Jack, Jon, Gary F, List,
Being relatively new to Peirce, even more so than Jack, I probably
misunderstand a lot of the details and perhaps the general topic. Nevertheless,
I will present my thoughts, or rather, questions to Jon's statements.
First, anything that can be conceived as a sign, is a sign (roughly?). An event
such as the billiard balls could then also be a sign, of a law for example. So
I am a bit perplexed as to what you mean here:
> Jon: My working hypothesis is that any dyadic reaction between discrete
> things can be conceived as an occurrence of such an event of semiosis.
In light of the statement above, it seems trivial to understand this as simply
saying that it is possible to conceive an event as a sign, so I am sure that I
misunderstand something here. If we then keep apart the dyadic relation as a
part of the universe of secondness, and the sign as being part of the universe
of thirdness. Do you mean that the dyadic relation is somehow dependent on
triadic relations? Are not signs dependent on some material substrate?
Further, latching onto the word "conceived" in Jon's formulation above, I think
it does not fully remove personhood, as Gary F suggests. Merely that it has to
be before some mind. Or does Jon want to remove the need of someone
"conceiving" the dyadic relation, in order for there to be a sign? What is then
meant by "conceived"? Berkeley's God, that God ensures that everything is by
conceiving it?
And by
> Jon: an actual sign produces an actual effect
what is meant by "actual"? Signs, understood as representations and not
physical replicas, are not actual in the same sense a computer screen is
actually before me right now, as something existing. "though [the sign] is not
a force, it is a law." (EP2: 313). I might be missing Peirce's later thoughts
on semeiotics here. While signs are not actual entities, they are real as laws,
of which are external to the conceiver. Actuality as I understand it is
connected to secondness, not thirdness, and anything actual is considered to be
existentially present. Thirdness is dependent on secondness, not vice versa
logically.
Thank you for an interesting topic also!
Best regards
Ivar
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at
https://cspeirce.com and, just as well, at
https://www.cspeirce.com . It'll take a while to repair / update all the links!
► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] .
► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with
UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the
body. More at https://list.iu.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html .
► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
