I mentioned the other day in my discussion of intentionality and Heidegger a bit about 1stness, 2cdness, and 3rdness. Those familiar with Peirce know that those are his solution to the categories of Aristotle, Kant or even Hegel. Like Heidegger, Peirce thought there was a central insight in all of those figures in terms of the categories or condition of living and life. Peirce also developed a kind of phenomenology. While one shouldn't confuse Peirce's phenomenology with either Kant, Hegel, or Husserl, there obviously are similarities. (As well as important differences - see Joseph Ransdell's "Is Peirce a Phenomenologist?") The question is what parallels we can see between the two.
Now whether Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricouer, Derrida or others are really phenomenologists is an open question. Certainly Heidegger is quite frank at moving to what he calls thinking through phenomenology. He has an excellent set of brief comments on this as the introduction to William Richardson's Through Phenomenology to Thought. Indeed Richardson changed the title to reflect Heidegger's comments. So are they phenomenologists? It's still a matter of debate - especially with the so called theological turn in French "phenomenology."
I bring this up only to suggest that those who criticize engaging Heidegger with Peirce because Peirce isn't a phenomenologist might be missing the point. Neither are Husserlian phenomenologists. But those who've thought through Husserlian phenomenology to something more might parallel Peirce in certain ways. (I'd add that Derrida arrives at a kind of Levinasian philosophy by starting with Husserl via Eugene Fink and ending up via semiotic critiques into a place I see as where Heidegger moved)
It is true, as Joseph Ransdall points out that, "Peirce does not equate scientific and technological ("calculative") thinking in the way Heidegger does." But this is, I think, simply because Peirce conceives of science in terms different from what Heidegger does. Not because they are actually saying something fundamentally different philosophically. That is, what Heidegger calls science might best be described as what students are given is a repetition of what the scientist did. As any person who has done science knows, there is a huge difference between learning science from a textbook in class and doing or thinking scientifically. One is given in a fashion that I think Heidegger would call the one (das Man). It is thus inauthentic. The other is investigative, new, and is allowing the phenomena to unveil itself. It is thus authentic, in the language of Being and Time.
Peirce's notion of firstness is tied up in terms of qualities or aspects that can be described logically with a single term. They are, to use Ransdell's own language,
Peirce's usual name is "emotional predicates," meaning our feelings about things (including all-pervasive moods, such as the dreariness of a day, and attributes of the sort we might think of as purely esthetic, such as fineness or beauty) would also fall under this heading, provided--let me stress this emphatically--they are construed as being experienced in a totally naive way as qualities of that which the feelings are about rather than as properties ascribable to ourselves as reactions to that which they are about.
Those familiar with Heidegger will quickly see the role such modes find in his thought. Indeed many of Heidegger's arguments in Being and Time depend upon these moods, I feel. Heidegger argues that from such moods or qualities that we can come to hear Being.
Two term logic leads us to what Peirce calls secondness. In phenomenology this would be our encounter with other entities. While Peirce often calls this "reaction" it is important to note that his discussion of them is more than just reaction as of the sort like a ball hits a bat. I'll talk about secondness more later. I'd once again just repeat the point I made in my prior post that Levinas' discussion of the other entails secondness. I further feel that this other, as discussed by Levinas and Derrida is very much what Heidegger was getting at. Especially after the turn.
The last element in Peirce's "phenomenology" is thirdness. This is language, law, and general semiotics. It is probably Peirce's key discussion and it entails that universals be real in a certain sense. (Contrary to what is asserted in nominalism) I think that we can see thirdness in Heidegger via what many call social externalism. That is, there is a kind of linguistic background that enables us to experience entities as the entities which they are. Thus when I see a ball I can only experience it as a ball because of the sense that there are balls. What we call this linguistic background is an essential part of the experience of the ball. We can't have an experience of a ball without it.
I'll speak more to these points through the week. I just want to bring up some of the basic parallels between Heideggerians and Peirceans here. Please note I'm not saying that Peirce and Heidegger are saying the same thing in all particulars. Heavens, not even all Heideggerians agree on what it is that Heidegger's thought entails. So to make such a claim might limit far too much the openness of what Heidegger is saying. I do want to suggest that an engagement between the two thinkers is very helpful and illuminating.
The other thing I wish to assert is that just as Peirce argues that the three categories are irreducible, so to does Heidegger. (Contrary to those who see him privileging one above the others)
Clark, thanks for these posts. I've often had trouble understanding Pierce's notions of firstness, secondness, and thirdness, and your connecting them with phenomenology has actually opened them up to me for understanding.
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