TY - CHAP

T1 - Habit as a law of mind

T2 - A Peircean approach to habit in cultural and mental phenomena

AU - Bisanz, Elize

AU - Cunningham, Scott

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - In The Architecture of Theories and The Law of Mind, Charles S. Peirce declares the categories of Chance and Continuity as determinant for the emergence and evolution of ideas on their way from individuality to generality. Ideas, as the emergence of mental activity, spread continuously affecting other ideas and establish patterns of activities. In this process of spreading they lose energy intensity and by merging into other ideas gain generality. Hence, ideas embody both individuality in the sense of occurring once, and continuity as the bonding law of cultural unity, through the force of habit. For Peirce, all thought, including the manifestation of ideas, is performed by means of signs (Peirce 1868: 103-114) anchored in sign-systems. Accordingly, general ideas are performed by general signs called symbols. Symbols are the most fundamental sign-category used to develop and establish cultural “evolution” (Cassirer 1953). Being general ideas, symbols also follow the laws of individuality and continuity. This paper will compare the function of patterns and regularities in mind activity with the function of symbol activity in the establishment of cultural patterns and will argue that both phenomena can be understood as the result of the law of habit.

AB - In The Architecture of Theories and The Law of Mind, Charles S. Peirce declares the categories of Chance and Continuity as determinant for the emergence and evolution of ideas on their way from individuality to generality. Ideas, as the emergence of mental activity, spread continuously affecting other ideas and establish patterns of activities. In this process of spreading they lose energy intensity and by merging into other ideas gain generality. Hence, ideas embody both individuality in the sense of occurring once, and continuity as the bonding law of cultural unity, through the force of habit. For Peirce, all thought, including the manifestation of ideas, is performed by means of signs (Peirce 1868: 103-114) anchored in sign-systems. Accordingly, general ideas are performed by general signs called symbols. Symbols are the most fundamental sign-category used to develop and establish cultural “evolution” (Cassirer 1953). Being general ideas, symbols also follow the laws of individuality and continuity. This paper will compare the function of patterns and regularities in mind activity with the function of symbol activity in the establishment of cultural patterns and will argue that both phenomena can be understood as the result of the law of habit.

KW - Bonding (weld)

KW - Energy

KW - Individuality

KW - Reason (reasoning)

KW - Symbolic form

KW - Science of art

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85019673652&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-45920-2_22

DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-45920-2_22

M3 - Chapter

AN - SCOPUS:85019673652

SN - 978-3-319-45918-9

SN - 978-3-319-83399-6

T3 - Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics

SP - 401

EP - 419

BT - Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit

A2 - West, Donna E.

A2 - Anderson, Myrdene

PB - Springer International Publishing AG

CY - Cham

ER -