Tillich's "Symbol" vis-à-vis Jaspers' "Cipher"

Leonard H. Ehrlich

The Harvard Theological Review

Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jan., 1973), pp. 153-156

Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509355

Reading Ciphers With Jaspers and Ricoeur - Existenz

www.existenz.us/volumes/Vol.1Courtney.pdf

Nice discussion in the online Stanford Encyclopedia at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/jaspers/

A very interesting discussion: Ciphers and Existence – Karl Jaspers between West and East, Istvan V. Király  Journal for the Study of Religion and Ideologies, Vol 5, No 13 (2006)Lexington Books

Some discussion in Nature's Primal Self: Peirce, Jaspers, and Corrington Dec 9, 2011 Lexington Books

by Nam T. NguyenNature’s Primal Self examines Corrington’s thought, called “ecstatic naturalism,” in juxtaposition to both C. S. Peirce’s pragmatic and semiotic concept of the self and Karl Jaspers’ existential elucidation of Existenz. Peirce’s and Jaspers’ anthropocentrism is thus corrected by Corrington’s ecstatic naturalism. Ecstatic naturalism, as a new movement, is both a semiotic theoretical method and a metaphysics that probes deeply into the ontological divide between nature naturing and nature natured. Author Nam T. Nguyen attempts to achieve three goals: first, to present and elucidate the underlying philosophical concepts of Charles Peirce, Karl Jaspers, and Robert Corrington; second, to critique the anthropocentric self of Peirce’s semiotic pragmatism and of Jaspers’ existential anthropology (periechontology) from the standpoint of ecstatic naturalism; and third, to introduce the concept of nature’s primal self, radically grounded in the perspective of ecstatic naturalism, as a judicious, more encompassing, and richer framework compared to Peirce’s semiotic construction of the self and Jaspers’ existential concept of Existenz.

Thank you for your input Ms Kemp.  It is very informative 

Dear William,

I only read one of Jaspers' papers.  I only now learned of the term “cipher”.  I did a quick search and read three quick citations, none of which I would call an original publication.

Therefore, this is my interpretation but with the hope that it is a correct one (better yet, a correctible one). I recognize the meaning of cipher as identical to the theme of Peirce’s On a New List of Categories:

“Sec. 1. This paper is based upon the theory already established, that the function of conceptions is to reduce the manifold of sensuous impressions to unity, and that the validity of a conception consists in the impossibility of reducing the content of consciousness to unity without the introduction of it.”

Therefore, it (conception/cipher) is supposed to be necessary for transformation.  At the end, he suggests it is only heuristic (imperfect view...believed to be sufficient... something to usefully suggest), but one to be adopted consciously.  

There is difficulty because multiplicity of conceptions are layered hierarchically:

“This theory gives rise to a conception of gradation among those conceptions which are universal. For one such conception may unite the manifold of sense and yet another may be required to unite the conception and the manifold to which it is applied; and so on...”

_____

CP 5.189, a syllogism, demands explicit statement of premises placed outside of ourselves, so we know who we recognize to be the community in conversation for healthier calculation. 

Calculation as one, two, three…C, A, B…icon, index, symbol…esthetics, ethics, logic…

Therefore, it rests on social principles.  It promotes growth of concrete reasonableness, identical with universal transcendence?

_____

Thinking over the message of CP 5.189 with logographic necessity promotes learning.

For example, I may ask myself, What is…:

Terms are C, A (B implied).

Proposition is an argumentation where the unity between subject and predicate need not be of concern.  That is, they are only partly good.

A good, whole argument is the form in which unity between C and A is suspected of being true, held together by the copula in B.  

Hth,

Jerry 

Thank you Jerry for your input.  Yet, when one communicates with oneself or with others how does the perspective of the magic of words relate to the mechanical perspective of words?  How can lone distinguish between type I and type 2 errors?

Don't use words.  Use signs, symbols or whatever is necessary to make your idea clear.  Fill out the content of C and A explicitly, and mediate.

Best,

J