Jon, list,

After studying again the attachment of your model of semiosic determination
you resent, I'm beginning to better understand what confused me about it
earlier. I would recommend that anyone interested in this topic take
another look at it as it has (at least for me) been much clarified through
this recent discussion, but only, as it were, 'retrospectively'. My quarter
hour or so study of your diagram today, again in light of this threaded
discussion, finally allowed me to grasp what I hadn't quite comprehended
about your model earlier.

So, if I understand you correctly: 1. the Object certainly yet determines
2. the Sign which 3. determines possible Interpretant Signs.

However, in your model 1. the Object which determines the Sign is the
Dynamic Object, and 2. both the Immediate Object and the Immediate
Interpretant are internal to the Sign and in some way constitute--*are *the
Sign--which Sign 3. determines the other Interpretants. Is this correct?

If so then there is the peculiarity that one of the Interpretants, the Ii,
is internal to the Sign while the other possible Interpretants (the Id and
If) are external to it. That the two Interpretants other than the Ii are
diagrammed outside the Sign now becomes for me somewhat problematic since
an Interpretant is itself a more developed version of that self-same Sign
albeit tending toward meaning.

1909 | Essays on Meaning. Preface | MS [R] 640:9

By the *Interpretant* of a Sign is meant all that the Sign can signify,
mean, or itself convey of new, in contradistinction to what it may
stimulate the observer to find out otherwise, as for example, by new
experience, or by recollecting former experiences.


and

1908 | Letters to Lady Welby | SS 83

It is usual and proper to distinguish two Objects of a Sign, the Mediate
without, and the Immediate within the Sign. Its Interpretant is all that
the Sign conveys: acquaintance with its Object must be gained by
collateral experience.


At the moment I think that there ought to be some kind of diagrammatic
overlapping of the Sign and the more developed Sign which it determines,
namely, its Interpretant Sign. Now the Id and If appear to be outside the
Sign as much as is the DO, and I don't think that's quite right.

Best,

Gary



*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*718 482-5690*

On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 8:51 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Gary R., List:
>
> Are you perhaps referring to my abandonment of characterizing the Sign
> itself as a triad of IO-R-II?  This goes back to the fact that Peirce never
> distinguished the terms "Representamen" and "Sign" in the specific way that
> such a model entails.  I still affirm that the IO and II are internal to
> the Sign, while the DO and DI are external to it; and below I quoted
> Peirce's statement that the two Objects determine the Sign, which
> determines the three Interpretants; so I suspect that this indeed boils
> down to "a terminological matter."
>
> Does that clarify things?  If not, maybe I have just been staring at the
> pixels on my rather small tablet screen for too many hours consecutively.
> :-)
>
> Jon S.
>
> On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Jon S, list,
>>
>>
>> Well, I may be the only one on the list who is at all confused by this,
>> and indeed it may prove to be just a terminological matter. Still, Peirce
>> says in many, many places that what happens *within* the sign is this
>> tripartite process: The IO *determines* the Sign which *determines* some
>> Interpretant Sign. You have stated that you reject this internal structure
>> (or am I wrong about that too?)
>>
>> In any event, may I ask: How does this tripartite structure figure in
>> your thinking today without getting a "Where on earth are you, etc."
>> prologue to an response? :-)
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Gary
>>
>> *Gary Richmond*
>> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
>> *Communication Studies*
>> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>> *718 482-5690*
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 7:22 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Gary R., List:
>>>
>>> Where on earth are you getting the idea that my formulation abandons the
>>> fundamental semiotic process, in which the Object determines the Sign for
>>> its Interpretant?  I am sincerely baffled by this suggestion.  Here is what
>>> I said.
>>>
>>> JAS:  a Sign denotes its Dynamic Object (Matter/2ns), signifies some of
>>> that Object's characters/qualities (Form/1ns)--which, taken together,
>>> constitute its Immediate Object--and determines its Interpretants to
>>> represent the unity of Matter and Form (Entelechy/3ns).
>>>
>>>
>>> I am describing what the Sign does, not what the Object does.  I am not
>>> at all somehow removing the Sign from its genuine triadic relation with the
>>> Object and Interpretant.  Peirce himself differentiated the two Objects and
>>> three Interpretants when he wrote, "the Dynamoid Object determines the
>>> Immediate Object, which determines the Sign itself, which determines the
>>> Destinate Interpretant, which determines the Effective Interpretant, which
>>> determines the Explicit Interpretant" (EP 2:481; 1908).
>>>
>>> As for Sign vs. Representamen, Peirce actually *did* say contradictory
>>> things in 1903 (when he gave the sunflower example) and 1905, because *he
>>> changed his mind* sometime during the interval between them--he decided
>>> that he no longer needed to use "Representamen," because "Sign" ended up
>>> suiting his original purpose after all.  I now agree with that decision.
>>> Notice that "Representamen" does not appear in the 1908 quote above, or
>>> anywhere else in those crucial December letters to Lady Welby.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Jon S.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 5:43 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jon S, list,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.This was quite helpful.
>>>>
>>>> But there remains the awkward fact of the Peirce formulation that the
>>>> Object determines the Sign for its Interpretant Sign. Does he give up this
>>>> formulation in the 20th century? If not, whether you call it
>>>> "Representamen" or "Sign," there seems to me the problem that it would
>>>> appear in your formulation that the IO takes the place of the second moment
>>>> of that triadic formulation.
>>>>
>>>> According to Peirce in 1903, "A Sign is a Representamen with a mental
>>>> Interpretant. Possibly there may be Representamens that are not Signs" (EP
>>>> 2:273).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Of course you now would appear to reject that triadic formulation.
>>>> Since I very much like your reformulation, I'll have to think long and hard
>>>> on this.
>>>>
>>>> Still, if, as Peirce says, there are "Representamens that are not
>>>> Signs" (like sunflowers turning toward the sun in Peirce's famous example),
>>>> then there would seem yet to be a distinction to be made between Sign and
>>>> Representamen. Yet in your note addressed to me and just now to Gary F you
>>>> say the Sign and Representamen are "effectively synonymous." So, it appears
>>>> to me that Peirce is perhaps saying contradictory things when one looks
>>>> from one quotation to another on this not inconsequential matter of
>>>> terminology. It seems to me more than a matter of terminology.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Gary
>>>>
>>>> *Gary Richmond*
>>>> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
>>>> *Communication Studies*
>>>> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>>>> *718 482-5690*
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 5:00 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
>>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Gary R., List:
>>>>>
>>>>> GR:  But would you explain why the Representamen is not included in
>>>>> your formulation whatsoever?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In this context, how would you distinguish the Representamen from the
>>>>> Sign?
>>>>>
>>>>> According to Peirce in 1903, "A Sign is a Representamen with a mental
>>>>> Interpretant. Possibly there may be Representamens that are not Signs" (EP
>>>>> 2:273).  If you favor these definitions, such that a Sign is only a 
>>>>> certain
>>>>> kind of Representamen, then simply substitute "Representamen" for "Sign" 
>>>>> in
>>>>> my formulation.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, according to Peirce in 1905, "I use 'sign' in the widest
>>>>> sense of the definition. It is a wonderful case of an almost popular use 
>>>>> of
>>>>> a very broad word in almost the exact sense of the scientific definition
>>>>> ... I formerly preferred the word *representamen*. But there was no
>>>>> need of this horrid long word" (SS 193).  I have come to agree with that
>>>>> assessment.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
>>>>> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
>>>>> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>>>>>
>>>>
>
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