[Xmca-l] Re: Phenomenology as lived experience

[Larry Purss]

Greg,

I want to follow through on Peirce's notion of abduction in relation to
*secondness* and *thirdness* from Kathleen Hull's close reading of Peirce.
It engages with the notion of *self-control* and *mastery* as pragmatic [or
phronesis]

The notion of secondness is what is radical in Peirce's claim so it is the
*aspect* or *angle* or *perspective* or *quality* that needs to be engaged
phenomenologically as just *showing up*

For Peirce *percepts* and *perceptual judgements* and *mathematical
diagrammatic demonstrations* hard HARD FACTS that *show up*.

There IS a compulsive, insistent, disturbing, forceful *secondness* that
offers NO reasons involved in percepts, and perceptual judgements, and
mathematical diagrammatic demonstrations.

In Peirce's metaphysics *thirdness* is ALSO PERCEIVED as generality within
observational demonstration. [showing up]
In Kathleen Hull's reading:

"Thirdness IS perceived. Similar to the way the percept 'simply KNOCKS AT
THE PORTAL OF MY SOUL and stands THERE there in the doorway [Peirce CP7
.619] - IT is insistent, it disturds me, it is a forceful THING, it offers
no reasons, it COMPELS me to acknowledge IT, AND IT IS OUT OF MY CONTROL,
so, too, do the ideas and diagrams which ' SPRING UP IN OUR MINDS' [Peirce
CP7 .619]  Conjectures, hypothesis, and ideas RECOMMEND THEMSELVES to me
'more or less forcefully AS reasonable' [Peirce] " [Hull page 283]

For Peirce the *reasonable* is BEYOND [IN EXCESS OF] *strict logic*  I
*read* Peirce as exploring the same realm as Merleau-Ponty and
phenomenological experience *knocking a the door and standing THERE. Is the
*imaginal* existing AS HARD FACTS?

Larry

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Greg,
> Peirce explored the relation of reason and logic.
> He suggests that acts or practices of reasoning are not following RULES of
> logic. Logic [as rules] is the realm of *theory of reasoning* AFTER the
> fact and imposed [derived secondary] from the acts of reasoning. This
> parallels Merleau-Ponty's critiques of sense *data* or Shotter's
> distinction between the saying [lived experience] and the said.
>
> the KEY term for Peirce is *abduction* which explores the *supposed*
> aspect of reasoning  as interpretive *musings* .  The imaginal aspect of
> reasoning that goes BEYOND the *data* THIS imaginal aspect is
> phenomenological lived experience.
> Kathleen Hull in her article "Why Hanker After Logic? Mathematical,
> Imagination, and Creativity in Peirce's Systematic Philosophy" gives a
> clear explanation of interpretive musing and abduction.
>
> I will summarize a few of her interpretive musings in her *reading* OF
> Peirce's notion of abduction.
> Peirce says abduction is hampered by logical *rules* but abduction IS
> logical inference [and perception] and does have a definite logical form.
> Abduction is a continuous process IN TIME and as a process is not liable to
> being CUT UP in distinct arguments. Abductions AS *supposings* or wagers or
> guesses or hypothetical reasonings are NOT the result of a SELF-CONTROLLED
> and critical logic. This is not to say they are *illogical* but only that
> their logic can ONLY be re-constructed AFTER THE FACTS. [re-presented in
> comparison to presented]
> Abduction as a living movement of thinking is to be contrasted with
> reaching a conclusion BASED on syllogisms.
> Peirce makes it clear there is a *conceptual inquiry* in the process of
> populating or dwelling within this abductive horizon but it is NOT TO BE
> REDUCED TO facts of psychology, not be reduced to facts of sociology, not
> be reduced to facts of science.
> The conceptual inquiry *in which* the hypothesis is INITIALLY PROPOSED is
> not a reductive logical system in the sense of CONSCIOUSLY AND AGENTIVELY
> following *a* set of rules. [syllogism]
> Peirce does claim that abduction follows logical operations that do not
> occur by chance, he emphasizes
> "That NO reason whatsoever can be given for it, as far as I can discover,
> AND IT NEEDS NO REASON, since it merely offers suggestions".
> In other words that discovery is logical AND that no reason can be given
> for discovery is Peirce's interpretive musing. This musing questions the
> assumption that IF a new hypothesis is logical we must be able to give
> reasons for this discovery IN THE FIRST PLACE.
> To understand Peirce's musement we must enter his metaphysics. Peirce says
> that for those who believe in a reality INDEPENDENT of how we may think it,
> there ARE HARD FACTS which intrude in a compulsory way. He mentions these
> HARD FACTS:
> 1. PERCEPTS - having an entirely irrational INSISTENCY
> 2. PERCEPTUAL JUDGEMENTS - the onlwy way we can know ABOUT percepts; AND
> they likewise COMPEL ACCEPTANCE without ANY ASSIGNABLE REASON.
> 3. MATHEMATICAL DEMONSTRATIONS - constituted by "indefensible
> compulsiveness"
>
> These three "unreasonable compulsory FACTS" are similar in that they ALL
> DISPLAY THE ASPECT OF SECONDNESS.
>
> SECONDNESS DISPLAYS itself in our VERY IMAGININGS suggests that AS WE
> DEMONSTRATE we are SURPRISED by the outcomes UNFOLDING within our
> abductions, and musings and diagrammatic experiments. [showings] For Peirce
> what is central is this *secondness* this COMPULSIVENESS that we are in the
> *grip of* and that has us. This notion challenges the notion of *a
> self-controlled thinker following a rule*
>
> Greg, I hope this opens a horizon for exploring reasoning as living
> experience phenomenologically
> Larry
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 6:01 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Greg,
>> Your inquiry of the *gap* forming when perception requires separating
>> from and re-composing or the perceptual field disappears from awareness has
>> be reflecting on *lived experience*, Peirce's firstness, and *mediation*.
>>
>> Imagine a musical score played as a living experience.
>> Now imagine a musician playing each single note as notated on the musical
>> score and re-cording each *individual* note.
>> After playing each note and re-cording the individual notes the musician
>> re-assembles and plays back the notes in a series.
>> How do you imagine the experience of listening to this reassembled
>> individual notes which had been composed as singularities. Would anything
>> be *missing* .Would we be orienting to go BEYOND the singular notes. Is
>> there *something* in EXCESS of the individual notes played in a series? Can
>> this *something extra* be indicated through the concept of *lived
>> experience* as phenomenological??
>> Is this lived experience *intersubjective* [or intrasubjective if you are
>> trying to imagine that there are not two discrete individualities who
>> exist first as subjects and then meet and conjoin].
>>
>> Intersubjective as I use the term is phenomenological in a similar way
>> that music is internotational AS living [not lived] experience.
>>
>> In language use, John Shotter's saying as lived experience in contrast
>> with the said.
>>
>> Peirce tried to re-configure *reasoning* as a practice [I would say a
>> lived experience] as distinct from the *theory* of reasoning or
>> metareasoning [reasoning about reasoning].
>>
>> I have a sense [and Peirce would include BOTH perception AND inference in
>> sense] that music that is played as individual notes is an abstracting
>> secondary derived practice extracted from the lived experience. When the
>> individual notes are reassembled in a series, and the gaps filled in
>> between each note *something* will still be missing [and deadened] in the
>> re-playing [the said]. What I think [or infer or sense] is missing is the
>> actual lived experience between I and Thou [the phenomenological
>> experience]] that is always in EXCESS of our abstracting and analyzing
>> and reassembling of the individualities as notations.
>> Larry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>