[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Dear Jim, Rob and List:Before turning to Jim's post, a couple of comments about the Salzburg conferences.The Whitehead conference attracted about three hundred (300!!) participants. The Chinese are keenly interested in Whitehead. It was rumored that they intend to establish 25 research institutes to explore philosophical and political relations. The sessions on mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology attracted about 25 participants to each! very impressive relative to other philosophical conferences.Peirce was frequently mentioned in sessions. A special session included discussions about the Whitehead - deChardin linkages. Roland Faber's paper suggested to me an orthogonality between these two views of philosophy. By orthogonality in this context I mean the approach to extensions.The abstracts are on the web and papers will also be posted on the website for the conference.The Biosemiotics gathering was attended by about 50 participants from perhaps a dozen different countries. Peirce played a role in many many papers. The abstracts are on the web and the papers will be posted. Lots of discussions of coding and bio-logic.Is it not absolutely wonderful that we can access current research reports from our desktops in a timely and efficient manner? Now, on to the issue of Peirce and chemical isomers that are distinguished by a specific property of rotating light that has passed through a crystal, generating what is called "polarized light." Jim wrote:From: "Jim Piat" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 18:17:21 -0400 X-Message-Number: 7 Jerry Chandler wrote: "But, my point is that if four different groups are necessary to = construct an optical isomer of carbon such that it distinguishes between = the logic of polarized light, then it is mathematically impossible to = achieve this logical distinction with any notion of 'threeness". = Optical isomers are not a question of trichotomies and triadicies. They = are questions of tetrachotomies and tetraadicies. I would welcome = arguments to the otherwise". Dear Jerry, =20 Actually, handedness and materials that polarize light are among the = very examples Peirce gives of his notion of Thirdness. Do you have a direct source of this passage? The notions of = left verses right (which distinguished between mirror image optical = stereo-isomers) Peirce pointa out require the consideration of the = triadic relation of three directions (up-down, front back, left right). = It may well be that different carbon groups are involved naturally = occuring steroisomers but in fact only three conjoined points are = required to achieved the distniction beween left and right.This is an interesting point. Of course, it refers to the cartesian plane, not space itself.In general, chemistry operates in space and optical isomers rotate light is space. Triadic examples of handedness Left Right A---B B--A l l l l C C Verses "redundant" tetradic examples of handedness Left Right A--B--D DB-A l l I I C C I don't mean to be present the above as authoritative -- this is merely = my understanding of the issue.=20Modern theory (simplified) considers light rotation to be a spatial operation emerging from the difference between four DIFFERENT material attachments to a central carbon atom.In order to deduce the relation with "left" or "right", one starts with the concept of a tetrahedron.Hold the tetrahedron in space and imagine looking down one of the apexes through the middle point (the central carbon atom) and out the plane opposite the apex and middle point.The "back plane" will contain the other three points of the tetrahedron. These three points can be in two possible orders: A - B - C or A - C - B.Pastuer noticed that two crystal forms of tartaric acid existed and was able to separate them "by eye".One rotated light left, the other right. Many years later it was found that two crystalline forms of tartaric acid with identical molecular formula and structure, represented the order A_B_C or the order A_C_B, differed by the organization in space. This is a slightly simplified version of the narrative but captures the essential features.From a philosophy of science perspective, the existence of optical isomers clears shows the irreducibility of chemistry knowledge to independent physical concepts. As nearly all biochemical molecules are optical isomers, often having hundreds or thousands of optical centers, it is widely believed that a theory of biology depends on explaining the origins of optical isomerism in living systems.I certainly would appreciate any insights individuals may have on how this related to
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Ben wrote: A 3-D object can be so rotated in 4-D space as to turn it opposite-handed. I remember an episode of the original _Outer Limits_ about it -- some man ended up with two right hands :-). My response: Thanks, Ben. I'm not surprised to hear from you on this issue four-most importance. But so quickly -LOL. Well if you are right (and I imagine you are) it seems to me that this would shed some doubt on the universality of Peirce's claim regarding the nature of triads being sufficient to account for all higher order relations. Still I think the result holds for three dimensional space (especially with respect to the issue of sterio-isomers requiring in principle only three groups to establish their handedness. Would you agree with this latter more limited conclusion? I recall a similar discussion on list years back when the question of whehter Peirces conclucions regarding the sufficiency of triads was merely an artifact of the the fact that we lived in three dimensional space and someone said that the issue had been addressed by some mathematicians and apparently "those" mathematicians felt Peirce was correct. But I'm in no position to judge. Seems its a fairly straightforward issue that I would think topologist have,or could, address. Thanks again. Ben.Would my blaming my breaking ofmy vow of holiday silence on you be a some sort of degenerate third or just a plain old garden variety lame excuse. Cheers, Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Jim, list,
I'm not sure at this point what more limited conclusion it is that we're
talking about!
Generally speaking, I don't have a view on any logical valence numbers's
being sufficient or necessary for all higher-valence relations. But I'm a bit
doubtful that Peirce's trichotomism triadism are an artefact of his not
considering hyperspaces.
The only case of which I know where a "minimum adicity" makes really clear,
really simple sense to me is that of Feynman diagrams of which it's said that
the "minimum possible event" involves two triadic vertices. I'm able to make
sense of it because it's specified that to be such an "event," an interaction
has to be capable of showing the conservation of quantities.The
corresponding idea in semiosis might not be that of some sort of conservation,
however. I would consider that some sort of evolution must be showable. The
interpretant is merely a development, a hopeful monster, a construal. Triadic
semiosis has no way to learn and keep learning to distinguish sense from
nonsense. Real evolution involves not merely development of construals, but
their testing against the reality which they supposedly represent.
As to tetrads, I just say that, in whatever sense an
interpretant-sign-object relationship can't be reduced to some strictly dyadic
sign-object relationship, so, likewise, in that sense, a
recognition-interpretant-sign-object relationship can't be reduced to a strictly
triadic interpretant-sign-object relationship. Since a collaterally based
recognition is logically determined by its correlates and logically determines
semiosis going forward, it is a semiotic element. Since it is as experience of
the object, that it is a collaterally based recognition, it is neither sign of
the object nor interpretant of the object. If it were the object itself, then
neither sign nor interpretant would be needed. It is indistinct from the
interpretant only when the sign is indistinct from the object; in which case all
four are indistinct from one another. (The interpretant's elucidation of 'fresh'
info about the object implies a distinction or divergence between sign
object.) We are sufficiently code-unbound to be able to test our signs,
interpretants, and systems and "codes" of interpretation. This involves
collateral experience. No degree of elucidation, interpretation, or construal,
is a substitute for (dis-)confirmation, whereby wetake over the task of
biological evolution andlessen our risk of being removed from the gene
pool as penalty for a bad interpretant.
As regards 4-chotomies, some significant ones are transparently logical and
are not subject to any useful kind of trichotomization that I can see. Other
4-chotomies are more or less established, e.g., the special-relativistic light
cone, which is a ubiquitous physical instance of a general structure which one
might revise to a 5-chotomy or even a 6-chotomy; a trichotomization would be the
division into past, present, future, but this is crude for some purposes,
including the understanding of communication. Information theory has its
division into source, encoding, decoding, and recipient, often compared with
that of semiotics up to the stage of "interpretant = decoding." However the
comparison fails at the fourth stage (the recipient) and thereby renders quite
suspect the comparison as a whole. The collaterally based recognition
("recognizant"), however,is what correlates to the info-theoretic
recipient. (Note: Information theory also places channels between the stages,
especially between encoding decoding.)
Best, Ben
- Original Message -
From: Jim Piat
To: Peirce Discussion Forum
Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 12:37 PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign -
help!
Ben wrote:
A 3-D object can be so rotated in 4-D space as to turn it
opposite-handed. I remember an episode of the original _Outer Limits_
about it -- some man ended up with two right hands :-).
My response:
Thanks, Ben. I'm not surprised to hear from
you on this issue four-most importance. But so quickly -LOL. Well
if you are right (and I imagine you are) it seems to me that this would shed
some doubt on the universality of Peirce's claim regarding the nature of
triads being sufficient to account for all higher order relations. Still
I think the result holds for three dimensional space (especially with respect
to the issue of sterio-isomers requiring in principle only three groups to
establish their handedness. Would you agree with this latter more
limited conclusion? I recall a similar discussion on list years back
when the question of whehter Peirces conclucions regarding the sufficiency of
triads was merely an artifact of the the fact that we lived in three
dimensional space and someone said that the issue had been addressed by some
math
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Thanks Bill for your comments. You wrote: Patrick, I'm don't know what in my post you're replying to. I don't keep my posts, so I can't be sure, but I don't recall mentioning an expression continuum, segments or meaning continuum. I may have; I sometimes think I only think I know what I say or mean. My post (I think) had to do with the confusion/conflation of independent processes. If that's what you're doing in your last paragraph, quit it! (I don't have any of those smiley gadget to put here.) Cheers, Bill Ok, on the last point, you can borrow this smiley here if you like :) Apropos: expression continuum and meaning continuum are actually supposed to be considered part and parcel of one and the same general continuum of meaning-expression potential that is capable of being cut in various ways, according to Eco's creative blending of Peirce and Hjelmslev's sign functions. My last paragraph was of course pure speculation, and I apologise if it seemed to you too arcane, since there are some flavours in there (transitivity) that I pulled in from systemic functional linguistics. But since I am at present trying (I think) to build/ defend a position that says that all independent processes, though discrete, must always be seen as to some degree presuppositionally linked to one another in the immediate context of any given current event, I fear some conflation/ confusion/ overlapping of perspectives is probably inevitable. Whether it is actually worth trying to defend such a position is of course another matter (cf Steven's recent comments on useful and non-useful hypotheses/ predictions), but that is what (I think) I'm trying to do. But actually, I did keep your message, so let's have a look at it in some more detail. You wrote: Patrick: In addition to representing what I have always hoped is Peirce's developmental teleology, your description of sign function seems to me to get to the heart of pragmatic discourse analysis in which conventional sign structures and meanings (syntactics and semantics) serve principally as orientation to what the situated discourse is being used to do. I would only add that it is sometimes useful to recognize that a number of differentiable processes occur simultaneously within the great alpha process. There is the action processes associated with life-forms. There is the motion/matter processes associated with non-life-forms. (I'm using these terms only as gestures, fingers that point in a given direction, and not as depictions.) The highly ephemeral acts of sign usage are real events in several related but distinct processes--e.g, those physical, physiological, psychological and sociological processes necessary to communication acts. My point here would be that it may be of interest to try to investigate/ describe in some more detail the possible relationships that may obtain or exist between salient aspects of the several related but distinct processes you mention above. In this connection it has occurred to me that the notion of narrative possible worlds as used by Eco, coupled with a dynamic notion of transworld identity, where there can be some degree of transmission or intersection of some salient aspects of actual events as these are seen, or made pertinent, by the inhabitants of each of the involved possible worlds. I sometimes feel that we have developed so specialised languages and norms of communication in our different disciplinary fields that it is often more and more difficult to find some common ground about which we can communicate. Mathematical and computational models provide one interesting, and perhaps relevant means of doing this kind of thing. Mathematics with its high level of abstraction has the advantage of being open to systematically/ formally describing (or modelling) any kind of physical or other phenomenon in processual terms. A problem with this is that any model we make in this way will be reductive in some sense or other, and we will only be able to suggest/ grasp a fairly vague idea of what may be going on in some domain or other of our supposed whole. But mathematical models can certainly be used to predict and confirm working hypotheses, at least to a certain extent When computer science is brought in, coupled with narrative, argumentational or explanatory forms of discourse and dynamic visualisation technologies, this allows intersemiotic translations of descriptive models into visual narrative forms that may be easier to intuitively understand for non mathematicians. It seems to me these different processes often get confused or conflated. Existential objects are also events, but typically in a much slower process that makes them available to our exteroception for comparatively vast periods of time, which we think makes them empirically real, extant. Re-reading this makes me want to ask you what you meant here by exteroception? I
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Patrick, My responses are interspersed below. - Original Message - From: Patrick Coppock [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Cc: Bill Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 03, 2006 9:26 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! Thanks Bill for your comments. You wrote: Patrick, I'm don't know what in my post you're replying to. I don't keep my posts, so I can't be sure, but I don't recall mentioning an expression continuum, segments or meaning continuum. I may have; I sometimes think I only think I know what I say or mean. My post (I think) had to do with the confusion/conflation of independent processes. If that's what you're doing in your last paragraph, quit it! (I don't have any of those smiley gadget to put here.) Cheers, Bill Ok, on the last point, you can borrow this smiley here if you like :) I'd be the first to argue that the more abstract--featureless--sign works best (I'm not a perceptual cognitivist ( :) ), but I'll have to pass. Apropos: expression continuum and meaning continuum are actually supposed to be considered part and parcel of one and the same general continuum of meaning-expression potential that is capable of being cut in various ways, according to Eco's creative blending of Peirce and Hjelmslev's sign functions. I've never been much of an Eco fan; in my view, his creative blending tends to bend Peirce to mend Saussure's linguistics based-semiology. But maybe I'm too provincial. My last paragraph was of course pure speculation, and I apologise if it seemed to you too arcane, since there are some flavours in there (transitivity) that I pulled in from systemic functional linguistics. I think you can see why I might twit you on that paragraph from the above response. I'm not much for linguistic approaches to semiotics; however, my comments on your post were absolutely sincere. I very much liked the pragmatic attitude of your post. But I'm not sure you can carry it to fruition in your theoretical enterprise. Gregory Bateson once commented that there are two mutually discrete universes--the Newtonian universe of objects and the communication universe of information. If you start in one, you can never reach the other. Similarly, I think, we might distinguish between the two universes of signs and language, and arrive at the same conclusion. But since I am at present trying (I think) to build/ defend a position that says that all independent processes, though discrete, must always be seen as to some degree presuppositionally linked to one another in the immediate context of any given current event, I fear some conflation/ confusion/ overlapping of perspectives is probably inevitable. Whether it is actually worth trying to defend such a position is of course another matter (cf Steven's recent comments on useful and non-useful hypotheses/ predictions), but that is what (I think) I'm trying to do. But actually, I did keep your message, so let's have a look at it in some more detail. You wrote: Patrick: In addition to representing what I have always hoped is Peirce's developmental teleology, your description of sign function seems to me to get to the heart of pragmatic discourse analysis in which conventional sign structures and meanings (syntactics and semantics) serve principally as orientation to what the situated discourse is being used to do. I would only add that it is sometimes useful to recognize that a number of differentiable processes occur simultaneously within the great alpha process. There is the action processes associated with life-forms. There is the motion/matter processes associated with non-life-forms. (I'm using these terms only as gestures, fingers that point in a given direction, and not as depictions.) The highly ephemeral acts of sign usage are real events in several related but distinct processes--e.g, those physical, physiological, psychological and sociological processes necessary to communication acts. My point here would be that it may be of interest to try to investigate/ describe in some more detail the possible relationships that may obtain or exist between salient aspects of the several related but distinct processes you mention above. In this connection it has occurred to me that the notion of narrative possible worlds as used by Eco, coupled with a dynamic notion of transworld identity, where there can be some degree of transmission or intersection of some salient aspects of actual events as these are seen, or made pertinent, by the inhabitants of each of the involved possible worlds. I sometimes feel that we have developed so specialised languages and norms of communication in our different disciplinary fields that it is often more and more difficult to find some common ground about which we can communicate. Mathematical and computational models provide one interesting, and perhaps relevant means of doing this kind of thing
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Jerry Chandler wrote: "But, my point is that if four different groups are necessary to construct an optical isomer of carbon such that it distinguishes between the logic of polarized light, then it is mathematically impossible to achieve this logical distinction with any notion of 'threeness". Optical isomers are not a question of trichotomies and triadicies. They are questions of tetrachotomies and tetraadicies. I would welcome arguments to the otherwise". Dear Jerry, Actually,handednessandmaterials that polarize lightare amongthe very examples Peirce gives of his notion of Thirdness. The notions of left verses right (which distinguished between mirror image optical stereo-isomers) Peirce pointa out require the consideration of thetriadic relation of three directions (up-down, front back, left right). It may well be thatdifferent carbon groups are involvednaturally occuring steroisomers but in fact only three conjoined points are required to achieved the distniction beween left and right. Triadic examples of handedness Left Right A---B B--A l l l l CC Verses "redundant" tetradic examples of handedness Left Right A--B--D DB-A l l I I C C I don't mean to bepresent the above as authoritative -- this is merely my understanding of the issue. Best wishes and good luck witht he conference, Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Dear Patrick:A few quick notes from Salzburg as I found your comments of interest and perhaps I can clarify some issues.My goals are more concerned with a coherent philosophy of science, especially a coherent relation between chemical philosophy and biological philosophy and medical philosophy. Peirce, as a 19 th Century chemist should be relevant to my interests. Whitehead asserts a philosophy of organism, which also should be relevant.While the course of development of an individual's thought and patterns of digestion and indigestion are always relevant to understanding the individual, they are not always relevant to my restricted interests. In particular, at the turn of the 21 Century, we see highly specialized logics in Quantum mechanics, chemistry (valence) and molecular biology (genetic code). The challenge I face is to place the modern logics in context of earlier logics. The QM advocates have a highly developed narrative. Chemistry and biology do not. Thus, I seek connections that allow development of coherent narratives for these sciences. It is in this context that I appreciate the narratives you construct.Now for a few comments:On Jul 2, 2006, at 1:08 AM, Peirce Discussion Forum digest wrote: In any case, I can see I'll have my work cut out=20 to be brief in replying to your notes, since=20 brief though they may be, they are also fairly=20 "dense" in "content". terms, at least if I try to=20 read between the lines.. I would prefer the terms "concise" and "crisp", but, if you insist on the term "dense" I accept your judgment. :-) You wrote: My take on the distinctions between Peirce and Whitehead is rather differen= t. In early Peirce (1868), the analogy with=20 distance functions and branching was the given=20 basis for distinguishing paths of logic,=20 relation to chemical valence and the more=20 general concept of extension. The later=20 writings of Peirce describing "division" of a=20 sign in natural language is not a crisp way of=20 looking at the concept of extension. (One might=20 substitute for the term "division" such terms as=20 partition, trichotomy, lattice, subtraction,=20 incomplete parts, lack of additivity, and so=20 forth; but I do not see how that would create a=20 coherent concept of relational extension.) Well, first off, I personally think it is very=20 important that "early" and "late" Peirce's are=20 seen as part and parcel of one and the same=20 philosophical project, that developed (emerged)=20 over a considerable time period, but always with=20 the key notion of synechism ("the tendency to=20 regard everything as continuous") at its base.=20 Kelley Parker's work on Peirce's continuity is a=20 useful point of reference here.This comment identifies a critical issue. It is not clear to me how relate Peirce's later views to continuity. I do not know the writings of Parker. Clearly, the concept of continuity as well as chemistry was in the early writings. However, in later works, the "flow of semiosis" displaces the relevance to chemical logic; it remains consistent with various aspects of "signal processing" and "Memory Evolutive Systems." When you write that "The later writings of Peirce=20 describing "division" of a sign in natural=20 language is not a crisp way of looking at the=20 concept of extension", I think I'll have to ask=20 you for a bit more detailed explanation of what=20 you mean by that... Very simple. Extension as growth; as increase; as sequence of relations, the later extending the former.My conjecture is that extension is easy in number/arithmetic, difficult in chemistry, and very difficult in natural language.In the example, sign is extended to qualisign, sinsign and legisign. This extension appears to me to include a fair amount of arbitrariness. Fine for a philosophy of belief, not adequate for chemical or biological purposes. It would be helpful if someone could suggest a path that associates these terms with chemical, biological or medical practice. In late Whitehead, Process and Reality, he gets=20 into bed with set theory and never re-emerges=20 from this highly restrictive view of extension.=20 In modern chemistry, a multitude of=20 possibilities for extension exist . (The flow=20 of passions in a bed are great, but they should=20 not be conflated with the light of reason. :-) Regarding "early" and "late" with regard to=20 Whitehead, the same considerations as above=20 regarding the recursive, stepwise development of=20 Peirce's architectonic, I think also holds for=""> Whitehead. From the beginning he was a=20 mathematician (and education theorist) more than=20 a philosopher (and in fact, like Peirce, he never=20 "formally" studied philosophy apart from his own=20 personal readings of other philosophers' work),=20 but process and reality is built round ideas=20 developed in his many other philosophical=20 writings, such as "Adventures of Ideas", "Science=20 and the Modern World" -- in my opinion a good=20 starting
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! ...real-reality... truth...
Jorge, thanks, but as I wrote, after a glance to the CP I found out that this was Vol. 2 of "The Essential Peirce" which Amazon is delivering for me in Pittsburgh this days... I will pick it up in October... List, does somebody knows some scholars of this Association? ALASE _Asociación Latinoamericana de Semiótica_ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks Claudio - Original Message - From: Jorge Lurac To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 10:22 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! ...real-reality... truth... Claudio, 2.457-458 are not paragraphs. SeeA Sketch of Logical Critics on EP 2, pages 451 to 462. J. Lurac Claudio Guerri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Joe, Ben, Jim, List thanks for all information I could not find 'A Sketch of Logical Critics', EP 2.457-458, 1911 because (I suppose) it is in Vol. 2 of EP and 2 is for vol and not paragraph... etc. etc... --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
In response to me saying:. Maybe I should add that I find it difficult to believe that anyone has actually been able to read all of the way through Calvino's practical joke of a book! Ben says: It's also difficult to believe that anyone eats all the way through a rich, multi-layered Italian pastry. And yet, we do (usually). Kidding aside, I have literally no idea why Joe says it's difficult to believe that anybody could read all the way through it. Too much coherence? Too much mix of coherence and incoherence? Now, it's fun to try to work a certain amount of seeming incoherence into one's writing. Conversations, for instance, don't have to be written as give take where speakers understand or even address each other's previous remarks in any direct way. It's a literary technique, or challenge, which one sees here and there. REPLY: Good point, Ben, and incoherence certainly is not always bad. Maybe it is the mix, as you suggest, but reading that whole book -- instead of just dipping into it now and again to see if one can find firm footing (which I never could) -- seems to me rather like reading the same joke told in many different ways. Shaggy dog stories: do you remember when they were all the rage as avant garde humor? -- they are fun heard once, though it seems to depend upon the realization that it is just a shaggy dog story and funny because of its pointlessness, i.e. because you recognize it as a practical joke comparable to having the chair jerked out from umder you when you are trying to sit in it. But to listen to variations on the same shaggy dog story knowing that it is a shaggy dog story for 135 pages? It makes me suspect that there is a sense to it that I am missing and you are picking up on, being more wiedely read than I and in the relevant way. Well, I do seem to remember owing a copy of _t zero_, too, but I probably jmissed the point to it, toom since I remember notihng about it except the title! But I'll give it a try -- maybe -- if I can track it down. Joe === _Teitlebaum's Window_ by Wallace Markfield has some of it. Some of the conversations in _Mulligan Stew_ by Gilbert Sorrentino. In real life, of course, that kind of talk is often motivated by evasiveness. One year at a Thanksgiving dinner, a relative asked a question about another relative, a question which those of us in the know didn't want to answer. So I answered that the reason why the relative in question had gone to California (we're in NYC), was in order to buy some shoes. There followed about an hour's worth of purposely non-responsive conversation by all the relatives, both those in the know and those not in the know (conversation which really confused some of the non-family guests), which was really jokes, puns, whatever we could muster. But the point wasn't incoherence, but, instead, unusual coherences intensified and brought into relief against the lack of some usual kinds of coherence. Years ago I read a newspaper column doing this, by Pete Hamill of all people, and it was really pretty funny. Also don't miss _t zero_ with The Origin of Birds. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Joseph Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 11:13 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! Michael said: [MD:] Haven't had the pleasure of Calvino's Cosmicomics, [but] I like the antidotal sound of it [cure for hyper-seriousness]. The asymptotic/singularities of beginnings and endings in continuous processes challenge all systems that allow for them, and do make for pretzelian thought-processes. But I note that the final chapter of David Deutsch's very creative The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications is titled The Ends of the Universe, which posits an asymptotic end of the universe(s) [actually, a sort of coming together of all the infinite parallel quantum universes a la Wheeler and co], which in part prompted the parallel question on the denouement in Peirce's cosmology. But, you're right, Joe: I think I'll retreat to Calvino. I never really recovered from trying to conceptualize the cosmological stew that preceded the sporting emergence of Firstness. RESPONSE: [JR:] Well, I'm not sure what the moral of it is supposed to be, Michael. I put all that down rather impulsively, not thinking much about what might justify it or what it might imply. In retrospect I think that what I was doing was trying to re-express what I thought Peirce was expressing in the following passage from the MS called Answers to Questions Concerning my Belief in God which Harshorne and Weiss published in the Collected Papers, Vol. 6: ==QUOTE PEIRCE 508. Do you believe Him to be omniscient? Yes, in a vague sense. Of course, God's knowledge is something so utterly unlike our own
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Patrick, List, Patrick wrote the 28 June: I like to start out from Peirce's definition of the real as that object for which truth stands I could not find this definition in the CP... could you tell from where you got it? I found this one, closely related: CP 1.339 [...] Finally, the interpretant is nothing but another representation to which the torch of truth is handed along; and as representation, it has its interpretant again. Lo, another infinite series. (I imagine that Lo is So) Thanks Claudio --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Claudio, Patrick, list,
That object for which truth stands doesn't sound fully like Peirce. But
Peirce did say that truth is of a predicate, proposition, assertion, etc. ; a
true predicate corresponds to its object. Inquiry seeks to arrive at true signs
about the real.
66~~~ ('A Sketch of Logical Critics', EP 2.457-458, 1911) ~~~
To say that a thing is _Real_ is merely to say that such predicates as are
true of it, or some of them, are true of it regardless of whatever any actual
person or persons might think concerning that truth. Unconditionality in that
single respect constitutes what we call Reality.[---] I call truth the
predestinate opinion, by which I ought to have meant that which _would_
ultimately prevail if investigation were carried sufficiently far in that
particular direction.
~~99
Lots of Peirce quotes on truth and reality are at
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html
Lo is an old-fashioned word, now generally obsolete, used to attract
attention or express wonder or surprise, and now used with at least some
quaintness of effect. It now seems oftenest encountered in the phrase Lo and
behold. The Online Etymology Dictionary says
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=losearchmode=none that lo is from
Old English _la_, exclamation of surprise, grief, or joy, influenced in M.E. by
_lo!_, short for _lok_ look! imperative of _loken_ to look.
Best, Ben
- Original Message -
From: Claudio Guerri [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 10:25 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Patrick, List,
Patrick wrote the 28 June:
I like to start out from Peirce's definition of the real as that object for
which truth stands
I could not find this definition in the CP... could you tell from where you got
it?
I found this one, closely related:
CP 1.339 [...] Finally, the interpretant is nothing but another representation
to which the torch of truth is handed along; and as representation, it has its
interpretant again. Lo, another infinite series.
(I imagine that Lo is So)
Thanks
Claudio
---
Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
It is found in How to Make Our Ideas Clear: The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality. CP 5.407 Joe Ransdell - Original Message - From: Claudio Guerri [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 9:25 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! Patrick, List, Patrick wrote the 28 June: I like to start out from Peirce's definition of the real as that object for which truth stands I could not find this definition in the CP... could you tell from where you got it? I found this one, closely related: CP 1.339 [...] Finally, the interpretant is nothing but another representation to which the torch of truth is handed along; and as representation, it has its interpretant again. Lo, another infinite series. (I imagine that Lo is So) Thanks Claudio --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 6/23/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 6/23/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
May be way out of school here, but what is the ultimate fate of opinion, representation: ultimate merger with what is represented? Isn't all mind evolving toward matter, all sporting ultimately destined to end? -Original Message- From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 1:40 PM To: Peirce Discussion Forum Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! It is found in How to Make Our Ideas Clear: The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality. CP 5.407 Joe Ransdell - Original Message - From: Claudio Guerri [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 9:25 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! Patrick, List, Patrick wrote the 28 June: I like to start out from Peirce's definition of the real as that object for which truth stands I could not find this definition in the CP... could you tell from where you got it? I found this one, closely related: CP 1.339 [...] Finally, the interpretant is nothing but another representation to which the torch of truth is handed along; and as representation, it has its interpretant again. Lo, another infinite series. (I imagine that Lo is So) Thanks Claudio --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 6/23/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 6/23/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
It is found in How to Make Our Ideas Clear: The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality. CP 5.407 Joe Ransdell Dear Folks, Thanks for all the discussion of real, true and existence. I take the above quote to mean that truth (or the lack of it) is a property of opinions and real (or the lack of it) is a property of the objects to which those opinions (signs) refer. An opinion that is true represents an object that is real. But what is the relation between real and existance? Can a first (such as a quality) whose mode of being is mere potential (not actual) be in itself real? A quality embodied in a real object I agree is real, but I remain puzzled as to the reality of qualites as mere firsts. I guess what I wondering is whether Peirce equates the real soley with what actually exist or whether real can also be applied to mere firsts. I suppose one could use Peirce's above definition of real to apply to mere qualities (as firsts). For example, if one were to express a true opinion as to what potential qualities might be realized in objects or what the character of those qualities might be, those qualities (as the hypothetical objects of those opinions) would be real.One could also express false opinions regarding mere qualities (how many there are and their nature) in which case the qualities referred to would not be real. And if the immediately above interpretation of real is correct (as I now think it is) then I would say that real is a property of all modes of being (potential, actual and general). To be, is to be real. However true or false is a property only of thought. Unreal is a property only of objects that are falsely represented. Anything that has potential or actual being is real but we can mis-represent or falsely represent both qualities and objects and to the extent that that either is falsely represented (or interpreted) that quality or object is not real. So, for example, hallucinations are real but they are falsely interpreted and the objects they are thought to represent by the person experiencing the hallucination are not real. Similarly possible objects do not necessarily exist but if truly (faithfully) represented then they are real. All potentially possible objects (truly represented) are real but impossible objects are not. And so on... I think that sovles the problem for me. My basic conclusion is that all modes of being are real. An object need not exist to be real but it must be possible. Some representations are true and some are false. Objects represented are real or false to the extent the representation is true. I wanted to make sure I had an understanding of real, true and actual that allowed for all sorts of conceptions including lies, illusions, contradictory statements, and mere potential states of affairs. I think the above does it but would welcome errors being pointed out. Cheers, Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
So it would seem, according to Peirce -- at first. But upon reflection, what could that possibly mean? Since it is supposed to be something that comes about only asymptotically, which is to say, not at all, it doesn't seem to make much difference one way or the other, does it? Then, too, there is the further consideration that no sooner is one question definitively answered -- supposing that to be possible -- than that very answer provides a basis for -- opens up the possibility of -- any number of new questions being raised. Of course they may not actually be raised, but we are only speculating about possibilities, anyway, aren't we? And isn't sporting something that might very well happen, though of course it need not, so that the possibly is always there, and the absolute end of all is not yet come to be?. So . . . not to worry (in case the coming about of the absolute end of it all depresses you): it won't be happening. But if, on the other hand, your worry is because it won't happen, I don't know what to say that might console you except: Make the best of it! (Of course there may be a flaw in my reasoning, but if so please don't point it out!) Did you ever read Italo Calvino's _Cosmicomics_, by the way? 135 pages of utterly incomprehensible cosmological possibilities! Calvino must have been insane. How could a person actually write, and quite skillfully, a 135 page narrative account of something that only seems to make sense, sentence by sentence, and actually does seem to at the time.even while one knows quite well all along that it is really just utter nonsense! Back to Peirce. I suspect he thought all along of this grand cosmic vision that seems to entrance some, repel others, but leave most of us just dumbstruck when pressed to clarify it, as being the form which the dialectic of reason takes -- in Kant's sense of transcendental dialectic, in which reason disintegrates when regarded as anything other than merely regulative -- in his modification of the Kantian view. The equivalent of a Zen koan, perhaps. Peirce says that God's pedagogy is that of the practical joker, who pulls the chair out from under you when you start to sit down. Salvation is occurring at those unexpected moments -- moments of grace, I would say -- when you find yourself rolling on the floor with uncontrollable laughter! (Peirce didn't say that, but he might have.) Joe Ransdell - Original Message - From: Michael J. DeLaurentis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 1:42 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! May be way out of school here, but what is the ultimate fate of opinion, representation: ultimate merger with what is represented? Isn't all mind evolving toward matter, all sporting ultimately destined to end? -Original Message- From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 1:40 PM To: Peirce Discussion Forum Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! It is found in How to Make Our Ideas Clear: The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality. CP 5.407 Joe Ransdell - Original Message - From: Claudio Guerri [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 9:25 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! Patrick, List, Patrick wrote the 28 June: I like to start out from Peirce's definition of the real as that object for which truth stands I could not find this definition in the CP... could you tell from where you got it? I found this one, closely related: CP 1.339 [...] Finally, the interpretant is nothing but another representation to which the torch of truth is handed along; and as representation, it has its interpretant again. Lo, another infinite series. (I imagine that Lo is So) Thanks Claudio --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 6/23/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 6/23/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 6/23/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 6/23/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! ...real-reality... truth...
conception and intuition which enters necessarily into the experience of an object, and which is not transitory and accidental, as having objective validity. In short, it was to regard the reality as the normal product of mental action, and not as the incognizable cause of it. This realistic theory is thus a highly practical and common-sense position. Wherever universal agreement prevails, the realist will not be the one to disturb the general belief by idle and fictitious doubts. For according to him it is a consensus or common confession which constitutes reality. What he wants, therefore, is to see questions put to rest. And if a general belief, which is perfectly stable and immovable, can in any way be produced, though it be by the fagot and the rack, to talk of any error in such belief is utterly absurd. The realist will hold that the very same objects which are immediately present in our minds in experience really exist just as they are experienced out of the mind; that is, he will maintain a doctrine of immediate perception. He will not, therefore, sunder existence out of the mind and being in the mind as two wholly improportionable modes. When a thing is in such relation to the individual mind that that mind cognizes it, it is in the mind; and its being so in the mind will not in the least diminish its external existence. For he does not think of the mind as a receptacle, which if a thing is in, it ceases to be out of. To make a distinction between the true conception of a thing and the thing itself is, he will say, only to regard one and the same thing from two different points of view; for the immediate object of thought in a true judgment is the reality. The realist will, therefore, believe in the objectivity of all necessary conceptions, space, time, relation, cause, and the like. No realist or nominalist ever expressed so definitely, perhaps, as is here done, his conception of reality. It is difficult to give a clear notion of an opinion of a past age, without exaggerating its distinctness. But careful examination of the works of the schoolmen will show that the distinction between these two views of the real-one as the fountain of the current of human thought, the other as the unmoving form to which it is flowing-is what really occasions their disagreement on the question concerning universals. The gist of all the nominalist's arguments will be found to relate to a res extra animam, while the realist defends his position only by assuming that the immediate object of thought in a true judgment is real. The notion that the controversy between realism and nominalism had anything to do with Platonic ideas is a mere product of the imagination, which the slightest examination of the books would suffice to disprove. [...] End quote -- I would like to answer Jim, but my List-time is over for today... and tomorrow we have Argentina-Germany and Italy-Ukraine... nobody is perfect... Best Claudio - Original Message - From: "Jim Piat" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 4:49 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! It is found in "How to Make Our Ideas Clear": The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality. CP 5.407 Joe Ransdell Dear Folks, Thanks for all the discussion of real, true and existence. I take the above quote to mean that truth (or the lack of it) is a property of opinions and real (or the lack of it) is a property of the objects to which those opinions (signs) refer. An opinion that is true represents an object that is real. But what is the relation between real and existance? Can a first (such as a quality) whose mode of being is mere potential (not actual) be in itself real? A quality embodied in a real object I agree is real, but I remain puzzled as to the reality of qualites as mere firsts. I guess what I wondering is whether Peirce equates the real soley with what actually exist or whether real can also be applied to mere firsts. I suppose one could use Peirce's above definition of real to apply to mere qualities (as firsts). For example, if one were to express a true opinion as to what potential qualities might be realized in objects or what the character of those qualities might be, those qualities (as the hypothetical objects of those opinions) would be real.One could also express false opinions regarding mere qualities (how many there are and their nature) in which case the qualities referred to would not be real. And if the immediately above interpretation of real is correct (as I now think it is) then I would say that real is a pr
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
attempt to conceptualize the cosmic stew or not. But thanks for the thoughtful response to a rather impulsive post, Michael. Maybe I should add that I find it difficult to believe that anyone has actually been able to read all of the way through Calvino's practical joke of a book! So I wouldn't count on it as a solution to anything. But it's a good read as far as you can stand it nonetheless! Joe Ransdell - Original Message - From: Michael J. DeLaurentis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 4:37 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! Haven't had the pleasure of Calvino's Cosmicomics, by I like the antidotal sound of it [cure for hyper-seriousness]. The asymptotic/singularities of beginnings and endings in continuous processes challenge all systems that allow for them, and do make for pretzelian thought-processes. But I note that the final chapter of David Deutsch's very creative The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications is titled The Ends of the Universe, which posits an asymptotic end of the universe(s) [actually, a sort of coming together of all the infinite parallel quantum universes a la Wheeler and co], which in part prompted the parallel question on the denouement in Peirce's cosmology. But, you're right, Joe: I think I'll retreat to Calvino. I never really recovered from trying to conceptualize the cosmological stew that preceded the sporting emergence of Firstness. -Original Message- From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 5:19 PM To: Peirce Discussion Forum Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! So it would seem, according to Peirce -- at first. But upon reflection, what could that possibly mean? Since it is supposed to be something that comes about only asymptotically, which is to say, not at all, it doesn't seem to make much difference one way or the other, does it? Then, too, there is the further consideration that no sooner is one question definitively answered -- supposing that to be possible -- than that very answer provides a basis for -- opens up the possibility of -- any number of new questions being raised. Of course they may not actually be raised, but we are only speculating about possibilities, anyway, aren't we? And isn't sporting something that might very well happen, though of course it need not, so that the possibly is always there, and the absolute end of all is not yet come to be?. So . . . not to worry (in case the coming about of the absolute end of it all depresses you): it won't be happening. But if, on the other hand, your worry is because it won't happen, I don't know what to say that might console you except: Make the best of it! (Of course there may be a flaw in my reasoning, but if so please don't point it out!) Did you ever read Italo Calvino's _Cosmicomics_, by the way? 135 pages of utterly incomprehensible cosmological possibilities! Calvino must have been insane. How could a person actually write, and quite skillfully, a 135 page narrative account of something that only seems to make sense, sentence by sentence, and actually does seem to at the time.even while one knows quite well all along that it is really just utter nonsense! Back to Peirce. I suspect he thought all along of this grand cosmic vision that seems to entrance some, repel others, but leave most of us just dumbstruck when pressed to clarify it, as being the form which the dialectic of reason takes -- in Kant's sense of transcendental dialectic, in which reason disintegrates when regarded as anything other than merely regulative -- in his modification of the Kantian view. The equivalent of a Zen koan, perhaps. Peirce says that God's pedagogy is that of the practical joker, who pulls the chair out from under you when you start to sit down. Salvation is occurring at those unexpected moments -- moments of grace, I would say -- when you find yourself rolling on the floor with uncontrollable laughter! (Peirce didn't say that, but he might have.) Joe Ransdell - Original Message - From: Michael J. DeLaurentis [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 1:42 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! May be way out of school here, but what is the ultimate fate of opinion, representation: ultimate merger with what is represented? Isn't all mind evolving toward matter, all sporting ultimately destined to end? -Original Message- From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 1:40 PM To: Peirce Discussion Forum Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! It is found in How to Make Our Ideas Clear: The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Interesting remarks, including but not limited to those by Peirce. Maybe I should add that I find it difficult to believe that anyone has actually been able to read all of the way through Calvino's practical joke of a book! It's also difficult to believe that anyone eats all the way through a rich, multi-layered Italian pastry. And yet, we do (usually). Kidding aside, I have literally no idea why Joe says it's difficult to believe that anybody could read all the way through it. Too much coherence? Too much mix of coherence and incoherence? Now, it's fun to try to work a certain amount of seeming incoherence into one's writing. Conversations, for instance, don't have to be written as give take where speakers understand or even address each other's previous remarks in any direct way. It's a literary technique, or challenge, which one sees here and there. _Teitlebaum's Window_ by Wallace Markfield has some of it. Some of the conversations in _Mulligan Stew_ by Gilbert Sorrentino. In real life, of course, that kind of talk is often motivated by evasiveness. One year at a Thanksgiving dinner, a relative asked a question about another relative, a question which those of us in the know didn't want to answer. So I answered that the reason why the relative in question had gone to California (we're in NYC), was in order to buy some shoes. There followed about an hour's worth of purposely non-responsive conversation by all the relatives, both those in the know and those not in the know (conversation which really confused some of the non-family guests), which was really jokes, puns, whatever we could muster. But the point wasn't incoherence, but, instead, unusual coherences intensified and brought into relief against the lack of some usual kinds of coherence. Years ago I read a newspaper column doing this, by Pete Hamill of all people, and it was really pretty funny. Also don't miss _t zero_ with The Origin of Birds. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Joseph Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 11:13 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help! Michael said: [MD:] Haven't had the pleasure of Calvino's Cosmicomics, [but] I like the antidotal sound of it [cure for hyper-seriousness]. The asymptotic/singularities of beginnings and endings in continuous processes challenge all systems that allow for them, and do make for pretzelian thought-processes. But I note that the final chapter of David Deutsch's very creative The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications is titled The Ends of the Universe, which posits an asymptotic end of the universe(s) [actually, a sort of coming together of all the infinite parallel quantum universes a la Wheeler and co], which in part prompted the parallel question on the denouement in Peirce's cosmology. But, you're right, Joe: I think I'll retreat to Calvino. I never really recovered from trying to conceptualize the cosmological stew that preceded the sporting emergence of Firstness. RESPONSE: [JR:] Well, I'm not sure what the moral of it is supposed to be, Michael. I put all that down rather impulsively, not thinking much about what might justify it or what it might imply. In retrospect I think that what I was doing was trying to re-express what I thought Peirce was expressing in the following passage from the MS called Answers to Questions Concerning my Belief in God which Harshorne and Weiss published in the Collected Papers, Vol. 6: ==QUOTE PEIRCE 508. Do you believe Him to be omniscient? Yes, in a vague sense. Of course, God's knowledge is something so utterly unlike our own that it is more like willing than knowing. I do not see why we may not assume that He refrains from knowing much. For this thought is creative. But perhaps the wisest way is to say that we do not know how God's thought is performed and that [it] is simply vain to attempt it. We cannot so much as frame any notion of what the phrase the performance of God's mind means. Not the faintest! The question is gabble. 509. Do you believe Him to be Omnipotent? Undoubtedly He is so, vaguely speaking; but there are many questions that might be put of no profit except to the student of logic. Some of the scholastic commentaries consider them. Leibnitz thought that this was the best of all possible worlds. That seems to imply some limitation upon Omnipotence. Unless the others were created too, it would seem that, all things considered, this universe was the only possible one. Perhaps others do exist. But we only wildly gabble about such things. ==END QUOTE= [JR:] But wildly gabbling doesn't necessarily mean utterly senseless, as I was exaggeratedly construing it, but might only mean that what we are saying or thinking becomes seriously and irremediably
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
At 0:11 -0400 25-06-2006, Jerry LR Chandler wrote: I will be at the Whitehead Conference in Salzburg next week so I do not anticipate much time for replies. Talking of Whitehead, whose process philosophy, or philosophy of organism is surely an interesting and challenging read for any Peirce student or scholar, it strikes me that in all the talk on the list of late of lattices and diagrams, firsts, seconds and thirds, ordered or non ordered systems of relations, we seem along the way to have lost something of the essentially processual character of the peircean notion of semiosis. Perhaps it's the seemingly concrete nature of the diagrams/lattices themselves that has been leading us a bit astray? Let me try speculating a bit by merging a few notions from a Whitehead'ian process perspective with a Peircean one. This is all very sketchy and speculative, so I'm naturally open for all forms of positive or negative criticism. In the interests of saving time and energy for one and all, however, it would probably be a good idea if respondents could keep their comments fairly brief and to the point... OK, as pointed out by Joe and others here a number of times (also recently), the (phenomenological) category of Thirdness will always presuppose Secondness, which in turn presupposes Firstness, but none of these three more basic categories (or any of their ten or more fine-tuned variants as these can be seen to emerge in any form of narrative traversing of the various triadic configurational rooms represented in the tables of sign classes) can actually be said to exist as pure, or static forms or entities. They always emerge as part of a process, which could be described roughly in terms of an ongoing narrative (or argumentation, if you like) According to Peirce's developmental teleology, these three aspects of the sign (function), by way of which we are able to experience or recognise the presence of any given (manifest for someone or something) sign, are destined to keep on morphing into one another continuously, emerging, submerging and and re-emerging again as the meanings we singly or collectively attribute to the signs we encounter from day to day continue to grow in complexity -- at different rates of development, of course, depending on the relative strength of the habits (mental or otherwise) that constrain Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness and allow them to oscillate/ morph in relation to one another at different rates in different situations and contexts, and allow them to be conceived of by us as conventionally (or otherwise) representing signifying (or culturally meaningful, if you like) units/ configurations/ events/ states of affairs. Every culturally significant event that we are able to conceive of as a sign (objects, thoughts, actions etc.) may then be seen to embody or posess, to a greater or lesser degree, and more or less saliently, all three qualities/ aspects of the sign (Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness) at any given time in the ongoing flow of semiosis. However, for us to believe that Firsts, Seconds and Thirds actually exist, beyond their being mere transitory events in an ongoing semiosic process, would be fallibilistic in Peirce's terms, or a Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness in Whitehead's terms. The categories/ classes are essentially functional event-states that must be seen as potentially transitory and recursive all along the line in any given semiosic process. They can pass from one to another at will, or better as needs be, only to reappear again, perhaps in a different giuse or configuration (class) on some later occasion. The specific charactistics that make Firsts appear to us as Firsts, Seconds as Seconds and Thirds as Thirds, i.e. Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness, are able to emerge transitorily and make themselves subjectively known to us at any given moment in any given event (the two latter 'ed notions I've taken from Whitehead, rather than from Peirce) that forms part of any given semiosic process, which by default must be seen as open-ended and as possessing only a potential for limits. It strikes me that might be more profitable if we were to try thinking dynamically of the ten classes of signs as possible emergent events that may arise as a result of any given ongoing semiosic process, and that they are all inter-related with one another, and that each class must possess a subjective organic potential for having more or less stable periods of duration, according to the relative strength of the specific habits or laws that (have) become culturally/ contextually associated with any given configuration/ class at any given time... It also occurred to me that someone well versed in Category Theory (cf some earlier discussions here on the list) might well be able to realise some kind of visual, dynamic model in these (or similar) terms, perhaps? Or maybe someone already has
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Patrick Coppock wrote: At 0:11 -0400 25-06-2006, Jerry LR Chandler wrote: I will be at the Whitehead Conference in Salzburg next week so I do not anticipate much time for replies. ... However, for us to believe that Firsts, Seconds and Thirds actually exist, beyond their being mere transitory events in an ongoing semiosic process, would be fallibilistic in Peirce's terms, or a Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness in Whitehead's terms. Not at all. Peirce was a three-category realist, acknowledging the reality fo Firsts, Seconds and Thirds early on. What you call Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness is just another word for nominalism in that context. Peirce was not a nominalist. Peirce acknowledge the reality of actuality or of secondness (around 1890). Look for outward clash, or Scotus in the CPs and his criticism of Hegel's idealism. He acknowledged the reality of firsts (the universe of possibility), and of course the reality of thirdness (the universe of thought or signs) I don't have the exact references, but that's not too difficult to find if you go through the Collected Papers, look for nominalism, realism, idealism ... However he wrote that some thirds and seconds are degenerate, meaning that they have no real existence. Regards /JM --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Jean-Marc, Patrick Patrick has a point in that Peirce's categories are such that in representation the higher-order presupposes the lower (is that the way to use `presuppose, by the way?). Jean-Marc equally has a point in noting that Peirce became a `Three-Category Realist' in his later thinking. Both points seem to highlight the role of transitivity in Peirce's thought, and perhaps the more solid sources for understanding this may be found in his mathematical writings, I would guess. Also, the Logic Notebook perhaps has more pertinent material than the CP, the editorial dismemebrment of which is well enough known. Cheers Arnold Shepperson --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Arnold Shepperson wrote: Jean-Marc, Patrick Patrick has a point in that Peirce's categories are such that in representation the higher-order presupposes the lower (is that the way to use `presuppose, by the way?). Jean-Marc equally has a point in noting that Peirce became a `Three-Category Realist' in his later thinking. Both points seem to highlight the role of transitivity in Peirce's thought, and perhaps the more solid sources for understanding this may be found in his mathematical writings, I would guess. Also, the Logic Notebook perhaps has more pertinent material than the CP, the editorial dismemebrment of which is well enough known. Cheers Arnold Shepperson --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi, I don't think there's any contradiction. semiosis being an inferential process that reconstructs the forms of reality, a third can be created by a combination of a dyad with a monad. A second will evolve into a Third. This will be an internal third or degenerate third, a third by construction --call it what you like. but a third anyway. the only forms that are directly experienced from reality are the Seconds -- with which we experience the clash to use a Peirce expression. Thirds are constructed by inference. Firsts are embedded in Seconds. the phenomenological approach which consists in studying how forms can be combined together have the advantage that there is no need to resort to teleology to explain how these forms (First, Second, Thirds) can be seen to emerge from semiosis. PS: this is an interesting discussion but I'm off the list for a while... Regards /JM --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Thanks JM for your brief comments, I still think we need some way of distinguishing between that which is for us phenomenologically or experientally real and that which is (enduringly) existent in the world. Peirce and Whitehead both operate with notions that postulate some kind of relational continuity between what we call mind and matter. In this connection Whitehead introduces into the cartesian (epistemological) chasm between mental and material substance his notions of actual occasion or organism, while Peirce handles the same problem with his conception of matter as effete mind. For both, being is in some sense always becoming -- the actualisation of a potential for what Peirce often referred to as the growth of concrete reasonableness, and what Whitehead refered to as satisfaction, or in one of his definitions of that notion: the culmination of concrescence into a completely determinate matter of fact both of which I think, can be tied to the notion of entelecheia, which was discussed at some length here on the list previously. I may well be wrong here, of course -- indeed, I haven't been working with Whitehead's ideas so long myself, and trying to see these in relation to those of Peirce is actually quite a daunting task -- so it would be interesting to hear some opinions from other Peirce listers too... Best regards Patrick Patrick Coppock wrote: At 0:11 -0400 25-06-2006, Jerry LR Chandler wrote: I will be at the Whitehead Conference in Salzburg next week so I do not anticipate much time for replies. ... However, for us to believe that Firsts, Seconds and Thirds actually exist, beyond their being mere transitory events in an ongoing semiosic process, would be fallibilistic in Peirce's terms, or a Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness in Whitehead's terms. Not at all. Peirce was a three-category realist, acknowledging the reality fo Firsts, Seconds and Thirds early on. What you call Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness is just another word for nominalism in that context. Peirce was not a nominalist. Peirce acknowledge the reality of actuality or of secondness (around 1890). Look for outward clash, or Scotus in the CPs and his criticism of Hegel's idealism. He acknowledged the reality of firsts (the universe of possibility), and of course the reality of thirdness (the universe of thought or signs) I don't have the exact references, but that's not too difficult to find if you go through the Collected Papers, look for nominalism, realism, idealism ... However he wrote that some thirds and seconds are degenerate, meaning that they have no real existence. Regards /JM --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Patrick J. Coppock Researcher: Philosophy and Theory of Language Department of Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Sciences University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Reggio Emilia Italy phone: + 39 0522.522404 : fax. + 39 0522.522512 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www:http://coppock-violi.com/work/ faculty:http://www.cei.unimore.it the voice: http://morattiddl.blogspot.com --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Thanks for your comments Arnold, and yes indeed, what Peirce and Whitehead probably have most in common is their respective competencies in mathematics, and the way in which they use these competncies to consolidate and explicate their respective philosophical projects. It's their maths that lets them try building a bridge between physics, phenomenology and metaphysics, if you will. One of my great frustrations is that I am no theoretical mathematician myself, and cannot read or make sense of anything rather than really quite simple mathematical proofs, so I basically have to take on trust anything that Peirce or Whitehead might have used mathematical forms of argumentation in order to demonstrate in detail. If you read around the lives and works of both these talented authors, you can see from many qualified commentators that both were fairly well respected in the international mathematical communities of their times for their mathematical musings. In any case, it seems quite clear to me that any philosophical or other project that is trying to really get a handle onto what they were talking about in all the various corners of their work, and to put it all into perspective needs must be a fairly inter- or transdisciplinary one... Peirce-l always seemed to me right from the beginning to be that kind of community... Best regards Patrick Jean-Marc, Patrick Patrick has a point in that Peirce's categories are such that in representation the higher-order presupposes the lower (is that the way to use `presuppose, by the way?). Jean-Marc equally has a point in noting that Peirce became a `Three-Category Realist' in his later thinking. Both points seem to highlight the role of transitivity in Peirce's thought, and perhaps the more solid sources for understanding this may be found in his mathematical writings, I would guess. Also, the Logic Notebook perhaps has more pertinent material than the CP, the editorial dismemebrment of which is well enough known. Cheers Arnold Shepperson --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Patrick J. Coppock Researcher: Philosophy and Theory of Language Department of Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Sciences University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Reggio Emilia Italy phone: + 39 0522.522404 : fax. + 39 0522.522512 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www:http://coppock-violi.com/work/ faculty:http://www.cei.unimore.it the voice: http://morattiddl.blogspot.com --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Dear Patrick, Folks-- Whitehead, yes-- and also Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblance. Signs, like thought are more or less continuous and resist our attempts to pigeon hole them.OTOH contrasting mere intellectual associations with triadic thought Peirce says, "But the highest kind of synthesis is what the mind is compelled to make neither by the inward attractions of the feeling or representations themselves, nor by a transcendental force of haecceity, but in the interest of intelligibility, that is, in the interests of the the synthetising 'I think' itself; and this it does by introducing an idea not contained in the data, which gives connections which they would not otherwise have had". Later in that same paragraph (fromA Guess at the Riddle) Peirce continues with a further good word for those who attempt to sort and categories experience saying "Intuition is regarding of the abstract in a concrete form, by the realistic hypostatisation of relations; that is the one sole method of valuable thought. Very shallow is the prevalent notion that this something to be avoided. You might as well say at once that reasoning is to be avoided because it has led to so much error; quite in teh same philistine line of thought would that e and so well in accord with the spriit of nominalism that I wonder some one does not put it forward. The true precept is not to abstain from hypostatisation, but to do it intelligently". Cheers, Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Patrick wrote: However, for us to believe that Firsts, Seconds and Thirds actually exist, beyond their being mere transitory events in an ongoing semiosic process, would be fallibilistic in Peirce's terms, or a Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness in Whitehead's terms. Jean-Marc responded: Not at all. Peirce was a three-category realist, acknowledging the reality fo Firsts, Seconds and Thirds early on. What you call Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness is just another word for nominalism in that context. Peirce was not a nominalist. Dear Patrick, Jean-Marc, Folks-- I have a bit of trouble keeping track of the similarities and differences among the notions of true, real and existent as Peirce uses them. I am especially unclear about the the application of the term real to his category of Firstness.Are firsts real but non existent? Seems to me the notion of real qualities (as opposed to illusory ones) only has meaning in the context of qualities coupled with secondness as they are embodied in objects. In any case, what I'm doing here is asking a question and would love for someone to attempt to sort through how the terms real, existent and true are related. Best wishes Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
At 9:19 -0400 28-06-2006, Jim Piat wrote: In any case, what I'm doing here is asking a question and would love for someone to attempt to sort through how the terms real, existent and true are related. That's the big one Jim! I like to start out from Peirce's definition of the real as that object for which truth stands Regarding what is real, I think Peirce would say that we all have our opinions, more or well founded about what is real, or what the real is, and there is always a cheerful hope that we shall develop some further opinions on the matter that are even more well developed in this some respect or other. But of course, we are fallible, and thus no none, however well read, can claim any kind of absolute monopoly on the truth, so it's better to always keep an open mind (bearing in mind too, that some matters have been reasonably well settled for the time being) and keep on asking questions and making (courageous) speculations about how matters that cause us puzzlement may best be answered on the basis of what we already know, or at least think we know. Regarding existent, I think that Peirce always keeps fairly close to the whiteheadian notion of actual occasions in his conceptions of this, and again on this matter I think it is most profitable to make reference to his notion of matter as effete mind, and Objects as Things or Existents that are characteristic for our experience of Secondness as a Modality of Being. In a letter to Lady Welby (See EPII: 479), and talking of Secondness (which he actually refers to in this particular connection as Another Universe, distinguished by a particular Modality of Being), Peirce writes: Another Universe is that of, first, Objects whose Being consists in their Brute reactions, and of second, the facts (reactions, events, qualities etc.) concerning these Objects, all of which facts, in the last analysis, consist in their reactions. I call the Objects, Things, or more unambigously, Existents, and the facts about them I call Facts. Every member of this Universe is either a Single Object subject, alike to the Principles of Contradiction and to that of Excluded Middle, or it is expressible by a proposition having such a singular subject. Best regards Patrick -- Patrick J. Coppock Researcher: Philosophy and Theory of Language Department of Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Sciences University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Reggio Emilia Italy phone: + 39 0522.522404 : fax. + 39 0522.522512 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www:http://coppock-violi.com/work/ faculty:http://www.cei.unimore.it the voice: http://morattiddl.blogspot.com --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Patrick, Jean-Marc. On Jun 28, 2006, at 7:27 AM, Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote: Patrick Coppock wrote: At 0:11 -0400 25-06-2006, Jerry LR Chandler wrote: I will be at the Whitehead Conference in Salzburg next week so I do not anticipate much time for replies. ... However, for us to believe that Firsts, Seconds and Thirds actually exist, beyond their being mere transitory events in an ongoing semiosic process, would be fallibilistic in Peirce's terms, or a Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness in Whitehead's terms. Not at all. Peirce was a three-category realist, acknowledging the reality fo Firsts, Seconds and Thirds early on. What you call Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness is just another word for nominalism in that context. Peirce was not a nominalist. Peirce acknowledge the reality of actuality or of secondness (around 1890). Look for outward clash, or Scotus in the CPs and his criticism of Hegel's idealism. He acknowledged the reality of firsts (the universe of possibility), and of course the reality of thirdness (the universe of thought or signs) I don't have the exact references, but that's not too difficult to find if you go through the Collected Papers, look for nominalism, realism, idealism ... However he wrote that some thirds and seconds are degenerate, meaning that they have no real existence. Regards /JM Thanks for your stimulating comments. My take on the distinctions between Peirce and Whitehead is rather different. In early Peirce (1868), the analogy with distance functions and branching was the given basis for distinguishing paths of logic, relation to chemical valence and the more general concept of extension. The later writings of Peirce describing division of a sign in natural language is not a crisp way of looking at the concept of extension. (One might substitute for the term division such terms as partition, trichotomy, lattice, subtraction, incomplete parts, lack of additivity, and so forth; but I do not see how that would create a coherent concept of relational extension.) In late Whitehead, Process and Reality, he gets into bed with set theory and never re-emerges from this highly restrictive view of extension. In modern chemistry, a multitude of possibilities for extension exist . (The flow of passions in a bed are great, but they should not be conflated with the light of reason. :-) One might say that modern chemistry has in richer view of extension - valence is richer than -1,2,3- and it is richer than set theory by using irregularity as a basis of calculation. Also, the propensity of process philosophers to neglect the concept of inheritance of properties in time restricts the potential correspondence between process philosophy and scientific philosophy. A modern philosophy of chemistry must cope with numbers of relations grater than three and also recognize that islands of stability exist within the torrential seas of change. (I repeat my earlier disclaimer - I am neither a philosopher nor mathematician, my background is in biochemistry and genetics - so everyone ought to take my conjectures in these fields that are remote my personal area of concentration with a huge grain of salt.) BTW, the Whitehead conference includes sessions on Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Several abstracts were quite novel and may be of interest to readers of this listserve. see: http://www2.sbg.ac.at/whiteheadconference/index2.html Cheers Jerry LR Chandler (PS: Patrick, if you know David Lane, please convey my personal greetings to him.) --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Jerry, Here's the 'classic' presentation of qualisign, sinsign, legisign (why they are given in the order of the subject of the thread I don't know, but the categorial order I just gave them in is as to their firstness, secondness, and thirdness). In any event, this is the order in which Peirce first presents them. CP 2.243 4. ONE TRICHOTOMY OF SIGNS 243. Signs are divisible by three trichotomies;1 first, according as the sign in itself is a mere quality, is an actual existent, or is a general law;2 secondly, according as the relation of the sign to its object consists in the sign's having some character in itself, or in some existential relation to that object, or in its relation to an interpretant;3 thirdly, according as its Interpretant represents it as a sign of possibility or as a sign of fact or a sign of reason.4 Peirce: CP 2.244 Cr 244. According to the first division, a Sign may be termed a Qualisign, a Sinsign, or a Legisign. Peirce: CP 2.244 A Qualisign is a quality which is a Sign. It cannot actually act as a sign until it is embodied; but the embodiment has nothing to do with its character as a sign. Peirce: CP 2.245 245. A Sinsign (where the syllable sin is taken as meaning "being only once," as in single, simple, Latin semel, etc.) is an actual existent thing or event which is a sign. It can only be so through its qualities; so that it involves a qualisign, or rather, several qualisigns. But these qualisigns are of a peculiar kind and only form a sign through being actually embodied. Peirce: CP 2.246 246. A Legisign is a law that is a Sign. This law is usually established by men. Every conventional sign is a legisign [but not conversely]. It is not a single object, but a general type which, it has been agreed, shall be significant. Every legisign signifies through an instance of its application, which may be termed a Replica of it. Thus, the word "the" will usually occur from fifteen to twenty-five times on a page. It is in all these occurrences one and the same word, the same legisign. Each single instance of it is a Replica. The Replica is a Sinsign. Thus, every Legisign requires Sinsigns. But these are not ordinary Sinsigns, such as are peculiar occurrences that are regarded as significant. Nor would the Replica be significant if it were not for the law which renders it so Peirce employs this same order in a letter to Lady Welby: CP 8.334 334. As it is in itself, a sign is either of the nature of an appearance, when I call it a qualisign; or secondly, it is an individual object or event, when I call it a sinsign (the syllable sin being the first syllable of semel, simul, singular, etc.); or thirdly, it is of the nature of a general type, when I call it a legisign. As we use the term 'word' in most cases, saying that 'the' is one 'word' and 'an' is a second 'word,' a 'word' is a legisign. But when we say of a page in a book, that it has 250 'words' upon it, of which twenty are 'the's, the 'word' is a sinsign. A sinsign so embodying a legisign, I term a 'replica' of the legisign. The difference between a legisign and a qualisign, neither of which is an individual thing, is that a legisign has a definite identity, though usually admitting a great variety of appearances. Thus, , and, and the sound are all one word. The qualisign, on the other hand, has no identity. It is the mere quality of an appearance and is not exactly the same throughout a second. Instead of identity, it has great similarity, and cannot differ much without being called quite another qualisign. These two passages are, it seems to me, equivalent. I guess all of this is clear enough as you wrote: Jerry LR Chandler wrote: The definitions are reasonably clear, at least to me. Then you continued: At issue is the question of why are these terms important to understanding human communication. The appending of three unusual prefixes to the concept of a "sign" is clearly a creative use of language. The apparent (mechanical) objective is to form three new categories as derivatives of the parent word, sign. Could one imagine other prefixes to the word sign? Could one imagine more than three other prefixes? Again, the three are associated with Peirce's category theory (not to be confused with modern mathematical category theory, but concern what Marty refers to as "simple category theory" first appearing in Peirce's decidedly trichotomic phenomenology), so that what a sign in itself is is its 'firstness' but as a firstness it is itself either a firstness, secondness or thirdness in so far as when it is embodied it expresses some character or quality as a sign, or is a single existent thing or event--again when it is embodied (and will then also employ a qualisign), or as a sign it is 'merely' a convention and then must appear as a replica of this law that is a sign, so that the written word two, the numeral 2 (or II, etc.) and the vocable "two" are all the same convention several of which
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!
Jerry, Gary, list, A number of recent posts have addressed the topics of: On Jun 19, 2006, at 1:05 AM, Peirce Discussion Forum digest wrote: Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign I am seeking help in understanding the importance of these terms to individual scholars. The definitions are reasonably clear, at least to me. At issue is the question of why are these terms important to understanding human communication. To Peirce, logical process = representational process, and is not a specifically human or intelligent-life phenomenon, a chapter in the books of psychology, sociology, history, even if these books covered reasoning creatures other than homo sapiens which is the only clear example of which we know (SETI hasn't found ET, at least not yet). Instead, to Peirce, humans are a special logical phenomenon -- he might assent to a current phrase like logic processors though not in the computer sense (deductive, with strict algorithms, etc.). For my part, I would say that logicality is general like statisticality or (in the information-theoretic sense) information. So these terms (signsign, legisign, qualisign) are important in understanding the logical possibilities which human communication tends to actualize. IMHO the importance is not so very different from the importance of aerodynamics to the evolution and anatomy of winged insects, pterosaurs, birds, bats, flying organisms generally. But I think that a more exact analogy would be the relationship of probability, statistics, and, as a general mathematical statistical subject, stochastic processes, to matter. In the Peircean system, terms like qualisign/sinsign/legisign are also important, or regarded as destined to be important, in understanding the possibilities realized in metaphysics -- questions of ontology, questions of God, freedom, immortality, and (philosophical) questions of space, time, matter, etc. This is implicit in Peirce's classification of logic as a field which does not presuppose metaphysics but which is presupposed by metaphyiscs. The appending of three unusual prefixes to the concept of a sign is clearly a creative use of language. The apparent (mechanical) objective is to form three new categories as derivatives of the parent word, sign. Could one imagine other prefixes to the word sign? Peirce imagined quite a few other prefixes to the word sign. But presumably you mean such as to make a semantic distinction, not merely a morphological improvement. Could one imagine more than three other prefixes? Your question would be helpfully clarified if you stated it directly instead of morphologically. Obviously one can imagine, so to speak, many more classes of signs, and Peirce certainly did. Can one imagine a classification into a 4-chotomy of signs? Of course one can, but, for better or worse, it would be unPeircean. Triadism is built deeply into Peirce's semiotic. How is this context important in distinguishing among paths of usages? It's a way of distinguishing between specific occurrences of signs, the appearances of signs, and the general meaning or habitual 'conventional' interpretation of a sign. (The symbol's interpretant, in being an inferential outcome, usually goes beyond such conventional significations.) For many practical and theoretical purposes, English horse and Spanish _caballo_ are the same legisign. Horse and _caballo_ won't be regarded as the same qualisign (except by those for whom all human words are indistinguishably the same qualisign). Horse and _caballo_ won't be regarded as ever being the same sinsign (except by those for whom pretty much all human occurrences are one single undecomposable occurrence). What other terms might be substituted for these terms? Peirce himself offered, at various times, at least three sets of words for the same trichotomy of logical terms: Tone, token, type. Qualisign, sinsign, legisign. Potisign, actisign, famisign. One might call them: a quality-as-a-sign, a singular-as-a-sign, and a general-as-a-sign. He at least mentioned other words as candidates as well. Do these terms impact the concept of a grammar? It depends on the grammar. If this were some other forum, your conception of grammar might be implicitly understood and accepted. Here, in a philosophical forum which happens to be a crossroads of many specialties and traditions, you need to define it and state the context and tradition from which you are drawing your sense of the word, in order to make yourself widely understood. Is this ad hoc extension of the concept of sign desirable for mathematics? How does it contribute to the mathematical usages of signs? You specified neither the hoc nor the basal concept of which you characterize Peirce's terms as an extension. I guess everybody likes to think of his or her concept as the genus and of the other forms of the concept as the specializations. But you haven't said what your concept is,
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Ben, -Original Message- From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: vrijdag 16 juni 2006 16:25 To: Peirce Discussion Forum Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign MessageAuke, list, [Auke] Ben I have the feeling that much of your uneasyness is a consequence of the way in which you use the terms. It seems as if you promote the semiotic aspects that can be discerned (are involved) in signs to full fledged signs. I try to make this clear between the lines. [Auke] BU: There is a qualisign which is the English word red, and which consists in the appearance and/or sound of the word as written/printed/uttered. The qualisign red's semiotic object is the sinsign red which is the single actual appearance of the word red on the page or its single utterance. The sinsign red is a replica of the symbol red (and is an index). This bothers me because the semiotic object of both the legisign and sinsign reds is the red thing or redness (dependently on context), but the semiotic object of the qualisign red is the sinsign red, because a qualisign is always an icon and can have for its object only that which it resembles. --- [Auke] I would state things differently like: the English word red involves the qualisign aspect. With qualisign aspect we draw attention to the qualities of a sign, its appearance or sound when written, printed, uttered, part of thought or perceived, to the exclusion of all other aspects. BU It seems six of one or half a dozen of the other. --- ? The question mark expresses that I have to gamble a little. I quess that it is an expression with a fixed meaning like It is synonymous in its consequences. I don't see such a sameness in meaning in our wordings. But won't argue this further. My initial response was written because you wrote about something bothering you, that did bother me some time in the past, but not anymore. For the remainder just one remark. I only keep the relevant context of the previous mail. 1 [Auke] One of the objects in the range of possibilities is the sinsign that arouse the feeling. We must be aware however that the sign in this case is not red, but the feeling of red and the object is not the object of the sinsign red, but the sinsign red itself. Here we have one of the possible sources of error in the process by which signs generate their meaning effects. BU: The sign in this case is not feeling of red but feeling of 'red' i.e. the appearance of the _word_ red. Ben, you are right, this is better. Maybe it is even better to write The feeling of '...'. This in order to express that in terms of articulation it is below the iconic replica sinsign rheme level. Best, Auke --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
List, Bernard, Robert, Joe, Ben, Gary, Claudio, Arnaud, For a long time I do not post on this list. I wish I had more time, so interesting and dear to me is this topic. It's nice to see how this topic is a recurrent theme in the important discussions that take place here, and how new visualizations of Peirces classes appeared. Well, some time ago I attempted to visualise Peirce's Classes and their relations through a formalism known as a Hasse Diagram, which I extended to three dimensions. It was a final chapter of a Computer Science Ph.D. Thesis. My aim was to show that some formalisms used in mathematics could contribute to mediate some discussions I've found in the literature about classes of signs. Indeed, my objective was not to discuss the meaning of the classes, or the corresponding order (or partial order) of the sign relation (triadic, hexadic, decadic), but to show that different partial orders correspond to different class sets. If a specific order (or partial order) was correct according to Peirce was way beyond the scope of that work, although I had my views of it. The reader will find appendend a diagram of a 3D hasse diagram of the ten classes. I've tried to include a second diagram of a 6D Hasse Diagram of two sets of 28 classes (page 299 at http://www.dainf.cefetpr.br/~merkle/thesis/CH4.pdf), derived from two distinct hexadic sign relations. The 729 possibilities appear on the background. Unfortunately it was too large to send to the list. There are some classes in common in sets associated with distinct sign relations. Although I have problems with the hexadic notion of sign, because I think that they lack the relations between SOI, I never did a 10D Hasse diagram of the 66 classes, showing at least all 59059 possibilities. A word of caution. At the time when I wrote it I used the term categories instead of classes, which may cause confusion for those acquainted with Peirce's work. My apologies. However, I always used Cenopythagorean Categories to stand for Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. Once I have time to review that text, replacing single occurrences of categories to classes, I will post again the link to it at Arisbe. For the moment, I post it on this list, which may contribute to the currend discussion. The whole chapter, which include several other visualizations of the classes, and some footnotes indicating my favorite interpretations, is available at: http://www.dainf.cefetpr.br/~merkle/thesis/CH4.pdf []s, Luiz Merkle --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Title: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign List, I did not know the Digital Peirce online site before. But am now reading some article there which I regard very good. And it is just the first article I am reading. Would advice people here who did not see the site before to certainly take a look at the link below (the modelling applets), but also to the site in general (removing the last part of the mentioned http). So just http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/ Kind regards, Wilfred Van: Patrick Coppock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: vrijdag 16 juni 2006 12:38 Aan: Peirce Discussion Forum Onderwerp: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign Ben, I wonder, have you, Gary or any of the others looked at and evaluated any of the potential of the modelling applets mentioned below (this comes from the Digital Peirce online site)? http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/p-intfar.htm Interactive diagrams for Charles Peirce's classifications of signs Priscila Farias This article presents some results of an ongoing program of research on new strategies for the visualization of sign processes and structures --something I am proposing to call 'sign design'. The current focus of this research are the various (3-, 10-, 28- and 66-fold) classifications of signs described by Peirce. The main issue addressed here is how computer graphics and design methodology may help us to build dynamic and interactive models that serve as tools for the investigation of sign theory. Two models are presented. One of them concerns specifically the 10-fold classification, while the other deals with the deep structure of Peirce's various trichotomic classifications. The first is '10cubes', an interactive 3-D model of Peirce's 10-fold classification. The second is '3N3,' a computer program that builds equivalent diagrams for any n-trichotomic classification of signs, allowing us to analyze and compare different hypothesis regarding those classifications. Keywords: Peircean semiotics, graphic design, sign design, dynamic diagrams, interface design, HCI It would be interesting to hear your opinions. Best Patrick -- Patrick J. Coppock Researcher: Philosophy and Theory of Language Department of Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Sciences University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Reggio Emilia Italy phone: + 39 0522.522404 : fax. + 39 0522.522512 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www: http://coppock-violi.com/work/ faculty: http://www.cei.unimore.it the voice: http://morattiddl.blogspot.com --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.0/366 - Release Date: 15-6-2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.0/366 - Release Date: 15-6-2006
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Wilfred wrote, "List, "I did not know the Digital Peirce online site before. " I should just send this to every new peirce-lister. Additions corrections welcome. I've checked these links, they're all live, though some of the URLs seem to be the result of recent changes. - Ben Udell - Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway: http://members.door.net/arisbe/ (Joseph Ransdell) - Peirce-Related Papers On-Line http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/bycsp.htm - Papers by C.S. Peirce [Online] http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/aboutcsp.htm - Special Resources http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/rsources/rsources.htm - Syllabus - Classification of Sciences 1.180-202 G-1903-2b (1903) http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/cl_o_sci_03.htm - Classification of the Sciences http://www.textlog.de/4257.html - Digital Encyclopedia of C. S. Peirce http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/ - Dictionary of Peirce's Terminology http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html (Mats Bergman Sami Paavola) - The Peirce Helsinki Commens http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/index.html - Peirce Edition Project http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce (Nathan Houser, Andre DeTienne, Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, USA) - UQAM satellite of the Peirce edition Project http://www.pep.uqam.ca/index_en.pep (François Latraverse David Lachance, working on the preparation of the Century Dictionary material for W7) - The Century Dictionary online http://www.global-language.com/century/ - The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce http://www.nlx.com/titles/titlpeir.htm - Charles Sanders Peirce: Published Works I http://www.nlx.com/titles/titlppw1.htm - The Writings of Charles S. Peirce -- A Chronological Edition (Forthcoming) http://www.nlx.com/titles/titlcspc.htm - [in FAQ] What is the relation between the various Peirce titles? http://www.nlx.com/pstm/pstmfaq.htm#peirce - Conceptual Graphs http://conceptualgraphs.org/ (John Sowa, IBM, Fritz Lehmann, USA, et al.) - CeneP (Centro de Estudos Peirceanos) http://www.pucsp.br/pos/cos/cepe/ (M. Lúcia Santaella-Braga, Pontificia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP), Brasil) - John Josephson, Ohio State, USA (LAIR: Logic of Abduction) http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~jj/ - Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos http://www.unav.es/gep/ (Jaime Nubiola, University of Navarra, Spain) - The Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society http://www.peircesociety.org/transactions.html - Institute for the Study of Pragmaticism http://www.pragmaticism.net/ - Wyttynys.net (_His Glassy Essence_) http://www.wyttynys.net/ (Kenneth Lane Ketner) - Computer Semiotics: Peircean Semiotics and Digital Representation http://www.ckk.chalmers.se/people/jmo/semiotics/ - Institut de Recherche en Sémiotique, Communication, et Éducation (L'I.R.S.C.E) http://www.univ-perp.fr/lsh/rch/semiotics/irsce/irsce.html (Gérard Deledalle, Joëlle Réthoré, Université de Perpignan, France) - International Research Group on Abductive Inference at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~wirth (Uwe Wirth, Alexander Roesler; Frankfurt, Germany) - Research Group on Semiotic Epistemology and Mathematics Education, Institut für Didaktik der Mathematik http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/idm/semiotik/semiotik-e.html Michael Hoffman, Michael Otte, Universität Bielefeld, Germany) - Nijmegen C.S.Peirce Study Center http://www.kun.nl/fil-beta/peirce-en.html (Guy DeBrock, Director; Menno Hulswit, Coordinator: University of Nijmegen, Netherlands) This Webpage seems to have disappeared, and the Wayback Machine (http://www.archive.org) says that access to archived versions has been blocked. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Wilfred, list, Wilfred wrote, So why would the word “red” be a symbol??? To me it is also not. I would regard the word “red” more as being a qualisign, which then would also fit the last sentence below. To me the word “red” can not be a sinsign since it is not an actual existing thing or event. And to me a quality (like red) can also not be a legisign. But I might be wrong. Of course. Well, perhaps I should have said the _term_ (rather than the _word_) red is a symbol (and a legisign). It seems hard to argue against the idea that words do occur singularly, in single utterances, writings, printings. The classic example is the difference between the word "the" in general and the number of its occurrences on a given page. There is a qualisign which is the English word "red," and which consists in the appearance and/or sound of the word as written/printed/uttered. The qualisign "red"'s semiotic object is the sinsign "red" which is the single actual appearance of the word "red" on the page or its single utterance. The sinsign "red" is a replica of the symbol "red" (and is an index). This bothers me because the semiotic object of both the legisign and sinsign "red"s is the red thing or redness (dependently on context), but the semiotic object of the qualisign "red" is the sinsign "red," because a qualisign is always an icon and can have for its object only that which it resembles. In the Peircean system, a qualisign cannot be a symbol because this would violate the involutionary rulewhich involvesthat3rds presuppose 2nds 1sts, but not vice versa, and 2nds presuppose 1sts but not vice versa. And actually, I don't understand how it is that the sinsign "red," -- when used mainly as a replica of the symbol (and not used indexically with an implicit "over there!") -- can be regarded as having redness or something red as its semiotic object. If its semiotic object is redness or something red, because it is a replica, then I don't see why a qualisign "red" should not have redness or something red as its semiotic object by virtue of being a kind of qualisignal version of a replica of the symbol. I'd rather say that the single utterance/appearance of "red" is simply a symbolic sinsign (or "sinsignal symbol")andthat the qualisign "red" is simply a symbolic qualisign. The only purpose thatI can see in the constraints which eliminate these options is to maintain a rule which restrains the multiplication of signs but does little else except to multiply problems, having us adding little detours and curlicues like the conception of the "replica" and like the qualisign's being an icon of an indexical sinsign which is a replica of a symbol. In everyday language and thought we think of such qualities as colors as quite capable of being symbolic in certain typical contexts, and certain appearances such as that of the English word "horse" are so tied habitually with specific symbolic significations that I think it's just strange to say that it's false that the qualisign "horse" has for its semiotic object not a horse but an individual utterance, writing, or printing of the word "horse." Now, suppose I define a kind of sign which I call an "evocant," and define it as any sign which is either a symbol or a replica of a symbol.The distinction between sinsign legisign is not abolished by this. Instead, the replica becomes simply the sinsignal evocant and the symbol is the legisinal evocant. Well, it wouldn't be enough. If I define the evocant simply as either symbol or replica, then I've defined it as either symbol or a kind of index whose significative power I've already found problematic. Instead I have to argue that a singular thing is capable of "evoking" and I have to define this as a power much like symbolizing. I'd have to argue that the habits which constitute symbols can be tied to qualisigns in such a way as to embody themselves in sinsigns such that the qualisign "horse"'s object, the sinsign "horse"'s object, and the legisign "horse"'s object, are all the horse, insofar as all three evoke the horse in the interpretant mind. Now is it really false that the qualisign, the appearance, "horse" evokes a horse in its interpretant's mind? I think that the appearance of the word does evoke a horse in my mind at least, because of the habitual connection of that appearance with an idea of a horse. Furthermore the interplay of singular utterances, qualitative appearances, and habits,do affect the symbol in its habitual character. Best, Ben Udell - Original Message - From: Drs.W.T.M. Berendsen To: Peirce Discussion ForumSent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 6:43 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legis
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Joe and list, I agree with the idea of being very cautious with the 10 trichotomies classification. You are right I think in recalling that it was work in progress for Peirce. I would be very interested too in reading the material you are refering to below if you can make it available to the list in one way or the other. However, I think that your concluding sentence is excessively narrow when you write that 1) the theory did not reach any stable state and 2) it can't be reasonably represented as being Peirce's view. I would tend to comprehend such statements within a pessimistic view aiming at undervaluate what was at stake for an understanding of Peirce's semiotic. In fact your diagnosis could remain correct while what Peirce tried to clarify at the beginning of the century and during quite a decade could be of the utmost interest for semiotics. This is more or less my own view. In particular I think that if we manage to produce someday a sufficient account of signs theory in order that it be of practical usage in special sciences, such a sign theory will be informed by the 10 trichotomies system. I know that this statement will have to be justified but just an example: the study of concrete signs needs some concepts as the distinctions between immediate and dynamic objects, and betweeen the three interpretants too. From the theoretical point of view I am also convinced that the transition from the 3 trichotomies to 10 and the relation between the two kinds of systems deserves to be studied on the methodological level (pragmatism). Bernard Joseph Ransdell wrote: Ben asks: My basic question here is whether these structural relations are correct or whether the ordering of the trichotomies I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X is correct. REPLY: The MS material in the logic notebook (MS 339) shows quite clearly that Peirce did not regard himself as having arrived at anything he could regard as satisfactory, as regards the ten trichotomies, as late as Nov. 1 of 1909, and the two versions which he thought were -- at best -- the least objectionable were ones he formulated on Oct 13th of 1905 and March 31st of 1906. The version you are working with is from an unsent draft of a letter to Welby of 1908, a year earlier than the assessment just mentioned, and it differs in significant ways from the versions he thought best though still unsatisfactory. The fact that it appears in the Collected Papers gives it no special status since it is really just discarded draft material. Take all talk about the ten trichotomies with a VERY LARGE grain of salt, Ben, until we get some effective and shared access to the relevant MS material. Of course it is perfectly okay for people to do their own constructions of the expanded set of trichotomies as they should have been formulated, provided they are clear on the fact that this is their own theory; but if the question is as to what Peirce's theory was it can only be said that it was work in progress which never arrived at a reasonably stable developed state and which cannot reasonably be represented as being his view. Joe Ransdell --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Bernard says::, Joe and list, I agree with the idea of being very cautious with the 10 trichotomies classification. You are right I think in recalling that it was work in progress for Peirce. I would be very interested too in reading the material you are refering to below if you can make it available to the list in one way or the other. However, I think that your concluding sentence is excessively narrow when you write that 1) the theory did not reach any stable state and 2) it can't be reasonably represented as being Peirce's view. REPLY: I'll reply more extensively later in the day, Bernard, but the basis for my saying this is as follows, from MS 339D.662 (1909 Nov 1) =quote Peirce During the past 3 years I have been resting from my work on the Division of Signs and have only lately -- in the last week or two -- been turning back to it; and I find my work of 1905 better than any since that time, though the latter doubtless has value and must not be passed by without consideration. Looking over the book labelled in red The Prescott Book, and also this one [the Logic Notebook, MS 339], I find the entries in this book of Provisional Classification of 1906 March 31st and of 1905 Oct 13 particularly in imporant from my present (accidentally limited, no doubt) point of view; particularly in regard to the point made in the Prescott Book, 1909 Oct 21, and what immediately precedes that in that book but is not dated. Namely, a good deal of my early attempts to define this difference besween Icon, Index, Symbol, were adulterated with confusion with the distinction as to the Reference of the Dynamic Interpretant to the Sign. end quote== Joe Ransdell -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.2/357 - Release Date: 6/6/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Thanks very much for the quote Joe. The last sentence puzzles me. Will have to think about it: seems like Peirce considered lately that he had earlier put erroneously some considerations related to the (dynamic) interpretant into his characterizations of the relation of the object to the sign. This is a common mistake that we all do everyday. Bernard Joseph Ransdell a ¨crit : Bernard says::, Joe and list, I agree with the idea of being very cautious with the 10 trichotomies classification. You are right I think in recalling that it was work in progress for Peirce. I would be very interested too in reading the material you are refering to below if you can make it available to the list in one way or the other. However, I think that your concluding sentence is excessively narrow when you write that 1) the theory did not reach any stable state and 2) it can't be reasonably represented as being Peirce's view. REPLY: I'll reply more extensively later in the day, Bernard, but the basis for my saying this is as follows, from MS 339D.662 (1909 Nov 1) =quote Peirce During the past 3 years I have been resting from my work on the Division of Signs and have only lately -- in the last week or two -- been turning back to it; and I find my work of 1905 better than any since that time, though the latter doubtless has value and must not be passed by without consideration. Looking over the book labelled in red The Prescott Book, and also this one [the Logic Notebook, MS 339], I find the entries in this book of Provisional Classification of 1906 March 31st and of 1905 Oct 13 particularly in imporant from my present (accidentally limited, no doubt) point of view; particularly in regard to the point made in the Prescott Book, 1909 Oct 21, and what immediately precedes that in that book but is not dated. Namely, a good deal of my early attempts to define this difference besween Icon, Index, Symbol, were adulterated with confusion with the distinction as to the Reference of the Dynamic Interpretant to the Sign. end quote== Joe Ransdell --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
So why would the word red be a symbol??? To me it is also not. I would regard the word red more as being a qualisign, which then would also fit the last sentence below. To me the word red can not be a sinsign since it is not an actual existing thing or event. And to me a quality (like red) can also not be a legisign. But I might be wrong. Of course. Wilfred Van: Benjamin Udell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Verzonden: dinsdag 13 juni 2006 9:51 Aan: Peirce Discussion Forum Onderwerp: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign . If the same rules hold for these 10 trichotomies as for the three, then it would appear, for instance, that all symbols are copulants. Copulants neither describe nor denote their Objects, but merely express logical relations; for example If--then--; --causes--. That seems like it just must be wrong. Then a symbol like the word red couldn't be a symbol, instead, since it's descriptive, it can be a legisign, a sinsign, or a qualisign, but in any case it has to be a descriptive abstractive iconic hypothetical sympathetic suggestive gratific rhematic assurance of instinct. That just can't be right. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/360 - Release Date: 9-6-2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/360 - Release Date: 9-6-2006
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Gary: Would you mind reposting the diagram you refer to below? I don't recall what was said about that at that time but I think it important to get clear on what can and cannot legitimately be imputed to Peirce, and the absence of availability of the relevant MS material is important to bear in mind and I don't recall if that was sufficiently stressed at that time. Joe . - Original Message - From: Gary Richmond [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 10:35 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign Claudio, Ben, Robert, Bernard, Joe, list, Claudio, so goo to see you on list. I too am pleased to see all the diagrammatic discussion and especially some of Ben's abductions relating diagrams (one I believe he hasn't posted yet, but which I hope he will, shows a possible correspondence between Robert's lattice structure--which I want to discuss this summer with I want to respond to just one of your questions, Claudio, as it concerns the diagram of the 10 classes of signs which I devised and which Ben produced in power point. You asked: I am sure that also Ben/Gary's diagram has a criteria for that rotation...? Which is the purpose of that change? --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.2/357 - Release Date: 6/6/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.2/357 - Release Date: 6/6/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Claudio, Ben, Robert, Bernard, Joe, list, First, sorry for sending out that last incomplete message by mistake. Claudio, so good to see you on the list again. I too am pleased to see all the diagrammatic discussion and especially some of Ben's abductions relating diagrams (for example the one which shows a possible correspondence between Robert's lattice structure--which possible correspondence I want to discuss this summer at ICCS in Aalborg, Denmark with Rudolf Wille, whom I believe in part inspired Robert to his lattice structure of the 10 classes). I want now to respond to just one of your questions, Claudio, as it concerns the diagram of the 10 classes of signs which I devised and which Ben produced in power point and now in these new gifs. You asked: I am sure that also Ben/Gary's diagram has a criteria for that rotation...? Which is the purpose of that change? The diagram of the 10 classes is itself meant to be observed as a categorial trikon with firstness at the top, secondness at the bottom, and thirdness to the right (as in all trikonic structures): firstness | thirdness secondness for semeiotics this involves the structure of semiosis itself: sign | interpretant object and for each of these in the 9-adic diagram, which are the parameters of the signs to be embodied at the level of the 10-adic classification--using Ben Udell's very useful parametric notion language which came about as he was editing my ICCS paper on trikonic of last year, available at Arisbe-- (these three themselves arranged as the trikon of 3 trikons) upon which Peirce builds his 10-adic classification. So we have: 9 sign parameters sign (in itself) parameters: qualisign | legisign sinsign | interpretant parameters: . . .rheme . . .| argument . . .proposition object parameters: icon | symbol index Finally, as noted at the top, my diagram of the 10 classes of signs is itself arranged trikonically, three trikons of trikons (each associated with one of the three categories for reasons which I hope are obvious enough involving the notion that firstness, secondness or thirdness dominate their respective structures) around a central single lone trikon (which is NOT dominated by firstness, secondness, or thirdness at this level of structure), namely the rhematic indexical legisign. One is supposed to see all these levels of tricategorial structure observing the diagram, so of course, as the _expression_ goes, trying to explain it is like trying to explain a joke. :-) Maybe Ben can do a better job? Best, Gary --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Frances: In view of what I was just now relating to Ben, I would have to regard the sort of enterprise you speculate about below as a timewaster of monumental proportions, promising to generate word salad that startle even the inmates at Bedlam, given that it would be based on an unreliable understanding of Peirce's view to begin with (as I explained to Ben), taken together with what is surely a misguided attempt to conflate Peircean semiotic with the radically different conception of Charles Morris (as Gene Halton reminds us now and again). In short: fuhgeddaboutit! (as T. Soprano might state the point). Joe Ransdell - Original Message - From: Frances Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 10:59 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign Frances to listers... The broad theme of this topic and its leading threads is a subject that remains intriguingly foggy for me. At the core of my haze perhaps is the forced application of categorics upon semiotics, yet with synechastics lurking in the wings. In my attempt to wrestle with the many classes of signs in acts of semiosis as listed by Peirce, it is tempting to take various kinds of signs he mentioned and organize them within a sort of tridential diagram of soles and pairs and terns. Some of those signs would require a tentative assumption that they are not mere synonyms of each other. These signs might include potisigns and actisigns and famsigns as immediate representamen signs or moderating vehicles, and then qualisigns and sinsigns and legisigns as immediate object signs of fundamental reference, and then icons and indexes and symbols as dynamic object signs of advanced reference. These might also include semes or rhemes and sumisigns and terms as immediate interpretant signs of initial effect, and then phemes and dicisigns or dicents and propositions as dynamic interpretant signs of obstinate or remediate effect, and last delomes or dolemes and suadisigns and arguments as final interpretant signs of destinate and culminate and ultimate effect. Another thorn here for me is that those classes of dynamic object signs and dynamic interpretant signs are of secondness, but are not listed or structured in a trichotomically consistent manner. In other words and for example, icons would be a sole first, with indexes and symbols as a subsequent dual pair under some categorical umbrella, which is seemingly missing here. All these signs furthermore might rest only within the first semiosic division of grammatics, often called the inscriptive information of signs by Morrisean semioticians. Many of the signs mentioned correctly as other interpretant signs might very well be kinds of super signs that rest further within the other semiosic divisions of critics and rhetorics, where critics is often called the descriptive evaluation of signs, and rhetorics is often called the prescriptive evocation of signs, again by Morrisean semioticians. Those other interpretant super signs that could be deemed post grammatic might include normative assurances to the signer or semiotician of the sign. Another thorn for me is whether Peirce intended that these further divisions of critics and rhetorics, and seemingly infused with advanced interpretant signs, would be categorically structured as phenomenal trichotomies. In this regard, it remains tempting for me to structure the Peircean divisions of grammatics and critics and rhetorics each with the Morrisean dimensions of syntactics and semantics and pragmatics. This might then allow for advanced interpretants to take on the critical characteristics of appraised syntactic values and defined semantic meanings and inferred pragmatic judgements or worths, and for further advanced interpretants under rhetorics to deal with the syntactic means of communication and the semantic signification of modes and the pragmatic methods of responsive actions. All signs would of course be speculative. The further assumption by me is that while these signs in acts of semiosis are all objective logical constructs, semiotics or logics in the broadest sense actually embraces both nonlingual and lingual signs, and lingual signs would presumably embrace both nonverbal and verbal signs, but linguistics and its languages is held to a practical science by Peirce, and thus excluded from semiotic concern as having no logical import. Of course, all logical signs used by humans are seemingly proposed by Peirce as degenerate forms of pure logic, so that there should be little problem in permitting lingual signs into semiotics and thus into logic. This may imply however that semiotics with linguistics is degenerate logics, while the normative sciences aligned as aesthetics and ethics and logics is less so. Nonetheless, interpretants like terms and propositions are both held by Peirce to be either nonlingual or lingual, thereby probably yielding arguments where some
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Ben, list, By now you've received my completed and corrected message which omits the request for the not-simplified lattice version of my trikonic diagram of the 10 classes (since I very much like your simplified form which I included in the revised message) and adds analytical content. For right now, and also since I've posted too much today, I'd like to address for now just your question of why I called your diagram adding the lattice structure to my trikonic diagram an "abduction." Well, really, you point to it yourself. What I'm getting at, is that it really is fair to say that the 10-adic triangular arrangement turns out to be quite suitable to depict the lattice for. . . the structureof ordering and non-ordering. Combining the two may also allow for a kind of possible diagram observation and manipulation which either one apart from the other wouldn't. Also, what you are "getting at" in the comment above is clear once one sees it diagrammed! But I do not think that your bringing together the lattice structure and the trichotomic one is trivial, and it is that combination which I think may constitute a kind of abduction (or maybe it's really a form of diagram manipulation--although perhaps I really do think that to say that the 10-adic triangular structure is suitable for depicting the lattice structure is a kind of abduction). Best, Gary Benjamin Udell wrote: Gary R., list, (Note: anybody responding, please remember to delete all unneeded graphics text.) Gary Richmond wrote, (one I believe he hasn't posted yet, but which I hope he will, shows a possible correspondence between Robert's lattice structure... The graphic which I already posted (and which is the first one shown here) pretty much shows it. It's just simplified, and is at a different angle as a whole than Robert's, and is with Robert's vertical arrows slanted in order to be like others. Gary's calling this an "abduction" but, unless he means that I've kidnapped Robert's lattice diagram (I certainly have done _something_ with it! :-)), the only element of abduction or surmise is that I don't know whether the verticality of some of Robert's arrows in fact is somehow determinate in terms of the lattice representation. I can see how one could argue that it makes "the most sense" but my surmise is that the distinctive slope of those arrows with respect to the others is indeed optional. Aside from that, and aside from the overall orientation and handedness (left/right) of the visual representation, there's little if any surmise in it, instead it's an equivalence (at least up to a point, which I'll get to in a moment). The lattice structure is pretty much "deterministic" -- I mean, that aside from our flipping it horizontally or vertically or whatever, and aside from our turning the "loose-end"-looking vertices to one angle or another, etc., etc., .its vertices are in a definite arrangement. What I'm getting at, is that it really is fair to say that the 10-adic triangular arrangement turns out to be quite suitable to depict the lattice for -- I don't know what it's called --the structureof ordering and non-ordering. The second graphic is a re-created version of Robert Marty's. The third is a cross between Robert Marty's style and Gary's trikonic style. The fourth shows --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Frances to listers... As posited by Peirce under speculative grammatics, it is clear enough to me that the classes of immediate object signs are qualisigns and sinsigns and legisigns, and that the classes of dynamic object signs are icons and indexes and symbols, and that the various interpretant signs of these signs are classed as immediate and dynamic and final. What is not clear to me however is what classes of signs Peirce may have posited to account for immediate representamen signs. These would presumably be determined by the immediate and dynamic objects they refer to, and would in turn presumably determine the various terns of interpretants they generate as an effect. Such representamens therefore would presumably constitute the sign vehicles or carriers that moderate between their objects and their interpretants. The only tern of signs Peirce mentions that might be posited to fit this class called immediate representamen signs are potisigns and actisigns and famsigns. There is however some seeming resistance among semioticians and pragmatists to allocate this fundamental tern in such a way, but the reasons usually turn either on substitutions, whereby they are claimed to be mere synonyms stated earlier by Peirce for what is now correctly deemed to be immediate object signs, or on the fact that they are not mentioned in the familiar ten classes of signs. If these reasons justly warrant dismissing them from serious semiotic concern, then the problem persists for me as to just what exactly are immediate representamen signs within semiosis. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Joe, Bernard, Wilfred, list, _Magno cum grano salis_ it is, then. The content of the 10-chotomy on which I got my paws is very suggestive, beginning with the sign's own phenomenological category and ending with a trichotomy of _assurances_ of instinct, experience, and form, i.e., as at an inquiry's end. I look forward to comparing the 10-chotomies of -- (clears throat) -- semio-parametric trichotomies. Wilfred, for my part I don't happen to know why Peirce put some relationships and not others into that 10-chotomy. With Peirce, sometimes things not immediately explained do have explanations. For all I know, Peirce himself was dissatisfied with that 10-chotomy for the pattern of inclusions exclusions which you mention. As Joe said, Peirce didn't bring this aspect of his work into a satisfactory form. The reason that Peirce wanted to put his definitions into structural, diagrammatic relations is the same reason that scientists like to do that with physical quantities. It unifies understanding, turns it into a sensitive web, and makes far-separated things into both supports and checks/balances to each other. The unification of conceptions of mathematical empirical understanding in his accounts of the observations and manipulation of diagrams has not yet been plumbed, so far as I can tell. The structuring-together of definitions strengthens the constraints for consistency, pattern, and logical dependence, and provides constraints for making clarity out of things which seemed hopelessly confused. However, it's a rare thing to combine a talent for that with a talent for giving structural names and habitations to the deep elements patterns of human life experience. Peirce comes before some sort of weird great divide in philosophy, when those who aspired to logical structure tended to try to reduce and explain away the deeper things, while those whose inclination was opposite thereto seemed to become strangely estranged from the scientific worldview. Anyway, whatever ultimate entelechy might be reached would be something beyond our imagining -- if a diagram, then a diagram beyond our imagining, and I much doubt that Peirce thought that he could imagine in any detail what it would be like. It's an ideal-limit idea, something that might be infinitely far off. C.S. Peirce often said that adequate research will discover anything, but he never said that ultiimate truth was within his grasp (i.e., that adequate earthly funding of C.S. Peirce would lead to ultimate truth :-). Now Peirce did think that _some_ of his structures of ideas had reached their final form -- he wasn't infallibilistically sure of it, but he felt reasonably sure -- but as to the 10-chotomies of semio-parametric trichotomies, he'd certainly agree that they're not at endstate and he'd like very much for discussion and research to go on and on. Peirce was not the kind to think that the patent office would need to be closed in the foreseeable future. Best, Ben Udell - Original Message - From: Drs.W.T.M. Berendsen To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 5:55 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign Dear list, I would like to state First of all that I regard the ongoing discussion about sinsign, legisign and qualisign here on the list as being very interesting. But, I also have my remarks. Some of them might be worthwhile to reconsider. Or not. It might also just be I am just not wise enough to respond the way I do. First remark is just some remark about the first diagram here below. With the I to X at the left. There is stated at IV The relation to the sign to the dynamic object. What I do not understand is why there is stated nowhere the relation of the sign to the immediate object? Then there is VII the relation of the sign to the dynamic interpretant. Again, why nowhere the relation of the sign to the immediate interpretant? Then X..why not more triadic relations Another remark I have, is that somehow Charles Sander Peirce disappoints me if he really aimed at putting his definitions in a diagram and if he thought that would ever lead to some all-inclusive and complete diagram with perfect entelechy. Or, connected with that, that he would think that all thoughts SHOULD be diagrammatic. This has to do with the Dutch saying de weg is het doel. Maybe. Or maybe not. My dissappointment is still not much if i am correct on this one since his definitions are great and also this diagrammatic reflections are. But still, I am wondering. Last remark I have is that Charles Sander Peirce still was a human being like all of us. Not some god that never made any mistakes. So whether some diagram being his endstate or not is not so important. More important is that the discussions will be going on and on and on. Because, eventually, about ALL social theories and insights will be wrong. Or, should I say, just less optimal for new contexts and social
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Benjamin Udell wrote : I had already produced the second table (Fig. 3) when you sent the graphic of Peirce's own table. It's really just Joe's table, re-produced asan HTML table, and with the second column put into "standard" order (a, ab, abc instead of a, ba, cba) consistentlylike the other columns. The basic idea was to use less memory and make it easier for people to edit. Actually, Joe's graphic is small in KB but image files in emails tend to use more than their own filesize in KB. Anyway, Joe's descriptors in the first trichotomy happened to be plural nouns, and I merely followed along in that regard. Part of the reason for the colors is that they make the html table cohere better. In the html table, it's more difficult to make everything line up nicely. The colors help. The emphasis on the viewpoint of the first trichotomy helps emphasize that the three trichotomies are ordered (first trichotomy, second trichotomy, third trichotomy), ordered ina way which is embodied in the collective structure of ideas uniting the three trichotomies. I had known about this but not really focused on it before. Wilfred's question about qualisigns/sinsigns/legisigns became my occasion to really think about it. Here I've added examples to it, they're all from Peirce but I pasted them in whole-hog from James Elkins' "Problems with Peirce" http://jameselkins.com/Texts/Peirce.pdf which, despite the ominousness of its title, displays some real engagement with Peirce and anyway has a number of handy tables. Turned out he ordered them all-ascending too. The view point from the first trichotomy emphasizes an order on the trichotomies. That's true. Yet this order is not the whole of the subject matter: it is only the order of the numerical sequence 1, 2, 3 but it does not account for the fact that into three, 2 and 1 can be found and the fact that into two, 1 can be found. So, developping the original Peirce's table could result into this alternative presentation to the one you gave below, this one being grounded on the second trichotomy: icons -(in)- quality -(for)- rhema icons -(in)- singularity -(for)- rhema icons -(in)- law -(for)- rhema indexes -(in)- singularity -(for)- rhema ...etc. symbols -(in)- law -(for)- rhema ...etc. And there is of course a third development grounded on the third trichotomy showing the structure of rhematic signs, dicent signs and arguments. This is the reason why I asked for an explanation of the plural. You answered that Joe is the original author, I would be interested in his own view on this. From the point of view of structural forms which was my starting point, Joe's presentation is a composite of three joined subgraphs, each of which is a tree (in the Aristotelian tradition) while Peirce's presentation is a table equipped with an internal ordering relation. The main practical difference is that the former cannot display the forbidden combinations while the latter does. For example, the construct (see below) can't show that qualisigns - indexical - rhematic are prohibited while the Peirce's table shows it. I suspect that the invention of matrix calculus at his time and his own work with quaternions influenced his way of thinking the form of classifications. I never found a justification of this idea in the sources but I would be interested in the reflexions of listers if any. There is evidence that Mendeleiev chemical classification was a reference for Peirce and it was a table too. But as far as I can know there remains an enigma on the fact that Peirce invented suddenly the first trichotomy around 1903 though he had worked the two others in every detail for many years. Was not such an invention the result of the necessity of achieving a neat structure for sign classification? Another way of putting things could be to say that Joe's presentation is directed in a sense by a specific linguistic usage that requires in our so called indo-european languages to put things in the form Subject-Verb-Object(s). Thus the peculiar status attributed to qualisign, sinsign, legisign that become with the help of the plural gender the subjects of quasi sentences. I have shown above that there are two possible alternate forms. In fact I think that in the Peirce's presentation the terms like qualisign, index, ...and so on, are neither linguistic nor syntactical elements. They are just markers for places in a structure of relations, like letters in a geometrical figure. Now this fact does not prevent to define that which is marked by such markers. Ben, as regards to the discussion on the borromean knot and the fourth category, I did not intend to make your system enter into the figure of the borromean knot. I was using the latter as some kind of metaphor in order to inquire into the kind of relation that the 4th category (as you conceive it) could entertain with the three others. I had always supposed through your posts that you agree on the idea that Sign, Object and
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Ben wrote: qualisign = tone = potisign sinsign = token = actisign legisign = type = famisign While these are often called alternate names of the same things, Gary has said that they aren't just sets of synonyms but instead reflect some differences of conception. I.e., for some purposes we treat them as 9 qualisigns correlated to the same 3 legisigns, but maybe they're really 9 legisigns. My position has rather been that these are three sets of synonyms (with perhaps some subtle changes of emphasis) with the exception of "token" which is used by Peirce for a brief time as equivalent to "symbol". See, for example in "On the Algebra of Logic": CP 3.360 A sign is in a conjoint relation to the thing denoted and to the mind. If this triple relation is not of a degenerate species, the sign is related to its object only in consequence of a mental association, and depends upon a habit. Such signs are always abstract and general, because habits are general rules to which the organism has become subjected. They are, for the most part, conventional or arbitrary. They include all general words, the main body of speech, and any mode of conveying a judgment. For the sake of brevity I will call them tokens.†3 And the editors' footnote: Peirce: CP 3.360 Fn 3 p 210 †3 More frequently called 'symbols'; the word 'token' is later (in 4.537) taken to apply to what in 2.245 is called a 'sinsign. Unfortunately at the moment I won't be able to get further into this matter or some of the other points of Ben's interesting post. Gary Benjamin Udell wrote: Wilfred, list, (Note: if responding to this html, please remember to delete any unneeded graphics and text.) As far as I can tell, when a quality functions as a sign, then it functions only iconically, the idea being that that's all that it semiotically _can_ do _as_ a quality. A quality is just a possibility. The colors of litmus in a litmus test are not qualisigns but indexical reactions which can, of course, be resembled, iconized, but which are functioning indexically. Likewise, a symbolic color is functioning as a sinsignal replica of a legisign, and not as a qualisign. I'm not sure whether those things clarify your questions, and anyway I stand ready to be corrected on these matters by listers. I have to admit, I'm not too firm on qualisigns myself. According to Joseph Ransdell (as opposed to Thomas L. Short), the general idea of "the" is the legisign (aka type aka famisign), the appearances "the," "el," "la," "lo," "le," "der," "die," "das," etc. are different qualisigns (aka tones aka potisigns), and the individual instance on the page or utterance in real life is the sinsign (aka token aka actisign). The idea of an "individual" instance in an electronic document is a bit more problematic, but that problem is certainly not peculiar to Peircean signs theory. qualisign = tone = potisign sinsign = token = actisign legisign = type = famisign While these are often called alternate names of the same things, Gary has said that they aren't just sets of synonyms but instead reflect some differences of conception. I.e., for some purposes we treat them as 9 qualisigns correlated to the same 3 legisigns, but maybe they're really 9 legisigns. What's not clear to me is this. If, say, I have a diagrammatic image, as reproduced in text books, and it's neither the individual diagram (sinsign) nor the general complex idea of the diagram (iconic rhematic legisign) then it's an icon of "some" individual diagram. Every qualisign is an icon, though not every icon is a qualisign. In any case, is it the case that, whatever the involved icon's object, said object is the qualisign's object? Now, if Dutch _paard_ and English "horse" are two qualisigns attached to the same idea, that of a horse, then of what are they icons? Of the individual instances (sinsigns) embodying them? I guess so. Now, if, for instance, I have an iconic sinsign for a horse, then it's an icon for a horse AND a sinsign for a horse -- indeed, for the same horse, be it an actual horse, or a generic typical horse, or some fictional horse, etc., etc. So, if the qualisignal icon has AN object, then one would think that it would be the same object in regard to both the qualisignal iconic aspects. Otherwise one would (I think) have to think of the total sign as a composite, somehow, of a qualisign and an icon, rather than as a sign with qualisignal iconic dimensions. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
From the own hand of the inventor ( MS 339, August 7th 1904) : B Morand --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Thank you, Bernard!-Ben Qualisign Sinsign Legisign Icon Index Symbol Rheme Dicisign Argument qualisigns iconic rhematic / sinsigns \ iconic rhematic indexical rhematic dicentic /legisigns \ iconic rhematic indexical rhematic dicentic /symbolic \ rhematic dicentic argumental --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Frances to Wilfred Berendsen... These signs are of recurring interest to me also, and several past messages dealing with them by experts are in the list archive. Any replies to you will hence be followed with enthusiasm. My present access to the writings of Peirce is limited, but other writers who refer to these signs might indeed be found in further sources. My thought here turns for example to books by Alfred Ayer, James Feiblemen, Thomas Goudge, Benjamin Lee, Winfried Noth, David Savan, and Thomas Sebeok who all mention and discuss these Peircean signs to varying degrees, if this is what you are after. One initial point is that in a strict categorization the correct ordering of these signs is as qualisigns and sinsigns and legisigns. They are also seemingly not only subjective notions stirred in mind, but are deemed objective logical constructs that are found or discovered to exist in the ontic arena of the world, which can then of course be used to evoke mental notions. My understanding is that these signs are of immediate objects, and might further be best called iconic subsigns. To be categorically consistent, these signs in my opinion might be held to have subordinate subclasses that fall under them, so that qualisigns would perhaps have tones, while sinsigns would perhaps have tokens and replicas, yet legisigns would perhaps have types and something like codes and semes. There is a tendency however for some interpreters of Peirce to claim that tones and tokens and types are either mere alternate synonyms for qualisigns and sinsigns and legisigns, or are a broader class of signs in semiosis that goes to making the ideal seem real to sense. The subsequent dynamic objects of signs or the main proper signs of semiosis as generated by immediate interpretants would then be called icons and indexes and symbols. My tentative reading of the Peircean literature also leads me to understand that the signs or iconic subsigns of preceding immediate representamen are perhaps called potisigns and actisigns and famsigns. The allocation of this fundamental trident or class of signs in such a way is however not fully clear to me, as they are often suggested by many scholars to be mere early substitutes for qualisigns and sinsigns and famsigns. This explanation would seem to be unlikely though, since they are after all listed by Peirce as a separate class of signs. The issue of determinate objects and degenerate signs might also be of some importance in regard to the subsigns or subclasses of semiotic immediacy. Wilfred wrote... Currently I am very interested in the notions of sinsign, legisign and qualisign. I know there have been discussions about this before, with phrases out of texts from CS Peirce defining these terms. What I however would like to know, is in what texts (preferably from the essential peirce 12 since I have these) from Peirce and also in what texts of other scientists explaining his notions, it is best explained what these notions are all about. I am looking for texts or combinations of texts where these notions are explained as complete as possible. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
