Jon S, Jeff,
Having just caught up with this exchange, I think I’m in substantial agreement with both of you. A couple of generalized observations about the classification of signs: Peirce says in the very first paragraph of NDTR that “Even after we seem to identify the varieties called for a priori with varieties which the experience of reflexion leads us to think important, no slight labour is required to make sure that the divisions we have found a posteriori are precisely those that have been predicted a priori. In most cases, we find that they are not precisely identical, owing to the narrowness of our reflexional experience.” By “reflexional experience” I think he means the experience of reflecting on our actual experience of semiosis, i.e. on the collateral experience which bestows acquaintance with signs as the objects of the signs we are reflecting with. This is the inductive part of semiotics, and as we all know, induction is never completed. It is however always performed with emphasis on some aspects of that collateral experience while others are relatively neglected. It is accordingly too much to expect that the various analyses of sign types will be as perfectly consistent with each other as an a priori analysis can be. I think the same principle applies to the differences among us in how to read Peirce’s explanations: our various interpretant schemas are not signs of exactly the same objects, because we differ in our collateral experience of semiosis, and in our “reflexional experience” as well. John Collier remarked offlist to me that he’s never satisfied with verbal explanations because words are slippery. That’s true, but I think it’s worth pointing out that diagrams are also slippery with respect to their connection with their dynamic objects — in this case, with the semiosis we know from everyday experience. Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 18-Apr-17 08:29 To: Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: Fw: [PEIRCE-L] Dyadic relations within the triadic Jeff, List: JD: I'm simply asking if there is any way to square what he seems to be saying on the face of the text in NDTR with what he says later--without supposing that he made a mistake or changed his mind. It is a question worth asking and exploring, but so far I have not been able to come up with another viable explanation. JD: In fact, the account I'm offering is a suitably contracted version of the interpretation provided by Irwin Lieb in the appendix to the letters. Placing the Interpretant before the Sign-Object relation in the order of determination entails that a Symbol can only produce a thought as its effect, never an action or a feeling. But Peirce specifically offered the example of the command, "Ground arms!" as a Symbol that produces an action (rifle butts hitting the ground) as its Dynamic Interpretant. JD: I am aware that none of the passages I've cited above settles the matter completely. I doubt that the matter will ever be settled completely. I am starting to think that Jappy may be on to something by suggesting that the correlate trichotomies and relation trichotomies are fundamentally incompatible. The 1903 classification is based mainly on how the Sign represents its Object for its Interpretant, while the 1908 classification is based on what kinds of Objects and Interpretants the Sign represents and determines, respectively. Thanks, Jon S. On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 1:24 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Jon S, Gary F, Gary R, List, Responses to Jon S's remarks are interpolated: * Your diagram shows the usual order of determination--Second Correlate (Object), then First Correlate (Sign), then Third Correlate (Interpretant). As Gary F. and I have finally agreed, this directly contradicts CP 2.235-238, which (incorrectly) requires the order to be Third Correlate, then Second Correlate, then First Correlate. I am aware of the point you are making. As I said earlier, different inferences can be drawn from the apparent tension between what he says at CP 2.235-238 and what he says elsewhere. The editors of the CP suggest in the footnote that it was a simple error on Peirce's part in that he inadvertently switched the terms around (i.e., first correlate, second correlate, third correlate) in the explanation. In the later manuscripts I've been transcribing, he makes quite a number of such mistakes--and then he often later goes back and corrects them some days later when he revises the passages. You seem to be suggesting that it isn't an error in the text. Rather, Peirce had one view in NDTR and then later changed his position. I'm simply asking if there is any way to square what he seems to be saying on the face of the text in NDTR with what he says later--without supposing that he made a mistake or changed his mind. Often, when he changes his mind, he says so and explains why he has made such a change. * Your diagram locates the Interpretant between the Sign and the Sign-Object relation, such that the Interpretant determines the Sign-Object relation. I do not believe that anything in NDTR warrants this; in fact, I am skeptical that anything in Peirce's entire corpus of writings warrants this. Can you show me otherwise? In my explanation, I articulate my interpretative goal, which is to read NDTR in light of the later writings including the letters to Lady Welby. In fact, the account I'm offering is a suitably contracted version of the interpretation provided by Irwin Lieb in the appendix to the letters. (Lieb, Irwin C. "On Peirce's Classification of Signs." Semiotic and Significs. The Correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby (1977): 160-166.) * Your diagram and subsequent comments treat the third trichotomy from the NDTR Sign classification as corresponding to the dyadic Sign-Interpretant relation. Again, I do not believe that anything in NDTR warrants this; on the contrary, it seems to correspond instead to how the Sign determines the Interpretant in respect to its Object per CP 2.241, 2.243, and 2.250-252. For starters, see the response above. Peirce addresses this question in a number of places, and he suggests that the basis of the classification of the sign as a rheme, dicisign and argument in terms of the relation between the sign and interpretant varies in each case. In general, I think it is worth keeping in mind that there are a wide range of different classes of dyadic relations, and that we can attend to these kinds of relations (i.e., as dyads) even when they are parts of larger triadic relations. (see CP 1.559; 2.94; 2.315; 4.572; 5.137-50; 5.473) In the last passage cited, he says: Whether the interpretant be necessarily a triadic result is a question of words, that is, of how we limit the extension of the term "sign"; but it seems to me convenient to make the triadic production of the interpretant essential to a "sign," calling the wider concept like a Jacquard loom, for example, a "quasi-sign." On these terms, it is very easy (not descending to niceties with which I will not annoy your readers) to see what the interpretant of a sign is: it is all that is explicit in the sign itself apart from its context and circumstances of utterance. Still, there is a possible doubt as to where the line should be drawn between the interpretant and the object [5.473]. I am aware that none of the passages I've cited above settle the matter entirely. Having said that, I'm following an established line of interpretation that has been around for some time (in the writings of Weiss and Burks as well as Lieb--and I'm siding with the latter where they disagree about the order of determination). As I've suggested, I'm reading NDTR in light of NDDR and in light of the detailed classification of dyadic and triadic relations in "The Logic of Mathematics." Hope that helps, --Jeff On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 12:56 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Gary F, Jon S, Gary R, List, {Note: the diagram in the previous message was not rendered in the copy sent to me. As such, here is another try with the diagram.} Jon S. has pointed out a potential problem with the standard reading of the character of the three correlates of a genuine triadic relation and the account in NDTR of what determines what in the semiotic process. What is more, he suggests a way out of the potential problem, although it involves having the interpretant determine the sign--which seems to be at odds with what Peirce says in many places. Before we draw an interpretative conclusion that Peirce tried out a different account in NDTR and then later changed his mind, or that he made a mistake in this essay, I'm wondering if there are other options for interpreting the text that are consistent with what he says. It will help, I think, to keep in mind that the triadic relations between sign, object and interpretant can be arranged such that all three have the same modal character or such there is a mixed kind of relation between correlates having different modal characters. In NDDR, Peirce points out that, in most of his earlier writings on logic, he focused on logical systems in which the dyadic relations are all existential in character. Having said that, he also considered dyadic relations between possibles and between necessitants as well as those that have a mixed modal character in an appendix to NDDR. These modal relations are front and center, for instance, in the development of the lines of potentiality in the gamma graphs, but we'll leave these kinds of points to the side for now. In order to keep the relations between the correlates of a genuine triadic relationship clearer, I'd like to follow his suggestion that we think of the modal character of the three correlates as being arranged in strata--such that there is a level of possibles, a level of existents and a level of necessitants. Here is a diagram of the three levels, where the dotted arrows are the relations of determination between the correlates and the dyadic relations between the two correlates--interpreted in light of and in a manner that is consistent with the later writings on semiotics. The colored boxes mark the points that are central in the 10-fold classification of signs. Keeping this in mind, we need to sort out the different classes of signs that are based on the different kinds of genuine triadic relations--and these may be different from the classes that are based on the dyadic relations between the three correlates. As we have seen, there appears to be two ways of making the classifications: 1. Triadic relations are in three ways divisible by trichotomy, according as the First, the Second, or the Third Correlate, respectively, is a mere possibility, an actual existent, or a law. These three trichotomies, taken together, divide all triadic relations into ten classes. These ten classes will have certain subdivisions according as the existent correlates are individual subjects or individual facts, and according as the correlates that are laws are general subjects, general modes of fact, or general modes of law. (CP 2.238) 2. There will be besides a second similar division of triadic relations into ten classes, according as the dyadic relations which they constitute between either the First and Second Correlates, or the First and Third, or the Second and Third are of the nature of possibilities, facts, or laws; and these ten classes will be subdivided in different ways. (CP 2.239) On its face, the distinction between the qualisign, sinsign and legisign would appear to be based on the considerations are highlighted in (1) (and the same holds for the later division between signs that are abstractives, occurrences and collectives, and the division between signs that are emotional, energetic and normal), which ask us to focus our attention on the modal character of the correlates themselves. The distinctions between icons, indices and symbols and between rhemes, dicisigns and arguments would appear to be based on the considerations that are highlighted in (2), which ask us to focus on the dyadic relation between two correlates (and this holds as well for the later division between signs that are suggestives, imperatives and indicatives). Based on a reading of "The Logic of Mathematics, an attempt to develop my categories from within," I think it is reasonable to suppose that thoroughly genuine triadic relations have a special sort of iterative pattern. This pattern is highlighted in his many definitions of the sign--both early and late. In NDTR, he puts the point in these terms: A Representamen is the First Correlate of a triadic relation, the Second Correlate being termed its Object, and the possible Third Correlate being termed its Interpretant, by which triadic relation the possible Interpretant is determined to be the First Correlate of the same triadic relation to the same Object, and for some possible Interpretant. (CP 2.242) Let me highlight what he seems to suggesting when he asserts that "the possible Interpretant is determined to be the First Correlate of the same triadic relation to the same Object, and for some possible Interpretant." In order to keep things simple, consider just one step in the iterative process. It appears that the interpretant in the first triadic relation (i.e., the third correlate) itself functions as a sign with respect to some further interpretant in a second triadic relation (i.e., as the first correlate)--where the object that determines the interpretant in the first triadic relation does so mediately through the sign (i.e., via particular a sort of triadic relation) and does so in a way that ensures the same object is also the object that mediately determines the interpretant in the second triadic relation. In order to sort this out, consider the three strata in the diagram above. Note that the interpretant in each level also functions as a sign for some further interpretant--but for the same some object. As such, we might imagine putting that interpretant into the sign position in each place where it occurs in the diagram--and then to have the same object standing in the place of each place with the object occurs in the diagram, and then we would have two diagrams--one for the relations of determination in the first triadic relation and another for the relations of determination in the second triadic relation. What we would be missing in the two diagrams are the relations of determination between the two triadic relations. As such, try to picture how those might be diagrammed (i.e., in my experience, that is not a simple matter). The identity of the object standing in iterated patterns of signs and interpretants seems to be crucial to understanding how the semiotic process is continuous. The object, we should recall, does not need to be the kind of thing that we normally think of as an existing individual thing distinct from the mind. Rather, consider the point that Peirce makes about objects in relation to indices in the case of mathematical inquiry: The above considerations might lead the reader to suppose that indices have exclusive reference to objects of experience, and that there would be no use for them in pure mathematics, dealing, as it does, with ideal properties of a small bar are, as far as we can perceive, the same as those of a large creations, without regard to whether they are anywhere realized or not. But the imaginary constructions of the mathematician, and even dreams, so far approximate to reality as to have a certain degree of fixity, in consequence of which they can be recognized and identified as individuals. In short, there is a degenerate form of observation which is directed to the creations of our own minds--using the word observation in its full sense as implying some degree of fixity and quasi-reality in the object to which it endeavours to conform. Accordingly, we find that indices are absolutely indispensable in mathematics; and until this truth was comprehended, all efforts to reduce to rule the logic of triadic and higher relations failed; while as soon as it was once grasped the problem was solved. The ordinary letters of algebra that present no peculiarities are indices. So also are the letters A, B, C, etc., attached to a geometrical figure. (CP 2.305) The point he is making here holds for any object that is an object in a diagram. As we know, diagrams are essential in all processes of semiosis. As such, it might help to consider the role of such objects and the manner in which they stand in relations of correspondence to indices in the relations of determination sketched in the diagram above. I'm wondering if these points might help us to interpret what Peirce is suggesting in CP 2.235-6--and if they might help to resolve some of the apparent tensions. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 <tel:(928)%20523-8354>
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