Re: Slow Read : Kaina Stoicheia : The Title

Re: Bernard Morand
At: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8338

Bernard,

For some reason or unreason I am not receiving your messages through email,
so I will try to reply on the web interface.

One piece of context would be the lost-and-found-again manuscripts and others
with similar titles that Carolyn Eisele collected in NEM 2.  I copied a couple
of their tables of contents to the lists, and will try to excerpt some of their
texts when I get more time.  Unless we find direct textual evidence to that effect,
I am not seeing much plausibility to the idea that so many manuscripts invoking
the spirit and style of Euclid would be concerned with mathematical subjects but
Kaina Stoicheia would be concerned with metaphysics.

I think it is more likely that Peirce chose the title Kaina Stoicheia for much the
same reason that Francis Bacon chose the title Novum Organum, with one hand paying
due homage to the forerunner while the other hand points to firmer firmaments and
vaster horizons.

I agree that developing the theory of signs into a full-fledged scientific theory
is part of what it takes to firm up that firmament, but I see no reason at this point
to think that the central subject matter in this orbit of manuscripts is anything other
than mathematics.

Regards,

Jon

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