Jon, list,
JAS: 1. There is no Sign action, only Replica action--action requires
existence, and a Sign only exists in Replicas
In my understanding I'd modify that to "a Symbol only exists in Replicas."
JAS: 2. There are no Qualisigns or Sinsigns, only Legisigns--which I prefer
simply to call Signs, as distinguished from their Replicas. Anything that
functions as a "natural sign" is a Replica of a general Sign.
I see no basis for your claiming this. Peirce discusses Qualisigns and
Sinsigns at length, nowhere to my knowledge eliminating Qualisigns or
Sinsigns from his semeiotic analysis.
To use "Replica" as you do for natural signs seems to me to hint at a
theological metaphysics not yet made explicit by you.
How is a "natural sign" a Replica of a general Sign? What's the "general
sign" in, say, 'a spontaneous cry', one of Peirce's examples of a Sinsign?
So far, all I can make of your holding that every "natural sign" is "a
Replica of a general Sign" is that it is possibly a maxim of a kind of
theology which would make of the Universe a kind of symbol-system in the
mind of God, that only those symbols are real and that the entire existent
Universe exists as replicas of that symbolic-system (but Peirce says that
the symbols of the Cosmos have as well their integral icons and indexes).
JAS: 3. Language and general Signs are not coextensive--in fact, language
consists entirely of Replicas, not Signs. "Man" in English and "homme" in
French are two Replicas of the same Sign, whose Reality is independent of
any actual language.
I agree that "Language and general Signs are not coextensive" which would
seem to support the position I've been arguing as much as yours. So I must
be misinterpreting your meaning. Again you seem to reducing all semiosis to
the action of replicas of Legisigns, perhaps especially or primarily
Symbols. I find that hard to support in Peirce's semeiotic and in my own
thinking about it.
I agree that "language consists entirely of Replicas"--not an issue.
JAS: 4. That said, without language--or at least *some *kind of internal
Symbol-system--how could the woman in your "far out example" *cognize *her
fever as a "sign" that something is "off" in her body, rather than merely
react instinctively?
Here you are again assuming that only Symbols (or at least Legisigns) count
in real semiosis. I would say that the woman has a continuum of feeling
which is interrupted by something, her headache, which breaks that
continuity, and that adverse feeling is to her a sign of malaise even if
she hasn't the language to express it as such. One could readily, I think,
find analogous examples in animals.
But you say this "natural sign" is but a "replica of a general sign," using
"replica" in a way in which I don't recall Peirce using it. I assume that
the "general sign" in question is, say, some law of nature.
JAS: 5. I agree with you and Peirce that there is no pure 1ns, and also
that there is no pure 2ns--3ns permeates Reality, which is what I take him
to mean when he says that the Universe is "perfused with signs." That is
precisely why I affirm #2.
Saying that there is no "pure" 1ns nor "pure" 2ns is not, in my thinking,
to say that 1ns and 2ns are not real and that they do not figure iconically
and indexically in semiosis. Peirce argued that what he found most
problematic in Hegel was his too quickly leaping to 3ns, ignoring the
reality and inter-dependence of all three categories. He says that Hegel's
'Aufheben' ('abolish', sublate, cancel) of 1ns and 2ns (thesis and
antithesis) in 3ns (synthesis) represents just this kind of error. Is it
possible that you are doing something analogous?
I might tend to agree with you that *had* Peirce said that the Universe is
"perfused with *symbols*" (rather than, as he did, "perfused with *signs*")
that you might have a stronger case. But then my interpretation would still
be--given that Peirce seems to me to clearly admit a *real semiotic role*
for qualisigns and legisigns--that the Universe is "perfused with symbols *and
other signs*."
JAS: 6. I am not at all seeking to *eliminate *characters and qualities
from semiosis--I am suggesting that their *metaphysical *role is that of
Form, whereas a Sign is an Entelechy. Qualities are indeed everywhere, but
they are not (in themselves) Signs.
You had earlier written that "there are no Qualisigns at all, since a
quality *in itself* cannot represent anything *other than itself*." But
that is exactly what it represents--its own evanescent unique
character--albeit embedded in a Sinsign (which in turn may be embedded in a
Legisign).
Again, I think you may be conflating the metaphysical role in semeiotics
(your thread title, "Metaphysics of Semeiotics" always seemed to me
somewhat misguided in doing just what Jeff has just suggested that it is
perhaps unwise to do). As I commented in my earlier post, I think that it
might be helpful to focus on the role that trichotomic phenomenology plays
in the development of Peirce's semeiotic, something which might allow you
to consider a significant role there for Qualisigns and Legisigns rather
than flatly stating "There are no Qualisigns or Sinsigns, only Legisigns."
I would modify your comment "a Sign is an Entelechy" to "a Symbol is an
Entelechy." I am beginning to see a kind of logocentrism in your analyses
which, again, makes me think that your are trying to conform your
semeiotics (your "metaphysics of semiotics") to a theological view you hold
(not yet explicitly stated). Of course I could be completely wrong in
thinking that this might be the case.
Best,
Gary
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*718 482-5690 <(718)%20482-5690>*
On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 11:07 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com
> wrote:
> Gary R., List:
>
> The following is how I see things right now, which is very much subject to
> change with further reading, thinking, and discussion.
>
> 1. There is no Sign action, only Replica action--action requires
> existence, and a Sign only exists in Replicas. I confess that I do not
> know enough about biosemiosis to address it specifically.
> 2. There are no Qualisigns or Sinsigns, only Legisigns--which I prefer
> simply to call Signs, as distinguished from their Replicas. Anything that
> functions as a "natural sign" is a Replica of a general Sign.
> 3. Language and general Signs are not coextensive--in fact, language
> consists entirely of Replicas, not Signs. "Man" in English and "homme" in
> French are two Replicas of the same Sign, whose Reality is independent of
> any actual language.
> 4. That said, without language--or at least *some *kind of internal
> Symbol-system--how could the woman in your "far out example" *cognize *her
> fever as a "sign" that something is "off" in her body, rather than merely
> react instinctively?
> 5. I agree with you and Peirce that there is no pure 1ns, and also
> that there is no pure 2ns--3ns permeates Reality, which is what I take him
> to mean when he says that the Universe is "perfused with signs." That is
> precisely why I affirm #2.
> 6. I am not at all seeking to *eliminate *characters and qualities
> from semiosis--I am suggesting that their *metaphysical *role is that
> of Form, whereas a Sign is an Entelechy. Qualities are indeed everywhere,
> but they are not (in themselves) Signs.
>
> Jeff's point about recognizing and respecting the boundary between
> normative science and metaphysics is well-taken, but exactly where to draw
> that line is not always clear. I have noted all along the way that my
> current inquiry is focused on the metaphysics of concrete semiosis, not
> logic as semeiotic, but I will try to do a better job of maintaining the
> distinction.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 8:57 AM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Jon S, list,
>>
>> JAS: My current position is that *every *Sinsign *is *an individual
>> Replica of a general Sign, because *only *a general Sign can mediate
>> between an Object and Interpretant in a *genuine* triadic Relation. A
>> fever is the result of dyadic physical processes, and is only
>> *interpreted *as a sign of disease by virtue of a habit developed by
>> means of Collateral Experience.
>>
>>
>> I can't follow you here. I don't see why "*every *Sinsign *is *an
>> individual Replica of a general Sign, because *only *a general Sign can
>> mediate between an Object and Interpretant in a *genuine* triadic
>> Relation"
>>
>> For one thing, why is it necessary that there be a "general sign" in all
>> cases of sign action (this sounds almost legalistic--Legisigns, perhaps
>> esp. Symbols rule?) How, for example, does this work in biosemiosis?
>>
>> And why can "only a general Sign," by which I assume you mean a Legisign
>> (unless you further restrict "general sign" to one of the last three sign
>> classes in the 1903 classification, viz, rheme, dicisign, argument) bring
>> about a "genuine triadic relation" where the Sign mediates between the
>> Object and the Interpretant? It seems to me that sinsigns (with embedded
>> qualisigns) for example, natural signs, can do this as well. And this seems
>> to me that this is so even if one restricts oneself to human sign
>> interpretation.
>>
>> But, for a rather far out example, one can imagine a time before humans
>> had developed language when a fever--to use that example once again--was a
>> sign* to the person having the fever* (not even, say, someone else--her
>> mother--interpreting the fever based on collateral knowledge) that
>> something was not right with her body, her being. Not only in this
>> hypothetical case is language not available, but language (general Signs)
>> are not needed. As to the matter of replicas, it may be be that this is in
>> fact the very first fever she'd experienced, and yet the fever, the Sign of
>> something being 'off' in her body, was clear enough to her even lacking
>> collateral knowledge (OK, an outlandish example; but imagine one then in
>> the animal world).
>>
>> JAS: "I am having a very hard time imagining anything that a quality as
>> pure 1ns could possibly represent, other than itself in itself."
>>
>>
>> First, Peirce is at pains to explain that there is no pure 1ns, that a
>> qualisign must be embedded (?) in another sign. Joe Ransdell even argued
>> that there are no pure Icons, that one ought rather speak of the *iconic*.
>> To my mind qualities are most certainly signs despite their degenerate
>> nature and their needing necessarily to be part of a less degenerate sign.
>> Signs within Signs.
>>
>> So, while I agree with Jeff that when considering matters of theoretical
>> logic (logica docens) that it is probably best to 'let go' of (or bracket,
>> if you will) our* metaphysica utens*, I see no reason why we should
>> attempt to do so (following Jeff) as regards what one might call our
>> *phaneronica
>> utens*. And, indeed, quite the contrary given that triadic semeiotic
>> employs trichotomic phenomenology in an *essential* way (there are a
>> vast number of triadic relations in Peirce's semeiotic). Phenomenology
>> precedes Logic as Semeiotic as Metaphysics follows it in Peirce's
>> Classification of the Sciences.
>>
>> If the Universe is indeed perfused with signs, how in the world can one
>> pretend to eliminate all the characters and qualities and possibilities
>> which are the 1nses of this Cosmos in consideration of semiosis? Indeed,
>> they are probably the most prominent signs of all (when imbedded in
>> sinsigns), not only for human sign interpreters, but perhaps even much more
>> so for nature more generally, for plants and animals. I do not believe that
>> Peirce was wrong in positing the Qualisign as a Sign category, and I don't
>> see that he ever gave up the notion that it was indeed a Sign, albeit
>> degenerate in the extreme. Some practical phenomenology may be needed here,
>> in my opinion: Look at, smell a white carnation. Look at the colors of a
>> sunset on the horizon, bracketing off as much though as you can of your
>> thoughts (get into a meditative state of musement). *Feel some part of
>> your body*! Qualities are everywhere part of the semiosis happening in
>> the world, and abstract analyses have no power to convince me otherwise. My
>> semiosic experience includes qualisigns in an essential way.
>>
>> I agree with much of what Jeff said regarding the metaphysica utens
>> danger as he expressed it; I think it is quite real and possibly a serious
>> threat to research in the theoretical science of Logic as Semeiotic. But
>> so, in a kind of opposite way is the phaneronica utens danger: that we may
>> become so logically anthropocentric that our generalizations and
>> abstractions can take all the qualitative life out of our semiosic
>> experience. Indeed, as I see it, of the two, the latter may be the greater
>> danger.
>>
>> But, at least in some abstract sense, I applaud your inquiry, Jon,
>> including your latest diagram, as complex and, shall we say, 'ambitious' as
>> it and your inquiry is. It may yield important insights into the nature of
>> the extraordinarily complex semiosic process, at least from the theoretical
>> standpoint.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Gary
>>
>> *Gary Richmond*
>> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
>> *Communication Studies*
>> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>> *718 482-5690 <(718)%20482-5690>*
>>
>
>
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