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PEIRCE-L Digest 1324 - March 10-11, 1998  
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Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) RE: Logic Naturalized : Truth
	by Tom Burke 
  2) Re: Logic Naturalized?
	by Tom Burke 
  3) Re: Logic Naturalized : Truth
	by joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com (ransdell, joseph m.)
  4) Re: Tears From Heaven
	by a.freadman[…]mailbox.uq.edu.au (A.  Freadman)
  5) Re: Absent Authors
	by Leon Surette 
  6) Re: Logic Naturalized : Truth
	by Tom Burke 
  7) Re: Logic Naturalized : Truth
	by Joseph Ransdell 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 16:55:20 -0500
From: Tom Burke 
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: RE: Logic Naturalized : Truth
Message-ID: 

At 6:47 AM -0500 3/6/98, Cathy Legg wrote:
>On Thu, 5 Mar 1998, Tom Burke wrote:
>> Moreover, we have to distinguish (whether in contempoary terms or not)
>> semantic and syntactic notions of truth preservingness.  The whole point of
>> Goedel's theorems is that for any kind of interesting (contentful) formal
>> system, semantic truth preservingness (entailment) and syntactic truth
>> preservingness (provability) simply don't match up.  That does give one
>> pause, no?
>
>No, Tom, Goedel's theorem is a purely syntactic result. (This is
>where many popular expositions of Goedel's Theorem are confusing, as they
>tell a semantic story to give you the idea quickly and easily).
>
>That is to say that Goedel's theorem does not necessarily describe the
>incompleteness of arithmetic. Sure that is one interpretation of it
>(which has been quite useful!), but it could also describe the
>"incompleteness" of other recursively structured languages, if we could
>interpret accordingly.

I am no expert on the details and interpretation of Goedel's incompleteness
theorem, but I don't think it is merely a syntactic result.  The proof
itself focuses on the syntax for a language rich enough to handle
arithmetic, but I was careful to refer to "interesting (contentful)" formal
systems, not just to arithmetic.  So we agree that it is not just a result
concerning mathematics, but applies to all sorts of recursively structured
formal systems.

To say that it is purely a syntactic result is something else altogether.
Truth in Tarski's if not Goedel's sense is a semantic notion, and we can
talk about truth and consequence in a model or in "every" model (i.e., in a
semantic sense) independent of syntactic proof.  On one hand you have
consequence relations in a semantic sense, and on the other hand, you have
deducibility relations relative to a given proof system.  Goedel's
completeness theorems were results concerning the correspondence between
these two kinds of relations; and sure enough, they line up in simpler
cases (truth-functional languages; first-order predicate calculi; etc.) but
they don't once your semantics is interesting enough (i.e., rich enough) to
include recursively structured semantic domains, the domain of natural
numbers being just one example.  This presupposes some way of generating
your semantic domain -- e.g., using set theory, etc. -- and only then
considering a language suited to talking about things in that domain.
There's an odd sort of circularity here, no doubt, which is often
hand-waved away.  But the whole point of completeness results is to address
the correspondence between semantic consequence and syntactic provability
for a given formal system -- which you may interpret alternately as an
attempt to measure the strength of your proof system, *or* to measure the
richness of your semantics.  In this sense, if you can prove that a system
is complete, you have proven that its semantic potentials (the kinds of
semantic distinctions and consequence relations it is capable of) are
rather paltry.  Incompleteness is a sign of semantic richness, interesting
contentfulness, *not* a bad thing.  Completeness is a sign of semantic
weakness!

>And in Peircean terms I wonder if the distinction between "syntax" and
>"semantics" is that strict, anyway.....?

Granted, the distinction between syntax and semantics did not really get
clarified until the 1930s and 1940s.  Morris's subsequent nonsense (under
Carnap's influence at Chicago) about a syntax/semantics/pragmatics
modularizaton of sign systems was an unfortunate turn of events.  But I'm
not sure that Peirce would not have profited from being more clear about
the syntax/semantics  distinction in some guise or other.

--TB

 ______________________________________________________________________
  Tom Burke                  http://www.cla.sc.edu/phil/faculty/burket
  Department of Philosophy                         Phone: 803-777-3733
  University of South Carolina                       Fax: 803-777-9178

           For a list of common LISTSERV User Commands see
	http://www.cla.sc.edu/phil/faculty/burket/listserv.html





------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 17:22:30 -0500
From: Tom Burke 
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Logic Naturalized?
Message-ID: 

At 7:09 AM -0500 3/6/98, Cathy Legg wrote:
>On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Howard Callaway wrote:
>
>> Here I'm inclined to re-emphasize the point that we get a better grasp
>> of the "descriptive" character of logic by relating it to its actual
>> and historical exemplifications in use. This is not to deny the pos-
>> sibility of revising logic, improving it with reference to new
>> applications and developments, of course. The idea of revising or
>> developing logic does plausibly rely on mathematics of one sort or
>> another. But it seems to me that merely mathematical exemplification
>> of forms of inference are less interesting than non-mathematical
>> applications. So, perhaps we could say that the typical result of
>> mathematical logic is to produce speculative extensions/revisions
>> of more or less standard logics. In fact most such speculative
>> extensions/revisions won't leave the pages of technical journals.
>
>I'd say we get "extensions" in logic, but we don't get "revisions", (if by
>revisions is meant changing one's mind about what is valid). In this it
>is like mathematics. Or maybe this is assimilating logic too much to
>deductive logic?

Sorry to keep harping on all of this, but it seems important to me that we
should recognize how it is that logic does get "revised", not just
extended.  For Aristotle, e.g., logic and ontology were inextricably bound
up with one another; whereas we have now revised this conception of what
logic is all about.  Logical positivists also had a view of logic and its
relationship to metaphysics and epistemology which have been revised in the
meantime.  Logicians do a bunch of stuff that gets interpreted and applied
in various ways; and these interpretations are, as history amply shows,
fallible. We no doubt still don't quite have it right.

Howard is talking about revision in a different sense, I think, which might
be better termed "modification" or something like that.  E.g., there are
lots of different modal logics, all of which are variations on a theme, but
no one of which is *the* standard of validity, or *the one true logic*.
Mathematical logicians just don't worry about that kind of thing anymore,
but explore different extensions/modifications of the logical systems they
are so far acquainted with.

--TB

 ______________________________________________________________________
  Tom Burke                  http://www.cla.sc.edu/phil/faculty/burket
  Department of Philosophy                         Phone: 803-777-3733
  University of South Carolina                       Fax: 803-777-9178

           For a list of common LISTSERV User Commands see
	http://www.cla.sc.edu/phil/faculty/burket/listserv.html





------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 16:58:36 -0600
From: joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com (ransdell, joseph m.)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Logic Naturalized : Truth
Message-ID: <3505C59C.2258A6AF[…]door.net>

Tom Burke wrote:
 
> Granted, the distinction between syntax and semantics did not really get
> clarified until the 1930s and 1940s.  Morris's subsequent nonsense (under
> Carnap's influence at Chicago) about a syntax/semantics/pragmatics
> modularizaton of sign systems was an unfortunate turn of events.  But I'm
> not sure that Peirce would not have profited from being more clear about
> the syntax/semantics  distinction in some guise or other.

In what way would it have profited him, Tom?   I've yet to understand
what use the distinction actually has.  This may just be a failure of
understanding on my part, but it seems that whenever it shows up with
any attempt at rigor it is always in formal talk which, however, never
seems to get translated into anything helpful outside of that sort of
very specialized context.  The analogous distinction in Peirce, as best
I can see, would be that between philosophical grammar, critical logic,
and philosophical rhetoric (or methodeutic).  I can't say that I have
any intuitively adequate understanding of how he is drawing THIS
distinction, but it might be worth trying to get clear on that now. 
But, in any case, no such distinction can be imported into the Peircean
framework that involves treating the sign relationship as dyadic, which
was the way the syntax/semantic distinction was originally drawn.  Are
you saying that the later work on this in the formalist tradition did
indeed involve defining it in a way that did not involve the usual
assumption that the sign relation is dyadic?  If it did I do not see how
Peirce could have made any use of it at all, much less profited from it. 

Joe R. 
-- 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Joseph Ransdell            or  <>
 Department of Philosophy, Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX 79409  
 Area Code  806:  742-3158 office    797-2592 home    742-0730 fax 
 ARISBE: Peirce Telecommunity website - http://members.door.net/arisbe
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 09:17:22 +1100
From: a.freadman[…]mailbox.uq.edu.au (A.  Freadman)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Tears From Heaven
Message-ID: <199803102317.JAA00566[…]yowie.cc.uq.edu.au>

In reply to Mark Weisz, Pat Coppock wrote:

>What's more, seen from here in the northern hemisphere, things falling in
>Australia are actually "falling" at an angle "upwards", aren't they?

No, Pat, because precisely, being "embodied", they can't be seen from the
northern hemisphere.  But on the other hand, seen from the southern
hemisphere, it does seem that people in the old world still imagine that we
walk on our heads!

The only thing that does change, in one or another hemisphere, is the way
we might want to draw the map of the world.  This, I'm sure I don't have to
point out, is a semiotic problem:  most "planispheres" are drawn from the
point of view of the northern hemisphere, putting us "at the bottom", just
as the geopolitical descriptions "east" and "west" are always given from
the position of the Nato alliance.  Both are, needless to say, relative to
the "speaking position". But the word "to fall" - because, as you say, it
is embodied, implies a vector given by the body in its normal orientation:
"in a direction towards the feet", and only "towards the head" if it starts
above that.

This says that "words", and maps, are "embodied", and "subjective" in this
sense, that they cannot divest themselves of their "position of enunciation
(or observation, or whatever); then the question about the law of gravity
has to be restated:  the position represented by "Sokal" would have it that
the law of gravity is not a representation; your response (I know that it
is a joke) says that it is.  But Peirce I am sure would want to argue that
the opposition between these two positions is false.  Things like the law
of gravity are the outcome of a whole range of representational
practices,which mediate, or articulate, each other's relativity. I guess
it's true to say that Einstein's contribution is to say exactly in so far
as what the outcome of these representations is governed by the point of
observation, and what difference it makes to know so.

from Anne (firmly grounded on her fundament)



------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 22:17:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Leon Surette 
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Absent Authors
Message-ID: <199803110317.WAA15447[…]juliet.its.uwo.ca>

Hello All,
        I apologize for this late response to a thread that died a natural
death a couple of weeks ago, but I think I owe my interlocutors the courtesy
of a response.
        I am too busy to keep up, and probably should have maintained
silence in the first place, but as some of the Peirceans know, orality,
chirography, and print are hobby horses of mine as an old (in both senses)
student of McLuhan's. 
        Joe Ransdell's response stressed that it is not the physical
instatiation of a communication that is decisive, but rather whether it has
the property of monologism or dialogism.
        My initial response would be that it is only the physical
instantiation of a communication that can properly be said to have
properties. My point being that the attributes of monologism or dialogism
can arguably be said to be consequences of the physical instantiation. To
put it more directly: dialogue can be ruled out in an oral communication
only by the assertion of authority. Children are to be seen and not heard.
Do not speak until spoken to. Shut up or I'll punch your lights out; and so
forth.
        Such blocking of dialogue is unnecessary with alphabetic -- or other
-- writing, since the interlocutors are typically not co-present. Of course,
dialogue is possible with writing -- as this list more than adequately
exemplifies.
        My original contribution spoke to the issue of a dialogue with the
dead -- something hardly imaginable (outside of mysticism & prior to voice
recording) without writing, and not possible even with it. This is so
because, on an understanding of dialogue shared by Joe and I (and no dooubt
others), it must be possible for the two interlocutors to dynamically
respond to one another as in "No, that's not what I meant;" or "Let me
expand on that;" and the like.
        However, Joe took issue with my ascription of a distaste for the
alphabet to Plato, and my assignment of that dislike to the tendency of
writing to suppress dialogue.
        Conceding that the observation had some merit, Joe wrote:
> 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.
        I don't see that there is any disagreement here. Nonetheless, I do
think the technology of communication has effects in the way I outlined
above. Indeed, Joe's description of the sophist memorizing a written speech
illustrates my point for me. In oral cultures people do not memorize texts,
since there is no such thing as a text to be memorized. Instead they learn
the techniques of the public speaker (rhetor), amongst which are formulaic
phrases or aphorisms which will get you from here to there -- just as print
created the cliche, the set phrase which compositors slotted into the frames
with a sound that the French compositors rendered as CLICHE, then verbalized
it as CLICHER, and the past tense, CLICHE gives English the substantive.
Oral cultures are far more replete with aphorisms than print cultures with
cliches.
        So the issue is not just about dialogue vs monologue, but also
novelty vs conventional. The latter will always dominate human discourse
(and, I believe, thought), but the alphabet permits far more novelty than
does orality simply because your interlocutor has no means of mulling over
what has been said until he gets it. Instead he has to interrupt -- or, as
happens not infrequently in our atavistic oral teaching environment -- tune out.
Joe says: 
> the difference between Socratic and sophistic discourse, [is] pointed out
in > one way and another many times in the dialogues: the former is
dialogical, the
> latter 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.
        I think this is much too strong. So far as I can make out, I am
thinking monologically as I write this. Certainly no one can interrupt me,
nor am I obliged to respond to anything Joe has written. I write a good deal
-- as most of us do. Perhaps I am just a bad only monologist, but when I
read another's discourse in my research, I feel that I am less engaged in
thinking than when I write myself. Is this just a peculiarity of my psyche
or do others not feel the same? 
        As a classroom teacher, I confess that I dominate the conversation
in my classrooms. I recognize that many of my colleagues eschew such a
practice, but I an incorrigible on this point. Nonetheless, students do on
occasion speak up, and sometimes cause me to think of things I would not
otherwise have thought of, and even to correct my train of thought, provide
information I did not have, and the like. This seems to me dialogic in an
non-controversial way, and one that is alien to print and writing simply
because it is really not possible for most of us to read and write at the
same time. I can write and listen to the radio, but I cannot write as I
read. Of course, it is difficult to listen to two speakers simultaneously.
        On the other hand, I concede that orality does not guarantee
dialogue. One needs only to tune in to an American talk show to demonstrate
that point. 
But I don't concede Joe's point:
> 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. 
        It is much easier to assert authority when the back talker is right
there in front of the exerciser of authority. Subversive talk is much safer
in written form. That's why kidnappers like to leave notes, instead of
knocking on the door of the parents to make their demands. Joe's point about
the beauty of the book seems beside the point. Indeed, silver tongued
orators are more likely to be successful in getting their message received
than are beautifully bound books.
        I make bold to suggest that Joe is collapsing two attributes into
one when he says 
> 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 two attributes are provisionality and authority. One may express
a view provisionally or dogmatically, but such behaviour is independent of
dialogic or monologic behaviour. There is not reason why a view cannot be
both provisional and monologic so far as I can see.
         Peter Skagestad -- who has thought more about these matters than I
-- mentioned 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."
        I am pleased to have Levinson's support for the importance of the
technology, but I am dubious about the claim that electronic text overcomes
those features. It is true that electronic text is far more volatile than
paper based text. And its dispersal is far more rapid -- permitting much
quicker response. But it still does not permit interruption, like face to
face communication. On the other hand, one can't get punched in the nose either.
        Peter himself pointed out other failures of match between electronic
text and speech. However, he omits the salient one that speech cannot be
reclaimed or revised, but only repeated or altered. 
        Of course, I am speaking of face to face speech, not recorded
speech. I have already gone on too long, or I would expatiate on the
dialogic or monologic nature of meetings where minutes are taken and the
like. Think of court room transcripts. Here face to face discourse takes
place in a highly authoritarian atmosphere. But is it monologic?
        There were other responses that I must respond to, but I have
already gone on far too long.

 
Leon Surette					Home: 519-681-7787
Dept. of English				Fax:   519-661-3776
The University of Western Ontario		Email: lsurette[…]julian.uwo.ca
London, Ontario
N6A 3K7


------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 00:13:25 -0500
From: Tom Burke 
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Logic Naturalized : Truth
Message-ID: 

At 6:02 PM -0500 3/10/98, ransdell, joseph m. wrote:
>Tom Burke wrote:
>
>> Granted, the distinction between syntax and semantics did not really get
>> clarified until the 1930s and 1940s.  Morris's subsequent nonsense (under
>> Carnap's influence at Chicago) about a syntax/semantics/pragmatics
>> modularizaton of sign systems was an unfortunate turn of events.  But I'm
>> not sure that Peirce would not have profited from being more clear about
>> the syntax/semantics  distinction in some guise or other.
>
>In what way would it have profited him, Tom?   I've yet to understand
>what use the distinction actually has.  This may just be a failure of
>understanding on my part, but it seems that whenever it shows up with
>any attempt at rigor it is always in formal talk which, however, never
>seems to get translated into anything helpful outside of that sort of
>very specialized context.  The analogous distinction in Peirce, as best
>I can see, would be that between philosophical grammar, critical logic,
>and philosophical rhetoric (or methodeutic).  I can't say that I have
>any intuitively adequate understanding of how he is drawing THIS
>distinction, but it might be worth trying to get clear on that now.
>But, in any case, no such distinction can be imported into the Peircean
>framework that involves treating the sign relationship as dyadic, which
>was the way the syntax/semantic distinction was originally drawn.  Are
>you saying that the later work on this in the formalist tradition did
>indeed involve defining it in a way that did not involve the usual
>assumption that the sign relation is dyadic?  If it did I do not see how
>Peirce could have made any use of it at all, much less profited from it.

Well, heck, I don't really know that getting clear on such a distinction
would have helped matters, though (looking back on it) it might be a lot
easier to relate what Peirce was doing to what was going on with logic in
the middle part of the 20th century -- or rather, he might have pioneered
even more of it than he did -- if he would have considered some kind of
syntax/semantics distinction.  This is just a bit of speculation.

With regard to speculative grammar, critic (critical logic), and
methodeutic (speculative rhetoric) -- perhaps each of these three branches
of Peircean logic has both syntactic and semantic aspects which Peirce did
not distinguish clearly -- but *not* that this is the only new distinction
that could be made, nor that this suggestion is any such thing as to claim
that "the sign relation is [merely] dyadic".  Rather, as rich as logic is
for Peirce, it might have been richer still.

Here are a couple of passages from CP:

	CP1:192. Logic is the theory of self-controlled, or deliberate,
  thought; and as such, must appeal to ethics for its principles. It also
  depends upon phenomenology and upon mathematics. All thought being
  performed by means of signs, logic may be regarded as the science of the
  general laws of signs. It has three branches: 1, Speculative Grammar, or
  the general theory of the nature and meanings of signs, whether they be
  icons, indices, or symbols; 2, Critic, which classifies arguments and
  determines the validity and degree of force of each kind; 3, Methodeutic,
  which studies the methods that ought to be pursued in the investigation,
  in the exposition, and in the application of truth. Each division depends
  on that which precedes it.

	CP2:93. Logic is the science of the general necessary laws of Signs
  and especially of Symbols. As such, it has three departments. Obsistent
  logic, logic in the narrow sense, or Critical Logic, is the theory of the
  general conditions of the reference of Symbols and other Signs to their
  professed Objects, that is, it is the theory of the conditions of truth.
  Originalian logic, or Speculative Grammar, is the doctrine of the general
  conditions of symbols and other signs having the significant character. It
  is this department of general logic with which we are, at this moment,
  occupying ourselves. Transuasional logic, which I term Speculative
  Rhetoric, is substantially what goes by the name of methodology, or
  better, of methodeutic. It is the doctrine of the general conditions of
  the reference of Symbols and other Signs to the Interpretants which they
  aim to determine. . . .

It's not clear to me that these two brief descriptions of the three
branches of logic are saying the same thing.  But anyway, it seems to me
like speculative grammar solely by itself encompasses and otherwise goes
beyond the simple syntax/semantics focus of contemporary logic.  I'm all in
favor of Peirce's broader conception of logic, and it can all be preserved
for all I know.  But there's nothing to say this broader conception cannot
be filled out a bit and otherwise informed by contemporary developments.
Goedel's incompleteness results establish that syntax and semantics (in a
contemporary sense of these terms) are not the same thing.  So far as I can
tell, Peirce never even considered the question.  Is this because it is
irrelevant or fallacious?  Or did Peirce perhaps not have the last word on
what logic is all about -- as if there might be some important and even
basic things that he missed?  The latter possibility ought to be seriously
considered in the process of reconciling Peircean logic with contemporary
logic.  Peirce scholarship has nothing to lose and everything to gain no
matter how that turns out.

--TB

 ______________________________________________________________________
  Tom Burke                  http://www.cla.sc.edu/phil/faculty/burket
  Department of Philosophy                         Phone: 803-777-3733
  University of South Carolina                       Fax: 803-777-9178

           For a list of common LISTSERV User Commands see
	http://www.cla.sc.edu/phil/faculty/burket/listserv.html





------------------------------

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 06:24:33 +0000
From: Joseph Ransdell 
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Logic Naturalized : Truth
Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.19980311062433.110f73e0[…]pop.ttu.edu>

Tom Burke says:

>  I'm all in
>favor of Peirce's broader conception of logic, and it can all be preserved
>for all I know.  But there's nothing to say this broader conception cannot
>be filled out a bit and otherwise informed by contemporary developments.

In contrast to the view I supposedly hold, that it can't be filled out or
otherwise informed by contemporary developments?   I don't recall saying
anything to that effect.  I do recall saying something to the effect that I
do not see how his view can accommodate the syntax-semantics distinction
unless the people who draw that distinction are not assuming the dyadic
conception of a sign, as was assumed in the Carnap-Morris tradition that
was restated in hundreds of logic texts for several decades thereafter.
You seem to be claiming that their conception was somehow left behind in
the contemporary understanding of the distinction.  I don't dispute that,
though I was previously unaware of it but I am raising the question of what
the contemporary conception is that makes it importantly different from
that of Carnap and Morris.  

>Goedel's incompleteness results establish that syntax and semantics (in a
>contemporary sense of these terms) are not the same thing. 

Does Goedel himself use the syntax/semantics distinction?  I mean
explicitly? Or is this rather the usual way of reconstructing his view by
contemporary formalists?  That could be very important. I once wasted many
months reconstructing Alan Turing's conceptions in his 1936-37 paper on
number in such a way as to show that there was no need for him to assume
the syntax-semantics distinction, only to discover that there was no need
for me to disentangle it from his thought since Turing himself made no use
of it to begin with, my mistake being to trust the standard accounts of
what he does in that paper -- the paper from which the "Turing machine"
conception arises -- by the logicians, chiefly Kleene's, which has been the
most influential.  

> So far as I can
>tell, Peirce never even considered the question.  Is this because it is
>irrelevant or fallacious?  Or did Peirce perhaps not have the last word on
>what logic is all about -- as if there might be some important and even
>basic things that he missed? 

My view being, of course, that he did have the last word on logic and there
could be nothing important or basic that he missed.

> The latter possibility ought to be seriously
>considered in the process of reconciling Peircean logic with contemporary
>logic.  Peirce scholarship has nothing to lose and everything to gain no
>matter how that turns out.

I could probably be persuaded from my dogmatism, but I don't think the main
point I was trying to make has been considered in what you say, namely,
that Peirce cannot be brought "up to date" if that means interjecting into
his theory the conception of a sign which was at one time, at least, a part
of the basis for the distinction in question. 

Joe Ransdell

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph Ransdell - joseph.ransdell[…]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)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Last modified March 13, 1998 — J.R.
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