Jon, you ask,
JAS: How can the Immediate Object "lack the efficiency to determine signs" if it is precisely the Immediate Object that determines the Sign? I was afraid you’d ask me that … but fortunately, Jeff has already done most of the work toward a good answer, so I can keep mine fairly short. But first I should mention that although Peirce did say that “the Dynamoid Object determines the Immediate Object, which determines the Sign itself,” etc., I think that formulation is misleading because it suggests a linear chain of determinations, glossing over the fact that all of these determinations are nested within the essential triadic relation of the Sign “to its Object which determines it, and to its Interpretant which it determines” (EP2:544 n22). So, it is not precisely the Immediate Object that determines the Sign. in the case of Peirce’s conversation with his wife about the weather, the immediate object of his reply (“the notion of the present weather so far as this is common to her mind and mine”) will partially determine what words he will choose to refer to what he sees outside the window. Given that the immediate object is internal to the sign, it’s hard to see how it could determine the whole sign to determine an interpretant; all it can do is determine some subsidiary aspects of it, such as the verbal aspects. When the Sign is a proposition, as it is here, it is determined by its Object to determine an Interpretant by denoting its object and signifying something by connecting a predicate to its subject. It’s only when we analyze the process further that we find an immediate object carrying one part of the determination load. That’s my explanation for now, anyway. And no, I don’t think it works to call the dynamic object a virtual immediate object. Too many adjectives. :) That’s all I have time for today, and I haven’t even read the messages that arrived while I was writing that … Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 25-Aug-16 11:05 To: Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]> Cc: Peirce-L <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Dynamic/Immediate Object and Determination/Causation Gary F., List: JS: For example, the Immediate Object is not a Dynamic Object, but it has the efficiency of a Dynamic Object; it is, so to speak, a virtual Dynamic Object, or perhaps just a virtual Object. Is that right? GF: I don’t think so. In that case, is it the other way around--the Dynamic Object is a virtual Immediate Object? Or is there no connection between "virtually contained" in this context and Peirce's dictionary definition of "virtual"? GF: “Virtual Object” would not serve to replace “Immediate Object” here, because a virtual object would have the “efficiency” of an object without being one, while the immediate objects of both question and reply here ARE objects (they are what the interlocutors are paying attention to) but they lack the efficiency to determine the signs to informed interpretants. How can the Immediate Object "lack the efficiency to determine signs" if it is precisely the Immediate Object that determines the Sign? Are we using "determine" in two different senses here? Thanks, Jon On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 9:20 AM, <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Jon, regarding your question — [ My next question is how to translate this adverbial form into Peirce's dictionary definition of the adjective "virtual." If X virtually contains Y, is it then proper to say that Y is a virtual X--i.e., that Y is not an X, but has the efficiency of an X? For example, the Immediate Object is not a Dynamic Object, but it has the efficiency of a Dynamic Object; it is, so to speak, a virtual Dynamic Object, or perhaps just a virtual Object. Is that right? ] I don’t think so. What makes a Dynamic Object dynamic — and efficient — (as in “efficient cause”) — is its genuine Secondness to the sign, and the Immediate Object has only a degenerate secondness to it. I think the specific example that Peirce gave in a 1909 letter to James is a good test case for applying these terminologies: [[ suppose I awake in the morning before my wife, and that afterwards she wakes up and inquires, “What sort of a day is it?” This is a sign, whose Object, as expressed, is the weather at that time, but whose Dynamical Object is the impression which I have presumably derived from peeping between the window-curtains. Whose Interpretant, as expressed, is the quality of the weather, but whose Dynamical Interpretant, is my answering her question. But beyond that, there is a third Interpretant. The Immediate Interpretant is what the Question expresses, all that it immediately expresses, which I have imperfectly restated above. The Dynamical Interpretant is the actual effect that it has upon me, its interpreter. But the Significance of it, the Ultimate, or Final, Interpretant is her purpose in asking it, what effect its answer will have as to her plans for the ensuing day. I reply, let us suppose: “It is a stormy day.” Here is another sign. Its Immediate Object is the notion of the present weather so far as this is common to her mind and mine,—not the character of it, but the identity of it. The Dynamical Object is the identity of the actual and Real meteorological conditions at the moment. The Immediate Interpretant is the schema in her imagination, i.e. the vague Image or what there is in common to the different Images of a stormy day. The Dynamical Interpretant is the disappointment or whatever actual effect it at once has upon her. The Final Interpretant is the sum of the Lessons of the reply, Moral, Scientific, etc. ]] “Virtual Object” would not serve to replace “Immediate Object” here, because a virtual object would have the “efficiency” of an object without being one, while the immediate objects of both question and reply here ARE objects (they are what the interlocutors are paying attention to) but they lack the efficiency to determine the signs to informed interpretants. Gary f.
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