Howard, lists,
I too once thought it peculiar that Peirce "dispenses with the
subject-object dichotomy." But, I think, in this instance it turns out to
be more a logical move in consideration of accurately expressing
propositional signs than an epistemic one. So he writes:
Symbols. . . are either Terms, Propositions, or Arguments. A Term is a sign
which leaves its Object, and a fortiori its Interpretant, to be what it
may. *A Proposition is a sign which distinctly indicates the Object which
it denotes, called its Subject, but leaves its Interpretant to be what it
may. *. . . . [CP 2.95]
So, similarly, and as Peirce continues in the quotation in NP to which you
pointed:
I use "subject" as the correlative of "predicate," and speak only of the
"subjects" of those signs which have a part which separately indicates what
the object of the sign is" (Letter to Lady Welby, 1908, quoted in NP, 194).
One finds this usage ("the Object which it denotes, called its Subject
in a proposition) in many places, for example here (the passage chosen
almost at random):
When a baby points at a flower and says, "Pretty," that is a symbolic
proposition; for the word "pretty" being used, it represents its object
only by virtue of a relation to it which it could not have if it were not
intended and understood as a sign. The pointing arm, however, which is the
subject of this proposition, usually indicates its object only by virtue of
a relation to this object, which would still exist, though it were not
intended or understood as a sign. *But when it [the object[ enters into the
proposition as its subject, it indicates its object in another way. For it
cannot be the subject of that symbolic proposition unless it is intended
and understood to be so.* Its merely being an index of the flower is not
enough. It only becomes the subject of the proposition, because its being
an index of the flower is evidence that it was intended to be. In like
manner, all ordinary propositions refer to the real universe, and usually
to the nearer environment (CP 2.357).
But there is, perhaps, much more to be said on this, especially when Peirce
speaks of secondness in relation to our "two-sided consciousness":
That experience gives us at once a direct consciousness of something inward
and an equally direct consciousness of something outward. In fact, these
two are one and the same consciousness. They are inseparable. The same
two-sided consciousness appears when by direct effort I bring to the
surface of recollection a name that I dimly remember, and when I make
distinct to myself a confused conception. If the purple color which we just
supposed made up the whole consciousness of a being were suddenly to
change, then, still supposing the idea of continuance is either absent or
not prominent, that being will have a two-sided consciousness. The sense of
what has been will be a rudimentary ego, the sense of what comes about will
be a rudimentary non-ego ( CP 7.531).
Yet this matter of the sense of "rudimentary ego" and "rudimentary non-ego"
is quite separate from that of the proposition indicating the object it
denotes by way of the a subject of that proposition. So, again, your
immediate concern seems much less a matter of "epistemic distinction" than
one of the ethics of terminology in logical notation.
Best,
Gary R
[image: Gary Richmond]
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690 <718%20482-5690>*
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 8:48 PM, Howard Pattee <[email protected]>
wrote:
> At 08:24 PM 1/31/2015, Howard Pattee wrote:
>
>> My point is that we cannot equate the determinism of Nature with the
>> conceptual determinism of how the symbolic laws come about. That would be
>> confusing the map from the territory. As many physicists have pointed out,
>> without respecting this epistemic cut, none of our models would make sense.
>>
>
> This reminded me that I have a question. Frederik says Peirce "is inimical
> to the hypostatic dualisms pervading the cognitive field: subject/object,"
> etc. (NP p. 6). Later, he says Peirce "dispenses with the subject-object
> dichotomy" and he quotes Peirce: "I do not make any contrast between
> subject and object, far less about 'subjective and objective' . . ."
> (p.194).
>
> What does this mean? I can not see any way of dispensing with this
> epistemic distinction, except perhaps as an enlightened mystic.
>
> Howard
>
>
>
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
