J-MO = Jean-Marc Orliaguet JR = Joseph Ransdell J-M: > Also note that the various trichotomies are not ordered. It is purely a > convention to call a trichotomy the first, second, or third trichotomy, > etc. So deducing an ordering of the classes from that information only, > as it has been done many times including on this list, is incorrect.
JR: > It is not a matter of convention only: the three trichotomies are based on > the difference between firstness, secondness, and thirdness, which is > sufficient in itself to make the ordering of them as first, second, and > third something having informative content of some possible importance. J-M: yes, but this does no influence the results in any way, especially this has nothing to do with ordering the classes. If one started with the second trichotomy instead of the first, one would get let us say an (index, sinsign, rheme) instead of a (sinsign, index, rheme) ... but in a different order if one followed your method (3 would be 5 or something) no, really... the order relations between the classes of signs comes from the internal relations of determination between the sign, object and interpretant. That is totally independent of the way in which you perform the trichotomies. REPLY BY JR: The sequential order is not conventional. Peirce begins, in CP 2.254 with the simplest possible sign, the qualisign, which is so simple that its peculiar value as a sign can be due to nothing other than what it is by hypothesis: sign and object are the same, thus it can only be in icon when considered in relation to its object. That same simplicity constrains it to be only a rheme by constraining its interpretant to being the only thing it can possibly be, the quality which is the sign itself. This is the first class of sign: the rhematic iconic qualisign. When we get to 2.263, nine paragraphs later, for the tenth class of signs, we have traversed a path of continually increasing complexity through the intervening eight classes. In what sense of complexity? I couldn't describe informatively, at this time, what that sense is, but I can say that if you analyze what you have at the end of the process -- the argument (i.e. argument symbolic legisign) -- you find that it involves an instance of a sign class of the ninth class (the dicent symbol legisgn or, for short, the proposition), which in turn involves an instance of the eighth and an instance of the seventh, each of which involve signs of still prior classes, and so forth until you end at the beginning with the qualisign involved. I just now put in a few hours going through the chapter from Merkle's dissertation where he goes through, compares, and comments upon the many graphical representations of the sign concepts, including the various forms of the lattice structure of involvement which I described above, which is not constructed as a mere convention/ When I was working on this material myself I had constructed a representation of that as a lattice of involvement or presupposition of exactly the same form as that which Merrel and Marty had independently constructed, unknown to me, Merrel's apparently being before mine but I was unaware of it, and Marty's around the same time as mine but, again, not in my awareness. (His book was published around the time my attention was diverted from working further with that sort of thing, which dates from the time of a convention in Perpignan in 1989 where I recall learning that Marty had published his magnum opus, which I never read because I had another agenda from that time on in virtue of something that happened at that convention.) I mention all this because it is clearly unlikely that we would each have come up with that same peculiar lattice structure independently on the basis of independent decisions to so construct it as a matter of convention. There were logical necessities of involvement motivating it all the way. I am much impressed by all that has been done graphically in representing the sign classification system, and especially by Luis Merkle/s masterful handling of it all in that part of his dissertation, as well as further work by others in Brazil and elsewhere as well, but my own interest in the classification system is not with what can be learned from it by manipulating graphical models of it but with understanding what use it might have when it comes to understanding how to apply it in the analysis and understanding of distinctively philosophical problems such as have formed the staple of philosophical concern from the time of the Greeks on. I wonder if anyone knows of any attempts to do that. :Joe Ransdell -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.0/368 - Release Date: 6/16/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
