Vinicius, Frank, list,
Vinicius, now that I've read MS 7, I have to disagree with your reading of one part of it. You wrote to Frank: V: Actually, the example from the weathervane is from Peirce (MS7 pages 16-18. I am attaching a copy of it), and he does explicitly say that an index without an icon indicates falsely. I don't think so; what he says is that an index which does not involve an icon conveys no information. That's at the end of the passage I've transcribed here from MS 7: [[The reference of a sign to its object is brought into special prominence in a kind of sign whose fitness to be a sign is due to its being in a real reactive relation,-generally, a physical and dynamical relation,-with the object. Such a sign I term an index. As an example, take a weather-cock. This is a sign of the wind because the wind actively moves it. It faces in the very direction from which the wind blows. In so far as it does that, it involves an icon. The wind forces it to be an icon. A photograph which is compelled by optical laws to be an icon of its object which is before the camera is another example. It is in this way that these indices convey information. They are propositions. That is they separately indicate their objects; the weather-cock because it turns with the wind and is known by its interpretant to do so; the photograph for a like reason. If the weathercock sticks and fails to turn, of if the camera lens is bad, the one or the other will be false. But if this is known to be the case, they sink at once to mere icons, at best. It is not esssential to an index that it should thus involve an icon. Only, if it does not, it will convey no information. ]] What he says here about the weathercock is: 1) If it works properly, it is an index involving an icon, and a proposition. 2) If it sticks and fails to turn, it is a false proposition; unless 3) it is known to be nonfunctional, in which case it "sinks to a mere icon, at best." So if we know that the weathercock doesn't work properly, it is neither false nor an index! The interesting question here is why he says it's a proposition (rather than a dicisign). Perhaps we can regard the generic weathercock as a symbol, because it's made to be interpreted (as an index of the wind direction). So if this particular token of the generic weathercock fails to serve this purpose because we know that it sticks (and thus fails to indicate), then it's nothing but an icon, a ghost of a weathercock. That's how I read it, anyway. (I'm not sure this has any bearing on the misrepresentation vs. misinterpretation issue.) By the way, is there a complete transcription of MS 7 accessible? I couldn't find one on the Net. gary f. From: Vinicius Romanini [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 1-Apr-14 3:41 PM To: Frank Ransom Cc: [email protected] 1 Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 5, Semeiotics, or the doctrine of signs Frank, list Frank, please find my comments bellow: F: I remain skeptical about the distinction as drawn. But I am content to simply disagree, and would just like to say some things about my disagreement. I don't expect a response since this is beyond a discussion of Kees' book. And since you would prefer to avoid technical language, I will respect your wish, though I wonder if the distinction between dynamic and immediate object would be pertinent to a discussion on misrepresentation. V: Since the Kees' seminar is rather quiet and the issue is important, I would be happy to continue our conversation. Peirce's concept of information is difficult but crucial for semeiosis, so I would be glad to go a little further in our analysis. You are right, the distinction between immediate object and dynamic object is pertinent. If we go the the communicational definition of the sign as a medium for the communication of a "form" from the dynamic object to the final interpretant, it is fair to say that this "form" is de "idea" represented in the immediate object. So this ideal must have been gathered by collateral experience. We could say then that there is a flow of information from the dynamic object to the immediate object (inside the sign) as to enable the sign to produce its interpretants. We need a pause here. Collateral experience is familiarity with the object, and familiarity is another name for generality from particular instances. So to have an "idea" about the dynamic object, the interpreter must know it otherwise from perception and abductive inferences. We can say that this idea is the synthesis of percipua as to form a concept, even if this concept is not conscious. It is little more than a dream. I call it a metaphor. We see things getting complex because this metaphor must not be static. As dynamic objects are dynamics, we need dynamic metaphors to follow their change. An usual example would be the continuous shapes of clouds being followed by continuous metaphors about what they represent: dog, a human face, a sheep an so on. Nevertheless, the flow of information from the dynamic object is the "utterer" of what we imaagine tosee in the clouds. In critical dynamic objects, where changes can happen very quickly and have fatal pragmatic consequences (the health of a patient, the direction of the wind for a skydiver), our delusive metaphors should not ground our responses because they provide guesses that could be, in these critical situations, only a bit more reliable that a roll of dice. We must call for instruments to help us. These instruments are designed as to couple with the continuous flow of information coming from the dynamic object, as to capture the "form" in its most primitive manifestation: icons. So the blow of a wind has a aerodynamic form which is immediately represented as an icon by the weathervane. And the medical apparatus captures the fluctuations of the vital signs using icons as well (beeps for the heart beat and so on). When we do this, we are eliminating our eventual personal bias and transferring to the equipment the production of iconic representation about the dynamic object. The ground for this procedure is now based on our collateral experience WITH THE EQUIPMENT (which has been approved by a federal agency), and not with the health state of a patient or the continuous change of states in wind blows. We trust the weathervane because we know how it works and we know that unless it is broken, it will iconically represent the direction of the wind. "But even this is fallible", you could argue - and I would have to agree. The medical equipment of the weathervane are mechanical and can fail, or we can read them wrong - and that is the problem. This would lead us to the Hume's problem of induction: we can never tell when the equipment will fail or if it is already giving misleading information. Here is where I draw the line between misrepresentation and misinterpretation. Misrepresentation is a matter of having or not an icon embodying the information of an index as to produce a growth of extension. If the index denotes correctly the dynamic object thanks to the true icon, extension grows. Misinterpretation is a matter of having or not a symbol predicating the index as to produce an assertion and the growth of comprehension. If the symbol predicates correctly the dynamic object indicated by the true index, comprehension grows. Sure both representation and interpretation are part of semeiosis and can be separated only in the logical analysis, not as different things. To avoid misrepresentation from the side of the index produced by an equipment, the best strategy is to use redundancy of representation. You can have a system of feed-back and double check. Airplanes use three or four redundant safety systems, for instance. This will give information on the extension level (what is the dynamic object causing the health problem or endangering a flight). To avoid misinterpretation from the side of the inference produced by the interpreter, the strategy is to use redundancy of interpretation. You have two airplane pilots discussing what to do in a critical situation. Or you have a medical committee discussing a critical case. This will give information on the comprehension level ( the interpretability of the signs you are getting from the equipments). F: Now knowing that this is not exactly a distinction drawn by Peirce, but possibly suggested by his semiotics, I feel a little more confident in saying some things. For one, I had thought that, for Peirce, truth is always the truth of a proposition. Hence, it's not quite right to say that there is such a thing as a "false index." I found the 'false index' all the more confusing since it seemed based in the misinterpretation of the icon; although I suppose Vinicius would maintain that the icon was fake, thus a case, not of misinterpretation, but of misrepresentation. But since the problem is with qualities taken to misrepresent the index, it seems to me still that this is a problem with comprehension or depth, not extension or breadth. V: Actually, the example from the weathervane is from Peirce (MS7 pages 16-18. I am attaching a copy of it), and he does explicitly say that an index without an icon indicates falsely. I am researching right now how we can trace differences and evolution in Peirce's doctrine of signs by the way he differently interprets the same example. The weathervane appears several times and in different periods, so we get a hand on what is going on when Peirce talks about indices and icons. Another interesting example frequently used by Peirce is 'Cain killed Abel" do deal with assertions and propositions. About the index, Peirce also says in another MS that: "An index is a sign which would, at once, lose the character which makes it a sign if its object were removed, but would not lose that character if there were no interpretant. Such, for instance, is a piece of mould with a bullet-hole in it as sign of a shot; for without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole there, whether anybody has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not." (CP 2.304) Here Peirce is assuming a extreme realist position. An index is what it is independent of any interpreter. A nominalist account of indexicality would make the icon depend on the interpreter. Many readers of Peirce were not happy with this extreme realism. Umberto Eco, for instance, even said (although he change opinion in recent years) that the icon is not real and should be eliminated from any semeiotic analysis (the so called "problem of iconicity"). .
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