Kobus, from this response, it seems to me that you still haven’t got the point I was trying to make. So I’ll try once more (but that’s about all I will have time for, until next week). I’m also copying to the Peirce list since this is more about Peirce than biosemiotics.
Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness are all modes of being. They are not entities or beings. These modes of being are defined by Peirce in terms of how a being’s relation (or lack of relation) to other beings makes that being what it is. Let X = the being. Firstness is the mode of being of X if X is what it is “positively and without reference to anything else.” Such an X can be called “a First,” but this X is by definition unrelated to anything else; there is nothing else in its universe, and consequently nothing we can say about it that will locate it in any universe. So it is not the first of a series. If X is “such as it is with respect to a second but regardless of any third,” then its mode of being is Secondness. For example, if X is an effort, it cannot be that without resistance; there is no effort without resistance, no resistance without effort. We can designate resistance then as Y. So we can say that each of them is Second to the other, or “a Second.” The presence of the other in its universe, and nothing else, makes each of them what it is. If we think of them as a pair, or a series of two, it is completely arbitrary which one we call X and which we call Y; and it is completely arbitrary which of them is first or second in the series. That use of the words “first” and “second” has nothing to do with Firstness or Secondness as Peirce is defining them. Now let’s take an X which “is such as it is, in bringing a second and third into relation to each other.” For example, if X is a gift, it must be given by somebody (let’s say Y) to somebody else (Z). We can say that X is what it is only because it brings Y into relation with Z. We can also say that Y, as giver, brings X into relation with Z; and that Z, as recipient, brings X into relation with Y (remember we’re talking about logical relations, not human relations). X is what it is because of its unique role in the triadic relation with Y and Z; and the same applies to the other two. Each of them is in the mode of being Peirce calls Thirdness. So you could say that each of them is “a Third.” But if you’re just counting these beings, rather than ascertaining their mode of being, it is completely arbitrary which one you count as first, or second, or third. What counts is that there are three relata here, each of which is made what it is by its role in the triadic relation. It is also irrelevant what sort of commodity X is, or what sort of person Y is, or what the gender of Z is. Thirdness is a mode of being, it is not an attribute or quality of a given being. And the same applies to the other two modes. Now to your questions: I’ve inserted brief answers into your message below, hoping that the explanation is given above. Gary f. From: Kobus Marais [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 29-Oct-15 05:00 To: [email protected] Thanks, Gary, your explanation makes sense, but it does leave me with questions such as: Would Peirce (in general) have had problems with saying that thirdness brings a first and a third into relation with each other. Gf] Yes he would, because as the terms are used above, Thirdness is a mode of being, which cannot bring other things into relation with each other. It’s the being (the X) that does that, if its mode of being is Thirdness. The other two relata are called “second” and “third” simply to indicate that there must be three of them, not to assign attributes of Secondness or Thirdness to them (because those are not attributes, as Peirce defines them). Or that thirdness brings a third and a third (or a first and a first/second and second) into relation with each other? Gf] Same answer. The ‘normal’ way of saying is that thirdness brings firstness and secondness in a relation to each other (E.g. Merrel, Sensing semiosis p.17-18), Gf] I don’t have that text so I can’t check the accuracy of your quote, but it doesn’t sound “normal” to me. Much more normal would be to say that Secondness involves Firstness and Thirdness involves Secondness. If we’re talking semiosis, we can say that a proposition brings a subject and predicate into relation with each other, and maybe it’s not too much of a stretch to regard the subject as a Second, the predicate as a First and the proposition as a Third. But that’s different from your sentence above, and is of no use for defining what Thirdness is as a mode of being. Rather it assumes some such definition implicitly. so I would be interested in knowing whether Peirce had anything (except the vague statement that I have quoted originally) to say about what can be mediated and how? Gf] Yes, that’s what Peircean semiotic is all about! But the sentence you quoted is not about what can be mediated and how. If you read the whole letter, you should see that it’s an attempt to lay the groundwork for semiotic investigation by defining Thirdness. It’s not the kind of formal attempt that Peirce made elsewhere, because it’s a letter to a friend he’d recently made, and with whom he’s starting his categorial analysis from scratch. But that doesn’t make it vague. Also, I have been wondering, seeing that we have only hand-written manuscripts as originals (not, edited, revised texts), could some of these quotes that are vague/difficult be ascribed to typos or writing errors? Gf] In some cases, yes, but in this case there’s no need for such a hypothesis. You also can’t assume that it hasn’t been edited or revised by Peirce; some of his letters (and most of his other works) survive in multiple drafts visibly edited by Peirce. K Gary f Kobus Marais Associate Professor: Linguistics and Language Practice Medeprofessor: Linguistiek en Taalpraktyk Faculty / Fakulteit: The Humanities / Geesteswetenskappe PO Box / Posbus 339, Bloemfontein 9300, Republic of South Africa / Republiek van Suid-Afrika 051 4012798 [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> <http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/University-of-the-Free-State/175257709184139> <http://twitter.com/#!/UFSweb> <http://www.youtube.com/UFSWeb> From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 28 October 2015 07:25 PM To: 'PEIRCE-L' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >; [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ; Kobus Marais <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: [biosemiotics:8920] Re: Peirce's categories I am tempted to quote Howard Pattee here: “any analytical approach to understanding simplicity always turns out to be very complex” (Pattee 1973, 73). If you want to diagram all the implications of Peirce’s definition, you will need the entire system of Existential Graphs. Peirce says, “Thirdness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, in bringing a second and third into relation to each other.” To me this is equivalent to saying “Thirdness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, in bringing two other entities into relation to each other.” I think the perceived problem may arise from trying to assign some kind of metaphysical substantiality to the terms “second” and “third” in Peirce’s sentence. The reference is simply to the other two ‘entities’ (“ideas” or “things”, to use Peirce’s words) in a triadic relation. (The reason for the scare-quotes there should be obvious enough.) Gary f. _____
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