Ben- I get a bit confused with the various meanings of 'the sign' used by some people on this list. And we must acknowledge that Peirce himself used that same term in multiple ways, eg 4.447, where he refers to the representamen as 'a sign' and defines it as 'one of three kinds; it is either an icon, an index, or a symbol". But in 8.335, he fine-tunes this and refers to these same three terms not as a 'representamen' but (icon, index, symbol) as 'in respect to their relations to their dynamic objects'.
And he has several terms for the three Interpretants: Immediate, Dynamic, Normal; Immediate, Dynamic, Final; Emotional, Energetic, Logical; Destinate, Effective, Explicit; And calls the Dynamic and Immediate Objects also the Existent and Immediate Objects. (5.473). To me, the Sign (capital S in my writing), refers to the triad. As Peirce wrote, "A representation is that character of a thing by vritue of which, for the production of a certain mental effect, it may stand in place of another thing. The thing having this character I term a representamen, the mental effect or thought, its interpretant, the thing for which it stands, its object" 1.564. The Representamen is, in my understanding, a part of this triad and is itself the act of mediation between the input data from the Object and the resultant Interpretant 'fine-tuning' into meaning. The Interpretant is the 'output' (my term) or 'outcome (Peirce 5.474), or 'for the proper significate outcome of a sign, I propose the term, the interpretant of the sign)....its 'predicate'. I don't see that an an actual Interpretant can be ALSO a Representamen, which again, is that mediative process, primarily made up of generalized habits. Six of the ten sign classes have Thirdness (generalized habits) as their mediation. The Interpretant is not a generalized habit as is the Representamen but a specific, individual interpretation-of-data. It can and does point to, assert, create, generate habits, but unless these are incorporated within the process of mediation - such habits can, I suggest, be lost. Nor do I see the logical interpretant as ALSO a Representamen (ie, that mediative process, usually a generalized disposition of the group, a habit of the group). It is an INDIVIDUAL articulation of the tendency to develop a habit - which must be taken up within the Representamen process. A system must have the ability to develop new adaptive habits, test them (within the Dynamic Interpretant) and possibly, move on to a more communal offering within the logical/final Interpretant. As usual, I presume you will not agree with my interpretation; however, all I can give, is such an outline. Best for the holiday season, Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Benjamin Udell To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2014 10:52 PM Subject: [biosemiotics:7822] Re: Triadic Relations 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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