Re: Gary Richmond At: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/16249
Gary, List, There are many problems here that I see right off. (1) A major problem is that icons are not the most general types of signs and so the leap to signs in general falls a bit short. (2) A minor problem has to do with the many senses of the word "model" and not having read Ketner's "Thief" I don't know which of the multitude he has in mind. But that's all I have time for now, so sufficient unto the day ... Jon On 4/22/2015 4:48 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Cathy, Jon, Frederik, Lists, I agree that CP 2.227 is a most extraordinary passage, one which Ken Ketner has referred to as "one of the most remarkable theoretical passages ever written" (Ketner, *A Thief of Peirce,* 276). Just before quoting it he remarks that in it "Peirce brought together the concepts we need to make sense of diagrammatic thought as a nonreductive technique for modeling, and for thereby gaining an understanding of triadic phenomena." Ketner spends much of the rest of his essay discussing the importance of the passage, perhaps getting a bit carried away with the 'power' of it.. *I ask you to note carefully several things about this remarkable paragraph. First of all the sheer power of it will grow on you, so please give it a chance to serenade you. One instance of its power is the connection it makes between mathematics and novels! Second, by reading sign as "triad," we get the result that semeiotic is the study of triadic action, a study accomplished by constructing and observing models! *(op. cit., 277) What especially interests me is that Ketner describes 'abstractive observation', a phrase used three times in the passage (and implied several times moreh) in this way: *Abstractive observation is of course observation of relations in models. Also, a sign or representation, this paragraph encourages one to infer, is itself some kind of model of that which it represents (its object) to that which interprets it (its interpretant). *(277) Several thoughts came to mind in reading this, but the first one is this: does Peirce use this expression, 'abstractive observation', elsewhere and consistently? If so, can we agree with Ketner that 'abstractive observation' is "*of course*" necessarily "observation of relations in models"? If we can, than the expression could be an especially useful shortcut for saying just that and, perhaps, be given greater currency. Best, Gary
-- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache
----------------------------- 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 .
