Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
John: In "Quest for the Essence of Language" Roman Jakobson borrowed Peirce's statements about diagrams as relational icons. Jakobson conceived them as constitutive for all levels of language (phonemes, morphemes, syntax, rhetorical figures as well as its disposition and composition: an iconic relation through all its levels sound and sense. Besides being indexical and referential, a quest for the essence language should also consider quality and firstness.. Best to all, Eduardo Forastieri-Braschi On Feb 16, 2017, at 9:17 AM, John Collier wrote: From talking with colleagues, some say they think only in words and others, like me, say they think mostly in diagrams or in physical feelings that I attach no words to (and probably couldn’t in many cases). Although I am surprised when I find someone who believes they think in words only, I have little reason to doubt them, as it seems these people also think quite differently from me. One of the hardest things for me in learning analytic philosophy (after original training and work in physics) was to think in words. Dick Cartwright helped me immensely with this. Surely it is a psychological issue, if people differ so much in this respect. John Collier Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal http://web.ncf.ca/collier From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:baud...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, 15 February 2017 8:16 PM To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - 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 dolanguage), 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=PA126=PA126=%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
Fwd: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual
Fascinating thread. Thank you. Peirce's scope of generals and generality and his openess to vagueness (his deviance from the Excluded Middle and the Law of Contadiction) allows for a fresh view to cope with the "generals / universals" subtlety. It seems that Aristotle's actuality (enérgeia) and reality (enteléjeia) along with "individuals [which] are actualized from a continuum of potentiality" as Jon Alan Scmidt has suggested, (that is: as sunejés and as dúnamis) must NOT be conceived as universal (kathólou) according to Aristotle. It seems that Peirce's junction of the general apparently drawn from Aristotle's own quibbles with universals lead to a somewhat moderate realism in which individual (first) substances (ousiai: particulars, singulars, individuals) and haecceities are generalized in Duns Scotus' tradition as formalities.Best to allEduardo Forastieri-BraschiFrom: <e...@coqui.net>Date: January 11, 2017 6:18:39 AM GMT-04:00To: <e...@coqui.net>Subject: Fw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universal/General/Continuous and Particular//Singular/Individual On Mon, 9 Jan, 2017 at 5:09:14 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com> wrote: To: Peirce List Cc: jonalanschm...@gmail.com; jawb...@att.net; jerryr...@gmail.comList, Jerry R.,:I am curious about the origin of the quotes: almost every proposition of ontological metaphysics is meaningless gibberishmade 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 its 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 CSPs 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.CheersJerry On Jan 7, 2017, at 8:52 PM, Jerry Rhee <jerryr...@gmail.com> 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
Re: [PEIRCE-L] by way of answering your questions
Michael, List:
The november 2015 TED talkk by Geneieve von Petzinger ("Why are these
32 symbols found in ancient caves all over Europe")
that I just found out this morning might be relevant and possibly
early evidence for diagrammaticity and iconic motivation for sign
functions, semiosis, and communication.
Best
Eduardo
On Nov 28, 2015, at 3:13 PM, Michael Shapiro wrote:
Edwina, Jerry
Edwina - Latin is not a good example of anything because it's not a
living language (sensu stricto). Classical Latin is after all a case
of arrested development because Medieval Latin and New Latin are
largely factitious continuations of CL and were only maintained by
an elite.
Jerry - I'm glad that you were able to apply what I said to a wider
sphere of disciplines. Sticking with language, here's a case from
our own time and place which demonstrates to a T––but from a
complementary perspective––what I meant by diagrammatization as the
telos of language evolution:
"Attenuation of Arbitrariness in the Semantics of Quantification
The overall drift in language development is toward
greater diagrammaticity (iconicity) between sound and meaning, which
thereby necessarily results in the attenuation of the arbitrariness
characterizing the fundamental relation of all language structure.
This can be illustrated in the history of English by the
gradual gain in scope of the quantifier of mass nouns less at the
expense of its counterpart fewer, which according to the traditional
norm is reserved for count nouns. Many speakers of American English
(but not only) regularly substitute less for fewer where the norm
specifies the latter to the exclusion of the former.
The iconic motivation of this usage is twofold. First,
less is shorter than fewer, thereby fitting it more adequately than
its counterpart to its meaning, namely ‘lesser quantity’. Second,
individuation as a semantic category is marked (more restricted in
conceptual scope) than non-individuation, so that a drift toward non-
individuation is a movement toward the unmarked member of the
opposition, instantiating the general iconic (semeiotic) principle
according to which language change favors replacement of marked
units, categories, and contexts by unmarked ones."
Michael
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Re: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos
On Dec 31, 2014, at 2:09 PM, Helmut Raulien wrote: Is secondness an integration of firstness after thirdness, thirdness an integration of secondness after firstness- and secondness a derivation of thirdness from firstness... just an idea. Great idea! Eduardo Forastieri-Braschi - 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 .
