Helmut, List,
You asked the question “What is a trichotomy?” a few days ago on another thread; I replied on October 21, 2025, at 10:22 a.m., giving you Peirce's precise definition when he trichotomizes the sciences in order to classify them; here it is:
Note: First, Second, and Third are ordinals!
So, a formal definition, applicable in all circumstances, would be something like:
A trichotomy is a tripartite division of a phaneron into three parts defined by the natures of the elements it contains, each of which is characterized by one of the three classes: Thirdness, Secondness, and Firstness. It follows that, since these categories are interdependent and verify relations of involvement a priori, then the elements with which each part is associated (which, for convenience, I call, as Peirce was, the fact, respectively, Tertians, Secondans, and Primans) must be such that Tertians govern Secondans, whose existence is by definition presupposed, and also Primans, which, by their definition, only exist when incarnated in Secondans.
Consequently, if you claim that a triad of concepts is a trichotomy, you must show that they meet these conditions. The three classes must be included, and the elements contained in each must be related by involvement. Your opinion is not enough, and you cannot leave it to your readers to verify this. It is up to you to prove it...
Best regards,
Robert Marty
Jon, Robert, List,to me, the relations between categorial entities become clearer by classifying them with the trichotomy "composition, involvement, classification" (Maybe this trichotomy is better than "composition, determination, classification", I had proposed before, or maybe involvement is a kind of determination). With composition I mean a complete and irreducible one. Classification may also be called specification or subsumption (Salthe).The triad "sign, object, interpretant" is a composition. "immediate object, dynamical object" is a composition, these two make the object. The trichotomy "rheme, dicent, argument" is a classification. A dicent involves rhemes, but is not composed of them, because they donot make it. For having a dicent, their order too is necessary, which information is in the dicent. Same with argument: Peirces example with the beans in a bag shows, that according to the order of dicents (propositions) in the argument, you have either an abduction, an induction, or a deduction (or nonsense, if the order is weird).A symbol involves indexes, which involve icons, a legisign involves sinsigns, which involve qualisigns.I think, that the three interpretants too are a composition, they together make the interpretant. But then I´d have to claim, that every interpretant consists of these three parts. The final inerpretant may be vague or an anticipation for a long time, but should exist from the beginning in some way.Best, Helmut_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _22. Oktober 2025 um 20:21"Jon Alan Schmidt" <[email protected]>wrote:_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► 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] . ► UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email account, then go to https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.Robert, List:As always, where there are conflicting claims about Peirce's thought, I encourage readers to draw their own conclusions in light of all the textual evidence presented and otherwise available. Accordingly, I stand by my statement that is contested below, which is from my first post on Monday (https://list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2025-10/msg00095.html) and supported by the following observations and accompanying quotations that I included in my first post yesterday (https://list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2025-10/msg00104.html).In any case, that letter never mentions the immediate/dynamical/final interpretants, so it cannot plausibly be considered the definitive account of them. It does go on to talk about the intentional/effectual/communicational interpretants, but a few weeks later--in the very same paragraph where he states, "The Normal Interpretant is the Genuine Interpretant"--Peirce says that he has "omitted the intended interpretant" because "it may be the Interpretant of another sign, but it is in no sense the interpretant of that sign" (R 339:[276r], 1906 Apr 2). Specifically, as "a determination of the mind of the utterer" (SS 196, EP 2:478, 1906 Mar 9), it obviously cannot be any of the interpretants of the sign that the utterer is currently uttering; instead, it must be a dynamical interpretant of a previous sign determined by the same object. I explain this, along with my position that the communicational interpretant corresponds to the immediate (not final) interpretant, in my 2022 Semiotica paper, "Peirce's Evolving Interpretants" (https://philpapers.org/go.pl?aid=SCHPEI-12).
- He says in 1903 that for any class where 3ns is predominant, there are subclasses of relatively genuine 3ns, relatively reactional 3ns, and relatively qualitative 3ns.
- He also says in 1903 that in any triadic relation, the first correlate (e.g., sign) is the simplest, the second (e.g., object) is of middling complexity, and the third (e.g., interpretant) is the most complex.
- He introduces the hexad of six correlates already in October 1904, not 1906 or 1908; and it is a further development of his 1903 speculative grammar, not a completely new approach.
- He employs the terminology of phaneroscopic analysis to explain the additional correlates in July 1905--the dynamical/immediate objects are genuine/degenerate, and the final/dynamical/immediate interpretants are genuinely/secundally/primarily tertian.
- He again refers to the dynamical object and the final interpretant as "genuine" in April 1906, less than a month after writing the letter to Lady Welby that is excerpted below.
I remain puzzled by the assertion that I am placing the trichotomy for the final interpretant itself (If) wherever it suits me. On the contrary, Peirce's 1903 taxonomy for classifying signs unambiguously puts the trichotomy for the sign's relation with its (final) interpretant after the one for the sign's relation with its (dynamical) object, which comes after the one for the sign itself; and he states plainly in 1908 that the trichotomies for all three interpretants as correlates also come after the one for the sign itself. I continue to refrain from discussing whether their proper logical order is immediate-dynamical-final or final-dynamical-immediate, since I am well aware that this is controversial among Peirce scholars due to his peculiar reference to the destinate/effective/explicit interpretants in that passage (SS 84, EP 2:481, 1908 Dec 23).Regards,Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAStructural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
On Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 2:29 AM robert marty <[email protected]> wrote:Jon, List,
It is false to assert this:
JAS: Phaneroscopic analysis of the genuine triadic relation of representing/mediating reveals that every one sign has two objects and three interpretants, for a total of six correlates.
Phaneroscopic analysis of a genuine triadic relation reveals nothing of this. This can be seen from the first appearance of the six correlates in 1906:
33 - 1906 - S.S. 196 - Letter to Lady Welby (Draft) dated "1906 March 9".
I use the word "Sign" in the widest sense for any medium for the communication or extension of a Form (or feature). Being medium, it is determined by something, called its Object, and determines something, called its Interpretant or Interpretand. But some distinctions have to be borne in mind in order rightly to understand what is meant by the Object and by the Interpretant. In order that a Form may be extended or communicated, it is necessary that it should have been really embodied in a Subject independently of the communication; and it is necessary that there should be another subject in which the same form is embodied only in consequence of the communication. The Form, (and the Form is the Object of the Sign), as it really determines the former Subject, is quite independent of the sign; yet we may and indeed must say that the object of a sign can be nothing but what that sign represents it to be. Therefore, in order to reconcile these apparently conflicting Truths, it is indispensible to distinguish the immediate object from the dynamical object.
The same form of distinction extends to the interpretant. Still, as applied to the interpretant, it is complicated by the circumstance that the sign not only determines the interpretant to represent (or to take the form of) the object, but also determines the interpretant to represent the sign. Indeed in what we may, from one point of view, regard as the principal kind of signs, there is one distinct part appropriated to representing the object, and another to representing how this very sign itself represents that object. The class of signs I refer to are the dicisigns. In "John is in love with Helen" the object signified is the pair, John and Helen. But the "is in love with" signifies the form this sign represents itself to represent John and Helen's Form to be. That this is so is shown by the precise equivalence between any verb in the indicative and the same made the object of "I tell you". "Jesus wept" = "I tell you that Jesus wept".
As you can see, the reasons given by Peirce do not mention the phaneroscopy of the triadic sign at any point. He describes the six stages of the journey of a form that would be in the object of the sign into the mind through six successive determinations. He arrives at a more complicated sign, a new definition by expansion.
We can still see this in CP 4.536 et 4.539, then in 1908 (47 bis – 1908 - Letter to Lady Welby in CP 8.343), CP 8.314 [March 14, 1909], and in CP 8.183 (undated).
It seems to me that Jon is attempting to dissolve the triadic sign into the hexadic sign (a more detailed hypostatic abstraction of the semiotic phenomenon according to Peirce) in order to ultimately promote an idiosyncratic pentadic sign with 21 classes in which he engraves his ideology (if not something else ?) by placing the If wherever it suits him.
I promised myself I would keep my time to myself and stop fact-checking, but this was too much.
Honorary Professor ; PhD Mathematics ; PhD Philosophy
► 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] .
► <a href=""mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[email protected]">UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L</a> . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email account, then go to
https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l .
► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► 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] . ► <a href="mailto:[email protected]";>UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L</a> . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email account, then go to https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
