Sung,

Having a character that makes it a sign is not yet being a sign to someone of 
something. The first is potential, the second is actualization. 

Regards,
Jon

http://inquiryintoinquiry.com

> On Dec 21, 2015, at 12:33 AM, Sungchul Ji <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Edwina,
> 
> You said
> 
> "All signs are triads".
> 
> I disagree.  Not all signs are triads.  Only symbols are.  There can be signs 
> without interpretant (e.g., a piece of mould with a bullet hoe in it; see 
> below) or without object (e.g., a lead-pencil streak as representing a 
> geometric line), according to Peirce: 
> 
> 
> "An icon is a sign which would possess the character which renders it 
> significant, even though its object had no existence; such as a lead-pencil 
> streak as representing a geometrical line. An index is a sign which would, at 
> once, lose the character which makes it a sign if its object were removed, 
> but would not lose that character if there were no interpretant. Such, for 
> instance, is a piece of mould with a bullet hole in it as a sign of a shot; 
> for without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole 
> there, whether anyone has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not. A 
> symbol is a sign which would lose the character which renders it a sign if 
> there were no interpretant. Such is any utterance of speech which signifies 
> what it does only by virtue of it being understood to have that 
> signification."  
> 
> (Peirce, Philosophical Writings, 104, as cited in 
> http://goldberg.berkeley.edu/pubs/Index-and-the-Interface-Kris-Paulsen-Article-Spring-2013.pdf).
>   
> 
> All the best.
> 
> Sung
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 9:31 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Sung - if you want to consider the term 'Icon' as the 'name ' for the 
>> Relation between the Representamen and the Object--- AND as a 'sign' of that 
>> Relation...then, the term, ICON, must be operating within a triad. It is not 
>> in itself, as that word, as you insist, an 'elementary sign'.
>>  
>> Again - that word ICON, to be considered a sign, must itself be functioning 
>> within a triad. The term ICON, as a sign, is made up of those three 
>> relations: R-R, R-O and R-I. There is no such thing as an 'elementary sign'. 
>> All signs are triads. So, when I hear or read the word ICON, [R-O], my 
>> Representamen in its memory [R-R], mediates that sight/hearing of ICON, to 
>> result in an Interpretant [R-I] of the relation between the R and the O. 
>> That's a full triad. Not an elementary sign.
>>  
>> Again- your lion and cat are irrelevant felines.
>>  
>> Edwina
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Sungchul Ji
>> To: Edwina Taborsky
>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 8:42 PM
>> Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>> 
>> Hi Edwina,
>> 
>> You wrote:
>> 
>> "We are talking about the meaning of these terms.                            
>>                                      (122015-1)
>> The term of 'icon' refers to the relation between the 
>> Representamen and the Object."
>> 
>> I disagree.
>> 
>> We are not talking about just the meaning of these terms but also their 
>> names.
>> 
>> We agree that the meaning of 'icon' is the relation between representamen 
>> and object in the mode of Firstness.
>> 
>> Where we do not agree is that I regard 'icon' as the name of (and hence a 
>> sign for) the relation between representamen and object in the mode of 
>> Firstness.
>> 
>> Again you are seeing only the lion and not the cat. 
>> 
>> Sung
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> No, Sung. Again, it would help if you would actually read Peirce before you 
>>> jump in with your views. 
>>> We are talking about the meaning of these terms. The term of 'icon' refers 
>>> to the relation between the Representamen and the Object. So, no-one, 
>>> including me, is 'conflating 'representamen' and 'object'. ALL nine terms 
>>> refer to the Relations of the Representamen; in itself as R-R, between R-O, 
>>> and R-I.
>>>  
>>> These 9 terms are not, as you insist, 'elementary terms', nor are they 
>>> ambiguous. They are very specifically outlined, repeatedly, as to their 
>>> meaning, in numerous Peircean texts.
>>>  
>>> And as John Collier's post just explained, these relations are not 
>>> stand-alone. COLLIER:" I take it that the contained (or implied) pairwise 
>>> relations are abstractions, and cannot (do not) exist on their own. So 
>>> talking about, say, the relation between the representamen and its object 
>>> always has the interpretant in the background."
>>>  
>>> That is - the relations operate within the semiosic triad. THREE relations 
>>> - but you can't 'decompose' them.
>>>  
>>> Your lion-cat picture is totally irrelevant to the discussion.
>>> Edwina
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Sungchul Ji
>>> To: PEIRCE-L
>>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 7:41 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>>> 
>>> Edwina, Helmut, John, Gary R, List,
>>> 
>>> You wrote:
>>> 
>>> "Helmut - I can see the value of using your term of '9 types of 
>>> representamen relations'.                                (122015-1)
>>> Certainly, these 9 are NOT signs, . . . "
>>> 
>>> These '9 types of representmane relations' are the objects of the 9 types 
>>> of signs that Peirce named 'qualisign', 'singsign, 'legisign',  'dicisign', 
>>> etc.  For example, icon, index , and symbol are the signs referring to the 
>>> relation between  representamen and its object in the mode of being of 
>>> Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, respectively.  It seems to me that 
>>> you are conflating representmen and object.   
>>> 
>>> The 3x3 table of the 9 types of signs  is an ambiguous diagram, since it an 
>>> be intepreted  in more than one ways with equal validity, like the figure 
>>> shown below.  Clearly the figure can be interpreted as depicting  a lion, a 
>>> cat, or both, not unlike our 9 types and 10 classes of signs.  I see both a 
>>> lion  (relations, i.e., objects) and a cat (name of the relations, i.e., 
>>> signs) in the picture, but, metaphorically speaking, Edwina seems to see 
>>> only a lion, and Helmut only a cat. 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> <image.png>
>>> 
>>> Retrieved from 
>>> http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/research/philosophyresearch/cspe/illusions/
>>>  on 12/20/2015.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> All the best.
>>> 
>>> Sung
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 6:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>> Helmut - I can see the value of using your term of '9 types of 
>>>> representamen relations'. Certainly, these 9 are NOT signs, despite Sung's 
>>>> description of them as 'elementary signs'. A sign is, by definition, a 
>>>> triad - and therefore, in my view, even the representamen-in-itself, can't 
>>>> be a sign, because it is not in a triad. The triad is the sign.
>>>>  
>>>> That is why I refer to the interactions between the Representamen and the 
>>>> Object; the Representamen and the Interpretant - as Relations. And of 
>>>> course, Peirce does this as well, I've provided the quotes previously. The 
>>>> Representamen-in-itself is also a Relation, a depth relation, with its 
>>>> history.
>>>>  
>>>> Edwina
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: Helmut Raulien
>>>> To: [email protected]
>>>> Cc: Sungchul Ji ; PEIRCE-L
>>>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 5:40 PM
>>>> Subject: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>>>> 
>>>> John, Sung, list,
>>>> for me, as far as I understand, "types" and "classes" are synonyms. The 
>>>> difference between the "9 types of signs" and the "10 classes of signs" is 
>>>> not, as I understand it, a matter of "type" versus "class", but of what it 
>>>> is a type/class of. Id say, the 10 classes are classes of triadic signs, 
>>>> and the 9 types are classes (or types) of sign relations: 3 representamen 
>>>> relations, 3 object relations, and 3 interpretant relations. What I am not 
>>>> completely clear about, is, what the representamen, object, or 
>>>> interpretant, has a relation with: Is it the representamen, or the whole 
>>>> sign? I think it is the representamen, as Edwina often has said, because, 
>>>> if they were relations between the whole triadic sign and either element 
>>>> of its, this would be some circular affair, as the whole triadic sign 
>>>> already is a relation between (or composition of?) these three 
>>>> relations...A logical loop. So, my temporal understanding is to replace "9 
>>>> types of signs" with "9 types of representamen relations". Is that correct?
>>>> Best,
>>>> Helmut
>>>>  
>>>> 20. Dezember 2015 um 15:08 Uhr
>>>>  "John Collier" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>  
>>>> Sorry Sung, but this doesn'the help me. It seems to me that you are only 
>>>> picking out different ways of classifying the same things, which is fine, 
>>>> but they are not different things, as you seem to be saying. There is no 
>>>> difference in the dynamical objects involved. If there is, you have not 
>>>> shown this. You need tof show how the different classifications are 
>>>> grounded in different expectations about possible experiences. You haven't 
>>>> done that yet. From your response here it seems that you are confusing 
>>>> different ways of talking about the same things with different objects. I 
>>>> don't know of anyone who makes the mistake of confusing the objects of the 
>>>> classifications. Perhaps you could give an example. Of course someone 
>>>> could be misled by the difference in the immediate objects, which depends 
>>>> on how we are thinking, if they are confused about what Peirce is talking 
>>>> about with these classifications, I don't think that there are Peirce 
>>>> scholars            who make that mistake. So perhaps you could provide 
>>>> examples. There is a good reason why Peirce didn't use different names. 
>>>> There is no need to. This is quite different from the baryon-quark case, 
>>>> where the difference has experimental consequences. 
>>>>  
>>>> John
>>>>  
>>>> Sent from my Samsung device
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -------- Original message --------
>>>> From: Sungchul Ji <[email protected]>
>>>> Date: 20/12/2015 14:04 (GMT+02:00)
>>>> To: PEIRCE-L <[email protected]>
>>>> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>>>>  
>>>> John, List,
>>>>  
>>>> You wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> "So it seems to me that, unless you have a rather special meaning for 
>>>> “measurable”
>>>> (or even “detectable”) in the case of signs that I cannot fathom without 
>>>> more clarity
>>>> than I have now by what you mean by distinction you are trying to make, 
>>>> the distinction
>>>> between elementary signs and composite signs have no basis in what exists; 
>>>> you would
>>>> be making a distinction without a difference, and thus containing no 
>>>> information."
>>>>  
>>>> The distinction between elementary signs and composite signs is the same 
>>>> as the distinction between the  9 types of signs and the 10 classes of 
>>>> sign that Peirce himself made. (If you do not like these terms, any one is 
>>>> entitled to come up with better replacements.) So the distinction must 
>>>> have been in Peirce's mind whenever Peirce wrote about the 9 types and 10 
>>>> classes.  The only thing that I am trying to do here, since 2012, is to 
>>>> give "names" or "representamens" to these distinct objects, so that we can 
>>>> avoid conflating them, or so that we can have two different interpretants. 
>>>>  Right now, we have only one representamen, "sign", to refer to two 
>>>> different objects (9 types and 10 classes) making them appear the same and 
>>>> yet they are not as you can plainly see in the fact that Peirce 
>>>> distinguished between 9 types and 10 classes.  This is why many, if not 
>>>> all, students of Peirce, seem confused.
>>>>  
>>>> All the best.
>>>>  
>>>> Sung
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 4:02 AM, John Collier <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> Sung, Lists,
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> I am unclear what you mean by measurable. The reason why this is 
>>>>> important is that if there is no difference to possible experience, by 
>>>>> the Pragmatic Maxim there is no difference in meaning. No elementary 
>>>>> particle properties are directly measurable.  The best we can do is to 
>>>>> have evidence for them by way of properties that are directly measurable, 
>>>>> together with the theory (the measurements of quark properties are what 
>>>>> is called “theory-laden”). So the notion of measurement that you are 
>>>>> using is void unless there is some measurable difference between “there 
>>>>> are nine elementary signs” and “there are ten composite signs”). The same 
>>>>> would, of course hold for quarks and baryons unless there is a detectable 
>>>>> difference to experience. In this case the difference is, of course, by 
>>>>> your notion of a baryon as isolatable, that we can isolate baryons but 
>>>>> not quarks (for a combination of theoretical and experimental reasons). 
>>>>> So it seems to me that, unless you have a rather special meaning for 
>>>>> “measurable” (or even “detectable”) in the case of signs that I cannot 
>>>>> fathom without more clarity than I have now by what you mean by 
>>>>> distinction you are trying to make, the distinction between elementary 
>>>>> signs and composite signs have no basis in what exists; you would be 
>>>>> making a distinction without a difference, and thus containing no 
>>>>> information.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> John Collier
>>>>> 
>>>>> Professor Emeritus, UKZN
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://web.ncf.ca/collier
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
>>>>> Of Sungchul Ji
>>>>> Sent: Sunday, 20 December 2015 07:05
>>>>> To: PEIRCE-L
>>>>> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Gary R,
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> You wrote :
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> "As I thought I'd made clear over the years, and even quite              
>>>>> recently, I do not consider the 9 parameters                          
>>>>> (121915-1)
>>>>> as signs at all, so that when I am discussing signs as possibly embodied 
>>>>> signs, I am always referring to 
>>>>> 
>>>>> the 10 classes."
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> I have two comments on (121915-1) and a suggestion:
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> (1) If 'qualisign' is not a sign, why do you think Peirce used the word 
>>>>> "sign" in "qualisign" ?  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> (2)  The problem, as I see it, may stem from what seems to me to be an 
>>>>> unjustifiably firm belief on the part of many semioticians that there is 
>>>>> only one kind of sign in Peirce's writings, i.e., the triadic ones (or 
>>>>> the 10 classes of signs). But what if, in Peirce's mind, there were two 
>>>>> kinds of signs, i.e., the 9 types of signs and the 10 classes of signs, 
>>>>> although he used the same word "sign" to refer to both of them, just as 
>>>>> physicists use the same word "particles" for both quarks and baryons.  
>>>>> They are both particles but physicists discovered that protons and 
>>>>> neutrons are not fundamental particles but are composed of triplets of 
>>>>> more fundamental particles called quarks.    
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> (3)  I think the confusions in semiotics that Peirce himself seemed to 
>>>>> have contributed to creating by not naming the 9 types of signs and 10 
>>>>> classes of signs DIFFERENTLY may be removed by adopting two different 
>>>>> names (belatedly) for these two kinds of signs, e.g., the "elementary 
>>>>> signs" for the 9 types and the "composite signs" for the 10 classes of 
>>>>> signs as I recommended in [biosemiotics:46]. The former is monadic and 
>>>>> incomplete as a sign, while the latter is triadic and hence complete as a 
>>>>> sign.  Again this situation seems similar to the relation between quarks 
>>>>> and baryons: Quarks are incomplete particles in that they cannot be 
>>>>> isolated outside baryons whereas baryons (which are composed of three 
>>>>> quarks) are complete particles since they can be isolated and 
>>>>> experimentally measured. 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> All the best.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sung
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, Dec 19, 2015 at 7:25 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> 
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sung, list,
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> When I gave the example of the qualisign as 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,"  I was in fact referring to the 
>>>>> rhematic iconic qualisign following Peirce's (shorthand) usage, since "To 
>>>>> designate a qualisign as a rhematic iconic qualisign is redundant [. . .] 
>>>>> because a qualisign can only be rhematic and iconic."
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/peirce.html
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> As I thought I'd made clear over the years, and even quite recently, I do 
>>>>> not consider the 9 parameters as signs at all, so that when I am 
>>>>> discussing signs as possibly embodied signs, I am always referring to the 
>>>>> 10 classes.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> What I intended to convey in my last message was that the qualisign (that 
>>>>> is, the rhematic iconic qualisign) *must* be part of a more complete sign 
>>>>> (clear enough, I think, is Peirce's discussions of the 10 classes), that 
>>>>> it simply cannot exist independently of that fuller sign complex (e.g., a 
>>>>> 'feeling of red' doesn't float around in some unembodied Platonic 
>>>>> universe).
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Now, I'm off to a holiday party, but I thought I'd best make this point 
>>>>> clear before there was any further confusion.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Gary R
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> 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 5:30 PM, Sungchul Ji <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Jeff, Gary R, List,
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> I agree that "qualisigin" is not a complete sign because it is one of the 
>>>>> 9 sigh types and not one of the 10 sign classes. It seems to me that in 
>>>>> order for "qualisign" to be a complete sign, it has to be a part of one 
>>>>> of the 10 classes of signs, e.g., a "rhematic iconic qualisign" such as 
>>>>> "feeling of red", i.e., the "redness" felt by someone or some agent.  
>>>>> However, 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> "Redness", as a qualisign, can be there even though no one is there to 
>>>>> feel it.                                                                  
>>>>>             (121915-1)
>>>>> For example, red color was there before we invented artificial signs and 
>>>>> 
>>>>> applied one of them to it."
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Peirce said that legisign is "a sign which would lose the character which 
>>>>> renders it a sign if there were no interpretant", and sinsign can be 
>>>>> index or icon, but as index it is is "a sign which would, at once, lose 
>>>>> the character which makes it a sign if its object is removed , but would 
>>>>> not lose that character if there were no interpretant".
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> By extension, I wonder if we can say that 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> "Qualisign is a sign which would lose the character which renders it a 
>>>>> sign if there were no representamen."          (121915-2)    
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Statement (121915-2) seems to be supported by Statement (121915-1).
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Again I think the quark model of the Peircean sign is helpful in avoiding 
>>>>> confusions resulting from not distinguishing the two kinds of signs, 
>>>>> i.e., 9 types of signs vs. 10 classes of signs:
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> "Both quarks and baryons are particles but only the latter are 
>>>>> experimentally measurable;                                                
>>>>>    (121915-3)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Similarly 9 types of signs and 10 classes of signs are both signs but 
>>>>> only the latter can be 
>>>>> 
>>>>> used as a means of communicating information." 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> In [biosemiotics:46] dated  12/26/2012, I referred to the 9 types of 
>>>>> signs as "elementary signs" and the 10 classes of signs 
>>>>> 
>>>>> as "composite signs", in analogy to baryons (protons, neutrons) being 
>>>>> composed of elementary quarks.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> A Happy Holiday Season and A Wonderful New Year  to you all !
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sung 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, Dec 19, 2015 at 2:29 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> 
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 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
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> 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 
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>>>>> 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 
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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
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> -----------------------------
>>>>> PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON 
>>>>> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to 
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>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>  
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> -----------------------------
>>>>> PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON 
>>>>> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to 
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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
>>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> --
>>>> 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
>>>> ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" 
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>>>> 
>>>> -----------------------------
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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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>>> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to 
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>>> of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> 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
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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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