Triadic Categories of Thought…
Aristotle, Kant, Peirce, and a synthesis into the Semiotic Triadic
“by form I mean the essence of each thing and the primary substance”… and …“by the substance without matter I mean the essence”…
— Aristotle
“It is, rather, solely an act of the understanding, which itself is nothing but the faculty of combining “a priori” and of bringing the manifold of given representations under the unity of apperception; and the principle of this unity is, in fact, the supreme principle of all human knowledge”…
— Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
“If the sign were not related to its object except by the mind thinking of them separately, it would not fulfil the function of a sign at all”…
– Charles Sanders Peirce
The history of Intellectual Thought of Western Civilisation can be viewed through the prism of two distinct transformational epochs that have been critical to developing our foundational understanding of Reason and Human Consciousness:
- the development of a Triadic of First-Principle Categories from Aristotle’s Category of Things to Kant’s Category of Understandings to Peirce’s Category of the Whole; and
- the development of a Triadic Framework of Reason from Aristotle’s Abduction anchored in Logic (Study of Thought) to Bacon’s Induction anchored in Metaphysics (Study of Being) to Peirce’s Abduction anchored in Semiotics (Study of Meaning).
Triadic of Categories
“According to Guenon, the crisis of the Modern World is first of all metaphysical. The negation of authority is not a stage or a consequence of Rationalism; it is rather its precondition, as rejection of a super-human order and of a cognitive faculty higher than individual reason”…
— Augusto del Noce
As outlined in The Univocity of Being — The Highest Category of Human Thought development of first-order metaphysical categories is fundamental for Humanity to begin to understand the nature of Human Consciousness, the nature of Reason, the nature of Truth and ultimately the nature of Reality.
Revealing the Divine Order of Things and the Nature of Reality.
The development of first-order metaphysical categories by leading Philosophers to explain the nature of things and how they interact at the most fundamental level of human understanding.
Each of the three categories developed has a distinct function within a broader metaphysical and epistemological framework.
One of Being, Knowing and Meaning.
- Relationships of Being — Being — Ontology — What can Exist? — Aristotle — Category of Things focused on Being and Reality which assists us in understanding what exists (necessity and possibility) and how we describe it — Observed;
- Relationships of Understanding— Knowing — Epistemology — How do we Understand? — Kant — Category of Understanding focused on explaining how the Mind structures experiences and beliefs of the World — Observer; and
- Relationships of Meaning — Meaning— Semiotics — Why do things Relate? — Peirce — Category of the Whole focused on explaining the processes (firstness, secondness and thirdness) of how we engage with and interpret Reality through embodied experiences, cognitive abstraction and relationships of concepts and categories — Signs, Meaning, Practical Effects that shape the formation of Habits and Heuristics
When these three categories are combined — Observed (What?), Observer (How?) and Sign (Why?) — it results in Triadic Categories of Thought.
“If the sign were not related to its object except by the mind thinking of them separately, it would not fulfil the function of a sign at all” …
– Charles Sanders Peirce
A Triadic of Categories leads to a Triadic of Reason
The formulation of a Triadic of Categories of Thought provides the foundations for the development of a Triadic of Reason.
The emergence in ~350 BC of Aristotelian Term Logic and Deductive Reasoning that combined Logic and Structures of Thought (Conscious Self — Observer).
The emergence in the 17th Century of Sir Francis Bacon’s Empiricism and Inductive Reasoning that combined Logic and Structured Thought (Conscious Self — Observer) with Embodied Empirical Observations (Observer & Observed).
The emergence in the 20th Century of Charles Sanders Peirce’s Semiotics and Abductive Reasoning that combines Observer, Sign and Observed into a Relationship of the Whole — an Embodied Form of Reason (i.e. the Meaning of a concept is tied to Practical Consequences) — a Relationship of Meaning — a Semiotic Triadic.
Relationships that reflect a Triadic nature of Human Consciousness that combines the Conscious Self with Embodiment (Primisense — Mind experienced through the Senses ), the Conscious Self with Non-Conscious Self (Altersense — Two Minds of Will and Sensation), and the Conscious Self (Medisense — Mind where Beliefs manifests into Habits and Knowledge ). This includes the Mind’s conceptual framework and precondition through which Human makes sense of the World. Both through higher dimensional relationships of Meaning (the Semantic Mind and Kant’s Unity of the Manifold (i.e. of bringing it under an apperception) and specific Categories & Concepts.
The Triadic of Reason
“Let me remind you of the distinction … between dynamical, or dyadic action; and intelligent, or triadic action”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
Humans interpret Reality through their consciousness and have the capacity to improve our understanding of Reality (i.e. Truth is the correspondence of Beliefs to Reality) by combining three distinct yet related categories of thought.
- Peircian Semiotics — Representamen (Relationship of Meaning ) — Categories of the Whole — Dynamic & Process Orientated — The relational structure (relationships of meaning (Semiotics) between our Mind and the Universe (Peirce). Abductive reasoning enables potential new relationships of meaning thereby revealing a hypothesis of a possible new premise about the World. The Mode of Being of Individuals that reflects our physical entanglement (Mind & Body and Self & Non-Self) in the Immanent World;
- Metaphysics — Object (Observed) — Categories of Things — Object Orientated, Static and Descriptive. The most fundamental ontological categories of the Mind describe the things that can exist in the World (Aristotle). The Mind’s understanding of Being and Existence and what can exist from an Ontological (exist in the World) and Cognitive (mind’s comprehension of the World) perspective. Inductive reasoning enables the formulation of a premise (relationship between Subject and Predicate) likely to be true (a Generalisation) based on empirical observations. Studying the relationship between mind & abstraction and embodiment & observation is a form of metaphysical inquiry dealing with foundational questions about the nature of reality, being, and consciousness. Metaphysics is the Study of Being — the Science of Reality; and
- Logic — Interpretant (Observer) — Categories of Understanding — Subject Orientated, a Priori and Universal. The most fundamental categories of the Mind that organise and structure thought. Reductionism and Deductive reasoning enable the formulation of new Truth Statements based on existing assumed true premises (Formal Logic). The Mode of Being of Reality reflects Human Consciousness’s capacity to transcend the physical and Immanent World. For example, the Human Mind’s concept or category of Being can be applied to Humans (Contingent Being — Created ) and also God (Necessary Being — Creator) (a Univocity of Being). It also reflects Human Consciousness’s capacity to pursue an understanding of Truth (Human Beliefs correspond to Reality — Noting Aquinas’s different types of Truth — Ontological (Being) — Logical (Relations of the Intellect) — Moral — Divine — Eternal).
***Footnote — Ideas have consequences and Peirce’s fresh 20th Century perspectives highlight:
- the triadic relational nature of Reason and Logic that move through 3 stages of inquiry from a hypothesis & doubt (abduction) to generalisation & resolving doubt (induction) to a belief & understanding (deduction);
- the entangled nature of the Observer (Humans). The meaning of ideas grounded in concepts & categories of Thought and the Observed (the Object and external World). A Normative Approach to Reason, a Philosophy of Pragmaticism, a Semiotic Triadic and Pragmatic Maxim;
- the interplay between the Primacy of Human Consciousness (Observer) and the Primacy of Existence (Observed) in an Immanent World, together with Human Consciousness and a higher-order reality (Realism & Universals);
- his critique of the Metaphysics of Nominalism (endemic in Modernity and Post-Modernity Intellectual Thought) which denies the reality of universals and thereby undermines scientific inquiry and regularities in the natural world which leads to a fragmented human view of reality (a subjectivity), an underappreciation of the role of meaning (i.e. beyond simply a human social construct), a balkanisation of knowledge (vis a vis a fabric of knowledge) and ignorance to the role of generalisations and universals for learning and habit formation; and
- the central role of Metaphysics and the telos of Truth for Humans in having a sense of coherence of Reality.
