Re: [ FWD:Fwd: SUO: Re: Ontology ]
Robert, I have no qualms about your statement below. My concern throughout
this discussion has been to bring some balance to it, and other perspective.
To counter John's over-the-top rhetoric about Russell, and his
tendentiousness and error.
As I remarked earlier, I think it is fairly widely acknowledged that Peirce
made important contributions, although their importance has been more
recognized since his death than before. Historically, Peirce's work played a
lesser role in the development of logic; fans of Peirce may wish otherwise,
but that it did not occupy center stage I think is uncontroversial --
otherwise, what's the beef? It is equally undeniable that his work has had
some recognition all along -- including by Russell, despite what John has
claimed. And certainly the Kneales spend some time on Peirce, mostly in
commendation, but with their own criticisms, too. (Details may always be
argued, but they should be fairly argued, I hope).
At a Stanford seminar last year -- as another, recent example -- he came up
in discussion, and there was recognition of Peirce's logical work and its
historical interest.
His philosophy is much more debatable, and pragmatism (of various stripes)
has somewhat dwindled in popularity since its heyday in America, although of
course it still has important adherents and offshoots in the Academy; I
recall that one of my undergraduate professors was a Peirce scholar.
Whether there is any general resurgence of pragmatism again will be up to
its fans, I suppose. Neither bad argument nor ill-will is likely to help.
Unfortunately, I haven't time at the moment to participate any more fully
than this. More anon.
Jay
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert E. Kent" <rekent@ontologos.org>
To: "Cathy Legg" <cathy.legg@xmsg.com>
Cc: "SUO" <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>; "John F. Sowa"
<sowa@bestweb.net>; "Jay Halcomb" <jhalcomb8@attbi.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 09:45
Subject: Re: [ FWD:Fwd: SUO: Re: Ontology ]
> Cathy, Jay, John,
>
> > > "Working on some suggestions of De Morgan, Perice
> > > explored this new field,
> > > and shortly after the publication of the
> > > Begriffschrift he even produced
> > > independently a doctrine of functions with a
> > > notation adequate for
> > > expressing all the principles formulated by Frege;
> > > but he never reduced his
> > > thoughts to a system nor set out a number of basic
> > > principles like those
> > > given [by Frege]. (P. 510, Kneale and Kneale, The
> > > Development of Logic)
> >
> > Again, the "New Elements of Mathematics" gives the lie to this
statement.
> Check out Peirce's Existential Graphs, for instance.
>
> I am neither a philosopher, a historian, nor a Peirce scholar, but just a
> humble category-theorist. But as part of my project in the IFF to slowly
> work through a rigorous and very modular axiomatization for unsorted first
> order logic (FOL) [see the message
> http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/suo/email/msg12161.html] I am currently
> engaged with the theory of existential graphs, and have found it to be a
> very elegant approach to predicate logic. This, together with my previous
> comments [see the message
> http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/suo/email/msg07908.html], supports the view
> that Peirce had the intuitions of a first-rate mathematician.
>
> Robert E. Kent
> rekent@ontologos.org
>
>
>