For the benefit of those who don't have a copy of Essential Peirce 2, here
is the passage referred to by Vinicius Romanini in which Peirce appears to
be defining "perfect sign" in such a way as to make it synonymous with
"entelechy" (Peirce's emphasis shown here by use of capital letters):
========QUOTE PEIRCE=============
Consider then the aggregate formed by a sign and all the signs which
its occurrence carries with it. This aggregate will itself be a sign; and we
may call it a PERFECT sign, in the sense that it involves the present
existence of no other sign except such as are ingredients of itself. Now no
perfect sign is in a statical condition: you might as well suppose a portion
of matter to remain at rest during a thousandth of a second, or any other
long interval of time. The only signs which are tolerably fixed are
non-existent abstractions. We cannot deny that such a sign is real; only its
mode of reality is not that active kind which we call existence. The
existent acts, and whatsoever acts changes. . . .
Every real ingredient of the perfect sign is aging, its energy of
action upon the interpretant is running low, its sharp edges are wearing
down, its outlines becoming more indefinite.
On the other hand, the perfect sign is perpetually being acted upon by
its object, from which it is perpetually receiving the accretions of new
signs, which bring it fresh energy, and also kindle energy that it already
had, but which had lain dormant.
In addition, the perfect sign never ceases to undergo changes of the
kind we rather drolly call SPONTANEOUS, that is, they happen SUA SPONTE [=
happens of itself, without assistance] but not by ITS will. They are
phenomena of growth.
Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind, It is the sheet of assertion of
Existential Graphs. . . .
This quasi-mind is an object which from whatever standpoint it be
examined, must evidently have, like anything else, its special qualities of
susceptibility to determination. Moreover, the determinations come as events
each one once for all and never again. Furthermore, it must have its rules
or laws, the more special ones variable, others invariable.
=========END QUOTE================
The above is from MS 283, published in part in Essential Peirce 2 and
editorially entitled "The Basis of Pragmaticism in the Normative Sciences".
This passage is from a part of that MS not published by the editors but
quoted by them in a footnote which appears on p. 545. The context for the
footnote in the part of MS 283 that is published is a passage in which he is
defining a sign as a "species of medium of communication", which reads as
follows:
============QUOTE PEIRCE==============
A medium of communication is something, A, which being acted upon by
something else, N, in its turn acts upon something, I, in a manner involving
its determination by N, so that I shall thereby, through A and only through
A, be acted upon by N. We may purposely select a somewhat imperfect example.
Namely, one animal, say a mosquito, is acted upon by the entity of a zymotic
disease, and in its turn acts upon another animal, to which it communicates
the fever. The reason that this example is not perfect is that the active
medium is in some measure of the nature of a VEHICLE, which differs from a
medium of communication in acting upon the transported object and
determining it to a changed location, where, without further interposition
of the vehicle, it acts upon, or is acted upon by, the object to which it is
conveyed. A sign, on the other hand, just in so far as it fulfills the
function of a sign and none other, perfectly conforms to the definition of a
medium of communication. It is determined by the object, but in no other
respect than goes to enable it to act upon the interpreting quasi-mind other
than that of determining it as if the object itself had acted upon it. Thus,
after an ordinary conversation, a wonderfully perfect kind of sign
functioning, one knows what information or suggestion has been conveyed, but
will be utterly unable to say in what words it was conveyed, and often will
think it was conveyed in words, when in fact it was only conveyed in tones
or in facial expressions.
It seems best to regard a sign as a determination of a quasi-mind; for
if we regard it as an outward object, and as addressing itself to a human
mind, that mind must first apprehend it as object in itself, and only after
that consider it in its significance; and the like must happen if the sign
addresses itself to any quasi-mind. It must begin by forming a determination
of that quasi-mind, and nothing will be lost by regarding that determination
as the sign. So, then, it is a determination that really acts upon that of
which it is a determination, although GENUINE action is of one thing on
another. This perplexes us, and an example of an analogous phenomenon will
do good service. Metaphysics has been said contemptuously to be a fabric of
metaphors. But not only metaphysics, but logical and phaneroscopical
concepts need to be clothed in such garments. For a pure idea without
metaphor or other significant clothing is an onion without a peel.
===========END QUOTE===================
And to this passage the editors have footnoted yet another passage from
another manuscript (MS 793) which is apparently just an alternative draft of
the same provenance as MS 283, which reads as follows:
=============QUOTE PEIRCE===============
For the purpose of this inquiry a Sign may be defined as a Medium for
the communication of a Form. It is not logically necessary that anything
possessing consciousness, that is, feeling of the peculiar common quality of
all our feeling, should be concerned. But it is necessary that there should
be two, if not three, QUASI-MINDS, meaning things capable of varied
determination as to forms of the kind communicated.
As a MEDIUM, the Sign is essentially in a triadic relation, to its
Object which determines it, and to its Interpretant which it determines. In
its relation to the Object, the Sign is PASSIVE; that is to say, its
correspondence to the Object is brought about by an effect upon the Sign,
the Object remaining unaffected. On the other hand, in its relation to the
Interpretant the Sign is ACTIVE, determining the Interpretant without being
itself thereby affected.
But at this point certain distinctions are called for. That which is
communicated from the Object through the Sign to the Interpretant is a Form.
It is not a singular thing; for if a singular thing were first in the Object
and afterward in the interpretant outside the Object, it must thereby cease
to be in the Object. The Form that is communicated does not necessarily
cease to be in one thing when it comes to be in a different thing, because
its being is a being of the predicate. The Being of a Form consists in the
truth of a conditional proposition. Under given circumstances, something
would be true. The Form is in the Object, entitatively we may say, meaning
that that conditional relation, or following of consequent upon reason,
which constitutes the Form, is literally true of the Object. In the Sign the
Form may or may not be embodied entitatively, but it must be embodied
representatively, that is, in respect to the Form communicated, the Sign
produces upon the Interpretant an effect similar to that which the Object
itself would under favorable circumstances.
=============END QUOTE=====================
The above is from MS 793 (1906), which is apparently an alternative draft to
MS 283. It is quoted in editorial footnote 22 to "The Basis for
Pragmaticism in the Normative Sciences," in EP2, p. 544.
The reason for quoting all of this is not to make any particular point of
interpretation but rather because of the connections of the idea of
entelechy with so many different conceptions of special interest in Peirce
that can be found in these passages. My copy of "The Basis for Pragmaticism
in the Normative Sciences" in EP2 is too badly marked up to be readable by
the OCR program of my scanner or I would scan it and put it up at Arisbe,
too, since there seem to be important connections with the New Elements
paper.
Joe Ransdell
----- Original Message -----
From: "gnusystems" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 8:49 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Entelechy
Vinicius,
[[ I think the best definition of Entelechy given by Peirce, done in
terms of Semeiosis, can be found in his definition of "Perfect Sign"
(EP2: 545, n.25). ]]
I see what you mean -- although Peirce doesn't mention the word
"entelechy" there, "perfect sign" seems synonymous with it.
Janet,
I'm relatively new around here myself, so i know it takes awhile to get
oriented. Welcome to the list! (I don't recall whether that's been said
to you already, but if so, another welcome won't hurt.)
[[ I am surprised, however, to see the entrants under "Models and
simulations of mind." Aren't the views of Hofstadter, Dennet and Minsky
generally at odds with the spirit of rest of your list -- and explicitly
at odds with Damasio, Lakoff, Maturana and Varela, Rosen, and
Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations? ]]
No more at odds than the latter group are among themselves, if you allow
for some major differences in focus and idiom. But i have to admit that
i don't find much of interest in Dennett or Minsky nowadays. They were
central to my reading and thinking 25 years ago (before the others that
you mention appeared on my horizon), but much more peripheral now. I put
them on the list because i think much of what i learned from them is
still valid; and in Hofstadter's case, because my work in progress still
draws upon his concepts of "tangled hierarchy" and "strange loops" and
(especially) his modeling of the creative process. Besides, Hofstadter
was quick to pick up on the emerging concepts of chaos and complexity.
Actually, if i had to list those who are most out of step with the rest
of the list, i'd name Pinker, Dawkins, Koch and Crick. But they still
have a place there, if only because i think that any point on which they
agree with the others can be assumed to have very broad support, simply
because the supporters are so diverse.
But really i'd rather not speak as glibly of these folks as i have here,
as if i could fit each one neatly into some mental pigeonhole. Each one
of us is a whole world. We are worlds in conversation, turning still.
Sometimes we spin in synchrony and sometimes we don't. When we do, we
have structural coupling, as Maturana and Varela called it. And when we
don't, we may have a chance to learn something new.
gary F.
}The simple fact is that no measurement, no experiment or observation is
possible without a relevant theoretical framework. [D.S. Kothari]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson & Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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