Gary, lists. I think we have converged a lot, and I think the issues are much more clear. My nagging doubt at this point is that as a naturalist I want to see a continuity between biosemiotics and cognitive semiotics (if I can call it that). I am not sure we are quite there yet, but I'm willing to drop the issue here, at least for now.
John From: Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com] Sent: April 27, 2015 5:28 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Cc: Peirce-L Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:8497] Re: Natural Propositions, Ben, John, Frederik, Vinicius, Lists, This was all helpful. Reading over the last few posts of John, Frederik, and Vinicius, I don't think that we're in much disagreement here. Perhaps Ben's concluding thought in this post helps clear up what can appear confusing. You wrote: BU: But sheer quality of feeling and sheer haecceity resist intellectual conception; it can't be quite true to them. This does not mean that they are quite incognizable. So one follows the involutional order and finds that one can generalize about qualities and haecceity. Still 'Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu,, and our very languages show the depth of their connectedness to 1ns and 2ns. So, even in the intellectual sphere we speak of 'insight', 'clarity', 'vision,' 'brilliance,' etc.--all metaphorically rooted in our sense of sight (and of course one could find myriad examples in all the sense). 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<tel:718%20482-5690> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 3:43 PM, Benjamin Udell <bud...@nyc.rr.com<mailto:bud...@nyc.rr.com>> wrote: John C., Gary R., lists, A bit of followup. In 1878, Peirce's pragmatic maxim reduces the conception of an object to the _conception_ of the object's effects. So it doesn't involve just the object's effects per se, and we shouldn't confuse a conception's meaning with some actual effects, though 'meaning' and 'effect' make a kind of intellectual rhyme. Somewhere (I forget where), in later years, Peirce wrote that he didn't understand the talk of 'meaning' that had cropped up around the pragmatic maxim; then still later he wrote that the conception of the object's effects is the intellectual meaning, the _intellectual purport_, of the conception of the object. In other words, Peirce holds that qualities of feeling have no intellectual purport. I think that this means that he thinks that, strictly speaking, an individual reaction also has no intellectual purport. But we can and do form conceptions of those things and, insofar as a reaction's effects follow some norm or regularity, a reaction lends itself to conception. But sheer quality of feeling and sheer haecceity resist intellectual conception; it can't be quite true to them. This does not mean that they are quite incognizable. Best, Ben On 4/27/2015 3:24 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote: John C., Gary R., lists, I haven't been following this thread closely, but I can offer a few comments at this point. Peirce does call qualities abstract for reflection. Peirce specifically states somewhere that the pragmatic maxim is not for clarifying feeling-qualities per se but for clarifying conceptions, ideas. Qualities of feeling lack meanings in the requisite sense. Peirce insists on it. Yet this doesn't keep the conception of quality out of Peirce's philosophy. It does not stop a quality's occurrence in a given case, or its general categorial role, from being conceived of and having meanings. In "What Is a Sign" Peirce discusses a contemplation, dreamy and half-awake, of quality without reaction or reflection. [....] Except in a half-waking hour, nobody really is in a state of feeling, pure and simple. But whenever we are awake, something is present to the mind, and what is present, without reference to any compulsion or reason, is feeling. [End quote http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/ep/ep2/ep2book/ch02/ep2ch2.htm<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Epeirce/ep/ep2/ep2book/ch02/ep2ch2.htm> ] In "The Logic of Mathematics: An Attempt to Develop My Categories from Within," Peirce says that qualities _are_ generals - when _reflected on_. By this logic, they are individuals when reacted with; at least such an individual has a quality; and maybe Peirce thinks that a feeling-quality taken as a general is really a general such as a symbol incorporating or evoking a quality. Anyway, two pertinent passages http://www.textlog.de/4282.html : [....] That quality is dependent upon sense is the great error of the conceptualists. That it is dependent upon the subject in which it is realized is the great error of all the nominalistic schools. A quality is a mere abstract potentiality; and the error of those schools lies in holding that the potential, or possible, is nothing but what the actual makes it to be. It is the error of maintaining that the whole alone is something, and its components, however essential to it, are nothing. [End quote from CP 1.422] [....] 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. [End quote from CP 1.425] Best, Ben On 4/27/2015 2:33 PM, John Collier wrote: I am not denying 1ns. Never have. I claim it does not stand on its own, and as a result cannot itself be foundational. It requires further mental actions to pick out 1ns. It is not manifested in itself. It is not "given". It cannot be the foundation for an epistemology. You seem to still be misunderstanding my use of "abstraction". I am using it in the time honoured way initiated by Locke as partial consideration. Berkeley missed this and thought of ideas as little pictures, so we can't have an idea of man because every man has specific characteristics. Locke had already answered this. Yesterday I saw a man in the bushes. I did not see his colour, the number of limbs (though it was at least two) or a bunch of other things. I have no problem saying this was a perceptual experience. But it must have involved judgment. I know there must have been things that I experienced that led to this, but I couldn't well say what they were, since that would bring them under generalities, which aren't 1ns. But I further maintain that 1ns is useless for thought, because thought requires generalities. Perhaps that is what you don't like. John From: Gary Richmond Sent: April 27, 2015 2:12 PM To: Peirce-L Cc: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee<mailto:biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:8485] Re: Natural Propositions, John, You first wrote: "the experience of firstness. I maintained there is no such thing in itself (except as an abstraction)." But now you say that you agree with Frederik's analysis. But I do not think that Frederik is saying that there is "so such thing in itself" as an "experience of firstness," but that we must prescissively abstract it out if we are to "focus" on in certain analyses. Frederik has just written that he does not deny 1ns. You however seem to to saying that it is merely "an abstraction," has its being as an abstraction, has no other reality than that. Again, this does not appear to me to be how Frederik sees it (he'll correct me, I'm sure, if I'm wrong). All he seems to be saying is that for some analytical purposes it is helpful to prescissively abstract 1ns from the other two categories. Best, Gary Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York C 745 718 482-5690<tel:718%20482-5690> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 9:13 AM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za> > wrote:
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