Title:
The Double Face of Habits. Time and Timeless in Pragmatic Experience
Journal:
Rivista di storia della filosofia
Abstract:
According to Peirce, when habits are semiotic modes of representation of otherness, the facts related to them currently appear redundant, in a temporal way. Habits thus conceived reveal themselves as efficient guides of conduct in the face of their adherence to the future course of facts. Besides this logical function of habits, which could be called their positive face, we may ponder on another face of habits, which I here call negative, as it does not allow to see phenomena that do not matter to it. Many factual elements are excluded from their criterion of relevance that selects the phenomenical signs, among which those that do not call our attention for not feeding the formation of concepts due to their irregularity. They are discontinuous events. However, what would these irregularities mean? What relations do they maintain with the continuum of time? What importance would they have to human conduct? While these questions may have possible answers here, their deepness invites the continuity of the reflection they give rise to?
