Category Archives: Peirce and Aquinas

10/6/21

Looking at Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Reduction” (Part 7 of 7)

0026 Are Catholic philosophers so alienated from science that they are willing to talk through the mouthpiece of phenomenology?

Are there other ways to enter into discourse in this modern Age of Ideas?

Why does the hylomorphic structure of reality constantly get co-opted in the pursuit of science?

Are phenomenologists implicated?

0027 Doctor Figal imagines a gap3c, whose interpretive polarity1c sparks the exteriorization2c of what the thing itself1amust be1b, thereby generating a noumenon1b(1a) that can be objectified as its phenomena1a, according to “social” scientific discipline2a.  He labels the operation, “objectivity2c“.

Is objectivity metaphysical?

Or, does it sound like “electricity”?

0028 Colledge is fascinated.  What marvelous transformations occur in the laboratory of Professor Figal.  Metaphysics alchemically mutates into the stuff of physics.

0029 Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenology” offers value to the originating essay.  Not only is science brought into the picture, but the re-vision is rooted in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.  Colledge has more than he knows.

003 It is wonderful to see striking similarities between Marion’s naming of givenness2c and Figal’s enumeration of objectivity2c.

Peirce’s categories offer ways to diagram that vision.

09/30/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 1 of 5)

0001 Joseph Trabbic’s essay appears in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (volume 95(3), pages 389-409).  This is the second article on phenomenology to attract attention.  The full title is “Jean Luc-Marion and the Phenomenologie de la Donation as First Philosophy”.

Jean-Luc Marion is a French phenomenologist who attempts to put Husserl’s paradigm into perspective.  His book is published 25 years ago.  It still confounds readers.

Trabbic performs admirably in trying to decipher both the French language and the book.

0002 There is a lot to unpack, especially since science is not mentioned at all.

I wonder what Husserl is up to when he calls for a return to the noumenon?

Perhaps, scientists focus so much on phenomena that they neglect the thing itself.

0003 This is the lesson formulated in Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenology Reductions”(available for purchase at smashwords).  Spencer also publishes in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.  The full title of Spencer’s article is “The Many Phenomenological Reductions and Catholic Metaphysical Anti-Reductionism”.

Spencer mentions Jean-Luc Marion, along with many other phenomenologists.

It is like going through an old jewelry box.

Jean-Luc Marion sparkles.

0004 Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” (also available at smashwords) builds upon this reverie.

Why does Jean-Luc Marion catch the eye?

09/29/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 2 of 5)

0006 Trabbic’s approach to Jean Luc-Marion’s masterwork, The Phenomenology of Givenness, is curious.

Trabbic precisely executes a style that is rarely used in contemporary works.

He asks us to recognize a possibility (that seems to be impossible).

0007 First, the reader must recognize that there are phenomena, rather than nothing.  Things themselves are simply given.

Second, the reader must recognize that givenness implies a gift with no giver and no recipient.

0008 Trabbic’s construction leads the reader up the staircase of one and down the staircase of two.

The literary structure is beautiful to behold.

09/28/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 3 of 5)

0009 The following looks like a hylomorphe, but it does not belong to the realm of actuality.

Figure 1

0010 This dyad expresses what is in the Positivist’s judgment.

The Positivist’s judgment constitutes the second first philosophy, arising and ruling out the first first philosophy.

0011 What is a first philosophy?

A first philosophy addresses the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

This is the first question that every philosophy must confront.

0012 Many prefer to skip to the next question, “What is ‘something’?”

The first first philosophy, as practiced by scholastics of the Latin Age, says, “It must be the things of God and of everyday life.”

The second first philosophy, modern science, says, “No, it must be phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of things.”

The third first philosophy, Husserl’s phenomenology, says, “We must return to the noumenon, the thing itself, and figure out what the noumenon must be.”

But, is the thing itself the same as what the thing itself must be?0013 Here is where Jean-Luc Marion enters the picture and says, “A fourth first philosophy should place Husserl’s situating of science into perspective, by addressing the question, ‘Why are there noumena, rather than nothing?’.”

09/27/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 4 of 5)

0014 Ah, phenomenology situates empirical science.

This is one lesson found in Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenology Reductions” (available for purchase at smashwords).

0015 Givenness puts phenomenology into perspective.

This statement stands at the heart of Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” (also available at smashwords).

0016 Yet, neither Spencer nor Trabbic mention science.

09/24/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 5 of 5)

0017 Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” adds value to the original.

How much value?

Maybe two Euros worth.

0018 What is the value of a Euro?

That is a very good question.

0019 Can a one Euro coin be reduced to its matter and form?

Can a Euro be reduced to instrumental and material causalities?

Surely, according to the empirio-schematic judgment, a one Euro coin can be accounted for by its constituent metals and circular shape.  There is a science to coining money.  Isn’t there?

0020 Or, does the givenness of the Euro allow us to imagine that a Euro is more than metal and shape?

Does the givenness of the Euro say that what the thing itself must be may be treated as a thing itself, supporting novel, “social”, sciences, where the noumenon can be objectified as its phenomena?

0021 If this is so, then phenomenological reduction precedes Husserl by over a century.

Is that possible?

Can what the thing must be become a thing itself?

There is something eye-catching and nonsensical about givenness.

Trabbic graciously accepts that Marion must make sense and leads the reader to that glittering impossible possibility.

08/19/21

Day 1: Looking at Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (Part 1 of 8)

0001 What is Reality?

Reality is a journal for philosophical discourse.

It is worthy of financial support by people of good will.

Reality is the only journal, to date, closing the gap between Thomistic philosophy and Peircean semiotics.

Brian Kemple Ph.D. is the editor of Reality.

0002 He is also the last graduate student of the late John Deely (1942-2017), of fond memory.  

0003 The essay at hand appears in 2020, volume 1, and covers pages 76-123.

The full title is “Signs and Reality: An Advocation for Semiotic Realism”.

0004 The issue is captured on page 115.

Kemple writes (more or less), “If we are to have a living, thriving realism, it must be a realism capable of dealing with the entirety of the real; not only the reality that we engage directly through our senses, but the reality we experience perceptually and intellectually as well, a reality comprising the relations and especially the sign-relations that constitute so much of our experience.”

08/18/21

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (Part 2 of 8)

0005 Matthew Minerd Ph.D. pens a commentary that follows Brian Kemple’s essay.

Thomists currently exhibit an attitude when it comes to semiotic things.

0006 He notes (more or less), “For contemporary scholastics, the domain of cognition-dependent reality generally is a kind of terra non-considerata.  Real being is ens naturae and is separate from the domains of knowledge, technical craft and moral freedom.  These are entia rationis (mind-dependent beings) that, honestly, belong in the shadow.”

0007 How so?

The shadow is not the causalities inherent in ens rationis.

The shadow is the awfulness of the topic.

Look at the shadow side of the domains that Minerd mentions: ignorance (shadow of knowledge), incompetence (shadow of technical craft) and depravity (shadow of moral freedom).

Entia rationis are the things of original sin.

0008 What Thomist wants to wade into that mess?

08/17/21

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (Part 3 of 8)

0009 Now, I regard Kemple’s article “Signs and Reality”, in the journal, Reality, and Razie Mah’s Comments on Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (available at the smashwords website).

Is there a crack in the mirror of the scholastic world, as it reflects on res (thing)?

Things are real.

So are sign relations.

If so, are sign relations things?

0010 If sign relations are real, then the consequences of their realness cannot be denied.

This if-then statement applies to biology.

Are sign-relations so real that they are able to support a niche, into which some hapless creature may adapt?  A niche is the potential of an actuality independent of the adapting genus.  Could sign-relations, or triadic relations in general, be so real as to constitute a niche?

Consider the masterwork, The Human Niche.

0011 There are more consequences.

If sign relations are real, then a cultural change in the natural-sign character of talk may account for a rapid, inexorable alteration of a Lebenswelt.  Does such a transition explain why our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

Consider the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall.

0012 Finally, if our current Lebenswelt turns the evolutionary progression upside down, elevating stipulation over custom and custom over nature, then how do we validate our spoken words?  If the meaning, presence and message underlying a spoken word is stipulated, upon what thing do we staple our stipulation?  How about this: If we construct an artifact, then that artifact should validate our stipulation.  The artifact validates what we stipulate it to be.

What can go wrong with that?

Consider the masterwork, How to Define the Word “Religion”.

08/16/21

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (Part 4 of 8)

0013 Three masterworks, all available on smashwords, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How to Define the Word “Religion”, expose scientific implications of Brian Kemple’s claims.

If sign-relations are things, then we have an entirely new way to appreciate human evolution, including a recent, and revelatory, twist.

0014 Another triadic relation, the category-based nested form, proves invaluable in discussing these issues.

A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction provide the background.

A category-based nested form consists in a normal context3, an actuality2 and a potential1.  The subscripts refer to Peirce’s categories.  These three elements fulfill four relational statements.

0015 Here is a picture.

Figure 1