> On Feb 11, 2017, at 12:59 PM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> wrote: > > On the sign's object as ultimately the universe of discourse of the (more > explicit) object, I was discussing Peirce's view. > > 1909 | Letters to William James | EP 2:492 > http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letters-william-james-6 > <http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letters-william-james-6> > > A Sign is a Cognizable that, on the one hand, is so determined (i.e., > specialized, _bestimmt_) by something other than itself, called its Object > (or, in some cases, as if the Sign be the sentence “Cain killled Abel,” in > which Cain and Abel are equally Partial Objects, it may be more convenient to > say that that which determines the Sign is the Complexus, or Totality, of > Partial Objects. And in every case the Object is accurately the Universe of > which the Special Object is member, or part), while, on the other hand, it so > determines some actual or potential Mind, the determination whereof I term > the Interpretant created by the Sign, that that Interpreting Mind is therein > determined mediately by the Object. > [End quote] > > For example, a perturbation of Pluto's orbit is a sign about Pluto, but not > only about Pluto. > >
This gets at the importance of a kind of holism for Peirce that surprisingly doesn’t get remarked upon as much as Quine’s. (Even though people pointed out the parallel to Quine who then wrote a paper about his ignorance of Peirce) The tricky bit is really the different types of universes of discourses. We talked about that just a few weeks ago so I’ll not bring it up again. But I completely agree with you that we can’t really separate out the type of generality and reality without talking about these universes. Like you I tend to think most of the debate on all this depends upon equivocation over terms. That’s why the pragmatic maxim comes in handy as it cuts confusion between say an unicorn of a novel’s fictional world from an unicorn in the regular world by asking how we’d measure it.
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
