Tori, Gary F., Jon, list,
In one of his "Ground arms!" examples, Peirce says, in, CP 8.178 (CP
editors: "Paragraphs 177-185 are from a long manuscript, undated, in
Widener IB3a. The references in it indicate that this manuscript is
part of a letter, but the extant part contains neither salutation nor
signature.") -
[....] The Object of a Sign may be something to be created by the
sign. For the Object of "Napoleon" is the Universe of Existence
so far as it is determined by the fact of Napoleon being a Member
of it. The Object of the sentence "Hamlet was insane" is the
Universe of Shakespeare's Creation so far as it is determined by
Hamlet being a part of it. The Object of the Command "Ground
arms!" is the immediately subsequent action of the soldiers so
far as it is affected by the molition expressed in the command.
It cannot be understood unless collateral observation shows the
speaker's relation to the rank of soldiers. You may say, if you
like, that the Object is in the Universe of things desired by the
Commanding Captain at that moment. Or since the obedience is
fully expected, it is in the Universe of his expectation. At any
rate, it determines the Sign although it is to be created by the
Sign by the circumstance that its Universe is relative to the
momentary state of mind of the officer.
(Note on "molition": in CP 8.303 Peirce says: "[...] what I call
_/Molition/ _, which is volition minus all desire and purpose, the
mere consciousness of _/exertion/ _ of any kind.")
There, an end or objective can, through a mind, act like an agent; it
is an object in a universe of things desired or expected. Although it
is an end, through a mind it works as a beginning, a source, of
semiotic and indeed actual determination. One might suppose that in
an evolutionary context, something similar could happen with
vegetable-level organisms; there the evolutionary process is a
quasi-mind through which a general and telical object exerts its
influence, instantiated in particular cases with particular objects.
I would distinguish _/telos/ _, culmination, as desired object, from
entelechy as expected object, but that's just me.
Peirce's other "Ground arms" examples involve the resultant action as
the sign's interpretant rather than as the sign's object. I take this
to be not an inconsistency but a reflection of a difference of
perspective; the resultant action by the soldiers is the command's
interpretant (dynamic or energetic) from the perspective of the soldiers.
From a letter dated April 1, 1909 to William James CP 8.315, from the
William James collection,
[....] When the captain of infantry gives the word "Ground arms!"
the dynamic Interpretant is in the thump of the muskets on the
ground, or rather it is the Act of their Minds. [....]
In CP 5.473, from "Pragmatism (Editor [3])," c. 1906.
[....] Suppose, for example, an officer of a squad or company of
infantry gives the word of command, "Ground arms!" This order is,
of course, a sign. That thing which causes a sign as such is
called the _/object/ _ (according to the usage of speech, the
"real," but more accurately, the _/existent/ _ object)
represented by the sign: the sign is determined to some species
of correspondence with that object. In the present case, the
object the command represents is the will of the officer that the
butts of the muskets be brought down to the ground. Nevertheless,
the action of his will upon the sign is not simply dyadic [....]
In CP 5.475, again from "Pragmatism (Editor [3])," c. 1906.
[....] If a sign produces any further proper significate effect,
it will do so through the mediation of the emotional
interpretant, and such further effect will always involve an
effort. I call it the energetic interpretant. The effort may be a
muscular one, as it is in the case of the command to ground arms;
but it is much more usually an exertion upon the Inner World, a
mental effort. It never can be the meaning of an intellectual
concept, since it is a single act, [while] such a concept is of a
general nature. [....]
From the start with Aristotle, a form of a thing was a cause of it
simply because it was its form; a natural end likewise; but in the
modern perspective this means that even thermodynamic decay is an end
and a cause in some Aristotelian sense, and people tend to regard as
a final cause something more agentlike, as we see happening via minds
and evolution. There is, however, nothing in mental life as we know
it to suggest a level where ALL objects, as sources of determination,
are really ends or objectives, given that people deal freely with
genuinely mechanical causes and others' wills as causes, as well as
with special ends whose influence is channeled through desire,
expectation, etc., and people generally know the difference(s). Why
should we suppose that evolution, as quasi-mind, has taken a narrower
path than that with organisms generally? It seems like you're
bringing in a pure telicism to compete with pure materialism and
mechanism.
Best, Ben
On 3/27/2014 9:09 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
