Jeff,
(I’m formatting my reply as html, although your posts are in plain text, because I find italics, bolding etc. very useful in explaining difficult points. Actually I wonder why you don’t use that format yourself — ?) I see now that the ‘garbling’ I spoke of caused me to miss the fact that you had misread me. I had written re: CP 2.238-9 that "This would give us a second set of trichotomies that would generate ten classes of triadic relation, but again, Peirce uses only the first of those trichotomies in his analysis of sign types. This trichotomy is according as the dyadic relations between Sign and Object (constituted by the S-O-I relation) are of the nature of possibilities (icon), facts (index), or laws (symbol)." It is true that, of the three trichotomies defined in 238-9, Peirce uses only the first (icon/index/symbol) in his analysis of sign types in NDTR. I thought this should be obvious, given that my whole post was about NDTR. But you apparently read me as saying something about Peirce’s analysis of sign types in his entire life’s work in semiotics and not just in NDTR. No, I was only referring to the three trichotomies Peirce uses to define ten sign types in NDTR. My point was that at the beginning of NDTR, he mentions a number of trichotomies of triadic relations which he in fact does not use for that purpose in NDTR. I hope this clears up the confusion, although my post addressing Gary R’s diagram should also help. In the meantime, I can see you are far ahead of me in your study of both NDDR and the “Logic of Mathematics” (though I have studied the latter closely), and I hope one day to understand what your synthesis of all these studies will produce! Gary f. -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 1-Dec-15 14:02 To: 'PEIRCE-L' <[email protected]> Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations Hello Gary F., List, You raise a few points. Let me respond. 1. You say that my message was garbled in the middle. I've revised it a bit to make the points less garbled and inserted it below. In the revised version, I respond to next two points that you make. 2. Some of the trichotomies Peirce mentions in NDTR but does not develop there may be developed developed elsewhere--but how those developments relate to phenomenology on the one hand, and analysis of sign types on the other, is still not clear to me. 3. I'll be interested to see what comes out of testing your hunch "that the triads of the dyadic relations between sign and object, sign and interpretant, and interpretant and object are the building blocks out of which larger triads of triadic relations are formed." Peirce doesn't deal with the latter two dyadic relations in NDTR, as far as I can see. In the remarks on the opening pages of NDTR (CP 2.238-9) you say: "This would give us a second set of trichotomies that would generate ten classes of triadic relation, but again, Peirce uses only the first of those trichotomies in his analysis of sign types. This trichotomy is according as the dyadic relations between Sign and Object (constituted by the S-O-I relation) are of the nature of possibilities (icon), facts (index), or laws (symbol)." Why think that he is only focusing on the division of the ten classes based on the triadic relations between the three correlates in this essay? On my view, Peirce has worked out a rather elaborate account of the triads that hold between the dyadic relations in "On the Logic of Mathematics, an attempt to develop my categories from within" and in "Nomenclature and Division of Dyadic Relations (NDDR)." As you point out, the former essay does deal with phenomenological matters, but the latter essay appears to be focused mainly on dyadic relations of a logical character. Having said that, we should note the following. In the discussion of dyadic relations in NDDR, Peirce clearly states that dyadic relations of reference do appear to be one exception and referential relations that are proper dyads are another exception. As he clearly states: "The author's writings on the logic of relations were substantially restricted to existential relations; and the same restriction will be continued in the body of what here follows. My hunch is that the triads of the dyadic relations between sign and object, sign and interpretant, and interpretant and object are the building blocks out of which larger triads of triadic relations are formed. At this point, we are then dealing with thoroughly genuine triadic relations--as he calls them in "The Logic of Mathematics." The dyadic relations between the interpretant and the object are not, considered in themselves, the basis for any of the classification of signs. Be that as it may, this dyadic relation is, on my account, essential to understanding the nature of one of the classifications of signs--at least indirectly. The main point I want to make is that the triadic relation of assurance between sign-object-interpretant is based on the way the object determines the sign and then, in turn, how this determines the relation between the interpretant and the object. It is here that we have an assurance that the object that is related to the sign is the same object that is related to the interpretant. As such, establishing the identity of the objects in these two dyadic relations (between s-o and between s-i) is central to the account of what this determination is supposed to assure. Here are a few quick questions: what kind of dyadic relations hold in each of the cases where the sign-object, sign-interpretant or interpretant-object are relations between possibilities, actualities or laws? What kinds of dyadic relations are there when the two are mixed? That, I think, is something he is trying to examine in the discussion of reference, referential relations, and modal dyadic rerelations in the openings pages of NDDR. For the sake of being clear, I think that relations of reference are crucial to the discussion of both the phenomenological categories and the classification of signs because both of these accounts were, from the time of the Harvard and Lowell lectures of 1865-6 and "On a New List of Categories" based on considerations of reference to ground, reference to object and reference to interpretant. Cathy Legg and Bill McCurdy have suggested to me that Peirce dropped the distinction between single reference to ground, double reference to ground and object, and triple reference to ground, object and interpretant in his later writings. I disagree. On my reading, this language is transformed into a more developed account of how correlates are connected in various forms of dyadic and triadic relations. While the account is more developed in the later writings, Peirce is still working in terms of dyadic relations of reference, dyadic referential relations proper and dyadic modal rerelations. On my account, these kinds of dyadic relations are essential for doing things like making comparisons--which is a genuine triadic relation that involves these kinds of dyads. The key to making such comparisons is establishing transitive relations. This is important because the dyadic relations of reference are, at least initially initially, unordered. That, at least, is the gist of my interpretative hypothesis for reading "The Logic of Mathematics," NDDR and NDTR. These kinds of considerations are what lead me to think that Jon Awbrey's insistence that we focus our attention on ordered triples for the sake of getting a clearer understanding of genuine triadic relations misses the mark. Peirce spends considerable effort explaining how the "manifold of sensuous impressions" comes to have unity, to be individuated, and then gets its proper order under one or another kind of conceptual rule. Starting off with an ordered triple runs the risk of leading us to ignore questions that Peirce took to be prior--such as the conditions that are necessary for bringing unordered dyads under one of the three clauses of the law of quality--which spell out the requirements for making reasonable comparisons between qualities. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354
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