Dan and Peircers, I agree with Dan’s proposal to consider “the practical/empirical consequences C.S. intended each definition to have.” I’m not sure I can attempt that. The complications shown are interesting but above my pay grade. Instead I would like to offer what went through my mind when I first read vase
- Is it an answer to a question, - Is it a request by someone pointing to a vase to deal with the/a situation occurring with reference to the vase, - Is it a word meant to be a word on a sheet of paper? and if so: is it a clue, a reminder, a label, part of your kid’s homework assignment? - Is the word meant to be interpreted as written or spoken, for example, part o f a sentence written down? Or is it voiced, in which case we need to ask about or consider various speech acts, and we can infer qualities about the speaker’s physical characteristics among other things - Is the word a mistake? Is it a word that was omitted from something? Is it part of a word such as vaseline? - Is a character in a novel by, let’s say James Joyce, thinking it. Is the character thinking it as a word in a disconnected passage, as in an epiphany, or is it a word in a disjointed stream of consciousness passage. Is the character aware of it, and/or aware of it as a matrial, Is it intended to be any or all of these possibilities? Does a reader of a novel see/hear or not see/hear the word in a novel. There are so many questions - Or, on another hand, is the word under erasure [note: I prefer not to discuss Derrida’s concept here]; is it also written but not marked, i.e. invisible - It is material, so of what material is it made? But if the word is not material but a concept is it general or specific? - Is it assumed there are no italics, bold…is the font significant, and the size? If it were to be true that the font and size were to make a possible difference is the word vase on my screen unique to me in my situation or not? Does a word vase on my computer have thisness or haecceity as a material object - If a poem is about a vase and uses the word in different contexts as a symbol, can I compare its use as a symbol in another poem by the same, or different, author? - What if vase is a made up of spaced letters in a square shape? - Should I assume that since it isn’t in quote or italics or underlined that it is a word that general - Is it possible to have a word without a speaker, creator, interpreter? - Is it translation - Is it part of a rhetorical device - These could be placed into Peircean definitions I kept thinking how the word can not be defined as fitting any Peircean definition stated or implied in the peirce-list email without a context and without a commitment as to its materiality, existence, and use. Of course my narrative is a construction. Once I saw the word, I thought unconsciously as if my thoughts were words I was writing down in a response to Peirce-l. Once my awareness of the above occurred I realized I could not answer the question. Then I enjoyed the intellectual activity. I thought of the word used in the numerous ways Joyce uses words. I thought of various activities/studies I could conduct related to this. This was the beginning of amusement. I do not think that a definitive, singular meaning can be given to Peirce’s terms even in a dictionary, as is true of every word over time in different contexts. The Oxford English Dictionary thus gives chronological definitions with sentences from written Late Middle English to spoken English today. ... I have to end here with apologies to take care of a sick spouse. Thanks for reading this far! Mary Libertin On Feb 6, 2018, at 1:10 PM, Everett, Daniel <dever...@bentley.edu> wrote: I am enjoying this exchange and learning a good deal from it. However, it seems to me that in a “true” Peircean spirit, one would propose not only chapter and verse for how Peirce defined this or that but mainly the practical/empirical consequences C.S. intended each definition to have. Ultimately, I think that the main question is “What are the consequences?” If we cannot point to the empirical predictions of one definition over another, we aren’t making our ideas clear in the relevant sense. Dan On Feb 6, 2018, at 12:23 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote: Stephen R., List: Interesting, indeed. The attempt to eliminate context, or at least put it out of view, was quite intentional. Do you always read words one letter at a time, or somehow stop only part of the way through? I cannot seem to help reading entire words, except on the rare occasion when an unfamiliar one appears. Regards, Jon S. On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 10:58 AM, Stephen C. Rose <stever...@gmail.com> wrote: > I did not get past the first three letters and I took it to be an email > cold start no context -- Interesting to see how tenacious the context was. > No one thinks the same. > > amazon.com/author/stephenrose > ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . -- null
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