Helmut, It’s not that complicated.
A triad is a set of three — three of anything. A trichotomy is a division of something into three — usually a division of a type into three classes, or subtypes. For example, signs can be subdivided into three classes, in various ways: icon/index/symbol, rheme/dicisign/argument, and so on. Peirce’s classification of signs includes ten trichotomies. In Peirce’s analysis of semiosis, every sign is correlated with an object and an interpretant, and the interrelation of the three is called a triadic relation because it relates a triad of correlates. Peirce’s “categories” could be called a “triad” because there are three of them, but Peirce rarely if ever calls them a “triad.” He doesn’t call them a “trichotomy” either: they are “irreducible elements” of any and all phenomena, according to Peirce’s phaneroscopic analysis, so they are not arrived at by dividing phenomena into classes. They are arrived at by prescinding from phenomena, by “prescissive abstraction.” Gary f. <http://gnusystems.ca/wp/> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway From: Helmut Raulien [mailto:h.raul...@gmx.de] Sent: 3-Aug-17 15:55 Kirsti, List, For me both (classification and triads) was and still is complex and hard to understand. Before I have had a more or less proper understanding of the sign triad, I did not understand sign classes, eg. what would be the difference between "qualisign" and "icon". Another puzzling thing is, that a triad is a composition of categorial parts, so an "AND"-matter. Classification means "either or" or "NAND", but a legisign contains sinisigns and qualisigns. This is "AND", so where is the "NAND"? The answer is, I think, that a legisign is composed of sinisigns, which are composed of qualisigns. But composition is just a matter different from classification. Therefore a sign relation is either a quali- or a sini-, or a legisign, no matter what a sini- or a legisign is composed of. So it was incorrect of me to have written, that classification and triads are two different topics. Instead it would be more correct to say, that they are two different things, but to understand one of them, you must have had understood the other. Which, of course, is not possible (a paradoxon), so it is necessary to read about both topics (make them one topic) to understand both. So I agree with you having written: "Taking bits and pieces from CSP just does not work. The "pieces" only work in the context of his work as a whole." Best, Helmut
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