Dear Gary R., list Thanks for your thoughts, Gary R. Commenting on what I wrote, you said:
* V: Besides that, a sign might have several objects (or a complex object), > but I don't see how an object cannot "give rise" to several signs. * > > Gary: As I read the snippet from Kees' chapter, he is not saying, as you > wrote immediately above, that "an object cannot 'give rise' to several > signs; > V: Yest, Gary. I meant to say that I don't agree that an object can give rise to several signs. Thanks for correcting me. Gary: It appears to me that you are here suggesting, in writing "*of the > potential that the sign itself has to be interpreted independently of any > psychological consideration such as "the purpose of the interpreter,"* that > the sign somehow *functions* independently of its being a sign of s*omething > *for someone. > > V: I think the immediate interpretant is already part of the sign even if it is not effectively actualized in dynamic interpretants. So you don't need a "someone", nor even a living being, for the triadic relation be established. A "might be" or "can be" is enough. Continuing, you say: > > Gary: (...) question here is not what extinct reptile this footprint is a > sign of (already known) but, say, because the texture of the material is > well known, and the footprint, clearly that of an adult of the species, the > print here being not shallow, but deep, the anthropologist, combining those > bits of information, is able to surmise the approximate weight of the > animal--new information, perhaps wholly unexpected (e.g., he might earlier > have thought it was quite small, but it appear to be considerably larger > based on his new knowledge). > > So here the sign is not the footprint alone, but for the archeologist's > *purposes *it is the footprint, its depth, the constitution of the > material it's contained within, etc. > V: Scientific discoveries happen usually by chance. If you go out to search for a fossil fish with such and such characteristic, then what you are really doing is searching for an empirical support of some consequences already deductively extracted from hypothesis. In this case, "purpose" is part of a self-controlled process of reasoning that can only be symbolic. You are only confirming information that you had previously synthetized. New information, which enters in perception, appears only when something unexpected calls your attention and a new hypothesis is advanced. > > Gary: You continued by remarking that it is *not *the purpose, but merely > the familiarity from collateral knowledge which is significant here. But it > seems to me that purpose, in consideration of gaining *new *knowledge, > *is* important (otherwise one would be blind to the possibility of even > discovering new knowledge). > V: By purpose I mean a self-controled, conscious resolve to get rid of a disturbing doubt. I agree that the "trained paleontologist", as Peirce says, has developed an habitual disposition to interpret the objects of its perception in a certain way. But this is precisely what the immediate interpretant means. Notice, though, that the immediate interpretant can only express a possible pattern of interpretation. Certainly all perceptual judgements, being non-conscious, will be part of this internal interpretability which can turn percepts into percipua. It is certainly our most amazing ability, our instinct to guess in a way which is not totally unwarranted. But the warrant for this interpretability is not purpose, but the previous familiarity (be it experiential, or "coming form one's mother milk", or even by "heredity). All the best, Vinicius
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