All I can say, Jerry, is to read it more carefully. There are no
contradictions, so you must be misreading what I said. I have no idea
why you relate what I said to Tarski’s views, with which I am quite
familiar. The move that I think lies behind the connection between the
triadic relations of the sign and the relations that I think Edwina is
talking about is hypostatic abstraction, which is a technical device
for reinterpreting a property as a relation. Other than that, I was
trying to get how the two implied relations to the representamen
become three, and it seemed to me that that the third is on a more
abstract level, a relation of relations, again, and perhaps even more
obviously if I am right about that, though Edwina seems to differ than
the relations it relates. The third relation I am referring to seems
to me to be the relation between the object the interpretant. The
object and interpretant are properties (despite the grammatical
nominatives used to refer to them), which are turned into relations by
the abstraction, which is a standard method for understanding things,
especially for semiotic vehicles, in Peirce’s work. Taken this way
there is a sense in which I am suggesting that it is “meta”, but
so are the relations related, as they also are grasped through
hypostatic abstraction. If there is an apparent inconsistency I am
pretty sure that it arise from not understanding and being able to
recognize hypostatic abstraction, and confusing the way in which
something is picked out with its essential nature. The same thing can
be both a property and a relation, depending on how we look at it.
This is not possible to represent in the language of first order logic
due to its formal limitations. Second order logic makes the possible,
e.g., in the Ramsification of theories (which basically replaces
properties with relational structures). Ramsey tried to get a logic
grounded solely in relations, but he was unsuccessful. I have little
hope of doing what Ramsey failed to do despite his being one of the
most insightful logicians of the first half of the last century, so I
did not try, and I won’t try now, either. But I will say that
Peirce’s hypostatic abstraction is probably the key. Tarski’s
satisfaction notion of truth, though it fits nicely with Ramsey’s
work on the nature of theories and their reference, doesn’t need
hypostatic abstraction to be stated. “Snow is white” is true if
and only if snow is white involves only properties. Unless, like
Frege, one thinks that to be true is a relation between a proposition
and the True, which goes a good deal further, and may involve
hypostatic abstraction. But it is late and I am not going to think
that through right now.
John Collier
Professor Emeritus, UKZN
http://web.ncf.ca/collier
FROM: Jerry LR Chandler [mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com]
SENT: Monday, 28 December 2015 9:51 PM
TO: Peirce List
CC: John Collier; Gary Richmond
SUBJECT: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
- meta-languages and propositions of triadicity
John:
Whatever are you seeking to communicate in this post?
These numerous assertions can be interpreted as mutually
contradicting, so it would be nice if you could list the propositions
that are motivating the predications.
One possible interpretation of these sentences is that you are
intentionally denying Tarski’s view of the nature of a proposition
with respect to a meta-language and its material implications for
predications of terms, such as relations / illations / copula (as
“yoking”)
Is my wild guest off-base?
Cheers
Jerry
On Dec 28, 2015, at 6:45 AM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
wrote:
Edwina, List,
I worry a bit about the idea that there are three relations involved
might lead to exactly the mistake that Edwina is arguing against,
that the triadic relation is somehow composed of three more basic
relations. I suggested a while back that the triadic sign relation
is not reducible, and hence can’t be composed of more basic
relations. This is a common situation in emergent phenomena in
general. A decomposition would leave something out, basically the
nonreducibility of the triad, which requires further explanation in
terms of what the triad itself is. This is not to say that Edwina is
not right that there are three relations involved in the triad, and
that ignoring this obscures their role. It’s just that the
relation among them is not simple composition, but a more complexly
organized and irreducible relation (which is the triad itself).
Edwina talks of inputs and outputs. I have no problem with this,
since an irreducible triad can be related to other things via its
nodes. But this is not what Edwina means. She refers to the
relations between the other nodes and the representamen, which is
also OK as long as they are not merely composed to make the triadic
relation. I am a bit puzzled because I count only two relations
here, which are constrained by the two being related to the
representamen in the same way (this is a third relation, but is one
order higher – a relation of the other two relations) than the
other two in specific triad instances, it seems to me). However,
Peirce himself refers to the relation of each of the representamen
and the interpretant to the object (the relationship he calls
“depends on), each in the same way as the other (a third relation,
but as it is a type identity perhaps we can ignore this, since
identity doesn’t introduce anything new). Edwina has a dependency
on the representamen as a mediator. This involves another third,
higher order relation (a relation between relations) between the
object-representamen and interpretant-representamen relations. There
appear to e a plethora of relations contained in (or implied by –
same thing, I would say) the basic triadic sign.
My suggestion earlier was that there is the triadic relation (in
each instance of sign) and that other relations mentioned in the
last paragraph, including the three (two?) Edwina mentions are
arrived at by precision (in this case hypostatic abstraction). I did
not make this last point as clear as I might have in my previous
posts on this issue. Edwina is right that the relata to the
representamen can vary in kind (but across different triads), which
does suggest individuation, but I would argue that on my account of
how Edwina’s (and other) relations implied by the triad fir
together all we need to maintain this type difference is a
difference in types of triadic semiotic relations.
John Collier
Professor Emeritus, UKZN
http://web.ncf.ca/collier [1]
FROM: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca]
SENT: Sunday, 27 December 2015 4:24 PM
TO: Gary Richmond; Peirce-L
SUBJECT: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic
relations
I agree with Gary R's analysis here, and reject Gary F's and Sung's
insistence that the singular term is a sign. Agreed, the 9
parameters, as Gary R, calls them (I call them the 9 Relations)
can't be defined, in themselves, as signs (Gary F), or as Sung terms
them, elementary signs.
Such an approach, in my view, rejects the basic dynamics of Peircean
semiosis and instead, reduces the system to a mechanical one, where
'complex signs' are formed from simple signs. I think that loses the
basic dynamics of the Peircean semiosis.
As for my sticking to my three relations rather than one relation in
the analysis of the triad, I referred to this, privately to John
Deely, as similar to the Christian argument between the Athanasian
versus Arian analysis of the Trinity - with the former viewing the
Trinity as One, and the latter, as three interactions. I am not
persuaded, so far, that my view of the semiosic triad, as a 'whole'
of three relations is wrong, for in my view - to say that it is ONE
relation, misses the fact that each of the three 'nodes' can be in a
different categorical mode. The insistence on the triad as ONE
relation doesn't capture this fact.
Even saying it is One Triadic relation, doesn't, to me, capture that
fact. The Interpretant (output) and the Object (input) relations to
the representamen (sign) can each be in a different categorical
mode, so calling them the SAME relation obscures this fact. What IS
a fact is their dependency on the Representamen as mediator - that
dependency is, to me, the SAME.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
FROM: Gary Richmond
TO: Peirce-L
SENT: Monday, December 21, 2015 9:02 PM
SUBJECT: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
Gary F. list,
Gary wrote:
I think you may be glossing over some important terminological
considerations here, Gary. They may not seem to you important or
even relevant to your present inquiry here--which has come to feel
like a kind of slow read of portions of NDTR--but I think that there
are _crucial_ distinctions to be made here, as difficult as they are
given the various ways Peirce expresses himself at particular phases
and moments of his semiotic analyses in NDTR. You wrote:
GF: Some of the arguments over terminology in this thread make no
positive contribution to this inquiry that I can see. For instance,
if Peirce says that “an _Icon_ is a sign” and “a _Symbol_ is a
sign” (as he does here), I don’t see that we have anything to
gain by asserting that an icon is _not_ a sign, or that a symbol is
_not_ a sign. Peirce’s nomenclature is difficult enough without
introducing claims that directly contradict what he actually says.
However, within the context of the 10 classes of signs, it seems clear
enough, at least to me, that when, for example, he writes "an_Icon_ is
a sign," that he can only mean that the Sign will relate to its Object
in some _iconic_ way, and that he does _not_ mean that the Sign taken
as a whole is an Icon, since signs in themselves are either
qualisigns, sinsigns, or legisigns.
So, to say "an _Icon_ is a sign" seems a kind of loose way of
speaking which has the potential for conflating what I've been
referring to as the 9 parameters (3 x 3 x 3 in consideration of the
categorial possibilities available in relation to the Object, the
Interpretant, or the Sign as such). To confuse those parameters with
the 10 classes--where NOT ONE of the 10 none is an 'Icon' as such, and
where only three are 'iconic', viz. (1, 2, and 5), all
three of these being,
btw, 'rhematic'
. In
like manner, I would NOT characterize the 6 signs of the 10 which
*are* rhematic as 'rhemes"
since
one is a qualisign, two are sinsigns, and three are legisigns. Those
six are not rhemes, but 'rhematic'.
Only one of the six should properly be termed 'rheme' (namely, the
symbolic legisign).
So, again, what I'm suggesting is
that
there is a kind of unfortunate looseness in Peirce's terminology in
the course of his analysis. While this most certain
ly
_is_ problematic, we shouldn't allow that difficulty to lead us into
discussing aspects
(expressed more properly as adjectives)
of the sign
as if they
were the whole of the sign
:
the sign _as_ sign. I do not see this distinction as being, say,
'
fastidious
'
.
In short, one needs to recall that at 2.264 that Peirce writes: "The
three trichotomies of Signs result together in dividing Signs into TEN
CLASSES OF SIGNS," and I consider it a grave error in semiotic
analysis not to clearly distinguish the elements of the trichotomies
from the classes. Or, in other words,
conflating
those three trichotomies involving nine categorial parameters with
the ten classes themselves has, in my opinion, historically brought
about a great deal of confusion, so that it behooves us to clear
up--and not gloss over--the potential confusion
s
resulting from that conflation.
I should add that I agree with you (and what I took John Collier to
be saying recently) in opposing what Edwina has been arguing, namely,
y
our holding, contra Edwina, that the sign is NOT three relations, but
one genuine triadic relation. Peirce has been quoted here repeatedly
as stating that a sign should _NOT__ _be conceived as "a complexus of
dyadic relations" (although, admittedly, his terminology can get a
little loose in this matter as well). Finally, the _integrity_ of the
sign is further emphasized by his insisting that the interpretant
stands in _the same relation_ to the object as the sign itself stands
(I don't see that Edwina deals with that last principle in her
three-relations analysis whatsoever).
You concluded:
GF: I’d like to return to the “mirror” idea that Gary R. picked
up on awhile back, by suggesting that the _involvement_described above
is a sort of mirror image of _degeneracy_, in the way that the two
concepts are applied to these sign types here and in Kaina Stoicheia.
I would very much like to take up this mirror image notion in terms of
involvement (categorial involution) _and_ degeneracy (and the relation
of the two), although I don't think that this thread is the place to
do it. I began another thread on that 'mirror' theme, and perhaps
after the first of the year we can take up these issues there if you
and others are interested.
Meanwhile, I wish you and all Peirce e-forum members a happy, healthy,
and intellectually productive new year!
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 [2]
On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 1:12 PM, <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote:
Resuming the close examination of Peirce’s “Nomenclature and
Divisions of Triadic Relations”, we move on to the second
trichotomy, which divides signs “according as the relation of the
sign to its object consists in the sign's having some character in
itself, or in some existential relation to that object, or in its
relation to an interpretant” (CP 2.243).
My reason for including Peirce’s text in these posts is mostly to
bring us back to his own terminology, since it is _his_analysis of
semiosis that we are investigating here. Some of the arguments over
terminology in this thread make no positive contribution to this
inquiry that I can see. For instance, if Peirce says that “an _Icon_
is a sign” and “a _Symbol_ is a sign” (as he does here), I
don’t see that we have anything to gain by asserting that an icon is
_not_ a sign, or that a symbol is _not_ a sign. Peirce’s
nomenclature is difficult enough without introducing claims that
directly contradict what he actually says.
So here is the second trichotomy:
CP 2.247. According to the second trichotomy, a Sign may be termed an
_Icon,_ an _Index,_ or a _Symbol._
An _Icon_ is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely
by virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses, just the
same, whether any such Object actually exists or not. It is true that
unless there really is such an Object, the Icon does not act as a
sign; but this has nothing to do with its character as a sign.
Anything whatever, be it quality, existent individual, or law, is an
Icon of anything, in so far as it is like that thing and used as a
sign of it.
248. An _Index_ is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes
by virtue of being really affected by that Object. It cannot,
therefore, be a Qualisign, because qualities are whatever they are
independently of anything else. In so far as the Index is affected by
the Object, it necessarily has some Quality in common with the Object,
and it is in respect to these that it refers to the Object. It does,
therefore, involve a sort of Icon, although an Icon of a peculiar
kind; and it is not the mere resemblance of its Object, even in these
respects, which makes it a sign, but it is the actual modification of
it by the Object.
249. A _Symbol_ is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes
by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas, which
operates to cause the Symbol to be interpreted as referring to that
Object. It is thus itself a general type or law, that is, is a
Legisign. As such it acts through a Replica. Not only is it general
itself, but the Object to which it refers is of a general nature. Now
that which is general has its being in the instances which it will
determine. There must, therefore, be existent instances of what the
Symbol denotes, although we must here understand by “existent,”
existent in the possibly imaginary universe to which the Symbol
refers. The Symbol will indirectly, through the association or other
law, be affected by those instances; and thus the Symbol will involve
a sort of Index, although an Index of a peculiar kind. It will not,
however, be by any means true that the slight effect upon the Symbol
of those instances accounts for the significant character of the
Symbol.
Let’s compare what Peirce says about each sign type in this second
trichotomy with his definition of the three types in the first
trichotomy. Since the Qualisign and the Icon are each first in their
respective trichotomies, each exemplifies Firstness, but in a
different way. The Firstness of the Qualisign is its being a quality
in itself. The Firstness of the Icon, on the other hand, is the
Firstness of its relation to its Object, specifically the fact that it
“refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters
of its own, and which it possesses, just the same, whether any such
Object actually exists or not.”
Now compare the Secondness of the Index in its trichotomy with the
Secondness of the Sinsign, which is its being an actual existent thing
or event. The Index “refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue
of being really affected by that Object.” Again, its Secondness is
that of its relation to its Object — which, as a genuine Secondness,
_involves_ a Firstness (namely “a sort of Icon”). The
_peculiarity_ of that Firstness, I would guess, is that its genuine
Secondness to the Object_DOES _have something to do with its
character, which is not the case with the Icon as defined above.
Finally, we come to the Thirdness of the Symbol in its trichotomy. The
Thirdness of a Legisign is that it is in itself a “law” and a
“general type.” The Symbol, being also a Legisign, is general in
its mode of being but _also_ in its relation to its Object. This
entails that it acts through a Replica, _and_ that there must be
existent instances of what the Symbol denotes, although we must here
understand by “existent,” existent in the possibly imaginary
universe to which the Symbol refers. Hence, just as genuine Secondness
involves Firstness, so also does the Thirdness of a Symbol _involve_
Secondness, in the form of “a sort of Index, although an Index of a
peculiar kind.”
To close, I’d like to return to the “mirror” idea that Gary R.
picked up on awhile back, by suggesting that the
_involvement_described above is a sort of mirror image of
_degeneracy_, in the way that the two concepts are applied to these
sign types here and in Kaina Stoicheia. I won’t elaborate on that,
though, but just wish everyone a happy Solstice!
Gary f.
} We are natural expressions of a deeper order. [Stuart Kauffman] {
http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ [3] }{ _Turning Signs_ gateway
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY
ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go
topeirc...@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to
PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe
PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm [4] .
-------------------------
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY
ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go
topeirc...@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to
PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe
PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm [4] .
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY
ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to
PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe
PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm [4] .
Links:
------
[1] http://web.ncf.ca/collier
[2] tel:718%20482-5690
[3] http://gnusystems.ca/wp/
[4] http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm
