Addendum: Peirce doesn't say why an ultimate logical interpretant is not
a sign, but presumably it's because it's ultimate and doesn't determine
a further interpretant. I forgot that this would also be true of the
final interpretant (a would-be). Now, I'm unaware of Peirce's saying
that the final interpretant is not a sign (maybe at some point he even
said the opposite!). Anyway, this doesn't affect what I said about your
going beyond Peirce in positing a particular actual interpretant that is
neither a representamen nor a disposition or habit. It's neither an
ultimate logical interpretant (which is a disposition or habit) nor, in
Peirce's sense, a final (a.k.a. normal) interpretant (another norm).
Again, it's okay with me, I'd go farther and have gone farther in the past.
Best, Ben
On 12/20/2014 3:38 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
Edwina, lists,
Thanks for your responses, but I suspect we can't get much farther.
You wrote,
> EDWINA: The Interpretant, which has become part of the cell, is
not a Representamen, which I understand as the generalized rules
of semiosis processes within that cell. The end state is, indeed,
a final Interpretant....which actually is aligned with the rules
in the common Representamen of that cell's 'species'.
BEN: Peirce's _/final interpretant/_ is a would-be. He also calls it
_/normal interpretant/_. It's a norm. There's a fine distinction to be
made here. Any actual interpretant at most coincides with a final
interpretant. An ultimate logical interpretant - for example (I know
it's not the interpretant that you discussed) - is an actual
interpretant, not a final interpretant. It is an actual disposition,
an actual incorporation of a general _/as/_ a norm of conduct by some
mind or commind. As you said, what you're discussing is not an
ultimate logical interpretant and, as I said, "Well, I have trouble
seeing that end state _/only/_ as a general habit or disposition," but
the end-state may be something that embodies such. Anyway, in positing
an interpretant that is not a representamen, and, despite not being a
representamen, is also not an ultimate logical interpretant, you've
gone on beyond Peirce. Now, that's okay with me. I'd go even farther.
But this leads to another question:
You wrote:
>> BEN: I know little of cells, but I'm supposing that the cell
breaks down or "cooks" the ingested data, metes it out in various
proportions to parts of the cell, and those allotments are the
representamen or representamina.
> EDWINA; You and I have a different understanding of the
Representamen, which I understand as the mediative generalized
rules of formation of instantiations. The 'allotments' are
Interpretants.
BEN: Do you mean representamina and interpretants in general, or just
those in your cell example?
You wrote,
> EDWINA: The 'end state' is not a 'general habit or disposition.
It's a specific, individual result within that cell. Now, the
entire semiosic process may have added knowledge to that cell's
Representamen (which I understand as its, so to speak, common
knowledge base)..and that common knowledge base is available to
other cells in the area.
BEN: As I said in my previous post, "Well, I have trouble seeing that
end state _/only/_ as a general habit or disposition" Still, the
common base of experience-based knowledge would seem to be the
more-or-less built-up end state (final relatively to the semiosis in
question). It's the basis on which rules of representation and
interpretation would be revised in a learning organism or,
analogously, in evolution. The proof of the pudding as nourishment is
in the end state, the entelechy, and not just the so-called 'first'
entelechy, being in working order, but also the 'second' entelechy,
being in operation, standing up to tests.
It seems difficult to regard the representamen in general simply as a
set of rules for mediation or representation, even if you regard the
representamen as something that has 'modes' rather than classes.
(Peirce does apply the label 'representamen' to index, icon, symbol,
term, proposition, argument, sumisign, dicisign, and suadisign: see CP
2.276, 2.283, 2.292, 2.312, 2.322, 4.447, 5.73, 5.76). A symbol is the
kind of thing that comes closest to that.
You wrote:
> EDWINA: Now, I'm confused. The Sign is a triad of three
relations (see the three spokes in the site I suggested above);
see also the image in Peirce 1.347. Informational processing,
which is what semiosis is all about, begins with the stimuli the
'system' receives within the Representamen-Object Relation. [The
'system' holds its own Representamen internally]. This input data
is mediated within the Representamen general rules in the system.
Then, it is finalized into an Interpretant, the result.
I don't understand what you mean by a triad of
-representamen-object-interpretant. [....]
BEN: I've looked at CP 1.347 and see no support for your view there.
There are three spokes on the wheel (image at
http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/hoffmann/sign_aspects.gif) in
Hoffman's article to which you linked
http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/hoffmann/p-sighof.htm. That
doesn't mean that the three spokes are what is usually called the
triad. For an idea of what the representamen-object-interpretant
triad is, consider it as a triad of correlates of the triadic
relation, see the first graphic (image at
http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/hoffmann/sign_triad.gif) in
Hoffman's article. I don't see how you could not understand what
somebody could mean by a 'triad of representamen-object-interpretant'.
It's fairly self-explanatory. So I think we're reaching a point of
diminishing returns. I've a better idea, at least, of what you mean
than when we began.
Best, Ben
On 12/19/2014 1:36 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Thanks for your response, Ben. See mine below.
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Benjamin Udell
*To:* Edwina Taborsky
*Sent:* Friday, December 19, 2014 1:09 PM
*Subject:*Re: [biosemiotics:7792] Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Triadic Relations
Edwina, list,
1) You wrote,
What I'm talking about is a biochemical process, where, let's
say, a cell (which is a cognitive system) ingests some external
data (water, nutrients)(Object) and, semiosically transforms
that input data, via its mediative habits-of-organization (the
Representamen)...into ..parts of that cell (Interpretant).
BEN: I'd retain the possibility of distinguishing the object from
the capturing or acquisition or ingestion of (some of) the object
(object data). Likewise I'd retain the possibility of distinguishing
the processing of that data from a resulting representamen.
EDWINA: I fully agree with the above; the semiosic process does not
blend into a 'smoothie'.
BEN: A weathercock is a versatile index that may point in various
directions, its particular turnings, particular interactions with
the wind, are indices too. More importantly, in your picture above,
it is hard to see how the interpretant is another representamen
analogously as a decoding is another encoding. The end state of it
as parts of the cell seems not like a decoding but like a
destination, like what Peirce called an ultimate logical
interpretant, a reinforced or modified disposition, which is not a
sign, except perhaps in some other respect, some other semiosis.
EDWINA: The Interpretant, which has become part of the cell, is not
a Representamen, which I understand as the generalized rules of
semiosis processes within that cell. The end state is, indeed, a
final Interpretant....which actually is aligned with the rules in
the common Representamen of that cell's 'species'.
BEN: I know little of cells, but I'm supposing that the cell breaks
down or "cooks" the ingested data, metes it out in various
proportions to parts of the cell, and those allotments are the
representamen or representamina.
EDWINA; You and I have a different understanding of the
Representamen, which I understand as the mediative generalized rules
of formation of instantiations. The 'allotments' are Interpretants.
Then an interpretive transformation takes place, the process of
incorporating the processed data into parts of the cell. Those
incorporatings, or the data in its being incorporated, are the
interpretant(s). Well, maybe the overall process is not so neatly
segmented, maybe one could cut it at various points (ideally, at any
point) into relatively representaminal and relatively
interpretantial stages. Anyway, the end state - including how the
cell eventually fares - is a test of the semiosis itself, its
representation of the object, etc., and in a sense of the object
too. Well, I have trouble seeing that end state _/only/ _ as a
general habit or disposition. It will produce, or be, some
collateral 'experience' of the object - answering for example
whether it was in the end really good to have eaten it. But it's
still not unlike an ultimate logical interpretant which is not a
sign in the semiosis that led to it.
EDWINA: The 'end state' is not a 'general habit or disposition. It's
a specific, individual result within that cell. Now, the entire
semiosic process may have added knowledge to that cell's
Representamen (which I understand as its, so to speak, common
knowledge base)..and that common knowledge base is available to
other cells in the area.
2) You wrote,
Yes, it [the representamen] is a Relation-in-Itself. There are
three Relations: the one between the
Representamen-and-the-Object; the one between the
Representamen-and-the-Interpretant; and the Representamen-in-Itself.
The result of this sort of thing is that when you discuss semiotic
relations in a general way, I am left scratching my head as to
whether you are discussing the correlates, or their relationships.
The mental blur that this causes in me makes it hard for me to
understand what you're saying in such cases. A relation, a process,
etc., can be a representamen, but in the context of a triad, that
relation or process is a correlate in the triad.
EDWINA: I can only refer to a site I suggested earlier today,
because it shows the 'three spokes of the semiosic wheel'.
http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/hoffmann/p-sighof.htm
3) You wrote:
>> BEN: If a dicisign is a triad (consisting of
representamen-object-interpretant) then what class of
representamen is in its triad? Another dicisign? A dicent
representamen?
> EDWINA: The representamen in the three dicisigns is not in a
class but in a mode; in the Dicent Sinsign, the representamen is
in a mode of Secondness, and in the Dicent Indexical Legisign
and the Dicent Symbolic Legisign, the representamen is in a mode
of Thirdness.
>> BEN: And I have the same problem with some of your
comments below, regarding the Representamen- where you talk
about it as if it were a 'class', while I see it as within a
'mode'.
[....]
>> BEN: And again I wonder what are the classes of
representamina inside those triads. Are they of the same
classes as the triads? If so, then what is gained by calling
the whole triad the 'Sign' and classifying it the same way
as the representamen?
> EDWINA: I have no idea what you mean by 'class of
representamina'. Representamens exist within the categorical
modes. Not classes. And I certainly don't classify the whole
triad (the Sign) in the same way as the Representamen. After
all, consier a Rhematic Indexical Legisign; it has THREE
categorical modes within it, in order, Firstness, Secondness and
Thirdness.
BEN: Your 'categorical modes' of the 'Relations' encode the same
information as the classes of sign. If I understand you correctly
at this point, you define the sign not as the triad of
representamen-object-interpretant, as my tests by terminological
substitution assumed, but instead as the triad of 'Relations' among
those correlates in the representamen-object-interpretant triad. To
top it off, your representamen is both a a member your triad of
'Relations', and a member of the representamen-object-interpretant
triad. The passage from the usual way of understanding Peirce's
semiotic terms to your way seems to me more complicated than you
seem to think.
EDWINA: Now, I'm confused. The Sign is a triad of three relations
(see the three spokes in the site I suggested above); see also the
image in Peirce 1.347. Informational processing, which is what
semiosis is all about, begins with the stimuli the 'system' receives
within the Representamen-Object Relation. [The 'system' holds its
own Representamen internally]. This input data is mediated within
the Representamen general rules in the system. Then, it is finalized
into an Interpretant, the result.
I don't understand what you mean by a triad of
-representamen-object-interpretant. The semiosic Sign is made up of;
it functions within three Relations; that between the
Representamen-Object; the Representamen in itself; and that between
the Representamen-Interpretant. That's the triad I'm talking about.
The only triad I'm talking about. Those 'three spokes' as seen in
1.347. [And check out the site above; I think it's a good outline].
The unusual usages of the words 'sign' and 'triad' seem the source
of much of people's confusion about what you're saying. Now that I
think I understand it, I'm still left wondering what is the
advantage of using the words 'sign' and 'triad' in these ways. In
particular, it goes against common English usage of the word 'sign'.
In addition, it seems contrary to Peirce's usages and definitions.
I've looked at your cites of Peirce. I've pored through Marty's 76
Peirce definitions of 'sign' too.
Best, Ben
On 12/19/2014 11:02 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
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