Lists, It looks to me like Frederik has provided a fairly comprehensive explanation of Peirce's doctrine of the dicisign in chapter 3. In addition to sorting through many of the individual trees in Peirce's account, he provides a view of the larger forest. As I step back and look at the chapter as a whole, I'm wondering if we might be able to say more about Peirce's arguments for this position. Over the course of the chapter, Frederik considers a number of the arguments Peirce makes, but I wanted to ask a question about how the arguments might hang together.
For instance, in section 3.7, he consider Bellucci's explanation of Peirce's aims in the Syllabus. Bellucci says that Peirce intends to "deduce the propositions structure from its basic conception as 'bearer of truth values'." (NP, 71). On this account, the deduction takes three steps: 1) an initial definition of Dicisigns with the emphasis on Truth; 2) the argument that this definition requires Dicisigns to possess a specific double structure; 3) the detailed description of these two parts. Consider the arguments in "Sundry Logical Conceptions." I tend to think that Peirce is offering a more developed argumentative strategy than we have seen thus far in NP. What is the larger strategy? --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2014 9:19 PM To: Peirce List; [email protected] Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: Natural Propositions, Chapter 3.7 - 3.9 Lists, Several comments have been made about our contemporary use of the terms 'denotation' and 'connotation'. It might help if we keep in mind that Peirce thought Mill's (mis)use of these terms would likely lead to confusion. As far as I can tell, Peirce was on the mark in his comments about Mill's use of these terms. Peirce insists on using the term 'reference' from the very beginning of his writings. As several people have pointed out, he makes a distinction between logical breadth and depth and then, using those conceptions, he provides an account of information. We might try to draw on Peirce's terminology to sort out some of the confusions that might arise when we talk about denotation and connotation, but my hunch is that this will be an uphill battle. For those who would like to persist in this venture--if only because they are comfortable talking about denotation and connotation, it might be good to try to translate the points into the conceptions of logical breadth and depth in the hopes of getting things on a better track. When we consider examples and then try to spell out the logical depth and breadth of some kind of sign relation, it will probably be worth our time to spell out whether we're talking about the depth and breadth of a rheme, a dicisign or an argument. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Tom Gollier [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2014 4:57 PM To: Peirce List; [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: Natural Propositions, Chapter 3.7 - 3.9 I have to say, I just don't get this idea of "real facts" from reading Peirce. On the one hand, we have the denotation of the subject, something we all seem to agree on. On the other hand, Peirce describes the signifying of the predicate, in discussing the icon more generally, as: "If it [an icon] conveys information, it is only in the sense in which the object that it is used to represent may be said to convey information." [Kaina Stoicheia] Thus, if I say "the book is red," the predicate "red" conveys information in the sense which the book itself conveys that information. That to me is a denotation as well, a pointing into the world of our experience, but regardless the denotation of the book and that that object conveys the same information as "red" is enough to say whether the proposition is true or false. So, why are we talking about the copula being an index, as if there is no other way of combining indices and icons, or of "real facts" like they are not just us coupling together two kinds of representation? Why are we going beyond the represenation to metaphysically posit the objective existence of "real facts," and/or where is the support in Peirce for doing that? Tom On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 11:20 PM, Catherine Legg <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi everyone, I’ve made some progress reading chapter 3. Re. 3.7: I’m very excited by this idea of replacing a copula with an index. (Subject and predicate are joined by “an index pointing to the real fact joining the Subject and the Object.”) I see how this idea lines up with the originality in Peirce’s theory of perception (which I’ve only recently got my head around) whereby the perceptual judgement is not a *copy* of the percept but an *index* of it. This is such a powerful new idea Peirce offers to Western philosophy. Re. 3.9: Love the ‘top-down’ functional analysis of arguments whereby they are not *composed* of propositions and terms, but rather the latter are prescinded after the fact. Cheers, Cathy From: Gary Richmond [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Tuesday, 7 October 2014 12:46 p.m. To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Cc: Peirce List Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7108] Natural Propositions, Chapter 3.7 Frederik, Gary F, Jeff D, lists, I've almost finished catching up with the very interesting terminological discussions relating, on the one hand, to the subject (such as denote, designate, indicate, etc). and on the other to the predicate, (such as signify, comprehend, connote, etc.) It seems to me that Frederik here employs such terms relating to the proposition as Peirce used them in his extraordinary development and vast expansion of the proposition as the dicisign concept in, especially, the Syllabus and Kaina Stoicheia ca.1903. I hope, therefore, that it is safe to say that for the present analysis that Peirce of this period (and Frederik) is saying: In considering the proposition (dicisign): [the Subject--denotes the object == the breadth of the sign] (the Predicate signifies its characters == the depth of the sign) And, further, for Peirce these two are joined not, as they've traditionally been, by a copula, but rather by an index of a peculiar kind, indeed of a metaphysical kind, namely, an index pointing to the real fact joining the Subject and the Object. Or, if I'm getting this right, the formulation breadth x depth = information (i.e,, the sum of these two as equaling some factual information) for the dicisign means that true information represents a real fact in some world of experience. In 3.7 Frederik shows, in considering the syntax of the proposition, that Peirce replaces the traditional copula with an index pointing to the fact being represented, the index being the necessary sign for joining the replicas of the subject and the predicate of a proposition. This syntactical index involves an icon (as all indices do), the icon being, in this case, exactly the juxtaposition of the two, that is, their co-localization, as Stjernfelt helpfully terms it. The co-localization of the elements of the dicisign: [Subject](Predicate) (Such a co-localization syntax is further understood to be primitive and pre-linguistic.) This syntax claims that the dicisign "is really indexically connected to the real fact to which the subject and predicate correspond" (Stjernfelt, 66), and how this happens forms the argumentation of the rest of this section and some of the next (centering on the two objects of the co-localizing index) . But, just to make sure I've got this right, I'd like to ask if the above summary represents a correct understanding of the terminology dthat Peirce is using ca. 1903 and if it correctly represents the argument being made regarding the syntax of the dicisign in NP 3.7? Understanding that there are in this syntax two objects helps explain how Peirce can speak of the index as being in "existential" relation to the fact being represented. But it seems to me that it is to the replica (Secondary Object) that the existential relation especially applies, while the reality (Primary Object) could be in any of the Three Worlds of Experience, and in that sense is different and altogether greater than its replica. So the language of existence, of facticity, of secondness, is a bit unnerving to me for both Objects.. Frederik's chart on page 70 and the Peirce quotes on 71 (from KS) are quite helpful in using the language of reality (3ns), but cf. paragraph 1 on 68 (the quote from the Syllabus) where both use the language of existence (2ns). (I am aware that I may be making a mountain out of a molehill, and that Peirce is sometimes simply loose in his existence/reality terminoiogy, an understanding I've argued for myself in the past; I doubt that it signals a significant change in terminology from the Syllabus to KS) Btw, I thought your choices of quotes and examples, especially of the Achenbach portrait, which was a particularly apt example to make a rather complex point (67), as well as your explication of the co-localization syntax were both very helpful, Frederik. Thanks! Best, Gary Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York C 745 718 482-5690
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