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CP 1:269. Mind has its universal mode of action, namely, by final causation. The microscopist looks to see whether the motions of a little creature show any purpose. If so, there is mind there. Passing from the little to the large, natural selection is the theory of how forms come to be adaptive, that is, to be governed by a quasi purpose. It suggests a machinery of efficiency to bring about the end -- a machinery inadequate perhaps -- yet which must contribute some help toward the result. But the being governed by a purpose or other final cause is the very essence of the psychical phenomenon, in general. There ought, therefore, one would think, to be under the order of psychonomy, or nomological psychognosy, a suborder which should seek to formulate with exactitude the law of final causation and show how its workings are to be traced out. END
Peirce may be fortunate not to have lived in our time. It is doubtful that his philosophy would be more than what it has been, a sort of tentative effort to reach past the academy. Look at his last sentence in this passage. There is still no effort to determine final causation.
Part of the problem is the forms which God and other names associated with religions have been given. Surely a Force that accounts for all realities must be deemed universal and freed from understandings which in any way contradict universality.
I do not despair of the possibility that quantum knowledge will meld with physics (string theory evolved, perhaps) to point a way to the unification I have posited in what I call Triadic Philosophy.
The idea that all reality has substance and that it is a thought development capable of achieving various levels of form and substance (dimensions and frequencies) seems fruitful.
Unfortunately to consider this without the insights of Triadic Philosophy risks retreating into the dominant binary (nominalist, dualist) understanding. That is the death knell of a viable future.
Peirce may be fortunate not to have lived in our time. It is doubtful that his philosophy would be more than what it has been, a sort of tentative effort to reach past the academy. Look at his last sentence in this passage. There is still no effort to determine final causation.
Part of the problem is the forms which God and other names associated with religions have been given. Surely a Force that accounts for all realities must be deemed universal and freed from understandings which in any way contradict universality.
I do not despair of the possibility that quantum knowledge will meld with physics (string theory evolved, perhaps) to point a way to the unification I have posited in what I call Triadic Philosophy.
The idea that all reality has substance and that it is a thought development capable of achieving various levels of form and substance (dimensions and frequencies) seems fruitful.
Unfortunately to consider this without the insights of Triadic Philosophy risks retreating into the dominant binary (nominalist, dualist) understanding. That is the death knell of a viable future.
