“What makes a reasoning sound” is the proof of its truth: A reconstruction of Peirce’s semiotics as epistemic logic, and why he did not complete his realistic revolution

Semiotica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (221) ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
Dan Nesher

AbstractCharles S. Peirce attempted to develop his semiotic theory of cognitive signs interpretation, which are originated in our basic perceptual operations that quasi-prove the truth of perceptual judgment representing reality. The essential problem was to explain how, by a cognitive interpretation of the sequence of perceptual signs, we can represent external physical reality and reflectively represent our cognitive mind’s operations of signs. With his phaneroscopy introspection, Peirce shows how, without going outside our cognitions, we can represent external reality. Hence Peirce can avoid the Berkeleyian, Humean, and Kantian phenomenologies, as well as the modern analytic philosophy and hermeneutic phenomenology. Peirce showed that with the trio of semiotic interpretation – abductive logic of discovery of hypotheses, deductive logic of necessary inference, and inductive logic of evaluation – we can reach a complete proof of the true representation of reality. This semiotic logic of reasoning is the epistemic logic representing human confrontation in reality, with which we can achieve knowledge and conduct our behavior. However, Peirce did not complete his realistic revolution to eliminate previously accepted nominalistic and idealistic epistemologies of formal logic and pure mathematics. Here, I inquire why Peirce did not complete his historical realist epistemological revolution and following that inquiry I attempt to reconstruct it.

1995 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Mycielski

I will formulate in this paper three set-theoretic axioms, (A1), (A2), and (A3), which appear natural and settle some well-known questions, and I will give some metamathematical evidence supporting these axioms. I build upon a distinction between pure mathematics and applied metamathematics which views the first as an art dealing with imaginary objects, where following Poincaré we can say to exist is to be free of contradiction, and the second as a science describing the phenomenon of mathematics, where science means a description of some physical reality (in this case the reality of thoughts in our brains which underlie spoken or written mathematics). Of course this distinction is not new, but it has been disregarded by many mathematicians and philosophers who wrote about the nature of mathematics, e.g. by the Platonists, and even by some empiricists who thought that mathematics is a science. Since applied metamathematics is a science, unlike pure mathematics it has to be lean, i.e., to obey Ockham's principle of economy of concepts (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem).In this lean metamathematics we describe pure mathematics as a finite structure of thoughts in our brains, and we think that written or spoken mathematics is an abstract description of this structure. (I think that this is the view which Poincaré expressed informally in his discussions with the logicians and set theorists of his times, although his idea has to be modified to some extent; see Remark 4 at the end of this paper.) We claim that all mathematical objects which are imagined when we develop a (first-order) theory T can be represented by means of terms of the language of a Skolemization of the set of sentences consisting of the axioms of T and of all theorems of logic.


Semiotica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Nesher

AbstractEpistemic Logic is our basic universal science, the method of our cognitive confrontation in reality to prove the truth of our basic cognitions and theories. Hence, by proving their true representation of reality we can self-control ourselves in it, and thus refuting the Berkeleyian solipsism and Kantian a priorism. The conception of epistemic logic is that only by proving our true representation of reality we achieve our knowledge of it, and thus we can prove our cognitions to be either true or rather false, and otherwise they are doubtful. Therefore, truth cannot be separated from being proved and we cannot hold anymore the principle of excluded middle, as it is with formal semantics of metaphysical realism. In distinction, the intuitionistic logic is based on subjective intellectual feeling of correctness in constructing proofs, and thus it is epistemologically encapsulated in the metaphysical subject. However, epistemic logic is our basic science which enable us to prove the truth of our cognitions, including the epistemic logic itself.


Metaphysica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Grupp

Abstract I introduce the implantation argument, a new argument for the existence of God. Spatiotemporal extensions believed to exist outside of the mind, composing an external physical reality, cannot be composed of either atomlessness (infinite divisibility, atomless gunk), or of Democritean atoms (extended simples), and therefore the inner experience of an external reality containing spatiotemporal extensions believed to exist outside of the mind does not represent the external reality (inner mind does not represent external, mind-independent, reality), the mind is a mere cinematic-like mindscreen (a mindscreen simulation), implanted into the mind by a creator-God. It will be shown that only a creator-God can be the implanting creator of the mindscreen simulation (the creator of reality), and other simulation theories, such as Bostrom’s famous account, that do not involve a creator-God as the mindscreen simulation creator, involve a reification fallacy.


2016 ◽  
pp. 4422-4429
Author(s):  
C. Y. Lo

It is exciting that the gravitational wave has been confirmed, according to the announcement of LIGO. This would be the time to fix the Einstein equation for the gravitational wave and the nonexistence of the dynamic solution. As a first step, theorists should improve their pure mathematics on non-linear mathematics and related physical considerations beyond Einstein. Then, it is time to rectify the Einstein equation that has no gravitational wave solution which Einstein has recognized, and no dynamic solution that Einstein failed to see. A problem is that physicists in LIGO did not know their shortcomings. Also, in view of the far distance of the sources, it is very questionable that the physicists can determine they are from black holes. Moreover, since the repulsive gravitation can also generate a gravitational wave, the problem of gravitational wave is actually far more complicated than we have known. A useful feature of the gravitational wave based on repulsive gravitation is that it can be easily generated on earth. Thus this can be a new tool for communication because it can penetrate any medium.


Author(s):  
Karin Schlapbach

The epilogue synthesizes the insights gained from the preceding chapters. The observation that non-representational dances trigger interpretations in the internal audiences highlights at once the capability of dance to go beyond representation and the need to find meaning in it. Just as the dancers are affected by the physical reality of their performance, so the spectators too are affected by the physical presence of the dancers. Dance is performative and dynamic, and its way to cognition and action is experience. Dance reconciles opposites by encapsulating vitality and disruption, rational patterns and sensory experience, presence and transience, active and passive. The mimesis of dance interacts in many ways with the pragmatic contexts of its performance, making it a powerful cultural force.


Author(s):  
Lisa Shabel

The state of modern mathematical practice called for a modern philosopher of mathematics to answer two interrelated questions. Given that mathematical ontology includes quantifiable empirical objects, how to explain the paradigmatic features of pure mathematical reasoning: universality, certainty, necessity. And, without giving up the special status of pure mathematical reasoning, how to explain the ability of pure mathematics to come into contact with and describe the empirically accessible natural world. The first question comes to a demand for apriority: a viable philosophical account of early modern mathematics must explain the apriority of mathematical reasoning. The second question comes to a demand for applicability: a viable philosophical account of early modern mathematics must explain the applicability of mathematical reasoning. This article begins by providing a brief account of a relevant aspect of early modern mathematical practice, in order to situate philosophers in their historical and mathematical context.


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