Franklin - briefly, I don't see language as 'just grammar' and therefore,
disagree with your description of me:
I suppose that you have somehow gotten stuck on the idea that the development
of a language must be a development of its grammar.
I don't see that the development of the knowledge base of a society requires a
'development of the grammar' of its language! [From what to what????] Just as I
don't see that the words/terms must be in place BEFORE the thought - as you
seem to believe. I believe the opposite - the thought is expressed by a slew of
new words or, using old words, by giving them new meanings.
I see a language as a grammar and words - and the words can change their
meaning, and also, new words can be created. But - I don't equate the cognitive
nature of a group with their language. You seem to do this.
Of course a word, since it is purely a symbol, only means what the human mind
has defined it to mean. But - does man think only in words? Of course not - as
Peirce noted, man uses both words and other external symbols (eg, graphs,
diagrammes, mathematics) to articulate his thoughts.
No, I don't pit Firstness versus Thirdness and I didn't say that it 'erases'
Thirdness. Remember, that Thirdness is about generalities and it can, as such,
permit multiple versions and meanings of the same symbol. Nor did I say that
the human mind is independent of language - and wonder how you came up with
both these conclusions about my views. BUT, MIND, as a natural axiom of the
universe, IS independent of language - As I pointed out - it appears in the
work of bees, of crystals. The human mind, with very little innate knowledge,
is not independent of symbolic communication - which, in one format, language,
operates within a grammatical structure expressed in 'bits' or words.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Franklin Ransom
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations
Edwina,
My point is that ANY peoples, - since they have the capacity for thought -
and thus, ANY language, can achieve such a result - and it doesn't require any
'development of the language'.
It certainly does require that the language has developed the terms that
allow more complex thoughts to be articulated.
I suppose that you have somehow gotten stuck on the idea that the development
of a language must be a development of its grammar. As I had been saying to
Sungchul originally, language is a term than can be taken in a wider sense, and
it depends in what sense that term is meant. Clearly, you want to identify
language and grammar as the same thing. I believe that the vocabulary of a
language is also part of what that language is, and the development of a
language's available vocabulary is a development of that language. Shakespeare,
for example, is commonly understood to have transformed the English language
and made it much more expressive in terms of its vocabulary. Whether one should
include the culture and history that goes with a language as being part of the
language, is also a matter for consideration. I'm not trying to say that one
should think of language in that way, only that this is one way to think about
the meaning of the term; and one needs to get clear about what is meant by the
term 'language' when discussing language. I said that at the outset, and I
would have appreciated it if you read the original discussion and understood
that before accusing me of erroneous views based on your own presumption as to
what language is and what must be meant by its development. I attempted to
clarify that by a language being capable of articulating scientific
terminology, I did not mean that it required a change in its general grammar to
do so, but that there is a community of thought, expressed in that language,
that has developed in that language to express scientific concepts and
understanding. Not every human language has come to develop in this way with
respect to every science there is as of today, and there will no doubt be
sciences in the future that language today, even the one we currently use, has
yet to develop the way to thinking through and articulating.
I have made no attempt to deny that Firstness is at work in language, and
have specifically said that creativity and innovation is important. But I think
you overstated the case for how great a role Firstness plays a role, to the
point of erasing the presence of Thirdness. I referenced the idea of the
Cartesian ego because you seemed to be expressing the view that the human mind,
as it exists today, is altogether independent of language, and could get along
thinking just as well without the use of an inherited language. I strongly
believe that this is a false view of the matter, and that we are, in large
part, dependent upon language for our thinking (not completely, of course, as
there is genuine creative force at work as well). I am reminded of a quote from
Peirce, "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities", EP 1, p.54; CP, vol. 5,
para.313-314; italics in original, bold added by me:
"313. ...Again, consciousness is sometimes used to signify the I think, or
unity in thought; but the unity is nothing but consistency, or the recognition
of it. Consistency belongs to every sign, so far as it is a sign; and therefore
every sign, since it signifies primarily that it is a sign, signifies its own
consistency. The man-sign acquires information, and comes to mean more than he
did before. But so do words. Does not electricity mean more now than it did in
the days of Franklin? Man makes the word, and the word means nothing which the
man has not made it mean, and that only to some man. But since man can think
only by means of words or other external symbols, these might turn round and
say: "You mean nothing which we have not taught you, and then only so far as
you address some word as the interpretant of your thought." In fact, therefore,
men and words reciprocally educate each other; each increase of a man's
information involves and is involved by, a corresponding increase of a word's
information.
314. Without fatiguing the reader by stretching this parallelism too far, it
is sufficient to say that there is no element whatever of man's consciousness
which has not something corresponding to it in the word; and the reason is
obvious. It is that the word or sign which man uses is the man himself. For, as
the fact that every thought is a sign, taken in conjunction with the fact that
life is a train of thought, proves that man is a sign; so, that every thought
is an external sign, proves that man is an external sign. That is to say, the
man and the external sign are identical, in the same sense in which the words
homo and man are identical. Thus my language is the sum total of myself; for
the man is the thought."
-- Franklin
------------------------------------------------
On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
Franklin - thanks for your reply. Please see my comments below:
----- Original Message -----
From: Franklin Ransom
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations
Edwina,
I will quote myself from the response I gave to Matt Faunce right before
replying to you.
"Matt, list,
Can you give your source for this?
1) I cannot. I confess that my statement was not well-thought out. I did
not mean to imply anything about the possibility of developing scientific
terminology in any given human language. What I meant "about the development of
a language to the point where it can articulate scientific terminology" is
thinking about the case of where we find ourselves today, in the state in which
scientific terminology has actually developed to the point it has. Obviously
not every human language in history has developed to the point of having the
terminology that the sciences today command. For example, the use of Latin
words for developing terms identifying species in biology, and the whole host
of such terms that have been developed. Or the development of mathematical
language to the point where physical theories like the general and special
theories of relativity can be articulated.
EDWINA: I don't think that 'language' develops as a language and then
possibly at some time, this development enables it to 'develop scientific
terminology'. Indeed, I don't know what you mean by 'development of a
language'. You seem to be suggesting that there is something in the grammar
that must develop!?
I think that the terms used to 'name scientific issues' can be created in
any language. I don't see what has to develop in a language to render it then
and only then, capable of 'articulating scientific terminology'.
2) I take it for granted though that it is widely acknowledged that human
languages do differ with respect to the rules of construction and the things
that can be said. If there has not been a vocabulary established in a given
language for discussing projective geometry, people speaking only that language
won't be able to say things about it without going through the work of
developing a system of terminology in order to say things about it, or by
translating from another language.
EDWINA: Of course a language can develop a new system of terminology! The
English and other modern-use languages have all developed such a capacity for
'discussing projective geometry'. Any language can and does develop new terms.
All the time. That's the nature of thought, and thus, of language - its
openness to new terms.
3) My essential point though was just to point out that trying to look to
human language as a model for representing reasoning, or the subject matter of
logic, is an ill-considered and ill-advised venture, precisely because there is
so much difference between human languages. It's not as though a universal
human language has been discovered by linguists, so I raised concerns about
Sungchul's reliance on 'human language' as his model for representing
reasoning. If one is to accept Sunchul's approach, we would have to admit that
there are different kinds of reasoning, one for each human language, and logic
would cease to be a general science of reasoning, and would become
indistinguishable from linguistics."
EDWINA: I agree with you that language should not be used as a model for
representing reasoning or logic, since - although language IS logically ordered
- this doesn't mean that its logical order is also a model for logical
reasoning. Peirce repeats that 'reasoning is of a triadic constitution' (6.321)
- and this doesn't fit in with the constitution of a language. As he also says,
logic is 'independent of the structure of the language in which it may happen
to be expressed" 3.430.And I also reject, as do you, that there are 'different
kinds of reasoning, one for each human language'. But the very FACT that 'the
world is chiefly governed by thought [1.349] means that it includes ALL three
modal categories. Not just Thirdness, habit, a 'frozen language'.
4) If you think this statement does not clarify my position well enough,
please let me know what specifically you feel continues to be an important
issue. If it helps, by saying that human languages differ with respect to the
things that can be said, I don't mean to imply that the language can't develop,
say, a mathematical science that will permit it to talk about, say, principles
of geometry. But if the work has not been done to develop that terminology,
then the average member of that linguistic community will find it very
challenging to think and express those principles, and will have to commit to
developing the language in a determinate to talk about those sorts of ideas.
EDWINA: I think that you have indeed explained your position - and I've
outlined, I think my differences. By the way, the average member of our own
linguistic community finds it very difficult to think about and express current
principles of science.
5) I would like to add that you have not acknowledged that your own
position, Edwina, is in conflict with Peirce's views, in that language does
have an impact on what we think, and so does play some role in determining the
thoughts we have, as individuals and as a community. Thought determines
thought, and all thought being in signs, this means that language does
determine thought to some extent. Your "radical freedom from language" theory
is really just nothing but the discredited idea of the Cartesian ego. The
habits of language persist and we are forced often to work within the confines
of those habits. Yes, innovation and creativity is possible, but not in the
"blank slate" way you suggest. Peirce would not have to spend so much effort on
terminology, to the point of articulating an ethics of terminology, if the
words we use don't matter for how we think. Just consider your debates
regarding sign and representamen. Does it matter that you get that terminology
right with everyone else, if you agree that language doesn't really matter and
everyone really does understand already what is being thought about? Why care
about getting clear about the language being used, if not to get clear about
the thinking with everyone else?
EDWINA: I don't agree with your view that my view is in conflict with
Peirce's views. After all, a major axiom in Peircean semiosis, which describes
thought, is the category of Firstness, the capacity for freedom and innovation.
This means that new signs, new thoughts, new words, are basic to Peircean
semiosis - and this is most certainly NOT similar to a 'blank slate'. I don't
agree with you that my view that cognition [not the same as consciousness]
which I consider is a basic property of our species - and of all matter - is
akin to the Cartesian Ego - which is a 'thing in itself'. The Peircean Mind is
a basic property/process of matter, and I repeat a favourite quote
"Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the
work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world" 4.551
Certainly, Thirdness, as habit, expressed in the normative meaning of
words, and thus their restriction in meaning, contributes to the shared
community-of-knowledge that a linguistic group shares. But such shared
meanings, as in the debate some of us have with the meaning of 'sign' and
'representamen' , are debates about communal meanings among a group. This is
NOT the same as the ability of a language to articulate novel thoughts. As I
said, since thought is a basic capacity of our species, and thought operates
within semiosis and the three categories...then, the category of Firstness
enables novel interactions with the envt and thus, new terminology. My point is
that ANY peoples, - since they have the capacity for thought - and thus, ANY
language, can achieve such a result - and it doesn't require any 'development
of the language'.
Edwina
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