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PEIRCE-L Digest 1311 - February 25-26, 1998
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From PEIRCE-L Forum, Jan 5, 1998, [name of author of message],
"re: Peirce on Teleology"
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Topics covered in this issue include:
1) New List ( Para 4 )
by dkawecki[&hellip]ix.netcom.com
2) General Transitivity
by Thomas.Riese[&hellip]t-online.de (Thomas Riese)
3) Re: Absent Authors
by Peter_Skagestad[&hellip]uml.edu (Peter Skagestad)
4) Re: New List (propositions or "keep peddling!")
by BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
5) Re: A new liberation movement?
by Hugo Fjelsted Alroe
6) Re: New List (paragraph 4)
by BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
7) Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
by BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
8) Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
by BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
9) Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
by BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
10) Re: New List (paragraph 4)
by sxskag01[&hellip]homer.louisville.edu (Steven Skaggs)
11) Re: A new liberation movement?
by Joseph Ransdell
12) Re: A new liberation movement?
by piat[&hellip]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
13) Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
by Bernard Morand
14) Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
by piat[&hellip]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 13:35:08 -0600 (CST)
From: dkawecki[&hellip]ix.netcom.com
To:
Subject: New List ( Para 4 )
Message-ID: <1998225113911441[&hellip]>
Dear Peirceans,
Perhaps the emphasis that knowledge is a proposition is intended to underscore the fallibility of the unified manifold which is proposed as the thing known, as something which is potentially convergent with the horizon of the true. In resorting to examples of the "knowledge" learned by animals, consider a duck landing in a pond where it has noticed a safe haven indicated by the presence of decoys. In this sense its knowledge is a kind of proposition... No?
Thanks
David Kawecki
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 20:43:01 +0100
From: Thomas.Riese[&hellip]t-online.de (Thomas Riese)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: General Transitivity
Message-ID:
:-)
Thomas.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 16:58:10 -0800
From: Peter_Skagestad[&hellip]uml.edu (Peter Skagestad)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Absent Authors
Message-ID: <34F4BE22.3753[&hellip]uml.edu>
Joseph Ransdell wrote:
>
> Hello, Leon! Always good to hear your voice! In response to me saying that:
>
> >. . . the dead author is no longer in position to supply indices other
> >than those already supplied, whereas the living author can respond to an
> >interpretation with "But I didn't mean THAT!""
>
> you said:
>
> > Isn't this substantially what Plato complained about with respect to
> >writing in I forget what dialogue? The author of a book or article is in the
> >same position with respect to his reader -- whether dead or alive.
>
> With qualifications, yes, but it depends on how you construe it. That is,
> in the Phaedrus Plato (the Platonic Socrates) is issuing a warning about
> the dangers implicit in the reliance on the written word: it tempts us to
> regard it as if the author is dead in the sense of being incapable of
> furthering the dialogue.
>
> I don't think it is paper-embodied (parchment-embodied) text vs
> voice-embodied text that Plato is concerned with but with the distinction
> between words that are a part of dialogue and words that are monological:
> thinking -- which is essentially dialogical -- stops when monologue occurs.
> He identifies sophistic rhetoric with monological discourse. (The dialogue
> begins with Phaedrus attempting to palm off a written speech by the Sophist
> Lysias as something truly oral when in fact it is just a parroted
> repetition of what he actually has on him in the form of the inscribed
> text. Socrates says, in effect, "Let's recognize that set piece by Lysias
> for what it is, Phaedrus: your attempting to recite it from memory won't
> change it from being something written down and not truly oral." This is
> the difference between Socratic and sophistic discourse, pointed out in one
> way and another many times in the dialogues: the former is dialogical, the
> former is monological. And when dialogue stops, thought stops. I put this
> in terms of there being no more indices, nothing "brute" that can provide
> the oppositionality required for thinking to occur.
>
> But I think the point about the written word is not paper-embodiment as
> such but the way in which paper embodiment encourages the monological
> mentality--which is also, of course, the authoritarian mentality: no
> questions are taken. Things are said and that's that. Books don't have to
> be in the service of monologism but if the production of books and articles
> is treated as an end in itself -- as it commonly is in academia when people
> are rated on their publication achievements without regard for anything
> beyond the bare fact of publication, as is quite common -- then it is. And
> there is something about words in that form that tempts us to find the mere
> production of a paper text an achievement in itself. The words seem so
> substantial. You can weigh them, count pages, and make them esthetically
> appealing without regard for their meaning: e.g. Mein Kampf can be bound as
> beautifully as any other text.
>
> But what I go ahead to point out is that it all depends on how we treat it
> in interpretation, and thus the difference between the living and the dead
> is up to us in this respect. If we treat what is said as authoritative
> text, definitive text, the last word, then it makes no difference what the
> author might or might not be able to further contribute or what we might
> fairly be able to contribute as the extended voice of the author: the
> author can be as lively and as alive as you like but still be functionally
> indistinguishable from the dead, and conversely, the voice of an author is
> not stilled because of physical death but because of how we regard the voice.
>
> I am trying to express the view, not endorse it -- what would an endorsment
> be worth, anyway? -- but it seems to me there is something right in this
> that we want to understand more about. Hugo Alroe was elaborating on this
> further in a message I haven't had time to respond to yet.
>
> Joe
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Joseph Ransdell - joseph.ransdell[&hellip]yahoo.com
> Dept of Philosophy - 806 742-3158 (FAX 742-0730)
> Texas Tech University - Lubbock, Texas 79409 USA
> http://members.door.net/arisbe (Peirce website - beta)
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Whereas I have no profound thoughts of my own on this subject, it may
interest Joe and Leon, and perhaps others, that Paul Levinson has argued
in various places that the monological character of text, complained of
in the Phaedrus, is a function of its paper-based embodiment, and has
been overcome by electronic text, which is inherently dialogical. This is
argued in various places, and I can supply references if needed, but one
place that comes to mind is Paul's latest book, The Soft Edge: A Natural
History and Future of the Information Revolution, Routledge 1997. The
argument is that one can "talk back" to an electronic text, by inserting
comments, objections, suggested emendations, etc. Of course the
electronic text cannot really talk back (or can it? hmm...), but if the
author is alive, the emended document can be returned to him/her for
further revision and thus the text can evolve dialogically. This, of
course, is also possible with paper-based text, but the process is far
more cumbersome - all that re-typing - so it is easier to regard
electronic text as a medium for collaboration through dialogue, than it
is to regard paper-based text in this light.
Enough for now.
Peter Skagestad
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 04:35:04 GMT
From: BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: New List (propositions or "keep peddling!")
Message-ID: <34f6ef08.5542334[&hellip]pop3.cris.com>
David Matthew Mills wrote:
>Someone (I've now lost the thread of who said what when, but anway...)
>said:
>>Monkeys and bears know how to ride a bicycle too. They do
>>not know how to speak the human type of language, or at least they do
>>not speak. So do we want to say that a bear's knowledge of how to ride a
>>bicycle is in the form of propositions? I do not think so. I think we
>>have to allow that there is a type of knowledge, such as is involved in
>>bicycle riding, that is not and cannot be formulated in propositions.
>>And that both bears and men partake of this type of knowledge.
Not me.
>In response, I'd like to say that the knower's ability to express in
>propositional form that which is known has no bearing on whether or not
>that piece of knowledge can, in general, be expressed in propositional
>form. It may be that bears, etc. cannot speak our language and express
>their bike-riding skills propositionally. That does not mean that such
>skills could not be expressed propositionally by other species.
>To add an interesting element to the mix, a friend of mine is engaged in
>Artificial Intelligence research with the Air Force. He and his colleagues
>are working with what they call "reinforcement learning" techniques. The
>program that they have designed will seek, through repeated experience of a
>scenario, to optimize its performance in that scenario. It expresses its
>decisions propositionally. So, for instance, the program has become an
>adept backgammon player, but has never played a human being in its learning
>process. It played against itself, determining which moves in which
>contexts lead to optimal performance. It has done the same thing with
>bike-riding. It models the experience, and as the bike begins to tip left,
>for example, it experiments with possible responses. Turning hard left
>causes a fall, so it rules that out and tries others. Eventually, it ends
>up with a propositional statement of the action which leads to optimal
>performance. "When leaning left, steer right." for example. "Keep
>peddling!" may be another incomplete expression of propositional knowledge
>involved in successful bike-riding.
>I found it fascinating that this computer program could so analytically
>figure out how to do what we seem to do so "intuitively" or
>"unconsciously." For me, at least, it has thrown such "unconscious"
>behavior into a whole new light.
>My friend has a webpage explaining his program. If anyone is interested,
>I'll see if I can get the URL.
I have already expressed my judgment that the best argument is
with regard to the syllogism.
Another good argument comes from the fact that a proposition
depends on the prior unity of subject, predicate and copula.
And lastly, I would argue that the claim that the unity of
knowledge is that of propositions eliminates Firsts [and probably
Seconds as well.]
-----------------------------------
"In essentials unity, in nonessentials diversity,
in all things charity"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life is a miracle waiting to happen.
http://www.cris.com/~bugdaddy/life.htm
-----------------------------------
William Overcamp
-----------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 12:33:31 -0500
From: Hugo Fjelsted Alroe
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: A new liberation movement?
Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.19980226123331.0068e448[&hellip]vip.cybercity.dk>
Hi, Jim!
>Patrick Coppock's Arisbe Cafe is one good opportunity I haven't
>taken advantage of.
I have met Patrick once or twice on the Cafe. It is different, that's for
sure, but I have not yet formed an opinion on what role it may play in form
of inquiry. Just 'getting to know each other' in a more direct (though
remote) and informal way may well have some value in itself though.
>Do you have any further suggestions as to how we might increase the
>dialogical component of our exchanges here on the Pierce-L ?
As I indicated, I speak of these issues from without, without special
knowledge. But, though not aimed at Peirce-L, I did have at least two
things in mind. One concerns the role of openness in inquiry, where both
the ability and the will to participate, to engage in dialogue, plays a
role. The other concerns how and to which degree the dialogical nature can
be preserved, the text as a medium of dialogue across the ages and beyond
the death of the author. Both have also been adressed by Joe Ransdell in
the thread Absent Authors.
>From the brutal fact of death as an end to dialogue, I came to wonder on
how dialogue could be furthered. One aspect is the restraints imposed by
the media of dialogue; this has changed radically in recent years, both in
terms of the 'speed' of dialogue, and in terms of the possibility of large
open discussion groups. But as revolutionary as these technological
advances may seem, perhaps the will to engage in dialogue is still the more
decisive restraint to openness in inquiry. This brings no suggestions,
only the question of the nature of inquiry which Peirce addressed so vividly.
Popper has said somewhere that the hallmark of science (as the project of
reason) was its public nature, having two sides, openness towards critique
and a common goal. Where Popper may have had some unitary goal in mind,
like the openness itself as a rational ideal, this is not so in everyday
inquiry. I look upon this in the pragmatic sense that goals and openness
are somehow connected in inquiry. All actual inquiries are motivated by
some more or less explicit goals, and what counts as openness depends upon
those goals.
So, if I am to suggest anything concerning the ongoing dialogical inquiry,
it is that the goal or motivating ideas of the inquiry should be attached
to, or included in the dialogue. And this is something which is not
rectified but made more important by the technological advance. By way of
its detached nature, the virtual world of electronic communication promotes
the concealing of motivating forces, there is no clue of the lives of the
persons behind, of the money or other means of power involved, of the
convictions and stances. I am not saying that all of these motivations
behind some actual inquiry are always influencing the inquiry, but in some
cases they certainly are. I am advocating the openly contextual inquiry
instead of the secretly contextual inquiry impersonating non-contextual
all-open inquiry. Within a common context, whether explicit or implicit,
the inquiry of course seems all-open.
Previously on Peirce-L, there has been some discussion of this in terms of
the value of biographical material in evaluating, or using, the ideas of
dead philosophers. One of the major points was, if I recall correctly, that
exactly the loss of dialogical force, the loss of the possibilities of
error elimination or falsifiability so to speak, limited our means of
knowing. The point was not that biographical material was unimportant, but
that we had limited means of connecting our biographical knowledge with the
inquiry undertaken by the philosopher. In an ongoing dialogue, such issues
can be pursued, if the openness of inquiry is taken to include the
motivating forces and other context as I suggested above.
And this leads to the concern with the possibilities of preserving the
dialogical nature. I suppose these possibilities are more or less implied
by the present technological development - present technology admits the
preservation of electronic dialogue without much ado. So the focus is back
on the openness of the ongoing inquiry. This will be the basis for future
use of the texts produced today.
I don't know if you, or others, will find these thoughts of much use, Jim,
but your question did make me work :-)
Hugo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hugo Fjelsted Alroe alroe[&hellip]email.dk alroe[&hellip]vip.cybercity.dk
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 12:40:45 GMT
From: BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: New List (paragraph 4)
Message-ID: <34fd603f.4612642[&hellip]pop3.cris.com>
Tom Burke wrote:
>At 10:39 AM -0500 2/25/98, BugDaddy wrote:
>>"Keep peddling" is not a proposition, since it is neither true nor
>>false. When I give the command "keep peddling" I am not
>>predicating something of a subject. There must, of course, be an
>>implied subject for the command to make sense, but the command does
>>not substantially predicate anything of him. One might suppose
>>that the subject must already be peddling for the command to make
>>sense, but that would only be accidental.
>This issue is one where Dewey's philosophy of experience and, derivatively,
>his philosophy of logic (and his conception of "judgments" in particular)
>are especially relevant -- though I wonder if it would help us to
>understand Peirce all that much.
>For Dewey, "keep peddling" would not be a proposition as such; but rather
>the intended action itself (not the verbal formulation of it) is a kind of
>predicate of a non-linguistic judgment, where the subject is the situation
>of being on a bicycle, maintaining balance and a forward motion. The
>subject of judgment is the situation itself as felt, as "had" in experience
>-- being on the bike in a state of motion; and the predicate of judgment is
>an action deemed appropriate (warranted) in (with reference to, in response
>to) that situation. Experiences often have this subject-predicate form of
>a judgment, even if they are not linguistic in nature.
Not knowing more about Dewey's ideas, I see no direct problem in
what you say here. But even so, the *subject,* *predicate* and
*copula* must have some unity prior to the *proposition.*
>Animals (allegedly) are capable of this kind of judgment even if they don't
>formulate things propositionally. Their assertions are assertions of
>themselves, acting (predicate) in response to given situations (subject).
>This points to a kind of intentionality which is not cognitive nor
>linguistic in character -- a kind of directedness (Husserl?) or
>"thrown-ness" (Heidegger?) exhibited in overt behavior, not just in the
>ability to formulate propositional contents in thought and/or linguistic
>expressions.
I have come to the judgment that animal studies are not
particularly helpful in understanding the issue, though they do
seem on the surface to provide good examples.
-----------------------------------
"In essentials unity, in nonessentials diversity,
in all things charity"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life is a miracle waiting to happen.
http://www.cris.com/~bugdaddy/life.htm
-----------------------------------
William Overcamp
-----------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 13:02:31 GMT
From: BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
Message-ID: <34fe6311.5334842[&hellip]pop3.cris.com>
piat[&hellip]juno.com (Jim L Piat) wrote:
>William Overcamp writes:
>>(1) You are denying something so basic to human nature that it
>>is incomprehensible and nonsensical to me. I admit that this
>>does not refute your claim, but is stated as a simple truth of
>>its own.
>If we allow simple truths to stand on their own merits (which I think at
>some point we must) this seem to partially undercut your point #4 below.
I didn't claim it was a great argument. Only that I can not
comprehend why one would suppose such a thing.
>>(2) Such a belief has no consequences by which its truth may be
>>determined. This is not, I admit a refutation of your belief,
>>but does show it to be an anomalous belief in a pragmatic
>>context.
>I pretty much agree here. I think the case for accepting the notion that
>all knowlege is propsitional is made in New List and is itself a somewhat
>circular appeal to itself as its own foundation of coherence. Do you
>think Peirce is not achieving this or do you think he is not trying to
>achieve this?
Peirce' purpose is unclear to me. I think he was simply
expressing what he believed. Whether his beliefs are coherent
has yet to be seen.
>>(3) Such a belief is a denial that man can know Firsts. [And
>>probably a denial that man can know Seconds, as well.] This may
>>not, itself refute your beliefs, but makes it impossible to
>>proceed to Peirce' categories.
>Yes! A denial that man *knows* firsts or seconds but not a denial that
>man responds to firsts or seconds. Knowing, which itself is a third,
>requires a first, a second and a third. So the reality of firsts,
>seconds and thirds provide us the tools to talk about them.
>Is is possible that we are simply using "knowing" in different ways?
>Perhaps we should be asking in what way is the knowledge implied in a
>proposition different from the knowledge implied in a human riding a bike
>and from the knowledge involved in a refrigerator making ice. Are we
>speaking of one, two or three diffferent kinds of knowledge. Are there
>alternative words we could be using to differentiate the three uses (such
>as knowledge, behavior and action ;)?
If I do not actually see red when I come to a stop light, I do
not know how I can formulate propositions about red. Thus, red
seems to have a unity in my mind, prior to any such proposition.
But Peirce seems to have denied that.
>>(4) The process by which the mind forms propositions is itself
>>knowledge which can not be reduced to propositions. For
>>otherwise, in order to form a proposition p1 one would first have
>>to have formed the proposition(s) p2.1, p2.2...; but before one
>>formed the proposition(s) p2.1, p2.2... one would first have to
>>have formed the proposition(s) p3.1, p3.2....; and so to
>>infinity. So it seems that one could never come to the
>>proposition p1.
>I disagree. I would say the process can be known; but, the process
>itself does not require knowledge as a precondition. The process of
>achieving knowledge relies instead upon the sub-knowledge experience of
>firstness, secondness and thirdness which acting in concert result in
>knowledge.
But it is precisely such *sub-knowledge* that Peirce denies. If
*red* is a proposition, what is its subject? Its predicate?
Its copula? And if its subject, predicate and copula are
themselves propositions, what are the subjects, predicates and
copulae for those, and so on, to infinity?
>>(5) Although it may not be necessary for propositions to be
>>conscious, but it is rather necessary that they be in the form of
>>propositions: an explicit, though perhaps indefinite, subject and
>>an explicit *and* definite predicate. For that is what Peirce is
>>talking about in paragraph 4. These are not mystical
>>propositions, but the definite propositions of logic.
>>Even if you claim that we have no explicit definition of
>>*proposition* I would argue that paragraph 4 does give examples
>>of propositions: "There is no griffin," "A griffin is a winged
>>quadruped," and "the stove is black" and it does express its
>>propria to be that of subject, predicate and copula. I believe
>>the burden of proof, therefore falls to one who wishes to claim
>>that Peirce meant something different.
>Agreed.
>>The very fact that Peirce has analyzed propositions in terms of
>>subject, predicate and copula shows that those terms have a unity
>>prior to that of the propositions in which they are found. If
>>subject, predicate and copula have no unity in our minds it would
>>be necessary to express each of them as propositions, with their
>>own subjects, predicates and copulas. And then the subjects,
>>predicates and copulas of each of those propositions would have
>>to be expressed as propositions; and so to infinity. Thus we
>>could never come to a proposition having such unity.
>Agreed. Perhaps all first principles are circular or tautological.
One accepts them as first in order to avoid such.
>With Steven, I haven't made up my mind. I'm still trying to understand
>what Peirce is saying and not saying. In my case I have a lot of
>unhelpful preconceptions and lacuna blocking the way. So I'm thankful
>for all this discussion.
My pleasure. I can't claim to understand what Peirce meant.
-----------------------------------
"In essentials unity, in nonessentials diversity,
in all things charity"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life is a miracle waiting to happen.
http://www.cris.com/~bugdaddy/life.htm
-----------------------------------
William Overcamp
-----------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 13:11:31 GMT
From: BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
Message-ID: <34ff68fd.6850630[&hellip]pop3.cris.com>
piat[&hellip]juno.com (Jim L Piat) wrote:
>William Overcamp wrote:
>>The fact that a habit is not a proposition does not prevent us from
>>analyzing it in a propositional form. "Some monkeys can ride
>>bicycles," is such a proposition. Yet the proposition, *qua*
>>proposition, is not the habit.
>Perhaps we are not so far apart after all. I agree the proposition is
>not the habit. But what most basic FORM does our KNOWLEDGE of the habit
>take? And what most basic, necessary form (stripped of all non
>essentials) does our knowlege of the world (as manifested in the exercise
>of the habit) take? What I think Peirce is suggesting is that the most
>basic form of all knowledge is the same as the form of the proposition
>--namely "It, what is". Presence coupled with essence (and I promise
>not to say this again;)
In a pragmatic sense, we are probably not far apart, at all.
Still, I want logic to appear logical, regardless of pragmatics.
I guess you might call that a personal bias.
-----------------------------------
"In essentials unity, in nonessentials diversity,
in all things charity"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life is a miracle waiting to happen.
http://www.cris.com/~bugdaddy/life.htm
-----------------------------------
William Overcamp
-----------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 13:20:57 GMT
From: BugDaddy[&hellip]cris.com (BugDaddy)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
Message-ID: <35006a33.7161239[&hellip]pop3.cris.com>
Thomas.Riese[&hellip]t-online.de (Thomas Riese) wrote:
>Just a crazy heuristical idea. I like to play with such toys. If
>things come out right we can remove the scaffolding later! And we have
>just the pure abstract theory -- and extremely general indeed. If it
>doesn't help we simply forget it. Think of how Maxwell developed his
>electromagnetic theory! All these gears and that. If he had thought
>that he himself was made of these effects -- he would never have done
>it. And isn't this kind of thinking, this use of toys, not exactly
>this: the use of signs?! Of course there would be many different
>other interpretations too. We could be consistent in this.
>What do you think? (Please, don't laugh:-))
I won't laugh as long as you don't...
Maimonides explained that the Sacred Scriptures sometimes appear
to contradict themselves for a similar reason. He lists seven
causes of such contradictions. The fifth is relevant to us:
"The fifth cause arises from the necessity of teaching and making
someone understand. For there may be a certain obscure matter
that is difficult to conceive. One has to mention it or to take
it as a premise in explaining something that is easy to conceive
and that by rights ought to be taught before the former, since
one always begins with what is easier. The teacher, accordingly,
will have to be lax and using any means that occur to him or
gross speculation, will try to make the first matter somehow
understood. He will not undertake to state the matter as it truly
is in exact terms, but rather will leave it so in accord to the
listener's imagination that the latter will understand only what
he wants him to understand. Afterwards, in the appropriate place,
that obscure matter is stated in exact terms and explained as it
truly is."
-----------------------------------
"In essentials unity, in nonessentials diversity,
in all things charity"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life is a miracle waiting to happen.
http://www.cris.com/~bugdaddy/life.htm
-----------------------------------
William Overcamp
-----------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 08:44:25 -0400
From: sxskag01[&hellip]homer.louisville.edu (Steven Skaggs)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: New List (paragraph 4)
Message-ID:
There is an interesting line of agreement forming here, although the word
"proposition" is causing us some trouble:
_______
>From Bill Harrell:
"Keep peddling!" can be construed as a proposition. When I yelled that at
my daughters when they were learning to ride a bicycle my intention was to
convey that "if you keep peddling you will not fall" which is to say to
state a proposition about how to ride a bicycle. That it may also be
construed as a command only goes to show that the illocutionary force of an
utterance probably cannot finally be separated for any useful purpose from
its perlocutionary intent.
_______
>From Tom Burke:
For Dewey, "keep peddling" would not be a proposition as such; but rather
the intended action itself (not the verbal formulation of it) is a kind of
predicate of a non-linguistic judgment, where the subject is the situation
of being on a bicycle, maintaining balance and a forward motion. The
subject of judgment is the situation itself as felt, as "had" in experience
-- being on the bike in a state of motion; and the predicate of judgment is
an action deemed appropriate (warranted) in (with reference to, in response
to) that situation. Experiences often have this subject-predicate form of
a judgment, even if they are not linguistic in nature.
What is attractive about Bill and Tom's ideas as stated here, is that there
is some kind of processing action going on that, given a situation S, takes
A and then proposes B.
(S(A)) > (B)
It can be genearlly interpreted as:
If you wish to continue the state of S
and if you are experiencing A
then you should perform B
Or, in shorter form:
B will continue S in the presence of A.
In the bike riding example,
Pedaling will keep you riding when you feel like you are falling.
These are falsifiable propositions in the sense that the recommended
performance will either succeed or fail.
I suspect there are countless examples of such non-verbal, experiential
propositions. And as suggested in my earlier post, it seems very likely to
me that such processes extend well into the subterranian world of the
unconscious, preconscious, etc.
sxs
Steven Skaggs
Associate Professor of Design (502) 852-6794 office
Allen R. Hite Art Institute (502) 897-7716 home
University of Louisville (502) 852-6791 fax
Louisville, Kentucky 40292
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 09:40:07
From: Joseph Ransdell
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: A new liberation movement?
Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.19980226094007.3ed7468a[&hellip]pop.ttu.edu>
Hugoi Alroe says:
>Popper has said somewhere that the hallmark of science (as the project of
>reason) was its public nature, having two sides, openness towards critique
>and a common goal. Where Popper may have had some unitary goal in mind,
>like the openness itself as a rational ideal, this is not so in everyday
>inquiry. I look upon this in the pragmatic sense that goals and openness
>are somehow connected in inquiry. All actual inquiries are motivated by
>some more or less explicit goals, and what counts as openness depends upon
>those goals.
>
>So, if I am to suggest anything concerning the ongoing dialogical inquiry,
>it is that the goal or motivating ideas of the inquiry should be attached
>to, or included in the dialogue. And this is something which is not
>rectified but made more important by the technological advance. By way of
>its detached nature, the virtual world of electronic communication promotes
>the concealing of motivating forces, there is no clue of the lives of the
>persons behind, of the money or other means of power involved, of the
>convictions and stances. I am not saying that all of these motivations
>behind some actual inquiry are always influencing the inquiry, but in some
>cases they certainly are. I am advocating the openly contextual inquiry
>instead of the secretly contextual inquiry impersonating non-contextual
>all-open inquiry. Within a common context, whether explicit or implicit,
>the inquiry of course seems all-open.
I agree, Hugo, that something that can fairly be called motivations needs
to be made explicit at times in order to understand what one needs to
understand in order to participate effectively in a dialogue, which does
not mean simply agreement but can include negatively critical examination
of motives. The problem is to get clear on what sort of motivations are
pertinent and worth identifying and what are not. Let me give an example.
As it happens we have had a visiting philosopher here for the last few days
who is working on some ideas in connection with the idea of a person, and
she made available some work in progress along these lines. I found it
interesting, and all very well executed from a professional perspective in
that it is highly sophisticated in terms of the formal moves and
countermoves made in the professional journals these days, but is it of any
real interest beyond that? It is reasonable to ask this because the concept
of a person enters into many important contexts in practical life (moral,
political, legal contexts), and one naturally wants to know what difference
this and that aspect of her analysis makes or might make in such respects.
Although I didn't get a chance to question her directly on this, my guess
from some things she said is that she would not want to get specific on
that on the grounds that it is surely better to work the conception out
first as far as possible in view of whatever formal constraints there might
be before putting it into contexts of application since one wants to pin
down what is essential in the conception first in order to avoid a mere
axe-grinding account where one is actually shaping the conception according
to those uses and the intended outcome but pretending to do something
independent of the consequences of its use.
Supposing this would be the response, the question then arises as to
whether there really are some formal constraints to appeal to -- whether
there is existing "grammar" of the concept, as Peirce might say -- which is
independent of the orthodoxy of professional opinion on the topic at the
present time. If not then the ulterior motives concerning what difference
it makes whether this particular analysis of the notion of personhood is
accepted becomes of the first importance in understanding and assessing the
analysis. In the case of this particular conception there is reason to
think that there may be no a priori logical grammar, strictly speaking, buy
only conventions of usage that have developed in the process of
accommodating the social uses of the conception of a person.
John Locke's analysis of personal identity in the Essay Concerning Human
Understanding has been influential in the philosophical tradition, and the
chapter in which it occurs is one of the longest in the Essay. Why? I
think myself that this is because the aim of the Essay as a whole was to
provide the foundations not for natural science but for a political science
that would be a science of the essential nature of government, considered
as an explication of the idea of justice. Whether I am right about that or
not, though, it is at least reasonably clear that there are important
consequences connected with the conception of personal identity because of
its relationship to the idea of self and of property. Locke's concept of a
person, then, is surely to be understood at least in part by understanding
the ulterior motives in connection with his theory of government, and that
in turn can no doubt be illuminated to some extent by understanding what
sort of government he was in favor of. Indeed, it is not clear that there
are any a priori constraints on Locke's analysis because it is not clear
that there is anything like an established logical grammar of "person" that
can set limits on what he comes up with using that terminology, though if
there is we need to know that, too, in order to understand what he was
doing.
Thus, to advert back to the visiting professor and her analysis: there is
some reason to be sceptical about whether what she is taking to be a priori
constraints are actually based on logical grammar as distinct from the
prevailing orthodoxy of opinion in the professional literature. Have
things changed since Locke's time in such a way that analytical constraints
now exist in connection with "person" that did not exist in the late 17th
Century? Has it acquired a logical grammar that it lacked then or,
perhaps, possessed then? I don't know the answer to that, but the
pertinence of conequences is surely obvious here. But does it make any
difference whethr the particular person, this particular philosopher, has
these and those long-range consequences in mind that is functioning
motivationally? My guess is that this particular philosopher has not in
fact developed her conception of personhood thus far in view of any such
motivations of her own in that respect -- she has no special interest in
feminist ideology, i.e. is not herself an ideologist, which would suggest
special motives -- but what difference does that make? Her particular
interest in that or lack thereof doesn't affect the question of the
relevance of the consequences to assessment of the analysis.
My own view is that if she has not thought much about those consequences
she should perhaps give that priority over the exploration of purely formal
constraints since it is much more certain that there are such consequences
than that there are such constraints, as regards this particular topic, and
that she may be mistaking the prevailing professional orthodoxy for such
constraints. But that seems to pertain only to her rather than to the
issue itself.
On the other hand, it is true that understanding her work like
understanding Locke's work can be facilitated or enabled by understanding
their actual motivations, but it appears to me that it is not so much what
the actual motives are as it is what the relevant motives could be, which
is really just a way of talking about what the consequences of accepting
this or that analysis might be. A convenient way of getting at them is to
put it in terms of the person's intellectual motivations, to be sure, but
perhaps that is no more than a convenience, albeit an important one in
practice.
Also, it is not always true, in philosophy, that the a priori constraints
or logical grammar -- the conceptual mathematics, as it were -- is so
tenuous as it is in respect to the special case of the concept of a person.
But that will have to be explored in another message.
Best regards,
Joe Ransdell
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph Ransdell - joseph.ransdell[&hellip]yahoo.com
Dept of Philosophy - 806 742-3158 (FAX 742-0730)
Texas Tech University - Lubbock, Texas 79409 USA
http://members.door.net/arisbe (Peirce website - beta)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 11:34:58 -0500
From: piat[&hellip]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: A new liberation movement?
Message-ID: <19980226.113500.10366.0.piat[&hellip]juno.com>
Hugo,
Thanks for some interesting thoughts. Openness in dialog is something
worth examining in its own right. Does such openness have a particular
structure or identifiable characteristics? Let's just consider an
exchanged between three (just to be sure we,ve including both the
necessary and sufficient number;). Here's a quick sketch of some
preliminary thoughts:
1. Ulterior motives revealed
2. Channels of communication unrestricted
3. Open to new participants
4. Content unrestricted (?)
5. Text preserved
6. Private exchanges allowed (?)
7. Democratic control of the system (?)
8. Amount of participation unrestricted or limitations applied
equally
9. Only one class of membership
Some of the above are probably wrong and no doubt there are many other
important factors.
I think biographical information can be extremely helpful in
understanding the meaning of a communication. I just read an essay by
Anthony Storr _Nietzsche and Music_ and for the first time felt I was
beginning to have a real sense of what Nietzsche was about.
Numerous studies (although I can't cite any) on exchanges between
therapists and clients indicate that therapist's self disclosure promotes
client's self disclosure.
On a very practical level I particularly like your suggestion about
revealing one's ulterior motives (those indicating why the statement was
made that may not be evident in the content of the statement itself).
This accomplishes two things. First it provides an important means of
interpreting the meaning of the message. Much of meaning is implied and
context dependent. Perhaps the single most important context for
interpreting a message is the reason the message is being sent. Second,
exposing one's motives underlying a message, reduces the likelihood that
the message can be used to surreptitiously control the means of
communication. For example hogging the channels or otherwise suppressing
a point of view. What I'm suggesting is that even in an open
communication system one can institute patterns of communication designed
not to exchange ideas but control the means of communication. Thanks
again,
Jim Piat
self employed 56 year old married father of four with a hobbyist interest
in language, consciousness and the ultimate nature of things. Sounds
like one of those playboy centerfold bios -- she also likes skydiving,
horseback riding and philosophy!
_____________________________________________________________________
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Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 18:11:01 +0100
From: Bernard Morand
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19980226181101.009ad370[&hellip]servunix.iutc3.unicaen.fr>
A 11:12 25/02/98 -0600, Thomas Riese wrote :
>What if we regard a proposition (we should keep in mind that we still
>try to find out what a proposition really is) indeed as the logical
>skeleton of what in cybernetics and elsewhere is called a
>'feedback-cycle'?
>
>For me, as an engineer, this makes sense: if we set the machine in the
>New List in motion: we start with substance and being "on the
>outside", next they collapse on the inside in form of the copula (with
>subject and predicate now in the places of substance and being) only
>to evaporate a moment later when the process develops into an
>argument, which, seen as a criticism of the initial observation,
>amounts to nothing but a confirmation of the initial observation. --
>Collapsing again (Boolean AA=A). We are back at the beginning of the
>cycle!
>
>With that toy in mind: does it not also make sense for Jim Piat's
>theory (Re: The New List (Paragraph 4), Sun, 22 Feb 1998), for points
>1 and 3? Perhaps with a bit of reformulation and correction...
>
>The form of the proposition then would be at the same time a momentary
>picture of the process and the 'canonical form' of it. That nicely
>fits in with the 'geometry of the syllogism' a la Peirce. And his
>generalized form of the transitive relation etc..
>
I enjoy all of this Thomas. Particularly the *same time*. I often think of
the categories as a *curly* system because we can speak of thirdness for
example in a firstness, secondness and thirdness manner. For example when
someone wrote *the stove is black* we can be concerned with the question of
understanding what the expression is in itself (its firstness). Then we
state that it is a proposition made with (atomic ?!) components something
related to the syntax which one is a form that is to say a Third. And the
fact I have just written myself the previous words is a Second. That pure
form could be in firstness can only be understandable only if we think the
feedback cycle, the process of semiosis.
So we cannot CLASSIFY once for all something into ONE of the three
categories.Trying to say "this is a first", or "this is a second" looks to
me a mistake. At least we have, before, to tell how we are concerned with
it. But more difficult, doing so we change the state of the (semiotic)
process. That is why I agree with the collapse of the momentary picture of
the process and the canonical form of it. Is it what you intended to tell us ?
If so you have proposed a principle. I am interested now in trying to
understand how the principle acts (my engineering face).
A (first) more idea on this point. In order to figure the semiotic process
I often think with the word *crease* (may be the word *fold* would be
better in english but in french we have only "pli"). R. Marty points that
we find it in the work of Roland Barthes, I heard recently the same in a
discussion with Isabelle Stengers about this topic. The main point which
deserves some interest is for me: what happens in the creases of the
semiotic processes ? To restate it in your own terms : what happens in the
collapse ? Because we are at the beginning of the cycle but it is a new
cycle ! May be it is what you are saying in the following but I did not
understand :
> I like to play with such toys. If
>things come out right we can remove the scaffolding later! And we have
>just the pure abstract theory -- and extremely general indeed. And isn't
this kind of thinking, this use of toys, not exactly
>this: the use of signs?! Of course there would be many different
>other interpretations too. We could be consistent in this.
>
>What do you think? (Please, don't laugh:-))
>
Yes signs are just toys, in order to make us laughting because "le rire est
le propre de l'homme". And, in order to be able to laugh we have to think
in a triadic manner. It is very difficult because we are used to think in a
dyadic one. May be we have here some reason for which we don't often laugh.
Please Thomas continue to trigger our laughts, you are in the right way,
the semiotic one.
Bernard Morand
__________________________________________________________________
Bernard Morand
Département Informatique
Institut Universitaire de Technologie BP53 14123 Ifs Cedex France
TEL (33) 02 31 52 55 34 FAX (33) 02 31 52 55 22
e-mail: morand[&hellip]iutc3.unicaen.fr
http://www.iutc3.unicaen.fr/~moranb/
__________________________________________________________________
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 12:35:59 -0500
From: piat[&hellip]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
To: peirce-l[&hellip]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: The New List (Paragraph 4)
Message-ID: <19980226.123600.10366.1.piat[&hellip]juno.com>
William Overcamp writes:
>If I do not actually see red when I come to a stop light, I do
>not know how I can formulate propositions about red. Thus, red
>seems to have a unity in my mind, prior to any such proposition.
>But Peirce seems to have denied that.
I think this is the nub of the issue. I think what Pierce is trying to
do is show how the manifold sensuous impressions can have a unity so that
red can be known. Something can exist without being known. Also,
something (A) can have an effect on something (B) without the affected
party (B) knowing (A). For example the eight ball responds to the cue
ball with no knowledge of the cue ball. Likewise, my pupils might
contract in response to light with no knowledge of such. But in the case
of your response to the red light you probably do "know" its red. But to
know its red involves this process Peirce is trying to outline. A
process involving categories which he later came to call firstness,
secondness and thirdness. But the experience of firstness and secondness
(as elementary detached experiences if such is even possible for thirds
such as ourselves) is not yet at the level of knowledge. These
categories are facets of the experience of knowing. The facets do not by
themselves constitute knowledge. They are the building blocks not the
building. Of course, once we have achieved knowledge of red (which has
the form of a proposition) which can use this knowledge of red to create
further proposition about red.
Also, I think Peirce is saying that the form of reducing the unity of the
manifold of sensuous impressions is that same as the form of the
proposition.
>But it is precisely such *sub-knowledge* that Peirce denies. If
>*red* is a proposition, what is its subject? Its predicate?
>Its copula? And if its subject, predicate and copula are
>themselves propositions, what are the subjects, predicates and
>copulae for those, and so on, to infinity?
The subject is IT that is present. The predicate is what is RED. The
copula is IS.
IT that is present (or substance) is not further reducible. Nor is RED as
the predicate or being further reducible. (But what we are here calling
red - as pure quality or even secondness- is not yet knowable as the red
you know at the stop light) Nor is the copula IS reducible. The
categories are not themselves reducible to the forms of propositions.
Propositions are manifestations of the categories working in concert. At
least this is my understanding or misunderstanding as the case may be.
>My pleasure. I can't claim to understand what Peirce meant.
Likewise. BTW, I really enjoyed the Maimonides passage.
Jim Piat
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