Gary F., List: GF: Are you denying that *indicating *is an indexical function?
I am not convinced that Peirce intended "indicated" in that particular context to be strictly understood as entailing indexical function, since Qualities *cannot *indicate in that sense; after all, a Qualisign cannot be an Index. Just a couple of days later, he instead wrote that Descriptives "*determine *their Objects by stating the characters of the latter" (EP 2:484; 1908, emphasis mine), which is what I had in mind when I said earlier that a Descriptive Sign is precisely one that *does *refer to its DO "exclusively by describing it." That is why it is classified as a "Descriptive"! GF: Can you give me one or two examples of these facts that you are referring to? There are two cars located in the direction that the guy is pointing, relative to his current position. One of them is red, and the other is blue. The guy is calling someone else's attention to the red one. GF: OK, if the Peirce quotes amassed by Bellucci don’t loosen your hold on the Fregean interpretation of the IO, I certainly can’t do better. I am not necessarily endorsing the Fregean interpretation of the IO; for one thing, I do not know enough about Frege's views to judge them one way or the other. I am just continuing to define the IO as I have been doing for several months now--the partial combination of attributes of the DO by which the Sign denotes it. GF: I would appreciate it, though, if you could cite one or two of the “multiple occasions”, *other than early drafts of MS 318*, where Peirce states explicitly that every sign has an Immediate Object. Please review the Commens Dictionary entry for the IO ( http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/immediate-object). Two of the quotes there state explicitly that "every sign" has an IO, only one of which is from MS 318. Many of the others say something like "a sign has two objects" or "there are two aspects of the Object," or simply define the two Objects in a way that at least implies that both pertain to any Sign. Can you cite even one occasion where Peirce stated explicitly that *only* propositions have IOs? As I have pointed out before, Bellucci bases this novel assertion on a single passage, which I believe he clearly misinterprets. CSP: ... when we speak of the *object* of a sign ... we may mean the *immediate *object, the object as the sign represents it. For some signs separately represent their objects. Every proposition does so. (R 284:54-55) FB: The immediate object is the "object as the sign represents it," that is to say, the object which *those signs which separately represent an object* do in fact represent. The sentence "for some signs separately represent their objects" is crucial here. Not all signs separately represent an object: rhemes do not; only propositions and proposition-like signs (dicisigns) do, because these signs have a part that indicates the object of which the other part says something. Thus, only signs of this sort can have an immediate object. For the immediate object is the "object as the sign represents it," and only proposition-like signs independently represent an object, and thus can be divided according to the way they represent the immediate object. (p. 294) Bellucci's conclusion here simply does not follow; the fact that a Rheme does not *separately* or *independently* represent its Object obviously does not entail that it does not represent its Object *at all*, and therefore *cannot* have an IO. On the contrary, *every* Sign represents its Object--that is what it means for something to be a Sign in the first place!--and the IO is simply "the Object as represented in the sign" (EP 2:498; 1909). Furthermore, since only Arguments *separately* represent their Interpretants, Bellucci's reasoning implies that only Arguments can have Immediate Interpretants. Again, where did Peirce ever impose such a limitation? Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 4:56 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Jon, responses inserted … > > > > Gary f. > > > > *From:* Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> > *Sent:* 21-Jun-18 13:21 > > Gary F., List: > > GF: Are you saying that neither a Possible nor a Necessitant can function > indexically? > > I am saying that the Immediate Object only functions indexically for > Designative Signs, not for Descriptive Signs or Copulative Signs. > > GF: Why not? The Descriptive is defined as a sign whose “Dynamoid Object > is indicated (always more or less vaguely) by means of its Qualities.” Are > you denying that *indicating* is an indexical function? > > GF: A sign cannot refer to its DO exclusively by describing it, because > the DO, being Second to the sign, belongs to the actual world, and “the > actual world cannot be distinguished from a world of imagination by any > description” (EP1:227, W5:164, CP 3.363). > > Again, I disagree. By definition, a Descriptive Sign is precisely one > that *does* refer to its DO "exclusively by describing it"; > > GF: I can’t seem to find a definition that says precisely that; the one I > quoted above doesn’t. Can you give the reference? > > On second thought, I probably shouldn’t venture into this thicket just > yet, as I haven’t had much time to study the 1908 taxonomy in context. I’m > still working on the Lowell Lectures, and maybe I’m still relying on what > Peirce said about the object in 1903-4 and earlier (before he’d mentioned > or defined the immediate object). > > and the DO only "belongs to the actual world" for Concretive Signs (where > the DO is Existent), not Abstractive Signs (where the DO is Possible) or > Collective Signs (where the DO is Necessitant). > > GF: I don’t see how an immediate object can be a “set of logical > relations” when the dynamic object is that car the guy is pointing at. > > The DO of the entire exchange is not just the car in isolation, but the > aggregate of all facts that are expressed, including the logical relations > among the DOs of its constituent Signs. > > GF: Can you give me one or two examples of these facts that you are > referring to? > > GF: By the way, if you’re generally in agreement with Bellucci’s account, > I don’t see how you can strongly object to Stjernfelt’s view of the > immediate object, because it’s virtually identical with Bellucci’s. > > I am generally in agreement with *much* of Bellucci's account, but > definitely *not* with his treatment of the Immediate Object. As I have > said on-List before, I strongly disagree with his attribution to Peirce of > the view that *only* propositions have Immediate Objects, and also with > his contention that a Sign "denotes its object and signifies its > interpretant." Peirce explicitly stated on multiple occasions that > *every* Sign has an Immediate Object, and my understanding is that what a > Sign signifies are certain qualities/characters of its Dynamic Object, > which taken together constitute its Immediate Object; the Sign > *determines* its Interpretant as the unity (Entelechy) of its denotation > (Matter) and signification (Form). > > GF: OK, if the Peirce quotes amassed by Bellucci don’t loosen your hold on > the Fregean interpretation of the IO, I certainly can’t do better. I would > appreciate it, though, if you could cite one or two of the “multiple > occasions”, *other than early drafts of MS 318*, where Peirce states > explicitly that every sign has an Immediate Object. I’d like to look at the > context of those statements, and I haven’t been able to find one. > > > > Regards, > > Jon S. >
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