SUO: RE: Thirdness vs Local Inconsistencies; was Ontology, Epistemology, Semiotics
Richard:
I applaud your attempt to clarify some of these Peircean concepts, and
especially your way of going about it. What I mean by that latter point is
that, having read at least a good handful of the passages from Peirce that
Jon has provided us with, I have concluded that Peirce is like Whitehead (in
whose metaphysics I was deeply immersed for about two years) in this
respect, that both systems (in the grand system-building sense of the word
used of such philosophies as those of Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and Hegel)
are hermeneutic. By "hermeneutic", I mean that they tend to explain one
technical expression in terms of other technical expressions, producing a
semantic web of technical expressions that are tightly knit to one another,
but only loosely connected (relatively speaking) to either ordinary language
or to the technical lingua franca of the current philosophical community.
"So much the worse for the current philosophical community", I can hear Jon
(and John) saying. But the point is that systems of thought which are
strongly hermeneutic are, sociologically speaking, like systems of religious
belief. The cost of entry to the belief system is high (because of (a) the
greater emphasis on the internal linkages among the technical terms of the
system, and (b) the lesser emphasis on linkages to the containing language
(ordinary language, the language of current academic philosophy, etc)). But
once you've paid the entry fee and crossed the barrier, i.e. once you have
grokked the system and not only interpret the world in its terms, but also
directly experience the world in its terms, then provided that the system is
a good one (internally consistent, broad range of application, and "rich"
(in a sense I would like to elaborate on someday, having to do with the
subjective sense that in explaining one particular thing, one is also
providing strong support for the system's explanations of many other
particular things)), as I am sure Peirce's is, one becomes more than a
scholar familiar with the system, or even a researcher hanging it on his
conceptual toolbelt. One becomes a true believer.
Because true believers, as a psycho-semantic phenomenon, actually experience
the world in terms of their chosen system, and do not merely believe that
the system is a good interpretation of experience the "direct reports" of
which would be couched in extra-theoretic language, they become good
witnesses but bad advocates, like those missionaries who sometimes come
knocking on our doors. One is impressed by the passion, often impressed
enough to look into what it is that so passionately possesses them. They are
witnesses to the power of their faith, of those particular "memes" (to
borrow a term originated by Richard Dawkins, which is now a field of study
with its own journals) that have "infected" them.
But to be good advocates, they must be able to describe the experiences we
are all trying to account for in terms comprehensible to their audience,
i.e. to those not yet converted, i.e. to the rest of us. They must make
their systems less hermeneutic, not by weakening the internal semantic
connections which make the system so internally strong, but by adding
semantic links which cross the system's boundaries and relate
inter-theoretic terms and assertions to extra-theoretic ones.
This is exactly what you are trying to do in your recent exchanges with Jon,
IMHO. It's what I've tried to do in some exchanges with Jon vis-a-vis Quine
and Peirce. When we get the Peirceans among us out of their true believer
"witness" mode, and into their professional philosophical/logical/computer
scientistical mode, we all benefit. We get them to use their hard-won "deep
structure" familiarity with Peirce's system to lower the cost of entry for
the rest of us.
I believe there is gold in them thar Peircean hills (I don't quibble at
mixing metaphors, as you can see), and with Jon and John's help, I expect to
find a few nuggets. You are helping them help us.
So, thanks.
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of
Richard Cooper
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 4:57 PM
To: cg@cs.uah.edu; Jon Awbrey; SUO; John F. Sowa
Cc: Nicola Guarino
Subject: SUO: Thirdness vs Local Inconsistencies; was Ontology,
Epistemology, Semiotics
It seems to me that the Thirdness concept of
peirceans, belief systems in CS, multiple
worlds in FOL, and modal truths in temporal
logic have something in common. Perhaps we
are treading on each other's buttons without
adding useful energy to the discussion.
In representing all of these concepts, can't
we separate any application into
1) Those terminal assertions and rules that relate
to the subject matter as a set of consistent logical
knowlege bases only,
2) Those nonterminal assertions and rules that
relate what some agent believes about 1) or 2),
in its own set of consistent kbs,
3) Those nonterminal assertions and rules that
relate possible hypotheses about 1) and 2) and 3)
in yet a third level of consistent kbs?
So these three levels of knowledge can be further
decomposed into how much of 1) is referenced by
2) and 3), and how much of 2) is referenced by
3), and how much of 3) is referenced by 3). It
seems to me that the Peirceans, believers,
multiple worlders and concurrentists can then use
the same vocabulary in any discussions we may
have.
If this satisfies all intuitions of all parties,
it sure makes things clearer to me. But if I'm
missing some significant issues with this tripartite
decomposition, please exlain what's missing.
Thanks,
Rich