Edwina, in my study of NDTR, I am using Peirce’s definition of “Sign” exactly
as given in that work; I quoted it (again) in the post you are responding to.
If you have a problem with it, you’ll have to take it up with Peirce, not with
me. As for what you choose to place into your pigeonholes of “Saussurean sign”,
“Platonism” etc., that has no relevance to NDTR that I can see.
Peirce says that a Sinsign “involves a qualisign, or rather, several
qualisigns. But these qualisigns are of a peculiar kind” — and I suggested an
explanation of why Peirce calls them “peculiar” (implying of course that there
is another kind of Qualisign that is not peculiar). My suggestion is prompted
by Peirce’s statement about the Qualisign that its “embodiment has nothing to
do with its character as a sign.” You don’t like my suggestion, which is fine,
but you’ve offered no alternative. Why are the qualisigns involved in sinsigns
“of a peculiar kind”?
Gary f.
} {
<http://gnusystems.ca/wp/> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway
From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 3-Dec-15 14:41
To: [email protected]; 'Peirce-L' <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
Gary F - I certainly consider all ten classes as genuine Signs. I don't think
this suggests an ambiguity in the meaning of 'genuine' and 'degenerate' but
rather, an ambiguity in your definition of the Sign.
You, as I understand it, confine the meaning of 'Sign' to be a synonym for
'Representamen. This leads, I think, to an understanding of the Sign as really
a Saussurian Sign, with the Signifier=Object; and the Signified=Interpretant.
Obviously, I reject this dyadism. I consider the Peircean Sign to be an
integral triad of three Relations: That between the Representamen and Object;
that of the Representamen in itself; and that between the Representamen and the
Interpretant. [See 8.344--]
So, if you consider only the Representamen as the Sign, then, I don't see how
you can define it, on its own, as genuine or degenerate. It isn't that the
Representamen can't act as a sign [Representamen] unless it is embodied; it
isn't a Representamen UNLESS it is embodied. Otherwise, you are moving into
Platonism which does accept non-embodied Forms. [And yes, I'm aware of Peirce's
terms of "it cannot actually act as a sign until it is embodied" 2.244.
I don't see how a Sign (the triad) with all three Relations in a mode of
Firstness is degenerate or even 'doubly degenerate'. After all, Firstness as a
categorical mode, has no nature of degeneracy.
The genuine and degenerate forms of the Categories, is another issue, where, as
we know, Peirce considers that Firstness has no degeneracy; Secondness has both
a genuine and degenerate mode (2-2 and 2-1); and Thirdness has both a genuine
and two degenerate modes (3-3, 3-2, 3-1).
When Peirce refers to a genuine or degenerate index, he is referring to its
categorical mode of Secondness. That is, the modal categories in themselves are
genuine or degenerate not the Relation.
I don't see that a Qualisign, which is in a mode of pure Firstness (and not
3-1) can be degenerate as compared to a Sinsign or Legisign.
How can 'a normal Qualisign' be disembodied? There's no such thing in Peirce as
a 'free-floating Representamen'. That's Platonism.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
To: 'Peirce-L' <mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2015 11:31 AM
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
Moving on to the first trichotomy of sign types in “Nomenclature and Divisions
of Triadic Relations”:
CP 2.244: According to the first division, a Sign may be termed a Qualisign, a
Sinsign, or a Legisign.
A Qualisign is a quality which is a Sign. It cannot actually act as a sign
until it is embodied; but the embodiment has nothing to do with its character
as a sign.
[As a Sign, this “quality” must be a correlate of a triadic relation with its
Object and Interpretant, “by which triadic relation the possible Interpretant
is determined to be the First Correlate of the same triadic relation to the
same Object, and for some possible Interpretant” (CP 2.242). Yet it cannot act
as a sign until it is embodied, i.e. until it becomes involved in at least a
dyadic relation, and thus enters the universe of existence. Yet its
significance is its quality (not its embodiment), and qualities being monadic,
there is no real difference between Sign and Object (or Interpretant either).
So I think we might call this a doubly degenerate kind of triadic relation,
where the Sign is virtually self-representing, and self-determining as its own
Interpretant. Compare the “self-sufficient” point on a map which Peirce offers
as an example of doubly degenerate Thirdness in his third Harvard Lecture,
EP2:162.) Or, since this degeneracy is relative, we can say that the Qualisign
is degenerate relative to the Sinsign and to the Legisign (just as the Icon is
degenerate relative to the Index and the genuine Symbol, according to Peirce in
both the third Harvard lecture of 1903 and “New Elements” of 1904).
On the other hand, some semioticians say that all ten of the sign types defined
in NDTR, including the Qualisign, are genuine Signs. This flags a possible
ambiguity in the concepts of genuine and degenerate; and possibly this problem
is related to the concepts of embodiment, just introduced, and of involvement,
which is introduced in the next paragraph:]
245. A Sinsign (where the syllable sin is taken as meaning “being only once,”
as in single, simple, Latin semel, etc.) is an actual existent thing or event
which is a sign. It can only be so through its qualities; so that it involves a
qualisign, or rather, several qualisigns. But these qualisigns are of a
peculiar kind and only form a sign through being actually embodied.
[Evidently it is the involvement of qualisigns in a Sinsign — which, I suppose,
constitutes their embodiment — that makes them “peculiar,” because a “normal”
Qualisign is disembodied (and does not act as a Sign). But perhaps this will be
clarified by the definition of Legisign, which I’ll leave for the next post.]
Gary f.
_____
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to
PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> with the line
"UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
