For all discussion related to the works of the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. >“The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.” (5.448)
bump
I'll try to read him soon.
>>23329866Stop this pretentious practice of making "generals" for things which need no general.
>>23329899Peirce is one of the most prodigious polymaths to have ever lived, and his work is in desperate need of being read, understood, and considered as a unity. He absolutely needs a general.
>>23329906>i have dedicated my life to studying peirce>the only meaning i draw out of this site is discussing him>therefore others must talk about himDo personality biased philosophy fags even see their own bias? Its so obvious to everyone what you are trying to do.
>>23329935I've maybe studied Peirce for maybe two years on and off as a hobby. And he's not even the main person I study (I'm a big fan of Plato, Aristotle, and Heidegger). And I make threads about them and many other things all the time. Why are you trying to control what I post? Do you have an anti-Peirce agenda? What did Peirce ever do to you?
As someone who knows nothing about him why should I care? Give me the pitch on what meaningful contributions he made to philosophy.
>>23329987How much philosophy do you know and what kinds of topics interest you? Peirce is not for the faint of heart.
>>23330003Western philosophy up to bachelors level. Metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion are mostly what I care about.
>>23330012So far, so good. What thinkers? What problems captivate you the most? Do you have a preference towards metaphysical realism or nominalism?
>>23330021Metaphysically I like Heidegger most. I can't stand reductionism. I guess you'd call that a form of nominalism.
>>23330003Can I read Peirce without a philosophical education? I have barely read any primary literature.
>>23330083You could because he often writes in plain English and invents his own terminology which he then tries to explain. Might be painful and you might not be motivated to care without prior experience though. And when he talks about how his work compares to other philosophers, you won't have any frame of reference.
>>23329866I began studying Peirce a few weeks ago, I finished his article on Phaneroscopy and I really liked it, but I found it a bit dirficult to understand what Firstness is and my main hesitation was concerning what he said against a tabula rasa, going in the direction of Kant by positing a mind with congenital faculties. Not that I favor tabula rasa, but I found that this discussion of tabula rasa vs. innate ideas/faculties was kind of out of place since what was being presented was a phenomenology. I love Peirce’s logical rigour, but I think James succeeded in suggesting to me a unified phenomenology through a univocal conception of experience.
>>23330383You might want to expand and clarify what you meant because Peircean rejects Kantian intuitions. Firstness is a logical/metaphysical category prior to consciousness which consciousness "fits into", if that makes sense.
>>23330426I’m not at home at the moment so I can’t quote him literatim, but he references Kant in positing the mind as kind of separated from senses in the manner of Leibniz and Descartes.And yes, he does say Firstness is logical and metaphysical category when he speaks of “possibility” of qualities, but he also speaks of feelings that are immediate and prior to the consciousness of it, which I believe would characterize a Secondness already. So it is this logical/metaphysical and this purely sensual meanings of Firstness that makes me a bit confused, unless he meant both meanings to refer to the same thing but in different approaches, one intellectual and the other one in more really phenomenological way.
Gnostic Peircefag again.So, I slapped this together a few days ago after witnessing the last Peirce oriented thread devolve into argument regarding the essential structure of Peircean semiosis under different contexts.https://sorceroussuppositions.substack.com/p/molten-mirrors-decoding-significationThis should be all you need to know to begin investigating the many bridges between Peircean semiosis and other branches of philisophy.
>>23329906I'll be contributing very frequently to these generals if there's any interest. I've decided it'll be good practice for a PhD thesis.Which of these Peircean topics would people be most interested in seeing clarified?1. The subject-object relation2. The distinctions between firstness, secondness, and thirdness3. The applications of the Pericean semiotic schema to other branches of science or psychology 3. The implications for the metaphysical insights of Peirce on such things as the ontological structure of consciousness and death
It's so fuckin stupid they got rid of the poster count at the bottom of the threads. It's just made it easier for DOA threads like this to get astroturfed by samefags bumping their threads pretending to be real engagement.
>>233305171, considering that subject and object need to be better defined, especially in opposition to how they're normally used in metaphysics>>23330544there's probably only like 3 Peircefags on the entire board. but we enjoy talking to each other. why are you mad at us having fun?
>>23330622Sounds good, I'll throw that together immediately and post it on my substack and then here. It should, as an essay, also clarify once and for all the relationship between firstness and the rest. I'm on my phone at the moment but feel free to hit me with anything.
why didnt anyone ever tell this lil nigga that i comes before e
>>23329866I have such a deep level of admiration for Peirce, but i fear I’ll never reach the point where I’ll be able to digest his works. His character is one I wish to emulate.
>>23330622So, what's your conception of the subject/object dichotomy?
>>23330680because it's not pronounceds "pee-rse" but rather "purse"
>>23331318Well, from what I've observed in the past... An object is a substance, thing, etc., that has been granted identity by at least one of the Peircean categories. A subject is an element of the Peircean categories: itself, and not itself. Every object has two subjects. A third has 3 objects and 6 subjects (although I'm confused as to why thirds don't have 6 objects, including one per degenerate category).
For me, it's Whitehead.
>>23331573Not bad, you're a clever guy. I'll have a write up done on my substack in the next day or two. An object is a manifestation of the mechanical interactions between two subjects in a dyadic relationship. Think about how consciousness and unconsciousness produce, out of the dynamical mode of their logically antithetical relation, something like the object that constitutes you.
>>23331726Awesome. If you could include a couple of Peirce excerpts that demonstrate what he has to say about objects and subjects, especially in the manner of objects have two subjects, subjects are this and not this, and maybe even what the relationships are between the categories/degenerate categories and objects/subjects, I'd appreciate it. The latter is most confusing to me.But I like the analysis. Hegel one said "The truth is in the whole." So how can you understand a thing without understanding everything else it is connected to? You can't. Though, I guess it gets confusing because it seems like when you extend the object/subjects across categories, we get a lot of "overlapping" relations.
>>23330486Can you do a write-up on Peircean Gnosticism?
>>23331846So, that insight was gleaned as a consequence of his conception of firstness, secondness and thirdness interacting within a closed system.So, it's my own idea. Just grounded in his semiotic schema. To elucidate! The three elements are hypostatic, which means logically fixed. I can touch on the implications for this without much trouble, actually. >>23331933Oh, dear God, that's a book, my man. I can definitely ... try my best to condense the parallels down into something consise enough to qualify as essential.
>>23332143>So, that insight was gleaned as a consequence of his conception of firstness, secondness and thirdness interacting within a closed system.>So, it's my own idea. Just grounded in his semiotic schema. I like it a lot. Before we had that thread a couple months ago, I had been thinking about Plato's Sophist in how negation was redefined as a "positive" difference (A, and !A is really some collection B, everything else). I wanted to find some way to combine Peirce and Plato, and your idea hits the nail on the head. However, the main problem is that problem of overlapping. Each of the three categories are prescindable elements, but the only category which exists in its own right, as a whole without prescision, is thirdness. So, there's a problem with assigning "substance"-like status to anything that isn't thirdness. In fact, in the essay where he christened the three categories, Peirce begins with two termini, one that is Being (before firstness), and another that is Substance (after thirdness). Let me try to explain my reasoning. Had I approached the idea by myself, I would have thought something in terms of:>firstness: an object>secondness: an object against subject>thirdness: an object that mediates subject and objectAnd then with degenerate categories, I wouldn't even know what to start. Now, had I assumed that each category delineates an object, and each object has two subjects, then we'd have weird problems like firstness immediately involving secondness (and thus cheating the boundaries set by prescision). Firstness has to be by itself, but now we're including everything else because of the two subjects. This is conceptually weird for me and I'm not sure how to go forward with it. Moving on, secondness now involves double-counting subjects. So, you're counting object A, subject A and subject !A, from firstness, and then you're counting object B, subject B and subject !B. But subject B matches with included in subject !A, and subject !B matches with subject A. Therefore, an encounter of secondness with two objects A and B is really an encounter with object A with itself all over again. I hope this is making sense.
>>23332202I'm on my phone but I'd still like to take a run at ...>However, the main problem is that problem of overlapping. Each of the three categories are prescindable elements, but the only category which exists in its own right, as a whole without prescision, is thirdness.You'd think, right? But consider this: if a universe was composed in which only two subjects existed in a dyadic relation, then wouldn't it be completely static? Wherecomes the mechanism through which that state of relation changes or fluctuates as a subsequent consequence of the transmission of information?It doesn't. Which is why our universe appears to be made up of so many particles. The more particles a universe contains, the greater the dynamicity possible between the elements. I'll add a comprehensive explanation to the essay, but that's the central problem to be looked at. Our universe can only exist the way that it does because of the hypostatic and indecomposible arrangement of those three elements into a logically fixed union.>an object that mediates subject and objectAhh, but here's the deal ... each subject inside any object can only communicate with a single subject inside another object at a time. You can't be both faster and slower than another object, only one at a time. So, the fundamental mode of relation between subjects isn't actually with objects but subjects. Objects are composite structures, or perhaps even purely metaphysical entities.
>>23332143You were asked in the previous thread what the highest mind must be if this universe is a lower resolution simulation of the object to its subject if I have that right. You were asked but did not answer
>>23332353Well, I mean, that's a hell of a fuckin question.I can't only say that Whateley nailed it when he deduced the fact that we are objects being observed by the subject that is the universe we inhabit.Whatever is outside of that frame would be as incomprehensible and imperceptible to us as unconsciousness itself. This is actually a point of conjunction between the gnostic system and the implications of the Peircean philosophical system in action. The universe we understand is one half of a dyad comprising the object we might refer to as the sum total of all being everywhere, which must include non-being.
>>23332366I remember what you said about pain and it reminded me of how Kant characterized pain as the only a priori sensation - if I have that right. It was a long time ago that I read it. It certainly does have its resonances with gnosticism. We are objects to a subject contemplating (or trying to invade and consume, in some of the texts) a higher order foreclosed to it. Does this scheme of dyads within dyads have to end with non-being? It seems nonsensical to me to say the cosmic dyad is object to a subject that is a higher-order universe. All I understand about Peirce I've gleaned from these threads so apologies if my language is imprecise
>>23332378>Does it have to end with non-being?Necessarily. Consider that consciousness is clearly a function of complexity. There are more possible distinct electrochemical states in your brain between the 100 billion or so cells, which are each to a cell capable of communicating with one another, than there are atoms in the known universe by a pretty steep order of magnitude. Whatever the universe is, as a subject, it's certainly not simple. It's also the case that any fraction of infinity is 0. Consciousness is a sign, in its own right, that's communicating information through itself between phenomena. When your consciousness ceases to be, it's as a consequence of the reduction in complexity within the electrical patterns that inhere within the tissues of the brain as you. Dropping into unconsciousness from your perspective as a consciousness is merely a matter of slipping into a mode of relation that's perfectly self referential. You end up coming into contact with a sign form that references itself ad infinitum, i.e. death.
>>23332393So when I die I implode into infinite process of self-reference? Is the only release from the pain box an infinite mirror trick?
>>23332408Yep.I mean, thank fucking Christ. An eternity of non-being is a hell of a lot better sounding to me than pain.But yes, all religion is a consequence of primitive dream thinking attempting to infer correlations between patterns through metaphorical cognitions at the collective level, pain is the only a priori substance, consciousness is a symbol designed to bridge the gap between the abstract information encoded within your genes and the dynamicity of the matter constituting reality, and the ultimate questions are mathematically and demonstrably unknowable.
>>23332424>Yep.I see, and I see why asceticism makes sense as a prefiguration of death. Is it time for a Peircean ascetology, too? I think it is. Thanks for answering my questions
>your genes control you and there's nothing after you dieWhat's the point of engaging with Peirce's thought if all you're gonna do with it is affirm the same conclusions as empiricist materialist atheism? Might as well skip all the effort.
>>23332432I think knowing for sure that death is salvation from suffering, like, as a logical necessity, means that our choices carry meaning to the greatest degree possible. Do you bring more consciousness into being knowing that the foundation of its existence is pain? Do you dedicate yourself to the enlightenment of others? Do you seek dissociation from the fact of your inevitable transcendence of desire? All up to you, my man. The universe is watching.
>>23332445I'm okay with eternity being some warm amniotic mirror but my only reservation is what makes you so sure you won't coincide with a new complexity and begin the process all over again. How did it even happen the first time?
>>23332441You've failed to read between the lines. If your genes lead you to comprehend reality at such a level that you fail to pass on those genes out of conscious decision then those genes fail to propagate and that truth fades into obscurity. It's quite possible that metaphysical truth will come to blind us through it's incompatibility with life.
>>23332455Are you gonna take this in any interesting direction whatsoever or are you just going to parrot mid 2000s atheist talking points all fucking night long?
>>23332450Nah, see you're trying to think in terms of sensorial frames of reference. Death, non-being, is not simply "blackness" or "nothingness" but complete negation of existence at the metaphysical level. It's literally beyond the capacity for consciousness to even contemplate in abstraction. >How did it even happen the first time?*shrugs*That's what I mean by those questions being unknowable. You can no more tell me what occurred to your body under general anesthesia than can we puzzle out the structure of the universe outside the boundary parameters of the matter comprising what we see and are made of.
>>23332457*farts*
>>23332458I get that. But having happened once, I can't logically rule out it happening again. A Peircean Buddhism would be just as interesting a detour. Implode the loop of referencing until the aggregates are negated by disuse.
>>23330012>t. formally educated bug-manFuck you and your credentials.
>>23330036By 'reductionism' I assume you mean statements which cut your obscurantist trash? Fuck of with your masturbatory, Continental dog shit.
>>23332465Well that's where I think Neitzsche went wonky with his eternal recurrence idea.The truth is we just don't know.
>>23332479*farts*
>>23332479*farts again*
>>23332479ah, what the fuck, let's join in for a hat trick*triple farts*
>>23332323>You'd think, right? But consider this: if a universe was composed in which only two subjects existed in a dyadic relation, then wouldn't it be completely static? Wherecomes the mechanism through which that state of relation changes or fluctuates as a subsequent consequence of the transmission of information?Off of the top of my head, I'd say that a monadic universe is static, a dyadic universe is partially static (think of pendulum, just trading places essentially without any evolution), and a triadic universe has the capability of assuming new states as a consequence of change. But also, keep in mind that a monadic universe is not only static, but also undifferentiated as well. If we consider the universe as a whole (an object), and place it into "Subject U and Subject !U", then our categories fall apart. The object would be itself and nothing. Hegel smiles approvingly down at us, while Parmenides looks down upon us with disdain. We have problems reconciling Being and Unity, which means we have a paradox or even an exception to consider. -->It doesn't. Which is why our universe appears to be made up of so many particles. The more particles a universe contains, the greater the dynamicity possible between the elements. I'll add a comprehensive explanation to the essay, but that's the central problem to be looked at.Agreed. But we also have to consider Peirce's evolutionary metaphysics as well. The scattered particles slowly over time begin to coordinate into patterns of concrete reasonableness over time. And one event's thirdness is another event's firstness in ever elaborate chains of causation. This is how it works in semiotics, so too in physics and beyond. -- >Ahh, but here's the deal ... each subject inside any object can only communicate with a single subject inside another object at a time. You can't be both faster and slower than another object, only one at a time. So, the fundamental mode of relation between subjects isn't actually with objects but subjects. Objects are composite structures, or perhaps even purely metaphysical entities.So, let's talk ontological hierarchy. Every subject is communicating specifically with other subjects, no object interacting with subjects or vice versa. But then again, don't some subjects encompass other objects? e.g. If I have three objects in the universe, A, B, and C, then wouldn't object A contain of subject A and subject !A (the set of B & C)?
>>23332323>>23332651Also, our talk of substance, subject, object, etc., especially, >>23332202 reminds me of this brilliant comparison from Atkins 2018 between Aristotle and later Peirce on the question of substance. See the highlighted sentence in pic-related. Unlike common Aristotle, where things like man, horse, chair, Socrates, that tiger, etc., are substances, and unlike "esoteric Aristotle", where only the unmoved mover is a substance, Peirce takes a radical approach and turns EVERYTHING into a substance. And that's the key to understanding how qualities can be abstracted away and be hypostasized. Adjectives, verbs, and nouns, subjects and predicates, substance and accidents, etc., are ultimately not that different from each other and are all ways of making sense of different snapshots of the universe as it evolves through time. That's brilliant phenomenology, IMO. If you can attend to something, then, in some sense, it stands "on its own", does it not? So, there goes the eternalisic prejudice that Heidegger speaks about in his criticism of ontotheology. Peirce pushes the envelope in a radical way WITHOUT embracing nominalism.
Can I get recs for good retard-friendly secondary sources on Peirce's semiotics?
>>23332739Peirce: A Guide for the Perplexed by de Waal is good.
>>23332739>>23332764I forgot to mention, I don't think there's a retard friendly guide to just Peirce's semiotics, but there's a few decent YouTube videos that might get you started on the most basic premises. I liked the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1HAKzXuL_8https://www.youtube.com/@PhiloSign/videosthe other book covers semiotics briefly but then links it to everything else (because Peirce is a unitary thinker. everything emerges from an architectonic insight).
bump for peirce
>>23332651>>23332656Still on my phone, unfortunately, but I can tell you've given this quite a lit of thought. Your perspective is something I'll incorporate into the essay for sure. I'll dedicate a section to discriminating between the constituent elements of what I like to call the fundamental metaphysical particle.
Now, here's the real quesrion: what are you going to do with your life now that you know what happens after you die?
Haven't read the thread, but I think it's important that you're all encouraged to take the Dewey Pill:Read Dewey
>>23334082What's he bringin ti the table, big man?
>>23334082fuck Dewey
>not a single person in this thread has explained how Peirce is insightful or relevant to philosophyWhat a bunch of pseuds lol
>>23332656https://sorceroussuppositions.substack.com/p/unlocking-meta-reality-the-subjectHere you go, my man.Little slapped together'ish but let me know if that was helpful.
>>23335513
>>23335596>>23330517Also, this should offer an introductory clarification as to what the subject-object distinction actually signifies at both the metaphysical and phenomenological levels simultaneously.
>>23335596Just in time for lunch break! I'll take a look and post questions as they come to me.
>>23335596I'm not finished, liking it so far. But I have to get back to work soon. I noticed a typo here:>This is a logical impossibility for the sole reason that the universe we observe precludes precludes... I'd appreciate if you fixed that typo and maybe:>This is a logical impossibility for the sole reason that the universe we observe precludes the possibility of its material instantiation.Clarify what that means. Wouldn't something having material instantiation be proof that it is at least possible (and obviously even more than that since it is actual, etc.)?
>I can deconstruct a composite number into its primes, but I can’t deconstruct a quale into another quale — as such, they can be validly construed as the primes of philosophy.I'll have to come back to this. But there is both an interesting comparison to make between Aristotle's koine aisthesis (that which grants unity to sensible forms) and Kant's Copernican revolution (doubting said unity, among other metaphysical concerns with the categories). Feel free to respond if you're grasping what I'm saying already.I'll pick up from where I left off later.
>>23335741Will do.>Clarify ...I'll have to skim through and find that phrase. >>23335755Oh yeah, I think I'm picking up what you're purring down. However, qualia are uniquely irrational in a technically important way: they are absolutely dislocated from the possibility of the interference of rational facilties. Red is red is red. Everything we call rational is merely an arrangement of patterns comprised of qualia. All phenomena are actually epiphenomena grounded in qualia.
>>23335755Full disclosure I've only been exposed to Peirce's work for a little over a year and a half, if memory serves. But the most impressive implication to his work is that it indicates the fact that existence is inherently 'irrationalistic' and that all rational thought is epiphenomenological in its essence.
>>23335821>I'll have to skim through and find that phrase. It was soon after you started the section on the tripartite metaphysics. >Red is red is red. Everything we call rational is merely an arrangement of patterns comprised of qualia. All phenomena are actually epiphenomena grounded in qualia.What is the difference between quails and phenomena?
>>23336153>quailskek, I meant qualia. but feel free to answer the quail autocorrect question for shits and giggles
>The vividness of consciousness in the present moment is absolute, therefore any attempt to fasten the contents of the mind to a given moment for the purposes of observation by the fastener is met with the brute fact that the observer himself is likewise fastened; the observer cannot augment his perception of material reality without affecting his experiment: we cannot analyze concrete reality beyond our perception of it in the moment unless we dissociate it from the moment of its inherence within consciousness, which the function of memory facilitates. As such, all rational interactions between consciousness and immediately apprehended phenomena are logically impossible; the rational faculties may only interface with qualia as memories. Aristotle says something like this in De Anima. And to take a cue from Plato's divided line, there's no knowledge in the world of becoming (perception), only in the world of being (memory as fixed perception).
>Take the same thought experiment from above and imagine that unconsciousness were the quale subsuming consciousness, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what death actually means from the subjective perspective.As in, treat unconsciousness as a quale experienced by consciousness? I'm kind of confused as to what you're getting at here. I'm also wondering if maybe unconsciousness needs to be more loosely defined to include everything that isn't the conscious you, e.g. the deep recesses of your mind + your body + the rest of the universe.
>>23336153Nothing. Qualia are everything and everything is qualia.I can explain. Gimme a day.
>>23336517Consciousness itself is only able to distinguish between memory and sense data by its vividness, so, unfortunately, we can't subject the patterns that constitute us to analysis, we can only hand off descriptions of those patterns as we experience them as ourselves to some other subject and hope they can afford us insight. It's probably why we have two hemispheres of the brain. They hand off information to one another and act as distinct subjects. Human consciousness is very weird.
>>23336523bump, good question
>>23329867what would degenerate categories be on this chart?
>>23329866Everyone reads him so this is superfluous. I thought he was super obscure when I started reading him like a year ago but then I started seeing all these threads on /lit/ and I even found a discord server surrounding analytic philosophy and literally every other person knew about him and could discuss him.
>>23340256I've never seen anybody outside of /lit/ able to discuss anything but the most basic summary of his work. Usually stuff that's closest to other American pragmatists. The depth of his work is the obscure part of his work, because he's not like any of the other American pragmatists at heart. Try talking about dynamical interpretants or secondness of thirdness with any of those people you mentioned and I guarantee that they'll be at a lost to explain what is going on.
>>23340330That goes for every philosopher who tries to set up a system. Most aren’t experts on Aristotle either. You could go on discussing the details of Aristotle until the sun goes out and how much would you actually gain anyway? Overly specialised discussions are boring because ultimately you’re not talking about philosophy any more, just this philosopher. If you really enjoy circlejerking that much then just get the three guys on this board who are also autistic about it and start your own little special club, you will never succeed in making everyone as autistic as you.
>>23340345>That goes for every philosopher who tries to set up a system. Most aren’t experts on Aristotle either.There's much more exposure to the deeper elements of Aristotle's system than Peirce's system. With Aristotle, you can quickly begin to appreciate how deep he goes from what is common knowledge. With Peirce, that kind of angle is mostly unknown. Most people think he's a conventionalist-nominalist like the other American pragmatists when that couldn't be further from the truth. The familiarity is extremely deceiving.>and how much would you actually gain anyway?A profound understanding about the nature of metaphysics and our problems facing it. >Overly specialised discussions are boring because ultimately you’re not talking about philosophy any more, just this philosopher. I just don't think you get it because you haven't undergone a deep dive into any philosopher. Going deep into Aristotle made it much easier to appreciate Kant, going deep into Kant made it much easier to appreciate Heidegger, etc. At the end of the day, you're evaluating a philosopher for their ability to describe the whole, and that is philosophy par excellence.
>>23340345the only interesting parts of /lit/ where you're likely to learns something are the high effort threads with a handful of well-read autists. go fuck yourself for thinking you're better than them because you're insecure about not reading and thinking about the shit you read and instead posting the 50th "durrr Nietzsche durr Heidegger is a Nazi/Catholic/etc." thread in a row
>>23340345>probably posts culture war threads regularlyretard.
last bump
