3/11/12

Selection from C. S. Peirce Objective Logic

This is the concluding section of a series of excerpts from  

                         C.S. Peirce, “Minute Logic” (1902), CP 2.111–118

Cap tip Jon

118.   But this seems to be in conflict with our conception of Being, particularly as derived from the notion of symbol; which, however, is solidly founded, too. We now begin to see the sense of talking of modes of being. They are elements of coöperation toward the summum bonum. The categories now come in to aid us materially, and we clearly make out three modes or factors of being, which we proceed to make clear to ourselves. Arrived at this point, we can construct a Weltanschauung. From this platform, ethics acquires a new significance, as will be shown. Logic, too, shines forth with all its native nobility. Common men carry this Weltanschauung in their breasts; and perhaps the pimp, the looting missionary, the Jay Gould, may, through the shadows of their degradation, catch now and then a purer glimpse of it, than the most earnest of citizens, the Cartises, the Emersons, the Bishop Myriels. It is beautifully universal; and one must acknowledge that there is something healthy in the philosophy of faith, with its resentment at logic as an impertinence. Only it is very infantile. Our final view of logic will exhibit it (on one side of it) as faith come to years of discretion. 



Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press