Synechism

Peirce's mathematics and synechism

CONTENIDO

CATHERINE LEGG. Grasping Mathematical Reality

GIOVANNI MADDALENA. “Attraper le geste et pouvoir continuer.” For a New Kind of Mathematical Constructivism

JEFFREY DOWNARD. On the Hypotheses that Lie at the Bases of Discrete Systems of Mathematics: Drawing on Peirce’s Phenomenology

JÉRÔME HAVENEL. Peirce’s Meditations on Continuity: from Transitivity to Topology

MATTHEW MOORE. Peirce’s Prepunctual Continuum

FRANCISCO VARGAS. Modelos y variaciones sobre las ideas peirceanas del continuo

ARNOLD OOSTRA. Peirce y la completitud proposicional

GUSTAVO ARENGAS. Un modelo matemático para la máxima pragmática

The problem of time within synechism of C. S. Peirce. – Charles Sanders Peirce was an important original American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist also recognized as a father of Pragmatism. The intention of this article is, firstly, to introduce and sketch the way of thinking of this philosopher. One of the basic principles of Peirce’s philosophy – synechism – has been chosen as a starting point. Synechism is a philosophical tendency of attributing the highest philosophical importance to continuity – understanding the universe as dynamic evolving one. Synechistic aspect is crucial for the problem of time in Peirce’s thought. The primal reason for this is that time itself has features of continuity. Based on that, he regards time as allowing the existence. Albeit Peirce’s conception of time is understood from the continuity of the all, however it also requires to be grasped by some mind. The objective of this paper is to briefly outline the answer to the question of time; in what manner thus Peirce comprehends time and what place it has within his concept of synechism.

Leibniz famously advocated for a general conception of continuity as a principle of nature, some of his famous slogans on this seem to appeal to intuitive considerations: " nature never makes leaps " (A. VI, vi. 56) and " …all natural change is produced by degrees " (NE 56). However, it is less well known that Leibniz's account of the Principle of continuity was famously initially articulated in his foundational document on continuity of 1687 that appeared in the Novelles de la République des Lettres. This articulation is really important and needs to be revisited, as presents a systematic account of what he conceived to be the principle as such. In this article I will present this account by emphasizing how it represents a very important step in the efforts (even in our contemporary systematic approaches to metaphysics) to understand how the unity of metaphysics needs to be approached. This article proposes a way to understand Leibniz's principle of continuity in a systematic way in order to make it a suitable instrument of philosophical and metaphysical thought in general.

Susan Haack, The Legitimacy of Metaphysics: Kant’s Legacy to Peirce, and Peirce’s to Philosophy Today.”

Abstract: Part of Kant’s legacy to Peirce was a lasting conviction that metaphysics can and should be set “on the secure path of a science.” However, Peirce’s understanding of “scientific metaphysics,” unlike Kant’s, uses the method of science, i.e., of experience and reasoning; but requires close attention to experience of the most familiar kind rather than recherché experience needed by the special sciences. This distinctively plausible reconstruction of what a genuinely scientific metaphysics would be is part of Peirce’s legacy to philosophy today, enabling us to steer clear both of apriorism and of scientism—the Scylla and Charybdis of recent metaphysics.


Keywords: Kant; Hume; Peirce; metaphysics; pragmatism; positivism; analytic/synthetic; phenomenology; categories; Synechism; agapism; objective idealism.

The following essay by Charles S. Peirce is translated for the first time into Bulgarian. Originally published in 1893, it was the last text from Peirce's metaphysical series written for the "Monist". In it, he develops his doctrine of agapism, according to which the law of love is operative in the universe, and argues that, of the three kinds of evolution - by fortuitous variation, by mechanical necessity and by creative love - the third is the most fundamental/

Contrasting Rorty's Vulgar Pragmatism, a form of cynicism, with Peirce's far richer and deeper form of classical pragmatism, this paper explores Peirce's methodological principle of synechism, urging that we should look for continuities rather than sharp distinctions.

After showing how this principle applies in Peirce's own work, Haack goes on to show how it plays out in her own; and argues that it is, as Peirce believed, highly fruitful. 

If this paper interests you, you might also want to look at "Why i'm a Peirce Person" (2014) and "The Legtimacy of Metaphysics" (2007).

Commentators have already praised this worthy text in a way that reveals what a tremendous work of both scholarship and authorial insight this biography is. Joseph Brent apparently scoured every mention of Peirce in all texts — every letter written, every second-hand mention, missing nothing, to provide this in-depth portrait of one the great aberrant geniuses of world (not just American) philosophy, a notable achievement! Peirce was obsessive in pursuing and adapting his philosophy of "logic" (which we might better recognize as epistemology), and eventually, his incomparable genius made itself evident (but not during his lifetime). His mind travelled to the outer reaches of abstraction, to the point that William James admitted he could not follow him. One of the very few who seems to have understood him in his lifetime was the theological philosopher Josiah Royce.

Haack opens with Peirce's defense of "scientific metaphysics," and his distinctive approach to the subject; continues with Peirce's stress of continuity (synechism), his universal categories, and his "extreme scholastic realism."

You will notice that Haack needs to  "fill in," sometimes, for work students should have done, but somehow didn't, in the history of philosophy.