A Practical Result
Read Peirce’s question below.
Now this is a very good question. It makes you think.
!
You are conscious of thinking.
But thinking is not reasoning.
Why?
Because for reasoning you want a subject or object or destination, something that you need to parse, explain or otherwise draw a conclusion about.
So already you are forced to think of a process, I venture to say a triadic process that might start with
ICON
That ! And perhaps Jenny. Where is she now?
INDEX
Possible answers or other facts or ideas drawn from your Jenny trove. Shall we assume she is alive, in Greenwich, and married (still) to Sam?
SYMBOL
I wonder if I might write her a note?
Speak of now, not then.
A MESSAGE.
Write it: Expression.
Send it: Action.
Peirce suggests that such practical outcomes constitute eventually the whole of this consideration. It is a practical consequence. The sum of philosophizing.
In terms of Triadic Philosophy, these three steps underlie the essential triad Reality Ethics and Aesthetics.
Note that we have done a little reasoning here.
But to do it we needed to start thinking, come up with a reality and then wrestle with it a bit and then conclude something.
Since I am doing the concluding, I suggest that reasoning is best done triadically and that it have some practical result. When the index is Ethics you can see that this might have some implication for human progress.
Peirce: CP 2.130 Cross-Ref:††
130. In the sixth place, I believe that you opine that you yourself are conscious of reasoning. I do not doubt that you are so, in some sense; but what is it precisely that you are conscious of?
