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COMMUNICATIONS ABSTRACTS |
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| Implications of Synechism: Triadic Logic and Second Order Vagueness |
| Abstract: My aim is to consider one of the most pressing problems for multi-valued logic and second order vagueness, in the light of Peirce's theory of Synechism.I will begin with a presentation of two sets of principles that we may argue form Peirce's work: the first one is directly taken from his results in the field of the Logic of Relations, while the second arises from a general consideration of the common root shared by the Phaneroscopic, the Semeiotic and the Pragmatic part of his system.In order to clarify the relation between Triadic Logic and the problem of Continuity, I will then turn to the famous example of the blot of ink, given by Pierce himself - in his logical notebook - dated 1909.Finally, I will discuss the general objection of second order vagueness for Triadic Logic, of which Peirce seems to have been unaware, enquiring if Synechism, the doctrine of Triadic Continuity, could be regarded as a possible theoretical solution for it. |
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Keywords: Synechism. Infinitesimals. Triadic logic. Second-order indeterminacy.
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Common Grounds and Shared Purposes on the Pragmatic Contexts of Communication |
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Abstract:
This article explores a set of key conceptions involved in Charles S.
Peirce's account of communication, building on the hypothesis that his
semiotic can beneficially be approached from a communicational or rhetorical
point of view. Setting out from Peirce's claim that philosophy should
begin with abstract ideas, but rather with the complex but familiar
semiotic setting of ordinary dialogue, the notion of common ground is
first explicated in terms of experience and knowledge shared by intelligences
engaged in communication. The experiential aspect of communication is
further spelled out by a discussion of Peirce's claim that the object
of the sign is apprehended through collateral experience or observation
that can be indicated rather than through description or other strictly
semiotic means. Furthermore, it is shown that the common ground, although
a prerequisite for communication in the Peircean framework, does not
amount to a demand for identity of experiences; true communicational
exchange and development requires experiential divergences. |
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Keywords: Communication. Peirce. Semiotic. Common ground. Collateral experience. Collateral observation. Universe of discourse. Indeterminacy. Vagueness. Purpose. Determination.
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Daniel James Brunson / Penn State University - University Park - USA |
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Memory and Peirce's Pragmatism |
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Abstract: Interpretations of Peirce's frequent references to a proof of his brand of pragmatism vary, ranging from its impossibility to its substantive completion - for example, in the 1907 piece "Pragmatism" (EP 2.398 et seq.). Taking seriously Peirce's claim that philosophical reasoning "…should not form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected" (CP 5.265), this paper proposes a neglected fiber in Peirce's reasoning about pragmatism. This fiber is Peirce's account of memory, used specifically to explore the connections between pragmatism and synechism. At several points Peirce suggests a strong tie between pragmatism and synechism, with a proof of the former establishing the truth of the latter (CP 5.415; cf. CP 4.584). In addition, Peirce claims that "The argument which seems to me to prove, not only that there is such a conception of continuity as I contend for, but that it is realized in the universe, is that if it were not so, nobody could have any memory" (CP 4.641). Thus, if memory is evidence or proof for synechism, it should be related to pragmatism. Accepting that the practically indubitable existence of memory is a proof of synechism, how does memory relate to pragmatism? As an opening to inquiry, this paper will explore the role of memory in Peirce's accounts of cognition and perception. Regarding the first, Peirce identified three fundamentally different kinds of consciousness: immediate feeling, the polar sense, and synthetical consciousness. Memory is an example of this third kind, along inference and learning (CP 1.376). Accordingly, memory is not a strict reproduction of a sensation, but rather is an inference about it. This accords with our second topic of exploration, perception, for there memory is a generalization of a percept into a perceptual fact. But what is the nature of this generalization/inference? In CP 7.667, Peirce characterizes memory as "…a wonderful power of constructing quasi-conjectures or dreams that will get borne out by future experience." Memory as a conjectural - that is to say, hypothetical - power then appears as the unconscious (or unself-controlled) form of abduction, and in 1903 Peirce argues that pragmatism is the logic of abduction. Thus, pragmatism as a logical maxim can be understood as concerning the self-control of memory. This paper will conclude with some brief remarks about the role of memory within Peirce's semeiotic. |
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Keywords: Cognition. Memory. Peirce. Perception. Pragmatism. Synechism.
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| Imagination and Hypothesis-making in Mathematics |
| Abstract: Charles Sanders Peirce held that the intellectual powers that the mathematician requires to carry out his characteristic activity are the powers of imagination, concentration, and generalization. In this paper I will explore the role of the imagination in mathematical reasoning as Peirce understands it. I will begin by explicating in detail Peirce's definition of the imagination as ``the power of distinctly picturing to ourselves intricate configurations.'' I will then argue that on Peirce's account the imagination has a dual role in mathematical reasoning: first, of creating ``framing hypotheses,'' i.e., the general hypothetical worlds that mathematicians study; and second, of suggesting ``experimental hypotheses,'' i.e., the suitable, judicious changes to particular mathematical diagrams that belong within a more general mathematical system. Finally, I will argue throughout that Peirce's account provides a good philosophical description of the actual reasoning activity of mathematicians. |
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Keywords: Peirce. Creativity. Imagination. Mathematics. Logic of inquiry.
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| Deleuze with the Aid of Peirce: the Non-linguistic Signs Issue |
| Abstract: The development, with the aid of Peirce, of a semiotics applied to the cinema, throughout Deleuze's books, Cinema I: Movement Image (1983) and Cinema II: Time Image (1985), has as its basic thesis the idea that images hold signs. But such regimes of signs do not constitute themselves, neither in analogical sense nor actually, as signs of a language ("visual language"). Deleuze, exactly, finds in Peirce the proposal of one "not-significant semiotics", that is, not based in regimes of linguistic signs. However, Deleuze argues that a subdivision between "not-linguistic" and "linguistic signs" is too rough to fit the multiplicity of signs. Once again, he finds in Peirce the chance to complicate such dualism, providing that "Peirce´s classification of the signs is the richest and most numerous one ever established". Deleuze supposes that the analysis of the images of movies engages a classification of the signs which, simultaneously, opens an innovative route away from some semiotics trends biased, either in Saussure's linguistics or in Husserl's phenomenology, due to language centralism promoted by them in all sign production. Considering this argument, the innovation of Peirce, according to Deleuze, is that it becomes possible to define the sign with the combination of three "images" or "phenomena" (firstness, secondness, thirdness). Hence, "the sign is an image that replaces another image (its object), under the relation of a third image that constitutes its interpreter, being the latter, in its turn, a sign, and so on". In Deleuze's point of view, this way to launch a semiotics, that is, with images or phenomena, "what appears", is completely original, since it "does not make the semiotics depends on language as the starting point". On the contrary, the peircean starting point leads to "the most extraordinary classification of signs and images", because it rouses a semiotics opened to the great field of the non-linguistic signs. In tune with this peircean mood, Deleuze puts forward two methods to define signs, taking into consideration the place the language: "restrictive" and "extensive methods". With this speech, I aim at asking some questions to the pragmatist and peircean audience, in search for the understanding and the discussion of the Deleuzean Peirce. |
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Keywords: Semiotics. Peirce. Deleuze. Signs. Language.
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| Nutritional Process and the Law of the Energy Conservation: a Peircean Point of View |
| Abstract: Peirce (1839-1914), in 1894, commented about the book of prof. Robert Henry Thurston (1839-1903), in this book Thurston argues the combustion of food and the law of the conservation of energy. The proposal is to realize through peirce's point of view a actual reading of nutition's evolution process that violated the second law of termodynamics. |
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Keywords: Bioenergetics. Nutrition. Metabolism. Evolution process. Peirce.
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| Pragmatism: Logic of Abduction and Diagrammatic Method |
| Abstract: In 1903, Charles Sanders Peirce presented his seventh Harvard Lecture, entitled "Pragmatism as the Logic of Abduction." In this lecture, the philosopher presented his three cotary propositions [where cos, cotis stood for "whetstone" in Latin]; the reason behind that was that he wanted to erect the Pragmatic method upon a solid phenomenological foundation as well as to improve it. Such propositions would warrant Pragmatism efficacy as a method. A closer analysis, however, reveals that its configuration both as a method and as a diagram was to establish Pragmatism really as a method of discovery. In another paper, written in 1906 and entitled "The Basis of Pragmaticism", Peirce presents the basis of Pragmatism within his Philosophy, that is, in Phenomenology as well as in the Normative Sciences. With that paper, he evinced the diagrammatic characteristic of his Pragmatist method, by highlighting, at the end of the aforementioned article, that an accurate [strict] proof of his Pragmatism could be found in Logic or Semeiotic, and more specifically, in his Existential Graphs. The aim of this paper is to study both articles, that is, to bring them into relation so as to evince the structure of Pragmatism as a diagrammatic and heuristic method. |
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Keywords: Pragmatism. Cosmology. Aesthetics. Ontology. Epistemology. Phenomenology. Logic.
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Philosophy or Religion? A Perspective About Peirce´s Concept of God |
| Abstract: This article aims at presenting and discuss some perspectives about the idea of "reality of God" for Peirce, based mainly on Peirce´s own text called "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God" and also based on some interpreters like Michael Raposa and Donna Orange. |
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Keywords: God. Musement. Summum Bonum. Categories.
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| Tablôs for Logic of Much |
| Abstract: Among the diverse not-classic logics that complement the calculation of predicates first-class, we detach the Logic of Much. It is about a system developed for Grácio (1999), that is characterized for extending the classic logic through the introduction of a new quantifier generalized in its syntactic target. This quantifier, represented for G, is part of a set of quantifiers nominated for Grácio as modulated, legalizes the intuitive notion of "many". Thus, Gxa(x) means that "many individuals satisfy the property a". The notion of much, according to Grácio, is associated with a mathematical structure called by superiorly closed family, that says: if a set a, pertaining to the one superiorly closed family, with a contained b, then b also will be superiorly closed. Moreover, the author structuralized the Logic of Much in a hilbertian deductive system, based only in axioms and rules. In this work, we develop another deductive system to work with the Logic of Much: the method for tablos. We demonstrate also that this new system, through tablos, is equivalent to the axiomatic one considered by Grácio. This way, we guarantee the soundness and the completeness of the logic of Much in a system for tablos. |
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Keywords: Logic of Much. Cognitive science. Tablôs. Computation. Language.
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| Peirce and Foucault: Esthetical Sign and Enunciation |
| Abstract: This paper has as aim to indicate possible relationship points between esthetical sign in Peirce's Semeiotic and the concept of enunciation in Foucault's work. On the four characteristics of enunciation (absence of a referent, subject as an empty place, enunciative field and materiality) we find the possibility of an approach between the authors, making realize their works as a philosophy of the process. The esthetical sign provides, in a privileged way, the growing of concrete reasonableness when it trays to reach the "kalós", that is always on the run. Enunciation is the condition for devenir of the thought, the condition to form sentences and propositions. They both (esthetical sign and enunciation) point out to the non-thought, source which makes the thought an ongoing process. |
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Keywords: Semiotics. Aesthetic sign. Concrete reasonabless. Statement. Process.
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| The Concept of Experience in John Dewey |
| Abstract: This paper considers the concept of experience through the work of John Dewey (1859-1952), relating it to the basic ideas of pragmatic movement. For such, the construction of this concept in John Dewey will be discussed through his interlocution with William James' work. The debate in contemporary pragmatism (namely between Richard Shusterman and Richard Rorty), regarding the current validity of this concept originated among old pragmatists, will also be considered. |
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Keywords: Experience. John Dewey. Pragmatism.
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| A dialogue between pragmatism and law |
| Abstract: This work has main aim to analyze some contributes offered by pragmatism to Law. We won't intent to work all subject, then our question isn't, first of all, based on works written by juridical pragmatists - Oliver Holmes, Roscoe Pound, Benjamin Nathan Cardozo. On the other hand, we will talk about these also, but, firstly the big question is: Is it possible understand the pragmatist conception of truth on Law? The definition of truth acquire a kind of relativism, after Peirce's writings, and the Law use this same kind of relativism when accept the "possible truth", or better, truth is what is proved and, mainly, what the judges say that is truth. The discussion about how do they judges decide, worked in the second moment, will be based on Cardozo's writings. An other contribute, and our conclusion, can be view on Willian James` first conference - "What is pragmatism?" - where criticize the metaphysics philosophical debates. The same idea we can use to criticize the juridical idealist thought that appear as ideology. |
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Keywords: Pragmatism. Law. Truth. Idealism.
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| The Question of Human Nature in Dewey |
| Abstract:
By supposing that the issue concerning human nature leads us to an academic
discussion of an Ontological or Metaphysical nature of Being is, to a
certain extent, to emphasize the dichotomy between theory and practice,
which is so common in the educational sphere. However, the treatment Dewey
gives to this issue in the text, Man and his Problems allows us to ponder
upon the difficulty we have, as educators, to interpret the meaning of
the concepts through a careful reading of Dewey's Pragmatism. Thus, the
objective of this essay is to propose an anlytical reading of a text that
aims at answering an intriguing question: "Human nature changes?".
Supposing that the question is intriguing in itself, is to adopt a naïve
attitude, typical of the tradition that separates thought from action.
What is surprising in the text, nevertheless, is the answer Dewey gives
to this answer: human nature does not change. Are we faced with a contradiction?
How can Dewey, unconditional defender of progress and democracy defend
an essentialist position?What apparently seems a contradiction becomes,
as we read the text, an interesting path to make us think what is behind
the use of terms such as "human nature" in the philosophy of
Dewey. By stating that he does not believe that innate possibilities in
man have not changed since he has become man, Dewey refers to innate needs
that are in the constitution of man himself, such as: the need of feeding,
locomotion, emulation and collaboration to fight and help, the need to
express himself and for aesthetic pleasure. It is important to highlight
that not only the needs of feeding and locomotion are considered innate,
but also the social ones, what helps us state that, in his nature man
is a being that becomes so in the social, while in contact with the other
and the environment. Exactly for that reason, it is necessary not to get
mixed up between immutable human needs and the immutability of its manifestations,
for, by so doing, we could erroneously infer that the habits of these
manifestations ser so natural and unalterable as the need that makes them
be born. Finally, I believe that Dewey's statements, in this text, can
constitute a good tool to make us think about the meaning of terms such
as habit and belief in Pragmatism, so that we may seek a ground to think
education beyond the dichotomies of theory and practice and to recover
the meaning of educational action: "If conservative people were more intelligent, in most cases they would ground their objections not in the immutability of human nature, but in the inertia of habit, in the resistance of acquired habits, once they, once acquired, oppose to change. It is difficult to teach new tricks to an old dog and even more so to each society to adopt new habits." |
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Keywords: Dewey. Education. Human nature. Experience.
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| Peirce and Communication: an "Ecologic" Perspective |
| Abstract: Communication-oriented theories work, predominantly, from a point-of-view which limits the field of communication to the human milieu, more precisely, to the social ones as well as to the so called conventional processes. There are, however, sciences which, when faced with the communication problem, allow one to deal with it in a different manner, as is the case with Semiotics, whose theories make one both increase the scope of the communication field and review its processes and includes the role played by those involved. The course adopted in this essay aims at analyzing some implications so as to understand communication from a specific Semiotics perspective - Charles Sanders Peirce's (1839-1914). In it, we are also commited to analyze, within the theory, some aspects which have allowed one to characterize it as an "ecosemiotics," which amounts to saying that it proposes a point-of-view about communication which is, at the same time, a semiotic and an ecological one. It makes use of, among other theoretical references, besides Peirce's texts, Winfried Nöth's - which deal with the ecological "transdisciplinary" influence in our times, so as to confront some of our prejudices and paradigms, while, at the same time, it highlights Peirce's Semiotics potentialities to an "ecosemiotics" - and Thomas Sebeok - who conceives communication, under the Semiotics focus, in an ample manner, which allows one to suppose, in such conception, already an "ecosemiotics" view of communication. So as to analyze this problem, this essay makes use of, from Peirce's opus, besides his Semiotics theory, other philosophical concepts, especially the one of "mind." Based on such theoretical reference, this text presents some arguments so one can understand the implications in Peirce's semiotics perspective, characterized as "ecological", upon the communication processes; it shows that it both problematizes communication studies that see it as strictly social and conventional and sets it as an alternative view of communication as involving a bunch of semiotic relations of diverse kinds between man and his environment. It points out, lastly, that such perspective allows for a more complex understanding of the processes of human communication, once it considers, within them, a whole universe of new signs and of various kinds, which are produced by our cultures in their evolutionary processes (besides those produced by other sources) and which constitute an important part of our environment. |
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Keywords: Semiotics. Ecosemiotics. Communication Ecology. Charles S. Peirce.
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| Dewey's Conception of Philosophy and the Educational Character of Institutions |
| Abstract: Dewey outlined his conception of philosophy throughout his work. However, this trajectory was not linear and smooth. His idea about the fundamental subject matter of philosophy indicates, since the beginning, that inquiry on the field of the continuously interconnected human experiences was the case. Nevertheless, philosophy from the modern academies receives these experiences, not in its original form, but through the bundles of highly intellectualized and generalized problems, becoming itself a mere and sophisticated exercise. Dewey (1859-1952) was concerned about the distortion of philosophy - because its metaphysical and epistemological pre-scientific character - and with its consequences, thus he dedicates himself to its reconstruction. In his book "Reconstruction in Philosophy" (1920) the notable author exposes the problems of philosophy and the new orientations that should be taken to the improvement of the individuals inserted in society - in this particular case, in the new modern context of the post-War World. Dewey defends an 'organical' conception of social philosophy to cope the individualistic proposals by on one hand, and socialistic ones by the other hand. To him, these positions are founded on abstract and fixes concepts with universalistic pretensions, not helping to the inquiry because they do not elucidate the effectively concrete situations. Political sciences, sociology, philosophy and social theory in general, show themselves too distant from the concrete reality, being interpreted as luxury articles that present few advantages to the investigation of the problems and to the planning of the society marked by the characteristics from scientific, industrial and political revolutions. The use of 'intelligence', not rationality, through the method of observation, hypothesis, and experimental verification of the phenomenon or facts related to the human problems, promotes the reflective thinking and so it should guide the reconstruction of philosophy. Dewey proposes that we should overcome the dualism of theory-practice, society-individuals, surpassing the separation of politic from moral. Each individual should be comprehended as a being in active process of development stimulated by the changes that occur in the social substratum where he or she participates and from which associative life he or she is equally dependent. In this sense, institutions are viewed in their educative effect: - with reference to the types of individuals they foster (1957, p. 196). In other words, the individuality is 'created' in the accordance with the influences of the associative life, in which each individual is free in the way he or she develops him/herself or change, always, in accordance to the requirements. However, society is strong, forceful, stable against accident only when all its members can function to the limit of their capacity (1957, p. 208) so, the experimental esprit of its members is an indispensable resource for achieving these qualities. Thus, a theory only makes sense when it is freed from metaphysical explanations and generalized concepts, as State for example. Also, it brings about an inquiry when it leans over on specific and mutable facts which are related to the objectives and problems to which they are connected. Concerned with a pessimistic and insecure situation suitable to post-War World, Dewey defends the pluralism which occurs concretely in social life, but he does not disrespect the laces that unites individuals and society. By facing the inflexible nationalism constructed under the shield of the dogma of national sovereignty and exaltation of the State - abnormally supreme position (1957, p. 204) -, Dewey indicates these factors as the possible causes of the terrible conflicts, becoming strong barriers for the formation of international mentality compatible with the notion of society comprehended not as an unique organism, but as a ensemble of many associations of sharing experiences. This public and social situation offers the sole means for the universality of the values in the sense of socialization of communication, participation and close association unrestrictedly distributed. |
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Keywords: Dewey. Philosophy. Reconstruction. Educational Institutions
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| Peirce and the Law of Large Numbers: Probability and Knowledge a Posteriori |
| Abstract: Pragmatism can be described as a type of empiricism concerned with the future, so much so that "habit" and "experience" are evaluated by their consequents rather than by their antecedents. This perspective appeared in Peirce's well-known pragmatic maxim: to consider the sensible effects of intellectual concepts. Peirce invokes this maxim when explaining difficult concepts such as, e.g., probability. In "The doctrine of chance" he stresses that unique events do not have degrees of probability. Probability, objectively speaking, is asserted of indefinite series: when it is said that the probability of throwing a "five" with a dice is 1/6, it is understood that in the long run one sixth of throws will turn up five. With each throwing, however, either a "five" turns up or it does not, and we are unable to anticipate what will be. Based on the law of large numbers, Peirce concludes that we should not rely on finite individual experience for probability estimations, but on the endless experiences of an unlimited community. It could be argued that, in fact, there can be no such community. Nevertheless, in some cases, "extrapolation" from limited available data is mathematically legitimate - it is as if we had unlimited experience.Here we will try to show that Peirce's analysis of probability can be seen as a proposal for modifying the Kantian traditional classification of knowledge as a priori and a posteriori. Statistical records are appropriately described as synthetic a posteriori, because on a finite amount of experience we can know the frequency of certain property, and logical necessity is not required here. Probabilistic statements, however, are not synthetic a posteriori, because they imply necessity in the long run - so, perhaps they should be seen as a priori. But, a probabilistic statement cannot be synthetic a priori since its necessity only applies to the whole, indefinite series, but not to the next case. Indeed, there is no clear place for the necessity implied by probabilistic statements in the Kantian framework. We defend that such a deficit can be overcome by the introduction of a new class - synthetic knowledge a ulteriori - defined as "what is known about an indefinite number of cases, but not about unique instances". For Peirce, natural laws are always probabilistic and we are fated to discover true and justified beliefs if scientific inquiry is pursued indefinitely, so Peircean pragmatism is a search for knowledge a ulteriori. |
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Keywords: Probability, Philosophy of science, Immanuel Kant, Charles S. Peirce.
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| Habit-taking as Evolution in Peirce´s Pragmatism |
| Abstract: With the principles of order, regularity and law - typicals of thirdness - the tendency of mind is to generalize and to acquire habits and therefore evolution takes place by transforming spontaneity in rationality as everything that is spontaneous has no bond with future and as evolution draws itself by a chronological line that mediates past experiences with possible future experiences. Based on Peirce´s pragmatism this papers approaches habit-taking as an evolutionary process. |
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Keywords: Habits. Evolution. Pragmatism. Peirce.
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| A Naturalist Approach to the Mind-body Problem |
| Abstract: The present work has the objective to discuss the consciousness as the central nucleus of the mind-body problem. At first, we present it under the light of the Cartesian perspective, well-known also as "substance dualism". In this, the mind is a non-extensa substance, independent from the body. In recent neurocognitive experiments while results of consciousness experience were positively correlated with neurobiology measures, the substance dualism was gradually losing place. These researches suggest the existence of a causal nexus between brain and mind. According to Richard Rorty, in "Philosophy and Mirror of Nature", the consciousness problem is located circumscribed to brain and body motions. We believe the present investigation and theorizings made by Antonio Damásio about the consciousness raise an explanation of the connection among the conscious phenomena, the brain and the body in its totality. By this way, we understand that, by now, it presents the possibility that the mind-mind problem is treated in a scientific perspective. |
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Keywords: Consciousness. Substance dualism. Neurobiology.
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| Psychosocial Semiotics: the Specific Paradigm of Work Rehabilitation |
| Abstract: In his semiotic analysis of the medical diagnosis with a biopsychosocial approach of disease and illness, de Silveira indicates that when analysing observed signs "conflicts may result due to the fact that all health care providers do not share the same values or the same language than the patients and their relatives" [free translation]. In the field of work disability prevention and rehabilitation, the presence of multiple stakeholders makes an even more complicated case.Work disability prevention and rehabilitation addresses the problem of persons not returning to work after an illness or accident. They adopt a new behaviour including pain exacerbation, activity withdrawal, often depressive symptoms and social isolation. These persons have poor health indicators and generate considerable costs from compensation, treatments (direct costs) and work disorganisation (indirect costs). Recent advances in this field have shown that disability predictors differ from disease causes and are related to the complex system surrounding work absenteeism and including the workplace (employers and unions), the insurance system and the healthcare system . Multiple stakeholders from this complex system observe the signs generated by the patient/worker and the situation generated by the disability process and analyse these signs through their grid of analysis which depends on their specific objectives and their knowledge and culture. For example, the physician attentive to the signs of pain, will try, by the means of ordering multiple tests or specialized consultations, to find and cure a specific disease, even if this "disease" is simply the result of natural degenerative changes due to ageing. This will result in reinforcing in the patient's mind that he/she may be affected by a severe disorder (that "nobody finds …"), enhance fears of resuming activity including work, and perpetuating the disability process. Simultaneously, the employer, knowing that the worker looks to have normal activities at home, may consider this pain as simulated, also considers the economic losses and work disorganisation due to the worker's absence, and appeals the validity of this absence. This leads to legal actions that will reinforce the worker's fears, introduce frustration and sense of denial of justice, also contributing to perpetuating the disability process. In this system, multiple stakeholders have their word to say on the diagnosis and management of the disability and act with their own interpretation and comprehension of the disability. The patient/worker is exposed to these conflicting opinions and actions, due to a diverse interpretation of the same signs, or to a biased observation of different signs, and gets lost from this complex situation. Activity withdrawal is the result of this misunderstanding of this complexity. Interpretation of signs is obviously more important that the signs themselves and may severely impact on human beings behaviour. This includes important social and ethical issues. |
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Keywords: Psychosocial semiotics. Work rehabilitation. Signs. Disability diagnosis.
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| Elements on the Influence of Ralph W. Emerson on Classic American Pragmatism |
| Abstract: In an article published in the Popular Science Monthly (CP 5.358-87; 1877), "The Fixation of Belief", C. S. Peirce (1839-1914) discusses four methods of fixing belief: of Tenacity, of Authority, the a priori, and the method of Science (Pragmatism). It will be precisely under such classification that the role of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) in the History of American Philosophy will be appraised. We will also discuss the importance of his first three Essays - "Nature", "The American Scholar" and the "Harvard Divinity School Address" as founding addresses-texts of his Transcendentalism - a Neoplatonic and Schellingian legacy (by way of Coleridge) - and the influence it had on the genesis and development of Classic Pragmatism. |
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Keywords: Neoplatonism. Transcendentalism. Pragmatism. Semiotics. Aesthetics.
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| A Critical Note Concerning "Pragmatism: A New Name for some Old Ways of Thinking" of William James by Bertrand Russell |
| Abstract: The present work has for central objective to present her criticizes done by Russell the conception of truth of Willian James explaining the divergences among the two philosophers. Russell's critic, in subject, appears in two goods, the first entitled of Pragmatism: A New Name for some Old Ways of Thinking, while the second, published, in April of 1909, in Edinburgh Review, he/she treated of the pragmatism in general. The essential foundation of divergence, according to Russell is that the pragmatism affirms that a faith must be judged true it is possessed certain species of effects, while Russell defends that an empiric faith to be considered true it is possessed certain species of causes. For Russell the position of James is in the following ones presupposed: the ideas become true as long as they help us to establish satisfactory relationships with certain parts of our experience, the truth is a type of well, and no, as habitually it is supposed, a category different from well and the truth is the name of all that that proves be good of the point of view of the faith and, also, due to reasons clearly attributable. To the part the objections of more general character to the opinion that a faith becomes true for the excellence of their results, there is although it considers as difficulty entirely unbeatable; what is supposed, before knowing any faith it is true or false, (the) which are the effects of the faith and (b) if those effects are good or bad. Applying the pragmatist criterion Russel says the (the) and (b): as for the that constitutes the effects of a certain faith in fact, we will adopt the opinion that it is "worthwhile" and, as to be known such effects they are good or bad, we will adopt, equally, the opinion that you/they are "worthwhile! ". it is obvious that that leads us to an infinite retreat, he/she affirms Russell. The problem of defining the "truth" consists, therefore, of two parts: first, the analysis of that that understands each other for "faith" and, then, the investigation of the relationship, among faith and the fact, that it turns the true faith. A faith, according to Russell, just as him understands the term, it is a state of an organism that doesn't pick very direct relationship on the fact or with the facts that turn the faith true or false. |
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Keywords: Truth. Faith. False. Pragmatism.
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| On the Distinction Between the Meaning and the Representation of a Sign |
| Abstract: In "Meaning and Reference," Frege approaches the distinction between meaning and representation of a sign emphatically. Our aim herein is to discuss such distinction from two different points of view. One, which corresponds to the need to reconsider the problem of equality in judgments of the kind "A=B", by presenting, from the very beginning, as the leitmotiv of the essay; the other, which relates to the relevance of such distinction to justify a realistic option in Logic. The case is, therefore, a reflection that proposes to explicit the thesis that the notion of "meaning," in Fregean Logic, plays the essential role of determining, not only the sign as sign, but the manner through which the object gives itself (die Art des Gegebenseins). Thus, "meaning," as opposed to "representation", which is exclusively psychic, is that which, if it does not altogether stop, at least frustrates the intentions to cut off, once and for all, with the old relation between Logic and Ontology. |
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Keywords: Logic Realism. Frege. Meaning. Representation. Equality.
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| Back to Mead: Non-intentional Pattern of Communication |
| Abstract: One of the most important aspects of George Herbert Mead's thought, so often confined only to the sociological debate, is the attention given, by this American philosopher, to the non-intentional genesis of the primary form of communication and to the role that this kind of genesis plays in the processing of our own subjective and inter-subjective experience (subject-object, mind-world, individual-society). By a critical reading of Mead's pages concerning this fundamental topic in his thought, it is possible, today, to face some of the main problems focused by the contemporary epistemological (and neurophysiological) debate: beginning with Donald Davidson and John Mc Dowell's remarks about the relationships between rational subjects, their language and external world. But even more interesting is the fact that Mead's pragmatist point of view offers one of the more promising frameworks in order to give a conceptual interpretation of the most considerable discoveries of neurosciences, in particular those concerning the so called "social-neurosciences". Going back to Mead today means looking for the origins of (individual and social) meaning outside intentionality and before the language dimension, recovering Mead's pragmatist perspective based on perception and action as very primary condition of possibility of giving meaning to the world surrounding us. If, as George Herbert Mead wrote, "perception has in it all the elements of an act", that implies that every perceived object (things and other people - and behaviour as well) "invites us to action with reference to it". The complex dynamic of this "invitation to act" allows seen objects and actions to acquire their own meaning for us and, thus, to define a non-intentional pattern of communication, as the basis of the giving meaning processing. |
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Keywords: Perception. Action. Mind. Society.
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| The Concept of Concept in John Dewey's Thought |
| Abstract: The present article has the purpose to develop the following question: what is the concept in the John Dewey's Pragmatism? To work this question of the conception of a concept we leave from the C. S. Peirce's affirmation that keeps narrow relation with the conception of the effect observed or the practical influence that it is conceived in this conception of the object. The thinking produces a believe that is the base of ours acts, actions or conduct and this believe means a habit instauration. Dewey explores this question in his instrumental theory of the conception according to which the concepts are intellectual's instruments to guide the actions. These instruments are permanently reconstructed from the problematic situation that comes out naturally in the current experience. This reconstruction happens in the logical investigative process of the relation that are present in this situation in order to search the more satisfactory solutions. The concepts play the role of clarification of the confused activities in the experience in order to equate them. Therefore, it not only enables us to change our attitude front to the reality as also it allows to the control and change of the proper course of the action. For Dewey's thinking, the habit that the human been develop in order to guarantee his survival is the reflective or intelligent thinking that has the role of reestablish the continuity of the experience throughout of the permanent conceptual reconstruction. It means a habit that allows the human being to learn to learn, to learn to modify his habits in view of the creation of more efficient habits to lead his life. The education is the scope of formation of this habit of reflective thought. |
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Keywords: Pragmatism. Concept. Habit. Instrumentalism. Experience. Dewey
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| Richard Rorty's Post-metaphysical Utopia |
| Abstract: This presentation aims at reflecting on Richard Rorty's conceptual articulation between his own poetized utopia, offered as a horizon for a culture which abandoned the temptation to justify its practices by using a metaphysical vocabulary, and the so-called "wisdom of uncertainty", as it is presented in Kundera's essay "The Art of the Novel". In this text, the characters of a novel are imagined to illustrate, by the multiple descriptions they can receive, the complete incapacity to access some Supreme Judge's point of view which could guarantee some essential truth to be discovered about them. According to Rorty's reading of the essay, this is exactly the reason why this European gender of art can be regarded both as a reaction and as an alternative to the desire to theorize about human actions. That true praise of the novel written by Kundera is totally subscribed by the American pragmatist who sees in this "wisdom of uncertainty" the cultural equivalent of a society in which the current ascetic wishes for an Entirely Other, allegedly capable of removing our descriptions from their merely contingent condition and leading us towards Truth, could be usefully forgotten. |
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Keywords: Richard Rorty. Milan Kundera. Truth. Poetized culture. Novelistic utopia.
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| The Moment of Meaning: Apperception in the Philosophy of Josiah Royce |
| Abstract: Philosophizing at the turn of the twentieth century, Josiah Royce constructed a systematic idealism that included discussions of all major philosophical topics. Of paramount importance to both Royce¹s metaphysic and epistemology is the concept of apperception. However, with Roycean studies having been largely neglected until recent years, discussions of his use of this concept are scarce. This paper rides the tide of a recent reemergence of interest in the philosophy of Royce by engaging an exploratory examination of Royce¹s apperception, and concludes that contemporary psychology would be well-served to review Royce¹s apperceptive writings. Furthermore, to the degree that inconsistencies with Royce¹s apperception are identified, those concerned with Roycean philosophy are encouraged to engage the Peircean community for possible solutions. |
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Keywords: Josiah Royce. Apperception. Time-span. Absolute. Triadic. Psychology.
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| How to Prove Pragmaticism: Peirce's Existential Graphs |
| Abstract: Charles S. Peirce's pragmaticism was a philosophical position that Peirce believed presented a thesis ('The Maxim of Pragmaticism') that can be rigorously and conclusively proven. Beginning in 1903, he drafted several attempts towards the proof. In 1905, he believed that an exposition of that proof is best to be conducted using his theory of existential graphs. By 1907, his last, semeiotic proof was completed. Subsequently, scholars have attempted to interpret the key elements of those proof and to seek an understanding of its structure. In this talk, his 1907 proof of pragmaticism is reconstructed by systematically relating it to the verificationistically interpreted, game-theoretic conception of meaning. The analysis of the proof shows that Peirce's pragmaticism is a close ally to the model-theoretic conception of language. Effectively, his proof is an argument for the meaning of our intellectual signs as a form or a structure given rise by our interpretative and strategic (habitual) practices and actions. Since the elements of that structure need to capture both modality and continuity, it is moreover demonstrated how the reconstruction can be recast in the framework of the theory of existential graphs. |
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Keywords: Peirce. Pragmaticism. Proof.
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| Ecological Theory and Peirce |
| Abstract: The concept of semiotic system is developed, nowadays, in Ecological Theory, and Biosemiotics Theory, in order to explain the formation of knowledge. Semiotic systems are characterized by the integrated notion of niche and interpretation. Charles Peirce and Jakob von Uexküll can be considered the "fathers" of this Theory of Knowledge because they were the first that developed that notion. Peirce, through his sign definition - the representation of an object in one respect or another - that configures an explication about types of relation between subject and world. And Uexkül, through his "Umwelt" definition, a term that is related to the group of environment characteristics, through which a certain animal is sensitized - that explain the behavior of the subject in the world. In this work, we will aim at delimitating this epistemological approach, i.e. the ecological approach of knowledge, concentrating our focus in the concept of semiotic system according to Peirce. |
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Keywords: Semiotic system. Ecological theory. Biosemiotics. Semiotic niche. C.S.Peirce.
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| Peirce´s Semiotic Step by Step |
| Abstract: Peirce never wrote a treatise on semiotic. His ideas have to be collected from dozens of articles published throughout half of a century of research, from manuscripts and notes in notebooks and from the letters he exchanged about the subject. As a result, charting the evolution of Peirce's semiotic demands the knowledge in many sciences it dialogues with, which was only possible to carry out recently and yet in an incomplete way. In this chapter, we intend to concentrate in the evolution of Peirce's semiotic, but we cannot prevent from relating it to other fields of his philosophical interest such as cosmology and, specially, his Pragmatism. After all, good part of Peirce's efforts to develop his sign theory, mostly after 1900, was due to his attempt of offering a strictly logical proof - or, at least, a philosophically consistent one - to his version of Pragmatism, that he sometimes called Pragmaticism. |
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Keywords: Semiotic. Peirce. Pragmatism. Philosophy. History of science.
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| Considerations About Fallibilism and Mathematics in Peirce |
| Abstract: In Peirce, all positive knowledge to proceed of probable inferences, that is, of propositions elaborates about examination of the random sample taken of the whole. From this assertive follow the corollary of epistemological fallibilism of author, which affirm that through reasoning we never to attain absolute certainty, exactitude, and universality (CP 1.141). Don't having anyway a conclusive knowledge about probable inferences, will be there infallibility in the case of mathematical propositions that kind of 2+2=4? Susan Haack (1979) says that, about this point, Peirce is ambiguous in his work. Hookway (1992), otherwise, says that the mathematics have a distinct epistemological statute that others sciences. This is the argument that we'll be elaborating in this communication. With this propose, we retake the Peirce's definition of mathematics of the necessary and hypothetical science. We assume that exist a logical certainty (in the strict sense of the term) inherent to judgement 2+2=4 that, however, don't conform to the epistemological certainty. The fallibilism says that is impossible an axiomatic in treating of the questions of fact (CP 1.149), but the mathematics is a priori and don't affirm nothing about real object, only regarding hypothetical things. However, is fallible in his experimental character, evident in the division of the Peirce between corolarial and theorematic deduction. |
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Keywords: Fallibilism. Mathematics. Deduction. Epistemology. Logic. Inference.
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Rossano S.Tavares, Iralene S. Araújo, Luciana D. de Oliveira, Luís F. Lopes and Mário A. P. de Queiroz / PUC-SP |
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The Semiotic Commerce of Information: the Continuum of Interpretants and the Growth of Signs |
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Abstract: Charles Sanders Peirce begins the system of his semiotics thought for phenomenology, because he refuses to make a philosophy that no it may be about to be at world. He don´t make a theory without considering the world, is run the risk of commit inconsistencies and being not in harmony. Maybe the explication for that posture could be in the fact of the phenomenology' Peirce would be by Lucia Santaella2, "the description and analyses of experiences that are open-minded to every man, each day and time, in each corner of our day by day", through of three formal elements of all and any experience, whichever it may be: firstness, secondness and thirdness. In reference to peircean pragmatism, its a complete philosophical system, wich give free association- for who enter into its content - both to contemplate and to analyse the world without considering the time, through beautiful emaneted from nature. Moreover, the Pragmatism permits to do the analyse of the world through of Maths, in a way logical and accurate, have in mind the posssibility of the creation of models wich represents the world as a whole, viable for natural way the pass from imaginary to the real. However, emphatically the subject-matter most important of Peirce's philosophy, indubitably, is the Ethics, because the men has a extensive evolutional way in direction at respect the Nature, often in a way with friendliness or quite aggressive, the tireless nature send signal (messages). The language, in due time, as rich words as powerful in some areas of knowledge, have showed insufficiency to establish a constant relation between Man and Nature. Moreover, Peirce come into notice in the matter of thought and experiences to be in a reflective continuum with equivalency in a continuum of the interpreters. Like that, we can declare that the circumstances reflected establish situation that generate new circumstances which shall be comprehended again for the reason. Therefore , this study go on in the sense to demonstrate that when are associated the Pragmatism and Semiotics, these elements allow to the Man and Nature to establish a constant communication. However it´s important remember that in a process of communication is necessary for "who send a message" and "the other one that it´s involved in act of communication" have willingness to establish such commerce of information, emphasizing often the signal generated for the Nature wich are wholly unknow or aren´t being wholly comprehended for the Man. |
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Keywords: Semiotcs. Pragmatism. Phemenology. Continuum of interpretants.
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