Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S. Peirce Dorothea Sophia BEd (Deakin), MBA (Deakin) A PhD Philosophy thesis of the University of New England July 2016 Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S Peirce Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S. Peirce © Dorothea Sophia 2016 Sydney, NSW, Australia Jacket etching: Matter # 3 © Marta Romer 1998 ii © Dorothea Sophia 2017 Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S Peirce Gratitude is due for the 2014 award of a K & D Mackay Travelling Scholarship enabling me to present a draft of my thesis to the faculty and graduate students of the Department of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA, as a visiting scholar. For my one true mentor Doug Anderson Ordeal I promise to make you more alive than you've ever been. For the first time you'll see your pores opening like the gills of a fish and you'll hear the noise of blood in galleries and feel light gliding on your corneas like the dragging of a dress across the floor. For the first time, you'll note gravity's prick like a thorn in your heel, and your shoulder blades will hurt from the imperative of wings. I promise to make you so alive that the fall of dust on furniture will deafen you, and you'll feel your eyebrows like two wounds forming and your memories will seem to begin with the creation of the world. Nina Cassian iii © Dorothea Sophia 2017 Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S Peirce iv © Dorothea Sophia 2017 Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S Peirce Abstract: ‗Mattering‘ is the process and the product of Reality. It is One from nothing. Whether there is more than one universe as the string theorists argue, is beyond my ken. Fortunately I am not concerned here with epistemology but with understanding. Nor am I preoccupied with revealing Truth. Rather, my purpose is to explore the meaning and consequences of ‗mattering‘: to be able to say that, beyond reasonable doubt, I believe that ‗it‘ matters – that ‗it‘ is ‗mattering‘. This can be made intelligible by way of reflection on the Pragmatic Maxim of the American polymath Charles S. Peirce [1839-1914] and validated with his systematic method of inquiry. Part 1 of my thesis explores and presents Peirce‘s work. Part 2 is an exposition of my three part hypothesis of ‗mattering‘, that: 1. value functions as a condition of intelligibility – purpose, as the ground of ‗mattering‘ is dependent on value; 2. power – where power is the capacity to cause – is the enabler of force functioning as actual ‗mattering‘; 3. ‗mattering‘ is evolutionary realization of universal telos. For Peirce, inquiry is triggered by genuine doubt. His method begins with imagination: with the generation of a hypotheses that, if valid, will relieve the irritation of doubt. Creating my hypothesis of ‗mattering‘ free of consideration of truth was liberating. This is what Peirce called abduction: active imagination which can be considered as reasonable, but only in so far as it can be reasoned from by deduction and induction. This is Mathematics, the first of the heuretic sciences (the branch of sciences which treats of discovery or invention) and its aim is to draw necessary conclusions; Philosophy is the next class of the heuretic sciences, followed by the Special Sciences. The first order of Peirce‘s second class, Philosophy, is his Phenomenology – his doctrine of categories – the purpose of which is to describe what is before the mind and to show that the description is correct. It is the beginning of discovering meaning, and involves observation of what Peirce called the phaneron (whatever is before the mind) – in my case, my hypothesis. Through differentiation, abstraction or prescision, and dissociation it identifies the three irreducible categories of reality identified by Peirce as First (possibility), Second (actuality) and Third (probability). The second order of his philosophical method is the Normative Sciences of Esthetics (aesthetics), the ideal, Ethics, going for the ideal, and Semeiotic or logic, what can reasonably be hoped for. By practicing what he preached, Peirce built the third order of Philosophy, his Metaphysics of Tychism (chance), Synechism (continuity), and Agape. [In physics, Agape arguably is gravity and the still to be discovered something that will deliver the Holy Grail: the theory of everything.] This is ‗mattering‘. I argue it is grounded in the values of integrity, respect and transparency, values which are expressed through the enactment (or powering) of ‗mattering‘s‘ purpose or telos which grows and develops. This is, ‗mattering‘: universal realisation of evolutionary telos. Our species, which evolved, as did the Universe, from the Universe – the process and product of ‗mattering‘ – appears set on a trajectory of ecocide for which we are responsible. One model for understanding this travesty is Freud‘s scheme of Id (desire) Ego (mediator) Superego (should). If Ego, which makes choices, sides with and empowers the unmitigated, individual wanting that is Id, by ignoring Superego – cooperative imperatives for universal growth and development – Earth‘s evolutionary trajectory is jeopardised. We ignore the categorial values of integrity, respect, and transparency with which evolutionary universal telos is co-dependent, at our peril. The global dysfunction of Egos, especially those that have commandeered power by disempowering others, can be healed. Together, but only together, we can get back on track and reclaim Earth‘s and our future. This one Universe from which we evolved and with which we are evolving, can do it, and, even granted that it has been practicing longer, we too can do it: we can make it matter. It matters. It is ‗mattering‘. v © Dorothea Sophia 2017 Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S Peirce I certify that any help received in preparing this thesis and all the sources used have been acknowledged in this thesis. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Signature vi © Dorothea Sophia 2017 Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S Peirce Contents Introduction 1 The Primary Texts of Charles Sanders Peirce 9 Part 1 A review of the evolutionary philosophy of Charles S. Peirce Chapter 1 Why Peirce? 15 Peirce‘s Pragmaticism: Philosophy as science – science as inquiry 17 Truth or understanding 23 Chapter 2 Review of Peirce‘s Architectonic 25 Peirce‘s Architectonic involving Classification of the Sciences 26 Peirce‘s Architectonic Classes 29 Mathematics 29 Philosophy 31 Phenomenology 32 The Normative Sciences 37 Esthetics 39 Ethics 40 Logic 41 Speculative grammar 42 Critic 44 Methodeutic 45 Metaphysics 49 Ontology 51 Religious Metaphysics 53 Physical Metaphysics - Cosmology 54 Philosophy as a prerequisite to progress in the special sciences 57 The Special Sciences 58 Chapter 3 The Real 61 Chapter 4 Grasping Peirce: Review of the Secondary Literature 67 Part 2 Mattering Introduction to Part 2 87 Chapter 5 Information 91 Chapter 6 In the beginning . 101 An sit Deus? 104 Quid sit Deus? 106 Back to the beginning 113 Chapter 7 Cosmology 115 Chapter 8 Value and Purpose 123 Chapter 9 Value and Power 133 Control of Power 148 Conclusion 151 Glossary 155 Bibliographies 160 vii © Dorothea Sophia 2017 Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S Peirce Figures Figures 1 & 2: Two of the diagrams constructed by Beverley Kent (1987:136-7) depicting Peirce‘s description of a stereoscopic image of his perennial classification 16 Figure 1 shows ladders attached to the normative sciences rung, which in turn is attached to the philosophy rung on the heuretic sciences ladder Figure 2 shows the relations between corresponding divisions of philosophy on the three major levels of the sciences Figure 3: Peirce‘s Perennial Classification of the Sciences: (adaptation of Kent 1987) 28 Figure 4: Jørn Utzon‘s sketch of his 1956 winning submission to the Sydney Opera House design competition 30 Figure 5: Model of Jørn Utzon‘s solution 30 Figure 6: Peirce‘ diagram of the seven systems of metaphysics, through reference to Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness, summing up the shortcomings of six of the systems (CP5.78, 1903) 36 Figure 7: The 10 classes of Peirce‘s signs (adapted from Hoffmann 2001) 43 Figure 8: Reimer‘s interpretation of aesthetic experience (1970: 51) 46 Figure 9: Table showing Peirce‘s incorporation of elements of nominalism, idealism and scholastic realism together which with elements of his such as synechism suggesting his theory of realism called here scholastic realicism (Mayorga 2007: 152) 51 Figure 10: Sydney Opera House showing the podium 62 Figure 11: Jørn Utzon‘s sketch of the podium of the Sydney Opera House 63 Figure 12: Ove Arup‘s drawing of the podium 63 Figure 13: Example of juxtaposition of events in space-time 65 Figure 14: The connection between semiotic emergence and ―downward causation (Hoffmeyer 2010: 200) 98 Figure 15: Map of the Complexity Sciences by Brian Castellani 99 Figure 16: The organisation of particles and interactions in the Standard Model of Particle Physics (adapted from Wilczek 2008: 164 and annotated) 115 Figure 17: Comparisons of Newtonian, Einsteinian and Process Physics (Cahill 2003:54) 118 Figure 18: A Best Practice Model 134 Figure 19: A Best Fit Model 134 Figure 20: A Performance Productivity Frontier where performance is framed as outputs 135 Figure 21: An interpretation of Maslow's model of Hierarchy of Needs, represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom 140 Figure 22: The evolution of real wages and GDP per hour worked (in the market sector) – that is, labour productivity for Australia. 144 Figure 23: Distribution of the gain in six OECD countries 144 Figure 24: Poverty Rates and Poverty Gaps – late 2000s – Advanced Economies 145 viii © Dorothea Sophia 2017 Mattering: A Recreation of the Realism of Charles S Peirce Introduction What follows matters and it is ‗mattering‘.