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}Jon, list:
I consider you are diverting from the issue with your 'well, the
question didn't use the term analogy'... Here's Peter's comment:
"My sister is writing an Art History thesis on nativity scenes and
their contemporary relevance. An example is one at a street mission
in Trondheim, Norway, depicting the Holy Family as present-day
refugees from the Middle East. Now the question is what, if anything,
might semiotics have to say about such depiction?"
That's a clear depiction/description of an analogy - even though it
doesn't use The Word. There is no depiction/description of
'compassion'.
Evoking compassion could indeed be a possible immediate Interpretant
- IF one ALSO has the same emotion when viewing the original nativity
scene. There is no certainty of such. Other immediate Interpretants
could also emerge because, as I said before, the situation is based
within the imagination rather than facts - there is no Secondness and
no Thirdness. And that's why I said that Saussurian semiology - which
is very amenable to open conceptual interpretations - would be a
better analytic method than Peircean semiotics. But -a simple
analogy would function just as well.
Edwina
On Thu 28/12/17 3:23 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, List:
Peter's initial post did not say anything about analogy, either.
The original question was about the "contemporary relevance" of
nativity scenes. From a Peircean semeiotic perspective, it seems
obvious to me that this has to do with their Interpretants. Evoking
compassion is certainly one possible (Immediate) Interpretant of
"depicting the Holy Family as present-day refugees from the Middle
East."
Regards,
Jon S.
On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Jon, list
Again, as I've said, the issue of compassion was never brought up in
the question. The question was whether semiotics [which I presume
refers to Peircean semiotics] was applicable to use in some kind of
analytic comparison between the Holy Family-refugees and
war-displaced refugees. My response was: No, Peircean semiotics
wouldn't provide a 'reasonable analysis'.
Instead - as I and others said - the comparison was a basic analogy.
BUT, my point was that one has to be careful when applying the method
of analogy, to prevent an iconic perspective; i.e., where one
considers that SOME common attributes of X and Y then become ALL
attributes of X become also ALL attributes of Y. Such an illogical
movement then becomes the fallacy of Excluded Middle where one
concludes that All dogs are cats.
Again - the introduction of an Observer to these two sets - who
feels compassion - is an entirely different issue.
Edwina
On Thu 28/12/17 2:49 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
[2] sent:
Edwina, List:
But that is not the form of argument in view here at all; it is more
like the following, as I understand it.
*The members of the Holy Family were destitute in a foreign land.
*I feel compassion for the members of the Holy Family.
*Therefore, I ought to feel compassion for anyone who is
destitute in a foreign land.
*Modern refugees are destitute in a foreign land.
*Therefore, I ought to feel compassion for modern refugees.
#3 is a normative hypothesis, a plausible generalization, not a
deductively valid conclusion from #1-2; but once #3 is accepted, #5
is a deductively valid conclusion from #3-4. That is precisely why
this is characterized as an argument from analogy, which Peirce
described as "the inference that a not very large collection of
objects which agree in various respects may very likely agree in
another respect. For instance, the earth and Mars agree in so many
respects that it seems not unlikely they may agree in being
inhabited" (CP 1.69; c. 1896). In this case, the Holy Family and
modern refugees agree in the (iconic?) respect of being destitute in
a foreign land, such that it seems not unlikely they may agree in the
(rhematic?) respect of being proper objects of my compassion.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [3] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [4]
On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 1:00 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Jerry, list - but apart from the perhaps-not-quite-accurate analogy
of 'destitute in a foreign land' - don't you consider that it is
rationally dangerous to set up an analogy that might imply that the
attributes of one set can possibly be fully applied to the second
set?
Human compassion has nothing to do with this attempt at analogous
comparison and to me, it doesn't make sense to suggest that To Make
Such An Analogy is an Act-of-Compassion.
It's a similar false analogy as in the common logical fallacy of:
All cats are animals
All dogs are animals
Therefore, all dogs are cats.
Edwina
On Thu 28/12/17 1:47 PM , Jerry LR Chandler
jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com sent:
Peter, List:
Is it possible that what is missing from this philosophical
discussion is simple human compassion?
The Holy Family were destitute in a foreign land.
in parallel sentence structure for the image (icon) without regard
to the facts not stated of the two images,
The refuges are destitute in a foreign land.
Of course, the concept human compassion is seldom an acceptable
argument in semeiotics, or is it?
Cheers
Jerry
On Dec 28, 2017, at 8:33 AM, Skagestad, Peter wrote:
Listers,
I have a somewhat unusual question. My sister is writing an Art
History thesis on nativity scenes and their contemporary relevance.
An example is one at a street mission in Trondheim, Norway, depicting
the Holy Family as present-day refugees from the Middle East. Now the
question is what, if anything, might semiotics have to say about such
depiction? The answer may be obvious, but it escapes me, at least for
the moment. Any suggestions?
Cheers,
Peter
Links:
------
[1]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'tabor...@primus.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[2]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'jonalanschm...@gmail.com\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[3] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[4] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
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