Auke - interesting point. My view is that there is no such thing, in
the natural world, as an 'argument indexical legisign'. What this sets up
is that the indexical connections are defined as a necessary and universal
law - and that's not how indexical processes function.
Now, the whole process of evolution - not Darwinian evolution - but
evolution, would legitimately include the Rhematic Symbolic Legisign (which
is Natural Selection as a statistical average) AND, AND, hmm... the Dicent
Symbolic Legisign, which deals with future propensities of existents with
which it is in contact. Just a guess.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Auke van Breemen <[email protected]>
*To:* 'Edwina Taborsky' <[email protected]> ; 'Vinicius
Romanini'<[email protected]>; '[email protected]
1'
*Sent:* Saturday, March 29, 2014 3:35 PM
*Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 5, Semeiotics, or the
doctrine of signs
Vinicius, Edwina,
A nice exchange. I have one remark with respect to:
Vinicius: 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.
EDWINA: There is no such thing as an 'argument indexical legisign'; that's
what I refer to as a degenerate sign, (3-2-3), found only within human
cognition. The energy density should be the same or decrease from the R/S
to the O to the I. The above triad has the input Object as indexical, in a
mode of Secondness, but what does it relate to? As you point out, only
symbols can generate an Interpretant that is an Argument. (ie, 3rdness to
3rdness).
Auke: But I would say that an 'argumentative replica indexical legisign
is involved in the 'argumentative symbolical legisign'. It leaves the
interpreting system the possibility to change 'ground' in the way Short
uses the concept in his Apache example. Since all lower sign types are
involved in the higher, we have as many possibilities to opt out in our
interpretational process, as there are sign types involved in the sign that
offers itself. I don't claim purpose here, sooner 'jumping to conclusions'
or 'embedding in a different argumentative process'.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Vinicius Romanini <[email protected]>
*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
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
--
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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