Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 6. Charles S. Peirce

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СКАЧАТЬ “any number, however large, can be built out of triads; and consequently no idea can be involved in such a number radically different from the idea of three.” He used a model of a road with three-way forkings to demonstrate his point. Peirce’s analysis of degenerate categories revealed that there are two distinct varieties of secondness, one internal and one external. It may have been Hegel’s failure to understand this, Peirce suggested, that led him to commit “the trifling oversight of forgetting that there is a real world with real actions and reactions.”

      Chapter 2, “The Triad in Reasoning,” was probably never written, unless Peirce intended “One, Two, Three: Fundamental Categories of Thought and of Nature” (W5: sel. 35) to be a preliminary draft, or at least a precursor of it. However, it is very suggestively outlined in the “Contents” (sel. 22) with particular reference to Peirce’s 1885 paper in the American Journal of Mathematics (W5: sel. 30) where it was stressed that for “a perfect system of logical notation” it is necessary to employ three kinds of signs: icons, indices, and tokens (what would later be called “symbols”). Immediately following “A Guess at the Riddle” is a short selection on Steele MacKaye’s theory of dramatic expression entitled “Trichotomic” (sel. 29). This paper, probably written for oral presentation during the early part of 1888 while “Guess” was in progress, effectively though very briefly summarizes four of its chapters (1, 2, 4, and 5). The discussion of signs complements the outline given in the “Contents” (sel. 22), and, together, they give a good idea of what Peirce had in mind for Chapter 2.

      Chapter 3, “The Triad in Metaphysics,” (sel. 24) is only a fragment of a sketch of what Peirce planned to write, but it strongly indicates that Peirce viewed his cosmology in relation to Greek thought, particularly pre-Socratic philosophy His plan was to “run over all the conceptions that played an important part in the pre-Socratic philosophy and see how far they can be expressed in terms of one, two, three.” He did not get far, but he pointed out that the Greek arche, the “primal matter out of which the world [was] made,” was quintessentially his first. A fragmentary list of pre-Socratic doctrines (annotation 181.4–5), probably to be used as a source-list for Chapter 3, indicates further some of what Peirce might have included had he completed that chapter. For example, the thirtieth item on this list is a quotation of Parmenides taken from Plato’s Symposium (178b): “He devised Love the very first of all the gods.” Peirce then remarked: “But this doctrine was of course infinitely more ancient. Hesiod, quoted by Plato in the same place in the Symposium, puts Chaos first, earth second, and love third.”

      In Chapter 4, “The Triad in Psychology” (sel. 25), the application of his categories revealed to Peirce that there are “three radically different elements of consciousness”: immediate feeling (consciousness of the first), polar sense (consciousness of the second), and synthetical consciousness (consciousness of a third or medium). In Chapter 5, “The Triad in Physiology” (sel. 26), Peirce used his categories to find a threefold division in the physiology of the nervous system that would account for the three kinds of consciousness. As though anticipating that he might be accused of reductionism, Peirce wrote: “No materialism is implied in this, further than that intimate dependence of the action of the mind upon the body, which every student of the subject must and does now acknowledge” (p. 188). Peirce concluded that three fundamental functions of the nervous system were, “1st, the excitation of cells, 2nd, the transfer of excitation over fibers, 3rd, the fixing of definite tendencies under the influence of habit,” and he considered further whether these functions were “due to three properties of the protoplasm or life-slime itself” (p. 193).

      In Chapter 6, “The Triad in Biological Development” (sel. 27), Peirce’s examination led him to three principle factors in the process of natural selection: “1st, the principle of individual variation or sporting; 2nd, the principle of hereditary transmission, which wars with the first principle; and 3rd, the principle of the elimination of unfavorable characters.” Peirce concluded that the principle of sporting is a principle of chance corresponding to his category of first, the principle of heredity is a principle of compulsion corresponding to his category of second, and the principle of the elimination of unfavorable characters is a principle of generalization corresponding to some extent to his category of third. But he acknowledged that the correspondence of the main principles of natural selection with his categories was not perfect and he speculated that “its imperfection may be the imperfection of the theory of development” (p. 202).

      In Chapter 7, “The Triad in Physics” (sel. 28), the last extant chapter sketch for the book, Peirce delivered his guess that there are three active elements in the universe: “first, chance; second, law; and third, habittaking.” Finally, we know from the “Contents” that Peirce intended to finish with chapters on sociology and theology, but there is not much indication of what fundamental triads he expected to find. He does note under “The triad in sociology” that “consciousness is a sort of public spirit among the nerve-cells” and under “The triad in theology,” that “faith requires us to be materialists without flinching,” but this only gives a little of the flavor of what Peirce might have written. It is true, though, that in his first chapter, “Trichotomy,” when he was discussing “absolutes” in cosmology, he alluded to the theological triad: “The starting-point of the universe, God the Creator, is the Absolute First; the terminus of the universe, God completely revealed, is the Absolute Second; every state of the universe at a measurable point of time is the Third” (sel. 23, pp. 173–174). Although Peirce tended to identify the third with representation, here we find, that in leading from first to last (second), third is process. Insofar as Christian theology holds that the universe is developing from “God the Creator” toward “God completely revealed,” Peirce regarded it as an evolutionary doctrine. Perhaps this is the approach he wanted to develop in Chapter 9.

      Peirce had a remarkable confidence in the importance of “A Guess at the Riddle.” He was convinced that not only was it “destined to play a great part in the future,” as he wrote to Holden (W4:xxxix), but that he was inaugurating a new philosophy which, like the earlier system of Aristotle, was so comprehensive that “for a long time to come, the entire work of human reason … shall appear as the filling up of its details” (sel. 23, pp. 168–169). He envisioned his new system as a “philosophical edifice,” constructed on a deep and massive foundation, which unlike the Schelling-Hegel mansion—found to be uninhabitable almost immediately upon opening its doors—would be the principal habitat of philosophers long into the future. But Peirce’s book was never published, nor even completed, and even though he managed to get some of his architectonic ideas into print in his 1891–93 Monist series, he remained virtually the only inhabitant of the “Peirce mansion” during his own lifetime. After May 1888, when Peirce and Juliette purchased the house that would become Arisbe, Peirce would become preoccupied with architectural renovations. Chapter 1 of Peirce’s “Guess” (sel. 23), which was written out of order, may have been composed about the time Peirce began planning the renovation of his country house—when sound architectural structures became a matter of immediate practical importance for him. It is lamentable that Peirce would never finish either of his mansions and that, in their different ways, they would trammel him.

      The evidence for when the Peirce’s moved to Wanda Farm and into their new house is inconclusive as it stands. By early June Peirce was using “Westfall Township,” where his new estate was located, as his return address, and by July he was using the name “Quicktown.” In an 8 June СКАЧАТЬ