Chapter 3.7
GF:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14615
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14618
Gary, List,
Of course, we could try our own hands at sketching an Existential Graph of what
Peirce is saying here, whether we read it as assertion or argument, proposition
or proof, and it's hardly the first time I've felt, in trying to parse one of
his more complex formulations, that he must have been reading off some diagram
he had drawn up and was straining to transpose it all into English paraphrase.
Exercise for the Readers, I guess ...
Now, dicisigns are supposed to be defined by their iconic and indexical aspects,
and I have in the past tried to sketch the defining relational structures of
icons and indices, separately, so I had been thinking since we started this
reading of how those separate pictures might be combined into one that would
throw a little light on the relational structures of dicisigns, but that is
about as far as I got ...
I'll dig up those old pictures and see if I can see anything new.
Regards,
Jon
Jon Awbrey wrote:
Gary,
FYSMI, because when I was pondering that portion of the Syllabus I was going
to remark that I considered it an exemplary text -- exemplary of a style that
gives me a headache! -- and that the only excuse I could make for it would be
that it read like an English paraphrase of some Existential Graph that we
might hope to chance on somewhere in his Nachlass someday.
Regards,
Jon
Gary Fuhrman wrote:
Lists,
I've been trying to come up with a diagram to iconize the syntax of the
Dicisign, and attached is what I've come up with so far. It's meant to
accompany the following part of the Peirce text that I posted the other
day; but I think it would take a series of diagrams (maybe an animated
feature!) to illustrate the whole text. But maybe some of you who are
handier with graphics than I can improve on this.
gary f.
The readiest characteristic test showing whether a sign is a Dicisign or
not, is that a Dicisign is either true or false, but does not directly
furnish reasons for its being so. This shows that a Dicisign must profess
to refer or relate to something as having a real being independently of the
representation of it as such, and further that this reference or relation
must not be shown as rational, but must appear as a blind Secondness. But
the only kind of sign whose object is necessarily existent is the genuine
Index. This Index might, indeed, be a part of a Symbol; but in that case
the relation would appear as rational. Consequently a Dicisign necessarily
represents itself to be a genuine Index, and to be nothing more. At this
point let us discard all other considerations, and see what sort of sign a
sign must be that in any way represents itself to be a genuine Index of its
Object, and nothing more. Substituting for "represents _______ to be" a
clearer interpretation, the statement is that the Dicisign's Interpretant
represents an identity of the Dicisign with a genuine Index of the
Dicisign's real Object. That is, the Interpretant represents a real
existential relation or genuine Secondness, as subsisting between the
Dicisign and its real Object. But the Interpretant of a Sign can represent
no other Object than that of the Sign itself. Hence this same existential
relation must be an Object of the Dicisign, if the latter have any real
Object. This represented existential relation, in being an Object of the
Dicisign, makes that real Object, which is correlate of this relation, also
an Object of the Dicisign. This latter Object may be distinguished as the
Primary Object, the other being termed the Secondary Object. The Dicisign,
in so far as it is the relate of the existential relation which is the
Secondary Object of the Dicisign, can evidently not be the entire Dicisign.
It is at once a part of the Object and a part of the Interpretant of the
Dicisign. Since the Dicisign is represented in its Interpretant to be an
Index of a complexus as such, it must be represented in that same
Interpretant to be composed of two parts, corresponding respectively to its
Object and to itself [the Dicisign]. That is to say, in order to
understand the Dicisign, it must be regarded as composed of two such parts
whether it be in itself so composed or not. It is difficult to see how
this can be, unless it really have two such parts; but perhaps this may be
possible. Let us consider these two represented parts separately. The part
which is represented to represent the Primary Object, since the Dicisign is
represented to be an Index of its Object, must be represented as an Index,
or some representamen of an Index, of the Primary Object. The part which
is represented to represent a part of the Dicisign is represented as at
once part of the Interpretant and part of the Object. It must, therefore,
be represented as such a sort of Representamen (or to represent such a
sort) as can have its Object and its Interpretant the same. Now, a Symbol
cannot even have itself as its Object; for it is a law governing its
Object. For example, if I say, "This proposition conveys information about
itself," or "Let the term 'sphinx' be a general term to denote anything of
the nature of a symbol that is applicable to every 'sphinx' and to nothing
else," I shall talk unadulterated nonsense. But a Representamen mediates
between its Interpretant and its Object, and that which cannot be the
object of the Representamen cannot be the Object of the Interpretant.
Hence, a fortiori, it is impossible that a Symbol should have its Object as
its Interpretant. An Index can very well represent itself. Thus, every
number has a double; and thus the entire collection of even numbers is an
Index of the entire collection of numbers, and so this collection of even
numbers contains an Index of itself. But it is impossible for an Index to
be its own Interpretant, since an Index is nothing but an individual
existence in a Secondness with something; and it only becomes an Index by
being capable of being represented by some Representamen as being in that
relation. Could this Interpretant be itself there would be no difference
between an Index and a Second. An Icon, however, is strictly a possibility,
involving a possibility, and thus the possibility of its being represented
as a possibility is the possibility of the involved possibility. In this
kind of Representamen alone, then, the Interpretant may be the Object.
Consequently, that constituent of the Dicisign, which is represented in the
Interpretant as being a part of the Object, must be represented by an Icon
or by a Representamen of an Icon. The Dicisign, as it must be understood in
order to be understood at all, must contain those two parts. But the
Dicisign is represented to be an Index of the Object, in that the latter
involves something corresponding to these parts; and it is this Secondness
that the Dicisign is represented to be the Index of. Hence the Dicisign
must exhibit a connection between these parts of itself, and must represent
this connection to correspond to a connection in the object between the
Secundal Primary Object and the Firstness indicated by the part
corresponding to the Dicisign.
--
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