Jon A.S., John C.,
In the quotation cited by Jon, it is clear from the context that the word “subject” is being used as a more technical term for “thing” — i.e. in the sense of subject given in the Century Dictionary as follows: 7. In metaph.: (a) A real thing to which given characters relate and in which they are said to inhere. That which manifests its qualities—in other words, that in which the appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong—is called their subject, or substance, or substratum. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaphysics, viii. Peirce is not using it either in the Kantian sense or in the sense of the component of a proposition opposed to the predicate. Peirce did not use the word interchangeably with predicate, as should be clear from the Stjernfelt passage cited. He very often, however, used the terms sign and representamen interchangeably. Jon’s points are all well taken, in my opinion. Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 30-Mar-17 09:33 To: John Collier <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] semantic problem with the term John C., List: [John Collier] Peirce uses “sign” in both ways, which can be confusing. Perhaps I missed them, but I am not aware of any passages where Peirce used "sign" to mean a "triad" or a "triadic function" that consists of the representamen, object, and interpretant. If there are such passages, I would be grateful for the citations so that I can take a look at them. Would you at least agree that Peirce predominantly used "sign" in the way that I am advocating? [John Collier] I suspect that Peirce meant universe of discourse, which is quite a different thing from a universe (as in, say, Popper). Maybe, but Peirce also discussed three "Universes of Experience" in "A Neglected Argument," written earlier the same year as the letter to Welby; and those seem to have metaphysical significance, since he explicitly affirmed the Reality of all three. In any case, the names that he assigned to the semeiotic constituents of the Universes--Possibles, Existents, and Necessitants--imply that they correspond to the different modes of being. [John Collier] Peirce uses “subject” in a rather strange way in which predicates can be subjects. Stjernfelt, Natural Propositions, 6.10 Hypostatic abstraction. In the passage that I cited (EP 2:411; 1907), I think it is clear that Peirce was not referring to the sign, object, and interpretant as predicates when he called them "subjects" ... CSP: (It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis. All dynamical action, or action of brute force, physical or psychical, either takes place between two subjects,—whether they react equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient, entirely or partially,—or at any rate is a resultant of such actions between pairs. But by "semiosis" I mean, on the contrary, an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs. Σημείωσις in Greek of the Roman period, as early as Cicero's time, if I remember rightly, meant the action of almost any kind of sign; and my definition confers on anything that so acts the title of a "sign.") ... especially given the particular definition of "sign" to which he referred here, which appears on the previous page (EP 2:410). CSP: I will say that a sign is anything, of whatsoever mode of being, which mediates between an object and an interpretant; since it is both determined by the object relatively to the interpretant, and determines the interpretant in reference to the object, in such wise as to cause the interpretant to be determined by the object through the mediation of this "sign." The object and the interpretant are thus merely the two correlates of the sign; the one being antecedent, the other consequent of the sign. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
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