[percy-l] New Member Welcome

Thomas Gollier tgollier at gmail.com
Sun Apr 21 11:56:33 EDT 2019


Rhonda,

Thanks for the welcome.  I can't say that I'm ready to make any
pronouncements regarding Percy-Peirce-Wittgenstein,
but I have been playing them off against each other when it comes to
Percy's distinction between "symbols" and "signs."

His distinction seem to correspond with  Peirce's distinction between
hypostatic abstractions (conceptualizing something
apart from its environment) and precisive abstraction (separating something
off in connection with its environment) which,
in turn seems to correspond with Wittgenstein making the difference between
saying "I know that's a tree"  and "that's a
tree" ('On Certainty', §585).

The idea with Peirce seems to be that the use of signs and precisive
abstraction are more primitive than the use of
symbols and hypostatic abstractions.  He writes in one place:

      "Without precisive abstraction man would not be man; but I can well
believe, — indeed, I do think it probable, —
      that a large fraction of the races of mankind, by no means
necessarily very low in the arts, are entirely devoid of
      the power of subjectal [hypostatic] abstraction." ['New Elements if
Mathematics' 3.916-18]

Percy, on the other hand, says somewhere that all languages are symbolic.
And, if we look at Stuart Dreyfus'
description of his experiences with chess [in Mind Over Machine, p. 25]:

[image: image.png]

A precisive abstraction — or in Percy's terminology a functional use of
signs that may be verbalized or
not — seems to be at the pinnacle of human accomplishment.  Although, I
have to admit, I'm kind of like
Stuart and don't like knowing "that's a tree" without being able to say "I
know that's a tree."

Sorry to be so long-winded (myself and with the quotes), but as you can
probably see, I find the com-
parisons between these three philosophers fascinating.

Tom



On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 8:20 AM RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com>
wrote:

> Hi Tom and welcome to the Percy-L,
>
> We do wake up occasionally, if given enough motivation, but I suppose many
> of us aren’t as young as we once were!
>
> SAMLA (The South Atlantic Modern Language Association) will have a session
> on Percy and language. Maybe you could present something connecting Percy,
> Peirce, and Wittgenstein? I’m pretty sure proposals are still being
> accepted. There will be some Percy-Peirce folks in attendance.
>
> Percy’s philosophy continues to gain traction. I, for one, would be very
> interested in hearing more of your thoughts on Percy-Peirce-Wittgenstein.
>
> Rhonda
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 17, 2019, at 10:51 AM, Thomas Gollier <tgollier at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Lauren,
>
> It certainly is a quiet list, but thank you for your welcome.  I also
> enjoyed your quote:
>
>      “Once the final break is made between reality and language Arguments
> generate
>      their own Force and lay out their own logical Rules.”
>
> from a text I'm not familiar with, yet.  Personally, though, I think Percy
> is being too nice.
> When denotation is taken as some kind of primary connotation, taking the
> place of the
> object itself, and to which other connotations can then be attached, we
> don't have
> "arguments" or "rules" but just what I've seen called "cascading
> connotations."  A flow
> of images in what Hegel called "picture-thinking."
>
> This is, however, where I find Percy most interesting.
>
> Thanks,
> Tom
>
> On Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 11:10 AM Lauren Berdy <
> lauren.stacy.berdy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi
>> I am glad you stated this new thread
>>
>> keep these words of Dr Percy’s above my desk
>>
>> “ once the final break is made between reality and language
>> Arguments generate their own
>> Force and lay out their own logical
>> Rules”
>>
>> For this reader anyway as I get older
>> And reread The Doctor it comes to
>> Me so readily that he like Lawrence
>> Before him pointed us back to this
>> Earth, this life, this being
>> What is it?
>> And all the while summing up words
>> That summon up the greatest of our human abilities
>> The merging of seeing with knowing
>> He was a seer and he knew the intellect is a collector.
>> The meddling intellect mangles things
>> Quite badly
>> Look At Sutter!
>> Thank you
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Apr 14, 2019, at 11:26 AM, Henry P. Mills <wppdirector at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Percy-L:
>> This message from new member Tom Gollier was misaddressed to the list.
>> Just as a reminder, Percy-L submissions should go to: <
>> percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>.  Let us welcome Tom!
>>
>> Henry Mills
>> Percy-L Administrator
>>
>> -----
>> From: Thomas Gollier <tgollier at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: Welcome to Percy-L
>> Date: April 7, 2019 at 11:18:33 PM EDT
>> To: "Henry P. Mills" <wppdirector at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Percy List <percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org>
>>
>> Henry,
>>
>> Thank you for your welcome.
>>
>> I ran into Percy a number of years ago when I was on the Peirce list, and
>> I remember being impressed with the Trobriand Islanders and their pocket
>> knives as being what philosophy, and science, should be all about.  Now
>> reading Wittgenstein and trying to correlate him with Peirce, I thought of
>> Percy again, and have been working through some of his articles.  To me he
>> seems just as precise in his thinking as Peirce or Wittgenstein, but much
>> less technical and much more down-to-earth in what he has to say about it.
>>
>> The list does seem quiet, but I'm hoping it will offer some
>> "intersubjective" support for these efforts.
>>
>> Thanks again,
>> Tom
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> * Percy-L Discussion Archives:
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
>>
>> * Manage Your Membership:
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
>>
>> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org
>>
>> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
>>
>> * Percy-L Discussion Archives:
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
>>
>> * Manage Your Membership:
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
>>
>> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org
>>
>> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
>>
> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
>
> * Manage Your Membership:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
>
> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org
>
> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
>
> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
>
> * Manage Your Membership:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
>
> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org
>
> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20190421/1b52fcbc/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 122235 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20190421/1b52fcbc/attachment-0001.png>


More information about the Percy-L mailing list