Jeff, list,
I agree that Peirce's post-1903 distinctions are semeiotic developments of more basic logical (or ontological) distinctions, or as you put it, "at root, the same basic conceptual distinctions worked out in more refined ways. The new terminology of immediate and dynamical for objects and interpretants is used to capture finer distinctions involving much finer grained explanations ." But in the case of the objects, I don't think that any of his earlier expressions of the basic distinction express the need for it more clearly than the 1906 text I quoted: the distinction is needed to resolve the seeming paradox that the real Object of a thought-sign has to be both independent of and internal to the sign. The cognitive paradox is well expressed in this quotation which Peirce cited in his Century Dictionary definition of "thought": [[ Thought is, in every case, the cognition of an object, which really, actually, existentially out of thought, is ideally, intellectually, intelligibly within it; and just because within in the latter sense, is it known as actually without in the former. - G.J. Stokes, The Objectivity of Truth (1884), p. 53 ]] A similar paradox applies to any cognitive sign which has a dynamic interpretant, i.e. an effect on the reality external to the sign. Gary f. From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu] Sent: 23-Aug-16 13:18 To: 'Peirce-L' <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>; g...@gnusystems.ca Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Dynamic/Immediate Object and Determination/Causation Gary F, List, On your suggestions, let's make some smaller steps. You say: "Now, as others have pointed out, Peirce did not introduce the distinction between immediate and dynamic object until around 1904, and I think his clearest explanation of the need for this distinction comes at the end of this paragraph from a 1906 draft letter to Welby." I would put the point differently. It may be the case that Peirce introduced the terms "immediate object" and "dynamic object" in 1904 and laid out a relatively clear explanation of how those terms should be used in the larger classificatory scheme of signs in the 1906 letter. Having said that, I don't believe that Peirce introduced the conceptual distinction into his philosophical framework at that time. In fact, Peirce used different terms earlier (i.e., primary object and secondary object) in 1902 (CP 3.11) in an attempt to work through the same sorts of conceptual distinctions. I believe he was already, in 1959, trying to refine a Kantian distinction in opposition to Berkeley when made a deliberate decision to make use of these concepts. He stresses the differences between 1st the thing regarded simply, 2nd the object or thing regarded as thought of, 3rd the act of thinking, 4th the phenomenon or thought, and 5th the thinker. (W, 42). Then, as he beings to work out his account of the categories and the fundamental relations between signs, objects and interpretants, he is putting the conceptual distinction to good use in 1866 in his account of the double and triple reference to both correlates and objects (W, 524-8). The clarification of the need for making the conceptual distinction (i.e., within the context of his account of the fundamental categories that are needed for the theory of logic) is made at about this time. On my reading of the development of his thought, he already has many of the basic points in place that he needs to make a fairly clear conceptual distinction between different kinds of interpretants. There are three unprescindible references to interpretants: reference of the likeness to its interpretant; reference of the index to its interpretant, and reference of the symbol to its interpretant. Each of these is, of course, understood in terms of the reference of the likeness, index and symbol to their grounds and/or objects. Peirce seems to affirm these interpretative points about the development of his thought when he reflects, time and again in the 1890's and 1900's, and is surprised to see just how little was really needed in the way of changes in these basic ideas. He attributes this surprising fact to the great fortune of having landed on an apt method for conducting these logical inquiries. One might suggest that these earlier conceptual distinctions are very different in character from those being used 40 year later in the 66-fold classification of signs. I, on the other hand, believe that they are at root, the same basic conceptual distinctions worked out in more refined ways. The new terminology of immediate and dynamical for objects and interpretants is used to capture finer distinctions involving much finer grained explanations of the different kinds of relations that are involved and that can evolve, but the basic structure of reference to ground, reference to correlate and reference to interpretant along with single, double and triple reference are still there--providing a relatively secure anchor for the evolving semiotic theory. I am not the first to make such a suggestion. In Masato Ishida's Dissertation, A PHILOSOPHICAL COMMENTARY ON C. S. PEIRCE'S "ON A NEW LIST OF CATEGORIES": EXHIBITING LOGICAL STRUCTURE AND ABIDING RELEVANCE, he argues in chapters 6 and 7 for the same general theses. If you've not seen this work, let me know and I provide a copy. For those who are interested in Peirce's arguments in the "New List," it is worth a careful read. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 _____ From: g...@gnusystems.ca <mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca> <g...@gnusystems.ca <mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca> > Sent: Monday, August 22, 2016 11:17 AM To: 'Peirce-L' Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Dynamic/Immediate Object and Determination/Causation Jeff, this is quite an elaborate project you've laid out for us! I'm eager to see what comes out of it, but at the same time I feel the need to take it in small steps (anyway that's all I will have time to do). It seems to me that a pragmatic classification system always begins with a perceived need to make distinctions (or "divisions") - which then proliferate as new needs arise. Now, as others have pointed out, Peirce did not introduce the distinction between immediate and dynamic object until around 1904, and I think his clearest explanation of the need for this distinction comes at the end of this paragraph from a 1906 draft letter to Welby: [[ I use the word "Sign" in the widest sense for any medium for the communication or extension of a Form (or feature). Being medium, it is determined by something, called its Object, and determines something, called its Interpretant or Interpretand. But some distinctions have to be borne in mind in order rightly to understand what is meant by the Object and by the Interpretant. In order that a Form may be extended or communicated, it is necessary that it should have been really embodied in a Subject independently of the communication; and it is necessary that there should be another subject in which the same form is embodied only in consequence of the communication. The Form (and the Form is the Object of the Sign), as it really determines the former Subject, is quite independent of the sign; yet we may and indeed must say that the object of a sign can be nothing but what that sign represents it to be. Therefore, in order to reconcile these apparently conflicting truths, it is indispensable to distinguish the immediate object from the dynamical object. ] SS 196, EP2:477] I think we often use the term "dynamic object" when what we have in mind is the "Subject" in which the Form "is really embodied independently of the communication," i.e. external to the sign. But if we regard the Form as the Object, as Peirce does here, then it becomes clear that the immediate object is that Form as embodied in the other subject, the one affected by the sign so that communication is effected; and this embodiment is not "independent of the communication" but is internal to the sign, i.e. to the medium of communication. There's also a very similar passage in EP2:544n22, which adds a bit more explanatory detail: [[ For the purpose of this inquiry a Sign may be defined as a Medium for the communication of a Form. It is not logically necessary that anything possessing consciousness, that is, feeling of the peculiar common quality of all our feeling, should be concerned. But it is necessary that there should be two, if not three, quasi-minds, meaning things capable of varied determination as to forms of the kind communicated. As a medium, the Sign is essentially in a triadic relation, to its Object which determines it, and to its Interpretant which it determines. In its relation to the Object, the Sign is passive; that is to say, its correspondence to the Object is brought about by an effect upon the Sign, the Object remaining unaffected. On the other hand, in its relation to the Interpretant the Sign is active, determining the Interpretant without being itself thereby affected. But at this point certain distinctions are called for. That which is communicated from the Object through the Sign to the Interpretant is a Form. It is not a singular thing; for if a singular thing were first in the Object and afterward in the Interpretant outside the Object, it must thereby cease to be in the Object. The Form that is communicated does not necessarily cease to be in one thing when it comes to be in a different thing, because its being is a being of the predicate. The Being of a Form consists in the truth of a conditional proposition. Under given circumstances, something would be true. The Form is in the Object, entitatively we may say, meaning that that conditional relation, or following of consequent upon reason, which constitutes the Form, is literally true of the Object. In the Sign the Form may or may not be embodied entitatively, but it must be embodied representatively, that is, in respect to the Form communicated, the Sign produces upon the Interpretant an effect similar to that which the Object itself would under favorable circumstances. ]]
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