Hi Edwina,
I find this one of the better articulated explanations of speciation, evolution (of life), and society, which I also believe Peirce believed applied to cosmic evolution (including inanimate matter) and technology (as you allude to). The histories of the steam engine or human flight, as other examples, point to decades of singular attempts to conquer those problems, each for decades ending in failure. Only when the objective function was successfully obtained did a type emerge. While Peirce's continuity or synechism is the embracing tendency, driving us to habits, absolute chance is real and, as Peirce so eloquently speaks to us, is the source of innovation, novelty and the power underlying emergence. Further, and this is also absolutely essential for contemporary problems in physics and cosmology, the laws governing these tendencies may themselves evolve. I think many of the timing questions perplexing cosmologists arise from this reality, one that conventional science today little embraces.
Your arguments and the ones I have suggested point to why it is so essential that we bring Peirce's insights to broader audiences, particularly in science and philosophy (and mathematics, too, I would argue based on Peirce's 'disease' of triadomany). Thinking about these matters have been stuck into some sort of Cartesian black hole, never letting the light of new ideas emerge.
In my opinion, this is the relevancy of Peirce. He does not have all of the answers. Heck, many of today's questions in his time were only starting to be asked. But there is a mindset and a set of overarching principles to his insights that I think provide timeless guidance.
Best, Mike
List:
There seems to be a problem with the issue of ‘habit’ or Type of a morphological entity, ie ,the habit-of-formation whereby continuity of type is assured, ie, that the insect will reproduce as that insect and not another insect ; that the word STOP will mean just that and not..
The question is really – how do these habits form? Are they all a priori as in some necessitarian Platonic idealism, or, pre-Darwinian era, where all Types were predetermined via ‘god’s will?
Or, can the universe enable new novel Types/morphological habits, to emerge within and due to only its own workings? Obviously, diversity and new species are the norm in the universe, from the first beginnings of bacterium to the complex organisms of today; as well as socially, the first lifestyles of hunters-gatherers to the industrial complexities of today. But how do these Types form?
My understanding of Peirce is that he most definitely set up novelty and the self-organized emergence of new habits and Types within the universe. The first step is obviously the category of Firstness which is not simply ‘feeling’ or ‘quality’ but is chance, freedom. See his outline on ‘arbitrary determination of chance [6.47]. That is- a basic component of the universe is not simply individual instantiations [ Secondness] and not habits of continuity [ Thirdness] but also – novelty freedom, deviation [Firstness].All three modes.
He writes; [1.175 ]‘”The infallibilist naturally thinks that everything always was substantially as it is now. Laws at any rate being absolute could not grow. They either always were, or they sprang instantaneously into being by a sudden fiat like the drill of a company of soldiers’. This makes the laws of nature absolutely blind and inexplicable’….Peirce rejects this.
And [6.57] Peirce writes against necessitarianism…“You think all the arbitrary specifications of the universe were introduced in one dose, in the beginning, if there was a beginning, and that the variety and complexification of nature has always been just as much as it is now. But I, for my part, think that the diversification, the specification, has been continually taking place”. ….[6.59; my emphasis]” So, repeatedly writing against necessitarianism..Peirce insists on the phenomenon of ‘growth and developing complexity…[6.64].”By thus admitting pure spontaneity of life as a character of the universe, acting always and everywhere though restrained within narrow bounds by law producing infinitesimal departures from law continually and great ones with infinite infrequency, I account for all the variety and diversity of the universe…variety can spring only from spontaneity’..
Along with this reality of chance, Peirce outlines “a principle of generalization, or tendency to form habits, which I hold has produced all regularities”. [6.63] As he outlines in 6.266, ‘when some atoms of the protoplasm have become partially emancipated from law what happens to them?” He answers with ‘the tendency to take habits’, which means that they can form new habits of association to enable ‘diversification’.. His outline of tychastic evolution and agapistic evolution, in my view, outline this reality of both chance and the ‘attraction of entities for each other’, such that a collection could develop a new habit of Type and continuity.
And “the tychastic development of thought, then, will consist in slight departures from habitual ideas in different directions indifferently, quite purposeless and quite unconstrained whether by outward circumstances or by force of logic”, these new departures being followed by unforeseen results which end to fix some of them as habits more than others” 6.307
That is ,as Robert Marty pointed out, there can be, in existence, entities which are neither Types nor Tokens. But are singularities. And these form new habits.
As such - We must acknowledge the reality of speciation – ie- the emergence of entirely new species – whether by allopatric, [geographic separation of population] or sympatric [same location] ..where a variation in reproduction gamete fusion will produce singularities that will gradually develop common habits [as Peirce outlines in the development of habits eg 1.413]leading to a different species, or, isolation of type but different food sources will produce singularities that lead to different types, eg, Coichlid fish in Nicaragua which live in the same geographic location but have developed have different species or Types that allow them to eat different food sources -and each of multiple types may adapt to a different location.
And we must also acknowledge, societally, diversity of thought and novel ideas – such as the invention of the wheel, the deep plough, mariner’s compass, use of spectacles, printing, literacy, vaccines, anesthetics, …electricity….etc etc.
Edwina
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 MartyHonorary Professor ; PhD Mathematics ; PhD Philosophy
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Le lun. 10 nov. 2025 à 20:09, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> a écrit :_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Robert, Ben, Gary R., List:RM: 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, USAStructural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
On Sun, Nov 9, 2025 at 4:01 AM robert marty <[email protected]> wrote:Jon, Gary, Ben, ListRegarding 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 PhilosophyLe 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 graphs specifically.
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 notices in this snippet that he uses both the word "instance" and "replica" so that in this broadly 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 terminology of "instance" (for the very 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 Eprint https://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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