Clark - yes, the Heidegger-Derrida mysticism of The Word. That was/is - truly
terrible! Pure nominalism - but made authoritative by the aspatial and
atemporal mystic essentialism of The Word.
And yes - Peirce's outline of the Final Interpretant - which is how 'every
mind' would act. Perfect. But nominalism instead rejects this Final
Interpretant and instead, focuses strictly on the Immediate Interpretant. Is
it tied up with metaphor? I think the dynamic interpretant can be aligned with
metaphor. And agreed - that we may never reach the 'final truth' - but Peirce
was well aware of that as you know.
----- Original Message -----
From: Clark Goble
To: Edwina Taborsky
Cc: Peirce-L
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2015 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Seeing things
On Oct 23, 2015, at 9:37 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
Again, your outline of 'things are so because they are CALLED so' (my
emphasis) is postmodernist nominalism, focusing on the NAME. Whereas, as I
said, Peirce's emphasis is not that 'things are so'...because of their 'name'
but because they have an objective reality. Our task is to, as far as we can
within the semiosic process, get to know that objective reality and to never,
ever, stop at The Name.
There’s no doubt a lot that went under the rubric of postmodernism was
horrible. Much, especially as found in literature departs or the softest
sciences, was at best verging upon relativism with an undue nominalism. I’m not
sure the key philosophers were, although that’s clearly debatable. To my eyes
what especially people in English departments missed was that what was
important was what escaped the nominalism.
I think Gary’s point though was more about the immediate, dynamic and final
interpretant. (Forgive me if I misread him) The immediate interpretant seems
very tied up with metaphor. Much as many key figures in the Continental
tradition argued.
Now I have come to have short patience with a lot of the writing styles in
the Continental tradition. However I do think the style arises because of
recognition of a logic of vagueness. Further it’s a vagueness where sometimes
we’re not entirely sure what parts are determinate and what parts are vague due
to an iconic relationship in this logic of vagueness. The problem was that a
style designed to illustrate this via immanent logical criticism came to take a
life of its own. Worse it enabled especially fans of the later Heidegger or
Derrida to descend into a kind of word-mysticism where one could ape a style
while missing the phenomenology. That’s why you ended up with things like the
Sokal Hoax. It was pure nominalism out of control by people faking a style with
no real conception of the content.
But while nominalism is a constant threat in this logic of vagueness it
needn’t be, as Peirce demonstrates with his logic.
The problem is that if there are real mind independent structures how does
one put them in language. The traditional approaches starting with Descartes
create the the problem of doing correlates between words and things. I know
even some Peirceans really like that traditional Cartesian approach and think
indices are enough to provide this. The problem that I think Gary raises well
is that if we are dealing with language we have to explain how something
arbitrary using metaphors can do this. It’s this that was a constant focus of
Continental philosophy from the late 60’s through 90’s. While I don’t like the
language they used, I by and large think their analysis is correct. However
Peirce already offers a solution to this with his notion of truth.
For Peirce the nominalist critique doesn’t hold since he sees the final
interpretant as related to the dynamic interpretant which in turn arises out of
the immediate interpretant.
The [Dynamic] Interpretant is whatever interpretation any mind actually
makes of a sign. […]The Final Interpretant does not consist in the way in which
any mind does act but in the way in which every mind would act. That is, it
consists in a truth which might be expressed in a conditional proposition of
this type: “If so and so were to happen to any mind this sign would determine
that mind to such and such conduct.” […] The Immediate Interpretant consists in
the Quality of the Impression that a sign is fit to produce, not to any actual
reaction. […] [I]f there be any fourth kind of Interpretant on the same footing
as those three, there must be a dreadful rupture of my mental retina, for I
can't see it at all. (CP8 .315)
I think we’ll all recognize that most dynamic interpretants are cast in
language and thus hinge on the arbitrary and nominalistic. (That is even if
they have an essential index component they also are tied to names) However
given the action of reality on a community over time this will become more
limited. The range of possible interpretations becomes restricted and
eventually stable. That stable sign-system is the final interpretation. But
(and I think this is key) it is still based upon names, language, signs and so
forth. The whole problem of the inside and outside set up by Cartesian dualism
is avoided. We’re talking like with like. This is why the nominalist problem
some postmoderns found themselves in isn’t a problem for Peirce.
Now there’s still a problem in all this and that is whether Peirce’s notion
of truth is just a regulatory concept or something actual. The critique of
certain figures in postmodernism is to recognize that we’re always finite
beings in a finite community. So even if we have the notion of a final
interpretant we can’t know absolutely. (The metaphor is that of a messiah
always announced to be coming who never comes) Contrary to claims of relativism
this doesn’t get rid of the notion of truth. If our dynamic interpretant
matches what is in the final interpretant then we have truth. But we can’t have
certainty of that due to finitude.
The related notion (and this has been the locus of my own investigation with
Peirce the past 20 years) is how icons and indices are related. So a sign
indicates its object by a kind of iconic presentation. There is an index in the
sign but we discern it via guesses. When the sign is then repeated what gets
repeated relative to the sign and icon. (This is pretty key again in
Continental philosophy although they don’t put it in those terms unfortunately)
I think this is a pretty important thing. At one time years ago we discussed
it quite a lot here. Including the ontological nature (or whether there is an
ontological nature) of the final interpretant. While my own view has shifted a
great deal on this point, it seems quite important.
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