Dear Gary, Tyler - These are large issues. I am not at all against going further than the 1903 classification - only, this should be done with some precaution since of the 10 basic trichotomies developed, half of them are but very sketchy. Some of those trichotomies attempt to organize sign types developed earlier, such as Hypostatic Abstractions which I use, both in Diagrammatology and in NP ch. 6 - I think they may be a better candidate for the animal-human distinction (the semiotic missing link, as it were) than are Symbols. Best F
Den 30/10/2014 kl. 14.05 skrev Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: Tyler, I’m just catching up with your post of a week ago and have a few questions about it, hoping to clarify your own questions about “the taxonomic approach”, as I’m still not sure I get what you’re asking. You suggest that an “alternative solution” to the problem you raise “would be to cede symbols to all instances of semiosis (or at least to some non-humans)”. Do you mean that at least some semiosis other than human varieties should be regarded as symbolic? If so, I don’t get what problem it’s supposed to solve, or how it’s relevant to the idea that inference is implicit in all cognitive semiosis. This is part of the Dicisign doctrine, and symbols are not essential to the functioning of Dicisigns in the way that icons and indices are; so what difference does it make whether we “cede symbols” to instances of non-human semiosis? You argue that “NP already goes beyond the 1903 classification, even if not explicitly. It does so in 3.7 where Frederik maintains that dicisigns have both immediate and dynamic objects.” But I don’t see how that “goes beyond the 1903 classification”, as NP merely points out that the idea of the Dicisign having two objects is introduced in the 1903 Syllabus itself (EP2:276), which refers to them as “Primary” and “Secondary” objects. This part of NP, you say, “explains in a concrete example how one sign action can possess more than one relation to an object (can be an icon, index, and/or a symbol), something for which the 1903 classification does not accommodate.” But I don’t follow this either, as the 1903 Syllabus, in defining the Dicisign, shows that it must involve both icons and indices in its relation to its object(s). One more question: you quote Frederik’s Diagrammatology as saying that "...there is probably no upper bound to the complexity of symbol types which higher animals have access to as single signs," but "To Peirce, explicit control is even paramount to reasoning proper -- which is why animal reasoning despite many similarities to human reasoning only rarely may qualify as proper reasoning." Your insertion of “but” seems to indicate that you see a contradiction between those statements that I don’t see. Perhaps in your reading of the first quote, “higher animals” does not include humans? In my reading it does, and the sentence is not distinguishing between anthroposemiosis and zoosemiosis in its statement that a single symbol can have any level of complexity. Since the complete works of Peirce (for instance) can be regarded as a single symbol, I don’t see why that statement is problematic, nor do I see it as incompatible with the claim that there are many degrees of “explicit control” (or self-control as Peirce usually calls it), and that the higher degrees characterize the reasoning of “higher animals” (including humans). I think this last point begins to show how Peircean pragmatism and pragmaticism overlap with his “logic as semeiotic”, which is another area we might explore further as the NP seminar unrolls. gary f. From: Tyler Bennett [mailto:[email protected]<http://hotmail.com>] Sent: 23-Oct-14 11:57 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Natural Propositions Chapter four Edwina, Gary R, Gary F, Frederik, list, In my initial post I wanted to raise the question of the taxonomic approach mainly because, from one perspective it is not possible within the dicisign doctrine as it is laid out in NP. If all real signs partake of arguments, the details of which are worked out as separate interactions of icons, indices, etc., than these particular workings out are degenerate or fragmentary and as such are not "signs" per se and have no individual significance. Therefore to use the typology of ten for example to classify different kinds of sign actions would be incorrect. On this topic Edwina wrote: "My own view is that the symbol is a semiosic relation (that between the Representamen and the Object) which is confined to human cognition. As a purely artificial relation, I think that it REQUIRES an artificial means of expression - which is language or other cognitively constructed media system. Furthermore, I think that this enabled the human species to free itself from the restrictions of the physical realm and 'imagine' the world as it 'ought to be' rather than 'as it is'...This leaves the non-human realm with the Dicent Indexical Sinsign - a local mechanical reaction, and the Dicent Indexical Legisign which is, by virtue of its Legisign, connected to the truths of the Universal and thus, not merely reactive." While this is one way to preserve the taxonomic use of Peirce's theory of signs (e.g. for distinguishing human from non-human semiosis), it seems to me that the alternative solution could be just as effective. That alternative solution would be to cede symbols to all instances of semiosis (or at least to some non-humans), but to subdivide them and arguments according to the typology of 66 signs, where some kinds of symbols/arguments are applicable to E. coli for example, and others only occur in the case of verbal language signs. One reason I think this approach would be better is that NP already goes beyond the 1903 classification, even if not explicitly. It does so in 3.7 where Frederik maintains that dicisigns have both immediate and dynamic objects. As Gary pointed out, this connection of the parts of the dicisign to immediate and dynamic objects is one of the most interesting portions of the book so far, and explains in a concrete example how one sign action can possess more than one relation to an object (can be an icon, index, and/or a symbol), something for which the 1903 classification does not accommodate. Another reason to prefer this solution has to do with the stress Frederik puts on hypostatic abstraction being the true human semiotic threshold. Hypostatic abstraction is another of Peirce's terms which, although it is not explicitly articulated within any known typologies of the 66 types, certainly could be said to only obtain within one of the six classes of symbolic legisigns (according to Romanini's periodic table of signs). This is just one way that we could both cede symbols to all forms of semiosis, while retaining the possibility of taxonomically differentiating human from non-human semiosis, and would allow us to disambiguate some of the terms in NP. On this disambiguation, Gary R. wrote, "your unsettling question concerning the differentiation of proto-propositions from full fledged propositions surely needs to be addressed if we are to include the proto-propositions in the kind of thinking just discussed above." For example we could possibly distinguish proto-propositions from fully fledged propositions as those which do not entail hypostatic abstraction. Though this solution would be a nice way to preserve the taxonomic use of Peirce's signs, elsewhere Frederik does maintain, "that higher animals are not only at the command of symbols in general, but also of those most demanding and complex of symbols called arguments and reasonings, involving diagrams," and "...there is probably no upper bound to the complexity of symbol types which higher animals have access to as single signs," but "To Peirce, explicit control is even paramount to reasoning proper -- which is why animal reasoning despite many similarities to human reasoning only rarely may qualify as proper reasoning." 245 Diagrammatology I wonder if he would also say that there is no "upper bound" to the symbol use of the E.Coli bacteria? Frederik appears at once to allow for the taxonomic approach ("My aim here is to render the semiotic aspects of Deacon's hypothesis -- with which I basically sympathize -- somewhat more precise" [Diagrammatology]), and at the same time to preclude the possibility that this precision can be articulated in taxonomic Peircean terms. There are two ambiguities: The degrees of "self control" that distinguish the human use of signs, and the distinction between proto- and fully fledged propositions. Can/should they be 'rendered more precise' according to the higher types of sign?
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