[Inquiry] Re: Actual, Existent, Real -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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AER.  Discussion Note 2

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GR = Gary Richmond
JA = Jon Awbrey

Re: AER-DIS 1.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-February/002368.html
In: AER-DIS.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-February/thread.html#2368

JA: [At one time] I was under the blithe impression that some aspects of
    Peirce's system were just so well understood and beyond controversy
    that it would be possible to start applying and extending them to
    clarify some problematic regions that had so far resisted the
    analyses of dyadic and dichotomous methods.

GR: Even until recently I had been imagining that there were at least "some aspects of
    Peirce's system ... well understood and beyond controversy", but apparently even
    something as basic and central as his category theory is still "up for grabs".
    This is depressing for anyone who wants "to start applying and extending [his
    triadic and trichotomic methods] to clarify some problematic regions that
    [have] so far resisted the analyses of dyadic and dichotomous methods".
    (So I've just quoted you twice in succession because I think your
    words bear repeating, Jon.)

GR: There are so many places where Peirce addresses the issue, for example, of
    what quality as (existential) firstness "is" that the excerpt (pasted below
    my signature) was chosen almost at random.  Also, in his several replies to
    the "necessitarians" and nominalists, mechanists, and materialists, the
    "actualists" == secondists == the "something has to exist to be real[ists]",
    Peirce argues that such dyadic thinking proves inadequate under close scrutiny.
    I have always found that to be so.  Others are not convinced and apparently
    would prefer to go over these matters endlessly.  Perhaps that is an arguable
    view of what philosophy is and ought to be;  but Peirce, I believe, had a more
    evolutionary understanding of it.

GR: I sometimes wonder how many of these "arguments to the necessitarians" need be
    repeated on the list, and further wonder what the ultimate point is of those who,
    for example, see firstness "as a sort of metaphysical Cheshire cat's grin" and
    existence as necessary and sufficient as a definition of reality (whereas Peirce
    would say that while secondness is "predominant" in reality, that it is certainly
    not sufficient, etc).  Especially, what is their ulterior motive?  Are they trying
    to prove that Peirce is fundamentally wrong in his basic trichotomic view of the
    cosmos -- upon which the whole of his architectonic philosophy rests?  I hope rather
    that it's the pursuit of truth.  However, their "strong  personal feeling" that they
    are right and that Peirce is wrong do not impress a pragmatist, while Peirce's own
    arguments meet pragmatic criteria, imho.

Hmmmm, actually I think the Cheshire Cat's grin is a pretty good image of firstness,
especially since in all likelihood it was Lutwidge's way to shine on infinitesimals
and definitions by way of limits as the "jests of departed kitties".  Fun, Fun, Fun.

Jon Awbrey

Incidental Musement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire_cat

GR, quoting CSP:

CP 1.422.  What, then, is a quality?

    Before answering this, it will be well to say what it is not. It is 
not anything which is dependent, in its being, upon mind, whether in the 
form of sense or in that of thought. Nor is it dependent, in its being, 
upon the fact that some material thing possesses it. That quality is 
dependent upon sense is the great error of the conceptualists. That it 
is dependent upon the subject in which it is realized is the great error 
of all the nominalistic schools. A quality is a mere abstract 
potentiality; and the error of those schools lies in holding that the 
potential, or possible, is nothing but what the actual makes it to be. 
It is the error of maintaining that the whole alone is something, and 
its components, however essential to it, are nothing. The refutation of 
the position consists in showing that nobody does, or can, in the light 
of good sense, consistently retain it. The moment the fusillade of 
controversy ceases they repose on other conceptions. First, that the 
quality of red depends on anybody actually seeing it, so that red things 
are no longer red in the dark, is a denial of common sense. I ask the 
conceptualist, do you really mean to say that in the dark it is no 
longer true that red bodies are capable of transmitting the light at the 
lower end of the spectrum? Do you mean to say that a piece of iron not 
actually under pressure has lost its power of resisting pressure? If so, 
you must either hold that those bodies under the circumstances supposed 
assume the opposite properties, or you must hold that they become 
indeterminate in those respects. If you hold that the red body in the 
dark acquires a power of absorbing the long waves of the spectrum, and 
that the iron acquires a power of condensation under small pressure, 
then, while you adopt an opinion without any facts to support it, you 
still admit that qualities exist while they are not actually perceived 
-- only you transfer this belief to qualities which there is no ground 
for believing in. If, however, you hold that the bodies become 
indeterminate in regard to the qualities they are not actually perceived 
to possess, then, since this is the case at any moment in regard to the 
vast majority of the qualities of all bodies, you must hold that 
generals exist. In other words, it is concrete things you do not believe 
in; qualities, that is, generals -- which is another word for the same 
thing -- you not only believe in but believe that they alone compose the 
universe. Consistency, therefore, obliges you to say that the red body 
is red (or has some color) in the dark, and that the hard body has some 
degree of hardness when nothing is pressing upon it. If you attempt to 
escape the refutation by a distinction between qualities that are real, 
namely the mechanical qualities, and qualities that are not real, 
sensible qualities, you may be left there, because you have granted the 
essential point. At the same time, every modern psychologist will 
pronounce your distinction untenable. You forget perhaps that a realist 
fully admits that a sense-quality is only a possibility of sensation; 
but he thinks a possibility remains possible when it is not actual. The 
sensation is requisite for its apprehension; but no sensation nor 
sense-faculty is requisite for the possibility which is the being of the 
quality. Let us not put the cart before the horse, nor the evolved 
actuality before the possibility as if the latter involved what it only 
evolves. A similar answer may be made to the other nominalists. It is 
impossible to hold consistently that a quality only exists when it 
actually inheres in a body. If that were so, nothing but individual 
facts would be true. Laws would be fictions; and, in fact, the 
nominalist does object to the word "law," and prefers "uniformity" to 
express his conviction that so far as the law expresses what only might 
happen, but does not, it is nugatory. If, however, no law subsists other 
than an expression of actual facts, the future is entirely indeterminate 
and so is general to the highest degree. Indeed, nothing would exist but 
the instantaneous state; whereas it is easy to show that if we are going 
to be so free in calling elements fictions an instant is the first thing 
to be called fictitious. But I confess I do not take pains accurately to 
answer a doctrine so monstrous, and just at present out of vogue.

CP 1.423.  So much for what quality is not. Now what is it? We do not 
care what meaning the usages of language may attach to the word. We have 
already seen clearly that the elements of phenomena are of three 
categories, quality, fact, and thought. The question we have to consider 
is how quality shall be defined so as to preserve the truth of that 
division. In order to ascertain this, we must consider how qualities are 
apprehended and from what point of view they become emphatic in thought, 
and note what it is that will and must be revealed in that mode of 
apprehension.

CP 1.424.  There is a point of view from which the whole universe of 
phenomena appears to be made up of nothing but sensible qualities. What 
is that point of view? It is that in which we attend to each part as it 
appears in itself, in its own suchness, while we disregard the 
connections. Red, sour, toothache are each sui generis and 
indescribable. In themselves, that is all there is to be said about 
them. Imagine at once a toothache, a splitting headache, a jammed 
finger, a corn on the foot, a burn, and a colic, not necessarily as 
existing at once -- leave that vague -- and attend not to the parts of 
the imagination but to the resultant impression. That will give an idea 
of a general quality of pain. We see that the idea of a quality is the 
idea of a phenomenon or partial phenomenon considered as a monad, 
without reference to its parts or components and without reference to 
anything else. We must not consider whether it exists, or is only 
imaginary, because existence depends on its subject having a place in 
the general system of the universe. An element separated from everything 
else and in no world but itself, may be said, when we come to reflect 
upon its isolation, to be merely potential. But we must not even attend 
to any determinate absence of other things; we are to consider the total 
as a unit. We may term this aspect of a phenomenon the monadic aspect of 
it. The quality is what presents itself in the monadic aspect.

CP 1.425.  The phenomenon may be ever so complex and heterogeneous. That 
circumstance will make no particular difference in the quality. It will 
make it more general. But one quality is in itself, in its monadic 
aspect, no more general than another. The resultant effect has no parts. 
The quality in itself is indecomposable and sui generis. When we say 
that qualities are general, are partial determinations, are mere 
potentialities, etc., all that is true of qualities reflected upon; but 
these things do not belong to the quality-element of experience.

CP 1.426.  Experience is the course of life. The world is that which 
experience inculcates. Quality is the monadic element of the world. 
Anything whatever, however complex and heterogeneous, has its quality 
sui generis, its possibility of sensation, would our senses only respond 
to it. But in saying this, we are straying from the domain of the monad 
into that of the dyad; and such truths are best postponed until we come 
to discuss the dyad.

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