Thanks very much for this, Matt.
I think the quotes you found are about as close as Peirce ever gets to defining
a “sign” as a “triad” (though even here, he doesn’t exactly do that). And as
you mentioned in your later message, that usage of “sign” is rare and peculiar
in Peirce. I guess I shouldn’t have insisted on the terminological point so
strongly, but as I get older I get more impatient with sloppy terminology (as
Peirce also did, for instance in his late letters to James).
I’ve been studying Peirce’s “Nomenclature and Division of Triadic Relations”
(from the 1903 Syllabus) very closely of late, and it’s in this essay (which is
all about triadic relations!) that Peirce defines the sign as a kind of
representamen, as a correlate of a triadic relation, and NOT as a triad or
triadic relation itself. Yet Edwina persistently cites that very text, where
the famous ten sign types are defined, in support of her peculiar usage! That’s
why I lost my patience. (By the way, I’m not using the word “peculiar” as a
pejorative here, but rather as Peirce used it in that essay, several times, in
describing relations between the sign types). It also bothered me that Edwina
was taking Frances to task for saying that there may be representamens that are
not signs, when Peirce quite clearly says that himself. The point is that for
Peirce in 1903, “representamen” is a broader term than “sign”, because a “sign”
is necessarily a representamen, while a representamen is not necessarily a sign.
OK, I’ll let it go now. The bottom line is that understanding Peircean semiotic
requires reading Peirce’s exact words, not Edwina’s translation of them – and
reading them as carefully as Peirce wrote them.
Gary f.
} If one does not expect the unexpected one will not find it out, since it is
not to be searched out, and is difficult to compass. [Heraclitus] {
<http://gnusystems.ca/wp/> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway
From: Matt Faunce [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 26-Nov-15 01:38
This was bugging me, so I went searching. The first place I saw 'sign' denoting
a triad was not by Peirce, but by Cornelis de Waal, pg. 79 of Peirce, A Guide
for the Perplexed, in the first paragraph: "The sign is a genuine triad--one
that cannot be reduced to a combination of dyads."
In the Collected Papers Peirce's use of a triadic sign is rare, but here are
two examples:
CP 8.305: "I shall show that a Concept is a Sign and shall define a Sign and
show its triadic form."
6.344: "Signs, the only things with which a human being can, without
derogation, consent to have any transaction, being a sign himself, are triadic;
since a sign denotes a subject, and signifies a form of fact, which latter it
brings into connexion with the former."
Matt
On 11/26/15 12:49 AM, John Collier wrote:
I don’t have quotes handy, but I am pretty sure that Peirce uses “sign” in both
ways. This caused me some problems in the past in applying his ideas to
biosemiotics and other non-mental phenomena until I realized he was using the
term in more than one way. I think if one is careful about the context it is
possible to select which usage Peirce makes in each case.
John Collier
Professor Emeritus, UKZN
http://web.ncf.ca/collier
From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, 26 November 2015 4:14 AM
To: 'PEIRCE-L'
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates and triadic relations
Yes, Peirce says that “meaning is a triadic relation.” But meaning is not a
sign. Edwina, you say that a sign is a triadic relation, or a “triad,” while
Peirce says that a sign is “a correlate of a triadic relation.” Do you really
not see the difference?
Likewise with reference to CP 1.540, you don’t acknowledge the difference
between representation and a representamen. It might help if you quoted
Peirce’s whole sentence, and the one following it:
[[ In the first place, as to my terminology, I confine the word representation
to the operation of a sign or its relation to the object for the interpreter of
the representation. The concrete subject that represents I call a sign or a
representamen. ]]
Once again, Peirce says that representation is a triadic relation – and that a
sign, or representamen, is the correlate of the relation that represents the
object for the interpretant.
You still have not cited a single quote where Peirce says that a sign is either
a “triadic relation” or a “triad.” No amount of repeated recapitulation on your
part can conceal that fact, or the obvious inference from it, that Peirce
simply does not use the word “sign” that way.
Gary f.
From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 25-Nov-15 13:51
Gary F - the triad is a basic component of Peircean semiosis. If you know of
any place where he rejects the triad as this basic component, please inform us.
Please see his diagramme, 1.347 (The Categories in Detail) and his insistence
on this triad (1.345) where 'meaning is obviously a triadic relation' - which
means, that it is not mechanical (which is dyadic). You can also read his
discussion of the triad in 'A Guess at the Riddle'. And of course, since his
semiosis is triadic, then, you can read this perspective all through his work.
You can read his definition of the Representamen, which is the mediate part of
the triad, in various parts of his work as well: "I confine the word
representation to the operation of a sign or its relation to the object for the
interpreter of the representation" 1.540.
Note that this necessarily is a RELATIONAL process and not singular; the
Representamen does not exist 'per se'.
" A Representamen is a subject of a triadic relation to a second, called its
object, for a third, called its Interpretant, this triadic relation being such
that the Representamen determines its interpretant to stand in the same
triadic relation to the same object for some interpretant" 1.541.
Note again: This is a RELATIONAL PROCESS in A TRIADIC SEMIOSIS. Again, the
Representamen does not exist 'per se'.
Kindly remember that Peirce often used the term 'sign' to stand for the
Representamen in itself. Not for the whole triad. Again,
"A Sign, or Representamen, is a First which stands in such a genuine triadic
relation to a Second, called its Object as to be capable of determining a
Third, called its Interpretant, to assume the same triadic relation to its
Object in which stands itself to the same Object". 2.274.
Again- it's in a triadic relation. The Representamen does not stand on its
own.
Thirdness, by the way, is the same as mediation (5.104) which of course implies
relations..and the Representamen is in a mode of Thirdness in 6 of the ten
Signs.
Edwina
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