Jeff, Gary F. list, I think one need look no further than to the qualisign for a good example of a sign which "may not possess all the essential characters of a more complete sign," and yet be a part of that more complex sign.
Best, Gary R [image: Gary Richmond] *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* *C 745* *718 482-5690* On Sat, Dec 19, 2015 at 1:33 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard < [email protected]> wrote: > Hello Gary F., List, > > In MS 7, Peirce says: "Secondly, a sign may be complex; and the parts of > a sign, though they are signs, may not possess all the essential characters > of a more complete sign." How should we understand this distinction > between a sufficiently complete sign and those parts of a sign that are > less complete? > > --Jeff > > > > Jeffrey Downard > Associate Professor > Department of Philosophy > Northern Arizona University > (o) 928 523-8354 > ________________________________________ > From: [email protected] [[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, December 18, 2015 3:54 PM > To: 'PEIRCE-L' > Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations > > NDTR is an acronym for “Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations,” > EP2:289-99, fifth section of the 1903 Syllabus, and the main text this > thread has been referring to, so far. > > Since I included in my post a few quotes from MS 7, which we discussed at > some length back in the spring of 2014, I’ll post my transcription of the > manuscript here (from a photocopy of it posted to the list by Vinicius > Romanini, I think). It’s an interesting text because it prefigures (or > refigures?) many of the things Peirce says about signs in “New Elements,” > which follows immediately after NDTR in EP2. The lack of paragraphing is > Peirce’s. — gary f. > > On the Foundations of Mathematics > MS 7, c. 1903 [gf transcription, 4 Apr 2014, Peirce's underlining rendered > as italics] > §1. Mathematics deals essentially with Signs. All that we know or think is > so known or thought by signs, and our knowledge itself is a sign. The word > and idea of a sign is familiar but it is indistinct. Let us endeavor to > analyze it. > It is plain at the outset, first, that a sign is not any particular > replica of it. If one casts one's eye down a printed page, every ‘the’ is > the same word, and every e the same letter. The exact identity is not > clear. Secondly, a sign may be complex; and the parts of a sign, though > they are signs, may not possess all the essential characters of a more > complete sign. Thirdly, a sign sufficiently complete must be capable of > determining an interpretant sign, and must be capable of ultimately > producing real results. For a proposition of metaphysics which could never > contribute to the determination of conduct would be meaningless jargon. On > the other hand, the cards which, slipped into a Jacquard loom, cause > appropriate figures to be woven, may very properly be called signs although > there is no conscious interpretation of them. If not, it can only be > because they are not interpreted by signs. In fact, in the present > condition of philosophy, consciousness seems to be a mere quality of > feeling which a formal science will do best to leave out of account. But a > sign only functions as a sign when it is interpreted. It is therefore > essential that it should be capable of determining an interpretant sign. > Fourthly, a sign sufficiently complete must in some sense correspond to a > real object. A sign cannot even be false unless, with some degree of > definiteness, it specifies the real object of which it is false. That the > sign itself is not a definite real object has been pointed out under > “firstly”. It is only represented. Now either it must be that it is one > thing to really be and another to be represented, or else it must be that > there is no such thing [a]s falsity. This involves no denial that every > real thing may be a representation, or sign, but merely that, if so, there > must be something more in reality than mere representation. Since a > sufficiently complete sign may be false, and also since it is not any > replica or collection of replicas, it is not real. But it refers to a real > object. Consequently, a sign cannot have a sign as its sole object; though > it may refer to an object through a sign; as if one should say, “Whatever > the Pope, as such, may declare will be true,” or as a map may be a map of > itself. But supposing the Pope not to declare anything, does that > proposition refer to any real object? Yes, to the Pope. But, fifthly, even > if there were no pope, still, like all other signs sufficiently complete, > there is a single definite object to which it must refer; namely, to the > ‘Truth,’ or the Absolute, or the entire Universe of real being. Sixthly, a > sign may refer, in addition, and specially, to any number of parts of that > universe. Seventhly, every interpretant of a sign need not refer to all the > real objects to which the sign itself refers, but must, at least, refer to > the Truth. Eighthly, an interpretant may refer to an object of its sign in > an indefinite manner. Thus, given the sign, ‘Enoch was a man, and Enoch was > translated,’ an interpretant of it would be ‘Some man was translated.’ > Ninethly, a sign may refer to its interpretant in such a way that, in case > the former sign is incomplete, the interpretant, being an interpretant of > the completer sign, may refer to a sign to which the first sign does not > specially refer, but only generally refers. Thus, the sign ‘Any man there > may be is mortal’ does not refer to any real man, unless it so happens that > it is a part of a sign which otherwise refers to such a real thing. But if > it be a part of a sign of which another part is ‘some man sings,’ the sign > ‘some man is mortal’ becomes an interpretant of it. This may be more > conveniently expressed by speaking of an ‘utterer’ and an ‘interpreter.’ > Then the utterer says to the interpreter, “you are at liberty to understand > me as referring to any man [of] whom you can get any indication, and of > him, I say, ‘he is mortal.’” Tenthly, a sign sufficiently complete must > signify some quality; and it is no more important to recognize that the > real object to which a sign refers is not a mere sign than to recognize > that the quality it signifies is not a mere sign. Take the quality of the > odor of attar. There is no difficulty in imagining a being whose entire > consciousness should consist in this alone. But, it may be objected, if it > were contrasted with nothing could it be recognized? I reply, no; and > besides, such recognition is excluded by the circumstance that a > recognition of the smell would not be the pure smell itself. It may be > doubted by some persons, however, whether the feeling could exist alone. > They are the persons whom it ought to be easiest for me to convince of my > point. For they, at least, must admit that if such pure homogeneous quality > of feeling were to exist alone, it would not be a sign. Everybody ought to > admit it because it would be alone, and therefore would have no object > different from itself. Besides, there would be no possible replica of it, > since each of two such things would be nonexistent for the other; nor could > there be any third who should compare them. So, then, the whole question of > whether such a quality is a sign or not resolves itself into the question > of whether there could be such a tinge upon the consciousness of a being, > supposing the being could be conscious (for I shall show presently that the > fact that he would be asleep is only in my favor). In order to decide this > question, it will be sufficient to look at any object parti-colored in > bright red and bright blue and to ask oneself a question or two. Would > there be any possibility of conveying the idea of that red to a person who > had no feeling nearer to it than that blue? Plainly not, the quality of the > red is in the red itself. The proximity of the blue heightens the shock > up[on] the seer[']s organism, emphasizes it, renders it vivid, perhaps > slightly confuses the feeling. But the red quality is altogether positive > and would remain if the blue were not there. If every other idea were > removed, there would be no shock, and there would be sleep. But the quality > of that sleep would be red, in this sense, that if it were taken away > frequently and brought back so as to wake the being up, the tinge of his > consciousness would be of that quality. A quality, in itself, has no being > at all, it is true. It must be embodied in something that exists. But the > quality is as it is positively and in itself. That is not true of a sign, > which exists only by bringing an interpretant to refer to an object. A > quality, then, is not a sign. Eleventhly, we may assume that this is as > true of what is, with excusable inaccuracy, called a composite quality as > of a simple one. In itself, one quality is as simple as another. A person > who should be acquainted with none but the spectral colors would get no > idea of white by being told that it was the mixture of them all. One might > as well tell him to make a mixture of water, patriotism, and the square > root of minus one. Find a man who has had no idea of patriotism; and if you > tell him that it is the love of one's country, if he knows what love is, > and what a man's country, in its social sense, is, he can make the > experiment of connecting ideas in his imagination, and noting the quality > of feeling which arises upon this composition. Tell him this in the > evening, and he will repeat the experiment several times during the night, > and in the morning he will have a fair idea of what patriotism means. He > will have performed an experiment analogous to that of mixing colored > lights in order to get an idea of white. If a treasure is buried in the > midst of a plain, and there are four signal poles, the place of the > treasure can be defined by means of ranges, so that a person who can take > ranges and set up new poles can find the treasure. In like manner the name > of any color may be defined in terms of four color disks so that a person > with a color-wheel can experimentally produce the color and thereafter be > able to use the name. Every definition to be understood must be treated as > a precept for experimentation. The imagination is an apparatus for such > experimentation that often answers the purpose, although it often proves > insufficient. No point on the plain where the treasure is hid is more > simple than other. Colors may be defined by various systems of coördinates, > and we do not know that one color is in itself simpler than another. It is > only in a limited class of cases that we can define a quality as simply a > mixture of two qualities. In most cases, it is necessary to introduce other > relations. But even when that is the case, if a quality is defined as being > at once a and b, there will always be another way of defining it as that > which is at once c and d. Now all that is either a or c will have a certain > quality p, common and peculiar to that class; the class of possible objects > that are b or c will be similarly related to a quality, r; and the class of > possible objects that are either b or d will be similarly related to a > quality, s. Then that quality which was defined as, at once, a and b, can > be more analytically defined as that which is at once p, q, r, and s; and > so on ad infinitum. We may not be able to make out these qualities; but > there is reason to believe that any describable class of possible objects > has some quality common and peculiar to it. It is certain that a pure > quality, in its mode of being as a pure quality, does not cease to be > because it is not embodied in anything. Every situation in life appears to > have its peculiar flavor. This flavor is what it is positively and in > itself. For the experiment by which it may be reproduced an adequate > prescription may be given; but the definition will not itself have that > flavor. To say that a flavor, or pure quality, is composed of two others, > is simply to say that on experimentally mixing these others in a particular > way, that first flavor will be reproduced. Every sufficiently complete sign > determines a sign to the effect that on a certain occasion, that is, in a > certain object a certain flavor or quality may be observed. > This attempt to begin an analysis of the nature of a sign may seem to be > unnecessarily complicated, unnatural, and ill-fitting. To that I reply that > every man has his own fashion of thinking; and if such is the reader's > impression let him draw up a statement for himself. If it is sufficiently > full and accurate, he will find that it differs from mine chiefly in its > nomenclature and arrangement. [Not unlikely he might insist on distinctions > which I avoid as irrelevant.] He will find that, in some shape, he is > brought to recognize the same three radically different elements that I do. > Namely, he must recognize, first, a mode of being in itself, corresponding > to my quality; secondly, a mode of being constituted by opposition, > corresponding to my object; and thirdly, a mode of being of which a > branching line Y is an analogue, and which is of the general nature of a > mean function corresponding to the sign. > §2. Partly in hopes of reconciling the reader to my statement, and partly > in order to bring out some other points that will be pertinent, I will > review the matter in another order. > The reference of a sign to the quality which is its ground, reason, or > meaning appears most prominently in a kind of sign of which any replica is > fitted to be a sign by virtue of possessing in itself certain qualities > which it would equally possess if the interpretant and the object did not > exist at all. Of course, in such case, the sign could not be a sign; but as > far as the sign itself went, it would be all that [it] would be with the > object and interpretant. Such a sign whose significance lies in the > qualities of its replicas in themselves is an icon, image, analogue, or > copy. Its object is whatever that resembles it its interpretant takes it to > be the sign of, and [it is a] sign of that object in proportion as it > resembles it. An icon cannot be a complete sign; but it is the only sign > which directly brings the interpretant to close quarters with the meaning; > and for that reason it is the kind of sign with which the mathematician > works. For not only are geometrical figures icons, but even algebraical > arrays of letters have relations analogous to those of the forms they > represent, although these relations are not altogether iconically > represented. > The reference of a sign to its object is brought into special prominence > in a kind of sign whose fitness to be a sign is due to its being in a real > reactive relation,—generally, a physical and dynamical relation,—with the > object. Such a sign I term an index. As an example, take a weather-cock. > This is a sign of the wind because the wind actively moves it. It faces in > the very direction from which the wind blows. In so far as it does that, it > involves an icon. The wind forces it to be an icon. A photograph which is > compelled by optical laws to be an icon of its object which is before the > camera is another example. It is in this way that these indices convey > information. They are propositions. That is they separately indicate their > objects; the weather-cock because it turns with the wind and is known by > its interpretant to do so; the photograph for a like reason. If the > weathercock sticks and fails to turn, or if the camera lens is bad, the one > or the other will be false. But if this is known to be the case, they sink > at once to mere icons, at best. It is not essential to an index that it > should thus involve an icon. Only, if it does not, it will convey no > information. A cry of “Oh!” may be a direct reaction from a remarkable > situation. But it will convey, perhaps, no further information. The letters > in a geometrical figure are good illustrations of pure indices not > involving any icon, that is they do not force anything to be an icon of > their object. The cry “Oh!” does to a slight degree; since it has the same > startling quality as the situation that compells it. The index acts > compulsively on the interpretant and puts it into a direct and real > relation with the object, which is necessarily an individual event (or, > more loosely, a thing) that is hic et nunc, single and definite. > A third kind of sign, which brings the reference to an interpretant into > prominence, is one which is fit to be a sign, not at all because of any > particular analogy with the quality it signifies, nor because it stands in > any reactive relation with its object, but simply and solely because it > will be interpreted to be a sign. I call such a sign a symbol. As an > example of a symbol, Goethe's book on the Theory of Colors will serve. This > is made up of letters, words, sentences, paragraphs etc.; and the cause of > its referring to colors and attributing to colors the quality it does is > that so it is understood by anybody who reads it. It not only determines an > interpretant, but it shows very explicitly the special determinant, (the > acceptance of the theory) which it is intended to determine. By virtue of > thus specially showing its intended interpretant (out of thousands of > possible interpretants of it) it is an argument. An index may be, in one > sense, an argument; but not in the sense here meant, that of an > argumentation. It determines such interpretant as it may, without > manifesting a special intention of determining a particular interpretant. > It is a perfection of a symbol, if it does this; but it is not essential to > a symbol that it should do so. Erase the conclusion of an argumentation and > it becomes a proposition (usually, a copulative proposition). Erase such a > part of a proposition that if a proper name were inserted in the blank, or > if several proper names were inserted in the several blanks, and it becomes > a rhema, or term. Thus, the following are rhematic: > Guiteau assassinated ______ > ______ assassinated ______ > Logicians generally would consider it quite wrong for me to call these > terms; but I shall venture to do so. > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf > Of Sungchul Ji > Sent: 18-Dec-15 16:22 > > Gary F, Jeff, List, > > Please excuse my ignorance. > What is NDTR ? > > Thanks in advance. > > Sung > > > ----------------------------- > 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 > . > > > > > >
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