SUO: Re: CG: Re: Peirce and Whitehead
Nicola,
Before claiming to understand Whitehead, you must read
what Whitehead wrote. Sherburne is merely a summary of
one of Whitehead's books (Process and Reality). Its only
purpose is to lead you to relevant passages in P & N.
Before drawing any conclusions, you must read the original,
and for further clarifications, you should turn to other
writings by Peirce, especially his immediately following
book, Adventures of Ideas.
I first read Whitehead's works in the early 1960s, and I spent
a great deal more time with them in the 1990s. I don't believe
that you can have formed a clear idea of what Whitehead wrote
from Sherburne's summary. Nor do I believe that you can have
formed a clear idea of Peirce's work from my brief summary.
My writing in Ch. 2, like Sherburne's writing in his summary,
is intended to point the reader to relevant parts of the
original.
It is fair for you to claim that my brief summary was not
clear. But I think that you have seriously misinterpreted
the passage I quoted from Adventures of Ideas (in my previous
note) as well as what you read from Sherburne's summary.
>... After reading your
>note, my doubts are still there: a nexus does not seem to me as a
>"mediating entity", but rather the result of such mediation.
No. The nexus includes many "actual occasions" and the
prehensions that link them. That is a paradigm case of
what Peirce discusses as Thirdness. Please reread W's
discussion of nexus. As an example, a nexus can be an
arbitrarily large "society" -- that is the ultimate mediator.
>On the other hand, it is clear it is the prehension that mediates...
Whitehead clearly states that a prehension is a dyadic relation
of a subject and an object. That is as clear an example of
Secondness as you can get.
>Of course the whole matter is complicated, but the problem is that
>neither your book nor your further comments help to get a coherent
>picture of it.
I'm sorry. I tried to be as clear as I could in about 6 pages,
since most people would not tolerate much more than that. If
anyone is not convinced, they should look at the original.
You have a right to say that my presentation was not clear,
but you don't have a right to say that your interpretation
based on a summary by a third party is more accurate.
I did use Sherburne's summary as a useful crossindex to
Whitehead, but I also read the originals -- multiple times.
John