Ben, list:
Thanks for the response, Ben, and for the news from Gary about the
conference. I hope Stjernfelt's paper is made generally available soon. He
has an important paper in Transactions of the Peirce Society 36 (Summer
2000) called "Diagrams as Centerpiece of a Peircean Epistemology"..
I'm caught by a luncheon engagement and can't do more at the moment than to
add some more quotes to provide some background for sorting out the
imputation factors along the lines you are suggesting: These are all from
the early years (1865-1873):
==========QUOTE PEIRCE===========
Writings 1,172f (1865) MS 94 Harvard Lecture I
"Concerning words also it is farther to be considered," [Locke] says, "that
there comes by constant use to be such a connection between certain sounds
and the ideas they stand for, that the names heard, almost as readily excite
certain ideas as if the objects themselves, which are apt to produce them,
did actually affect the senses." Now this readiness of excitation obviously
consists in this, namely, that we do not have to reflect upon the word as a
sign but . . . it comes to affect the intellect as though it had that
quality which it connotes. I call this the acquired nature of the word,
because it is a power that the word comes to have, and because the word
itself without any reflection of ours upon it brings the idea into our
minds. . . . Now, I ask, how is it that anything can be done with a symbol,
without reflecting upon the conception, much less imagining the object that
belongs to it? It is simply because the symbol has acquired a nature, which
may be described thus, that when it is brought before the mind certain
principles of its use -- whether reflected on or not -- by association
immediately regulate the action of the mind; and these may be regarded as
laws of the symbol itself which it cannot _as a symbol_ transgress.
Writings 1, 280 (1865) MS 106 Harvard Lecture X
Inference in general obviously supposes symbolization; and all symbolization
is inference. For every symbol as we have seen contains information. And in
the last lecture we saw that all kinds of information involve inference.
Inference, then, is symbolization. They are the same notions. Now we have
already analyzed the notion of a symbol, and we have found that it depends
upon the possibility of representations acquiring a nature, that is to say
an immediate representative power. This principle is therefore the ground of
inference in general.
Writings 1,477, Lowell Lecture IX 1866
Representation is of three kinds -- Likeness, Indication or
Correspondence in fact, and Symbolization. . . .
A representation is either a Likeness, an Index, or a Symbol. A
likeness represents its object by agreeing with it in some particular. An
index represents is object by a real correspondence with it -- as a tally
does quarts of milk, and a vane the wind. A symbol is a general
representation like a word or conception. Scientifically speaking, a
likeness is a representation grounded on an internal character -- that is,
whose reference to a ground is prescindible. An index is a representation
whose relation to its object is prescindible and is a Disquiparance, so that
its peculiar Quality is not prescindible but is relative. A symbol is a
representation whose essential Quality and Relation are both
unprescindible -- the Quality being imputed and the Relation ideal. Thus
there are three kinds of Quality
Internal Quality (Quality proper) --
The Quality of an Equiparent and Likeness
External Quality --
The Quality of a Disquiparant and Index
Imputed Quality --
The Quality of a Symbol
And two kinds of Relation
Real Relation (Relation proper) --
The Relation of Likeness and Index
Ideal Relation --
The relation of a Symbol
. . .
Having thus made a complete catalogue of the objects of formal thought,
we come down to consider symbols, with which alone Logic is concerned -- and
symbols in a special aspect; namely, as determined by their reference to
their objects or correlates.
The first division which we are to attempt to make between different
kinds of symbols ought to depend upon their intention, what they are
specially meant to express -- whether their peculiar function is to lie in
their reference to their ground, in their reference to their object, or
their reference to their interpretant. A symbol whose intended function is
its reference to its ground -- although as a symbol it must refer also to an
object and an interpretant, and although the nature of its reference to its
object is alone the study of the logician -- is nevertheless intended to be
nothing more than something which has meaning and to which a certain
character has been imputed; in other words it is a symbol only because the
imputation of a certain character has made it one -- the imputation of the
character is the same as putting it for a thing or things -- so that it is
merely considered as expressing a thing or things in their internal
characters -- as standing in place of a thing and as being like that thing,
an incarnation of a certain ground, though only by imputation and not
internally. If I write "White" -- this word[,] standing by itself, means
nothing; it stands there merely in place of a white thing so that we have by
imputation put a white thing on the board. So if we write "Aristotle" this
means nothing except so far as it embodies certain characters of mind, of
nationality, and of position in space and time, which belonged internally
and not by Imputation to the real Aristotle. Thus a term is a symbol which
is intended only to refer to a Ground or what is the same thing, to stand
instead of a Quale or what is again the same, to have meaning without truth.
Now suppose a Symbol whose intended function is the reference to an
object or correlate. The reference of a Symbol to its object is its truth.
This kind of symbol is therefore one which is intended merely to Embody a
truth. So that it is a proposition. But as reference to a correlate cannot
be intended or even supposed without reference to a ground, as truth
supposes meaning, to intend that a symbol should refer to a correlate is to
intend that it should refer to a correlate and ground, that is[,] be a
relate, by imputation, or in other words stand instead of a relate -- or
represent a relate. So that to say that a proposition is a symbol which is
intended to refer to a correlate is the same as to say that it is one which
represents a relate as such.
In the third place, a symbol may be intended to refer to an
interpretant or to have force. It is, then, intended also to contain a
statement, since reference to an interpretant cannot be prescinded from the
other references. It is intended therefore to inculcate this statement into
the interpretant, that is to produce the equivalent statement with the
interpretant -- not merely the statement that this symbol makes the
statement but a restatement. For an interpretant is something which
represents a representation to represent that which it does itself
represent. Now that which, thus, appeals to an interpretant -- that is, is
so constructed and intended so as to develop a restatement on the part of
another or assent -- is an argument, a syllogism minus the conclusion, for
the Conclusion of a syllogism is no part of the argument but is the assent
to it, the interpretant. An argument, therefore, is a symbol intended to
refer to an interpretant and I could show very easily that this is the same
as a symbol which from its form, represents a representation.
Collected Papers 1.558 (1867) On a New List of Categories
A reference to a ground may also be such that it cannot be prescinded from a
reference to an interpretant. In this case it may be termed an imputed
quality. If the reference of a relate to its ground can be prescinded from
reference to an interpretant, its relation to its correlate is a mere
concurrence or community in the possession of a quality, and therefore the
reference to a correlate can be prescinded from reference to an
interpretant. It follows that there are three kinds of representations. . .
.
. . .
[The third kind are] those the ground of whose relation to their objects is
an imputed character, which are the same as general signs, and these may be
termed _symbols_.
CP 5.309 1868
Everything has its subjective or emotional qualities, which are attributed
either absolutely or relatively, or by conventional imputation to anything
which is a sign of it. And so we reason,
The sign is such and such;
:. The sign is that thing.
This conclusion receiving, however, a modification, owing to other
considerations, so as to become --
The sign is almost (is representative of) that thing.
Writings 2,439-440; 1870 (Notes for Logic Lectures)]
The next question is in what sense can two things as incommensurable as
a meaning and a reality be said to agree.
The point of contact is the living mind which is affected in a similar
way by real things and by their signs. And this is the only possible point
of contact.
I say "a certain thing is blue." The image of blueness this excites in
the mind is not a copy of any blueness in the sentence. Therefore, even if
the sensation of blue be a copy of an external blue in the blue thing, there
can be no other agreement between the sentence and the thing than that they
convey the same notion to the mind.
The agreement between the meaning of a sign and a reality consists in
the former's exciting the same notion in the mind that the reality does.
This is obviously much too vague and shows us the necessity of
beginning with a systematic analysis of the conception of a sign.
W 2,439f MS 171: Spring 1870 Notes for Lectures on Logic to be given 1st
term 1870-71
1. Truth belongs to signs, particularly, and to thoughts as signs. Truth
is the agreement of a meaning with a reality.
2. The meaning -- to lekton -- is the respect in which signs which
translate each other are conceived to agree. It is something independent of
how the thing signified really is and depends only on what is conveyed to
whoever interprets the sign rightly. Whether this meaning is something out
of the mind or only in the mind or nothing at all (as the Stoics who
originated the term lekton maintained) is a question which cannot affect the
propriety of the definition of truth here given.
3. The meaning must be carefully distinguished from the sign itself and
from the thing signified.
A real thing is something whose characters are independent of how any
representation represents it to be.
Independent, therefore, of how any number of men think it to be. Idealism
does not falsify definition.
The next question is in what sense can two things as incommensurable as a
meaning and a reality be said to agree.
The point of contact is the living mind which is affected in a similar
way by real things and by their signs. And this is the only possible point
of contact.
I say "a certain thing is blue." The image of blueness this excites in
the mind is not a copy of any blueness in the sentence. Therefore, even if
the sensation of blue be a copy of an external blue in the blue thing, there
can be no other agreement between the sentence and the thing than that they
convey the same notion to the mind.
4. The agreement between the meaning of a sign and a reality consists
in the former's exciting the same notion in the mind that the reality does.
This is obviously much too vague and shows us the necessity of
beginning with a systematic analysis of the conception of a sign.
Writings 3, p. 64 (1873) MS 212 On Representations
The representation not only has material qualities but it also imputes
certain qualities to its object. These we may call its imputed qualities.
For example the word `white' printed in a book is itself black so far as its
own material qualities are concerned but its imputed quality is white.
===========END PEIRCE QUOTES===============
There are more relevant quotes from later on, but this is enough for this
message.
Joe Ransdell
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.3/395 - Release Date: 7/21/2006
---
Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
