ONT Re: Inquiry Into Inquiry
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Douglas McDavid wrote:
>
> Jon --
>
> << Big snip >>
>
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> | This paper is based upon the theory already established,
> | that the function of conceptions is to reduce the manifold
> | of sensuous impressions to unity, and that the validity of
> | a conception consists in the impossibility of reducing the
> | content of consciousness to unity without the introduction
> | of it.
> |
> | Charles Sanders Peirce, "On a New List of Categories", 14 May 1867,
> | In 'Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Vol. 2,
> | 1867-1871', Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1984, page 49,
> | Customarily cited as (CE 2, 49). Cf. 'Collected Papers', CP 1.545.
>
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> << Little snip >>
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> I don't want to put this on the list because
> I don't want to distract you or them. But ...
>
> "reducing the content of consciousness to unity"
>
> Query: What is this, that anyone would want to do it? I've lived a long,
> information- and experience-filled 54 years, and I have never felt a need
> or desire to> reduce the content of consciousness to unity. I don't have
> a clue as to what it could possibly mean. I've come across this in my
> desultory explorations of CSP, and it seems that this was a major item
> on the research agenda of the day.
>
> Reduction to unity? Sorry, I don't get it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Doug
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Doug,
Not to worry about distracting the distraught,
and the ONTarion Sublist is so far an idyllic
enough place to talk about any old thing, far
from the hue, the cry, and the madding crowd.
The phrase you pick is the one where I said
that Peirce echoes Kant, and to get what it
means you only have to call up to your mind
a typical moment when inquiry begins, where
before there is sheer chaos, confusion, and
the booming buzzing mutter of the 10^4 bits,
a state so annoising and irritating that no
body but no body can help to want to remote
the self from it, just like Lake Co-Product,
A Nice Place To Be From. To get outta here
requires an abductive seizure of the moment,
a grasp of the thistle, a leap of the fates,
that will bring a Form to constellation and
precipitation in the psyche of the affected
agent. Thus the "reduction of the manifold
of sensuous impressions to a unity" is just
an act that you must persist in per-forming
through every moment of your waking or even
dreaming existence, to wit, to conceit some
concept that begriffs the Many into the One.
Or Sum Ding Like That ...
Jon Awbrey
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