Jon, Lists I believe that, at one level of the semiotic process, we can treat the sign as one of the three relata in the triad. Of course, at the next stage of interpretation, the interpretant may itself function as a sign. Are there any restrictions on having some combination of interpretant, sign and object serving as a sign at the next stage of interpretation?
Once the three are combined into a triad, I would think that all three could then serve as sign in relation to some further interpretant. Let's consider some an example drawn from Peirce's discussion of perception. Starting with the basic kind of case, we have an iconic rhematice qualisign (say, an abstraction of a feeling of a color of yellow) that serves as a sign, and that is brought into relation to an immediate object (e.g., a percept of a yellow chair with a green cushion) and an immediate interpretant (e.g., a skeleton set of the relations between the color and the object). It is clear that, at the next level, the immediate interpretant can serve as a sign that is brought into relation to a dynamical object (e.g. the really efficient chair that I bump against when walking around the room) and the dynamical interpretant (e.g., the action of sitting down on the chair). Is there any reason to think that the immediate interpretant doesn't bring along with it, as it were, the qualisign and the immediate object--which also serve as part of the sign along with the immediate interpretant? For my part, I don't see how a coherent explanation can be given of the process of how the percepts and skeleton sets form the parts of our conceptions, and how concepts form the parts of propositions, and how propositions form the parts of our arguments unless all of these parts are combined together and are treated as richer kinds of signs that are then interpreted further in relation to richer objects and interpretants. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Jon Alan Schmidt [[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2015 1:24 PM To: Edwina Taborsky Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Order of Interpretant Trichotomies for Sign Classes Edwina, List: 1. I am following Short in using "sign" to refer to what some call the "representamen" or "sign-vehicle." The triad is not the sign; rather, the sign is one of three relata in the triad, along with the object and interpretant. 2,3,4. My understanding is that every sign has three different (but not independent) interpretants--immediate, dynamic, and final--each with its own trichotomy. The immediate interpretant has no distinct relation with the sign, which is why it is called "immediate"; the same is true of the immediate object. However, the dynamic object, dynamic interpretant, and final interpretant do have distinct relations with the sign, each with its own trichotomy; and the triadic relation among the sign, dynamic object, and final interpretant provides yet another trichotomy. Hence there are ten trichotomies and 66 classes of signs once the rule of determination is applied--"It is evident that a Possible can determine nothing but a Possible; it is equally so that a Necessitant can be determined by nothing but a Necessitant." See EP2:481-490 for all of this, which I thought was pretty basic stuff in Peirce. My original question pertains to the proper ordering of the three interpretant trichotomies in accordance with the rule of determination. Since Peirce gave this order as "destinate," then "effective," then "explicit" (EP2:481), it is not clear whether he meant Ii>Id>If (as commonly assumed) or If>Id>Ii (as argued by Mueller, Morand, and Udell). The whole issue is meaningless if the 10-trichotomy, 66-class taxonomy is rejected in favor of a modified 3-trichotomy, 10-class taxonomy in which immediate/dynamic/final is the trichotomy for the (one) interpretant--something that I have not come across in any of Peirce's own writings or the secondary literature so far. Regards, Jon On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 9:05 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Jon: I think that there has to be some clarification of terms. 1) You use the term 'sign' to mean both the triad of Object-Representamen-Interpretant, which I always clarify by capitalizing as Sign. And you also use the same term, if I understand you correctly, to refer to only the mediating process in the triad, the Representamen. [Peirce did the same thing - but I think one has to mull through his writings to see what he exactly meant]. 2) You yourself brought up the three-phase actions of the Interpretant, so, I'm confused now..for after all, the Interpretant, in all its phases, is in a Relation with the Representamen (which you term as 'sign']. 3) You write: "you are aligning the immediate/dynamic/final interpretants with rheme/dicent/argument, rather than the relation of sign to the final interpretant only." Now, if I understand you in the above, you are focusing on "the relation of the Representamen to the final interpretant'. I don't see that it is possible for the semiosic triad to exclude, in its semiosic process, the two less complex Interpretants; namely, the immediate and dynamic. All three are, in my view, in a Relation with the Representamen. So - what am I misunderstanding in your questions? 4) I don't see that the Peircean sign moves away from the basic triad; there's no 'ten-trichotomy'. There are microphases of the triad: dynamic object-immediate object - Representamen - and the Immediate, Dynamic and Final Interpretants ..which brings us to only six microparts. And you can then add in the modes which increases the complexity - where the Dynamic Object can be in any one of the three modes; and the Representamen can be in any one of the three modes. BUT - although this increases the internal complexity of the Sign, as you point out, ....I'm not sure how it moves away from the basic format of the triad. I would say that this internal complexity increases the ability of matter to adapt to environmental stimuli. So- I am obviously missing something in your argument! Edwina
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