Edwina, list,
Responses interleaved.
On 8/26/2014 9:14 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
>[Edwina] Ben, you wrote:
>>[Ben] "You have not explained what is so confining about seeing the
sign as a first, object as second, interpretant as third, in a general
way. You have not explained how that creates a problem for the sign
classes. You have not said whether you agree or disagree with Peirce
about whether all three universal categories are in every phenomenon.
I'm less sure than ever of what you mean by calling a sign a "triad."
Maybe you mean a trichotomy, a three-way classification."
>[Edwina] 1) The first sentence 'sign as a first, object as second,
interpretant as third' cannot refer to the three categories of
Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness, for these categories are modes of
organization of matter/concepts. Yet, from what I read of some people
on this blog, they seem to see these terms as merged. But a sign,
which I understand as a Representamen, i.e., the mediative Relation
in the triad of the Sign, cannot exist per se on its own. It is a
Relation, an interaction, not a thing in itself. So- the sentence
'sign as a first, object as second, interpretant as third'...can't
refer to all three sites (sign, object, interpretant) as each existent
on their own. It has to refer to a triadic interaction of three
Relations...where the Representamen within, let's say, a human being,
is stimulated by external data inputting from an object; this external
data is mediated by that Representamen Relation...and transformed into
the Interpretant.
That's the triadic process. The SIGN is made up of an active process
of three Relations.
[Ben] Peirce discusses sign, object, and interpretant quite as if they
were _/relatives/_, not _/relationships/_. In that spirit, he calls them
_/correlates/_, not _/correlations/_. In logic, he speaks of "the logic
of relatives," not "the logic of relations." He's pretty consistent
about that sort of thing through the years.
A relative is something defined through the relationship in which it
stands to something. "Opposite," "double," "parent," etc. That which
you said of relation is also to be said of a relative: a relative cannot
exist per se on its own (except in some sense in the relationship of
self-identity). E.g, "Parent." A parent is a parent of offspring.
Therefore your objection to speaking of the sign or representamen not as
a relation, your objection that the sign can't exist per se by itself,
is not applicable to speaking of the sign as a relative or, in
particular, a correlate.
The parent relationship might be expressed functor-style, from the
parent's side, as "parent-of" and, from the offspring's side, as
"offspring-of". In the case of a symmetrical relation, it's easier to
come up with a single name for both sides, e.g., "opposition" (and there
the language also better accommodates the hypostatic abstraction). The
difference between the relative and the relationship is at least
analogous to the difference between a function in the usual mathematical
sense and a lambda function. In any case the idea of a relative no more
involves the idea of something existing per se on its own than the idea
of a relation does.
Again, Peirce calls sign, object, and interpretant the semiotic
correlates, not the semiotic correlations. He typically distinguishes
between representation as the relation or operation of representing, on
one hand, and sign, or representamen, as that which represents, on the
other hand. He never refers to a sign or representamen as a
representation except when he is using the word 'representation' in one
of its popular senses, to mean _/something that represents/_, as when we
say that a painting is a representation of something, or that somebody
made a representation in court.
>[Edwina] 2) It is only a problem for the ten classes IF, as some
people on this blog claim, the linear processing order of moving from
the Input data from the external Object, via the long term
Representamen Relation, to the interpretant....is instead of
Representamen is first, gathering data from the external object
(second) ..mediating it via that Representamen.....to, finally,
third...the Interpretant.....IT IS ONLY a problem if this linear
semiosic tranformative path is instead viewed as, instead of ordinal
(first, second, third)....as categorical: (Firstness, Secondness and
Thirdness). And that is what, to me, some people on this blog are doing.
[Ben] The problem for you arises chiefly because you reject Peirce's
sense of the universality of his categories. That which is priman in one
respect can be secundan in another respect, and he places no limit on
the number of categorial conditions and semiotic relations in which a
given phenomenon can stand. In one of the quotes that I sent you see him
laboring over how a sign stands to its immediate object, relationships
finer-grained than those of the 10 classes come to light, and he came to
work on the 10-trichotomy system that was meant to issue in 66 classes.
The categories are related to the ordering for Peirce. Something is a
Second because it stands in a relation of reaction/resistance,
essentially dyadic. In other relations it takes on other categorial
aspects. The degenerate cases are complex examples of it. Here we have
Peirce, in the 3rd Lecture on Pragmatism, CP 5.66, 1903, 36 years after
"On a New List", still not rejecting the association between categories
and monad/dyad/triad that he discussed on "On a New List":
[Quote]
Category the First is the Idea of that which is such as it is
regardless of anything else. That is to say, it is a Quality of Feeling.
Category the Second is the Idea of that which is such as it is as
being Second to some First, regardless of anything else, and in
particular regardless of any Law, although it may conform to a law.
That is to say, it is Reaction as an element of the Phenomenon.
Category the Third is the Idea of that which is such as it is as
being a Third, or Medium, between a Second and its First. That is to
say, it is Representation as an element of the Phenomenon.
[End quote]
If you disagree with Peirce, fine, say so.
>[Edwina] 3) When I call a SIGN a triad, I don't mean a 'three-way
classification' (of what); I mean a set of three Relations ..that
between the Representamen and the Object; the Representamen-in-itself;
and that between the Representamen and the Interpretant. That's an
irreducible triad of Relations...and all three Relations together,
made up the Semiosic Sign.
[Ben] That's clearer, thanks.
Now, what you describe is not Peirce's usage of the word 'sign,' and it
clashes with the popular ordinary English word 'sign'. On the other
hand, the idea of the sign as triadically relative, that is, as standing
in a triadic relation, does _/not/_ clash with the popular ordinary
English word 'sign', since a sign is usually taken as a sign for some
object to some at least potential interpreting mind.
I find it confusing to think of the semiotic triadic relationship as the
sign itself. I start wondering what is its object? What is its
interpretant? I find it difficult to form a sentence using the word
"sign' to mean the whole triadic relation. Since the semiotic triadic
relationship is also a relationship of triadic determination, why not
call the object in it the "objectamen" or "determinamen," and the
relationship itself the Object? A semiotic object is that which, for
purposes of semiotic analysis, one takes as a primary source of
determination in a semiosis. Again, that is for the purpose of semiotic
analysis, not in some ontically absolute sense in which the semiotic
object could never in turn be a sign for something else. A sign mediates
the determination. Something is a semiotic object insofar as it
determines something, as a sign, to determine something, as an
interpretant, to be determined by the object as the sign is determined
by the object. An objection to the word "determinamen" could be that
some determination is dyadic, merely reactional, etc., not triadic and
semiotical. Or why not call the interpretant in the triadic relation the
"interpretamen," and the whole triadic relation, which is also one of
interpretation, the Interpretant?
Morphologically it's messy. You want to call the whole triadic relation
by the name of one of the triadically relative elements in it, so you
characterize the triadic relationship by a name suitable for a
triadically-relative element rather than for a triadic relationship. Why
don't you call it the 'trilation' or something like that? It's just a
semiosis regarded as a structure rather than as a process. I don't think
that that's bad. The structural view is handy not only for general
analysis but also for when one is talking about the same correlates
repeatedly conducting semioses - the wind, a weathercock, the
interpretant in a farmer's mind.
>[Edwina] 4) As for whether all three categories are in every
phenomenon - no, I don't agree. I think that all three categories
exist and can be linked to every phenomenon, but, let's say a
phenomenon that is in pure Firstness. All three Relations are all in a
mode of Firstness, a Rhematic Iconic Qualisign. A burst of heat -
That, in itself, has no Secondness in it and no Thirdness. It most
certainly will, in the next nanosecond, introduce those two categories
but in itself, right then, it is only one category. Thus, its singular
mode of organization enables it to network with other objects...which
are formed within the other categories.
[Ben] A qualisign is a quality standing as a sign, a quality insofar as
it is a sign. Every quality can be seen, semiotically, as a qualisign.
For you 'pure firstness' refers to being a (rhematic iconic) qualisign,
because all three 'relations' are in a 'mode' of Firstness.
Yet, when one regards a quality as a qualisign, one brings_/reason and
reflection/_ to the phenomenon and no longer apprehends it in its
_/pure/_ firstness. Instead one regards it as having an object and an
interpretant. (John mentions your pansemiotism but I don't see how
pansemiotism requires you not to see a phenomenological level prior to
the semiotic level - prior, that is, in the order of abstractness. Pure
math is more abstract than both of them, in Peirce's system.)
["What Is a Sign?", circa 1894, EP 2.
http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/ep/ep2/ep2book/ch02/ep2ch2.htm
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Epeirce/ep/ep2/ep2book/ch02/ep2ch2.htm> Quote]
It is necessary to recognize three different states of mind. First,
imagine a person in a dreamy state. Let us suppose he is thinking of
nothing but a red color. Not thinking about it, either, that is, not
asking nor answering any questions about it, not even saying to
himself that it pleases him, but just contemplating it, as his fancy
brings it up. Perhaps, when he gets tired of the red, he will change
it to some other color, โ say a turquoise blue, โ or a rose-color; โ
but if he does so, it will be in the play of fancy without any
reason and without any compulsion. This is about as near as may be
to a state of mind in which something is present, without compulsion
and without reason; it is called Feeling. Except in a half-waking
hour, nobody really is in a state of feeling, pure and simple. But
whenever we are awake, something is present to the mind, and what is
present, without reference to any compulsion or reason, is feeling.
[....]
ยง2. There are three kinds of interest we may take in a thing. First,
we may have a primary interest in it for itself. Second, we may have
a secondary interest in it, on account of its reactions with other
things. Third, we may have a mediatory interest in it, in so far as
it conveys to a mind an idea about a thing. In so far as it does
this, it is a sign, or representation.
[End quote]
In CP 5.70 (the 3rd Lecture on Pragmatism again):
[Quote]
In pure Secondness, the reacting correlates are Singulars, and as
such are Individuals, not capable of further division.
[End quote]
His idea of _/pure/_ Secondness does not involve signs at all. Instead
it involves sheer reaction between relate and correlate, or between
correlates, pretty much the same thing for the purpose of what he is
saying. Here again he distinguishes the relative (the 'correlate') from
the relation. The most that one can say in regard to enhanced or 'pure'
secondness and the dicent indexical sinsign is that the dicent indexical
sinsign is the most secundan among the ten sign classes, because all
three of its trichotomical classifications (sinsign, index, dicisign)
are secundan. Its trichotomical classifications are 'pure' of
non-secundans.
>[Edwina] Another example, of a SIGN, that is in pure Secondness, a
dicent indexical sinsign. All three Relations are in a mode of
Secondness. Purely active-reactive. A mechanical hammer. Now, within
its actions, Firstness does indeed exist (as, for example, the sound
of the hammer, the 'feeling' of the metal striking the metal)...There
is no Thirdness, but, it could emerge as the analysis of what it is in
the observation of another, or even, in the normative results of the
metal-on-metal. These other categorical modes are networked into this
one Sign in its current state of pure Secondness.
But, if you insist that all three categorical modes of organization
are always fully present in each SIGN, then, you are preventing the
universe from any diversity and also, preventing networking.
[Ben] No, since the various categories can be present in all the various
phenomena in differing proportions, in differing ways, etc. So that does
not prevent diversity, much less networking, if I guess rightly what you
mean by 'networking'.
Best, Ben
Edwina
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