I'm forwarding this message to peirce-l as Mary posted it only to the
biosemiotics list. G
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Libertin, Mary <mli...@ship.edu>
Date: Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 12:57 PM
Subject: [biosemiotics:7923] Re: Natural Propositions:
To: "biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee" <biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee>
Jeff and list,
I do think we should go on. Stjernfelt places his discussion of the
dicisign in as large a Universe of Discourse as is practical for his
audience. We need to be more tolerant of interdisciplinary analogies. I
also think we need some instruction when we find it necessary, which means
we should ask. Here are some of the questions that came to mind after the
third time reading NP: how is the sheet of assertion, recto and verso
sides, to be understood in various ³would¹be² hypothetical situations,
such as the mobius strip. Would boundedness exist in a mobius strip? The
concepts of in/out, the whole or the part of the universe of discourse are
in chapter 8, along with many other important thoughts, juxtapositions,
questions, and musings.
What I find important in NP is the active intelligence ‹ the conversation
between the Graphist and Grapheus, possibly the doubter and believer.
Chapter 8 is most fascinating when placed into conversation with the rest
of the book, and by extension, our own. Stjernfelt isn¹t preachy but
curious and his thorough understanding of many disciplines allows one to
hold one¹s own idea up against the ³crystal,² (in a Peircean sense) to
find a prism (in a Berkelean sense). After the connection of the dicisign
and cognition (cpt. 5), the evolution of semiotic self-control (cpt 6),
beyond language (cpt. 7) Stjernfelt pushes his theory of the dicisign to
the next area ‹ that of the operation of the icon as it relates to the
dicisign and symbol. From the part, the dicisign, to the whole, the sign.
What questions does he (or the juxtaposition of materials) surface? In
chapter 8, many, and I respect his integrity to open avenues of thought.
For example I, like many readers, relate the dicisign overall as
Stjernfelt has presented it to his far-reaching cpt. 8: "Operational and
Optimal Iconicity in Peirce¹s Diagrammatology.² How do the two kinds of
iconicity (chapter 8) Optimal and Operational Icons), make sense when I
relate them to or place them in dialogue with the dynamic and immediate
objects of the index? I wonder, does a dicisign posit or ³say² that there
exists (may exist, hypothetically exists) a written or spoken proposition
SRO (Subject Relation Object)? Š that the whole proposition (seen
completed after the fact or seen hypothetically completed before the fact
of writing or utterance or action) is made up of two parts? To distinguish
the object as optimal and operational in relation to the dicisign, I
consider the index as it operates in an icon and the index as it operates
as an index. (The node between the two, the index and icon, as they reach
out and for that moment exist. Is Stjernfelt saying, in other words, that
there (1) exists an object, undistributed in relation to the subject and
that there (2) exists an object of this specific subject under discussion
that is distributed (that are under discussion,that are being thought,
that are coming into a realer or more iconic existence)? What and who have
or will have placed these in discussion may be the Grapheus and the
Graphist, the realist and the doubter, but the Universe.
I find some loose ends in my thinking about Peirce, amplified somewhat by
NP. Is the recto/verso Sheet of Discourse, the ³leaf² pointed to by
Stjernfelt, boundless, and in what dimension? I always imagine it as a
mobius strip when the sign is in process, but the boundaries of the
Universe of Discourse that are discussed by linguists and others are
raised. Just now I continue with the leaf (sheet of assertion) analogy and
consider the node of life at the stem as it grows. I will continue to
think through these icons.
Jeff, I agree that Peirce¹s conception of the would-bes is part of his
conception of Thirdness‹that it is not a new concept. I agree that the
discussion should go on. As time allows, I also will need to spend much
more time reading chapter 8. I also need to take a few courses!
Thanks to Gary Richmond and others who have been organizing this
discussion. And by the way, to pick up a popular colloquy,have you
(especially Sung) read Peirce¹s comments on the ethics of terminology?
Consider, after you review them, whether your terminology is akin to the
terminology that made Peirce redefine pragmatism to pragmaticism. The
redefinitions he refers to by name were those by Frederic Schiller (cf.
his labeling his collected essays on pragmatism ³humanism.².)
Best,
Mary Libertin
On 1/15/15, 11:52 PM, "Jeffrey Brian Downard" <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu>
wrote:
>Gary R., Lists,
>
>You've asked a series of questions.
>
>1. Do list members find Frederik's notion of two kinds of iconicity of
>interest and value? If so, what is that value? It isn't clear to me what
>the value is of suggesting that Peirce is working with two notions of
>iconicity--despite Peirce's own efforts to develop a unified conception.
>I'll agree that there are a number of aspects that are involved in
>Peirce's conception of iconicity, and that we can draw on the EGs as a
>tool for clarifying some of the aspects that might be hard to articulate
>using other means. What is more, I accept that Peirce was motivated by
>the aim of developing an optimally iconic graphical logic. Frederik is
>clear that he takes himself to be refining Peirce's conception of the
>icon because he believes there are lingering confusions and vagueness in
>his conception. Having said that, I don't think that the separation
>between the two notions clarifies matters in the way I was hoping it
>might.
>
>2. Also, what does one make of Frederik's notion that the introduction
>of would-bes greatly modifies Peirce's conception of Thirdness and that
>it enriches the pragmatic maxim in now involving real possibilities? I
>don't think that Peirce introduced a new concept of would-be's. This
>seems to imply that he didn't have a conception, and that he later saw
>there was something he had missed. Rather, he had an account of how we
>might interpret conditionals, and he later sees that his logical theory
>leads him to treats some arguments as bad that are really good (and vice
>versa). As such, he is modifying his semiotic theory and then revising
>his metaphysical account of real possibilities in light of revisions that
>he made in his theory of logic. I do agree that the revisions in his
>logical theory involve a developing sense of how we might understand the
>role of triadic relationships in semiotics.
>
>3. And finally, is there any interest in discussing the long passage on
>EGs on how Peirce relativizes and goes beyond material implication? Yes,
>but I need to spend more time re-reading those sections of chapter 8.
>
>--Jeff
>
>Jeff Downard
>Associate Professor
>Department of Philosophy
>NAU
>(o) 523-8354
>________________________________
>From: Gary Richmond [gary.richm...@gmail.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 2:32 PM
>To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee
>Cc: Peirce List
>Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7869] Re: Natural Propositions:
>Chapter 8
>
>Lists,
>
>I'd like to continue this reflection on Frederik's discussion of
>iconicity in existential graphs by considering a passage quoted by him,
>one which succinctly states the purpose of EGs (NP, 271-18):
>
> . . [The] purpose of the System of Existential Graphs, as it is stated
>in the Prolegomena [4.533], [is] to afford a method (1) as simple as
>possible (that is to say, with as small a number of arbitrary conventions
>as possible), for representing propositions (2) as iconically, or
>diagrammatically and (3) as analytically as possible. . .These three
>essential aims of the system are, every one of them, missed by
>Selectives. ("The Bedrock beneath Pragmaticism" [2], 1906, 4.561, note 1)
>
>So, in a word, Peirce wants to make his graph system "as simple as
>possible" in having a minimum of arbitrary conventions, and to represent
>propositions as iconically and analytically as possible. This involves,
>firstly, preferring the line of identity to selectives. But in
>consideration of his Beta graphs Peirce finds that it not always possible
>or, rather, it is not always desirable to do so in very complex graphs
>(for essentially visual and psychological reasons). So, somewhat
>reluctantly, he substitutes selectives for identity lines in such complex
>graphs. Frederik gives the reason for this reluctance:
>
>The substitution of selectives for the line of identity is less iconic
>because it requires the symbolic convention of identifying different line
>segments by means of attached identical symbols. The line of identity, on
>the other hand, is immediately an icon of identity because it makes use
>of the continuity of the line. . . [and is also] a natural iconical
>representation of a general concept [NP, 218].
>
>Yet Peirce introduces selectives because in such complicated graphs
>"involving many variables taking many predicates," the complex network of
>lines of identity becomes visibly hard for the vision system of a human
>to handle (Frederik considers the possibility of a kind of mind which
>could comfortably observe such a complicated network, and such a mind may
>perhaps be suggested by the machine reading of even exceedingly complex
>conceptual graphs as has been made possible with Sowa's CGs). Frederik
>concludes:
>
>[T]he important issue here is Peirce's very motivation for preferring
>identity lines to Selectives in the first place: they are more iconical,
>because they represent in one icon entity what is also, in the object,
>one entity. This thus forms an additional, stronger iconicity criterion
>in addition to the operational iconicity criterion (NP, 218-19, emphasis
>added).
>
>Here Frederik reminds us that Peirce's arguments against the use of
>selectives is in particular directed towards his own, earlier algebraic
>formalization which, it should be noted, is the very first version of
>modern symbolic logic. Thus, while in some cases Beta graphs with
>selectives are deemed heuristically superior to graphs without
>selectives, and while the two versions are logically equivalent, Peirce
>yet clearly preferred the more iconical version all things being equal.
>
>So we arrive at the second important reason to prefer "more iconic" graph
>representations, an ontological one, that "Beta graphs more appropriately
>depict logical relations like they really are, thus adding to the
>pragmatic operational criterion of iconicity an ontologically motivated
>extra criterion" (NP, 219). This connects the optimal iconicity notion to
>Peirce's realism, which, while realism is there from the get go (as Max
>Fisch and, later, Robert Lane have convincingly argued), his realism
>became more and more extreme over the course of his philosophical career
>(Frederik rehearses the famous diamond example contrasting Peirce's
>earlier "more nominalistic" version of 1878 in "How To Make Our Ideas
>Clear" with the "extreme realism" of 1905 in "Issues of Pragmatism,"
>which essay allows for "real possibles" such that were the diamond to be
>tested, say at some future time, that it would be found to be hard).
>
>Frederik holds that Peirce's admitting would-bes into his philosophy,
>"considerably changes and enriches" not only his conception of Thirdness,
>but also the pragmatic maxim, it finally allowing for real possibilities.
>
>Perhaps this is a good place to stop for now since at this point in the
>chapter Frederik quotes the important long passage I mentioned in my
>first post in this thread and analyzes it in terms of how Peirce
>"relativized" material implication to go beyond it in revising parts of
>his Beta and Gamma graphs. However, that is a somewhat technical
>discussion and I'm am not sure that there is enough interest here in EGs
>to continue it.
>
>At this point I would like to ask the following questions: Do list
>members find Frederik's notion of two kinds of iconicity of interest and
>value? If so, what is that value? Also, what does one make of Frederik's
>notion that the introduction of would-bes greatly modifies Peirce's
>conception of Thirdness and that it enriches the pragmatic maxim in now
>involving real possibilities? And finally, is there any interest in
>discussing the long passage on EGs on how Peirce relativizes and goes
>beyond material implication?
>
>
>Best,
>
>Gary R
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