> On Aug 25, 2016, at 10:24 AM, <[email protected]> <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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 a good example. However I think when you say determines the word it raises some issues. This is where I think Peirce sometimes isn’t as clear as he could be and later semiotic writers like Eco help clarify things (even if they confuse other matters). Eco introduces the notion of a code which governs not only interpreting sign-vehicles (like a word) but also choosing them in a conversation. A way to think of this then is that there are two immediate objects. The first is the immediate object in the sense of the object we’re attempting to represent. In this case the weather outside as understood by speakers in the conversation. The second is the code or in Peirce’s term the words, their denotations and connotations as understood by speakers. So if Peirce says to his wife, “it’s cloud out,” this requires not just some common understanding of the weather outside, but common understanding of weather across experiences as well as the meaning of the word “cloud” as it relates to those experiences. The immediate object of the weather outside as understood can’t determine the word choice of “cloudy” except to the degree it’s associated with the general notion of cloudiness and the general notion of the word “cloudy.” In a sense all of these together are the immediate object. But in an other sense only the cloudiness outside as understood is the immediate object. This confusion between the object being represented and the code used to choose a sign to represent it is what I suspect leads to the misunderstanding. That’s why I like Eco’s notion of code even if one can deal with it all in more Peircean terms if one wishes.
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