Franklin, concerning the passage from Kaina Stoicheia (EP2:305), you ask,
If he meant specifically propositions, why not call them propositions and not
signs?
I think the context answers this question. At this early stage in “New
Elements” Peirce is still defining his terms, and he doesn’t arrive at his
“true definition of a proposition” until EP2:307. “It is the Proposition which
forms the main subject of this whole scholium” (EP2:311), and in part III.2,
Peirce is working toward the definition of the proposition by first defining
its “essential” and “substantial” parts (i.e. predicate and subject), using the
general term “sign” rather than the term which is still undefined at this
point, “proposition.” As for breadth and depth, he can only be referring to the
breadth and depth of the proposition, not of its parts (predicate or subject).
A rhema, or term, can be a predicate (or “essential part”) of a sign (namely a
proposition), but it can’t have a predicate.
Terms can have breadth and depth, but a predicate only has potential breadth
until it’s used in a proposition, and a subject term has only potential depth
until it’s actually used to fill in the blanks in a rhema. As Peirce puts it
(EP2:309-10), a word like man “is never used alone, and would have no meaning
by itself.”
Gary f.
} The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself. [G. Bateson] {
<http://gnusystems.ca/wp/> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway
From: Franklin Ransom [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 8-Nov-15 15:27
Gary F, list,
I confess that I am finding myself somewhat confused about this passage from
KS. If he meant specifically propositions, why not call them propositions and
not signs? Then again, he doesn't call them terms either, so that doesn't help
my view either. I'm wondering if there is something deliberately vague here
about what predicates ("essential parts") and subjects ("substantial parts")
apply to.
In the quote from 1893, it's clear that the logical breadth and depth of
propositions is not the same as that of terms from ULCE. But in KS, the way
depth and breadth are presented as relating to characters and real objects is
exactly how they are presented in ULCE when applied to terms. If Peirce still
held to the view that the depth and breadth of propositions had to do with "the
total of fact which it asserts of the state of things to which it is applied"
and "the aggregate of possible states of things in which it is true",
respectively, that is certainly very different from what is being explained in
KS. Did he change his views here?
Then there's an earlier part in KS, p.304 of EP 2, to consider: "But, in the
third place, every sign is intended to determine a sign of the same object with
the same signification or meaning. Any sign, B, which a sign, A, is fitted so
to determine, without violation of its, A's, purpose, that is, in accordance
with the "Truth," even though it, B, denotes but a part of the objects of the
sign, A, and signifies but a part of its, A's, characters, I call an
interpretant of A. What we call a "fact" is something having the structure of a
proposition, but supposed to be an element of the very universe itself. The
purpose of every sign is to express "fact," and by being joined with other
signs, to approach as nearly as possible to determining an interpretant which
would be the perfect Truth, the absolute Truth, and as such (at least, we may
use this language) would be the very Universe."
Note that every sign determines another sign (the interpretant) of the same
object with the same signfication, and the interpretant does in fact have
breadth and depth, and in the same sense that terms in UCLE and signs in KS
have breadth and depth, as denoting objects and signifying characters. Since
any sign, to be a sign, will have an interpretant, it seems clear that whether
it is a term, proposition, argument, or any sign whatsoever, it must have
breadth and depth (if it had no breadth, there would be no object, and if it
had no depth, it would signify nothing about the object). But not only does
every sign have breadth and depth, every sign has them in the sense of denoting
objects and signifying characters.
How to understand this? Do predicates and subjects simply apply to propositions
only, or do they apply generally to all signs?
Franklin
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