Vinicius, Jeff, Ben: (This post is a bit on the technical side. Do not have time today to make it simpler with longer explanations of the categories of exact relations mentioned in this text.)
A simple interpretation of the Peircian distinction between the meaning associated with the grounding terms "icon" and "index" is possible if one recognizes that both terms are consequences of his knowledge of chemistry as it stood in his day. An chemical icon, as a visual form, either internal to a mind or external as a form of an existent object, is only one form of a material object. An index, as a set of marks or as a listing of multiple terms or objects in some form or another, is a necessary concept for chemical representations. Furthermore, this index is essential to GENERATING or CREATING the chemical icon. In today's mathematics, a chemical icon is an exact mathematical object, a labelled bipartite graph. Both the chemical icon and the chemical index are absolutely necessary to create the semantic notion of a symbol (which CSP defines a symbol as either a word OR a concept.) [This is one possible understanding of the conundrum of why CSP used the "or" conjunction here.] Thus, this interpretation is congruent with the philosophical categories of Quality, Representation and Relations. It is also consistent with the more pragmatic view of CSP's thoughts about: Thing, Representation and Form. Thus, this chemical interpretation of the three terms, icon, index and symbol are congruent with the ontology of matter as CSP understood it in the late 19 th Century. Finally, this interpretation is necessary for the completeness of the medad as a sentence representing a complete thought. In the case of chemical logic, as it stood in CSP's day, the medad can be thought of as a sentence describing the binding of chemical elements into a "radical". With these insights as part of the ground, I would like to extend my remarks to CSP's motivations in general. My recent posts are parts of a broad thesis of CSP's motivations for his inquiry into semiotics and its meaningfulness in terms of today's usage of symbols in scientific notations. (Jeff's posts raise comparable issues.) The philosophical hypothesis is simple: Peircian semiotics is grounded in the 19th Century view of chemical semiotics as well as the logic of 19th C. mathematical terms. Unfortunately for this world view, 21 st Century chemical semiotics are both numerically, logically, and symbolically remote from 19th Century chemical semiotics. Chemical terms have been given new meaning in order to be congruent with the electrical structures of atoms as a atomic numbers. Consequently, the meaningfulness of Peircian semiotics is problematic as it severely restricts the conceptualization of information as the breadth and depth of the intentions embedded in a symbol by a speaker or writer. The reasoning for the emergence of modern chemical semiotics from the 19 th century Peircian semiotics is also simple. In the 19th Century, the chemical table of elements was based on the relative masses of each element as a means of explaining correlates. In the first half of the 20 th Century, modern chemical semiotics emerged from the Peircian forms by the inclusion of electrical logic into the iconization of chemical objects. Consequently, a chemical icon of today is an exact representation of BOTH mass and electricity (as illustrated by physical quantum mechanics.) This representation of a chemical object as a binary object necessarily infers that it can not be represented as a geometric point. The gradual shift of representation of matter as weight (19 th C., a singular point, a measure of "beingness") to the representation of matter as both mass and electricity (21 st C., a form comparable to an extension of a beta-existential graph) forced the change in meaning of chemical and biological and medical symbols. By simple extension, a biological icon of today represents both mass and electricity and iconic correlates (in addition to many other predicates and copulas.) Cheers Jerry On Apr 3, 2014, at 7:50 PM, Vinicius Romanini wrote: > Jeff, list > > Jeff said: Having taken a look at MS 7, I'd like to ask a quick question > about the first assertion. What is Vinicius claiming when he says that > icons don't *enter* our concepts as such? Looking at page 15 of the MS, I > see Peirce saying the following: "An icon cannot be a complete sign; but it > is the only sign which directly brings the interpretant to close quarters > with the meaning; and for that reason it is the kind of sign with which the > mathematician works." Shortly after making this point, he develops the > examples of the weather vane and the photograph. > > > V: A pure icon would be an immediate intuition of the form of the object, > which Peirce denies. Every cognition is based on previous ones. But we can > use abstract concepts to diagram an idea iconically, as when we use > mathematical symbols to express the truth of a theorem. We then contemplate > the icon represented in the symbol. The quote bellow might help: > > "The third case is where the dual relation between the sign and its object is > degenerate and consists in a mere resemblance between them. I call a sign > which stands for something merely because it resembles it, an icon. Icons are > so completely substituted for their objects as hardly to be distinguished > from them. Such are the diagrams of geometry. A diagram, indeed, so far as it > has a general signification, is not a pure icon; but in the middle part of > our reasonings we forget that abstractness in great measure, and the diagram > is for us the very thing. So in contemplating a painting, there is a moment > when we lose the consciousness that it is not the thing, the distinction of > the real and the copy disappears, and it is for the moment a pure dream -- > not any particular existence, and yet not general. At that moment we are > contemplating an icon." (CP 3.362) > > 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] > . 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