Jon S, Gary F, List,
The proposal Jon is putting forward for distinguishing between the object and interpretant in a semiotic process seems, on the face of it, to be insufficient to account for cases of hypostatic abstraction. In this type of abstraction, the interpretant is--in the next stage of inference--treated as the object in relation to some further sign and interpretant. The primary way Peirce seems to distinguish between an interpretant and one that is later taken as an object in some further inference is in terms of the services each is serving and the relations that hold--and not in terms of the categories that are prominent in each correlate of the triadic sign relation considered in itself. After all, each kind of object can be characterized as a possible, an existent or a necessitant, as can each kind of interpretant. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________ From: Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, March 3, 2018 5:52:27 PM To: Peirce-L Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Quasi-minds Revisited Gary F., List: I agree that it is important to maintain a sharp distinction between the Object and the Interpretant, and I believe that this is reflected in my current exposition of EP 2:304 in light of EP 2:305-307 and NEM 4:292-300. Matter (2ns) and Form (1ns) both pertain to the Object. The Matter is what the Sign denotes, corresponding to its logical breadth; the Form is what the Sign signifies, corresponding to its logical depth. A pure Index is perfect in denotation but lacking in signification, while a pure Icon is perfect in signification but lacking in denotation. Entelechy (3ns) pertains to the Interpretant. It is what the Sign determines as the (purported) unity of the denoted Matter with the signified Form, corresponding to its information (breadth x depth). As you noted, the latter two can both be analyzed as subjects of any Sign, leaving only their logical relation as a continuous predicate. As for the distinction between the two Objects, I have suggested that the Dynamic Object is the Matter and the Immediate Object is the Form; hence my description of the latter as a "partial combination of attributes." This is consistent with situating the Immediate Object "within the Sign" (EP 2:480; 1908) and recognizing the latter as "a Medium for the communication of a Form" (EP 2:544n22; 1906). Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 10:53 AM, <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Thanks Jon and Gary for your well articulated answers to my questions in this thread. My main concern was that your Immediate Object was sounding too much like an interpretant. The object/interpretant distinction is of course vital to triadic semiosis, and closely related to the subject/predicate distinction in propositions and the matter/form distinction which Jon mentions in Peirce’s 1904 writings. As Jon wrote, “Only the Sign itself--not its Immediate Object--can be a concept (Symbol) that unites Matter (denotation) and Form (signification) in its Interpretant (determination).” How then can an immediate object consist of “attributes” (or characters or predicates) of the Dynamic Object? But I was forgetting that these distinctions get relativized in Peirce’s late semiotic, so that parts of what is usually considered the predicate can alternatively be “thrown into” the subject, leaving only a continuous predicate. I just came across a passage about this written by Peirce in December 1909: [[ The determination by a Sign of its Interpreting Mind,– i.e. the idea that mind gets, or the feeling it sets up, or the action it stimulates, I call its "Interpretant"; and there is all the difference in the world between the Object of a sign, of which the Interpreter must have some collateral experience, immediate or mediate, or he won't know at all what it is that the Sign represents [ ... ] and whoever questions that point simply fails to understand what I mean by the Object, and confounds it with the Interpretant. The latter is all that the sign conveys. The Object is the otherwise known something concerning which what it conveys relates. The distinction is a real distinction and yet it is purely relative, in the sense that the line of demarcation between the two can just as well be drawn in one place as another. [ ... ] The point is that the artificiality of a line of demarcation does not prove that the twoness of the parts that line of demarcation may be regarded as separating does not correspond to any twoness in re. — RL 36 ]] So I have nothing more to say on that subject! Gary f. } In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy. [Ivan Illich] { http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway
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