Gary R, thanks for finding that quote from Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking (p. 234-5)! I recalled something like that but couldn’t find it.
I too am called away today, so will have to get back to the thread later — also to John’s post in the other thread, which is also a rich one … Gary f. From: Gary Richmond [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 30-May-17 17:13 Gary F, Jon, John S, List, I've limited time today as the USA Memorial Day 3 day holiday has me somewhat behind schedule. But to help keep the ball rolling (as I hope it will), I'll just briefly comment on a few excerpts from your message today and your "Rhematics" blog post. As you know I think that post would be an excellent place to springboard into a conversation on its topic. As I began my comment on your blog: GR: This succinct, yet also rich and complex analysis of the relationship of Peirce’s semeiotic trichotomy of rheme/dicisign/argument to Aristotle’s pioneering work, and in particular how “there is a kind of continuity with Aristotle’s usage of rhema for a ‘verb’ as distinguished from a ‘noun’ ” ought to be reflected on by anyone doing work in . . . semeiotics, And a major part of this "complexity" for me concerns the tricategoriality involved. So, again, I'd encourage list members to read that blog entry (which you've linked to in what I've quoted below). You concluded today by writing: GF: . . . logicians err in separating the copula from the predicate in their analysis of propositions – and the error seems to arise from a psycholinguistic prejudice which prevents them seeing the primacy of verbs over common nouns. You continued with a quotation from EP2:285 which ends: . . . almost every family of man thinks of general words as parts of verbs. This seems to refute the logicians' psychology. This made me think of a passage where Peirce illustrates this principle: Whenever I speak of a term I always mean a rhema. The difference is that a term is the equivalent of a common noun and cannot form the predicate of a proposition unless a verb is inserted, while a rhema contains a verb within itself. Thus, "butcher" is a term, "is a butcher" is a rhema, and so is "slaughters." In primitive languages there is strictly no such thing as a common noun. Old Egyptian and Arabic are instances. What proves this is that if in those languages one wishes to say "Smith is a butcher" and one feels the need of inserting something between "Smith" and "butcher," instead of feeling that a verb is needed, it will be a pronoun that will be inserted. . . . Since nothing is essential to a term except its containing at least one blank, it is plain that this blank form may contain demonstrative pronouns or proper names, that is, indicative words.Thus, in Arabic one will say "Smith he butcher." No verb is ever introduced unless a definite meaning is attached to it, as in "Became Smith butcher" or "Remains Smith butcher" or "Continues Smith butcher" and in Egyptian the word pu, which is often translated "is," is unquestionably a relative or originally a demonstrative pronoun [note: elsewhere Peirce offers "which" as the Ancient Egyptian pronoun GR]. Indeed even in Greek a verb is not necessary in a sentence, and though Aristotle sometimes makes the verb a separate part of the proposition in accordance with one mode of expression in the Greek language, he does not usually do so; so that what modern and medieval logicians called the copula of a proposition never received a name until the time of Abelard. You concluded your message by commenting on the proposition in light of this principle: GF: This explains why Peirce analyzes the proposition into subject and predicate, rather than following the traditional three-term analysis into subject, predicate and copula. Peirce’s logic has here come a long way from Aristotle's distinction between onoma and rhema (see http://gnusystems.ca/wp/2017/05/rhematics/), but in my view the developmental path has been continuous in all its twists and turns. Or, as you put it in the conclusion of your blog post: GF: Through all these conceptual and terminological changes, there is a kind of continuity with Aristotle’s usage of rhema for a “verb” as distinguished from a “noun” (onoma). Peirce uses rheme for a predicate as opposed to a subject of a proposition. Both predicates and subjects can be called “terms,” but in Existential Graphs that represent propositions, rhemes are primarily signs of qualitative possibility or Firstness while the latter are primarily signs of actual existence or Secondness. The joining or copulation of predicate and subject is the key to the act of meaning performed by the proposition, just as the joining of icon and index is key to the <http://gnusystems.ca/TS/scp.htm#symcity> informing power of a symbol, its genuine Thirdness [emphasis added by GR]. I find the comparison in your final sentence of considerable interest, and hope we can discuss it in this thread. I wish I had time today to write more, but vitally important tasks need to be taken up now. Best, Gary R
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