Abstract: Before a thought appears, there must be something, out of which it arises. For Charles Peirce this is a potentiality, which he calls “mere feeling”, “quality of feeling” or, “ground”. Peirce created the notion of a “ground”, a phantom sign, which precedes the appearance of a true sign, while, for the same reason Aristotle employs the thesis of the nearness of genus to species. Both explanations see the beginning of cognition act as a process with no beginning. Is it rather a pure hypothesis? The awareness of the ground as the starting point of creation is a powerful instrument for recognizing the emergence of new processes in art and sciences.
Ivan Mladenov
