Re: Wilhelm von Humboldt and Semiotics

Re: Gary Moore
At: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8453

Gary,

Chomsky is "thoroughly Cartesian" only to the extent that he emphasized
the rationalist aspects of linguistics at a time when a tide of naively
empirical approaches had gone to extremes.  But that much rationalism
he shares with both Kant and Peirce, who took more balanced views of
the relation between empirical and rational approaches to inquiry.
In that time also, Chomsky was one of the voices beyond Peircean
enclaves who wrote with favor about Peirce's approach to science
and inquiry generally.

If I had to guess why Peirce did not have more to say about Humboldt,
it might be because Peirce was accustomed to taking for granted most
of what Humboldt had to say by way of principles.  For example, the
idea of "making infinite use of finite means" is such a commonplace
of mathematical practice from Pythagoras on that it would scarcely
seem like a much of novelty to Peirce.  Just a guess, though ...

Regards,

Jon

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