Jon A, Gary F, Jeff, lists,
You asked
" . . . (i) would a perceptual judgment be properly classified as a dicent
sinsign?
And (ii) would the percept itself be a rhematic indexical sinsign? Or
(iii) is the
percept not yet a sign at all?"
Let me try to answer these questions based on the ITR (Irreducible Triadic
Relation) diagram of semiosis:
f g
Object ------------> Sign ------------> Interpretant
| ^
| |
|_______________________________|
h
Figure 1. The ITR diagram of semiosis. f = sign production; g = sign
interpretation; h = information flow
(i) Processes f and g combined may be related to PERCEPTUAL JUDGEMENT. IF
so, it is a part of a triadic sign, likely a dicent sinsign as you suggest,
but not a complete sign.
(ii) Process f may be related to the PERCEPT. If so, the percept is also
not a complete sign.
(iii) Same as (ii).
At least for me, the above diagrammatic method of analyzing the various
terms is helpful. I hope that others on these lists will find it so too..
All the best.
Sung
On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Gary, List:
>
> Based on the excerpt below, would a perceptual judgment be properly
> classified as a dicent sinsign? And would the percept itself be a rhematic
> indexical sinsign? Or is the percept not yet a sign at all?
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 11:39 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> GF: I can only assume that you are referring to CP 7.619, and observe
>> that Peirce does not say explicitly that the percept serves as immediate
>> object. That proposition seems at best dubious to me, because the percept
>> is precisely the point where the dynamic/immediate object distinction does
>> not apply. In fact it’s difficult to apply the sign/object distinction to
>> the percept. Moreover, Peirce has almost nothing to say about signs in that
>> entire long essay, and the little he does say is in reference to the
>> perceptual *judgment* considered as a kind of natural proposition:
>>
>>
>> 633. The other mode of definiteness of the percept consists in its being
>> perfectly explicit. The perceptual judgment carelessly pronounces the chair
>> yellow. What the particular shade, hue, and purity of the yellow may be it
>> does not consider. The percept, on the other hand, is so scrupulously
>> specific that it makes this chair different from every other in the world;
>> or rather, it would do so if it indulged in any comparisons.
>>
>> 634. It may be objected that the terms of the judgment resemble the
>> percept. Let us consider, first, the predicate, 'yellow' in the judgment
>> that 'this chair appears yellow.' This predicate is not the sensation
>> involved in the percept, because it is general. It does not even refer
>> particularly to this percept but to a sort of composite photograph of all
>> the yellows that have been seen. If it *resembles* the sensational
>> element of the percept, this resemblance consists only in the fact that a
>> new judgment will predicate it of the percept, just as this judgment does.
>> It also awakens in the mind an imagination involving a sensational element.
>> But taking all these facts together, we find that there is no relation
>> between the predicate of the perceptual judgment and the sensational
>> element of the percept, except forceful connections.
>>
>> 635. As for the subject of the perceptual judgment, as subject it is a
>> sign. But it belongs to a considerable class of mental signs of which
>> introspection can give hardly any account. It ought not to be expected that
>> it should do so, since the qualities of these signs as objects have no
>> relevancy to their significative character; for these signs merely play the
>> part of demonstrative and relative pronouns, like “that,” or like the A, B,
>> C, of which a lawyer or a mathematician avails himself in making
>> complicated statements. In fact, the perceptual judgment which I have
>> translated into “that chair is yellow” would be more accurately represented
>> thus: “ is yellow,” a pointing index-finger taking the place of the
>> subject. On the whole, it is plain enough that the perceptual judgment is
>> not a copy, icon, or diagram of the percept, however rough. It may be
>> reckoned as a higher grade of the operation of perception.
>>
>>
>>
>> On that basis, I don’t think we can extract from this passage any good
>> information about what a qualisign is or how it works. What it does make
>> clear is that the perceptual judgment is not iconic. So at this point I’m
>> going to jump down to your concluding paragraph.
>>
>> GF: There is no vagueness in a percept; it’s a singular. So I don’t see
>> how the concept of qualisign can serve the purpose you suggest here. I
>> think the qualisign is simply a necessary result of Peirce’s introduction
>> of the trichotomy of signs based on the sign’s mode of being in itself. It
>> has to be First in that trichotomy.
>>
>
>
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--
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701
www.conformon.net
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