Dear list members, It seems that many of my answers during this first week were sent only to the authors and not to the list as a whole. I must figure out how to avoid that. In any case, I am reposting some that I think might be of interest. Sorry for the confusion. Vinicius
Dear Ben, Gary R., Edwina, Kees, list, Ben wrote: I agree with Gary about the role of purpose in interpretation. Vinicius > does, however, seem to allow of it in connection with the final > interpretant, and to wish merely that Kees had somehow put it into those > terms. On the other hand, I think Vinicius underplays the role of purpose. > It's hard to see why interpretation would take place at any level except > for an end, bringing standards and norms of value into play. The world in > its thermodynamic decay scrambles information, and life prospers in sorting > some information out as more important, valuable, to the purpose, for life; > some call it 'decoding', which makes sense provided that one remembers that > there is in life a purpose or function of extracting information from mixed > and scrambled signs and sign systems, both as to particular questions and > in general ways that 'add value' (e.g., not just deducing whatever is > deducible, but, since no deduction concludes in anything really new or > complicative, deducing that which nonetheless brings a new or nontrivial > perspective to the premisses). If one conceives of inference or > interpretation as taking place in some more or less 'quasi' way at purely > material and dynamic levels, then one still needs to suppose an end, even > if that end merely be thermodynamic decay or the conservation of certain > physical quantities - i.e., probable and (in the classical limit) extremal > outcomes. These things do not involve retroactive causation by ends. In > inference, aim or purpose 'solicits' (to borrow a Scholastic term) and > guides determination by the premisses; the reasoner hopes and supposes that > there are ways to do that without stacking the deck, i.e., without > interfering with the determination to truth. > V: Ben, my analysis was quite down to Earth. A footprint found by chance when your are taking a walk on the beach does not necessarily carry in itself a lesson to be learned. To believe that every sinsign must have a purpose is disturbing. Actually, there is a name for this: schizophrenia. If that were the case, every husband on Earth would have be right to think that his wife is cheating him when finds a footprint on the beach near the house, or that the FBI is following him, or any other purpose that would give a reason for that footprint a priori. Another very different thing would be if the husband has already a belief that he is being cheated and go around looking for evidence. In this second case, we have inquiry. A self-controlled process. The husband has a hypothesis, draws a necessary consequence (there might be vestiges of a lover around the house, probably on the nearby beach) and them goes out to look for them. Now we see purpose driving the process. Ben then wrote: > In the case of the _*question*_ asked about the weather, Peirce > identifies the purpose with the question's final interpretant and has it > depending in some sense on the asker of the question, but, yes, one can > consider the purpose merely as 'given' with the final interpretant of a > given posed question. Letter to William James, CP 8.314, 1909, > http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/*finalinterpretant*.html<http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/finalinterpretant.html>: > > [....] But the Significance of it, the _*Ultimate*_, _*Final**, * > *Interpretant*_ is her _*purpose*_ in asking it, what effect its answer > will have as to her plans for the ensuing day. [....] > > V: Again, in this example, the whole semeiotic process is driven by a doubt and a search for a belief: "How is the weather today?", asks the wife. The final interpretant is a purpose that will guide the action of peeping through the window, and given the answer. We have inquiry going on. The husband will think: "If the weather is good, the window will show now clouds". Next step: "if I take a look through the curtain, I will get information". This is drawing the necessary consequence of the previous hypothesis. The classes of signs are there to help us make useful logical distinctions. If every sign had a purpose, every sign would be an argument. And there would be only one sign, since the argument is the most developed and complex of all them. Best, -- Vinicius Romanini, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Studies School of Communications and Arts University of Sao Paulo, Brazil www.minutesemeiotic.org www.semeiosis.com.br Skype:vinicius_romanini -- Vinicius Romanini, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Studies School of Communications and Arts University of Sao Paulo, Brazil www.minutesemeiotic.org www.semeiosis.com.br Skype:vinicius_romanini
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