Thanks for your comments, Vinicius. My comments: 1) Agree that a photograph is an iconic index.
2) And yes, the S-FI relation is not the same as that between the S, DO and FI. I think that the latter is a communal action while the former could be an individual action. Plus, the former could be a belief (tenacity, authority, a priori) while the latter, with its insistence on acknowledging the DO, rests within a scientific interaction. 3) VINICIUS: Another question, still open to debate, if the division Peirce does several times in emotional, energetic and logical interpretant are just different words for the same immediate, dynamic and final, or if they are related to the categories and can be applied to each interpretative aspect. Kees says on page 85 that "the cannot be reduced to one another" and advocates then the same opinion of Tom Short (and myself, in this regard). But them other questions can arise: can we say that the immediate interpretant can be emotional, energetic and logical, or it can be only emotional, while the dynamic interpretant can be emotional and energetic and the final interpretant can be all of the three possibilities. EDWINA: Interesting question. Can the immediate interpretant, which is internal to the triadic semiosic process - be 'emotional', i.e., in a mode of Firstness. I'd say: Yes. But - Can this same immediate interpretant be in a mode of Secondness? Hmm. But isn't the definition of Secondness a recognition, even if unconscious, of 'otherness'? Therefore, wouldn't this require a movement to externality? And can this immediate interpretant be logical - which is Thirdness - which requires abstraction into generality? I'd question such an action. Consider an Interpretant in all three modes which is 'fixed', in that it undergoes no changes from its individual internal to its individual external and even, its communal external mode. (immediate, dynamic, final). Seems rather totalitarian to me. I'd agree with the last sentence...that the immediate can be emotional; the dynamic can be emotional and energetic; and the final, can be emotional, energetic and logical. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Vinicius Romanini To: [email protected] 1 Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2014 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 5, Semeiotics, or the doctrine of signs Dear list members, This is my third and last (for your sake!) message reviewing Kees' book (in contradistinction with messages answering particular questions raised by other members - BTW, I resent some of them this morning because I noticed that not all of them were sent to the list but replied only to the author of the question). I think Kees does a good job in putting Peirce's rationale for the several types and classes of signs, so my contribution will be mostly concentrated on raising some questions on the specific interpretations and arrangements. Not that these questions should be a definite answers, but mostly as a sign of warning for the unstable ground we are still stepping when it comes to apply semeiotic to complex phenomena such as life, intelligence, cosmology and so on. In previous messages I discussed mostly the correlates of S (representamen) and O (the dynamic and immediate object). We have already seen that immediate interpretants are the possible interpretability that always accompanies any sign, independently of it being effectively interpreted (the dynamic interpretant) or the final result of a dynamic process of semeiosis, which is the final interpretant. We must right away remember that these finer division of object into immediate and dynamic, and of interpretant into immediate, dynamic and final were made by Peirce soon after the Syllabus of 1903. We see Peirce making some scratches in 1904 and in 1905 he has already come up with them. Until 1911 they will be continuously refined by never to a point of a "perennial" classification - as Peirce did with his classification of sciences. Many, a lot of confusion, comes when trying to integrate the 1903 division (the famous triangle of 10 genuine classes) with the late division based on 10 aspects. Peirce NEVER put them on a natural relation, although all his exercises were aimed at this. I say all this because if you go to the latests MS, you see that Peirce is confortable with only 7 of the 10 late aspects. They are: 1) sign 2) immediate object 3) dynamic object 4) immediate interpretant 5) dynamic interpretant 6) final interpretant 7) relation between sign and dynamic object Almost all, if not all, of the examples he sends to Welby and James in his letters deal with the above aspects, and almost nothing is dedicated to the others, which would be: 8) relation between sign and dynamic interpretant 9) relation between sign and final interpretant 10) relation between sign, dynamic object and final interpretant. This picture is not a mere technicality. In one of his exercises, in 1906 I think (I must confirm) he says that his previous classification of a photography as an icon was mistaken because he did not have yet a clear understanding of the relation between the sign and the dynamic interpretant (aspect 8). Applying correctly the trichotomy in this particular aspect would lead us to consider a photography not an icon only, but an "iconic index" for it has iconic information but also indexical connection with the object. He then says that further analysis on the classes of signs could produce reverberations in the whole previous considerations as to force a complete review - a work he does not consider himself apt to do due to his health and age. One common problem resulting from the above is that some people make confusions when dealing with the interpretants. They think that the final interpretant, for instance, is the same as the last aspect (number 10), where there is the relation Sign, Dynamic Objcet and Final interpretant (S-DO-FI). While the first explains the final effect produced by the sign in semeiosis, the second deals with the rhetorical, communicative, purposeful aspects os semeiosis, where we get certain grades of assurance leading, ideally, to a true final opinion It wasn't Kees intention to finish the job for Peirce, certainly. He wanted to give a pedestrian example of how the several possible classes of signs might help us when applying semeiotic. So I will raise some questions to the community mostly as a way to foster discussion: 1) In explaining how the aspects are related, Kees talks of the relation of sign to the interpretants, including the immediate. But Peirce does not draw an aspect out of the relation between sign and immediate interpretant (as you can check above). This is because the immediate interpretant is inside the sign, as much as the immediate object. 2) Kees also says that the "a true proposition would be a final interpretant" (p 84), but this is the kind of confusion we should avoid, in my humble opinion. A final interpretant in biosemiosis can be satisfying the basic needs of our "vital matters", for instance. The world is sometimes as Marc Twain depicts it, as Nathan Houser usually says. The true proposition is what we get at the end of inquiry, a communicative endeavor that is precisely what the 10th aspect is about. 3) Another question, still open to debate, if the division Peirce does several times in emotional, energetic and logical interpretant are just different words for the same immediate, dynamic and final, or if they are related to the categories and can be applied to each interpretative aspect. Kees says on page 85 that "the cannot be reduced to one another" and advocates then the same opinion of Tom Short (and myself, in this regard). But them other questions can arise: can we say that the immediate interpretant can be emotional, energetic and logical, or it can be only emotional, while the dynamic interpretant can be emotional and energetic and the final interpretant can be all of the three possibilities. Again, this is not trivial. Actually, it is very important for pragmatism. 4) Regarding misinterpretation, there is a lot to be said but I will not enter into too much quibbles. One difficulty here is that, as I already say in my first message, Kees does not deal with Peirce's concept of information - which makes the discussion a side of the aims of his book. But it might be good to differentiate misrepresentation from misinterpretation. The former happens when the sign fails to represent its object. The example of the weathervane is fine: a broken weathervane still indicates "something", but does not convey information because the iconic part (its alignment with the direction of the wind) is lost. And no sign can convey information if it does not have an icon to embody this information. Misinterpretation is the lack of information on the side of intepretant (and interpreters), so that collateral experience is not mature enough to produce a true symbol - a symbol which effect is general interpretants that embody the form of the dynamic object. Misrepresentation is lack of information on the extension of a term, misinterpretation is lack of information on the comprehension of a term. In both cases, what is missing is more perception of the real. 5) To end this already too long message, I would like to comment on some of the examples used by Kees. I find the use of examples a crucial method to bring to earth the sometimes airy division of classes of signs, which are usually explained from words to words but never getting to real life. I wish Kees book had many more examples, but I understand the limitations of space. So, he says that the "barking of a dog is a rhematic indexical sinsign of an unexpected visitor". I would say that "an unexpected bark of a dog is a rhematic indexical sinsign". The relation to an expected visitor is already an inference which depends on collateral experience. It might be a true indexical connection independent of our judgement, but we will only establish by means of association with previous familiarity with the behavior of that dog that is barking. He also says that "Darwin's Origin of Species an argumentative indexical legisign of the principle of evolution" which must be a lapsus memoriae for only symbols can generate arguments. That's all folks, We still have another week to discuss Peirce's semeiotic, so I hope more people jump into the thread. Vinicius 2014-03-27 17:24 GMT-04:00 Cornelis de Waal <[email protected]>: Dear Vinicius, Gary, Jon, Ulysses, list Thanks so much, Vicinius, for your thorough discussion of the chapter so far. It is certainly correct, as you state, that in my discussion of semeiotics I focused on speculative grammar, and that I largely abstained from applying this terminology elsewhere or from using it to analyze Peirce's position(s). The reason for this is very pedestrian. I wanted someone, especially philosophers that have no background in Peirce but are interested in any of the topics mentioned in the table of contents, to jump to that topic and be able to read the text without getting lost in a quagmire of terms and distinctions. That being said, there still is a good book to be written, I think, that seeks to give a general overview of Peirce's philosophy while using Peirce's semiotics. In fact, everything written in my book after chapter five, can be rewritten in this manner (hopefully), and doing such a thing would be aninteresting test case both for the usefulness of semiotics as a tool for conducting philosophy, and for Peirce's views in the two other branches of logic and in metaphysics. Such, an exercise, though, is by no means unproblematic, as itdepends on having the grammar worked out pretty extensively, and this is still an area where there is quite a bit of divergence, to which the discussion on this list is further testimony. I want to briefly respond to Vinicius's question as to why I opted for the term "semeiotics," given that Peirce used several variants. My reason is really a political one, inspired by my aim of increasing the number and the variety of people that read (about) Peirce. Hence, I tried to remain as closely as I could to the word "semiotics," which seems the term most commonly used, while at the same time restricting myself to a term that Peirce actually used himself, which as far as I have been able to ascertain disqualifies "semiotics." I agree with the distinction between "conventional" and "arbitrary" drawn by Vincinius, with the conclusions he draws from it. I do have some problems though, with his discussion of the example of the footprint in thesand in his second message. As it turns out, my objections are wholly in line with what Gary said, so I'll just refer to his excellent post. That being said, however, I think that perhaps some of Vinicius's criticism stems from me identifying the object as a footprint in the sand to begin with. I took this initial identification to take place at the level of the omniscient narrator in his (or her) special, almost conspiratorial relationship with the reader, whereas the various interpretations discussed take place at the level of the charactersthat play a role within the little narrative that is formed by the example. In truth we have no direct access to objects this way. Anything that appears to us, appears such as it can be grasped within cognition-meaning that it appears to us as a sign. Experiences of pure firstness and pure secondness may be the exception to this, but they also would be limiting cases that carry over from phaneroscopy. Perhaps this accommodates Vinicius's criticism, especially also in the light of what Gary writes, and also the criticisms of those who denied that an object can elicit a variety of signs that can in turn be variously interpreted. As to Vinicius's other disagreement, here the objection seems to be that not all signs can be hypostatic abstractions because this would somehow exclude "real possibilities and existents not yet cognized." I must confess that I do not really understand the objection. Aren't real possibilities and existents-not-yet-cognized also cases of hypothetic abstraction? If not, then what are they? Such seems to me quite clearly the case with the yet undiscovered fossil referred to by Vinicius. Here one is already projecting something to be there that a future interpreter, or interpretant if you wish, could, would, might, or in due time will extract from it. I thinkthat looking at the issue this way, which is very natural and very hard to avoid, involves something that might be dubbed the omniscient narrator fallacy in which the object is conflated with some interpretation of it. It further seems to me that to identify signs as hypostatic abstractions does not entail that the use of signs by an interpreter, either when perceiving something as a sign or when uttering a sign, requires that this interpreter engages in hypothetic abstraction. It is rather a characterization that is made, and plays a role within, the theoretical enterprise labeled semeiotics. So, one can still maintain that warthogs, sea slugs, and even dandelions can respond to signs and perhaps even make them. Best wishes, Kees From: Vinicius Romanini <[email protected]> Reply-To: Vinicius Romanini <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 10:37 AM To: Gary Richmond <[email protected]> Cc: "[email protected] 1" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 5, Semeiotics, or the doctrine of signs 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 something 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 ----------------------------- 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] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . -- 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- 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] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
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