[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe
Also, while it is clear that no sign actually functions as such in the absence of interpretation, the question of whether an *interpreter* is required may be the kind of metaphysical question that Peirce declines to enter into in this essay (EP2, 314). gary F. well the above sentences actually say what I wanted to say also. I guess Peirce also says somewhere, or was of opinion, that signs do not exist without living beings. That they do exist in whole universe (whatever definition there is) is true given the fact that living beings exist. But that is another situation we talk about. Suppose our planet and living beings and minds would not exist no interpretations. A whole different situation. In that case at least most of signs would not exist to my opinion no interpretation. Maybe indeed some signs would still exist as firstness but only the signs that can exist without living beings. Is there some definition for signs in Peirce or wherever to make a distinction between signs created partly and/or whole by (the mind of) living beings and signs that exist solely without any human interference or could exist without? Kind regards, Wilfred -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.20/234 - Release Date: 18-1-2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe
I agree with Peirce stating that. But I meanwhile also think Pierce would agree with what I stated below. Because a professor I admire a lot pointed me to the founder of NLP, Alfred Korzybski. Together with Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida and other philosophers interested in the linguistic turns of philosophy a true master of this art. And a passage in Peirce talking about relation between metaphysics, logic and arts like rhetoric and semiotics. I am currently trying to put my thoughts down on paper will publish it on the internet then. If you do not know Korzybski, a google search is worthwhile he was excellent. Also with dog cookies. Kind regards, Wilfred -Oorspronkelijk bericht- Van: csthorne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: maandag 23 januari 2006 3:48 Aan: Peirce Discussion Forum Onderwerp: [peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe I am pretty sure Peirce would disagree. For Peirce the entire universe (and by that he means something far beyond the mere existent universe) is perfused with signs, if not composed exclusively of signs. See, e.g., The Basis of Pragmaticism in the Normative Sciences in EP2. Sincerely, Creath Thorne Drs.W.T.M. Berendsen writes: Some short reply. To set things straight, I am not a Dr. My title is Drs, it is for completing my university studies. I might get the other one in about 2 months, but do not have the right to use that one yet. I am sure signs can not operate, even not exist, without living beings. To create them, alter them and for the interpretation of them. Kind regards, Wilfred _ Van: Jim Piat [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: maandag 23 januari 2006 0:49 Aan: Peirce Discussion Forum Onderwerp: [peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe Dear Gary, Yes that seems so to me -- symbols like laws are general. They are what binds the ephemeral here and now. I'm trying to come up with a thoughtful reponse to Dr Berendsen's earlier comment that we are the engines of interpretation. In one sense I agree and in another I'm not so sure. Without myself being a sign of the universe (sort of a universal sign of life) I certainly could not interpret other signs and yet the signs as principles operate with or without me. I think you have a better handle on this and might be better able to respond to the issues he raises. And I'd be interested too! Thanks for the further comments. I am looking forward to the Kaina discussion. Jim Piat -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.20/234 - Release Date: 18-1-2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.20/234 - Release Date: 18-1-2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - CCP Online, a national Internet Service Provider website: http://www.ccp.com -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.20/234 - Release Date: 18-1-2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.20/234 - Release Date: 18-1-2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe
J-MO = Jean-Marc Orliaguet JR = Joe Ransdell Jean-Marc says: [J-MO] I don't really understand the subtle distinctions that you are making between direct and unmediated and between indirect and mediated, and in what way they contribute to a better philosophical understanding.. REPLY: [JR] The difference in meaning between direct/indirect and immediate/mediate is not especially subtle. They are simply different distinctions, as far as normal English usage goes, For example, as regards vision, I am presently perceiving the keyboard of my computer quite directly inasmuch as there is nothing intervening between my eyes and the keyboard that I would have to get past in order to perceive it. But whether or not my perception of it is mediated is another matter. In fact, since I wear glasses, it is mediated by those lenses, but it is precisely that mediation which enables me to perceive it directly rather than making it necessary ghgor me to resort to some indirect means of perceiving it. Peirce's usage of these terms is another matter, though. It is getting clear on those disttinctions that is the problem, as I see it, and it is a mistake to simply dismiss the difference as unimportant. I don't claim to have accomplished anything in pointing that out other than making a start on addressing the problem the difference poses. [J-MO] Such a sentence as whether or not direct knowledge is to be construed as unmediated is disturbingly convoluted, especially as Peirce does not seem to introduce such distinctions himself. Sometimes he uses in a same sentence direct, as another word for unmediated or immediate. I fail to see the rationale for introducing a distinction. It is a bit like shoving a needle under the fingernails. [JR] Llke shoving a needle under the fingernails? Hmmm. I don't understand the comparison, but as regards Peirce's usage, I think we will want to find out more about that. I don't think Peirce tended to speak loosely about this -- or, indeed, about anything -- contrary to what is often assumed in commentary on Peirce, but it seems that in discussing matters of perception in particular he was constrained by several different factors: in part by what he thought of as being the best usages for philosophical purposes, in part by the way in which the topic he was addressing was typically addressed in the philosophical literature at that time, and in part by the difference between what was relevant to a psychological analysis and what was relevant to a logical analysis. One major oroblem we have4 in interpreting him adequately is that we are not sufficiently familiar with how things were discussed in the traditions of discussion he was taking for granted. At the time of and at least in part as a consequence of the First World War there was a major disruption and discontinuity in the Western tradition of philosophy as that was understood in the US in particular which made it all but impossible for American philosophers to understand what Peirce's philosophical world was actually like. What Peirce takes for granted as commonly understood by somone at the leading edge at his time is not at all the same as what people in this country in particular came to take for granted after that war. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this. By the time I got into philosophy, beginning in the late 1950's the difference in the understanding of philosophical issues was so great that it had become all but impossible for an American to read Hegel, for example, with any grasp at all of what he might be saying. That is merely one example. As I said, this cannot be overemphasized, in my opinion, and it is at least true that it would be unwise to take anything for granted about what he must have meant in the case of terms which seem to us now to have been used casually and loosely by him. My point is that I see it as a major problem to be clear on what he did mean by what might seem to be rather obvious synonymous usages, such as in the case of the distinctions in question. ; [J-MO] For example according to: CP 6.392ยจ Proximate knowledge is direct knowledge of a thing, not knowledge through something else. Better called direct knowledge. if knowledge through something else is mediated knowledge, then CP 6.392 simply says that direct knowledge is not mediated knowledge, or that direct knowledge is unmediated. But there is nothing that is construed here, since these are just definitions of concepts that everyone already understands. [JR] Well, it is your assumption that knowledge through something else = mediated knowledge, but I see no reason to accept that. Given what Peirce says, I think we can equate knowledge through something else with indirect knowledge, i.e. we can assume that this is his usage. But the word mediate and other terms derivative of that are far too loaded with usage in specifically semiotical
[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe
Joseph Ransdell wrote: I finally got a transcription of the New Elements manuscript of 1904 up at Arisbe. I thought we might try figuring out what is going on there. If you have a copy of Volume 2 of the Essential Peirce you already have a copy of it, but it is helpful to have it in digitized form. The URL is http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/stoicheia/stoicheia.htm Of course, not to restart an old debate... I am curious about how the following lines are going to be interpreted: We have a direct knowledge of real objects in every experiential reaction, whether of /Perception/ or of /Exertion/ (the one theoretical, the other practical). These are directly /hic et nunc/. But we extend the category, and speak of numberless real objects with which we are not in direct reaction. We have also direct knowledge of qualities in feeling, peripheral and visceral. But we extend this category to numberless characters of which we have no immediate consciousness. Regards /JM --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe
Jean-Marc says: Of course, not to restart an old debate... I am curious about how the following lines are going to be interpreted: We have a direct knowledge of real objects in every experiential reaction, whether of /Perception/ or of /Exertion/ (the one theoretical, the other practical). These are directly /hic et nunc/. But we extend the category, and speak of numberless real objects with which we are not in direct reaction. We have also direct knowledge of qualities in feeling, peripheral and visceral. But we extend this category to numberless characters of which we have no immediate consciousness. REPLY: As I recall it, Jean-Marc, the main bone of contention in that earlier discussion had to do with whether or not direct knowledge is to be construed as unmediated and thus with the relation of the distinction direct/indirect and the distinction immediate/mediate, and this in the context of questions about his analysis of perception generally. I see no reason not to raise that old debate once again in hopes of coming to a better understanding of it than we could agree upon then. I think, though, that I would prefer to get into that only after we get ourselves better situated in respect to what is going on in general in the New Elements. Overall, I find the rationale of it baffling. It is not a complete paper of course, but even considered as only an intended preface to a book on the logic of mathematics, it is seems puzzlingly incomplete, at the least. Why does he start off with the theory vs. practice distinction? What does that have to do with the logic of math? And what exactly does he have in mind in distinguishing the theoretical from the practical? Is this the same as what we would now identify as the distinction between theoretical science and engineering? Or what he elsewhere calls practical sciences? Or is it rather the distinction between the normative science of logic and the normative science of ethics? (A certain parallel with something in John Locke suggests this possibility to me.) Assuming this was written in 1904, he has been doing the classification of the sciences stuff for some time, but how does this distinction fit in with the distinctions he draws there? Maybe I'm missing the obvious, and it may turn out not to be important, anyway, but it seems worth raising a question about initially. I intended to get a bit further into this, taking up the three connections of the sign with truth in the first part of Part III, which seems to me to parallel the three references (to the ground, to the correlate, and to the interpretant) in the New List, but I'm under siege from something flu-like or maybe a bad cold and getting so groggy I had best stop with this much for the moment. Joe Ransdell -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.21/236 - Release Date: 1/20/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe
Joe writes (about New Elements):
[[ Overall, I find the rationale of it baffling. It is not a complete paper
of course, but even considered as only an intended preface to a book on the
logic of mathematics, it is seems puzzlingly incomplete, at the least. Why
does he start off with the theory vs. practice distinction? ]]
I tend to think of that distinction as parallel to the action-perception
cycle in animals generally. That is, action is guided by perception and
perception guided (framed, focussed) by action, and the two parts of the
cycle modify each other recursively; and likewise, practice (including
experiment) is guided by theoretical models which are then modified by
practice, or rather by the reaction with reality brought about by
practice. Maybe i'm just revealing my biosemiotic leanings here, but that
distinction seems basic enough to be as good a place to start as any.
Concerning the bigger puzzle, though, i get the feeling -- as i do with many
of Peirce's pieces -- that he set out with a systematic plan in mind, but in
the course of writing, certain lines of thought popped up that just had to
be followed up immediately, and to hell with the plan. Thinks, I can always
sort it out and rearrange it later ... but then later sometimes never
comes ...
And in this case, where he goes with these seeming digressions is very deep
into the roots of his logic/semiotic, maybe deeper than he had himself
foreseen.
gary F.
}Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be
counted counts. [Einstein]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe
Dear Gary, Yes that seems so to me -- symbols like laws are general. They are what binds the ephemeral here and now. I'm trying to come up with a thoughtful reponse to Dr Berendsen's earlier comment that we are the engines of interpretation. In one sense I agree and in another I'm not so sure. Without myself being a sign of the universe (sort of a universal sign of life) I certainly could not interpret other signs and yet the signs as principles operate with or without me. I think you have a better handle on this and might be better able to respond to the issues he raises. And I'd be interested too! Thanks for the further comments. I am looking forward to the Kaina discussion. Jim Piat - Original Message - From: Gary Richmond To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 1:58 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe Jim, list,I've moved my comments from the Research Learning vs Teaching to this thread since most of the text I've quoted below is from the New Elements. Responding to a Peirce snippet I copied, viz. In order to convince ourselves that all learning is virtually reasoning, we have only to reflect that the mere experience of a sense-reaction is not learning. That is only something from which something can be learned, by interpreting it. The interpretation is the learning. [CSP]You wrote: [Jim Piat] I have often wondered what drove interpretation. I think now I had the cart before the horse. Interpretation is the engine. I am not the engine of interpretation. Thought, of which we partake, is what drives the universe. I may isuppose signs are dormant when I am not interpreting them -- but it dawns on me reading the above that it is I who is unaware not the universe. Time, thought and the universe does not depend upon me alone. It is I who am fully dependent upon it. What I take to be myself is a mere passing eddy in the continuum.I agree with you that "interpretation is the engine." Indeed, it's a kind of entrenched dyadic, nominalistic and materialistic thinking which denies that "there can be no reality which has not the life of a symbol" and attempts to make all such assertions appear "mystical and mysterious." That's where the life, the entelechy (borrowing Aristotle's _expression_ and modifying it significantly) of the cosmos may be found, in thirdness, "continuity, regularity, and significance.". As Peirce argues it in the New Elements. "A symbol is essentially a purpose, that is to say, it is a representation that seeks to make itself definite, or seeks to produce an interpretant more definite than itself." Finally, one can begin to see that "[a] symbol is an embryonic reality endowed with power of growth into the very truth, the very entelechy of reality." [The following two excerpts are cut and pasted from the version of the New Elements Joe placed on the Arisbe site, with the pages in the Essential Peirce added in brackets.] [B]ut a symbol could not be without that power of producing a real effect. The symbol represents itself to be represented; and that representedness is real owing to its utter vagueness. For all that is represented must be thoroughly borne out. For reality is compulsive. But the compulsiveness is absolutely hic et nunc. It is for an instant and it is gone. Let it be no more and it is absolutely nothing. The reality only exists as an element of the regularity. And the regularity is the symbol. Reality, therefore, can only be regarded as the limit of the endless series of symbols. A symbol is essentially a purpose, that is to say, is a representation that seeks to make itself definite, or seeks to produce an interpretant more definite than itself. For its whole signification consists in its determining an interpretant; so that it is from its interpretant that it derives the actuality of its signification. [EP2, 323]It seems to me that Peirce is elsewhere somewhat more careful in distinguishing the existential aspect of reality from Reality in its fullness (although he does speak here of the symbol as "the very entelechy of reality"), but the present point is that what is mere secondness and so compulsively hic et nunc is in itself "absolutely nothing." Peirce continues near the end of the essay to reflect on the living power, the potential for growth inherent in the symbol. . . . It is of the nature of a sign to be an individual replica and to be in that replica a living general. By virtue of this, the interpretant is animated by the original replica, or by the sign it contains, with the power of representing the true chara
