Franklin - you seem to be taking this debate personally. Where did I refer to your opinions as 'misunderstanding and ignorance'? Do you really feel that if someone disagrees with your views, that it therefore suggests that you both misunderstand and are ignorant??!!
As for 'spirited' - a series of interactions in a debate is just that; it doesn't imply any ulterior WILL- to -reform the other in the debate. Best wishes, Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Franklin Ransom To: Peirce-L Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 6:11 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations Edwina, I don't see this discussion as beneficial for either of us, and think it's time to let it go. I appreciate your clearly very spirited attempt to correct my misunderstanding and ignorance, and I'm sorry that we can't understand one another on this issue. -- Franklin --------------------------------------------- On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 5:56 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- 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. 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