Dear Garys, lists, There is certainly no disparaging in Peirce's claim that icons and indices are "degenerate" as compared to symbols. The concept comes from mathematics, conic sections in particular, where figures like hyperbolas and ellipses are considered non-degenerate while figures like parabolas, circles, crossing lines, points etc. are degenerate because of the fact that the latter result only from certain singular values of the function, typically where one variable assumes the value 0 and vanishes. So the idea is that circles, e.g., are but ellipses where the two foci becomes one and the figure simplifies correspondingly. This implies that such figures are rare limit phenomena as compared to ellipses. In P's sign theory, the analogy will be that icons and indices without symbolic aspects are rare limit phenomena - while symbols typically involve indexical and iconical aspects. In the third trichotomy, I have not seen P use the term "degenerate" in the same way - but he does say that all rhemes are but "fragmentary" signs while dicisigns are but "states" in the moving process of arguments. In that sense, I think it would not be strange to assume that rhemes and dicisigns are degenerate arguments. Given the way P constructs his semiotics, it would not be strange to say that all of the 9 simpler signs in the Syllabus 10-sign combinary are degenerate as compared to arguments. I think I discussed this a bit in Diagrammatology under the headline of the physiology of Arguments - the metaphor indicating that lower sign types like icons or dicisigns etc. form a sort of organs in the body of arguments …
Best F Den 01/10/2014 kl. 01.10 skrev Gary Richmond <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> : Gary, lists, GF: By shifting the emphasis (in his definition of “fact”) from that Secondness to its structure — which is that of a proposition or dicisign, and therefore partakes of Thirdness — I think Peirce was adding another dimension to the mode of being of “fact”. I would tend to agree that Peirce did indeed add exactly this new dimension to the mode of being a fact in his reflections ca. 1904, moving from his late 19th century emphasis on itsexistential 2ns to examining its structure as a dicisign at the beginning of the 20th. Continuing with our ongoing analysis of genuineness and degeneracy in this regard, you wrote regarding a passage you quoted (EP2:274): GF: [That t]his shows at least that genuineness and degeneracy are not absolute qualities but always relative to a function. So even though Peirce gave the icon and index the “disparaging name” of “degenerate” in KS, he also pointed out that they (especially when combined!) can carry out semiotic functions that the symbol is incapable of except by involving them. Yes, no doubt mathematical ideas related to degeneracy can help us overcome a linguistic tendency to think perhaps a bit disparagingly of degeneracy in semiotic relations when such is not at all Peirce's intent. But this is still a vexing issue for me. For example, you wrote: GF: I wonder, too, if the dicisign and the proposition itself can be described as “degenerate” relative to the argument, which is the most complete and complex of all sign-types because it separately indicates its interpretant — and which, for that very reason, can only be a symbol. Is that the main reason why the symbol is the most genuine member of the first (icon/index/symbol) trichotomy of signs? But in looking for telling passages related to "genuine" relations, I came across this. A proof or genuine argument is a mental process which is open to logical criticism. CP 2.26 Perhaps one needn't make too much of this apparent equivalence of 'proof' and 'genuine argument', but it does make me abit unsure about your thought that the dicisign might be "described as 'degenerate' relative to the argument." I think there may be good reasons to think that that's a pretty good abduction, but I'm not yet entirely convinced. At CP 5.76 Peirce refers to the symbol as the "relatively genuine form of Representamen" in relation to the index and the icon. Again one needn't make too much of the phrase 'relatively genuine', but I'm not exactly certain now how much to make of it. Maybe it simply means what we've always taken it to mean in this context, but why then "relatively"? As for the 'genuine index' in consideration of the dicisign, although you (or Frederik?) may have already quoted some of this passage, I found it of the greatest interest, although I not quite yet sure exactly what to make of it. . . . Now in analyses hitherto proposed, it seems to have been thought that if assertion [. . .] were omitted, the proposition would be indistinguishable from a compound general term--that "A man is tall" would then reduce to "A tall man." It therefore becomes important to inquire whether the definition of a Dicisign here found to be applicable to the former [. . .] may not be equally applicable to the latter. The answer, however, comes forthwith. Fully to understand and assimilate the symbol "a tall man," it is by no means requisite to understand it to relate [. . .] to a real Object. Its Interpretant, therefore, does not represent it as a genuine Index; so that the definition of the Dicisign does not apply to it. It is impossible here fully to go into the examination of whether the analysis given does justice to the distinction between propositions and arguments. But it is easy to see that the proposition purports to intend to compel its Interpretant to refer to its real Object, that is represents itself as an Index, while the argument purports to intend not compulsion but action by means of comprehensible generals, that is, represents its character to be specially symbolic (CP 2.321, emphasis added). I want to spend more time reflecting on this passage in consideration of "the distinction between propositions and arguments" as it seems to me to be of potential considerable importance in our reflections on the dicisign. I'll be interested to hear what you or other members of the lists make of this quotation. Best, Gary
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