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}Mary, list - I fully agree with you. I have always been horrified -
and I mean the word - by the use of the triangle to portray the
semiosic triad. It is, in my view, so completely wrong, for it sets
up a closed linear path.
The' node connecting three lines of identity' [1.347] is, in my
view, the correct image, for as Peirce points out - it clearly shows
how such a node and its relations is networked almost to infinity
with other such formats. As you say - it shows the 'openness inherent
in triadic relations'.
Edwina -
On Tue 12/12/17 3:32 PM , Mary Libertin [email protected]
sent:
Gary, list,
I prefer the use of Peirce’s Icon/index/symbol of a “genuine
triadic relation”—“a node with three lines of identity”
instead of a triangle. Ogden popularized the Peircean concept of
triangle in an appendix in his book “The Meaning of Meaning”, and
that triangle has been repeated over and over. I believe the node with
three lines of identity makes immediate, diagrammatic sense and I
believe shows forth the openness inherent in triadic relations. I’d
like to investigate this—its historical context, literature on it,
etc. Do you think I’m making sense, and /or can you point me in the
right direction? Thanks.
Mary Libertin
On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 7:01 AM wrote:
Continuing from Lowell Lecture 3.3,
https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts/ms-464-465-1903-lowell-lecture-iii-3rd-draught/display/13884
[2]
I will sketch a proof that the idea of Meaning is irreducible to
those of Quality and Reaction. It depends on two main premisses. The
first is that every genuine triadic relation involves meaning, as
meaning is obviously a triadic relation. The second is that a triadic
relation is inexpressible by means of dyadic relations alone.
Considerable reflexion may be required to convince yourself of the
first of these premisses, that every triadic relation involves
meaning. There will be two lines of inquiry. First, all physical
forces appear to subsist between pairs of particles. This was assumed
by Helmholtz in his original paper on the Conservation of Forces. Take
any fact in physics of the triadic kind, by which I mean a fact which
can only be defined by simultaneous reference to three things, and
you will find there is ample evidence that it never was produced by
the action of forces on mere dyadic conditions. Thus, your right hand
is that hand which is toward the east, when you face the north with
your head toward the zenith. Three things, east, west, and up, are
required to define the difference between right and left.
Consequently chemists find that those substances which rotate the
plane of polarization to the right or left can only be produced from
such active substances. They are all of such complex constitution
that they cannot have existed when the earth was very hot, and how
the first one was produced is a puzzle. It cannot have been by the
action of brute forces. For the second branch of the inquiry, you
must train yourself to the analysis of relations, beginning with such
as are very markedly triadic, gradually going on to others. In that
way, you will convince yourself thoroughly that every genuine triadic
relation involves thought or meaning. Take, for example, the relation
of giving. A gives B to C. This does not consist in A's throwing B
away and its accidentally hitting C, like the date-stone, which hit
the Jinnee in the eye. If that were all, it would not be a genuine
triadic relation, but merely one dyadic relation followed by another.
There need be no motion of the thing given. Giving is a transfer of
the right of property. Now right is a matter of law, and law is a
matter of thought and meaning. I there leave the matter to your own
reflection, merely adding that, though I have inserted the word
“genuine,” yet I do not really think that necessary. I think even
degenerate triadic relations involve something like thought.
The other premiss of the argument that genuine triadic relations can
never be built of dyadic relations and of Qualities is easily shown.
In Existential Graphs, a spot with one tail —X represents a
quality, a spot with two tails —R— a dyadic relation. Joining the
ends of two tails is also a dyadic relation. But you can never by such
joining make a graph with three tails. You may think that a node
connecting three lines of identity is not a triadic idea. But
analysis will show that it is so. I see a man on Monday. On Tuesday I
see a man, and I exclaim, “Why, that is the very man I saw on
Monday.” We may say, with sufficient accuracy, that I directly
experienced the identity. On Wednesday I see a man and I say, “That
is the same man I saw on Tuesday, and consequently is the same I saw
on Monday.” There is a recognition of triadic identity; but it is
only brought about as a conclusion from two premisses, which is
itself a triadic relation. If I see two men at once, I cannot by any
such direct experience identify both of them with a man I saw before.
I can only identify them if I regard them, not as the very same, but
as two different manifestations of the same man. But the idea of
manifestation is the idea of a sign. Now a sign is something, A,
which denotes some fact or object, B, to some interpretant thought,
C.
347. It is interesting to remark that while a graph with three tails
cannot be made out of graphs each with two or one tail, yet
combinations of graphs of three tails each will suffice to build
graphs with every higher number of tails.
And analysis will show that every relation which is tetradic,
pentadic, or of any greater number of correlates is nothing but a
compound of triadic relations. It is therefore not surprising to find
that beyond these three elements of Firstness, Secondness, and
Thirdness, there is nothing else to be found in the phenomenon.
http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm [3] }{ Peirce’s Lowell Lectures
of 1903
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Links:
------
[1]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'[email protected]\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[2]
https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts/ms-464-465-1903-lowell-lecture-iii-3rd-draught/display/13884
[3] http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm
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