Gary, Jon S, I’ve inserted a few questions below …
Gary f From: Gary Richmond [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 28-Feb-18 19:15 Jon, list, Summarizing Peirce's thought at EP 2.304, Jon wrote: EP 2:304 (1904) - The ideal or perfect Sign is identical, in such identity as a Sign may have, with the unity of the very Matter denoted by it and the very Form signified by it, such that its Interpretant is the Truth. If this is so, then, since any given Sign or accretion of Signs in a Quasi-mind (say on a sheet of assertion) can only signify specific aspects or facets of the Object (ITS Object, mind you) as a certain, shall we say, "selected assemblage" of characters (its Form), it would seem to me that a perfect Sign remains an Ideal, that even the perfect Sign can only asymptotically approach the Truth that it means to represent. Q: Are we assuming here that the perfect Sign is an accretion of Signs in a Quasi-mind? So, in sum, the Object can never be completely represented even by a perfect Sign, and even if, as Jon wrote: The more attributes of the Dynamic Object that the Immediate Object of the Sign includes, the closer the Interpretant comes to reproducing the entire effect that the Dynamic Object itself would have on the Quasi-interpreter (cf. EP 2:391; 1906). Q: Are we assuming that the Immediate Object includes (or can include) attributes of the Dynamic Object? (Why?) If we do, then the Immediate Object sounds like a concept — as, for example, your concept of a woman includes attributes of the woman you are talking about right now. Do you think of an Immediate Object as a concept or like a concept? It seems to me that "reproducing the entire effect that the Dynamic Object itself would have on the Quasi-interpreter" is an impossibility. Yet, Jon, I'm not clear if this interpretation is consistent with this part of your conclusion: Therefore, a perfect Sign in this sense is one that achieves Entelechy, the complete unity of Matter and Form in its Interpretant. This is the final cause of all triadic semiosis, Truth as "the conformity of a representamen to its object--its object, ITS object, mind you" (CP 5.554, EP 2:380; 1906). Of course I completely agree with your concluding sentence. By contrast, dyadic action occurs when there is no mediating Sign; just two Dynamic Objects directly and reciprocally affecting each other (cf. EP 2:411; 1907). Q: By “Dynamic Object” do you mean an existing thing in reaction with another existing thing? If so, why use a term that is defined only as a correlate of a triadic relation? But here we are speaking of Science, while I believe that Art is--even if rarely--able to perfectly represent its Object, one which however, it retrospectively, so to speak, creates. Best, Gary R
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