Edwina, List: I agree with much of what you say here, including that the entire universe consists of signs. However, Peirce *also *affirms that it constitutes *one* immense sign.
CSP: [T]he Universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities. Now every symbol must have, organically attached to it, its Indices of Reactions and its Icons of Qualities; and such part as these reactions and these qualities play in an argument, that they of course play in the Universe, that Universe being precisely an argument. (CP 5.119, EP 2:193-4, 1903) CSP: There is a science of semeiotics whose results no more afford room for differences of opinion than do those of mathematics, and one of its theorems ... is that if any signs are connected, no matter how, the resulting system constitutes one sign ... and the entire body of all thought is a sign, supposing all thought to be more or less connected. (R 1476:36[5-1/2], 1904) CSP: Consider then the aggregate formed by a sign and all the signs which its occurrence carries with it. This aggregate will itself be a sign; and we may call it a *perfect *sign, in the sense that it involves the present existence of no other sign except such as are ingredients of itself. (EP 2:545n25, LF 3/1:184, 1906) In my view, this entails that the entire universe is a complex semiosic *continuum*, not an assemblage of *discrete *signs to which it is reducible--the whole is ontologically prior to the parts. Again, we prescind *individual *signs with their twofold objects and their threefold interpretants from the real and continuous process of semiosis as artifacts of analysis. CSP: Experience is first forced upon us in the form of a flow of images. Thereupon thought makes certain assertions. It professes to pick the image into pieces and to detect in it certain characters. This is not literally true. The image has no parts, least of all predicates. Thus predication involves precisive abstraction. Precisive abstraction creates predicates. Subjectal [hypostatic] abstraction creates subjects. Both predicates and subjects are creations of thought. (NEM 3:917, 1904) CSP: [A]n Argument is no more built up of Propositions than a motion is built up of positions. So to regard it is to neglect the very essence of it. ... Just as it is strictly correct to say that nobody is ever in an exact Position (except instantaneously, and an Instant is a fiction, or *ens rationis*), but Positions are either vaguely described states of motion of small range, or else (what is the better view), are *entia rationis* (i.e. fictions recognized to be fictions, and thus no longer fictions) invented for the purposes of closer descriptions of states of motion; so likewise, Thought (I am not talking Psychology, but Logic, or the essence of Semeiotics) cannot, from the nature of it, be at rest, or be anything but inferential process; and propositions are either roughly described states of Thought-motion, or are artificial creations intended to render the description of Thought-motion possible; and Names are creations of a second order serving to render the representation of propositions possible. (LF 3/1:234-5, 1906) Of course, I disagree that signs "are composed of three correlates." On the contrary, the sign is *one *correlate of the genuine triadic relation of representing or (more generally) mediating, whose *other two* correlates are the object and the interpretant. While this *relation *is indeed triadic and irreducibly complex, the sign is its *simplest *correlate, while the object is of *middling *complexity and the interpretant is the *most *complex. The object can be *analyzed *into dynamical (genuine) and immediate (degenerate), but is not *reducible *to them; and the interpretant can be *analyzed* into final (genuine), dynamical (degenerate), and immediate (doubly degenerate), but is not *reducible *to them. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Sat, Jun 21, 2025 at 7:28 AM Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > Helmut, list > > A further comment on semiosis and ‘classification’. I’ll note that for > Peirce, “the explanation of the phenomenon lies in the fact that the entire > universe - not merely the universe of existents, but all that wider > universe, embracing the universe of existents as a part the universe which > we are all accustomed to refer to as ’the truth’ - that all this universe > is perfused with signs if it is not composed exclusively of signs” 5.449n. > > Now -given this excerpt, that the whole universe is composed of signs > [plural],- my conclusion is that semiosis is the basic analytic ’tool’ of > the phaneron…The focus becomes: how do signs develop, interact, function? > What do they do? Indeed - even, WHY are signs? And I note that the ’signs’ > which Peirce refers to are complex, in that they are composed of three > correlates, which do not function or even exist separately but in distinct > relations with each other. > > As an analytic tool, the task is not simply classification, which is, as > Peirce also noted, a form of measurement, but analysis of the function > [pragmaticism] of these phenomena. And for this, we need to acknowledge > that the basic unit of the universe, the triadic sign, is complex. > Not complicated. > > Again, complexity means that the entity cannot be reduced to its parts; > and complicated, is a mechanical reduction to parts. [Therefore, as > complex, the Sign is not A + B+ C] > > A complex system is explained by Peirce, is operative within three ‘modes > of being’, the famous Categories’…in all their genuine and degenerate > forms. And, as Peirce also pointed out, these insert restrictions of > processing and functionality into the phenomena of the world - eg - that a > possible {1ns] can only produce a possible [1ns]. The concept of barriers, > of restrictions of processing and function is, I think, very important. It > enables continuity of form and interaction..vs the entropy of chaos. > > Therefore in conclusion, I think that the analysis of the complex nature > and function of the Sign - which requires analysis of the results of the > Categories in the sign existence and action..is a major focus. > > Edwina >
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