ONT 10 Jul 2002 -B- Reflective Logic
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Note 6
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Subj: Intentional Orders
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 23:23:02 -0400
MK = Mary Keeler
MK: Now, Jon, what does Peirce say, along these lines,
about "third intentions"? I will eventually get
my Welby book, just wonder what can be said of
3rd intentions with regard to 2nd? --MK
Here is an old idea of mine that comes to mind in this connection.
I have no idea whether it has anything to do with what Peirce,
much less Aquinas, intended their numerous intentions to mean.
Suppose that you are running through a sequence of thoughts,
when you spontaneously reflect on the circumstance that you
have been thinking in a circle for quite some time running,
and in your mind's eye you form the following image of the
course of your thoughts -- I use a 4-cycle for a circle:
| o-------->o
| ^ |
| | |
| | |
| | v
| o<--------o
But, of course, this image has already been rendered
passé, obsolete, incomplete, and even deceptive to a
degree, in the very moment that you mark by means of
its constellation, and by the very act of reflection
that engenders it, since this reflection constitutes
a novel moment of thought, off the circle of thought
that your former way of thinking traced and retraced,
and so you turn to amending the image to reflect the
perspective that you have gained through this primal
moment of reflection, and this will be a bit like so:
| o-------->o
| ^ |
| | |
| | |
| | v
| o<---o----o
| |
| |
| |
| v
| o = "I am being loopy"
This is the result of the first reflection,
what you may well call a retrospective one.
But, of course, the image has already been rendered --
iconoclast that you can now see you are -- a stream
of consciousness under the bridge, as your critical
awareness of being loopy up until now makes you far
less loopy than you had heretofore been, and so you
feel almost compulsively drawn to revise your image
of your self and your thought's own form of conduct,
but this time you have gained a sufficient esthetic
distance from the more habitual rote of the pattern
that you can foresee where the way of things may be
headed, and so you can draw up the new account in a
way that reflects what will be true when it is said
and done. And this picture will look a bit like so:
| o-------->o
| ^ |
| | |
| | |
| | v
| o<---o----o
| |
| |
| |
| v
| o = "I am being loopy"
| |
| |
| |
| v
| o = "I will handle it"
This is the outcome of the second reflection,
what you might well call an anticipatory one,
and I think that it enjoys a form of closure.
Hope you enjoyed my little tale ...
Jon Awbrey
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