tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post7392808039530740757..comments2023-10-17T08:36:53.560-04:00Comments on The Peirce Blog: What is meant by 'in the mind'? (part 3)Ben Udellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18361083931729525642noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-27901730772742928332009-04-25T10:46:00.000-04:002009-04-25T10:46:00.000-04:00Thanks for these comments, Clark, they help to bri...Thanks for these comments, Clark, they help to bring more perspective to these questions. I've read little of Heidegger (just <I>Being and Time</I>) and even less of Kant, so the main upshot of all this for me is to revise my reading of Peirce, which is under constant revision – every time i read something of his, it alters my understanding of what i've read previously. I'm also touched by the possibility that Peirce's reading of Kant might have also been under revision like that, despite his very intensive study of the <I>Critic of Pure Reason</I> very early in life. (Though i wouldn't bet that he changed his mind about Kant as much as i keep changing my mind about Peirce.) Fallibilism applies just as much to reading as it does to theorizing.gnoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15331512427658877043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-28938622713496798002009-04-24T12:56:00.000-04:002009-04-24T12:56:00.000-04:00An other quick thought. Kant says in Opus Postunu...An other quick thought. Kant says in <I>Opus Postunum</I> (653) "...the difference between the concept of a thing in itself and the appearance is not objective but merely subjective. The thing in itself is not an other Object, but is rather an other aspect of the representation of the same Object." Traditionally this is taken to be the difference between the finite and infinite aspects of the object. Something Peirce himself clearly thought about with his notion of continuity. <br /><br />Peirce <I>might</I> here be taken to be acknowledging that the thing in itself is experienced but simply not cognitized due to the finite nature of human judgment or representations. That is playing with the multiple senses of experience. The idealist's error (and this is brought up by Dewey) is in thinking experience consists only of knowledge.Clark Goblehttp://www.libertypages.com/cgw/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-38679434419001352282009-04-24T12:30:00.000-04:002009-04-24T12:30:00.000-04:00Peirce here sounds very Heideggarian. There was a...Peirce here sounds very Heideggarian. There was a whole debate about this in Heidegger. (There was a debate over whether Heidegger was an idealist or traditional realist - much like there was about Peirce and Dewey) Heidegger's view was roughly that the thing-in-itself made no sense as things always reveal themselves as something. Yet there was also a hidden or withdrawn aspect to the thing. That is we are always experiencing the thing but within experience the thing always appears as something. And the real is that appearance as something.<br /><br />I'm not suggesting we turn to Heidegger here. Just that there seems a similar move. Reality is the end of cognition rather than the source. Yet the source is related to that end reality. (Through secondness as action or resistance for instance) Like Ben said, I think Peirce sees Kant as "almost there." Peirce is saying that if we think through Kant we'll arrive at Peirce's position rather than the orthodox Kantian position. (A move Heidegger interestingly makes explicitly, much to the consternation of historians of philosophy.)Clark Goblehttp://www.libertypages.com/cgw/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-41123250279020353192009-04-20T11:36:00.000-04:002009-04-20T11:36:00.000-04:00It seems to me that Peirce later keeps his 1871 vi...It seems to me that Peirce later keeps his 1871 view of realism ("In short, it was to regard the reality as the normal product of mental action, and not as the incognizable cause of it") consistent with his view that the real is independent of our thoughts about it, by his distinction between particular minds or particular comminds, which do not determine reality, and mind in general, which does.<br /><br />It would be good to know where Kant says that we have direct experience of things in themselves, as Peirce seems to be saying, otherwise Gene is quite right and Peirce is saying that Kant is <I>virtually</I> a realist insofar as his philosophy is poised, tottering ready to become realism in consequence of an inevitable recognition of the secondness which continually jabs us - yet that Kant failed to recognize such consequences.<br /><br />Just to add to the mix, here's Peirce in <A HREF="http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-07.htm" REL="nofollow">Memoir 21</A>, Draft D - MS L75.259-262 (the Carnegie Application), 1902:<br /><br />"[....] But granting that he in this way proves the truth of an a priori proposition, it follows that antecedently to this proof it was an idle hypothesis, and that its only support is a purely experiential argument. But that is pure positivism; and Kant's doctrine really seems to be nothing but nominalistic sensualism so disguised that it does not recognize itself. Of course, it may be said that Kant only maintains the concepts, not the judgments, to be a priori. In the first place, this is directly contrary to Kant's own opinions. In the next place, universality and necessity are characters of propositions, not of terms. In the third place, Hume himself, even as Kant misrepresents him, [and] much more [i.e., and all the more] in his true character, would have been ready to admit that some forms of thought arise from the nature of mind. Some persons who have believed themselves to be Kantians hold that as soon as a proposition is shown to be a priori, it is beyond all criticism. That is utterly contrary to the spirit of Kant. [....]"Ben Udellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18361083931729525642noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-56470781938720092332009-04-20T09:24:00.000-04:002009-04-20T09:24:00.000-04:00Hello Gene –
The way i read this, Peirce is arti...Hello Gene – <br /><br />The way i read this, Peirce is articulating what he takes to be Kant's ‘third moment’: that we DO have direct experience of things in themselves, and therefore ‘the metaphysical conceptions’ DO ‘apply to things in themselves.’ (He uses a double negative to say this, as he often does in his logical discourse.) In other words, we are capable of knowing things as they really exist outside of our minds. I'm no expert in the field, but i believe Kant is often read as denying this; so Peirce is swimming against the current here, in saying that Kant didn't make <B>that</B> mistake. (He says in this passage that Kant made mistakes, but not what they were.)<br /><br />This much seems clear to me – according to Peirce, Kant denies that the thing-in-itself is incognizable. What's not clear is how this denial is related to the nominalism which Peirce ascribes to Kant elsewhere; and whether Peirce held this same view of Kant back in 1871 when he wrote that ‘what Kant called his Copernican step was precisely the passage from the nominalistic to the realistic view of reality.’ Does all this have something to do with Peirce's distinction between the <I>real</I> and the <I>external</I>? I'm not sure, but this question seems to lie right on the interface between Peirce's logic and his metaphysics.<br /><br />gnoxgnoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15331512427658877043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564160362079542584.post-74689042782464457482009-04-19T14:43:00.000-04:002009-04-19T14:43:00.000-04:00Peirce: "This third moment consists in the flat de...Peirce: "This third moment consists in the flat denial that the metaphysical conceptions do not apply to things in themselves. Kant never said that. What he said is that these conceptions do not apply beyond the limits of possible experience. But we have direct experience of things in themselves..."<br /><br />So is Peirce claiming that Kant was right to say “that these conceptions do not apply beyond the limits of possible experience” but wrong in not seeing that “we have direct experience of things in themselves,” that is, direct experience of things in themselves is within possible experience? Hence, in Peirce’s words, “Kant failed to work out all the consequences of this third moment of thought and considerable retractions are called for, accordingly, from some of the positions of his Transcendental Dialectic.” <br /><br />GeneEugene Haltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17183341259416509382noreply@blogger.com