The OUP book,

THE STRUCTURE OF OBJECTS

by Kathrin Koslicki (2008)

addresses some of the philosophy that appears to be difficult to
understand.

More particularly, it illuminates the triad, sinsign, index and
dicisign in relation to parts of the whole, the illation between the
identity, the individual and the particular that also considers the
chemical perspective.
Unfortunately, the intertwining of the meaning of this triad with
diagrammatic logic as described by Mark Greaves in “The
Philosophical Status of Diagrams” is beyond the scope of the logic
presented.

Cheers

Jerry


On Dec 12, 2015, at 4:10 PM, Franklin Ransom
 wrote:

Jerry, list,

Well, I'm glad that someone agrees with me, as far as the statement
went.

Jerry, I think that you raise some good questions. Though, I must
admit I'm not entirely sure what a couple of your terms mean, such
as 'coupling' and 'grammar'. As for 'unit', I'll guess you mean
something like what the original meaning of 'atom' meant, as
something basic and indivisible from which other, more complex
things can be built up out of.

I've decided to answer the questions in the order reverse to the
order in which they were presented.


Do you consider this part - whole coupling to be "mereological in
character"?


I'm not sure what that means, but since it's a part-whole relation,
and mereology is a study concerned with such relations, it would
seem almost tautological that it is "mereological in character". But
there are different and competing theories in mereology, and I don't
want to be taken as supporting any one of them specifically.


Is smoke a unit? Is a precept a unit?


I take it you meant "percept", not precept. I would say it depends
on the context; in one context, we could take percepts as our basic
elements, or units, while in another context of analysis we might
try to break it down more, as presumably someone in experimental
psychology might try to break down sense impressions to the physical
operations of the body and the thing experienced. Similarly with
smoke, if we just wanted to talk about the matter in terms of
commonly understood objects and signs, then it could be considered a
unit; but obviously, the chemist could try to break it down more
into the specific analysis of gases, and down to the atoms, of which
the smoke is composed, and so on further to particles and such.


If "whole work of understanding." implies a coupling of external
events with internal processes, then what is the nature of the
grammar the generates the coupling of the parts of the whole?


This is where the meaning of 'coupling' worries me, but I'll suppose
it's something like correspondence. Also not sure what grammar is
supposed to be in this context. By "whole work of understanding", I
meant the introduction of a concept, whether in perceptual judgment
or in an abduction, for explaining the phenomenon (percept); which
concept, when analyzed into possible further interactions with the
object of the percept, and then put to experimental test in
practical conduct, proves helpful for interacting with the object of
the percept. So the whole process of semiosis, up to the following
out of a scientific inquiry into the object, may be required to
grasp the (whole) object. Put in terms of correspondence, I suppose
that the fact that the object responds to our interactions in the
way we predict is what reveals that there is a correspondence
between our concept of the object and the object as it is in itself.

I'm not sure how to relate that to "the nature of the grammar the
generates the coupling of the parts of the whole". Part and whole
here were originally about the object as immediate and the object as
dynamical, but rel

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

Kirsti, the reply from Jon A.S. answers your question but I noticed that 
in your message my link to the source was partly broken, taking the 
viewer to the right website but not to the right webpage.  A "[3]" got 
inserted and the embedded URL string included both the "[3]" and the 
following word "in". If you try clicking on it again, be sure to delete 
the extra part of the URL string from the browser address field. Or 
start out by copying and pasting just the proper URL starting with 
"http" and ending with "html" into the browser address field.


Best, Ben

On 1/17/2017 6:35 AM, kirst...@saunalahti.fi wrote:

Ben,

Are there omitted parts in your quotes? Marked by -?
Best, Kirsti



Benjamin Udell kirjoitti 15.1.2017 20:05:

Jon A.S., Kirsti, list,

Regarding Peirce about reflected-on qualities as generals, I was
basing that on the same text as contains CP 1.427 quoted by Jon A.S.
That is "§2. Quality" http://www.textlog.de/4282.html [3] in "The
Logic of Mathematics; An Attempt to Develop My Categories From
Within," an MS from circa 1896.

From CP 1.422:


[] In other words, it is concrete things you do not believe in;
qualities, that is, generals — which is another word for the same
thing — you not only believe in but believe that they alone
compose the universe. []


From CP 1.425:


[] When we say that qualities are general, are partial
determinations, are mere potentialities, etc., all that is true of
qualities reflected upon; but these things do not belong to the
quality-element of experience. []


Best, Ben

On 1/15/2017 11:47 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Kirsti, List:

Not surprisingly, I have found that Peirce was exactly right when he
stated, "Of all conceptions Continuity is by far the most difficult
for Philosophy to handle" (RLT:242). I think that the light bulb
finally came on for me when I stopped focusing on a line as
consisting of potential vs. actual points, and instead recognized
that it consists of continuous line segments all the way down. This
reflects the distinction that I just mentioned in my response to Jon
A. between the singular (point) and the individual (continuous line
segment). A true singularity--determinate in every conceivable
respect--would be a _dis_continuity, and hence is only an ideal.

As you noted, it is important to keep in mind that the points or
line segments do not _comprise _ the continuum; the latter is the
more fundamental concept. Hence Peirce changed "the question of
nominalism and realism"--rather than, "Are generals real?" it
became, "Are any continua real?" (RLT:160) In that sense, I
disagree with your subsequent post directed at Ben--a quality _is_
general, because it is a continuum; it just has a different _kind _
of generality/continuity from a habit or law. In fact, Peirce
explicitly contrasted the degenerate or negative generality of a
quality as permanent or eternal possibility with the genuine or
positive generality of a law as conditional necessity (CP 1.427).

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[2]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 8:46 AM,  wrote:


Jon A.S.

First: see my recent response to Jon Awbrey.

Second: In developing his theory of true continuity, CSP used the
basic geometrical notions of a line and a point. (According to his
architecture of sciences, which presents not just an architecture
of sciences, but more so a method for proceeding with any
questions).

CSP grew dissatisfied with the ancient view as well as the Kantian
view of continuity. The latist view of CSP was that there are no
points in true continuity, neither does it consist of points,
however small, however near to each other.

BUT, as a methodological advice, he wrote that it is admissible to
separate of point in the continuity in question, IF it is done
with a deliberate aim & a readyness to leave from separation to
unification as soon as possible.

In separating any point within the continuum in question,
continuity gets violated. But this violation may and can be
mended. - The point, thus sepateted, must be re-posioned into the
contunuity it was originally pointed out.

To understand all this, it is necessary to truly understand the
essence of ordinal (nin contrast to cardinal) mathematics,simplest
arihmetics, in the philosophy of CSP.

The Fist, the Second, the Third Then at least a little bit new
Fist, Second, Third...

CSP came to the conclusion that his categories beared a
resemblance with the three moments by Hegel. - After having been
mocking Hegel's Logic (with good reasons!)

What, for Peirce ( and me), is universal is change, chance
(spontaneity) and continuity. But, mind you, all together.


From exlusion of existent individuals (points in a line) does not

follow that existent in

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary F., Jon A.S., list,

Gary F., when Peirce in Harvard Lecture 6 says that "the totality of all 
real objects" is a "singular", he is pretty clearly discussing that 
which he elsewhere calls an individual. Jon A.S. was discussing 
singulars in Peirce's other sense of "singular," that which can only be 
at one place and one date and occupies no time and no space, i.e., that 
which some nowadays would call a point-instant. Peirce did not always 
adhere to his terminological distinction (e.g., in "Questions On 
Reality" in 1868 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/logic/ms148.htm 
 ) 
between "singular" (short for "singular individual") and "individual" 
(short for "general individual"). In another example of his shifting 
between "individual" and "singular", Peirce defines "sinsign" as an 
individual that serves as a sign - I mean that he did not require 
sinsigns to be point-instants - yet he uses the "sin-" of "singular" 
rather than some root related to "individual" or the like in order to 
coin the word "sinsign."


Best, Ben

On 1/15/2017 1:07 PM, g...@gnusystems.ca wrote:


Jon,

While it’s true that a real continuum would contain no singularities, 
I don’t think you can say that a singular is “only an ideal” for 
Peirce. Indeed he says that “the totality of all real objects” is a 
singular. Harvard Lecture 6 (EP2:208-9):


[[ That which is not general is singular; and the singular is that 
which reacts. The being of a singular may consist in the being of 
other singulars which are its parts. … For every proposition 
whatsoever refers as to its subject to a singular actually reacting 
upon the utterer of it and actually reacting upon the interpreter of 
it. All propositions relate to the same ever-reacting singular; 
namely, to the totality of all real objects. ]]


Gary f.

} For the clarity we are aiming at is indeed *complete* clarity. But 
this simply means that the philosophical problems should *completely* 
disappear. [Wittgenstein] {


http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ /Turning Signs/ gateway

*From:* Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* 15-Jan-17 11:47

Kirsti, List:

Not surprisingly, I have found that Peirce was exactly right when he 
stated, "Of all conceptions Continuity is by far the most difficult 
for Philosophy to handle" (RLT:242).  I think that the light bulb 
finally came on for me when I stopped focusing on a line as consisting 
of potential vs. actual points, and instead recognized that it 
consists of continuous line segments all the way down.  This reflects 
the distinction that I just mentioned in my response to Jon A. between 
the singular (point) and the individual (continuous line segment).  A 
true singularity--determinate in every conceivable respect--would be a 
/dis/continuity, and hence is only an ideal.


As you noted, it is important to keep in mind that the points or line 
segments do not /comprise/ the continuum; the latter is the more 
fundamental concept.  Hence Peirce changed "the question of nominalism 
and realism"--rather than, "Are generals real?" it became, "Are any 
continua real?" (RLT:160)  In that sense, I disagree with your 
subsequent post directed at Ben--a quality /is/ general, because it is 
a continuum; it just has a different /kind/ of generality/continuity 
from a habit or law.  In fact, Peirce explicitly contrasted the 
degenerate or negative generality of a quality as permanent or eternal 
possibility with the genuine or positive generality of a law as 
conditional necessity (CP 1.427).


Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon A.S., Kirsti, list,

Regarding Peirce about reflected-on qualities as generals, I was basing 
that on the same text as contains CP 1.427 quoted by Jon A.S. That is 
"§2. Quality" http://www.textlog.de/4282.html in "The Logic of 
Mathematics; An Attempt to Develop My Categories From Within," an MS 
from circa 1896.


From CP 1.422:

   [] In other words, it is concrete things you do not believe in;
   qualities, that is, generals — which is another word for the same
   thing — you not only believe in but believe that they alone compose
   the universe. []

From CP 1.425:

   [] When we say that qualities are general, are partial
   determinations, are mere potentialities, etc., all that is true of
   qualities reflected upon; but these things do not belong to the
   quality-element of experience. []

Best, Ben

On 1/15/2017 11:47 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Kirsti, List:

Not surprisingly, I have found that Peirce was exactly right when he 
stated, "Of all conceptions Continuity is by far the most difficult 
for Philosophy to handle" (RLT:242).  I think that the light bulb 
finally came on for me when I stopped focusing on a line as consisting 
of potential vs. actual points, and instead recognized that it 
consists of continuous line segments all the way down.  This reflects 
the distinction that I just mentioned in my response to Jon A. between 
the singular (point) and the individual (continuous line segment).  A 
true singularity--determinate in every conceivable respect--would be a 
/dis/continuity, and hence is only an ideal.


As you noted, it is important to keep in mind that the points or line 
segments do not /comprise / the continuum; the latter is the more 
fundamental concept. Hence Peirce changed "the question of nominalism 
and realism"--rather than, "Are generals real?" it became, "Are any 
continua real?" (RLT:160)  In that sense, I disagree with your 
subsequent post directed at Ben--a quality /is/ general, because it is 
a continuum; it just has a different /kind / of generality/continuity 
from a habit or law.  In fact, Peirce explicitly contrasted the 
degenerate or negative generality of a quality as permanent or eternal 
possibility with the genuine or positive generality of a law as 
conditional necessity (CP 1.427).


Regards,

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


On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 8:46 AM,  > wrote:



Jon A.S.

First: see my recent response to Jon Awbrey.

Second: In developing his theory of true continuity, CSP used the 
basic geometrical notions of a line and a point. (According to his 
architecture of sciences, which presents not just an architecture of 
sciences, but more so a method for proceeding with any questions).


CSP grew dissatisfied with the ancient view as well as the Kantian 
view of continuity. The latist view of CSP was that there are no 
points in true continuity, neither does it consist of points, however 
small, however near to each other.


BUT, as a methodological advice, he wrote that it is admissible to 
separate of point in the continuity in question, IF it is done with a 
deliberate aim & a readyness to leave from separation to unification 
as soon as possible.


In separating any point within the continuum in question, continuity 
gets violated. But this violation may and can be mended. - The point, 
thus sepateted, must be re-posioned into the contunuity it was 
originally pointed out.


To understand all this, it is necessary to truly understand the 
essence of ordinal (nin contrast to cardinal) mathematics,simplest 
arihmetics, in the philosophy of CSP.


The Fist, the Second, the Third Then at least a little bit new 
Fist, Second, Third...


CSP came to the conclusion that his categories beared a resemblance 
with the three moments by Hegel. - After having been mocking Hegel's 
Logic (with good reasons!)


What, for Peirce ( and me), is universal is change, chance 
(spontaneity) and continuity. But, mind you, all together.


>From exlusion of existent individuals (points in a line) does not 
follow that existent individuals do not matter. - it just follows 
that from any collection og existent indivuals ( collection of 
points) it is not possible to construe a continuum. - However hard it 
may be tried.


Continuity as an abstraction does not amount to understanding real 
continuity. With figments of your imaginations you can do (almost) 
anything with a whim of your mind. But even then there is the ALMOST. 
The 'not quite', a residual.


Well. You asked about the relation between universal and general. But 
from the viewpoint of taking existent individuals as the starting 
point. - Which is wrong.


It presents a nominalistic starting point. - Are generals real? was 
the formulat

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., list,

I don't have a quote handy, but Peirce said specifically that the 
pragmatic maxim is for clarifying not qualities of feeling, but 
conceptions. I suppose that that could include conceptions of qualities 
of feeling, but not the qualities of feeling themselves. A mechanical 
quality (such as the unscratchability or 'hardness' of a diamond) is not 
a quality of feeling. Instead it's an if-then property that we think of 
as a quality as if of feeling. Peirce said something to that effect, but 
it may take a while for me to dig it up.


Best, Ben

On 1/9/2017 11:07 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Ben, List:

BU:  This rule-style of formulation reflects a major difference
between Peirce's generals and Peirce's qualities of feeling which
are generals when reflected on but are not rules and are not
formulated as rules.

I am not convinced that there is a significant difference here, at 
least when it comes to applying the pragmatic maxim in order to 
ascertain the meanings of our concepts of qualities--as /monadic/ 
predicates embodied in /actual/ things--at the third grade of 
clearness.  As with generals, we define them using a subjunctive 
conditional that is true regardless of whether the relevant test is 
ever actually performed.  "For all /x/ , if /x/ is hard, then /x/ 
would resist scratching."  "For all /x/ , if /x/ is red, then /x/ 
would primarily reflect light at wavelengths between 620 nm and 750 
nm."  The difference is that qualities are also real as /medads/ 
--possibilities not predicated of anything actual, but simply being 
what they are independently of anything else.


BU:  At first I thought I knew what you meant, but somehow it's
become less clear to me, I can't even recapture what I at first
thought you meant. I'm trying to put it in the context of your
regarding the use of the word "general" as evoking the possibility
of exceptions.

It was not really about that; more the idea that a general as a 
continuum whose multiple instantiations are /different/ --even if only 
infinitesimally /distinguishable/ --seems more plausible than a 
universal whose multiple instantiations are somehow supposed to be 
/identical/ .


Regards,

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


On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 4:52 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Jon S., list,

_/Universum/ _ in the sense of the whole world goes back at least to 
Cicero in the 1st Century B.C. 
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Duniversus 
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Duniversus> 



You wrote,

Note also Peirce's stance that universal propositions do not
assert the existence of anything.  So "if a cat, then a mammal"
could be true even if neither cats nor mammals exist.
[End quote]

Yes, that's my point about "if a cat, then a mammal" - as a compound 
term in the form Cx→Mx, it's true of absolutely everything in the 
world (the actual world, at least), and this is reflected by the 
usual kind of logical formulation "For all /x/ , if /x/ is a cat, 
then /x/ is a mammal" (i.e., "For all /x/ : /x/ is not a cat and/or 
/x/ is a mammal"). This rule-style of formulation reflects a major 
difference between Peirce's generals and Peirce's qualities of 
feeling which are generals when reflected on but are not rules and 
are not formulated as rules. With the conditional form "Cx→Mx", 
Peirce's generals are maximally general in a sense, just not 
pertinent in all cases. As you note, it doesn't entail the existence 
of anything, at least not of anything in particular (in Peirce's view 
a universe of discourse smaller than two objects should be ruled out, 
so the existence of at least two objects is automatically, if not 
always relevantly, entailed by any term or proposition in a Peircean 
universe).


You wrote:

Peirce's identification of generality with continuity leads me to
think that every general is a continuum of possibilities.  Hence
multiple instantiations of the same general are not identical,
just different parts of the same continuum, which is why they are
continua themselves and not necessarily distinguishable from each
other.

At first I thought I knew what you meant, but somehow it's become 
less clear to me, I can't even recapture what I at first thought you 
meant. I'm trying to put it in the context of your regarding the use 
of the word "general" as evoking the possibility of exceptions.


Anyway,

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., list,

_/Universum/_ in the sense of the whole world goes back at least to 
Cicero in the 1st Century B.C. 
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Duniversus 



You wrote,

   Note also Peirce's stance that universal propositions do not assert
   the existence of anything.  So "if a cat, then a mammal" could be
   true even if neither cats nor mammals exist.
   [End quote]

Yes, that's my point about "if a cat, then a mammal" - as a compound 
term in the form Cx→Mx, it's true of absolutely everything in the world 
(the actual world, at least), and this is reflected by the usual kind of 
logical formulation "For all /x/, if /x/ is a cat, then /x/ is a mammal" 
(i.e., "For all /x/: /x/ is not a cat and/or /x/ is a mammal"). This 
rule-style of formulation reflects a major difference between Peirce's 
generals and Peirce's qualities of feeling which are generals when 
reflected on but are not rules and are not formulated as rules. With the 
conditional form "Cx→Mx", Peirce's generals are maximally general in a 
sense, just not pertinent in all cases. As you note, it doesn't entail 
the existence of anything, at least not of anything in particular (in 
Peirce's view a universe of discourse smaller than two objects should be 
ruled out, so the existence of at least two objects is automatically, if 
not always relevantly, entailed by any term or proposition in a Peircean 
universe).


You wrote:

   Peirce's identification of generality with continuity leads me to
   think that every general is a continuum of possibilities. Hence
   multiple instantiations of the same general are not identical, just
   different parts of the same continuum, which is why they are
   continua themselves and not necessarily distinguishable from each other.

At first I thought I knew what you meant, but somehow it's become less 
clear to me, I can't even recapture what I at first thought you meant. 
I'm trying to put it in the context of your regarding the use of the 
word "general" as evoking the possibility of exceptions.


Anyway, your idea that Peirce chose "general" because it suggests the 
possibility of exceptions remains appealing. One could extend the idea 
to include the possibility of growth and evolution (as of a genus, and 
as of a symbol); the idea of the "universal" true of absolutely 
everything seems somehow more static and uniform. Mathematics could get 
away with it because of mathematics' having its counterbalancing 
imaginative freedom, but for the other things "general" seems better.


Best, Ben

On 1/9/2017 4:13 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Ben:

Of course, "universal" as employed by the scholastics came from Latin, 
probably by combining "unum" (one) and "versus" (turned), thus meaning 
something like "turned into one."  Presumably the current connotation, 
"true of absolutely everything," was a later linguistic development 
within English.


Note also Peirce's stance that universal propositions do not assert 
the existence of anything.  So "if a cat, then a mammal" could be true 
even if neither cats nor mammals exist.


Peirce's identification of generality with continuity leads me to 
think that every general is a continuum of possibilities. Hence 
multiple instantiations of the same general are not identical, just 
different parts of the same continuum, which is why they are continua 
themselves and not necessarily distinguishable from each other.


Regards,

Jon

On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:



Jon S., list,

You may well be right. "General" was one of the words of which Peirce 
was in charge in the Century Dictionary -


http://web.archive.org/web/20120324152427/http://www.pep.uqam.ca/listsofwords.pep?l=G 
<http://web.archive.org/web/20120324152427/http://www.pep.uqam.ca/listsofwords.pep?l=G> 



but the definition that appears in the Century Dictionary -

http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpg.php?query=&djvuurl=http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/03/INDEX.djvu&hittype=page&volno=&page=706&zoom=25&format=htmlimage&label=Volume%203&fromallhits= 
<http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpg.php?query=&djvuurl=http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/03/INDEX.djvu&hittype=page&volno=&page=706&zoom=25&format=htmlimage&label=Volume%203&fromallhits=> 



- involves both senses of "general" - as exceptionless and as 
allowing exceptions.


I always liked his use of "general" since the word "universal" 
unqualified in English seems to mean true of absolutely everything, 
and that's certainly not what Aristo

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

They're Chiasson's quotes (with at least one rephrashing by her) of 
Peirce from a passage in:


Peirce, Charles S. (1905 April), "What Pragmatism Is", /The Monist/ , v. 
XV, n. 2, pp. 161–181 
https://books.google.com/books?id=j6oLIAAJ&pg=PA161-IA22 . Oxford 
PDF http://monist.oxfordjournals.org/content/monist/15/2/161.full.pdf . 
Reprinted (CP 5.411–437), (Charles S. Peirce, Selected Writings 
180–202), (The Logic of Interdisciplinarity 230–244). Internet Archive 
Eprint 
https://archive.org/stream/monistquart15hegeuoft#page/161/mode/1up . 
Arisbe 
Eprinthttp://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/whatis/whatpragis.htm 
 .


Best, Ben


On 1/9/2017 4:08 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:

List, Jerry R.,:

I am curious about the origin of the quotes:



   ‘almost every proposition of ontological metaphysics is
  meaningless gibberish’




  ‘made up of words that define each other with no conception being
  reached.’  Or else, claimed Peirce,




  ‘the conception that is reached is absurd.’”



These are very powerful claims that separate the conceptualization of 
reality / pragmaticism from vast domains of philosophy and theology.


Historically, this brings the relationships between the 
conceptualization of a mathematical variable and physical claims about 
nature / natural catalogues of categories into question.


So, what is the meaning of these assertions (if any?) in terms of 
modern day science?


More specifically, my comment is a reflection on the use and abuse of 
the term “ontology” in philosophy. In particular, it should be noted 
that the chemical table of elements (TOE), the present day ur-source 
of scientific catalogues of categories (ontologies) was a foundation 
for many aspects of CSP logical development of signs / symbols. 
Although the modern day TOE has undergone further developments in form 
and structure, the rational for it’s ontological existence remains 
unchanged for over a century and is scientifically and philosophically 
non-problematic. The TOE is firmly established as the ontological 
origin of (non-prime) matter.  The extension of TOE by chemical 
illations to compounds and biochemical “handedness” is standard 
textbook stuff. The logical form of this extension is not a universal 
or recursive application of a variable, but is, the reference subset 
of TOE members, a step-by-step construction of emergent identities.


in other words, chemical “universals” do not exist in the sense of 
physical or mathematical variables because each chemical element is 
indivisible. The name of a legisign is an identity that associates 
quali-signs with indices and hence with dicisigns and the illations 
that generate the legisign.  This tautology is constructed without 
invoking the concept of prime matter.


In short, how are these CSP - induced conundrums resolved by physical 
philosophy?  mathematical philosophy?


In particular, is that modern physics, with its focus on Kantian a 
priori and mathematical variables of energy and mass, problematically 
lacks meta-physical ground?   Is this one aspect of CSP’s adoption of 
the Hegelian view of “chemism”?  (see, “Real Process” by John W. 
Burbidge, 1996) and with its intrinsic reliance on the copulative logic of

" sin-sign <—> qualisign “   and “sin-sign <—> legisign”?

Thus, it appears to me that this thread goes far deeper than it first 
appears.

 The phrase



  ‘made up of words that define each other with no conception being
  reached.’



is a novel and deep critique of the tautological usage of physical 
units in a philosophy of physics grounded in the  Kantian a priori of 
space and time.  In my opinion, it also describes the abstract nature 
of mathematical set theory as it manifests itself in Husserlian 
phenomenology.


Cheers

Jerry


On Jan 7, 2017, at 8:52 PM, Jerry Rhee  > wrote:


Dear list:


  In “ Peirce's Pragmatism: The Design for Thinking”, Chiasson
  follows up a section on Scotus, (thisness, whatness, universals,
  general laws, qualitative essences) with the following:


  “Do you understand what Peirce meant when he said that ‘almost
  every proposition of ontological metaphysics is meaningless
  gibberish’?...When Peirce writes that the propositions are
  meaningless gibberish, he follows up this claim by saying that
  these propositions are ‘made up of words that define each other
  with no conception being reached.’ Or else, claimed Peirce, ‘the
  conception that is reached is absurd.’”


  Best,


  Jerry R


On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 7:52 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com> > wrote:


Jon A., List:

Thanks for that.  I came across CP 3.611-613 the other day and
found it quite helpful; it dates to 1911, or at least that is
when Baldwin's /Dictionary / appeared in print.  Rosa Mayorga
pointed to a considerably earlier passage from a draft of
"Questions Concerning Certain Facu

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., list,

You may well be right. "General" was one of the words of which Peirce 
was in charge in the Century Dictionary -


http://web.archive.org/web/20120324152427/http://www.pep.uqam.ca/listsofwords.pep?l=G 



but the definition that appears in the Century Dictionary -

http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpg.php?query=&djvuurl=http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/03/INDEX.djvu&hittype=page&volno=&page=706&zoom=25&format=htmlimage&label=Volume%203&fromallhits= 



- involves both senses of "general" - as exceptionless and as allowing 
exceptions.


I always liked his use of "general" since the word "universal" 
unqualified in English seems to mean true of absolutely everything, and 
that's certainly not what Aristotle meant by the Greek word 
traditionally translated as "universal". But it seems like I'm the only 
person who minds this, so maybe Peirce was just concerned with the idea 
of allowing exceptions in a given class to which a general is applied, 
rather than avoiding the sense in which "universal" evokes "maximally 
general". On the other hand, Peirce's generals typically have a "G→H" 
form, which could be taken as totally universal, though not pertinent 
outside of a class of things that at least could be G (I.e., "if a cat, 
then a mammal" could be perfectly universal but beside the point for, 
say, mathematical structures). The genuinely monadic "G" as true at 
least potentially of more than one thing turns out to be a quality of 
feeling, general only for reflection.


Best, Ben

On 1/9/2017 3:36 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Ben, List:

Yes, I have obviously made some progress since I first posed the 
question to Gary.  The more I read about all of this, the more I am 
inclined to think that Peirce's preference for "general" over 
"universal" does indeed simply reflect his position that no law or 
habit is absolutely exceptionless.


Thanks,

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


On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 1:13 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


Sorry, I forgot to adjust the email message subject line. Repaired 
here. - Best, Ben


Jon S., Gary R., Jon A., list,

As promised in my previous message, here is the first off-list 
response that I made to Jon S.'s messages in this thread to peirce-l:


Jon S.,

You've out-researched me! I'm not sure what to say on-list at this 
point. I found some backup for some of your claims. I found that, as 
you said, indeed Peirce says that particular and universal 
propositions are general propositions, it's in CP 2.271 (from 
"Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations" 1903),


§10. Kinds of Propositions
271. A Dicent Symbol, or general proposition, is either /Particular/ 
or /Universal/ .


I've found elsewhere that Peirce tended to regard 'general' and 
'universal' as being mostly alternate terms for the same thing.,


It may take me a while to muster a response.,

Best, Ben


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

Sorry, I forgot to adjust the email message subject line. Repaired here. 
- Best, Ben


Jon S., Gary R., Jon A., list,

As promised in my previous message, here is the first off-list response 
that I made to Jon S.'s messages in this thread to peirce-l:


Jon S.,

You've out-researched me! I'm not sure what to say on-list at this 
point. I found some backup for some of your claims. I found that, as you 
said, indeed Peirce says that particular and universal propositions are 
general propositions, it's in CP 2.271 (from "Nomenclature and Divisions 
of Triadic Relations" 1903),


§10. Kinds of Propositions
271. A Dicent Symbol, or general proposition, is either /Particular/ or 
/Universal/.


I've found elsewhere that Peirce tended to regard 'general' and 
'universal' as being mostly alternate terms for the same thing.,


It may take me a while to muster a response.,

Best, Ben,

On 1/7/2017 8:52 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Jon A., List:

Thanks for that.  I came across CP 3.611-613 the other day and found 
it quite helpful; it dates to 1911, or at least that is when Baldwin's 
/Dictionary/ appeared in print.  Rosa Mayorga pointed to a 
considerably earlier passage from a draft of "Questions Concerning 
Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" in her book, /From Realism to 
"Realicism":  The Metaphysics of Charles Sanders Peirce/.


Hence every cognition we are in possession of is a judgment both
whose subject and predicate are general terms.  And, therefore, it
is not merely the case, as we saw before, that universals have
reality on this theory, but also that there are nothing but
universals which have an immediate reality. But here it is
necessary to distinguish between an individual in the sense of
that which has no generality and which here appears as a mere
ideal boundary of cognition, and an individual in the far wider
sense of that which can be only in one place at one time.  It will
be convenient to call the former singular and the latter only an
individual … Now a knowledge that cognition is not wholly
determined by cognition is a knowledge of something external to
the mind, that is the singulars.  Singulars therefore have a
reality. But singulars in general is not singular but general.  We
can cognize any part of the singulars however determinate, but
however determinate the part it is still general.  And therefore
what I maintain is that while singulars are real they are so only
in their generality; but singulars in their absolute
discrimination or singularity are mere ideals … In short, those
things which we call singulars exist, but the character of
singularity which we attribute to them is self-contradictory.

With reference to individuals, I shall only remark that there are
certain general terms whose objects can only be in one place at
one time, and these are called individuals. They are generals that
is, not singulars, because these latter occupy neither time nor
space, but can only be at one point and can only be at one date.
(W2:180-181; 1868)

Peirce noted here that "the character of singularity" is itself a 
general, which seems to render nominalism--the view that everything 
real is singular, so nothing real is general--effectively 
self-refuting.  He defined an individual as a collection of singulars 
joined across places and times, which is thus general when taken as a 
whole.  Furthermore, /absolute/ singulars are "mere ideals," such that 
(ironically) an individual is really a /continuum/ as Peirce came to 
understand that concept decades later.  Consequently, anything that we 
cognize /about/ individuals is /necessarily/ general, rather than 
singular.  This suggests to me the following argument for realism.


P1.  All singulars are absolutely determinate.
P2.  No objects of thought are absolutely determinate.
C1.  Therefore, no objects of thought are singulars.
P3.  If no objects of thought are singulars, then all objects of
thought are generals.
C2.  Therefore, all objects of thought are generals.
P4.  Some objects of thought are real.
C3.  Therefore, some generals are real.

My impression is that P1 and P3 are commonly accepted definitions of 
terms, so the nominalist must deny one of the other two premisses in 
order to deny the conclusion. Rejecting P2 amounts to claiming that we 
can ascertain that an object of thought has or does not have every 
conceivable predicate; but those are infinite, and our minds are 
finite, so this is impossible.  Rejecting P4 amounts to accepting that 
we have no genuine knowledge of reality--i.e., that it consists 
entirely of incognizable "things-in-themselves"--and this is precisely 
the view for which Peirce frequently criticized nominalists, because 
it blocks the way of inquiry.


Regards,

Jon S.

On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 6:22 PM, Jon Awbrey > wrote:



Here is one page:

http://inte

Re: OFFLIST Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., Gary R., Jon A., list,

As promised in my previous message, here is the first off-list response 
that I made to Jon S.'s messages in this thread to peirce-l:


Jon S.,

You've out-researched me! I'm not sure what to say on-list at this 
point. I found some backup for some of your claims. I found that, as you 
said, indeed Peirce says that particular and universal propositions are 
general propositions, it's in CP 2.271 (from "Nomenclature and Divisions 
of Triadic Relations" 1903),


§10. Kinds of Propositions
271. A Dicent Symbol, or general proposition, is either /Particular/ or 
/Universal/.


I've found elsewhere that Peirce tended to regard 'general' and 
'universal' as being mostly alternate terms for the same thing.,


It may take me a while to muster a response.,

Best, Ben,

On 1/7/2017 8:52 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Jon A., List:

Thanks for that.  I came across CP 3.611-613 the other day and found 
it quite helpful; it dates to 1911, or at least that is when Baldwin's 
/Dictionary/ appeared in print.  Rosa Mayorga pointed to a 
considerably earlier passage from a draft of "Questions Concerning 
Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" in her book, /From Realism to 
"Realicism":  The Metaphysics of Charles Sanders Peirce/.


Hence every cognition we are in possession of is a judgment both
whose subject and predicate are general terms.  And, therefore, it
is not merely the case, as we saw before, that universals have
reality on this theory, but also that there are nothing but
universals which have an immediate reality. But here it is
necessary to distinguish between an individual in the sense of
that which has no generality and which here appears as a mere
ideal boundary of cognition, and an individual in the far wider
sense of that which can be only in one place at one time.  It will
be convenient to call the former singular and the latter only an
individual … Now a knowledge that cognition is not wholly
determined by cognition is a knowledge of something external to
the mind, that is the singulars.  Singulars therefore have a
reality.  But singulars in general is not singular but general. 
We can cognize any part of the singulars however determinate, but

however determinate the part it is still general.  And therefore
what I maintain is that while singulars are real they are so only
in their generality; but singulars in their absolute
discrimination or singularity are mere ideals … In short, those
things which we call singulars exist, but the character of
singularity which we attribute to them is self-contradictory.

With reference to individuals, I shall only remark that there are
certain general terms whose objects can only be in one place at
one time, and these are called individuals.  They are generals
that is, not singulars, because these latter occupy neither time
nor space, but can only be at one point and can only be at one
date. (W2:180-181; 1868)

Peirce noted here that "the character of singularity" is itself a 
general, which seems to render nominalism--the view that everything 
real is singular, so nothing real is general--effectively 
self-refuting.  He defined an individual as a collection of singulars 
joined across places and times, which is thus general when taken as a 
whole.  Furthermore, /absolute/ singulars are "mere ideals," such that 
(ironically) an individual is really a /continuum/ as Peirce came to 
understand that concept decades later.  Consequently, anything that we 
cognize /about/ individuals is /necessarily/ general, rather than 
singular. This suggests to me the following argument for realism.


P1.  All singulars are absolutely determinate.
P2.  No objects of thought are absolutely determinate.
C1.  Therefore, no objects of thought are singulars.
P3.  If no objects of thought are singulars, then all objects of
thought are generals.
C2.  Therefore, all objects of thought are generals.
P4.  Some objects of thought are real.
C3.  Therefore, some generals are real.

My impression is that P1 and P3 are commonly accepted definitions of 
terms, so the nominalist must deny one of the other two premisses in 
order to deny the conclusion.  Rejecting P2 amounts to claiming that 
we can ascertain that an object of thought has or does not have every 
conceivable predicate; but those are infinite, and our minds are 
finite, so this is impossible.  Rejecting P4 amounts to accepting that 
we have no genuine knowledge of reality--i.e., that it consists 
entirely of incognizable "things-in-themselves"--and this is precisely 
the view for which Peirce frequently criticized nominalists, because 
it blocks the way of inquiry.


Regards,

Jon S.

On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 6:22 PM, Jon Awbrey > wrote:



Here is one page:

http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Doctrine_Of_Individuals 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual

[Benjamin Udell]

List, Jon S., Gary R.,

Gary R., Jon S., and I began discussing the subject of this thread a few 
days ago off-list, and we've agreed that the off-list parts should be 
brought on-list. Below is the part that preceded the thread's appearance 
at peirce-l. Next, I'll send the peirce-l thread plus an off-list reply 
that I made, and Jon S. can add his off-list reply, then I'll add my 
next one, etc.


Best, Ben

On 1/7/2017 12:56 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Jon, Ben,

Jon, I'm forwarding this off-list message Ben sent. I'm sure you'll 
find it of interest--it certainly refreshed my memory of some of the 
discussion of the topic we've had on peirce-l. Maybe we can get Cathy 
to sound in as well? Ben, perhaps you could Bcc her if this comes up 
in on- or off-list discussion. Again, I think an on-list discussion 
might prove most productive, and might be an excellent topic to begin 
the new year!


Hope you are both experiencing a good start of 2017.

Best,

Gary

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*

-- Forwarded message --
From: Benjamin Udell mailto:baud...@gmail.com>>
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: generality/universality
To: Gary Richmond <mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com>>


Hi, Gary. We could pursue it on list or off, either way is fine with me.

Terms are divided into general and singular (also into concrete and 
abstract; a general term can be concrete and can be abstract. Some 
have regarded all singulars as concrete, some have admitted abstract 
singulars).


However, when speaking of qualities, etc., Aristotle called them by a 
Greek word (I guess 'katholikos') usually translated as "universal" 
and meaning that they are true of more than one object, at least two. 
A more nuanced sense would be the quantity of a quality or the like 
that _/could/_ be true of more than one thing, even if it happens not 
to be (whereas there can't be more than one Socrates). Anyway, "true 
of at least two things" doesn't sound very "universal" in the 
English-language sense but that's the tradition still adhered to by 
some philosophers. Some even call "particular" that which Peirce and 
others call "individual" or "singular" but that's in speaking not of 
terms but of things.


Propositions are divided into the universal ("All F is G"), the 
(comparatively vague) particular ("Some F is G"), and the singular 
("This F is G" or "Socrates is G"). Peirce classified mixed-quantity 
propositions according to the first one ("Some person is loved by all 
people" he called "particular". I guess an argument for that would be 
that even a seemingly plain particular such as "Something is red" 
could be construed as implying "Something is such that all who can see 
things in color would see it as red" or some such statement more 
carefully qualified).


Cathy Legg once made a remark with a few details about "universal" and 
"general" coming from two different contexts in logic, but I doubt 
that I can find it soon.


Peirce made a three-way distinction among:
  (1) the vague, the indefinite, such as a quality as contemplated 
without reaction or reflection,

  (2) the individual, determinate, and
  (3) the general.
Said trichotomy
(A) is based by him in his three respective phenomenological categories:
  (1) Firstness, quality of feeling (more as quality of a /sensation/ 
than of an /affect/ such as pleasure or pain), essentially monadic, 
except that he came to distinguish sensation as having a place and 
date, unlike feeling per se;
  (2) Secondness, reaction/resistance, essentially dyadic 
(individuals, brute facts, etc.); and
  (3) Thirdness, representation/mediation, essentially triadic (rules, 
habits, norms, dispositions, etc.);

and
(B) reflects three traditional affirmative logical quantities for 
propositions, respectively:

  (1) the existential particular (/*Some*/ food is good),
  (2) the singular (/*This*/ food is good), and
  (3) the hypothetical universal (/*All*/ food is good). This 
hypotheticality (as in "each thing is, IF food, THEN good") is 
important in Peirce, since he usually treated Thirdness as involving 
conditional necessities, conditional rules, etc.


In 1868 Peirce made a distinction (to which he did not always adhere 
terminologically, e.g., starting in 1903 in the word "sinsign"):
/Singular individuals/, or /singulars/ for short, "occupy neither time 
nor space, but can only be at one point and can only be at one date" 
(i.e., point-instants).
/General individuals/, or /individuals/ for short, do occupy time and 
space and "can only be in one place at one time."

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Dot-X Chiastic symbols

[Benjamin Udell]

Last P.S.:

MS 530 is not at any of the following very useful collections of online 
Peirce MSS:


Harvard Houghton Library Peirce MSS online:
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/deepLinkDigital?_collection=oasis&inoid=null&histno=null&uniqueId=hou02614 



Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos (U. of Navarra, Spain - Nubiola, Barrena, 
and others):

http://www.unav.es/gep/1887_1914.html
(and, while I'm at it)
GEP home page http://www.unav.es/gep/
Links to their Peirce MS pages: http://www.unav.es/gep/MSCSPeirce.html
Links to their Peirce correspondence pages: 
http://www.unav.es/gep/CorrespondenciaEuropeaCSP.html


C.S. Peirce Manuscripts (at From the Page), project of Jeff Downard and 
others:

http://fromthepage.com/collection/show?collection_id=16

Best, Ben

On 1/4/2017 1:29 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
Also see §9 "Genesis of the Letter Shapes (Separate the Box)" in 
"Untapped Potential of Peirce's Iconic Notation" by Shea Zellweger in 
_Studies in the Logic of Charles Sanders Peirce_, see pages 353-354, 
with X figures.


He not only added the enclosing sides of a box to the X-part of
Fig 18.9c. He also, like McCulloch (1965), tells us how to put a
dot in a quadrant (MS 530: 126).
[End quote]

https://books.google.com/books?id=pWjOg-zbtMAC&pg=PA354&lpg=PA354&dq=genesis-of-the-letter-shapes#v=onepage&q=genesis-of-the-letter-shapes&f=false

The Centro Studi Peirce doesn't have a listing for any publication of 
MS 530:

http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/peirce/index.php/en/published-manuscritps/15-500-600

The Robin Catalogue of Peirce's papers says this about MS 530:

530. A Proposed Logical Notation (Notation)
A. MS., n.p., [C.1903], pp. 1-45; 44-62, 12-32, 12-26; plus 44 pp.
of shorter sections as well as fragments.
Ethics of terminology. The history of logical terms and notations,
and CSP's recommendation of "the best algebraical signs for
logic." On the Stoic division of hypothetical propositions. CSP's
division of hypothetical propositions. Graphs, algebra of dyadic
relations, linear associative algebra, nonions.

http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/robin/robin_fm/toc_frm.htm 
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Epeirce/robin/robin_fm/toc_frm.htm>


Best, Ben

On 1/4/2017 12:36 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:

Harry, Jon A,

Irving Anellis (deceased a few years ago) wrote two brief papers 
arguing that Peirce deserves credit for the propositional truth table.


"The Genesis of the Truth Table Device" (Abstract, with link to the 
paper)

https://escarpmentpress.org/russelljournal/article/view/2056

"Peirce's Truth-functional Analysis and the Origin of Truth Tables" 
(MathArxiv Preprint)

http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.2429

The X arrangement of TT, TF, FT, & FF appears in the second paper, 
though not the X-dot symbols themselves. I think I've seen the X-dot 
symbols (or at least something like them), but I can't remember 
where, so I hope Jon knows. I searched for 'chias*' and 'chiastic' in 
Collected Papers of CSP, Writings 1–6, and Contributions to 'The 
Nation', but found nothing.  An X arrangement of xy reflecting the 
values of v & f appears in CP 4, paragraph 260. (CP 4 is entitled 
_The Simplest Mathematics _, and the paper by Peirce called "The 
Simplest Mathematics" is in CP 4.227-323).


Best, Ben

On 1/4/2017 11:31 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:

Hi Harry,

I did my senior thesis on this back in '76 but at lunch now. More 
later ...


Regards,

Jon

http://inquiryintoinquiry.com

On Jan 3, 2017, at 3:53 AM, harry Procter <mailto:harryprocte...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Dear all,

Shook, in his Dictionary of American Scholars, Vol 1 mentions 
Warren McCulloch “re-discovering, after Peirce, Dot-X, or chiastic 
symbols giving 16 possible truth-functions of a pair of 
propositions” (p 1544).


Does anyone know anything about this?

Yours,

Harry Procter

*From: * Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com ]
*Sent:* 23 June 2015 20:07
*To:* Peirce-L
*Subject:* [PEIRCE-L] Philosophy of Education in the Semiotics of 
Charles Peirce







-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Dot-X Chiastic symbols

[Benjamin Udell]

Also see §9 "Genesis of the Letter Shapes (Separate the Box)" in 
"Untapped Potential of Peirce's Iconic Notation" by Shea Zellweger in 
_Studies in the Logic of Charles Sanders Peirce_, see pages 353-354, 
with X figures.


   He not only added the enclosing sides of a box to the X-part of Fig
   18.9c. He also, like McCulloch (1965), tells us how to put a dot in
   a quadrant (MS 530: 126).
   [End quote]

https://books.google.com/books?id=pWjOg-zbtMAC&pg=PA354&lpg=PA354&dq=genesis-of-the-letter-shapes#v=onepage&q=genesis-of-the-letter-shapes&f=false

The Centro Studi Peirce doesn't have a listing for any publication of MS 
530:

http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/peirce/index.php/en/published-manuscritps/15-500-600

The Robin Catalogue of Peirce's papers says this about MS 530:

   530. A Proposed Logical Notation (Notation)
   A. MS., n.p., [C.1903], pp. 1-45; 44-62, 12-32, 12-26; plus 44 pp.
   of shorter sections as well as fragments.
   Ethics of terminology. The history of logical terms and notations,
   and CSP's recommendation of "the best algebraical signs for logic."
   On the Stoic division of hypothetical propositions. CSP's division
   of hypothetical propositions. Graphs, algebra of dyadic relations,
   linear associative algebra, nonions.

http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/robin/robin_fm/toc_frm.htm 
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Epeirce/robin/robin_fm/toc_frm.htm>


Best, Ben

On 1/4/2017 12:36 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:

Harry, Jon A,

Irving Anellis (deceased a few years ago) wrote two brief papers 
arguing that Peirce deserves credit for the propositional truth table.


"The Genesis of the Truth Table Device" (Abstract, with link to the 
paper)

https://escarpmentpress.org/russelljournal/article/view/2056

"Peirce's Truth-functional Analysis and the Origin of Truth Tables" 
(MathArxiv Preprint)

http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.2429

The X arrangement of TT, TF, FT, & FF appears in the second paper, 
though not the X-dot symbols themselves. I think I've seen the X-dot 
symbols (or at least something like them), but I can't remember where, 
so I hope Jon knows. I searched for 'chias*' and 'chiastic' in 
Collected Papers of CSP, Writings 1–6, and Contributions to 'The 
Nation', but found nothing.  An X arrangement of xy reflecting the 
values of v & f appears in CP 4, paragraph 260. (CP 4 is entitled _The 
Simplest Mathematics _, and the paper by Peirce called "The Simplest 
Mathematics" is in CP 4.227-323).


Best, Ben

On 1/4/2017 11:31 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:

Hi Harry,

I did my senior thesis on this back in '76 but at lunch now. More 
later ...


Regards,

Jon

http://inquiryintoinquiry.com

On Jan 3, 2017, at 3:53 AM, harry Procter <mailto:harryprocte...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Dear all,

Shook, in his Dictionary of American Scholars, Vol 1 mentions Warren 
McCulloch “re-discovering, after Peirce, Dot-X, or chiastic symbols 
giving 16 possible truth-functions of a pair of propositions” (p 1544).


Does anyone know anything about this?

Yours,

Harry Procter

*From: * Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com ]
*Sent:* 23 June 2015 20:07
*To:* Peirce-L
*Subject:* [PEIRCE-L] Philosophy of Education in the Semiotics of 
Charles Peirce





-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Dot-X Chiastic symbols

[Benjamin Udell]

Harry, Jon A,

Irving Anellis (deceased a few years ago) wrote two brief papers arguing 
that Peirce deserves credit for the propositional truth table.


"The Genesis of the Truth Table Device" (Abstract, with link to the paper)
https://escarpmentpress.org/russelljournal/article/view/2056

"Peirce's Truth-functional Analysis and the Origin of Truth Tables" 
(MathArxiv Preprint)

http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.2429

The X arrangement of TT, TF, FT, & FF appears in the second paper, 
though not the X-dot symbols themselves. I think I've seen the X-dot 
symbols (or at least something like them), but I can't remember where, 
so I hope Jon knows. I searched for 'chias*' and 'chiastic' in Collected 
Papers of CSP, Writings 1–6, and Contributions to 'The Nation', but 
found nothing.  An X arrangement of xy reflecting the values of v & f 
appears in CP 4, paragraph 260. (CP 4 is entitled _The Simplest 
Mathematics _, and the paper by Peirce called "The Simplest Mathematics" 
is in CP 4.227-323).


Best, Ben

On 1/4/2017 11:31 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:

Hi Harry,

I did my senior thesis on this back in '76 but at lunch now. More 
later ...


Regards,

Jon

http://inquiryintoinquiry.com

On Jan 3, 2017, at 3:53 AM, harry Procter  > wrote:



Dear all,

Shook, in his Dictionary of American Scholars, Vol 1 mentions Warren 
McCulloch “re-discovering, after Peirce, Dot-X, or chiastic symbols 
giving 16 possible truth-functions of a pair of propositions” (p 1544).


Does anyone know anything about this?

Yours,

Harry Procter

*From: * Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com ]
*Sent:* 23 June 2015 20:07
*To:* Peirce-L
*Subject:* [PEIRCE-L] Philosophy of Education in the Semiotics of 
Charles Peirce



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] Re: books 2015

[Benjamin Udell]

List, sorry, I omitted Gary Furhman's _Turning Signs: Ecologies of 
Meaning_. Now added

http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm

 * Turning Signs: Ecologies of Meaning.
   Gary Fuhrman. gnusystems, September 6, 2015. HTML, first half also
   as PDF, Paperback. http://gnusystems.ca/wp/about/
   First half: 458 pages.
 o /Description excerpted from Chapter 0: "Foresign"
   http://gnusystems.ca/TS/TWindex.htm :/

   Turning Signs is an essay about life, the universe and
   everything that /means/ something. It's also an interlinked
   network of thoughts and observations about such things, written
   or transcribed by the author or by anyone else who cares to
   contribute their ideas.

   The essay part (or Obverse side) of Turning Signs was completed
   in September 2015 and is now available as a printed book
   http://gnusystems.ca/wp/about/ . It took 15 years of research
   and revision, and 70 years of a human life, to reach that state
   of completion. It serves as a stable context for the other
   (Reverse) side of Turning Signs , which is incomplete and
   open-ended (rather like life itself). This consists of current
   thoughtnotes appearing daily on the author's blog
   http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ , along with comments and questions by
   other readers and writers. These thoughtnotes are also collected
   into /rePatches/ , listed above next to the Chapters they
   correspond to, and named according to their content.

   This netbook draws upon various arts, sciences and religious
   traditions in an attempt to throw some light on the deeper
   qualities of life we are often too busy to notice. I have
   documented my sources, to the best of my ability, by means of
   parenthetical citations and a reference list
   http://gnusystems.ca/TS/refs.htm so that interested readers can
   locate them if they wish to. But no specialized or academic
   background is required. I've also included hypertext links so
   that readers who are so inclined can take side trips from the
   main train of thought running through the sequential chapters of
   the book's Obverse side.

   All readers are invited to post comments or questions on the
   signposting http://www.gnusystems.ca/wp/ blog (or e-mail me,
   gnox -at- gnusystems -dot- ca). You can even join a live
   discussion group
   http://gnusystems.ca/wp/turning-signs-the-seminar/ that meets
   weekly, or subscribe to the weekly newsletter which will help
   you keep in touch with the conversation. Just enter your email
   address into the form on that page
   http://gnusystems.ca/wp/turning-signs-the-seminar/ or on the
   sidebar of the blog http://www.gnusystems.ca/wp/ .

   [….]

 o /Table of contents:/
   ·0·  Foresign

   *Obverse: /Intimations/ **Reverse: /Intimologies/ *
  1·  Beginning: Apocalypse | PDF
  2·  Dialogue and Human Nature | PDF
  3·  Guidance Systems | PDF
  4·  Here Comes EveryBody | PDF
  5·  Inside Out | PDF
  6·  Revelation and Concealment | PDF
  7·  Experience and Experiment | PDF
  8·  Consensus and Community | PDF
  9·  Model and Meaning | PDF
   10·  Circuits and Closure | PDF
   11·  Simplexity | PDF
   12·  Reality and Objectivity | PDF
   13·  Meaning Spaces | PDF
   14·  Communicoding | PDF
   15·  Context and Content | PDF
   16·  Practice and Performance | PDF
   17·  Self and Other Subjects | PDF
   18·  Turning Symbols | PDF
   19·  Creation Evolving | PDF ·19  Re:Creation
   ·18  Symbols Turning
   ·17  The Subject of Selves
   ·16  Dharma Pragmata
   ·15  Content and Context
   ·14  Comminding
   ·13  Meaning Time
   ·12  Objecting and Realizing
   ·11  Complicity
   ·10  Closure and Disclosure
   ·  9  Meaning and Modeling
   ·  8  Communing
   ·  7  Experiencing
   ·  6  Lightning the Dark
   ·  5  Outside In
   ·  4  AnyBody Thus Gone
   ·  3  System Guidance
   ·  2  Natural Dialogic
   ·  1  Apocalypse: Opening Time

   /*Universe* / • The Point

 o Home page <http://www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm> .

----
On 1/2/2017 5:32 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:

-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] books 2015

[Benjamin Udell]

List,

I finally got around to updating the book list for 2015 at Arisbe, and 
will soon get started on a new Arisbe page for books from 2016 onward 
which will include among others a new book by Tony Jappy _Peirce's 
Twenty-Eight Classes of Signs and the Philosophy of Representation_, 
which see at http://www.bloomsbury.com/9781474264839/ ,


Here are the five books (including two by Barrena, one by Gangle praised 
by Zalamea, one by Hellberg, and one by Olteanu) that I just today added 
for 2015 ("Books 2006-15", formerly known as "New Books").


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm 



 * Pragmatismo y educación: Charles S. Peirce y John Dewey en las aulas.
   [Pragmatism and Education: Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey in the
   Classrooms. ]
   Sara Barrena. Series: Machado Nuevo Aprendizaje № 7, Editorial
   Machado , 2015 (Amazon.com says September 23rd) . Paperback
   http://www.machadolibros.com/libro/pragmatismo-y-educacion_406430
   and, via Amazon.com, Kindle
   
https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatismo-educaci%C3%B3n-Charles-Machado-Aprendizaje-ebook/dp/B016KO8RH2/
   .
   256 pages.
 o /Publisher's description:/

   El pragmatismo norteamericano, que nos lleva a entender al ser
   humano en relación con sus acciones, puede verse como una teoría
   del aprendizaje que tiene mucho que aportar en una sociedad tan
   compleja como la actual, en la que resulta más necesario que
   nunca un pensamiento flexible, imaginativo y eficaz que sepa
   manejar la información y las nuevas tecnologías. La creatividad
   aparece en el pensamiento de los pragmatistas, particularmente
   en Charles S. Peirce y John Dewey, como el eje en torno al que
   gira un nuevo concepto de educación. Esa creatividad no está
   reñida con la profundidad de los contenidos, con la disciplina o
   con el rigor, sino que tiene que ver con aprender de la
   experiencia y con razonar más eficazmente.

   La acción y sus posibles consecuencias, el razonamiento mediante
   hipótesis — que combina rigor e imaginación — , la valoración
   positiva del error, el fomento del autocontrol, el desarrollo de
   hábitos de crecimiento y la búsqueda de un espíritu científico
   que promueva en los alumnos la investigación y la comunidad
   constituyen las claves que nos ofrece el pragmatismo para
   mejorar la educación. Con esas herramientas es posible convertir
   todas las materias, incluso aquellas aparentemente poco
   imaginativas como el deporte o las matemáticas, en algo
   creativo, orientado hacia el crecimiento integral de las personas.

   /Englished, with some help from Google:/

   American pragmatism, which leads us to understand the human
   being in relation to his actions, can be seen as a theory of
   learning that has much to contribute in a society as complex as
   today's, which makes more necessary than ever flexible,
   imaginative, and effective thinking so as to know how to handle
   information and the new technologies. Creativity appears in the
   thinking of the pragmatists, particularly Charles S. Peirce and
   John Dewey, as the axis around which a new concept of education
   revolves. That creativity is not at odds with the depth of
   content, with discipline or with rigor, but it has to do with
   learning from experience and with reasoning more effectively.

   Action and its possible consequences, reasoning through
   hypothesis — combining rigor and imagination — , the positive
   evaluation of error, the promotion of self-control, the
   development of habits of growth, and the search for a scientific
   spirit that promotes in students research and the community
   constitute the keys that pragmatism offers us to improve
   education. With these tools it is possible to convert all
   subjects, even those seemingly hardly imaginative like sports or
   mathematics, into something creative, oriented towards the
   integral growth of people.

 o Barrena faculty page http://www.unav.es/gep/sbarrena.html
   (Google-Englished
   
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unav.es%2Fgep%2Fsbarrena.html
   ) .



 * Diagrammatic Immanence: Category Theory and Philosophy.
   Rocco Gangle. Edinburgh University Press, 2015. Hardcover, ePub, PDF
   https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-diagrammatic-immanence.html .
   264 pages, 44 b&w illustrations.
 o /Publisher's description:/

   *A renewal of immanent metaphysics through diagrammatic methods
   and the tools of category theory*

   Spinoza, Peirce and Deleuze are, in different ways, philosophers
   of immanence. Rocco Gangle addresses the methodological
   questions raised by a commitment to imma

Re: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Theism and Peircean Cosmology

[Benjamin Udell]

Kirsti, John FS, list,

Generally, concerns about appropriateness of others' messages should be 
addressed off-list to the manager and moderator Gary Richmond, and 
Kirsti may have already attempted that. Unfortunately, Gary is traveling 
and won't be back online till the second week of January.  For what it's 
worth, it seems to me (the co-manager) that the current discussion has 
not yet departed too far and too long from Peirce-related issues.  I'd 
suggest that people not get into an argument about the matter at the 
present time, and that they refresh their memories of pertinent sections 
of list founder Joseph Ransdell's discussion "How the Forum Works".


*What is relevant to post and discuss here?*
http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/PEIRCE-L/PEIRCE-L.HTM#relevance

   Since PEIRCE-L is best thought of as a public forum, which is
   primarily a place rather than a discussion group, people contribute
   or not as they think best, and come and go freely, as is taken for
   granted in public forums wherever they occur. There is no standing
   agenda except the promotion of philosophical conversation of the
   sort which one would expect from people with a special interest in
   Peirce and of other communication in support of that. Thus
   discussion should be Peirce-related but not necessarily on Peirce,
   and the working test for relevance would simply be a plausible
   explanation of why the topic in question should be under discussion
   on a list called "PEIRCE-L: The Philosophy of Charles Peirce", given
   that people subscribe to such lists with some more or less definite
   expectations about subject-matter in mind.
   [End quote]

*Caveat about correcting others*
http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/PEIRCE-L/PEIRCE-L.HTM#correction-caveat

   It is expected that criticism will be vigorous and diligently
   pursued: philosophy is understood here to be essentially a
   critically directed and self-controlled conversation. But there is
   one important caveat in this connection: If you feel that some
   messages being posted are not to the purpose of the list or that
   there is something someone is doing which should be discouraged, do
   NOT attempt to rectify that yourself by posting a message to that
   effect to the list in general. Because there is so little overt or
   formal moderation by the list manager, it is natural to suppose that
   the individual members can and should take that role as needed. But
   this rarely if ever produces the effect intended, regardless of how
   reasonable it may seem at a particular time. Contact me instead
   off-list and we will see what can or should be done, if anything,
   without generating a chain reaction of protests and
   counter-protests, which are the typical result of attempting to
   rectify the problem on-list.
   [End quote]

*Why the list manager should do the correcting*
http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/PEIRCE-L/PEIRCE-L.HTM#manager-corrects

   Should you contact the person yourself first, off-list, in an
   attempt to rectify their way of participating rather than bothering
   me with it? Although you do of course have a right—professional,
   moral, legal, whatever—to do this, and it may seem best to you, let
   me urge you to contact me first, nonetheless, unless there is some
   truly special and urgent reason to the contrary. There are several
   reasons for this:
   [ End quote]

Best, Ben

On 12/31/2016 11:20 AM, John F Sowa wrote:

On 12/31/2016 10:43 AM, kirst...@saunalahti.fi wrote:

Is this list about the philosophy of Peirce any more? - Or does
CSP only serve as a starting point to presenting any kinds of
ideas loosely connected with CSP?


Those are good questions.

I believe that it's important to relate CSP's writings to
critical issues today -- along the lines that he might have
done it he had access to the latest news and discoveries.

But it's always important to be quote, cite, or summarize
what Peirce actually wrote and to make the implicit connections
explicit.

John



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary R., Clark, list,

Yes, the grad student in 2005. I don't know whether s/he was a student 
at all, but I had reached the point of exasperation in silly but polite 
arguments with the person, so I starting saying things like "I don't 
know what your teachers are telling you, but..." and saying that s/he 
had maybe a "misplaced loyalty to MIT" (the publisher of the book that 
s/he treated as gospel). I wasn't editing any Wikipedia article at that 
time, I was just arguing on the Truth article's talk page for a change 
to a paragraph about Peirce that wrongly claimed that he held a theory 
of truth as consensus. I got impatient because I supplied my 
interlocutor with numerous quotes from Peirce plainly stating his own 
opinion on it across the years, and my interlocutor seemed incapable of 
taking that into account and was saying some silly, shoot-from-the-hip 
things. I abandoned the discussion and, some years later, registered at 
Wikipedia and began editing the Peirce article (I think somebody else 
finally repaired the Truth article). Jon Awbrey had already done a lot 
of editing of the Peirce article, but there were many edit wars back 
then. I added many footnotes with links to texts via Arisbe, peirce.org, 
Google Books and the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms. That was fun. 
The edit wars pretty much went away. For me the biggest struggle became 
against people's efforts to lop off parts of the article because they 
thought it was too long. I worked many, many hours to write economically 
and to re-write more briefly that which was already there. Nowadays the 
article is not so unusually long for a Wikipedia article. I haven't 
edited it in years. Looking over it, I see few changes except an added 
section on "Slavery, the Civil War and Racism." Anyway, eventually I dug 
back through the Truth article's talk-page history to see whether my 
interlocutor had continued the argument. My interlocutor had replied 
with a long aggrieved comment about how scholars shouldn't talk like 
that, it was just so wrong, etc. Meanwhile, still no grasp of what 
Peirce said in plain English about truth over and over again.


My biggest complaint about Wikipedia was that too many technical 
articles were written as if by students for professors, rather than as 
if by professors for the general public (like me). I don't have an 
opinion on whether that's improved. Back when Scientific American was a 
top science journal, the first 2/3 of the typical article was for the 
educated public and the last 1/3 was for experts. I don't mean that the 
ratios should be emulated, I mean that the idea of differently aimed 
sections is not a bad one.


I agree that Wikipedia and other encyclopedias are good starting points, 
not end points.


Best, Ben

On 12/14/2016 4:59 PM, Clark Goble wrote:

On Dec 14, 2016, at 2:17 PM, Gary Richmond  > wrote:


In the past, Ben Udell has had some revealing things to say about his 
experience of writing and editing Wikipedia articles--the good, the 
bad, and the ugly--and I'd be interested to hear his views regarding 
Wikipedia 2016.


I just remember the part where he had some grad student who kept 
correcting his edits based upon some textbook (that was wrong). The 
discussion then (which was longer ago than I’d recalled now that I 
check — 2005) was quite a bit more negative than this one. Which 
really does demonstrate the structural changes the organization made 
leading to much better entries.



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

I stated that it was Wikipedia to make clear that it was "for what it's 
worth". I confess that I was pressed for time. I did subsequently send a 
link to an article on the Planck length for the general public from 
Fermilab Today: 
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-11-01_NutshellReadMore.html 
. The other links that I sent were from the NYT (2009) about the 2009 
paper in Nature, and the abstract of a scientific paper (2014) which 
contained a link to a PDF of the 2014 paper itself.


In addition, here's a link to Nature's summary "An intergalactic race in 
space and time: A burst of γ-rays lets scientists test quantum theories 
of gravity", for the general public, of the 2009 paper: 
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091028/full/news.2009.1044.html .
Here's a link to the 2009 paper itself (requires payment) "A limit on 
the variation of the speed of light arising from quantum gravity 
effects" 
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7271/full/nature08574.html .

Here is the abstract http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009Natur.462..331A :

   A cornerstone of Einstein’s special relativity is Lorentz
   invariance—the postulate that all observers measure exactly the same
   speed of light in vacuum, independent of photon-energy. While
   special relativity assumes that there is no fundamental length-scale
   associated with such invariance, there is a fundamental scale (the
   Planck scale, l_Planck ~1.62×10^-33 cm or E_Planck = M_Planck c^2
   ~1.22×10^19 GeV), at which quantum effects are expected to strongly
   affect the nature of space-time. There is great interest in the (not
   yet validated) idea that Lorentz invariance might break near the
   Planck scale. A key test of such violation of Lorentz invariance is
   a possible variation of photon speed with energy. Even a tiny
   variation in photon speed, when accumulated over cosmological
   light-travel times, may be revealed by observing sharp features in
   γ-ray burst (GRB) light-curves. Here we report the detection of
   emission up to ~31GeV from the distant and short GRB090510. We find
   no evidence for the violation of Lorentz invariance, and place a
   lower limit of 1.2E_Planck on the scale of a linear energy
   dependence (or an inverse wavelength dependence), subject to
   reasonable assumptions about the emission (equivalently we have an
   upper limit of l_Planck /1.2 on the length scale of the effect). Our
   results disfavour quantum-gravity theories in which the quantum
   nature of space-time on a very small scale linearly alters the speed
   of light.
   [highlighting added]

Best, Ben

On 12/13/2016 9:29 AM, kirst...@saunalahti.fi wrote:

If Wikipedia is taken as a scientific authority, then the situation is 
really bad.


Kirsti


Jerry LR Chandler kirjoitti 11.12.2016 22:36:

Ben, List:


On Dec 11, 2016, at 1:48 PM, Benjamin Udell 
wrote:

According to Wikipedia, the Planck length is, in principle, within a
factor of 10, the shortest measurable length – and no
theoretically known improvement in measurement instruments could
change that. But some physicists have found that that's not quite as
much of a barrier as it may seem to be.

 Your post is unclear. I know of no mathematical nor physical nor
chemical reason for such a conclusion about measurements of
commensurabilities.
Is the mathematics of electric field theory constrained by the
physical principles that motivate this conclusion about this
measurement of Planck’s constant?

Perhaps others may be able to expand on the origin of this conjecture.

But, from my perspective, it is merely another example of the problems
of scientific epistemologies and Wikipedia’s style of informing
public opinion.

Historically, this issue has arise on this list serve with respect
controversial Wikipedia articles that appear to be authored by a
member of Peirce-L.

Cheers

Jerry






-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Jerry, you wrote,

   I do not understand the pre-suppositions of this assertion.  What
   motivates it's absoluteness (100%!!)
   [End quote]

I said that quantum gravity theories are _/not/_ 100% untestable in 
current practice.


You wrote:

   At any rate, discreteness looks pretty good now!  :-)

   In my view, the logics of both continuity and discreteness are
   essential for scientific thought and observation. Is it really your
   belief that one is superior to the other?  If so, why?
   [End quote]

When I said "continuity is looking pretty good now!", I was discussing 
continuity of spacetime, not continuity of everything whatsoever. I 
agree that continuity and discreteness are both essential for scientific 
thought and observation. Continuity of spacetime is the simplest way to 
preserve the Lorentz symmetry.


You wrote,

   Have you moved out of the logic of Peircian reference frame
   completely?  (qualisign, sinsign, legisign, … , argument?)

I don't think that the Peircean reference frame requires me always to be 
thinking and talking about kinds of sign. Peirce thought that way, but 
I'm not capable of such sustained effort.


   One critical fact that is “the elephant in the room” is the
   intrinsic asymmetry of nearly all biomolecules. Life Itself depends
   on the asymmetries entailed from parent to offspring and the
   offsprings capacity to reproduce these quantum asymmetries through
   the energetic casual electric field relations among discrete
   molecules.  (This is the well-established quantum physics of optical
   isomers, of the handedness of biophilic and biogenic hyle.)

I was discussing the Galilean and Lorentz symmetries, not all symmetries 
whatsoever. Nature is rife with symmetries and asymmetries, and they 
both matter.


Your remarks on chemistry are over my head, but that's easy to do!

Best, Ben

On 12/12/2016 2:20 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


List, Ben, John:

On Dec 12, 2016, at 12:20 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


Clark, list,

Yes, the question of measuring sub-Planckian phenomena involves more 
nuances …


So quantum gravity theories are not 100% untestable in current practice.

I do not understand the pre-suppositions of this assertion.  What 
motivates it's absoluteness (100%!!)


 (Peirce had reasons based, as far as I can tell, in the nature of 
thought and in the nature of spontaneity a.k.a. absolute chance, for 
a continuity of space, time, and law. At any rate, continuity is 
looking pretty good now.)



At any rate, discreteness looks pretty good now!  :-)

In my view, the logics of both continuity and discreteness are 
essential for scientific thought and observation. Is it really your 
belief that one is superior to the other?  If so, why?


The generic principle of relativity (laws of motion look the same in 
all inertial reference frames) leaves one with a binary choice 
(again, as I understand it) between the Galilean symmetry and the 
more constraining Lorentz symmetry (which unites space and time, 
quantifying them in the same units), so it's not like some other 
symmetry is going to come along and rescue the principle of 
relativity in such dire discrete straits.


Have you moved out of the logic of Peircian reference frame 
completely?  (qualisign, sinsign, legisign, … , argument?)
One critical fact that is “the elephant in the room” is the intrinsic 
asymmetry of nearly all biomolecules. Life Itself depends on the 
asymmetries entailed from parent to offspring and the offsprings 
capacity to reproduce these quantum asymmetries through the energetic 
casual electric field relations among discrete molecules.  (This is 
the well-established quantum physics of optical isomers, of the 
handedness of biophilic and biogenic hyle.)


In my reading of this sentence, the narrative contradicts the role of 
physical measurements in sustaining life itself.


Or, am I mis-interpreting the role of the natural semiosis associated 
with the hyle, either in static or dynamic modes?


BTW, I note the Peircian logical reference frame (qualisign, sinsign, 
legisign, … , argument?) accommodate the handedness of molecules 
coherently.
I would further note that John S. revision of the Peircian logical 
reference frame, (Knowledge Representation, 6.6 Semiosis, page 397) 
appears, to my eye, to avoid the discrete countable nature of 
biophilic hyle.


In regard to my own research, I would add that the Peircian logical 
reference system (qualisign, sinsign, legisign, … , argument?) played 
a key role in the forming the logic of addition in the perplex number 
system precisely because of its capacity to represent the emergent 
roles of handedness in biophilic hyle.


I add this note because of the relevance of discrete asymmetric 
quantum electric field effects in the material evolution of life.


Cheers

Jerry


Best, Ben

On 12/12/2016 11:14 AM, Clark Goble wrote:

(Sorry somehow managed t

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

My impression is that Smolin has drawn on some Peircean ideas, such as 
that of habits or laws evolving in nature, but that he is less Peircean 
than he initially seems, what with Smolin's views on discrete space and 
on the relationship between math and physics. - Best, Ben


On 12/12/2016 1:44 PM, Clark Goble wrote:

On Dec 12, 2016, at 11:20 AM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


So quantum gravity theories are not 100% untestable in current practice.

There have been some that as you note could be tested. The big ones 
though can’t although they do have problems - as often their 
proponents fully admit. Lee Smolin for instance is pretty forthright 
about the limits of Loop Quantum Gravity. Of course Smolin is quite 
the Peircean so I’m biased towards him. 



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, John, list,

I think we need to distinguish between pragmaticist meaningfulness, - 
clarity of conceivable, imaginable practical implications - and 
questions of methodeutic economy of inquiry.


   [Quote Peirce]
   Thirdly, if pragmatism is the doctrine that every conception is a
   conception of conceivable practical effects, it makes conception
   reach far beyond the practical. It allows any flight of imagination,
   provided this imagination ultimately alights upon a possible
   practical effect; and thus many hypotheses may seem at first glance
   to be excluded by the pragmatical maxim that are not really so
   excluded.
   [From "Pragmatism — the Logic of Abduction" CP 5.196, end of
   paragraph http://www.textlog.de/7663.html , also EP 2:235]

The economics of inquiry sometimes has to take a more hard-headed, 
cost-benefit analysis approach, but Peirce emphasizes that much research 
takes many generations. The question is not whether we can test 
distinctive predictions tomorrow or next week, but instead is of whether 
the theoretical research is currently fruitful in any sense. Physicists 
argue about it. It looks to me like there has been progress, quite a 
wealth of ideas, but what do I know? It's very challenging, going up 
against extremes of large and small. Anyway, it really is the nature of 
physics to seek to unify accounts of phenomena, so the effort toward 
unification of quantum field theory and general relativity in a theory 
of quantum gravity is not a matter of whether, but of when.  QFT and GR 
are both highly constraining, so the versions of quantum gravity that 
can meet those constraints will not be too numerous. Perhaps people will 
prove mathematically that only one or a few incompatible versions of 
quantum gravity can meet those constraints, and given that various 
seemingly incompatible versions have turned out to be equivalent or 
proper subsets, such will be another avenue toward the establishment of 
a theory of quantum gravity. And again, I think it would be pessimistic 
to rule out tests of distinctive predictions from string theory within 
our lifetimes. People get impatient. Peirce wrote, somewhat tongue in 
cheek, I admit:


   Give science only a hundred more centuries of increase in
   geometrical progression, and she may be expected to find that the
   sound waves of Aristotle's voice have somehow recorded themselves.
   ["Reason's Rules," MS circa 1902, CP 5.542, near the paragraph's end]

Best, Ben

On 12/12/2016 1:24 PM, Clark Goble wrote:

On Dec 12, 2016, at 10:38 AM, John F Sowa  > wrote:



[String theoy] gets at some key issues in philosophy of science
regarding what is or isn’t a legitimate theory and why.


That's true, but the word 'legitimate' sounds like an attempt to 
"block the way of inquiry".


It certainly can be. Going back to the old Fixation of Belief the way 
some scientists use “legitimate” certainly fits into what Peirce 
decries. Typically what is “legitimate” or not is simply whether it 
goes against some community’s deeply held theory.


However I think in general the concern about legitimate is theories 
that intrinsically set up inquiry. I don’t like the term “legitimate” 
precisely because it’s ambiguous. However I think good theories are 
theories that allow us to inquire about their truthfulness by making 
somewhat testable predictions.



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

Yes, the question of measuring sub-Planckian phenomena involves more 
nuances than I got into or understand, and, for example, phenomena at 
sub-Planckian lengths are not completely inaccessible in principle if, 
as in the famous example, a universe-sized collider could tell us about 
them. I'm keeping the audience in mind, some of whom may know even less 
physics than I do (which is also why I say some things that you already 
know). Let's not lose sight of the fact that the average educated reader 
would not have expected that one could show, without a cosmic collider 
or some such science-fictional device, that space does not show 
granularity or pixellation (which some theories of quantum gravity seem 
to call for) above a length of the order of 8∕100,000,000 of the Planck 
length, i.e., atmospheric neutrino speeds appear not to vary in the way 
that the idea of such granularity predicts, at least down to that level 
of resolution. So some more versions of quantum gravity (don't ask me 
which ones) have been experimentally disfavored. So quantum gravity 
theories are not 100% untestable in current practice. Now, as I 
understand it, such granularity or pixellation, nature as a discrete 
computer, etc., would create problems for the Lorentz symmetry (which is 
continuous) and would tend to imply a preferred reference frame, and one 
would need to fine-tune added factors to cancel the problems out. 
(Peirce had reasons based, as far as I can tell, in the nature of 
thought and in the nature of spontaneity a.k.a. absolute chance, for a 
continuity of space, time, and law. At any rate, continuity is looking 
pretty good now.) The generic principle of relativity (laws of motion 
look the same in all inertial reference frames) leaves one with a binary 
choice (again, as I understand it) between the Galilean symmetry and the 
more constraining Lorentz symmetry (which unites space and time, 
quantifying them in the same units), so it's not like some other 
symmetry is going to come along and rescue the principle of relativity 
in such dire discrete straits. But my real point is that if observations 
of atmospheric neutrinos can tell us about spacetime at almost 
science-fictionally sub-Planckian lengths, then tests of distinctive 
predictions from string theory shouldn't seem an impossible dream.


Thanks for the links!

Best, Ben

On 12/12/2016 11:14 AM, Clark Goble wrote:

(Sorry somehow managed to send this to the old list number. Stupid 
Apple Mail.)


On Dec 11, 2016, at 12:48 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


According to Wikipedia, the Planck length is, in principle, within a 
factor of 10, the shortest measurable length – and no theoretically 
known improvement in measurement instruments could change that. But 
some physicists have found that that's not quite as much of a barrier 
as it may seem to be.


It ends up being a bit more complex than that. It really depends upon 
the system in question and what you are measuring. There’s also the 
debate about whether this is epistemological or “real” (although when 
people use that term they mean traditional realism not Peirce’s 
realism which tends to blur the distinction).


BTW - a better discussion of Planck length is probably stack exchange 
which gets into many of the nuances (both physical and philosophical). 
It’s almost always a better source than Wikipedia on these topics.


http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/185939/is-the-planck-length-the-smallest-length-that-exists-in-the-universe-or-is-it-th 



The short answer is that gravitational effects become dominate below 
the Planck length we assume. Since we don’t have a theory of quantum 
gravity this region is more or less ‘no man’s land’ unless one tries 
to apply string theory or the like. Beyond that it’s just a scale 
factor and we probably shouldn’t say much beyond that. (Again unless 
one is doing theoretical work in quantum gravity - but that has its 
own problems)


Typically in practical QM problems we assume a classical continuous 
substantial spacetime and ignore all these issues. In that case we’re 
just worried about what we can measure in principle about *that* 
system from the math.


A few other useful ones:

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/9720/does-the-planck-scale-imply-that-spacetime-is-discrete 


http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/28720/how-to-get-planck-length


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Yes, I was thinking of QED and more generally quantum field theory, but 
at that point I was unsure whether Jerry meant pre-QM classical 
electrical field theory, or some EF theory that tries to account for 
quantum effects while remaining classical, or even EF theory as 
incorporated by QED.


I'll take the opportunity here to correct an earlier post of mine. I 
should have said that the 2014 paper "Test of Lorentz invariance with 
atmospheric neutrinos" https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4267 set the exclusion 
of Lorentz-invariance violations down to the order of 8∕100,000,000 
(i.e., *8∕10⁸*) of the Planck length, not 8∕10,000,000 (i.e., 
*8∕10**⁷*), because the order of *8∕10⁸* is the one that's seven orders 
of magnitude below the previous limit of 8∕10. Eight or some such small 
number of one-hundred-millionths of the Planck length is very small, I 
wonder whether further research has borne it out.


Best, Ben

On 12/11/2016 11:17 PM, John F Sowa wrote:


On 12/11/2016 7:44 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:

if electrical field theory contradicts quantum mechanics and the 
uncertainty principle, then it is valid (at most) only in a classical 
limit.


Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) is the well developed theory that 
unifies quantum mechanics and electrodynamics.


The challenge is to unify gravity with QM + ED.  There are hypotheses, 
but gravity is so weak that its influence is very hard to detect with 
earth-based instruments.


Theoretical physicists certainly recognize the need for experimental 
tests.  Unfortunately, they're running into the limits of current 
technology at the very large and very small.


John


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Jerry, you said that you knew of no mathematical or physical or chemical 
reasons for the unmeasurability of lengths smaller than the Planck 
length; you asked whether the maths of electric field theory are 
constrained by the physical principles (i.e., quantum mechanics and the 
uncertainty principle) that motivate the conclusion about the Planck 
length; and you blamed scientific epistemologies and Wikipedia for the 
impression that there are such reasons. So I quoted from a Fermilab 
article for the general public about the measurement limit, and said 
that I imagined that, if electrical field theory contradicts quantum 
mechanics and the uncertainty principle, then it is valid (at most) only 
in a classical limit. You replied that the foundation of electrical 
field theory preceded W. Heisenberg by several decades. That's to say 
that the foundation remains valid only in the classical limit, if at 
all. Or do you reject the uncertainty principle either in general or in 
more-specific terms of its leading to the unmeasurability of positional 
separations smaller than the Planck length?


Best, Ben

On 12/11/2016 6:43 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


Ben:

The foundation of electrical field theory preceded W. Heisenberg by 
several decades.


Cheers

Jerry

On Dec 11, 2016, at 3:05 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Jerry, list,

It has to do with the uncertainty principle. Here's an excerpt from a 
discussion "Planck length, minimal length?" by Don Lincoln, Friday, 
Nov. 1, 2013, at Fermilab Today [/here's the link that I belatedly 
included in a subsequent message:/ 
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-11-01_NutshellReadMore.html 
]:


[Quote]
Now that we understand what Planck length is, we can turn our
attention to the question of whether it is the smallest possible
length. For that, we need to turn to quantum mechanics and,
specifically, a thing called the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle. This general principle of the universe states that it
is impossible to measure position and momentum simultaneously
with infinite precision — measure one well and the other will be
measured poorly.

Mead used the uncertainty principle and the gravitational effect
of the photon to show that it is impossible to determine the
position of an object to a precision smaller than the Planck length.

So why is the Planck length thought to be the smallest possible
length? The simple summary of Mead's answer is that it is
impossible, using the known laws of quantum mechanics and the
known behavior of gravity, to determine a position to a precision
smaller than the Planck length.
[End quote]

There's also discussion of why the Planck length is a natural unit, 
and also various qualifications. "Smallest possible length" should be 
taken in the sense of measurability of position. Beyond that, I know 
little, I'm not a physicist and haven't authored any Wikipedia 
physics articles. But I would imagine that electric field theory, if 
it contradicts quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, is 
valid only in some classical limit.


Best, Ben

On 12/11/2016 3:36 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


Ben, List:

On Dec 11, 2016, at 1:48 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


According to Wikipedia, the Planck length is, in principle, within 
a factor of 10, the shortest measurable length – and no 
theoretically known improvement in measurement instruments could 
change that. But some physicists have found that that's not quite 
as much of a barrier as it may seem to be.


Your post is unclear.  I know of no mathematical nor physical nor 
chemical reason for such a conclusion about measurements 
commensurabilities.
Is the mathematics of electric field theory constrained by the 
physical principles that motivate this conclusion about this 
measurement of  Planck’s constant?


Perhaps others may be able to expand on the origin of this conjecture.

But, from my perspective, it is merely another example of the 
problems of scientific epistemologies and Wikipedia’s style of 
informing public opinion.


Historically, this issue has arise on this list serve  with respect 
controversial Wikipedia articles that appear to be authored by a 
member of Peirce-L.


Cheers

Jerry


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Sorry, I forgot to include the link:

http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-11-01_NutshellReadMore.html 



Jerry, list,

It has to do with the uncertainty principle. Here's an excerpt from a 
discussion "Planck length, minimal length?" by Don Lincoln, Friday, Nov. 
1, 2013, at Fermilab Today:


   [Quote]
   Now that we understand what Planck length is, we can turn our
   attention to the question of whether it is the smallest possible
   length. For that, we need to turn to quantum mechanics and,
   specifically, a thing called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
   This general principle of the universe states that it is impossible
   to measure position and momentum simultaneously with infinite
   precision — measure one well and the other will be measured poorly.

   Mead used the uncertainty principle and the gravitational effect of
   the photon to show that it is impossible to determine the position
   of an object to a precision smaller than the Planck length.

   So why is the Planck length thought to be the smallest possible
   length? The simple summary of Mead's answer is that it is
   impossible, using the known laws of quantum mechanics and the known
   behavior of gravity, to determine a position to a precision smaller
   than the Planck length.
   [End quote]

There's also discussion of why the Planck length is a natural unit, and 
also various qualifications. "Smallest possible length" should be taken 
in the sense of measurability of position. Beyond that, I know little, 
I'm not a physicist and haven't authored any Wikipedia physics articles. 
But I would imagine that electric field theory, if it contradicts 
quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, is valid only in some 
classical limit.


Best, Ben

On 12/11/2016 3:36 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


Ben, List:

On Dec 11, 2016, at 1:48 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


According to Wikipedia, the Planck length is, in principle, within a 
factor of 10, the shortest measurable length – and no theoretically 
known improvement in measurement instruments could change that. But 
some physicists have found that that's not quite as much of a barrier 
as it may seem to be.


Is the mathematics of electric field theory constrained by the 
physical principles that motivate this conclusion about this 
measurement of  Planck’s constant?


Perhaps others may be able to expand on the origin of this conjecture.

But, from my perspective, it is merely another example of the problems 
of scientific epistemologies and Wikipedia’s style of informing public 
opinion.


Historically, this issue has arise on this list serve  with respect 
controversial Wikipedia articles that appear to be authored by a 
member of Peirce-L.


Cheers

Jerry


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Jerry, list,

It has to do with the uncertainty principle. Here's an excerpt from a 
discussion "Planck length, minimal length?" by Don Lincoln, Friday, Nov. 
1, 2013, at Fermilab Today:


   [Quote]
   Now that we understand what Planck length is, we can turn our
   attention to the question of whether it is the smallest possible
   length. For that, we need to turn to quantum mechanics and,
   specifically, a thing called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
   This general principle of the universe states that it is impossible
   to measure position and momentum simultaneously with infinite
   precision — measure one well and the other will be measured poorly.

   Mead used the uncertainty principle and the gravitational effect of
   the photon to show that it is impossible to determine the position
   of an object to a precision smaller than the Planck length.

   So why is the Planck length thought to be the smallest possible
   length? The simple summary of Mead's answer is that it is
   impossible, using the known laws of quantum mechanics and the known
   behavior of gravity, to determine a position to a precision smaller
   than the Planck length.
   [End quote]

There's also discussion of why the Planck length is a natural unit, and 
also various qualifications. "Smallest possible length" should be taken 
in the sense of measurability of position. Beyond that, I know little, 
I'm not a physicist and haven't authored any Wikipedia physics articles. 
But I would imagine that electric field theory, if it contradicts 
quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, is valid only in some 
classical limit.


Best, Ben

On 12/11/2016 3:36 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


Ben, List:

On Dec 11, 2016, at 1:48 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


According to Wikipedia, the Planck length is, in principle, within a 
factor of 10, the shortest measurable length – and no theoretically 
known improvement in measurement instruments could change that. But 
some physicists have found that that's not quite as much of a barrier 
as it may seem to be.


Is the mathematics of electric field theory constrained by the 
physical principles that motivate this conclusion about this 
measurement of  Planck’s constant?


Perhaps others may be able to expand on the origin of this conjecture.

But, from my perspective, it is merely another example of the problems 
of scientific epistemologies and Wikipedia’s style of informing public 
opinion.


Historically, this issue has arise on this list serve  with respect 
controversial Wikipedia articles that appear to be authored by a 
member of Peirce-L.


Cheers

Jerry


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Sorry, I don't know why my link to the 2014 abstract of "Test of Lorentz 
invariance with atmospheric neutrinos" got messed up. Here it is again:


https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4267

Also corrected below.

Best, Ben

On 12/11/2016 2:48 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Gary R., Helmut, list,

I think that that's pessimistic and that Peirce would agree. The 
problem for string theory and any other theory of quantum gravity is 
that, for people to test its distinctive predictions with a collider, 
the collider would need to be as big as the observed universe; so the 
predictions are meaningful in principle but apparently not in practice 
for us. Yet Peirce would remind us, as he did in "F.R.L." 
https://web.archive.org/web/20120106071421/http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm 
, that Comte said that people would never discover the chemical 
compositions of the stars and soon enough spectroscopy of starlight 
showed people the chemical compositions of the stars. Of course, 
Peirce makes no firm promises about how long a given line of inquiry 
will take.


According to Wikipedia, the Planck length is, in principle, within a 
factor of 10, the shortest measurable length – and no theoretically 
known improvement in measurement instruments could change that. But 
some physicists have found that that's not quite as much of a barrier 
as it may seem to be.


From "7.3 Billlion Years Later, Einstein's Theory Prevails" by Dennis 
Overbye, Oct. 28, 2009, New York Times 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/science/space/29light.html?_r=1 :


[Begin quote]
Until now such quantum gravity theories have been untestable.
Ordinarily you would have to see details as small as 10⁻³³
centimeters — the so-called Planck length, which is vastly smaller
than an atom — to test these theories in order to discern the
bumpiness of space. Getting that kind of information is far beyond
the wildest imaginations of the builders of even the most modern
particle accelerators, and that has left quantum gravity theorists
with little empirical guidance.

"What’s really lacking," Dr. Michelson explained, "is a laboratory
experiment that tells us anything. So we have to use cosmology: we
use the universe as the lab."
[End quote]

The experiment's results

[...] suggested that any quantum effects in which the slowing of
light is proportional to its energy do not show up until you get
down to sizes about eight-tenths of the Planck length [...].
[]
Indeed, other physicists said that even this model would not be
ruled out until the size limit had been set much below the Planck
size.

Then in October 2014, "Test of Lorentz invariance with atmospheric 
neutrinos" https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4267 set the limit up to seven 
orders of magnitude lower than the previous estimate (" eight-tenths 
of the Planck length" according to the NYT above). So Lorentz symmetry 
is shown to hold, down to a length on the order of 8∕10,000,000 of the 
Planck length.


How many would have thought that possible ten years ago? I myself, 
even having read the NYT article and the 2014 abstract, then got mixed 
up and said that the 2014 paper was what put the limit down to 8∕10 of 
the Planck length. I think I got mixed up because 8∕10,000,000 of the 
Planck length seems hardly credible.


Best, Ben

On 12/10/2016 6:13 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Helmut, list,

Helmut wrote:

The hypothesis is dark matter, but there is no dark matter
available for experiments. Also the string theory is not
verifiable with experiments, because the hypothetic strings are
smaller than anything detectable. So nowadays physics is somehow
comparable with medieval scholastic theology.

Sometimes some of these postmodern theories (how many string theories 
have been proposed now?--I think over 12; and 'dark matter' seems 
almost an oxymoron), many of these mathematical-physical theories 
seem to me more closely related to science fiction than to science. 
It doesn't mean that some of them might not be 'true', but in at 
least certain cases (such as string theory) there's no way in which 
we'll ever know.


But, on the other hand, just as Peirce's early cosmology is quite 
interesting and highly 'suggestive'--at least to some folk--of how 
things may *be* or *have come to be*, so some of these 
mathematical-physical theories are as well.


I personally prefer science fiction (which I very much enjoy) 
expressed as 'pure' literature, film, etc.  (even as it mixes in some 
of the physics such as that just mentioned above).


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690 *

On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 5:30 PM, Helmut Raulien <

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Science (was Democracy)

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary R., Helmut, list,

I think that that's pessimistic and that Peirce would agree. The problem 
for string theory and any other theory of quantum gravity is that, for 
people to test its distinctive predictions with a collider, the collider 
would need to be as big as the observed universe; so the predictions are 
meaningful in principle but apparently not in practice for us. Yet 
Peirce would remind us, as he did in "F.R.L." 
https://web.archive.org/web/20120106071421/http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm 
, that Comte said that people would never discover the chemical 
compositions of the stars and soon enough spectroscopy of starlight 
showed people the chemical compositions of the stars. Of course, Peirce 
makes no firm promises about how long a given line of inquiry will take.


According to Wikipedia, the Planck length is, in principle, within a 
factor of 10, the shortest measurable length – and no theoretically 
known improvement in measurement instruments could change that. But some 
physicists have found that that's not quite as much of a barrier as it 
may seem to be.


From "7.3 Billlion Years Later, Einstein's Theory Prevails" by Dennis 
Overbye, Oct. 28, 2009, New York Times 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/science/space/29light.html?_r=1 :


   [Begin quote]
   Until now such quantum gravity theories have been untestable.
   Ordinarily you would have to see details as small as 10⁻³³
   centimeters — the so-called Planck length, which is vastly smaller
   than an atom — to test these theories in order to discern the
   bumpiness of space. Getting that kind of information is far beyond
   the wildest imaginations of the builders of even the most modern
   particle accelerators, and that has left quantum gravity theorists
   with little empirical guidance.

   "What’s really lacking," Dr. Michelson explained, "is a laboratory
   experiment that tells us anything. So we have to use cosmology: we
   use the universe as the lab."
   [End quote]

The experiment's results

   [...] suggested that any quantum effects in which the slowing of
   light is proportional to its energy do not show up until you get
   down to sizes about eight-tenths of the Planck length [...].
   []
   Indeed, other physicists said that even this model would not be
   ruled out until the size limit had been set much below the Planck size.

Then in October 2014, "Test of Lorentz invariance with atmospheric 
neutrinos" https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4267 set the limit up to seven 
orders of magnitude lower than the previous estimate ("eight-tenths of 
the Planck length" according to the NYT above). So Lorentz symmetry is 
shown to hold, down to a length on the order of 8∕10,000,000 of the 
Planck length.


How many would have thought that possible ten years ago? I myself, even 
having read the NYT article and the 2014 abstract, then got mixed up and 
said that the 2014 paper was what put the limit down to 8∕10 of the 
Planck length. I think I got mixed up because 8∕10,000,000 of the Planck 
length seems hardly credible.


Best, Ben

On 12/10/2016 6:13 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Helmut, list,

Helmut wrote:

The hypothesis is dark matter, but there is no dark matter
available for experiments. Also the string theory is not
verifiable with experiments, because the hypothetic strings are
smaller than anything detectable. So nowadays physics is somehow
comparable with medieval scholastic theology.

Sometimes some of these postmodern theories (how many string theories 
have been proposed now?--I think over 12; and 'dark matter' seems 
almost an oxymoron), many of these mathematical-physical theories seem 
to me more closely related to science fiction than to science. It 
doesn't mean that some of them might not be 'true', but in at least 
certain cases (such as string theory) there's no way in which we'll 
ever know.


But, on the other hand, just as Peirce's early cosmology is quite 
interesting and highly 'suggestive'--at least to some folk--of how 
things may *be* or *have come to be*, so some of these 
mathematical-physical theories are as well.


I personally prefer science fiction (which I very much enjoy) 
expressed as 'pure' literature, film, etc.  (even as it mixes in some 
of the physics such as that just mentioned above).


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690 *

On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 5:30 PM, Helmut Raulien > wrote:



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Democracy

[Benjamin Udell]

I've dug a few things up, some of it interesting, some of it also ugly. 
Peirce had more than one mood.


Last pagragraph in Peirce's review in _The Nation_, Vol. 67, Aug. 25, 
1898, 153-155, of _The Psychology of Suggestion_ by Boris Sidis with an 
introduction by William James.

http://www.sidis.net/reviewsuggestion1.htm .
Reprinted in _Contributions to 'The Nation'_ 2:166-9.

  In part iii. the author gives a slight account of some at those
   mental epidemics of which several French writers, beginning with
   Moreau, have made admirable studies. That the mob self is a
   subconscious self is obvious. It is quite true, too, as Dr. Sidis
   says, that America is peculiarly subject to epidemic mental
   seizures, in fact, it may be said that democracy, as contrasted with
   autocracy—and especially government by public opinion and popular
   sentiment as expressed in newspapers—is government by the irrational
   element of man. To discover how this can be cured, as a practical,
   realized result, without the ends of government being narrowed to
   the good of an individual or class, is our great problem. Prof.
   James seems to think that this part is the best. We will defer to
   his judgment, but certainly a great subject here remains virgin
   ground for a writer of power.
   [End quote]

That should be read together with the quote - from the same year, 1898 - 
that Clark found in CP 1.654 (in "Practical Concerns and the Wisdom of 
Sentiment" in "Vitally Important Topics") http://www.textlog.de/4277.html :


Common sense, which is the resultant of the traditional
   experience of mankind, witnesses unequivocally that the heart is
   more than the head, and is in fact everything in our highest
   concerns, thus agreeing with my unproved logical theorem; and those
   persons who think that sentiment has no part in common sense forget
   that the dicta of common sense are objective facts, not the way some
   dyspeptic may feel, but what the healthy, natural, normal democracy
   thinks. And yet when you open the next new book on the philosophy of
   religion that comes out, the chances are that it will be written by
   an intellectualist who in his preface offers you his metaphysics as
   a guide for the soul, talking as if philosophy were one of our
   deepest concerns. How can the writer so deceive himself?

_The Nation_ 85 (12 September 1907) 229: NOTES Peirce: _Contributions to 
The Nation_ 3:290

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22We+fear+that+Mr.+Stickney+is+too+optimistic%22

   Albert Stickney's "Organized Democracy" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is
   one of those radical pleas for political reconstruction which,
   however little likely to be adopted or even seriously considered,
   are not without usefulness as criticisms of existing political
   evils. Mr. Stickney is convinced not only that we have not true
   democracy in this country, but also that we cannot have true
   democracy so long as the present electoral and administrative
   systems prevail. Under popular election of all officials for fixed
   terms, joined to the party system, all that the voter can do is to
   vote for the candidate of this or that machine; his own personal
   choice, if he have one, he cannot possibly register. The remedy Mr.
   Stickney urges is the establishment, in local, State, and Federal
   Government, of a system of single-headed administration, with the
   heads of departments controlled directly by a Legislature the
   members of which are popularly chosen by viva voce vote. For tenure
   during short terms there would be substituted tenure during good
   behavior. Congress, for example, would become a body of one house
   with the power of removing the President, but without control over
   subordinate appointments. We fear that Mr. Stickney is too
   optimistic, and too little appreciative of the difficulty in this
   country of achieving reforms by wholesale; but his shrewd
   observations and obvious seriousness make his book not
   uninteresting. Incidentally, we commend to the curious the
   extraordinary punctuation of the volume.
   [End quote]

Of course we know that Peirce believed that people who won't think ought 
to be enslaved. 1908 to Lady Welby
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Folly+in+politics+cannot+go+farther+than+English+liberalism%22 
:


   Being a convinced Pragmaticist in Semeiotic, naturally and
   necessarily nothing can appear to me sillier than rationalism; and
   folly in politics cannot go further than English liberalism. The
   people ought to be enslaved; only the slaveholders ought to practice
   the virtues that alone can maintain their rule. England will
   discover too late that it has sapped the foundations of its culture.
   [...]
   [End quote]

Douglas R. Anderson discusses Peirce and politics in the anthology _The 
Rule of Reason_, from which I drew that quote. That passage appears also 
in the Peirce collection _Values in a Universe of Chance_ p. 402 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Jay Zeman

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary, Frithjof, John, list,

I'm no longer sure whether the audios were of lectures by Zeman or by 
Don D. Roberts. I can't find anything about them in emails on my 
computer. I'm not sure whether Nathan sent them to us or maybe gave us 
access in some other way. Sorry for my faulty memory.


Best, Ben

On 10/17/2016 5:25 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:

John, Frithjof, List,

I agree that this sounds like an excellent idea. Off-list, Ben Udell 
and I have been discussing possibilities related to preserving Zeman's 
work, for example, considering Arisbe as a possible place to house his 
site. But Frithjof's site seems like the ideal location for Jay's work 
(btw, Frithjof, in his email to John which John posted a snippet of 
here, inadvertently left off the 's' of 'graphs' in the url, so until 
Ben pointed this out, I wasn't able to access it). See: 
http://www.existential-graphs.org/


Ben also reminded me that we had a while back discussed with Nathan 
Houser the possibility of putting some of Jay's audio lectures up at 
Arisbe. (FYI, Frithjof, since shortly after Joseph Ransdell's death in 
2010, The Peirce Group which Joe established, now led by Houser, 
appointed Ben and me co-managers of peirce-l and Arisbe, Ben in 
addition being Arisbe's webmaster, and I moderator of the peirce-l 
e-forum in accordance with Joe's wishes). But there are some 
challenges in putting these lectures up. As Ben wrote off-list, among 
these is "how to make a video that simultaneously uses the lectures as 
sound and pages from the EG book as visuals."


But I'm sure we are all in agreement that for now the important thing 
is to preserve and promulgate Jay's work. Some on the list may not be 
aware of Zeman's not inconsiderable contribution to the study of 
Peirce's existential graphs. A quotation from the conclusion of 
Fernando Zalamea's excellent work, /Peirce's Logic of Continuity 
/(2012), may give a sense of that contribution. Fernando writes:


Going upstream, against Quine and his influence ['Quine could not
foresee the pragmatic, topological and modal richness of the
graphs' and offered a 'clumsy' review of them], the doctoral
theses of Roberts and Zeman saved the graphs from oblivion. And
still against the tide, the last two decades of work around the
existential graphs [including Zeman's] augur finally the emergence
of the "privileged place" that the graphs should occupy (Zalamea,
162).


Best,

Gary Richmond


Gary Richmond*
*
*
*
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690*

On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 10:59 AM, John F Sowa > wrote:


On 10/17/2016 3:15 AM, Dau, Frithjof wrote:

I own www.existential-graph.org
 (for about two decades now...)
and I would be more than pleased to offer somespace on my site.


That's an excellent idea.  It would be important to combine Jay's EG
material and related work on EGs on a site that has a knowledgeable
caretaker to update and maintain it.  It would also be useful to add
other EG resources (or their URLs) to the site.

Another point:  If you allow a domain name to elapse, it is usually
bought by people who use it for advertising totally unrelated
material -- frequently intermixed with URLs for porn, gambling, etc.
They are always willing to sell the domain names, but the amount
that they charge is far more than the cost of registering the name.

Therefore, it's important to keep Jay's EG domain name and have
both names linked to the unified site.  Jay's web site at the
university will not be hijacked because the university owns the
parent domain, but they usually drop the web page after a few years.

John


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to
REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
peirce-L@list.iupui.edu  . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to
l...@list.iupui.edu  with the line
"UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm
 .









-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Jay Zeman

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary Richmond and I will be looking into preserving it. Meanwhile I 
visited both http://users.clas.ufl.edu/jzeman/ and 
http://www.existentialgraphs.com/ and made sure that every page that i 
could find would be saved by the Wayback Machine if it was not already 
saved there.  The majority turned out to be unsaved. Page-by-page saving 
on the Wayback Machine is slower than trying to get the whole site to be 
saved at once but (A) I don't know how to do the latter and (B) I 
suspect that page-by-page is more reliable. A lot of Zeman's pages were 
documentation his Existential Gra[ph programs, programs that maybe are 
obsolete, I have no idea.


Some things need repairing at Zeman's sites. Page-finding javascript 
seems not to work. Some text characters are formatted with the Symbols 
font which seems never to work in current browsers (and of course 
current Unicode characters are adequate to replace the Symbols font 
characters but somebody has to actually do it).


Best, Ben

On 10/13/2016 8:25 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:

Hello John,

Over the years, I have found Jay Zeman's website to be remarkably helpful--both 
for thinking about Peirce's philosophical ideas generally, and also for 
understanding the existential graphs in particular. Given the value that it 
might have for future generations of students, is there any way that it might 
be preserved as a website? If there is a need to take down that particular 
site, would it be possible to upload the materials onto another site?

Yours,

Jeff

Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354

From: John F Sowa [s...@bestweb.net]
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2016 12:18 PM
To: Peirce-L; c...@gnowledge.org
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Jay Zeman

Jay Zeman died.  As a remembrance, his wife Norma sent the attached
photo, which shows Jay contemplating a painting that illustrates
a quotation by Peirce.

His web site will remain available for another year.  Anybody who
is interested in his work and related material by and about Peirce
should visit it and download whatever they may find interesting.
It's especially important for existential graphs.

John Sowa




-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] Re: Another new book, this one with texts by Peirce

[Benjamin Udell]

Maybe it's because of that hole in the sun's corona that's been in the 
news (also look up "EMP", see the NASA &Wikipedia pages on "Carrington 
event", a subject worth learning about), but anyway I'm having trouble 
with an update to the Books 2006-2015 page at Arisbe, so, if you go 
there you may find much of the page to be missing. I'll try again 
tomorrow. - Best, Ben


On 10/4/2016 8:06 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Gary R., list,

The new book about Peirce's concept of habit obviously deserves an 
entry at Arisbe. It's time for me to create a new page for books 
published in 2016 or after. Meanwhile, I need to add some more books 
to the page for books 2006-2015. Peter Lang published in December 2015 
a second book edited by Elize Bisanz of texts by Peirce. In the new 
book, at least one of texts has not been previously published ("Quest 
of Quests", MS 655, which Arnold Shepperson cited in his paper on 
Peircean classification, kinds of induction, and media, communication, 
and journalism).


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#peirce_bisanz_2015

  * Prolegomena to a Science of Reasoning: Phaneroscopy, Semeiotic,
Logic.
Charles S. Peirce. Editor: Elize Bisanz . Peter Lang, 2015
December 15. EPUB
https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=EPUB , PDF
https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=PDF ,
Hardcover https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=HC .
186 pages (according to Amazon.com).
  o /Publisher's description:/

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), American Scientist,
Mathematician, and Logician, developed much of the logic
widely used today. Using copies of his unpublished
manuscripts, this book provides a comprehensive collection of
Peirce’s writings on Phaneroscopy and the outlines of his
project to develop a Science of Reasoning. The collection is
focused on three main fields: Phaneroscopy, the science of
observation, Semeiotic, the science of sign relations, and
Logic, the science of inferences. Peirce understands all
thought to be mediated in and through signs and its essence to
be diagrammatic. The book serves as a timely contribution for
the introduction of Peirce’s Phaneroscopy to the emerging
research field of Image Sciences.

Elize Bisanz holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from the
Technical University of Berlin. She is an advisory board
member of the German Association of Semiotic Studies as well
as a permanent research member of the Institute for Studies in
Pragmaticism at Texas Tech University.

  o /Table of Contents:/
  +   11. Table of Contents.
  +   13. Phaneroscopy, Semeiotik, Logik. Eine Einführung .
[introduction, in German]
  +   25. Reasoning.
  +   29. Scientific Method.
  +   33. Notes for a Syllabus of Logic.
  +   35. Exact Logic. Introduction. What is Logic?
  +   43. Logic. The Theory of Reasoning by C.S. Peirce.
  +   47. Logic Viewed as Semeiotic.
  +   49. Logic as the General Theory of Signs of all Kinds.
  +   65. Phaneroscopy: Or, the Natural History of Concepts.
  +   77. Phaneroscopy.
  +   95. Signs, Thoughts, Reasoning.
  + 115. Logic. Book I. Analysis of Thought.
  + 123. Common Ground.
  + 135. How to Define.
  + 145. Essays Toward the Full Comprehension of Reasonings
Preface.
  + 157. Quest of Quest. An Inquiry into the Conditions of
Success in Inquiry. [MS 655]
  + 169. An Appraisal of the Faculty of Reasoning.
  + 173. Part II. Mathematical Reasoning.
  + 179. Bibliography.
  + 183. Index of Technical Terms.
  + 185. Name Index.
  o Bisanz pages at the Culture Science Institute for Europe
Research <http://europaforschung.org/bisanz.htm>
(Google-Englished

<http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://europaforschung.org/bisanz.htm>
) and at Texas Tech

<http://www.depts.ttu.edu/pragmaticism/symposium/Meaning_in_the_Arts/Symposium_Presenters/Entries/2009/8/14_Elize_Bisanz.html>
.

Best, Ben

*Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond 
Consciousness

Date:  Tue, 4 Oct 2016
From: Gary Richmond 
To: Peirce-L  *


List,

This looks to be an interesting collection of essays on habit as 
Peirce conceived of it. Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: 
Before and Beyond Consciousness
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319459189 
<http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319459189>


About the book: This book constitutes the first treatment of C. S. 
Peirce’s unique concept of habit. Habit animated the pragmatists of 
the 19th and early 20th ce

[PEIRCE-L] Re: Another new book, this one with texts by Peirce

[Benjamin Udell]

Maybe it's because of that hole in the sun's corona that's been in the 
news (also look up "EMP", see the NASA &Wikipedia pages on "Carrington 
event", a subject worth learning about), but anyway I'm having trouble 
with an update to the Books 2006-2015 page at Arisbe, so, if you go 
there you may find much of the page to be missing. I'll try again 
tomorrow. - Best, Ben


On 10/4/2016 8:06 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] Re: Another new book, this one with texts by Peirce

[Benjamin Udell]

Maybe it's because of that hole in the sun's corona that's been in the 
news (also look up "EMP", see the NASA &Wikipedia pages on "Carrington 
event", a subject worth learning about), but anyway I'm having trouble 
with an update to the Books 2006-2015 page at Arisbe, so, if you go 
there you may find much of the page to be missing. I'll try again 
tomorrow. - Best, Ben


On 10/4/2016 8:06 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Gary R., list,

The new book about Peirce's concept of habit obviously deserves an 
entry at Arisbe. It's time for me to create a new page for books 
published in 2016 or after. Meanwhile, I need to add some more books 
to the page for books 2006-2015. Peter Lang published in December 2015 
a second book edited by Elize Bisanz of texts by Peirce. In the new 
book, at least one of texts has not been previously published ("Quest 
of Quests", MS 655, which Arnold Shepperson cited in his paper on 
Peircean classification, kinds of induction, and media, communication, 
and journalism).


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#peirce_bisanz_2015

  * Prolegomena to a Science of Reasoning: Phaneroscopy, Semeiotic,
Logic.
Charles S. Peirce. Editor: Elize Bisanz . Peter Lang, 2015
December 15. EPUB
https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=EPUB , PDF
https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=PDF ,
Hardcover https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=HC .
186 pages (according to Amazon.com).
  o /Publisher's description:/

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), American Scientist,
Mathematician, and Logician, developed much of the logic
widely used today. Using copies of his unpublished
manuscripts, this book provides a comprehensive collection of
Peirce’s writings on Phaneroscopy and the outlines of his
project to develop a Science of Reasoning. The collection is
focused on three main fields: Phaneroscopy, the science of
observation, Semeiotic, the science of sign relations, and
Logic, the science of inferences. Peirce understands all
thought to be mediated in and through signs and its essence to
be diagrammatic. The book serves as a timely contribution for
the introduction of Peirce’s Phaneroscopy to the emerging
research field of Image Sciences.

Elize Bisanz holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from the
Technical University of Berlin. She is an advisory board
member of the German Association of Semiotic Studies as well
as a permanent research member of the Institute for Studies in
Pragmaticism at Texas Tech University.

  o /Table of Contents:/
  +   11. Table of Contents.
  +   13. Phaneroscopy, Semeiotik, Logik. Eine Einführung .
[introduction, in German]
  +   25. Reasoning.
  +   29. Scientific Method.
  +   33. Notes for a Syllabus of Logic.
  +   35. Exact Logic. Introduction. What is Logic?
  +   43. Logic. The Theory of Reasoning by C.S. Peirce.
  +   47. Logic Viewed as Semeiotic.
  +   49. Logic as the General Theory of Signs of all Kinds.
  +   65. Phaneroscopy: Or, the Natural History of Concepts.
  +   77. Phaneroscopy.
  +   95. Signs, Thoughts, Reasoning.
  + 115. Logic. Book I. Analysis of Thought.
  + 123. Common Ground.
  + 135. How to Define.
  + 145. Essays Toward the Full Comprehension of Reasonings
Preface.
  + 157. Quest of Quest. An Inquiry into the Conditions of
Success in Inquiry. [MS 655]
  + 169. An Appraisal of the Faculty of Reasoning.
  + 173. Part II. Mathematical Reasoning.
  + 179. Bibliography.
  + 183. Index of Technical Terms.
  + 185. Name Index.
  o Bisanz pages at the Culture Science Institute for Europe
Research <http://europaforschung.org/bisanz.htm>
(Google-Englished

<http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://europaforschung.org/bisanz.htm>
) and at Texas Tech

<http://www.depts.ttu.edu/pragmaticism/symposium/Meaning_in_the_Arts/Symposium_Presenters/Entries/2009/8/14_Elize_Bisanz.html>
.

Best, Ben

*Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond 
Consciousness

Date:  Tue, 4 Oct 2016
From: Gary Richmond 
To: Peirce-L  *


List,

This looks to be an interesting collection of essays on habit as 
Peirce conceived of it. Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: 
Before and Beyond Consciousness
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319459189 
<http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319459189>


About the book: This book constitutes the first treatment of C. S. 
Peirce’s unique concept of habit. Habit animated the pragmatists of 
the 19th and early 20th ce

[PEIRCE-L] Another new book, this one with texts by Peirce

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary R., list,

The new book about Peirce's concept of habit obviously deserves an entry 
at Arisbe. It's time for me to create a new page for books published in 
2016 or after. Meanwhile, I need to add some more books to the page for 
books 2006-2015. Peter Lang published in December 2015 a second book 
edited by Elize Bisanz of texts by Peirce. In the new book, at least one 
of texts has not been previously published ("Quest of Quests", MS 655, 
which Arnold Shepperson cited in his paper on Peircean classification, 
kinds of induction, and media, communication, and journalism).


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#peirce_bisanz_2015

 * Prolegomena to a Science of Reasoning: Phaneroscopy, Semeiotic, Logic.
   Charles S. Peirce. Editor: Elize Bisanz. Peter Lang, 2015 December
   15. EPUB https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=EPUB,
   PDF https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=PDF,
   Hardcover https://www.peterlang.com/view/product/23917?format=HC.
   186 pages (according to Amazon.com).
 o /Publisher's description:/

   Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), American Scientist,
   Mathematician, and Logician, developed much of the logic widely
   used today. Using copies of his unpublished manuscripts, this
   book provides a comprehensive collection of Peirce’s writings on
   Phaneroscopy and the outlines of his project to develop a
   Science of Reasoning. The collection is focused on three main
   fields: Phaneroscopy, the science of observation, Semeiotic, the
   science of sign relations, and Logic, the science of inferences.
   Peirce understands all thought to be mediated in and through
   signs and its essence to be diagrammatic. The book serves as a
   timely contribution for the introduction of Peirce’s
   Phaneroscopy to the emerging research field of Image Sciences.

   Elize Bisanz holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from the
   Technical University of Berlin. She is an advisory board member
   of the German Association of Semiotic Studies as well as a
   permanent research member of the Institute for Studies in
   Pragmaticism at Texas Tech University.

 o /Table of Contents:/
 +11. Table of Contents.
 +13. Phaneroscopy, Semeiotik, Logik. Eine Einführung.
   [introduction, in German]
 +25. Reasoning.
 +29. Scientific Method.
 +33. Notes for a Syllabus of Logic.
 +35. Exact Logic. Introduction. What is Logic?
 +43. Logic. The Theory of Reasoning by C.S. Peirce.
 +47. Logic Viewed as Semeiotic.
 +49. Logic as the General Theory of Signs of all Kinds.
 +65. Phaneroscopy: Or, the Natural History of Concepts.
 +77. Phaneroscopy.
 +95. Signs, Thoughts, Reasoning.
 + 115. Logic. Book I. Analysis of Thought.
 + 123. Common Ground.
 + 135. How to Define.
 + 145. Essays Toward the Full Comprehension of Reasonings
   Preface.
 + 157. Quest of Quest. An Inquiry into the Conditions of
   Success in Inquiry. [MS 655]
 + 169. An Appraisal of the Faculty of Reasoning.
 + 173. Part II. Mathematical Reasoning.
 + 179. Bibliography.
 + 183. Index of Technical Terms.
 + 185. Name Index.
 o Bisanz pages at the Culture Science Institute for Europe
   Research 
   (Google-Englished
   
)
   and at Texas Tech
   
.


Best, Ben

*Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond 
Consciousness

Date:  Tue, 4 Oct 2016
From: Gary Richmond 
To: Peirce-L *


List,

This looks to be an interesting collection of essays on habit as 
Peirce conceived of it. Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before 
and Beyond Consciousness
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319459189 



About the book: This book constitutes the first treatment of C. S. 
Peirce’s unique concept of habit. Habit animated the pragmatists of 
the 19th and early 20th centuries, who picked up the baton from 
classical scholars, principally Aristotle. Most prominent among the 
pragmatists thereafter is Charles Sanders Peirce. In our vernacular, 
habit connotes a pattern of conduct. Nonetheless, Peirce’s concept 
transcends application to mere regularity or to human conduct; it 
extends into natural and social phenomena, making cohesive inner and 
outer worlds. Chapters in this anthology define and amplify Peircean 
habit; as such, they highlight the dialectic between doubt and belief. 
Doubt destabilizes habit, leaving open the possibility for new beliefs 
in the form o

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Inquiry involving 'potential populations', was, PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

lly test our hypotheses against experience,
correcting as we learn from the errors that this experience
reveals.” It was Shepperson’s hope that JMC inquiry could develop
exemplary methods and techniques for sampling abnumerable
collections so that its findings would tend “over the long run to
approximate to true assertions about social and human reality.”

Any thoughts on how the consideration of potential populations 
(abnumerable collections) involving "would-be's" might inform inquiry 
into those fields concerned with human behavior and institutions, such 
as sociology, anthropology, etc?


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690  *

On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 1:24 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary R., list,

I agree, a hypothesis may be uncertain yet still be helpful, although 
it's important for a contrite fallibilism in any science that the 
uncertainty, possible errors, etc., be examined and expressed.


- Best, Ben

On 10/1/2016 12:53 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Ben, List,

Thanks for this clarification. You wrote: Researchers need to be able 
to state that a hypothesis has been ruled out in plain enough words to 
keep communication clear because the scientific method is the inquiry 
method that, by its own account, can go wrong as well as right. They 
don't always say "shown to be false," they'll say "ruled out" or 
"disconfirmed" or "disfavored" or the like.


I suppose the language of "ruled out" or "disconfirmed" seems sounder 
to me than "false;"  but perhaps it amounts to the same thing.


But aren't there some hypotheses which, while not fully borne out when 
tested, yet give information which is, for example, "statistically 
significant" in adding to the understanding of the question being 
inquired into such that that the direction of further inquiry may be 
informed by that, shall we say, incomplete  (although not strictly 
'false') result? This seems to me to happen, for example, in the 
social sciences (and other 'soft' sciences).


Best,

Gary  R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690 *

On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 12:31 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:



Gary R., list,

"Good" is traditionally taken as meaning "valid" or "justified" when 
applied to an inference. Valid deductions can conclude in falsehoods 
by vice of falsehood among the premisses, and we can see both 
critical and methodeutical kinds of justification of an abductive 
inference that can nevertheless turn out, upon testing, to conclude 
in a falsehood, e.g., the hypothesis of a detectable ether wind in 
the theoretical effort to save the Galilean transformations; the 
disconfirmation of the ether wind led eventually to the triumph of 
the Lorentz transformations, amid which the Galilean transformations 
survive as an approximation for things moving slowly in one's 
reference frame, and it led to the quantitative unification of time 
and space (with lightspeed as yardstick, e.g., years and 
light-years), which simply isn't there in the Galilean and 
(unreconstructed) Newtonian pictures; in any case the hypothesis of 
an ether wind is quite dead, but it was critically and 
methodeutically justified as far as it went; it was plausible, 
distinctive predictions were deducible from it, and indeed its 
adoption bore fruit. Researchers need to be able to state that a 
hypothesis has been ruled out in plain enough words to keep 
communication clear because the scientific method is the inquiry 
method that, by its own account, can go wrong as well as right. They 
don't always say "shown to be false," they'll say "ruled out" or 
"disconfirmed" or "disfavored" or the like. The majority of 
explanatory hypotheses, even the fruitful ones, turn out to be false; 
the surprising thing, as Peirce often pointed out, is that they 
aren't false much oftener. - Best, Ben


On 10/1/2016 11:34 AM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Ben, Jon, List,

Ben, you commented:

"An abductive inference may be good and successful in terms of the 
economics of inquiry, even if it turns out to conclude in a 
falsehood, if it nevertheless helps research by either making it 
positively fruitful (think of all the hypotheses that positively 
help lead to truth without scoring a 'hole in one') or at least by 
leading to knowledge of a previously unknown dead end that would 
otherwise have caused waste of time and energy."


I would tend to agree strongly with this but wonder whether 
'falsehood' is the best expression to describe what happens in such 
a case. The abduction is 'good' if it is testable, even if the 
hypothesis is not, or not fully, borne out. As you suggested, 
information is sometimes gained from testing such hypotheses which, 
in the economy of research, is useful for further inquiry.


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690 *

On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., list,

Thanks, but I need to correct myself. I wrote,

   the scientific method is the inquiry method that, by its own
   account, can go wrong as well as right
   [End quote]

I should say instead that the scientific method is the inquiry method in 
which inquiry, by its own account, can go wrong as well as right. One 
tends to have confidence in the method itself, a kind of ideal of 
self-criticism and self-correction, if not always in one's ability to 
recognize and implement it.


Best, Ben

On 10/1/2016 12:43 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Ben U., Gary R., List:

You have both made some great points today.  Peirce clearly considered 
economy of research to be an important purpose of methodeutic or 
speculative (i.e., theoretical) rhetoric.  He even advocated, under 
certain circumstances, admitting a hypothesis that we /expect /to fail 
under testing, if this can be done quickly and inexpensively, such 
that we may then dismiss it once and for all.  Even when a hypothesis 
apparently "passes" the tests to which we subject it, the point of 
Peirce's fallibilism is that we continue to hold it tentatively, at 
least to some degree, because it always remains subject to further 
testing that might reveal a need to adjust or perhaps abandon it.


Regards,

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


On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 11:31 AM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:


Gary R., list,

"Good" is traditionally taken as meaning "valid" or "justified"
when applied to an inference. Valid deductions can conclude in
falsehoods by vice of falsehood among the premisses, and we can
see both critical and methodeutical kinds of justification of an
abductive inference that can nevertheless turn out, upon testing,
to conclude in a falsehood, e.g., the hypothesis of a detectable
ether wind in the theoretical effort to save the Galilean
transformations; the disconfirmation of the ether wind led
eventually to the triumph of the Lorentz transformations, amid
which the Galilean transformations survive as an approximation for
things moving slowly in one's reference frame, and it led to the
quantitative unification of time and space (with lightspeed as
yardstick, e.g., years and light-years), which simply isn't there
in the Galilean and (unreconstructed) Newtonian pictures; in any
case the hypothesis of an ether wind is quite dead, but it was
critically and methodeutically justified as far as it went; it was
plausible, distinctive predictions were deducible from it, and
indeed its adoption bore fruit. Researchers need to be able to
state that a hypothesis has been ruled out in plain enough words
to keep communication clear because the scientific method is the
inquiry method that, by its own account, can go wrong as well as
right. They don't always say "shown to be false," they'll say
"ruled out" or "disconfirmed" or "disfavored" or the like. The
majority of explanatory hypotheses, even the fruitful ones, turn
out to be false; the surprising thing, as Peirce often pointed
out, is that they aren't false much oftener. - Best, Ben

On 10/1/2016 11:34 AM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Ben, Jon, List,

Ben, you commented:

"An abductive inference may be good and successful in terms of
the economics of inquiry, even if it turns out to conclude in a
falsehood, if it nevertheless helps research by either making it
positively fruitful (think of all the hypotheses that positively
help lead to truth without scoring a 'hole in one') or at least
by leading to knowledge of a previously unknown dead end that
would otherwise have caused waste of time and energy."

I would tend to agree strongly with this but wonder whether
'falsehood' is the best expression to describe what happens in
such a case. The abduction is 'good' if it is testable, even if
the hypothesis is not, or not fully, borne out. As you suggested,
information is sometimes gained from testing such hypotheses
which, in the economy of research, is useful for further inquiry.

Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690 *




-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary R., list,

"Good" is traditionally taken as meaning "valid" or "justified" when 
applied to an inference. Valid deductions can conclude in falsehoods by 
vice of falsehood among the premisses, and we can see both critical and 
methodeutical kinds of justification of an abductive inference that can 
nevertheless turn out, upon testing, to conclude in a falsehood, e.g., 
the hypothesis of a detectable ether wind in the theoretical effort to 
save the Galilean transformations; the disconfirmation of the ether wind 
led eventually to the triumph of the Lorentz transformations, amid which 
the Galilean transformations survive as an approximation for things 
moving slowly in one's reference frame, and it led to the quantitative 
unification of time and space (with lightspeed as yardstick, e.g., years 
and light-years), which simply isn't there in the Galilean and 
(unreconstructed) Newtonian pictures; in any case the hypothesis of an 
ether wind is quite dead, but it was critically and methodeutically 
justified as far as it went; it was plausible, distinctive predictions 
were deducible from it, and indeed its adoption bore fruit. Researchers 
need to be able to state that a hypothesis has been ruled out in plain 
enough words to keep communication clear because the scientific method 
is the inquiry method that, by its own account, can go wrong as well as 
right. They don't always say "shown to be false," they'll say "ruled 
out" or "disconfirmed" or "disfavored" or the like. The majority of 
explanatory hypotheses, even the fruitful ones, turn out to be false; 
the surprising thing, as Peirce often pointed out, is that they aren't 
false much oftener. - Best, Ben


On 10/1/2016 11:34 AM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Ben, Jon, List,

Ben, you commented:

"An abductive inference may be good and successful in terms of the 
economics of inquiry, even if it turns out to conclude in a falsehood, 
if it nevertheless helps research by either making it positively 
fruitful (think of all the hypotheses that positively help lead to 
truth without scoring a 'hole in one') or at least by leading to 
knowledge of a previously unknown dead end that would otherwise have 
caused waste of time and energy."


I would tend to agree strongly with this but wonder whether 
'falsehood' is the best expression to describe what happens in such a 
case. The abduction is 'good' if it is testable, even if the 
hypothesis is not, or not fully, borne out. As you suggested, 
information is sometimes gained from testing such hypotheses which, in 
the economy of research, is useful for further inquiry.


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*

On Sat, Oct 1, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., Gary R., Jerry R., list, I left one point murky; what I had 
failed to see clearly, until Jon S.'s remarks, was that 5.189 can't be 
regarded as a version, the best as Jerry R. has been urging, or 
otherwise, of the pragmatic maxim. - Best, Ben


On 10/1/2016 11:20 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Jon S., Gary R., list,

Jon, you wrote,

CP 5.189 can and does produce hypotheses that "explain the facts,"
yet are /not/ "capable of experimental verification," and thus are
/not/ admissible for subsequent deductive explication and
inductive evaluation.  In other words, an abduction that fully
conforms to CP 5.189 may nevertheless turn out to be a /bad/
abduction; whereas /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis
passes the test of the PM and (ultimately) the other two stages of
inquiry is a /good/ abduction.
[End quote]

Excellent point. I could kick myself for not having seen that clearly, 
despite my own going on about the difference between critic (including 
CP 5.189) and methodeutic (including the pragmatic maxim). I would add 
one further point about your last clause,


whereas /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis passes the test
of the PM and (ultimately) the other two stages of inquiry is a
/good/ abduction.
[End quote]

An abductive inference may be good and successful in terms of the 
economics of inquiry, even if it turns out to conclude in a falsehood, 
if it nevertheless helps research by either making it positively 
fruitful (think of all the hypotheses that positively help lead to 
truth without scoring a 'hole in one') or at least by leading to 
knowledge of a previously unknown dead end that would otherwise have 
caused waste of time and energy. This reflects the heuretic view of 
inquiry as opposed to the view concerned mainly with justifying 
already-accepted conclusions. (I said something like this at peirce-l 
in May but, in passing, accepted what I took to be my interlocutor's 
sense of "successful" abduction as meaning an abductive conclusion's 
being true.)


Best, Ben

On 9/30/2016 8:05 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Jon, List,

You wrote: I think that the discussion over the last several days has 
also very helpfully clarified the distinction between logical critic 
and methodeutic.  In particular, CP 5.189 falls under logical 
critic and pertains /only/ to abduction, while the PM--like 
pragmat[ic]ism itself--falls under methodeutic and pertains to a 
/complete/ inquiry.


Yes, I agree that the discussion has helped clarify this distinction. 
While logical /critic/ concerns itself with the nature and strength 
of the three types of inferences, /methodeutic/ concerns itself with 
these three patterns of inference as /together/ they figure in a 
complete inquiry.


Thus, as you concluded: /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis 
passes the test of the PM and (ultimately) the other two stages of 
inquiry is a /good/ abduction.


And perhaps this also helps explain why the third branch of logic as 
semiotic was alternatively termed theoretic /rhetoric/ by Peirce. For 
it is through a complete inquiry involving a testable hypothesis that 
we are /persuaded/ that some given hypothesis "explains the facts," 
that is, that it is a "good" abduction.


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*

On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 5:53 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Gary R., List:

Thanks for your kind words.  I think that the discussion over the 
last several days has also very helpfully clarified the distinction 
between logical critic and methodeutic.  In particular, CP 5.189 
falls under logical critic and pertains /only/ to abduction, while 
the PM--like pragmat[ic]ism itself--falls under methodeutic and 
pertains to a /complete/ inquiry.


CSP:  Long before I first classed abduction as an inference it
was recognized by logicians that the operation of adopting an
explanatory hypothesis--which is just what abduction is--was
subject to certain conditions.  Namely, the hypothesis cannot be
admitted, even as a hypothesis, unless it be supposed that it
would account for the facts or some of them.  The form of
inference, therefore, is this:

The surprising fact, C, is observed;
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course,
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. (CP 5.189,
EP 2.231)

But merely accounting for the facts (or some of them) is not enough 
for a hypothesis to be admitted to the further stages of a complete 
inquiry.  As Ben U. brought to our attention ...


BU:  Remember that in the Carnegie Application (1902) he said,
"Methodeutic has a special interest in abduction, or the
inference which

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

I left one point murky; what I had failed to see clearly, until Jon S.'s 
remarks, was that 5.189 can't be regarded as a version, the best as 
Jerry R. has been urging, or otherwise, of the pragmatic maxim. - Best, Ben


On 10/1/2016 11:20 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Jon S., Gary R., list,

Jon, you wrote,

CP 5.189 can and does produce hypotheses that "explain the facts,"
yet are /not/ "capable of experimental verification," and thus are
/not/ admissible for subsequent deductive explication and
inductive evaluation.  In other words, an abduction that fully
conforms to CP 5.189 may nevertheless turn out to be a /bad/
abduction; whereas /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis
passes the test of the PM and (ultimately) the other two stages of
inquiry is a /good/ abduction.
[End quote]

Excellent point. I could kick myself for not having seen that clearly, 
despite my own going on about the difference between critic (including 
CP 5.189) and methodeutic (including the pragmatic maxim). I would add 
one further point about your last clause,


whereas /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis passes the test
of the PM and (ultimately) the other two stages of inquiry is a
/good/ abduction.
[End quote]

An abductive inference may be good and successful in terms of the 
economics of inquiry, even if it turns out to conclude in a falsehood, 
if it nevertheless helps research by either making it positively 
fruitful (think of all the hypotheses that positively help lead to 
truth without scoring a 'hole in one') or at least by leading to 
knowledge of a previously unknown dead end that would otherwise have 
caused waste of time and energy. This reflects the heuretic view of 
inquiry as opposed to the view concerned mainly with justifying 
already-accepted conclusions. (I said something like this at peirce-l 
in May but, in passing, accepted what I took to be my interlocutor's 
sense of "successful" abduction as meaning an abductive conclusion's 
being true.)


Best, Ben

On 9/30/2016 8:05 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Jon, List,

You wrote: I think that the discussion over the last several days has 
also very helpfully clarified the distinction between logical critic 
and methodeutic.  In particular, CP 5.189 falls under logical 
critic and pertains /only/ to abduction, while the PM--like 
pragmat[ic]ism itself--falls under methodeutic and pertains to a 
/complete/ inquiry.


Yes, I agree that the discussion has helped clarify this distinction. 
While logical /critic/ concerns itself with the nature and strength 
of the three types of inferences, /methodeutic/ concerns itself with 
these three patterns of inference as /together/ they figure in a 
complete inquiry.


Thus, as you concluded: /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis 
passes the test of the PM and (ultimately) the other two stages of 
inquiry is a /good/ abduction.


And perhaps this also helps explain why the third branch of logic as 
semiotic was alternatively termed theoretic /rhetoric/ by Peirce. For 
it is through a complete inquiry involving a testable hypothesis that 
we are /persuaded/ that some given hypothesis "explains the facts," 
that is, that it is a "good" abduction.


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*

On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 5:53 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Gary R., List:

Thanks for your kind words.  I think that the discussion over the 
last several days has also very helpfully clarified the distinction 
between logical critic and methodeutic.  In particular, CP 5.189 
falls under logical critic and pertains /only/ to abduction, while 
the PM--like pragmat[ic]ism itself--falls under methodeutic and 
pertains to a /complete/ inquiry.


CSP:  Long before I first classed abduction as an inference it
was recognized by logicians that the operation of adopting an
explanatory hypothesis--which is just what abduction is--was
subject to certain conditions.  Namely, the hypothesis cannot be
admitted, even as a hypothesis, unless it be supposed that it
would account for the facts or some of them.  The form of
inference, therefore, is this:

The surprising fact, C, is observed;
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course,
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. (CP 5.189,
EP 2.231)

But merely accounting for the facts (or some of them) is not enough 
for a hypothesis to be admitted to the further stages of a complete 
inquiry.  As Ben U. brought to our attention ...


BU:  Remember that in the Carnegie Application (1902) he said,
"Methodeutic has a special interest in abduction, or the
inference which starts a scientific hypothesis. For

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon S., Gary R., list,

Jon, you wrote,

   CP 5.189 can and does produce hypotheses that "explain the facts,"
   yet are /not/ "capable of experimental verification," and thus are
   /not/ admissible for subsequent deductive explication and inductive
   evaluation.  In other words, an abduction that fully conforms to CP
   5.189 may nevertheless turn out to be a /bad/ abduction; whereas
   /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis passes the test of the PM
   and (ultimately) the other two stages of inquiry is a /good/ abduction.
   [End quote]

Excellent point. I could kick myself for not having seen that clearly, 
despite my own going on about the difference between critic (including 
CP 5.189) and methodeutic (including the pragmatic maxim). I would add 
one further point about your last clause,


   whereas /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis passes the test
   of the PM and (ultimately) the other two stages of inquiry is a
   /good/ abduction.
   [End quote]

An abductive inference may be good and successful in terms of the 
economics of inquiry, even if it turns out to conclude in a falsehood, 
if it nevertheless helps research by either making it positively 
fruitful (think of all the hypotheses that positively help lead to truth 
without scoring a 'hole in one') or at least by leading to knowledge of 
a previously unknown dead end that would otherwise have caused waste of 
time and energy. This reflects the heuretic view of inquiry as opposed 
to the view concerned mainly with justifying already-accepted 
conclusions. (I said something like this at peirce-l in May but, in 
passing, accepted what I took to be my interlocutor's sense of 
"successful" abduction as meaning an abductive conclusion's being true.)


Best, Ben

On 9/30/2016 8:05 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:


Jon, List,

You wrote: I think that the discussion over the last several days has 
also very helpfully clarified the distinction between logical critic 
and methodeutic.  In particular, CP 5.189 falls under logical 
critic and pertains /only/ to abduction, while the PM--like 
pragmat[ic]ism itself--falls under methodeutic and pertains to a 
/complete/ inquiry.


Yes, I agree that the discussion has helped clarify this distinction. 
While logical /critic/ concerns itself with the nature and strength of 
the three types of inferences, /methodeutic/ concerns itself with 
these three patterns of inference as /together/ they figure in a 
complete inquiry.


Thus, as you concluded: /any/ abduction whose resulting hypothesis 
passes the test of the PM and (ultimately) the other two stages of 
inquiry is a /good/ abduction.


And perhaps this also helps explain why the third branch of logic as 
semiotic was alternatively termed theoretic /rhetoric/ by Peirce. For 
it is through a complete inquiry involving a testable hypothesis that 
we are /persuaded/ that some given hypothesis "explains the facts," 
that is, that it is a "good" abduction.


Best,

Gary R

Gary Richmond

*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*

On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 5:53 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Gary R., List:

Thanks for your kind words.  I think that the discussion over the 
last several days has also very helpfully clarified the distinction 
between logical critic and methodeutic.  In particular, CP 5.189 
falls under logical critic and pertains /only/ to abduction, while 
the PM--like pragmat[ic]ism itself--falls under methodeutic and 
pertains to a /complete/ inquiry.


CSP:  Long before I first classed abduction as an inference it
was recognized by logicians that the operation of adopting an
explanatory hypothesis--which is just what abduction is--was
subject to certain conditions.  Namely, the hypothesis cannot be
admitted, even as a hypothesis, unless it be supposed that it
would account for the facts or some of them.  The form of
inference, therefore, is this:

The surprising fact, C, is observed;
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course,
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. (CP 5.189,
EP 2.231)

But merely accounting for the facts (or some of them) is not enough 
for a hypothesis to be admitted to the further stages of a complete 
inquiry.  As Ben U. brought to our attention ...


BU:  Remember that in the Carnegie Application (1902) he said,
"Methodeutic has a special interest in abduction, or the
inference which starts a scientific hypothesis. For it is not
sufficient that a hypothesis should be a justifiable one. Any
hypothesis which explains the facts is justified critically. But
among justifiable hypotheses we have to select that one which is
suitable for being tested by experiment." That adverb
"critically" is a reference to logical critic, the critique of
arguments. In the rest of that quote 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Principles of Classification?

[Benjamin Udell]

Also see Peirce discussing the difference between logical classification 
and natural classification in "Triadomany", CP 1.568-572

http://www.textlog.de/4336.html

Best, Ben

On 9/29/2016 2:19 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:

Mike, List:

Glad to be of service!  In the meantime, you might review Peirce's 
extensive discussion of "natural classes" and "natural classification" 
at CP 1.203-231.


Regards,

Jon

On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 11:40 AM, Mike Bergman > wrote:


Fantastic, Jon. That would be most helpful, especially since that
is "new" information.

Mike

On 9/29/2016 11:32 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:

Mike, List:

As it happens, I am currently in the process of reading and
transcribing R 1343, "Of the Classification of the Sciences,
Second Paper, Of the Practical Sciences," once again thanks to
the SPIN project
(http://fromthepage.com/collection/show?collection_id=16
). So
far, about 40 pages into it, it presents instead a classification
of instincts; but if I remember right, it also includes some
discussion about principles of classification.  I do not have my
in-progress transcription with me at the office, but if I get a
chance this evening, I will review it and post anything relevant
that I find.

Regards,

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

On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 11:22 AM, Mike Bergman
mailto:m...@mkbergman.com>> wrote:

Hi List,

Ben Udell recently quoted from this Peirce memoir:


MEMOIR   27: OF METHODEUTIC

[]

From Draft B - MS L75.279-280

[] Two other problems of methodeutic which the old
logics usually made almost its only business are, first,
the principles of definition, and of rendering ideas
clear; and second, the principles of classification.
[End quote]


I have only found spotty references by Peirce to the
"principles of classification" in my own online resources.
Would anyone on the list care (Edwina ? :) ) to provide any
of their own known citations?

Thanks in advance,

Mike


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

I usually worry when I see a quote of myself from 2007 - I was often 
very wordy in those days  but I didn't do too badly in that one.


I think that I still agree with the things in your quote of me, except 
the first thing, that economy is as important as chance in the world. 
What I think is that optima (and feasibilities) are just as important as 
probabilities in the world. I was trying to find a way to say that in 
terms of chance, and was wrong to talk as though economy were to optima 
as chance is to probability.


You wrote,

   As an aside, at the time I recall thinking this economic view
   applied not just to particular hypotheses but also what questions
   one takes up given finite time. So relative to the NA it may well be
   that many atheists or agnostics just don’t think it worth their time
   to inquire about God.

Peirce discusses the question of what questions one takes up given 
finite time. He addresses it in Memoir 28, on the economics of research 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-08.htm#m28 
in the Carnegie application, and he discusses the selection and ordering 
of hypotheses at some length in "On Drawing History from Ancient 
Documents" in CP 7, much of which is reprinted under a longer title in 
EP 2. The discussion of caution (as in 20 Questions), breadth, and 
incomplexity should not be missed by anybody interested in the topic, 
and there's plenty else there worth reading too about hypotheses, the 
pertinent discussion starts around EP 2:106 (CP 7.218).


Best, Ben

On 9/26/2016 2:53 PM, Clark Goble wrote:



On Sep 26, 2016, at 12:01 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:


Remember that in the Carnegie Application (1902) he said, 
"Methodeutic has a special interest in abduction, or the inference 
which starts a scientific hypothesis. For it is not sufficient that a 
hypothesis should be a justifiable one. Any hypothesis which explains 
the facts is justified critically. But among justifiable hypotheses 
we have to select that one which is suitable for being tested by 
experiment." That adverb "critically" is a reference to logical 
critic, the critique of arguments. In the rest of that quote he is 
discussing why methodeutic gets involved. In 1908 in "A Neglected 
Argument" he discusses plausibilty as natural simplicity and 
is explicit in placing the issue in logical critic.


Ben, I’m really learning a lot here. I confess I always separated the 
logical vs. methodeutic more as whether ones analysis was focused in 
on objects or interpretants. I think I’m rethinking this quite a bit.


I hope you won’t mind me quoting a selection from your discussion with 
Joe that you mentioned. I’d be very curious as to what, if anything, 
you disagree with now. (This is from May 25, 2007)


I meant that I see economy as an element at least as basic as
chance and probability in the world. (Between equi-feasibility
and chance as equi-probability, there's something obviously in
common, but I'm not sure how to think about this.)

In the Cotary Propositions, Peirce speaks of abductions which are
irresistable, abductions which shade into irresistability in
shading into being perceptual judgments. So there will also be
abductions which are very compelling even when not irresistable.
There'll be the whole continuum. Often, for instance, an abduction
is compelling not just in itself but in respect of the lack of
strong alternatives.

Peirce's argument for discovery's being an economic question is
beautiful, no question about it. Now, Peirce says in your third
quote, "Consequently, the conduct of abduction, which is chiefly a
question of heuretic and is the first question of heuretic, is to
be governed by economical considerations.  I show how this leads
to methodeutic inquiries of other kinds and at the same time
furnishes a key for the conduct of those inquiries."

Abduction, as an art, is to be governed by economical
considerations. This sounds like abduction as inference to the
simplest, most economic, most "natural" explanation. Methodeutic
is concerned not only with abduction per se but with applying such
economics as a key for the conduct of other kinds of methodeutic
inquiries into research -- _expanding_ that economism into an
economics of research generally. Abduction is the discovertive
mode of inference. Therefore it is to be govermed by economic
considerations, an economics of explanation. Research aims to
discover. Therefore it is likewise to be governed by economic
considerations, an economics of research.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is compelling enough that
inquiry reasonably settles there. Sometimes there is no single
simplest explanation, sometimes there's none at all, and t

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

Yes, methodeutical reasoning can itself be abductive, and if one builds 
a house of abductive inferences none of which are quite compelling, then 
it's guesswork, it could be a house of cards.


In the end we base all our reasoning on perceptual facts reached by 
abduction, insofar as perception is a kind of non-deliberate abduction. 
These abductions are occur in actual practice of math (the mathematician 
physically sees the diagram, etc.) and various abstract fields, but are 
(at least usually) not formally incorporated into mathematical 
reasoning, nor into the logical and mathematical reasoning in fields 
like statistics and experimental design, although such inductive fields 
deal with issues of the reliability of perceptual judgments.


I'm no physicist, so my opinion on string theory matters little, but 
people do seem rather impatient with it. It unites GR & QFT, but look at 
all those vacua, etc. One finds people like Hawking and Witten on string 
theory's side, and Penrose against it.  As I understand it, the 
tiny-scale quantum-gravity phenomena would be, as a practical matter, a 
challenge for any quantum-gravity theory to test, not just string 
theory. People argue whether string theory is currently the only game in 
town (as a practical matter, not by mathematical proof) and whether it 
promotes progress in other ways, justifying itself through the economics 
of inquiry. There's the holographic stuff, black hole evaporation, the 
dualities, string phenomenology, and applications of analogues of ST 
ideas in condensed-matter physics (none of which topics I could discuss 
even semi-intelligently without surfing the Internet in preparation).  
Of course we would all like more.


Best, Ben

On 9/26/2016 2:28 PM, Clark Goble wrote:


On Sep 26, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:bud...@nyc.rr.com>> wrote:


I'd like to emphasize again that it's a distinction that makes a 
difference: methodeutical promise is not the same thing as 
plausibility or (instinctual) assurance of truth. Many years ago here 
at peirce-l, Howard Callaway argued against the idea that a 
hypothesis was more plausible simply by being easier, more 
convenient, or the like to test. He ascribed the idea to Peirce, and 
Joe Ransdell tried to defend Peirce but forgot about the critical vs. 
methodeutical distinction (and I had forgotten about if I had ever 
known it in the first place). I agreed with Howard that it was a bad 
idea, but I couldn't believe that Peirce really believed it. I 
learned only later of how Peirce dealt with it. Peirce made 
plausibility a question of logical critic, and testability, potential 
fruitfulness, etc., questions of methodeutic. Thus he separated them 
not just as separate issues of abduction, but as pertaining to 
different levels of logic - very apples versus oranges. - Best, Ben


Ben, that’s very helpful and I vaguely recall that discussion.

One problem I see though is that you have abduction built on top of 
conclusions of abduction. That is testability, fruitfulness and so 
forth might be a different level, but they are themselves abductive 
conclusions not all will agree with.


This isn’t me disagreeing with you mind you. I think this is both the 
weakness and strength of abduction. It allows one to look at say the 
debate over string theory or supersymmetry from the late 70’s up until 
recently. There were huge debates over what counted as testability, 
whether things were testable, what counted as most simple, as most 
fruitful and so forth. Very rarely were these debates really conducted 
in terms of hard empirical tests. I think from a Peircean paradigm one 
could see these as a debate over methodeutical distinction at these 
different layers, but with people arriving at very different abductive 
conclusions.


Further (and this is where I think Peirce’s common sensicalism comes 
into play) it seems to me that these change over time. So for instance 
early on in the 80’s you had many physicists like Feynman being very 
critical of a lack of testing along with the theories being too 
complex along certain criteria. (The math was very difficult) Then in 
the last decade you see the rise of a different set of criticisms 
closely related to the ones from the 80’s yet with different strength. 
So you have for instance Lee Smolin or Peter Woit emphasizing the lack 
of progress of string theory and it describing too much. Effectively 
they are making a kind of abductive argument against metaphysics that 
is quite Peircean. (In the case of Lee Smolin probably explicit 
influence since he’s noted the influence of Peirce on his thought)


The problem is that while abduction isn’t instinct or intuition, at a 
certain practical point it’s built on abductive foundations that are 
themselves just a matter of acceptance. Put an other way, while we may 
drop down to particular arguments (such as how testable string theory 
is

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Jeff D., Gary R., list,

I'd like to emphasize again that it's a distinction that makes a 
difference: methodeutical promise is not the same thing as plausibility 
or (instinctual) assurance of truth. Many years ago here at peirce-l, 
Howard Callaway argued against the idea that a hypothesis was more 
plausible simply by being easier, more convenient, or the like to test. 
He ascribed the idea to Peirce, and Joe Ransdell tried to defend Peirce 
but forgot about the critical vs. methodeutical distinction (and I had 
forgotten about if I had ever known it in the first place). I agreed 
with Howard that it was a bad idea, but I couldn't believe that Peirce 
really believed it. I learned only later of how Peirce dealt with it. 
Peirce made plausibility a question of logical critic, and testability, 
potential fruitfulness, etc., questions of methodeutic. Thus he 
separated them not just as separate issues of abduction, but as 
pertaining to different levels of logic - very apples versus oranges. - 
Best, Ben


On 9/26/2016 2:01 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:

Jeff D., Gary R., list,

Peirce held that the question of whether a hypothesis explains a 
phenomenon, and how plausibly it does so, are questions of logical 
critic. Peirce says so in Section IV of "A Neglected Argument..." 
(1908). Section IV begins with a one-paragraph discussion of the 
validities of deduction and induction as questions of logical critic, 
and spends the remaining four paragraphs, beginning "Finally comes the 
bottom question of logical Critic, What sort of validity can be 
attributed to the First Stage of inquiry? " on the validity of 
abduction as a question of logical critic. He discusses plausibility, 
concerning which hypothesis is to be favored, and proceeds to discuss 
plausibility in terms of a simplicity that is not logical simplicity 
but the natural, the facile, etc., as seen in Galileo's /il lume 
naturale/ (natural light of reason; Peirce was already discussing such 
naturalness in 1901 in "On the Drawing of History from Ancient 
Documents").


Remember that in the Carnegie Application (1902) he said, "Methodeutic 
has a special interest in abduction, or the inference which starts a 
scientific hypothesis. For it is not sufficient that a hypothesis 
should be a justifiable one. Any hypothesis which explains the facts 
is justified critically. But among justifiable hypotheses we have to 
select that one which is suitable for being tested by experiment." 
That adverb "critically" is a reference to logical critic, the 
critique of arguments. In the rest of that quote he is discussing why 
methodeutic gets involved. In 1908 in "A Neglected Argument" he 
discusses plausibilty as natural simplicity and is explicit in placing 
the issue in logical critic.


Best, Ben

On 9/26/2016 12:11 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:

Hello Ben U., List,

I, too, assume we're discussing what Peirce thought, rather than what we variously may 
think for our own parts. Having said that, my general aim is to draw from other sources, 
such as the lectures concerning the first principle of logic and the conception of 
continuity that are collected in Reasoning and the Logic of Things, as resources for 
interpreting "The Neglected Argument for the Reality of God." As such, it is 
possible that I might go too far at times when reading some of these ideas and arguments 
from earlier lectures and essays into what Peirce seems be saying, either explicitly or 
implicitly, in the Humble Argument and the Neglected Argument.

For my part, I'm not yet able to see what you appear to be saying--which is that these passages 
from the Carnegie application and "Pragmatism as the Logic of Abduction" run at odds with 
the interpretative suggestions I am trying to explore. I'm starting to wonder if we might be 
working with different notions of what is, on Peirce's account, more instinctive in our habits of 
feeling, action and thought. The reason I suspect this might be the case is because I'm not yet 
able to get a clear idea of what you seem to be emphasizing when you talk about Peirce's account of 
"instinctual plausibility." I'll keep working on it in the hopes of clearing up some of 
the vagueness in my ideas.

For my part, I think grounds of Peirce's the division between speculative 
grammar, critical logic, and methodeutic can be interpreted in a number of 
ways. Jeff Kasser has offered some nice explanations of what Peirce means when 
he talks about methodeutical considerations pertaining to the economy of 
research. Recently, I've been looking at Mats Bergman's Peirce's Philosophy of 
Communication: The Rhetorical Underpinnings of the Theory of Signs and have 
found his sorting of some of the competing lines of interpretation to be 
helpful.

As I have suggested in earlier posts, I think that P

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

 make out, so I suspect that others 
might find them similarly puzzling. Having said that, I'll continue to look at 
the textual support for this interpretative hypothesis--and I'll see what might 
be done to make the diagrams clearer.

--Jeff

Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354

From: Benjamin Udell [baud...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2016 12:15 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

Jeff D., Gary R., list,

I assume we're discussing what Peirce thought, rather than what we variously may think for 
our own parts. Peirce spells out the difference between critical and methodeutical 
justifications in the Carnegie application _New Elements of Mathematics_ passage that I 
quoted earlier. The fuller passage can be seen both by Google preview 
https://books.google.com/books?id=aLxTkSob9UMC&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=%22Methodeutic+has+a+special+interest+in+Abduction%22
 in Joe Ransdell's reconstruction at Arisbe (although it looks like Joe missed some 
italicizations) http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-08.htm#m27 :

MEMOIR   27: OF METHODEUTIC

[]

>From Draft B - MS L75.279-280

The first business of this memoir is to develop a precise conception of the 
nature of methodeutical logic. In methodeutic, it is assumed that the signs 
considered will conform to the conditions of critic, and be true. But just as 
critical logic inquires whether and how a sign corresponds to its intended 
ultimate object, the reality, so methodeutic looks to the purposed ultimate 
interpretant and inquires what conditions a sign must conform to in order to be 
pertinent to the purpose. Methodeutic has a special interest in abduction, or 
the inference which starts a scientific hypothesis. For it is not sufficient 
that a hypothesis should be a justifiable one. Any hypothesis which explains 
the facts is justified critically. But among justifiable hypotheses we have to 
select that one which is suitable for being tested by experiment. There is no 
such need of a subsequent choice after drawing deductive and inductive 
conclusions. Yet although methodeutic has not the same special concern with 
them, it has to develop the principles which are to guide us in the invention 
of proofs, those which are to govern the general course of an investigation, 
and those which determine what problems shall engage our energies. It is, 
therefore, throughout of an economic character. Two other problems of 
methodeutic which the old logics usually made almost its only business are, 
first, the principles of definition, and of rendering ideas clear; and second, 
the principles of classification.
[End quote]

Note, that he is also saying that the principles of definition, and of 
rendering ideas clear, i.e., the principles of pragmatism, are part of 
methodeutic. The consideration of conceivable experimental consequences is how 
the logic of pragmatism is the logic of abductive inference. Methodeutic does 
not have the same special interest in deduction and induction; the specific 
justifications of deductions and inductions as valid are topics of critical 
logic.

The difference matters because instinctual plausibility has to do with how much 
one thinks a hypothesis true. That a hypothesis is conceivably testable does 
not lend assurance of its truth. More specific concerns of methodeutic 
including the economics of resarch - the suitability of a hypothesis for 
testing because of cheapness, or because of its bearing on other hypotheses, 
i.e., its caution (as in 20 Questions), incomplexity, or breadth, have no 
direct bearing on one's assurance, going in, that the hypothesis is true. A 
hypothesis, merely by being easier or more promising to test, does not become a 
more plausible and naturally simple explanation of a phenomenon.

In "Pragmatism as the Logic of Abduction" (Lecture VII of the 1903 Harvard 
lectures on pragmatism), see CP 5 196–200 http://www.textlog.de/7663.html , and somewhere 
in EP 2:226–241

 What is good abduction? What should an explanatory hypothesis be to be 
worthy to rank as a hypothesis? Of course, it must explain the facts. But what 
other conditions ought it to fulfill to be good?  Any hypothesis, 
therefore, may be admissible, in the absence of any special reasons to the 
contrary, provided it be capable of experimental verification, and only insofar 
as it is capable of such verification. This is approximately the doctrine of 
pragmatism.
[End quote]

Moreover, pragmatism is the logic of abductive inference to the extent that 
rules need to be specified for abductive inference at all. Peirce does not 
offer rules for instinct.

Best, Ben

On 9/25/2016 1:56 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:

Ben U., Gary R., List,

The following remarks seem--at least to my ear--to bear on th

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

 the interrogative mood 
suggests that the holding of the question to be "plausible" (e.g., 
well-fitted to the surprising phenomena, well-formed as having great 
uberty, etc.) does seem to derive its plausibility from the first rule 
of reason. At the very least, the idea that the question has been 
formulated by a sincere desire to learn, and in a manner that does not 
embody undue bias or prejudice, and that it does not close the door of 
inquiry all seem to provide some justification to the claim that the 
question is plausible.


What is more, the suggestion that plausibility comes in varying degrees, 
ranging from the lowest levels of assurance up to the "high peaks" of 
plausibility does suggest that the principle of continuity applies to 
the manner in which seek and then provide degrees of assurance. For 
instance, the efforts to rid one’s estimations of plausibility of the 
undue effects of bias and prejudice are something that one might seek to 
improve on an incremental basis. What is more, the manner in which one 
might assure that the door of inquiry is kept open might vary from 
something like a door that is barely cracked open to one that is wide 
open. Furthermore, the way in which the door is held open might vary 
from a door that swings uncontrollably due to the "winds" of 
vicissitude, to one that is firmly held open with a wedge.


Finally, the remark that "where conjecture mounts the high peaks of 
Plausibility -- and is *really* most worthy of confidence" suggest that 
what makes a conjecture really worthy of confidence is that the many 
estimations of the suitability of the hypothesis as an explanation is a 
process that has effectively been guided by the pragmatic maxim. If the 
leading conceptions in the hypothesis have been clarified up to the 
third degree, then it *really* is most worthy of our confidence as a 
hypothetical explanation of a set of surprising phenomena. The fact that 
the surprising character fades the more worthy it is of our confidence 
does suggest that the fit is one with a large system of our other 
beliefs that are relatively well settled as habits--and that the 
hypothesis is /sufficient/ to explain all that was, initially, quite 
surprising.


--Jeff

Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354

*From:* Benjamin Udell 
*Sent:* Sunday, September 25, 2016 9:50 AM
*To:* peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

Jeff D., Gary R., list,

Your quote from "A Neglected Argument..." bears on plausibility, which 
Peirce elsewhere in the same essay discusses as natural, instinctual 
simplicity; it bears upon assurance by instinct; I don't find him 
discussing methodeutical justification (e.g., testability) of abductive 
inference in the passage that you quoted. I've had some further thoughts 
on the nature of assurance by form, but they would just lead us further 
into byways.


You get into some of the bigger question that you raised in earlier 
posts, including the idea that Peirce's Humble Argument may be the only 
game in town (my words) on the questions that it concerns. I have lots 
of half-formed remarks that I could offer on that, and when I try to get 
started, I digress. Maybe I should just mention topics that occur to me 
but that I'm unsure of how to address:


• Only game in town - is the assurance of the Humble Argument's being 
the only game in town to be acheived by instinctual plausibility, by 
experience, or by form? Probably by a combination, but would one kind of 
assurance be foremost in the overall assurance? For example, suppose 
that string theory were proven mathematically to be the only consistent 
way to unite general relativity with quantum field theory. It would 
still have to have assurance by experience by accordance with all 
observations, but it would still lack confirmation of predictions that 
distinguish it from general relativity per se and quantum field theory 
per se, which predictions, since they are about quantum gravity, would 
currently require a particle collider the size of the known universe - a 
conceivable practical test, but contingently fantastically impractical 
for us. So, if it were to be found, I'd call such an assurance of string 
theory (as sole possible mathematico-physical unifier of GR and QFT) an 
assurance by form. See what I mean about my digressions? More to the 
point, I should just ask, how does one strengthen the assurance that the 
Humble Argument is the only game in town?


• Common elements in theological ideals of various religions - how alike 
are those ideals, really?


Best, Ben

*On 9/25/2016 12:06 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:*


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Jeff D., Gary R., list,

Your quote from "A Neglected Argument..." bears on plausibility, which 
Peirce elsewhere in the same essay discusses as natural, instinctual 
simplicity; it bears upon assurance by instinct; I don't find him 
discussing methodeutical justification (e.g., testability) of abductive 
inference in the passage that you quoted. I've had some further thoughts 
on the nature of assurance by form, but they would just lead us further 
into byways.


You get into some of the bigger question that you raised in earlier 
posts, including the idea that Peirce's Humble Argument may be the only 
game in town (my words) on the questions that it concerns. I have lots 
of half-formed remarks that I could offer on that, and when I try to get 
started, I digress. Maybe I should just mention topics that occur to me 
but that I'm unsure of how to address:


• Only game in town - is the assurance of the Humble Argument's being 
the only game in town to be acheived by instinctual plausibility, by 
experience, or by form? Probably by a combination, but would one kind of 
assurance be foremost in the overall assurance? For example, suppose 
that string theory were proven mathematically to be the only consistent 
way to unite general relativity with quantum field theory. It would 
still have to have assurance by experience by accordance with all 
observations, but it would still lack confirmation of predictions that 
distinguish it from general relativity per se and quantum field theory 
per se, which predictions, since they are about quantum gravity, would 
currently require a particle collider the size of the known universe - a 
conceivable practical test, but contingently fantastically impractical 
for us. So, if it were to be found, I'd call such an assurance of string 
theory (as sole possible mathematico-physical unifier of GR and QFT) an 
assurance by form. See what I mean about my digressions? More to the 
point, I should just ask, how does one strengthen the assurance that the 
Humble Argument is the only game in town?


• Common elements in theological ideals of various religions - how alike 
are those ideals, really?


Best, Ben

*On 9/25/2016 12:06 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:*

Hi Ben U., Gary R., List,

Responses inter polated:

*JD:* Conclusion: The humble argument for the Reality of God is logical 
in all three senses--according to the assurance of instinct, experience 
and according to the exact requirements of good logical form. We should 
remember, however, that this is not a claim that the conclusion of the 
argument is true. Rather, the claim is that the conclusion is plausible.

[End quote]

*BU:* The claim is rather that the conclusion is
1. plausible (assurance by instinct) **and**
2. verisimilar (in Peirce's sense, likeness of conclusion to premisses, 
the assurance by experience when experience has accumulated but is not 
yet conclusive), **and**
3. formally valid.  Abductive formal validity, if it does not include 
plausibility (instinctual assurance), still includes at least critical 
abductive formal validity (the abductive inference can be put into the 
form of /rule/, /result/, ergo /case/, or into the form of CP 5.189, or 
into whatever other form is accounted good for abduction at the critical 
level, i.e., the level of critique of arguments.


*JD:* Yes, I agree.

*BU: *In addition, in your paragraph beginning "Major premiss", you 
listed a series of _/methodeutical/_ (not critique-of-argument) 
justifications for an abductive inference, such as testability (I'll 
just discuss testability for simplicity's sake).  Indeed Peirce came to 
regard methodeutical justifications as needed for completing the 
justification (i.e., validation) of an abductive inference, whereas no 
particular methodeutical justification was needed for a deduction or an 
induction to be valid (Carnegie Application, L75, 1902, New Elements of 
Mathematics v. 4, pp. 37–38. 
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-carnegie-institution-correspondence-0 
)


JD: I am suggesting that the /methodeutical/ requirements for abduction 
that pertain to the first rule of reason, the principle of continuity 
and the pragmatic maxim do provide something by way of a justification 
for the validity of those abductive inferences that satisfy--in some 
degree, perhaps--the methological requirements.


BU: But I wonder whether the methodeutical justification can be 
considered assurance by (logical) form.  Is it _/assurance/_ at all?  
That a claim is testable in principle (idioscopically or otherwise) 
gives some kind of assurance versus claims that are untestable in 
principle or uncertain as to whether they're testable in principle. Yet 
such assurance in whatever degree is assurance not per se _/of truth/_ 
but of pragmatic meaningfulness, and that pragmatic meaningfulness is 
not in turn a source per se of assurance of truth, but only of the 
methodeutical possibility of reaching some sort of truth.  That see

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

l that embodied system of Ideas and Ideals 
"Nature" or "God" matters little to me--so long as we grow to appreciate 
the Beauty, Goodness and Truth of its Divine character.


--Jeff

Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354


*From: Gary Richmond
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2016 10:56 AM
To: Peirce-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking*

Ben, Jeff, List,

Ben, I think your 'quibble' is well taken, and I agree with your analysis.

Jeff, I'm hoping that critics of the 'Humble Argument' as well as the 
N.A. as a whole will respond to the good question at the end of your post:


JD: So, let us ask: does this hypothesis involving the conception of God 
involve some kind of confusion on our part about the real character of 
the inference, or does it rest on false premisses? Peirce's essay on 
"The Neglected Argument" is a sustained effort to show that neither of 
these is the case. As such, it is a reasonable hypothesis. Is the same 
true of the alternate hypotheses?


Best,

Gary R

[Gary Richmond]

Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690

*On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 12:48 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:*

Jeff, Edwina, list,

I've just a few quibbles, nothing major.

Jeff, you wrote:

   Every inference is, in one way or another, valid as a pattern of
   inference, including those that are instinctive. Those that appear
   to be invalid are patterns of inference that are, themselves, valid,
   but the appearance of invalidity is really due to the fact that we
   have misunderstood what kind of inference it is (e.g., we think it
   is inductive, when it is really abductive). Or, the apparent
   invalidity is really just a lack of soundness in that something in
   the premisses involves an error on our part and it is really false.
   [End quote]

Some of that is very close to what Peirce said in his articles in 
_Journal of Speculative Philosophy_ in 1868, but with a decisive 
difference. Peirce said that every mental action has the form of a valid 
inference, not that every inference is valid as a pattern of inference. 
In "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," he said:


   It is a consequence, then, of the first two principles whose results
   we are to trace out, that we must, as far as we can, without any
   other supposition than that the mind reasons, reduce all mental
   action to the formula of valid reasoning.
   [CP 5.266, W 2:214,
   http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/conseq/cn-frame.htm

Yes, invalidity of inference arises from mistaking what kind of 
inference it is - where "it" refers to the mental action. But saying 
that every inference is valid as a pattern of inference sounds 
confusingly like saying that there is no invalid inference.


An unsound deduction is unsound by virtue (or should I say 'vice') of a 
falsehood in the premisses, an invalidity in the deductive form, or 
both. A valid deduction is unsound if it has one or more false 
premisses, and is necessarily unsound if there is an inconsistency 
(a.k.a. necessary falsehood) in a premiss or among premisses. A 
'forward-only' deduction can be valid and unsound yet true in its 
conclusion, e.g., Socrates is a cro-magnon, all cro-magnons are mortal, 
ergo Socrates is mortal. (A particularly vacuous example, based on a 
necessarily false conjunction of premisses, is: /p/&~/p/, ergo /p/ or 
~/p/.) It's difficult to think of a deduction whose seeming invalidity 
boils down to the occurrence of something contingently or necessarily 
false in its premisses, maybe that difficulty is what Edwina was getting 
at in her reply (I haven't had time to catch up with this thread). 
Anyway, whether one can explain seeming invalidity as unsoundness in 
non-deductive inference modes depends I guess on how one defines 
validity and soundness for them.


Best, Ben

*On 9/21/2016 5:06 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:*

Hello Jon, List,

The argument you are trying to reconstruct could be fleshed out more 
fully in a number of ways. Here are a few suggestions for filling in 
some of the details a bit more:


Major premiss: Every inference is, in one way or another, valid as a 
pattern of inference, including those that are instinctive. Those that 
appear to be invalid are patterns of inference that are, themselves, 
valid, but the appearance of invalidity is really due to the fact that 
we have misunderstood what kind of inference it is (e.g., we think it is 
inductive, when it is really abductive). Or, the apparent invalidity is 
really just a lack of soundness in that something in the premisses 
involves an error on our part and it is really false. As a form of 
inference, every retroductive conjecture that

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Jeff, Edwina, list,

I've just a few quibbles, nothing major.

Jeff, you wrote:

   Every inference is, in one way or another, valid as a pattern of
   inference, including those that are instinctive. Those that appear
   to be invalid are patterns of inference that are, themselves, valid,
   but the appearance of invalidity is really due to the fact that we
   have misunderstood what kind of inference it is (e.g., we think it
   is inductive, when it is really abductive). Or, the apparent
   invalidity is really just a lack of soundness in that something in
   the premisses involves an error on our part and it is really false.
   [End quote]

Some of that is very close to what Peirce said in his articles in 
_Journal of Speculative Philosophy_ in 1868, but with a decisive 
difference. Peirce said that every mental action has the form of a valid 
inference, not that every inference is valid as a pattern of inference. 
In "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," he said:


   It is a consequence, then, of the first two principles whose results
   we are to trace out, that we must, as far as we can, without any
   other supposition than that the mind reasons, reduce all mental
   action to the formula of valid reasoning.
   [CP 5.266, W 2:214,
   http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/conseq/cn-frame.htm ]

Yes, invalidity of inference arises from mistaking what kind of 
inference it is - where "it" refers to the mental action. But saying 
that every inference is valid as a pattern of inference sounds 
confusingly like saying that there is no invalid inference.


An unsound deduction is unsound by virtue (or should I say 'vice') of a 
falsehood in the premisses, an invalidity in the deductive form, or 
both. A valid deduction is unsound if it has one or more false 
premisses, and is necessarily unsound if there is an inconsistency 
(a.k.a. necessary falsehood) in a premiss or among premisses. A 
'forward-only' deduction can be valid and unsound yet true in its 
conclusion, e.g., Socrates is a cro-magnon, all cro-magnons are mortal, 
ergo Socrates is mortal. (A particularly vacuous example, based on a 
necessarily false conjunction of premisses, is: /p/&~/p/, ergo 
/p/ or ~/p/.) It's difficult to think of a deduction whose seeming 
invalidity boils down to the occurrence of something contingently or 
necessarily false in its premisses, maybe that difficulty is what Edwina 
was getting at in her reply (I haven't had time to catch up with this 
thread). Anyway, whether one can explain seeming invalidity as 
unsoundness in non-deductive inference modes depends I guess on how one 
defines validity and soundness for them.


Best, Ben

On 9/21/2016 5:06 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:


Hello Jon, List,

The argument you are trying to reconstruct could be fleshed out more 
fully in a number of ways. Here are a few suggestions for filling in 
some of the details a bit more:


Major premiss: Every inference is, in one way or another, valid as a 
pattern of inference, including those that are instinctive. Those that 
appear to be invalid are patterns of inference that are, themselves, 
valid, but the appearance of invalidity is really due to the fact that 
we have misunderstood what kind of inference it is (e.g., we think it 
is inductive, when it is really abductive). Or, the apparent 
invalidity is really just a lack of soundness in that something in the 
premisses involves an error on our part and it is really false. As a 
form of inference, every retroductive conjecture that meets certain 
conditions (e.g., it responds to a question occasioned by real doubt, 
it is really explanatory, it is possible to deduce consequences that 
can be put to the test, it is possible to make inductive inferences 
that will tend to show the hypotheses is confirmed or disconfirmed by 
observations, the observations that will be used to test the 
hypothesis are not the same observations that will be used to make the 
inductive inference, etc.) is a valid abductive inference--and hence 
has a logical character. Such arguments can, in time, be the subject 
of further development in arguments that are more fully under our 
conscious control. As such, they can be made into logical inferences 
that may rise up to higher levels of assurance, including those of 
experience as well as form.


Minor premiss: The humble argument for the Reality of God is a 
retroductive conjecture endorsed by instinctive reason. What is more, 
it has in fact be met with the support of large communities of 
inquirers at different times and places in human history and culture. 
In fact, it appears that the core inferential patterns in the argument 
are prevalent in the thought of virtually all reasonable human beings. 
Over time, different communities have developed the instinctive 
hypothesis in a number of different ways, but the core ideas seem to 
cut across all such communities--including those communities that are 
quite spiritual in orientation

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

head>

Dear Ben N., list,

Let's also thank Gary Fuhrman for being more optimistic than I was about 
whether past CD-ROM customers could still obtain online subscriptions to 
InteLex even today. I subsequently contacted InteLex and the person 
there confirmed that that is still the policy.


Quote: "If it comes up again, anyone who already owns the CDs can still 
get the web access. We plan on keeping that option available as long as 
we can, because we feel that scholars who paid for the material should 
be able to continue to use it, and that's the best option we have right 
now."


There is another disadvantage with the online version, in addition to 
the weakened search capacity that you mention. The online version's 
Collected Papers' CLICKABLE tables of contents (in the left sidebar) 
LACK the paragraph numbers. The other tables of contents, the ones that 
are part of the original text and do contain paragraph numbers, are not 
clickable. This makes it rather more cumbersome to track down a passage 
when all that one has is the volume number and paragraph number. At the 
InteLex version, one needs to go to a volume's original table of 
contents (in the given volume's Frontmatter page), find out the section 
with the requisite paragraph number,. then dig the section out from the 
sidebar TOC. I've been meaning to bring that up with them. I don't think 
it would be too big a task to add the paragraph numbers to the sidebar 
TOC's. I'd be surprised if nobody has mentioned it to them in the past.


Best, Ben U.

On 9/22/2016 5:09 AM, Ben Novak wrote:


Dear Ben U., List:

Many thanks to Ben Udell for his help regarding my Intelex CDs of 
Peirce and Anselm.


I went to Craigslist where I found a laptop with a Vista operating 
system, called the seller, and drove 50 miles to test it out. It 
worked like a charm. For $70, and a hundred miles worth of gasoline, I 
have my Intelex investment back.


By way of explanation, when my CDs became inoperable I called Intelex 
and they were very gracious in giving me access to the internet 
version. But the internet version does not have several search 
features of the CDs--which were essential to my use of it.


Ben U's explanation allowed me to get the use of my CD's back, for 
which I am */pro-found-ly/* grateful.


I have a lot of thoughts relative to recent emails on this thread, but 
will have a lot of work and travel over the next month that limit my 
opportunities to set them out for you.


Hopefully you will all be going strong on this subject for a while 
longer. In my view, a heck of a lot of progress has been made, and I 
especially thank Jon for starting it off.


Many thanks again to Ben U. and to all the participants in this 
discussion.


Ben N.

Ben

*Ben Novak *
5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142
Telephone: (814) 808-5702

/"All art is mortal, not merely the individual artifacts, but the arts 
themselves. One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of 
Mozart will have ceased to be—though possibly a colored canvas and a 
sheet of notes may remain—because the last eye and the last ear 
accessible to their message will have gone."/ Oswald Spengler


On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 6:49 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard 
mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu>> wrote:



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Ben N., list,

Ben N., you wrote,

   It is not worth going further into why--unless someone knows a way
   to get around the disabling of Intelex CDs as a result of their change.
   [end quote]

The old InteLex CD-ROMs became unusable not because of being disabled by 
InteLex but because of changes in Windows. This affected many old CDs, 
such as those with video games, and not just InteLex. The InteLex CDs 
had searchable databases. The last version of Windows that can run the 
InteLex CDs is either Windows XP or Windows Vista. Windows offers 
compatibility modes, see for example 
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/how-to-run-old-programs-on-windows-10-1300470 
. Maybe there are also programs purchasable online that would make it 
simple to run such CDs.


At the time of the InteLex's change to an institutional business model, 
I communicated with them, and they indicated that they would not just 
forget about older customers, so I told peirce-listers that if they had 
the old CD and had bought it directly from InteLex, then they should 
contact InteLex about being able to subscribe to the online version 
(despite not being institutions). This was years ago, I think it's too 
late now. I'll see what further information I can gather. InteLex's home 
page is at http://www.nlx.com/home . Their C.S. Peirce pages are 
accessible through http://www.nlx.com/authors/123 .


Best, Ben U.

On 9/20/2016 6:09 AM, Ben Novak wrote:


Dear List:

Fifteen or sixteen years ago, I had the Intelex Past Masters version 
of the works of Peirce, and often have reason to recall a passage 
where Peirce explicitly talks about the importance--necessity--of 
belief to the conduct of science. As I recall, he argued that belief 
was necessary because the scientist had to believe that the universe 
was reasonable, and necessary to believe that our minds were capable 
of apprehending that reasonableness; otherwise, there was no use in 
pursuing it. The principal point of the passage, as I recall, is that 
for the scientist, belief was necessary.


I would greatly appreciate it if someone might provide that passage. 
Perhaps it may be helpful in our discussions. Perhaps not, but I can't 
know until I see the passage again...


By way of explanation, unfortunately Intelex changed their method of 
delivering their product, and the CDs I got from them no longer work. 
See a partial explanation here:


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/links/intelex.htm 



It is not worth going further into why--unless someone knows a way to 
get around the disabling of Intelex CDs as a result of their change. 
The point is that I no longer have my former Intelex access to 
Peirce's works. That is why I am asking for your  help in finding the 
passage referred to above.


Thanks,

Ben N.

*Ben Novak  *
5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142
Telephone: (814) 808-5702

/"All art is mortal, not merely the individual artifacts, but the arts 
themselves. One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of 
Mozart will have ceased to be—though possibly a colored canvas and a 
sheet of notes may remain—because the last eye and the last ear 
accessible to their message will have gone."/ Oswald Spengler


On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Jerry Rhee > wrote:



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, Edwina, list,

Clark, you wrote, "Later process theologians were explicitly influenced 
by Peirce despite many of Peirce’s writings being difficult to find at 
the time."


It seems a good bet that this was because Charles Hartshorne, who, along 
with Paul Weiss, edited the Collected Papers of CSP in the 1930s, became 
a prominent religious & process philosopher.


Best, Ben

On 9/19/2016 1:33 PM, Clark Goble wrote:

On Sep 19, 2016, at 9:14 AM, Edwina Taborsky  > wrote:


Clark- thanks for your very nice outline of the NA - I certainly 
agree with your view, that as Chiasson says, it's not just about a 
'belief in God', because it's not deductive but is, as noted, 
abductive. Abduction inserts freedom and spontaneity - attributes 
outside of the range of a God. And agreed - the NA doesn't offer 
'compelling reasons for why we should call this /ens necessarium/ as 
god. I, as an atheist, prefer his outline of Mind as the /ens 
necessarium/.


As Mind is an action of Reasoning [within all three modes], then, I 
think that ethics is grounded within it. You don't, in my reading, 
require a God, for ethics.


It’s worth noting the connection here between Peirce and Spinoza. Of 
course that could be indirect since many of the early German idealists 
like Hegel were highly influenced by Spinoza. But I’ve long thought 
the direct influence was significant.


For a good paper on the influence see

http://www.commens.org/sites/default/files/biblio_attachments/peirce_and_spinozas_pragmaticist_metaphysics.pdf 



Spinoza of course explicitly calls his unity God and ties it to 
ethics. However the Jewish rabbis disagreed and thought him an 
atheists leading to his excommunication.


That gets again to my point that the *name* God seems to be the 
dispute rather than the content. That said though many post Peircean 
figures strongly want to call God as God while giving his nature 
freedom and spontaneity. The process theology movement that started 
with Whitehead being the most obvious philosophical example although 
there were others. Later process theologians were explicitly 
influenced by Peirce despite many of Peirce’s writings being difficult 
to find at the time.



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Thirdness, Thought and Representation

[Benjamin Udell]

Jerry, it occurs to me that the reason you bring Leo Strauss into it, 
and talk about Peirce's "hidden" view of CP 5.189, is that you view 
yourself as the kind of thinker whom Strauss discussed. This would 
explain why you say "You’re right that I’m not being straight with you 
but I wanted to smuggle in some rules before I give my response." as 
well as your numerous pirouettes and longueurs and leaving others to 
guess your claims and arguments from what you do say. You ought to 
consider how much effort people will want to put into gleaning your 
hidden meanings and the ways in which you're "not being straight with" 
readers. Usually when one looks for hidden meanings in a philosopher or 
thinker, it's because their _/unhidden/_ meanings have already proven 
worthwhile. So I guess you want us to view Peirce as you may view 
yourself. You wouldn't be the first person to self-project into Peirce.


Best, Ben

On 8/16/2016 12:46 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Jerry, list,

You're misusing 'icon' and 'index' from an example involving a visual 
artifact (the icon) by Chiasson. She is not saying that all surprises 
are icons or that all explanations are indices.


You wrote:

[JR] Therefore, the *icon* is:

“/Namely, in the first place, it may be said that even if this (CP
5.189) be the normative form of abduction, the form to which
abduction ought to conform, yet it may be that new conceptions
arise in a manner which puts the rules of logic at defiance.”
~EP2: 231/

And my *index*, as opposed to yours, is:

“Peirce said that CP 5.189 is his best form of argument.“
[End quote]

If you read EP2 a little further past your quote from it, you'd see 
that Peirce argues that new conceptions do _/not/_ arise in in a 
manner that puts the laws of logic at defiance. So the quote does not 
harmonize your claim about Peirce's thinking that CP 5.189 is the best 
form of argument, with his 1911 remark that he doubted that any form 
sufficed to cover all abductive inference - if that's what you had in 
mind. Moreover, as Edwina pointed out, "correct form" doesn't mean 
"best form", which would instead tend to refer to best variant of 
correct form, if it's really useful to talk of a best form of 
inference at all ("THE best form" of deduction? Best for what?). It is 
true that Peirce is offering CP 5.189 as being, at the time, a 
generally better form than what he had previously offered. But it 
doesn't even begin to make sense of your saying that he regarded CP 
5.189 is the best form of argument, rather than saying that he 
regarded it merely the best form of _/abductive/_ argument. I don't 
know whether your continuing to say it is because you mean it or 
because you don't correct what may be just some careless phrasing by 
you despite its being pointed out to you. It makes me wonder how much 
effort it's worth to read you.


The general idea, that an abductive conclusion ought to explain an 
odd, surprising, peculiar observation, is something that Peirce had 
from the beginning of his discussions of the modes of inference, back 
when he formulated abductive inference as a permutation of the Barbara 
syllogism. It is not unique to CP 5.189. So your focus on the CP 5.189 
may be counterproductively narrow.


You keep talking about the "surprise" of CP 5.189 but don't seem to 
grasp what is surprising about CP 5.189 or any other formulation of 
abductive inference. It's not surprising that there is such a thought 
process. Most of us are familiar with its simpler forms from childhood 
onward. When one is accused of jumping to a conclusion, it's often an 
abductive conclusion. The study of the form of abduction is placed by 
Peirce in the critique (or "critic") of arguments. "Critique of 
arguments" means that he does not introduce quite new or arcane kinds 
of arguments; the chief innovations are classificatory. What's 
surprising in the history of logic and philosophy is for an 
explanation-conceiving thought process to be called a mode of 
inference, not to mention a mode of inference different from deduction 
and induction, and to be treated as worth formalizing, although Peirce 
thought that Aristotle introduced it or that he was at least almost 
there, leaning that way. It's not all that new a kind of argument; 
Peirce's view is that it always was argument, people just failed to 
recognize it as such. The explicit thematization and detailed 
exploration of it as argument was new. That's what Peirce means about 
pragmatism itself when he says (and to which you allude),


So much for the past. The ancestry of pragmatism is respectable
enough; but the more conscious adoption of it as _/lanterna
pedibus/_ in the discussion of dark questions, and the elaboration
  

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Thirdness, Thought and Representation

[Benjamin Udell]

 saying, be laid down by us …

And now, Stranger, without delay let us return to the argument, and, 
as people say in play, *make a second and better beginning* , if you 
please, with the principles which we have been laying down, which we 
never thought of regarding as a preamble before, but of which we may 
now make a preamble, and not merely consider them to be chance topics 
of discourse.


*Let us acknowledge, then, that we have a preamble *.”

Let us acknowledge then, that CP 5.189 is the best form of argument.

One, two, three…chance, law, habit-taking…C, A, B…CP 5.189

”If the owner only knew how to use his great and noble possession, how 
happy would he be, and what great results would he achieve!”


Best wishes and thank you for your attention and patience,
Jerry Rhee

On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Gary Richmond 
mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com> > wrote:



Ben, list,

I concur with Edwina's assessment of your last post. It was very 
useful in this thread's discussion.


Best,

Gary R

 *

On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 1:32 PM, Edwina Taborsky <mailto:tabor...@primus.ca> > wrote:


Ben - excellent post. Clear, succinct - and valid in all points.  
Thanks.


Edwina


- Original Message -

*From:* Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>
*To:* peirce-l@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
*Sent:* Monday, August 15, 2016 12:36 PM
*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Thirdness, Thought and Representation

Jerry, Jon S., list,

Jerry, it sounds like you're arguing against yourself. It was you 
who claimed that Peirce himself thought that CP 5.189 —


   The surprising fact, C, is observed;
 But if A were true, C would be a matter of course,
 Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.
(viewable at

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-harvard-lectures-pragmatism-lecture-vii

<http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-harvard-lectures-pragmatism-lecture-vii>
)

— was his "best form of argument." Your disappointment at (1) 
somebody's asking for a citation of Peirce instead of (2) that 
person's conducting a whole line of inquiry as to why Peirce or all 
investigators would or wouldn't think so, should be at yourself (1) 
for having made the claim about Peirce's opinion in the first 
place, instead of your (2) simply laying out the inquiry yourself 
in the first place. Moreover, you make it sound like you're 
withholding the citation because it leads the discussion elsewhere 
than you wish, rather than because you lack a citation of Peirce 
saying or at least implying that CP 5.189 was his "best form of 
argument".


For my part, I don't see why Peirce or all investigators would 
think that CP 5.189 is his, or the, best form of argument. As for 
Peirce himself, he thought that each mode of argument had its 
strengths and weaknesses, which he listed repeatedly over the 
decades. Abductive inference is the least secure, induction is more 
secure, deduction is the most secure. Deduction adds no new claims. 
Induction adds no new ideas. Abductive inference adds a new (or 
outside) idea. He was notable in insisting on seeing the modes as 
needing to cooperate in interplay in inquiry, rather than in some 
sort of rivalry à la deductive rationalism versus inductive 
empiricism. Himself both mathematician and statistician, he yet 
insisted on a third mode of inference to boot, but not as supreme, 
but rather as another needed mode as major as the other two.


Some may think that CP 5.189 the best form of _/abductive/ _ 
inference.  in 1911, possibly Peirce thought that CP 5.189 was his 
best, or least bad, formulation of abductive (a.k.a. retroductive) 
inference, but he doubted that it covers all abductive inference:


I do not, at present, feel quite convinced that any logical
form can be assigned that will cover all "Retroductions". For
what I mean by a Retroduction is simply a _/conjecture/ _ which
arises in the mind.
[End quote, 1911, Letter to J. H. Kehler, NEM 3:203-204,.
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letter-j-h-kehler-4
<http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letter-j-h-kehler-4>
]

Now, in a previous message, you wrote,

But did not Peirce say that CP 5.189 is his best form of argument?

Would he not include the three categories in his consideration
of his best form of argument?

Is CP 5.189 not an argument?

That is how I believe Peirce would think along.  He considered
himself a link in a venerable chain.  He would say that this CP
5.189 was the method which he adopted: He first assumed some
principle which he judged to be the strongest, and then he
affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether
relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which
disagreed he regarded as untrue.

So why wouldn’t I start t

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Thirdness, Thought and Representation

[Benjamin Udell]

Jerry, Jon S., list,

Jerry, it sounds like you're arguing against yourself. It was you who 
claimed that Peirce himself thought that CP 5.189 —


   The surprising fact, C, is observed;
 But if A were true, C would be a matter of course,
 Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.
   (viewable at
   
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-harvard-lectures-pragmatism-lecture-vii
   )

— was his "best form of argument." Your disappointment at (1) somebody's 
asking for a citation of Peirce instead of (2) that person's conducting 
a whole line of inquiry as to why Peirce or all investigators would or 
wouldn't think so, should be at yourself (1) for having made the claim 
about Peirce's opinion in the first place, instead of your (2) simply 
laying out the inquiry yourself in the first place. Moreover, you make 
it sound like you're withholding the citation because it leads the 
discussion elsewhere than you wish, rather than because you lack a 
citation of Peirce saying or at least implying that CP 5.189 was his 
"best form of argument".


For my part, I don't see why Peirce or all investigators would think 
that CP 5.189 is his, or the, best form of argument. As for Peirce 
himself, he thought that each mode of argument had its strengths and 
weaknesses, which he listed repeatedly over the decades. Abductive 
inference is the least secure, induction is more secure, deduction is 
the most secure. Deduction adds no new claims. Induction adds no new 
ideas. Abductive inference adds a new (or outside) idea. He was notable 
in insisting on seeing the modes as needing to cooperate in interplay in 
inquiry, rather than in some sort of rivalry à la deductive rationalism 
versus inductive empiricism. Himself both mathematician and 
statistician, he yet insisted on a third mode of inference to boot, but 
not as supreme, but rather as another needed mode as major as the other two.


Some may think that CP 5.189 the best form of _/abductive/_ inference.  
in 1911, possibly Peirce thought that CP 5.189 was his best, or least 
bad, formulation of abductive (a.k.a. retroductive) inference, but he 
doubted that it covers all abductive inference:


   I do not, at present, feel quite convinced that any logical form can
   be assigned that will cover all "Retroductions". For what I mean by
   a Retroduction is simply a _/conjecture/ _ which arises in the mind.
   [End quote, 1911, Letter to J. H. Kehler, NEM 3:203-204,.
   http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letter-j-h-kehler-4 ]

Now, in a previous message, you wrote,

   But did not Peirce say that CP 5.189 is his best form of argument?

   Would he not include the three categories in his consideration of
   his best form of argument?

   Is CP 5.189 not an argument?

   That is how I believe Peirce would think along.  He considered
   himself a link in a venerable chain.  He would say that this CP
   5.189 was the method which he adopted: He first assumed some
   principle which he judged to be the strongest, and then he affirmed
   as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the
   cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed he regarded as
   untrue.

   So why wouldn’t I start there?
   [End quote]

Using abductive inference is usually not the same thing as studying it. 
In particular, Peirce did not logically base his category theory on his 
study of logic (abductive or otherwise), though his study of logic may, 
as a practical genealogical matter, have helped inspire his category 
theory, by providing instances for generalization. Certainly Peirce 
discusses the categories in relation to inference in various places.


Yet, more particularly I want to point out that you have ascribed to 
Peirce a method of pre-judgment to which he did not subscribe. It would 
be a different kettle of fish if you were arguing that he sometimes fell 
into doing that; but it mistaken of you to suggest that Peirce thought 
that such is how it _/ought/_ to be done, or that that was what he meant 
in CP 5.189. The point is rather to explain a phenomenon by conception 
of something that would explain it, such that, in follow-up inquiry, one 
could deduce implications that could, at least in principle, be tested, 
and not simply to affirm as true whatever seemed to agree with a 
strongest principle and regard as untrue whatever disagreed with it.


He saw his applications of categories in particular areas as tests of 
his theory, and likewise his applications of pragmatism; particular 
problems (the hardness of a diamond destroyed before it is ever tested) 
led him to revise his pragmatism to incorporate strengthened modal realism.


Best, Ben

On 8/15/2016 12:34 AM, Jerry Rhee wrote:


Jon, list:

A burstlike argument (“a simple answer”) rarely decides an issue.  
What if my purpose was not only to satisfy you but also to convince 
/all who investigate/ ?


For instance, let's say that I provide that citation.  What the

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Copula and Being

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

[BU] On averageness as a background needed to make communication (and 
informative difference) possible, you wrote,


>[CG] At which point the term “average” has become rather distorted.

[BU] I think that you're getting to the point where you might as well be 
talking simply about generality.


>[CG] While averageness in the sense of everydayness is part of
   what makes the immediate object, there’s also an essential indexical
   component that goes beyond what icons or symbols can convey. (At
   least that’s what I take Peirce to be meaning in the experience by
   what is inexpressible by sign)

[BU] Note that at one point he calls the immediate object a kind of 
"image or notion." Peirce had already come to define an image as kind of 
hypoicon, an icon without an attached index, or as considered apart from 
an attached index. I think that Peirce is saying in your quote of him 
not that the immediate object needs an indexical _/component/_ but 
instead that the experience of blueness cannot be conveyed by *any* sign 
or signs alone without an experience of blueness, and also that the 
experience of the Sun's actuality cannot be conveyed by *any* sign or 
signs alone without an experience of the Sun's actuality. All the icons, 
indices, and symbols will not experientially acquaint you with the Sun, 
which you yourself need to pick out and acquaint yourself with; the 
signs can help you do that but they can't do it for you.


>[CG] It’s common to see people taking Peirce in terms of Frege
   (not that anyone here is doing that). But I think the scholastic
   sense gives us an idea of what he’s grasping at with the
   distinction. The immediate object is what gets produced by it’s
   reaction with the dynamic object /in an essentially mediated way/.
   As such it’s the /result/ of all those prior indirect encounters.
   While we can loosely talk about that as a kind of averageness it
   seems to me that it’s a fairly unpredictable consequence of how
   individual brains interact with their environment. To talk about
   average to think of it in terms of the common features of the causes
   (usually with the arbitrary boundary of “outside the body”) whereas
   I /think/ Peirce means it more as the consequence of such causes.

   Peirce of course was largely ignorant of contemporary cognitive
   science. And the psychology of the era was rudimentary. So I’m not
   sure he really grasped just how complicated that process was.

[BU] I suspect that Peirce grasped the potential amount of complication 
in the process, but he was doing a phaneroscopic analysis (that's why, 
for example, he calls the immediate object an object rather than a 
sign). But he's also focusing on the phaneroscopy of a theorist's 
viewpoint in explaining semiosis, wherein the immediate object seems a 
consequence of an interaction between the mind and something beyond, so 
I think that you're right there.


>[CG] Think of how the brain handles memories where there are
   traces of the original experience which the brain fills in the gap.
   Presumably for any experience what “comes to mind” is already highly
   processed and tied to other signs in our brain. That is the
   immediate object to mind is the object in terms of what we’ve
   already encountered. “Of the same virtue as that already examined"

[BU] That reminds me that Peirce finds all three inference modes in the 
operations of the senses, filling gaps in and so one, except that the 
best case of deduction that he can find he ends up classing as "on the 
borderline between deduction and hypothesis." (The term "hypothesis" for 
abductive inference suggests pre-1900). It is from pages 19-29 of the 
undated manuscript MS 831, of which I've quoted the Robin Catalogue 
description a number of times in the past at peirce-l (lamenting that MS 
831's text was unavailable):


   [Robin Catalog] The fine gradations between subconscious or
   instinctive mind and conscious, controlled reason. Logical machines
   are not strictly reasoning machines because they lack the ability of
   self-criticism and the ability to correct defects which may crop up.
   Three kinds of reasoning: inductive, deductive, hypothetical.
   Quasi-inferences.

[BU] But then Harvard put MS 831 online, and almost a year ago I 
transcribed it and posted the transcription at Arisbe 
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/ms831/ms831.htm .


Best, Ben

On 6/29/2016 2:00 PM, Clark Goble wrote:

On Jun 29, 2016, at 10:37 AM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


Immediate objects may have averageness but the averageness seems not 
definitive of them, and Peirce never makes it so.


>[CG] It seems to me (perhaps incorrectly) that Peirce raises 
everydayness for similar reasons to his common sensism. It’s the 
background of what makes communication possib

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Copula and Being

[Benjamin Udell]

ject of the sign, the immediate object might be 
marked more by (attempted) plausibility, in Peirce's sense of natural 
simplicity, than by verisimilitude. I also wonder whether an immediate 
object could be marked by deductive novelty or nontriviality.


Best, Ben

On 6/24/2016 2:47 PM, Clark Goble wrote:


On Jun 23, 2016, at 12:14 PM, Benjamin Udell  wrote:

Peirce somewhere talks about taking a companion's experience as one's 
own, say, if the companion has better eyesight. The companion reports 
discerning a ship on the horizon, while one sees just a blurry patch 
there, which one lets count as the object in question. There's an 
idea of the commind floating around there. Anyway, Peirce didn't 
always use the narrowest interpretation of the word "experience." 
Still, the less direct an experience, the less experiential it seems.


>[CG] It’s worth going even farther than that. All experiences are 
themselves mediated. The phenomena you present above is just one 
example of a mediated experience. Yet mediation is always occurring 
and mediation entails transformation in various ways. An obvious 
example is memory where my experience during the events is always 
different from my memory of the events as an experience of the 
original events. History itself is a classic example of that kind of 
mediation.


The example of everydayness I gave from Peirce the other day of 
erroneous views of Richard III really is just this. A kind of low 
level often extremely fallible kind of indirect experience we draw 
upon for intelligibility in communication. It’s an average not in the 
sense of mean but in the sense of including quite a lot in a more kind 
of sea of chaos as a source of meanings to draw from.


>>[BU] I remember years ago Joe Ransdell posted a message "What 
'fundamenal psychological laws' is Peirce referring to?" (22 Sept. 
2006) 
https://www.mail-archive.com/peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu/msg01394.html . 
Joe wrote:


In "The Fixation of Belief" Peirce says that

"a man may go through life, systematically keeping out of
view all that might cause a change n his opinions, and if he
only succeeds -- basing his method, as he does, on two
fundamental psychologicl laws -- I do not see what can be
said against his doing so".

[End quote of Joe & Peirce]

As I recall, people in reply agreed that one of the laws that Peirce 
had in mind must have been the law of association, but then what 
would the other law be?


>[CG] I just reread part of that thread. That’s fascinating and I 
somehow had zero memory of it. One of Joe's initial thoughts is worth 
quoting.


I was thinking of the argument one might make that social
consciousness is prior to consciousness of self, and the method of
tenacity seems to me to be motivated by the value of
self-integrity, the instinctive tendency not to give up on any
part of oneself, and one's beliefs are an important aspect of what
one tends to think of when one thinks of one's identity.  Losing
some beliefs e.g. in religion, in one's parents, in the worthiness
of one's country, etc., can be experienced as a kind of
self-destruction and people often seem to demonstrate great fear
of that happening to them.  But this sense of self-identity could
be argued to be a later construct than one's idea of the social
entity of which one is a part.   (Joe Ransdell 9/23/06)

>[CG] Something else that came up in that discussion is what Peirce 
means by psychologizing here. Again let me quote from Joe, as I think 
it has direct bearing on the notion of “average” or “everydayness.”


In the terminology Peirce adopted from Jeremy Bentham, we should
distinguish between a COENOSCOPIC  sense of "mind" or "thought" or
other mentalistic term and an  IDIOSCOPIC sense of such terms.. 
The former is the sense of "mind" or "thought" which we have in

mind [!!] when we say something like "What are you thinking
about?",  "What's on you mind?", "He spoke his mind", and so
forth, as distinct from the sense which is appropriate for use in
the context of some special scientific study of mind.

To understand what is meant by the word "mind" as used in
scientific psychology, let us say, we have to find out what people
who have established or mastered something in that field
understand by such terms since the meaning of such terms in that
context is a matter of what the course of special study of its
subject matter has resulted in up to this point. That is the
idioscopic sense of "mind", "thought", etc.  But long before there
was anything like a science of psychology and long before we were
old enough to understand that there is any su

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Copula and Being

[Benjamin Udell]

in textbooks or by a parent, 
teacher or boss.  If the individual has no relevant prior experience 
upon which to draw, the immediate object that appears in his/her mind 
will correspond (more-or-less) to this average.   It is a 
generalization, or stereotype.


For a person who *does have prior experiences to draw upon, the 
immediate object that comes to mind may differ significantly from the 
social-average version of that object.


For this worldly individual, the immediate object will be a complex 
version of the object -- encompassing to varying degrees the social 
consensus (learned) view, personal experiences with the object and 
time spent reflecting upon prior experiences.  More recent experiences 
may be weighted more heavily than distant ones.  Rewarding and painful 
experiences may be weighted more heavily than those with no reward or 
pain attached to them.


This view of the (immediate) object, too, is an average version which 
resides inside of a single mind.  It is a complex, weighted average 
that cannot be represented by a number.


I would remove the word "statistical" from the original Wiki 
statement, but retain the word average.  It is already surrounded by 
quotes, which warns the reader not to expect an exact calculation.


Regards,

Tom Wyrick

On Jun 23, 2016, at 3:16 AM, John Collier <mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za> > wrote:


The “average” notion is distinctly misleading. Suggests an external 
averager that does not exist. It is an abstraction at best, and 
typically ignores aspects of the dynamics object (but I think could 
even get it entirely wrong and still be the immediate object – it 
depends on context for this to happen)


John Collier
Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Associate
University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

*From:* Clark Goble [mailto:cl...@lextek.com ]
*Sent:* Thursday, 23 June 2016 12:07 AM
*To:* Peirce-L <mailto:PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu> >

*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Copula and Being

On Jun 22, 2016, at 1:10 PM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


   i. Immediate object: the object as represented in the sign 
[DELETE], a kind of statistical, "average" version of the given 
object [END DELETE. Gary Richmond, as I recall, convinced me that my 
text there was mistaken].



Yes, I’m not sure I’d agree with the “average” notion either.

At the Wikipedia articles there are footnotes with references to
primary sources, often with links to the primary sources.

I have to confess I don’t check Wikipedia on technical topics often 
due to most being a mix of good and egregious. But I think you and 
others are to be praised for trying to improve the Peirce related areas.



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Copula and Being

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

Those seem to be passages from the Wikipedia Charles Sanders Peirce 
article or the Wikipedia Semiotic elements and classes of signs article 
in the form that they had some years ago as a result of my edits. Two of 
the paragraphs were already there, written by I don't know who, maybe 
Jon Awbrey.


Since that time I made two significant edits:

 2. Object:
   i. Immediate object: the object as represented in the sign [DELETE], 
a kind of statistical, "average" version of the given object [END 
DELETE. Gary Richmond, as I recall, convinced me that my text there was 
mistaken].
   ii. Dynamic object: the object as it really is [INSERT], on which 
the immediate object is founded "as on bedrock" [END INSERT]. Also 
called the dynamoid object, the dynamical object.


At the Wikipedia articles there are footnotes with references to primary 
sources, often with links to the primary sources.


Best, Ben

On 6/21/2016 9:31 PM, Clark Goble wrote:


On Jun 21, 2016, at 1:55 PM, Gary Richmond > wrote:


One interesting think in Parker’s book is the cosmological element in 
the development of the categories.


Whoops. One interesting /thing/…  LOL. Sorry for all the typos. I 
wrote that quickly. Hopefully I don’t make an embarrassing mistake in it.


One addition is this explanation of the sign that Ben put together 
some years ago.


 1. Sign: always immediate to itself.
 2. Object:
   i. Immediate object: the object as represented in the sign, a
kind of statistical, "average" version of the given object.
   ii. Dynamic object: the object as it really is. Also called the
dynamoid object, the dynamical object.
 3. Interpretant:
   i. Immediate interpretant: total unanalyzed effect of the
interpretant on a mind or quasimind, a kind of starting point of
the dynamic and final interpretants, a feeling or idea which the
sign carries with it even before there is an interpreter or
quasi-interpreter.
   ii. Dynamic interpretant: the actual effect (apart from the
feeling) of the sign on a mind or quasi-mind, for instance the
agitation of the feeling.
   iii. Final interpretant: the effect which the sign _would_ have
on any mind or quasi-mind if circumstances allowed that effect to
be fully achieved. The final interpretant of a response about the
weather about which one has inquired may consist in the effect
which the true response would have one's plans for the day which
were the inquiry's purpose. The final interpretant of a line of
investigation is truth and _would_ be reached sooner or later but
still inevitably by investigation adequately prolonged, though the
truth remains independent of that which "you or I" or any finite
community of investigators believe.

The immediate object is, from the viewpoint of a theorist, really
a kind of sign of the dynamic object; but phenomenologically it is
the object until there is reason to go beyond it, and somebody
analyzing (critically but not theoretically) a given semiosis will
consider it to be the object until there is reason to do otherwise.

 To say, therefore, that thought cannot happen in an instant, but 
requires a time, is but another way of saying that every thought must 
be interpreted in another, or that all thought is in signs. (C.S. 
Peirce, CP 5.254).


Peirce referred to his general study of signs, based on the concept of 
a triadic sign relation, as semiotic or semeiotic, either of which 
terms are currently used in either singular of plural form. Peirce 
began writing on semeiotic in the 1860s, around the time that he 
devised his system of three categories. He eventually defined semiosis 
as an "action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of 
_three_ subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, 
this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into 
actions between pairs". (Peirce 1907, in Houser 1998, 411).


 1.. A _sign_ (also called a _representamen_) represents, in the 
broadest possible sense of "represents". It is something interpretable 
as saying something about something. It is not necessarily symbolic, 
linguistic, or artificial.
 2.. An _object_ (also called a _semiotic object_) is a subject matter 
of a sign and an interpretant. It can be anything discussable or 
thinkable, a thing, event, relationship, quality, law, argument, etc., 
and can even be fictional, for instance Hamlet. All of those are 
special or partial objects. The object most accurately is the universe 
of discourse to which the partial or special object belongs. For 
instance, a perturbation of Pluto's orbit is a sign about Pluto but 
ultimately not only about Pluto.
 3.. An _interpretant_ (also called an _interpretant sign_) is the 
sign's more or less clarified meaning or ramification, a kind of form 
or idea of the difference which the sign's being true would make. 
(Peirce's si

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Percepts and objects

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

You wrote,

   A famous example of this that again got Derrida castigated was
   noting the sexual connotations of imaginary numbers in mathematical
   symbology.

I looked around and found that it was Lacan rather than Derrida who 
talked about that.


   Thus the erectile organ comes to symbolize the place of
   /jouissance/, not in itself, or even in the form of an image, but as
   a part lacking in the desired image: that is why it is equivalent to
   the √−1 of the signification produced above, of the /jouissance/
   that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function
   of lack of signifier (−1). [End quote, Lacan 1977b, pp. 318-320]

That could almost be in _Finnegans Wake_, which for its more candidly 
playful part seems probably a better source of examples of such wild 
polysemy and poly-semiosis; maybe it even inspired Lacan.


What I really had in mind in your quote of my earlier message, was the 
idea that from the same rich scrambling of information in natural 
phenomena, organisms of different species, life stages, etc., will tend 
to seek or be susceptible to often different kinds of information, and 
they have to do this because there's too much information, and the 
pertinent information needs to be extracted, unscrambled, interpreted, 
according to the interests of its species or lineage. A particularly 
intelligent organism will have a variety of ends, interests, etc., 
sometimes conflicting, and  is able to evolve its interpretive systems 
without waiting for biological evolution to do it instead. Thus its own 
interpretive systems become, to some extent, its objects too. A main 
purpose of this is for one to avoid biological evolution's proceeding by 
eliminating one as a misinterpreter from the gene pool. That's why the 
really wild polysemy, poly-semioses, etc., seem things more for play.


I'm not sure what you mean by saying the objects and not interpreters 
matter. If you're saying that the truth of a given question about a 
given object does not depend on variations of interpretation, I agree, 
since the interpretive variations may reflect either some falsity 
somewhere or variations in the question or in one's identification of 
the object.


Best, Ben

On 6/13/2016 1:39 PM, Clark Goble wrote:

On Jun 13, 2016, at 9:55 AM, Benjamin Udell <mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:


I think that it's worth making the point that the signal/noise 
relation involves an idea of what questions or interests the 
quasi-mind has in the semiosis, i.e., one quasi-mind's signal is 
another quasi-mind's noise, and a phenomenon may appear to involve 
different signs and objects of interest to different quasi-minds, and 
may vary in those regards for a given quasi-mind through its shifts of 
questions and interests; such shifting may itself become involved in 
larger semiosis.


This is an important point. (I think it’s largely the point Derrida 
raises using Peirce and why so many castigate him as well) That is I 
think one implication of how semiosis works is that separating out 
connotation from denotation is difficult. Further (and here I’m more 
following Eco) any object signifies via it’s sign through codes or 
habits of interpretation that get applied. (I’m intentionally using the 
passive form here as I think it gets better at the phenomena) That means 
that signs carry with them numerous interpretants - some wanted and some 
not related to the topic at hand.


A famous example of this that again got Derrida castigated was noting 
the sexual connotations of imaginary numbers in mathematical symbology. 
Of course Derrida wasn’t denying the proper meaning, but was just 
getting at this point about signal/noise and how objects and not 
interpreters matter. That is the interpreter can’t shift out all these 
other meanings signs carry with them.


This also explains how meanings shift in language since one improper 
connotation can happen enough that it takes on the force of habit. 
Literally the literal meaning can reverse. (Forgive the pun)



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Percepts and objects

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary f., list

You wrote,

   The sign

   [quote Peirce] is determined by the object, but in no other
   respect than goes to enable it to act upon the interpreting
   quasi-mind; and the more perfectly it fulfills its function as a
   sign, the less effect it has upon that quasi-mind other than
   that of determining it as if the object itself had acted upon
   it. [EP2:391] [end quote Peirce]

   In another idiom, the more perfectly functional aspect of the sign
   is called /signal/, while its effects on the quasi-mind ‘other than
   that of determining it as if the object itself had acted upon it’
   are attributed to /noise/.
   [End quote]

I think that it's worth making the point that the signal/noise relation 
involves an idea of what questions or interests the quasi-mind has in 
the semiosis, i.e., one quasi-mind's signal is another quasi-mind's 
noise, and a phenomenon may appear to involve different signs and 
objects of interest to different quasi-minds, and may vary in those 
regards for a given quasi-mind through its shifts of questions and 
interests; such shifting may itself become involved in larger semiosis. 
The Shannon communication scenario with its pre-established codes seems 
a good analogue for simple semiotic situations as long as we bear in 
mind that that its distinctions (signal/noise) will get 'relativized' 
(or something like that) and complex in complex situations. Well, I 
guess that already happens in some information theory, or in information 
algebra, where issues of multiple sources, a person's (or quasi-mind's) 
questions, etc., are supposed to get involved. Not a subject that I know 
about in any detail, I confess.


In literature, some writers seem to desire that the signs efface 
themselves as if their whole effect were that of the objects themselves 
directly on the reader; this is sometimes called "realism". An example 
is Hubert Selby (_Last Exit to Brooklyn_, etc.). Other writers desire to 
have prominent style, to draw attention to the signs themselves, such 
that the signs or semiosis easily become much of the literary object, 
along with emotions that they convey, and so on; Edward Dahlberg 
(_Because I Was Flesh_, etc.) is a classic case. Both kinds of writing 
are actually quite 'artificial' or stylized, but in different ways. 
Many, maybe most, literary writers combine those desires; anyway I'm 
reluctant to try to put Joyce, Melville, etc., somewhere along a 
spectrum of that sort of thing.


Best, Ben

On 6/13/2016 10:02 AM, g...@gnusystems.ca wrote:


List,

Below is my latest fine-tuning of an explanation of this complex of 
basic Peircean concepts. Comments and corrections always welcome, of 
course. The same text is readable online at 
http://gnusystems.ca/TS/blr.htm#Perce or on my blog as today’s post.


Gary f.

} The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden 
because of their simplicity and familiarity. [Wittgenstein] {


http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ /Turning Signs/ gateway

*Percepts*  (considered as 
signs) represent a world external to the perceiver. /Nevertheless, 
the/ perceptual judgments /which identify what you see (as this or 
that type of thing) are based as much on your perceptual habits as on 
what’s really out there. … Consequently the objects of our attention 
in a genuine quest for truth must be the dynamic objects of the signs 
constituting our reading of reality./


Only semiosis can /inform/ anyone, and ’every sign,—or, at any rate, 
nearly every one,—is a determination of something of the general 
nature of a mind, which we may call the “quasi-mind”’ (EP2:389).


This quasi-mind is an object which from whatever standpoint it be
examined, must evidently have, like anything else, its special
qualities of susceptibility to determination. Moreover, the
determinations come as events each one once for all and never
again. Furthermore, it must have its rules or laws, the more
special ones variable, others invariable.  [EP2:545]

These “rules or laws” are what we call the habits of the system, the 
bodymind. As for the sign, it is determined by the situation 
(consisting of relevant events in the world) of which the system is 
informed, which we call the /object/ of the sign. The sign


is determined by the object, but in no other respect than goes to
enable it to act upon the interpreting quasi-mind; and the more
perfectly it fulfills its function as a sign, the less effect it
has upon that quasi-mind other than that of determining it as if
the object itself had acted upon it.  [EP2:391]

In another idiom, the more perfectly functional aspect of the sign is 
called /signal/, while its effects on the quasi-mind ‘other than that 
of determining it as if the object itself had acted upon it’ are 
attributed to /noise/. The informable system, in order to experience 
either signal or noise, must embody some /indetermina

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Abduction - J. Shook

[Benjamin Udell]

Thanks, Jerry C.

Shook has posted his paper at:

https://www.academia.edu/25176618/2016_Shook_-_Abduction_Complex_Inferences_and_Emergent_Heuristics_of_Scientific_Inquiry

*On 5/25/2016 12:51 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:*


List

In view of the the extended discussion of abduction, I thought the 
following article may be of interest:


Axiomathes (2016) 26:157–186 DOI 10.1007/s10516-015-9282-y

ORIGINAL PAPER

Abduction, Complex Inferences, and Emergent Heuristics of Scientific 
Inquiry


John R. Shook1

It generates a different look at the concept

Cheers

Jerry




-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: Aw: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: 6 vectors and 3 inference patterns

[Benjamin Udell]

Helmut, list,

The analogy is:

object - source
sign (or representamen) - encoding
interpretant - decoding
recognizant - destination.

I haven't discussed it in any detail at peirce-l in many years, and 
whatever I've written on it at my websites is rather old. So I'm not 
eager to launch into a discussion of it right now.


Regarding thirdness: my categories, such as they are, are not Peirce's 3 
+ an added 1. The semiotic correlates are the only case of my thinking 
(that I can recall off-hand) where one sees Peirce's 3 plus my added 1.


The Talcott Parsons AGIL- scheme doesn't seem to resemble anything of mine.

One of the reasons that I don't want to get into more exposition of my 
own ideas here is that even the posts at my websites, in which I can go 
on as long as I like, and among which my posts of recent years seem to 
me much better written than those of the earlier years, turn out to be 
difficult for others to understand, even when they are disposed to 
fourfold thinking, as I lament in a comment at somebody else's blog 
https://equivalentexchange.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/the-four-hats-of-creativity/#comment-33596 
.


Best, Ben

*On 5/23/2016 12:03 PM, Helmut Raulien wrote:*


Ben, list,
"Recognizant" is a good term, I think. Recognizant and interpretant, 
like source and destination too, describe a continuity, which is a 
trait of thirdness. Maybe another example of fourism is Talcott 
Parsons AGIL- scheme, the four necessities of an acting system, esp. a 
social one: adaption, goal attainment, integration and latency.

Best,
Helmut

*23. Mai 2016 um 03:08 Uhr
"Benjamin Udell"*


Helmut, list,

My fours don't align with Peirce's four methods of inquiry. In 
https://tetrast2.blogspot.com/2013/04/methods-of-learning.html , 
you'll find Peirce's three inferior methods scattered around a large 
table at the post's end. Peirce's fourth method, the scientific 
method, is also there, more or less, as "cognitive assessment and 
testing." The post as a whole is about four good methods of learning.


In semiotics, based on the idea that sign and interpretant do not 
convey experience with their object, I add a fourth stage, a 
'recognizant', that does just that. There's a parallel with 
information theory's scenario of source, encoding, decoding, destination.


Best, Ben

*On 5/22/2016 4:04 PM, Helmut Raulien wrote:*


Ben, list,
Your fourism I find interesting, and it reminds me of Peirces four 
methods of fixating belief. Would that be justified, and, to loosely 
do the following connections: Will with tenacity, ability with 
authority, affectivity with a-priori, and cognition with the 
scientific method?
Now, only by the way, because I do not know whether the fourism I 
will mention now has to do with your fourism: In semiotics, I 
sometimes think, you might find a sort of fourism as well: Apart 
from the object and the representamen, there are perhaps two things 
that both would apply to the Peircean thirdness: reason (cause), and 
result. Result may be the same as interpretant. The reason (to 
connect representamen with object) mostly lies in the person or 
entity of the interpreter, I guess. This interpreting system or 
person, though, is not regarded for necessary to look at it, I 
guess, by Peirce. But if it would, would it be a fourism, or remain 
triadism, because reason and result both are thirdness? I dont know.

Best,
Helmut


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: 6 vectors and 3 inference patterns

[Benjamin Udell]

Gary F., Jon A.S., list,

I'm not sure why an argument has developed over whether human activity 
proceeds from dissatisfaction or positive desire, etc. Usually we regard 
those as various ways of talking about the same multifaceted phenomena. 
A desire for something implies dissatisfaction with what one has, and 
indeed can make one feel dissatisfied with one's lacks more than one 
would otherwise be. "Want" originally meant "lack."


Desire - pangs (pains), frustration, etc. Pangs of physical hunger can 
be physically painful.

Hope - annoyed or angry impatience.
Pleasure - distaste for imminent interference, something that can 
feasibly get in the way.
Attachment - fear at the prospect of loss of that to which one is 
attached. (E.g., parents' fears for their offspring.)


I wouldn't get too concerned about the emphasis on positive or negative 
unless somebody comes along and says,


"Bite your tongue. Get a cinder in your eye. When you feel good you feel 
nothing."


I had a friend who used to quote that with dramatic sternness and it 
annoyed me not only because I thought it was stupidly glib, but because 
I knew that he didn't believe it for a moment. He was more talkative in 
more detail about positive pleasures than anybody I ever knew. I just 
looked the quote up and found that it's widely attributed to Buckminster 
Fuller.


It is possible do overdo the positive or negative emphasis. It's 
interesting that Socrates sometimes argued in terms of practical 
implications, oftenest practically implied conflicts of values, 
unintended or unexpected bad consequences, etc. So Socrates's arguments 
often have an admonitory cast. Peirce however also looks for practically 
implied benefits and advantages that one might have overlooked.


On another note, the argument about the relative value of theory versus 
practice, or of theoretical knowledge versus practical knowledge, or of 
manipulation versus self-control, is unclear to me. I don't think it's 
enough to say that one is needed for the other. They're all needed for 
each other.


Best, Ben

On 5/23/2016 8:58 AM, g...@gnusystems.ca wrote:


Jon,

Replies to your replies inserted.

Gary f.

*From:* Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* 20-May-16 20:05

Gary F., List:

Gf: Now I’m seeing the limitations of your hypothesis that ALL human 
endeavor is rooted in dissatisfaction. It seems to ignore more 
positive motivations such as curiosity, participation and playfulness 
in all its forms. The quest for knowledge can be much more than an 
escape from a state of dissatisfaction.


Js: Although I mainly had in mind the irritation of (genuine) 
doubt, it seems to me that curiosity, participation, and 
playfulness can all be understood as forms of dissatisfaction. The 
quest for knowledge would cease altogether if everyone were 
truly satisfied with the current state of their knowledge.


Gf: Are you claiming that everyone has to be aware enough of “the 
current state of their knowledge” to make such a judgment on it before 
undertaking any investigation? The fact that curiosity etc. /can be 
understood/ as forms of dissatisfaction doesn’t imply that any feeling 
of dissatisfaction necessarily enters into the actual process. I doubt 
that all explorers are so introspective.


Gf: But discovery of principles /in nature/ — including the nature of 
conscious purposes as a specialized subset of final causes, or 
natural purposes — is, for any philosopher, ethically privileged over 
manipulation of any kind, because self-control depends on it.


Js: I am not sure that I follow this.  How does self-control depend on 
the discovery of principles in nature?


Gf: This is such an essential part of Peirce’s critical common-sensism 
and pragmaticism that I hardly know where to begin. How can you 
exercise any control over your actions if you have no idea of their 
predictable consequences? Where can you get such ideas except by 
learning from experience about principles of causality in nature, and 
intentionality in human nature? (Human nature is a part of nature, not 
apart from it.)


Js: Where and how do we draw the line between what is "natural" and 
what is "artificial"--i.e., the result of human manipulation?


Gf: The answer to that would vary with the contextual situation, and I 
don’t see the relevance of the question in this context. My whole 
point is that there *is no* definite division between natural and 
conscious purposes; purposefulness, which Peirce calls Thought (or 
Thirdness), is a continuum including everything from natural 
tendencies to conscious decision-making and adoption of ideals of 
conduct. Manipulation, like all conduct, is always done for /some/ 
purpose; ethics is a matter of becoming conscious of what those 
purposes are, to the extent that one can judge some end (as well as 
some means to an end) to be better than another. So your next question 
makes no sense to me either:


Js: Why should "natural" purposes alwa

Re: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: 6 vectors and 3 inference patterns

[Benjamin Udell]

Helmut, list,

My fours don't align with Peirce's four methods of inquiry. In 
https://tetrast2.blogspot.com/2013/04/methods-of-learning.html , you'll 
find Peirce's three inferior methods scattered around a large table at 
the post's end. Peirce's fourth method, the scientific method, is also 
there, more or less, as "cognitive assessment and testing." The post as 
a whole is about four good methods of learning.


In semiotics, based on the idea that sign and interpretant do not convey 
experience with their object, I add a fourth stage, a 'recognizant', 
that does just that. There's a parallel with information theory's 
scenario of source, encoding, decoding, destination.


Best, Ben

On 5/22/2016 4:04 PM, Helmut Raulien wrote:


Ben, list,
Your fourism I find interesting, and it reminds me of Peirces four 
methods of fixating belief. Would that be justified, and, to loosely 
do the following connections: Will with tenacity, ability with 
authority, affectivity with a-priori, and cognition with the 
scientific method?
Now, only by the way, because I do not know whether the fourism I will 
mention now has to do with your fourism: In semiotics, I sometimes 
think, you might find a sort of fourism as well: Apart from the object 
and the representamen, there are perhaps two things that both would 
apply to the Peircean thirdness: reason (cause), and result. Result 
may be the same as interpretant. The reason (to connect representamen 
with object) mostly lies in the person or entity of the interpreter, I 
guess. This interpreting system or person, though, is not regarded for 
necessary to look at it, I guess, by Peirce. But if it would, would it 
be a fourism, or remain triadism, because reason and result both are 
thirdness? I dont know.

Best,
Helmut


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: 6 vectors and 3 inference patterns

[Benjamin Udell]

Jon A.S., list,

I discussed it many years ago on peirce-l. I don't know how much of what 
I said then I'd still say now. Generally I'm doubtful of ideas of the 
true as a species of the good or vice versa. I suspect that that's like 
trying to see momentum as a species of energy, or vice versa.


I'm a 'four-ist'. I came to Peirce originally because I couldn't find 
any serious philosophical fourists, so I searched the Internet for 
"trichotomy," and soon found Joe Ransdell's Arisbe website. I liked the 
way that Peirce pursued a recurrent logical pattern.


Here's an example of how I look at things.

will, conation  strong - ethics, character, etc.
ability, dealingapt - competency
affectivitygood (healthy, as in a healthy appreciation) - 
sensibility, aesthetics, values

cognition true - intelligence, knowledge, logic

So it would be difficult to use my ideas to resolve an issue within 
Peircean philosophy.


I've some websites where I discuss these things, but I haven't gotten 
into a classification of normatives there. If they're to be ordered, 
then I think it should be the above order or the reverse of the above order.


I touch on related issues in
https://tetrast2.blogspot.com/2013/04/methods-of-learning.html

also
http://tetrast.blogspot.com/2005/03/periodic-table-of-aspects-of-humanity.html

Best, Ben

On 5/21/2016 2:33 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:


Ben U., List:

You hinted at what I think is the key issue for me right now--if logic 
is a species of ethics (theory), then it seems to me that inquiry is a 
species of ingenuity (practice), rather than the other way 
around.  With that in mind ...


BU:  For my own part, I already would do the classification and
ordering of the normative sciences (esthetics, ethics, logic)
differently, but that's a topic from the past and maybe for the
future and maybe not.

Can you point me to where I can find your past discussion(s) of this?  
I am interested in learning how and why you would classify and order 
the normative sciences differently from Peirce.


Regards,

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



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .