On Nov 11, 2025, at 8:40 AM, robert marty <[email protected]>
wrote:
Ben, Gary R., List:
Jon disagrees. Except that he disagrees with something I absolutely
did not write, namely: “/Concepts are general, not individual/”! Did
I write such an enormity? If anyone on this list thinks so, I would
be very grateful if they would explain it to me, and if they convince
me, I will stop writing and devote myself to watering the few flowers
on my balcony. Everyone will appreciate Jon's comment, and I will
stay on topic without introducing any personal aspects.
The logical consequence of this absurdity would be that there are
"/singular tokens/," an oxymoron conveniently coined by JAS. Indeed,
if something is a token, it is a token of a type, and therefore it is
not singular; and if something is singular, then it has no
corresponding type and therefore it is not a token. I am not trapped
in this circularity as JAS would like to believe. For I wrote "/new
facts/" (token does not appear in the quotation) and the chemist's
example suits me very well. He discovers a fact, not a law (type).
The law remains to be created and is the result of a process within
the scientific community that begins by verifying that the fact is
not linked to the singularity of the circumstances of the discovery
(for example, the experimental setup) or to that of the chemist
himself. Then, and only then, does the fact become the token of a
type. This is a commonplace of the scientific approach.
There are countless examples. I will mention just one in the field of
biotechnology. In 1869, DNA was isolated by Swiss chemist Friedrich
Miescher. He named it nuclein; it would later be renamed DNA. This
was an event without type, and it would remain so until 1944, when
experiments conducted by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn
McCarty demonstrated that DNA is the genetic material responsible for
the transmission of hereditary characteristics. DNA became a token of
the law adopted by the biochemistry community according to its
specific standards. As for the double helix that reveals its
structure, it was discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick in
1953. If you want a list of the new concepts in genetic engineering
that have been forged since then, ask your favorite AI.
On the debate between replica and instance, I remain determined to
use "replica" in semiotics, as it is established in practice; it is a
question of synonymy. Everyone is free to use either term.
Regards,
Robert Marty
Honorary Professor ; PhD Mathematics ; PhD Philosophy
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Marty
<https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Marty>
_https://martyrobert.academia.edu/_
Le lun. 10 nov. 2025 à 20:09, Jon Alan Schmidt
<[email protected]> a écrit :
Robert, Ben, Gary R., List:
RM
<https://list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2025-11/msg00040/pdfRF4_UwTQNX.pdf>:
As for signs without a type, it is obvious that they exist.
The example of new technologies, with all the new concepts
that accompany them, has given rise to new facts that we
never suspected could exist. This is true, moreover, for all
significant advances in all sciences.
I disagree. Concepts are general, not individual; new
technologies and significant advances in all sciences create or
discover previously unknown /types/, which have tokens as their
instances--not /singular/ tokens, which /cannot /be understood as
instances of types. In fact, technology production and scientific
experimentation rely entirely on this /repeatability/ of types in
tokens as their instances. For example, "The chemist contents
himself with a single experiment to establish any qualitative
fact ... because he knows that there is such a uniformity in the
behavior of chemical bodies that another experiment would be a
mere repetition of the first in every respect" (CP 5.580, EP
2:45, 1898).
BU: What I liked about the term "replica" is that a symbol
could be a replica of a more general symbol. For example, a
sentence - not an individual token but a type - in a
particular human language could be a replica of a proposition
conceived as a kind of meaning, apart from any particular
human language.
I agree that this is an important concept, but it can be
expressed just as accurately with "instance" as Peirce's
terminological replacement for "replica." It is why I often
distinguish a sign /itself/ from a sign /type/--the same sign can
have different types in different languages and other sign
systems, which is why those types can be translated in both
directions. As Peirce says ...
CSP: Take, for example, any proverb. "Evil communications
corrupt good manners." Every time this is written or spoken
in English, Greek, or any other language, and every time it
is thought of, it is one and the same representamen. It is
the same with a diagram or picture. It is the same with a
physical sign or symptom. If two weathercocks are different
signs, it is only in so far as they refer to different parts
of the air. (CP 5.138, EP 2:203, 1903)
"Man" in English and "homme" in French are different tokens of
different types of the same sign. Moreover, according to Peirce,
this does not pertain only to /symbolic/ signs--actual diagrams
and pictures are /iconic/ tokens, while physical signs and
symptoms are /indexical/ tokens, but they can likewise be
different instances of the same sign. In fact, he often presents
weathercocks as paradigmatic examples of indexical tokens, and
yet he implies here that they are all instances of the same sign;
and a few years later, he explicitly states, "I speak of the
weathercock,--the type, not the single instance" (EP 2:406, 1907).
GR: What I am proposing is that in consideration of EGs that
we should accept Peirce's changed terminology of "instance"
(for the very good reason related to his ethics of
terminology), but retain it in his general semeiotic.
Admittedly, not much is at stake here since the meaning of
"replica" in this context is well-established. Nevertheless,
Peirce /consistently /prefers "instance" after 1904--not only
when discussing EGs, but also when discussing his general
semeiotic. He even presents the very same example of "the" in
several later texts, /always /using "instance" and /never /using
"replica" (e.g., CP 4.537, 1906; LF 3/1:275, 1906; LF 1:567&579,
1911). For him, "instance" evidently conveys the thought of all
occurrences of the word better than "replica."
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> /
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt>
On Sun, Nov 9, 2025 at 4:01 AM robert marty
<[email protected]> wrote:
Jon, Gary, Ben, List
Regarding Jon's comment, I have nothing further to add, as
Gary has since responded in a much more appropriate and
detailed manner than I could have done myself.
Regarding Ben's message:
Indeed, referring to section b.4.3 of my response yesterday,
we can see in the final sub-diagram, “Varieties of Dicent
Sinsigns,” that Peirce makes the distinction mentioned by
Ben. The replicas of dicent symbols incorporated into
arguments are distinguished by the classification of those
that belong to propositions that do not appear in an argument
at the time of speech.
Ben's quotation from /317/ Kaîna Stoïchea clearly shows that
an isolated proposition can only express a desire (and, I
would add, make a simple observation), which cannot in any
way influence real facts, i.e., have practical effects. This
is an obvious link to pragmatism, which highlights the
theoretical importance of semiotics in Peirce's intellectual
construction..
Regards,
Robert Marty
Honorary Professor ; PhD Mathematics ; PhD Philosophy
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Marty
<https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Marty>
_https://martyrobert.academia.edu/_
Le dim. 9 nov. 2025 à 09:18, Gary Richmond
<[email protected]> a écrit :
Ben, Jon, List,
I would like to propose that the term 'replica' may still
have a llegitimate use in Peirce's semeiotic despite its
being abandoned by Peirce for existential graphsspecifically.
CSP: An individual existing embodiment of such a type
is called a graph-instance, or a[n] instance of a
graph. I formerly called it a replica, forgetting
that Mr. Kempe, in his Memoir on Mathematical Forms,
§170, had already preempted this word as a technical
term relating to graphs, and that in a highly
appropriate sense, while my sense was not at all
appropriate. I therefore am glad to abandon this
term. (LF 2/1:171, 1904)
Peirce seems to have rejected 'replica' in EGs because
"Kempe. . . had already preempted this word as a
technical term relating to graphs, and that in a highly
appropriate sense." Here one sees Peirce's following
through on a principle of his Ethics of Terminology, that
one should not use a word which another has already
appropriated to express a certain meaning. See the whole
discussion in "The Ethics of Terminology," (CP 2.219–2.226).
Peirce makes this principle explicit:
". . . whoever first has occasion to employ a name
for that [new] conception must invent a suitable one;
and others ought to follow him; but that whoever
deliberately uses a word or other symbol in any other
sense than that which was conferred upon it by its
sole rightful creator commits a shameful offence
against the inventor of the symbol and against
science, and it becomes the duty of the others to
treat the act with contempt and indignation. Peirce:
CP 2.224
In the following famous passage discussing legisigns,
sinsigns, and replicas, Peirce remarks that "Each single
instance of [a legisign] is a Replica." One noticesin
this snippet that he uses both the word "instance" and
"replica" so that in thisbroadly semeiotic sense they
would appear to be synonymous.
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. CP 2.246 (Emphasis added).
What I am proposing is that in consideration of EGs that
we should accept Peirce's changed terminologyof
"instance" (for thevery good reason related to his ethics
of terminology), but retain it in his general semeiotic.
For a preliminary 'test' of this notion, try reading the
quotation just above replacing each occurrence of
'Replica' with 'instance'. For me, 'replica' seems to
convey the thought of all occurrences of the word 'the'
better than 'instance'.
Best,
Gary R
On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 6:26 AM Benjamin Udell
<[email protected]> wrote:
What I liked about the term "replica" is that a
symbol could be a replica of a more general symbol.
For example, a sentence - not an individual token but
a type - in a particular human language could be a
replica of a proposition conceived as a kind of
meaning, apart from any particular human language.
Below is my footnote about it from the Wikipedia
article now titled "Semiotic theory of Charles
Sanders Peirce"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotic_theory_of_Charles_Sanders_Peirce
"New Elements (Kaina Stoicheia)" MS 517 (1904);
EP 2:300-324, Arisbe
Eprinthttps://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/stoicheia/stoicheia.htm
, scroll down to 317, then first new paragraph.
On 11/7/2025 7:31 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
Just to clarify, Robert's linked paper is not about
/all /tokens (sinsigns), it is specifically about
"replicas"--a term that Peirce discarded in favor of
"instances" as his speculative grammar continued to
develop after 1903, just like he discarded
"representamen" in favor of "sign."
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