Jerry, Peirce always insisted that the analysis of propositions or of their meanings should not be based on linguistic grammar, i.e. on the ‘parts of speech’ involved, because the linguistic structure of the sentences that represent propositions varies from language to language, and logic/semeiotic is aims for the deeper and more universal structural principles that he called “speculative grammar.” If you think he was mistaken in refusing to confuse linguistic or “sentential” meaning with semiotic meaning, perhaps you would prefer Victoria Welby’s “significs” to Peirce’s semiotics. The letter to Welby that I quoted in my message to Jon had another sentence at the end which I omitted before. This time I’ll include it:
[[ … My studies must extend over the whole of general Semeiotic. I think, dear Lady Welby, that you are in danger of falling into some error in consequence of limiting your studies so much to Language and among languages to one very peculiar language, as all Aryan Languages are; and within that language so much to words. ] SS 118 ] Gary f. From: Jerry LR Chandler <[email protected]> Sent: 5-Jul-18 09:59 To: Peirce List <[email protected]> Cc: Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's late classification of signs List: On Jul 5, 2018, at 7:38 AM, [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> wrote: In your other post, you wrote, “A Rheme not only must have at least one blank empty, but also at least one blank filled; it must have either breadth or depth, just not both.” I don’t know where you get this idea … A rheme with no empty blanks is called by Peirce a medad rheme (CP 2.272). Also, breadth of a term or rheme is not the filling of a blank, but the potential of a blank to be filled; and the filled blank would represent the breadth of a proposition, which must have both breadth and depth in order to convey information, and therefore be relevant to logical critic. CP 2.272 is indeed critical. >From the perspective of “meaning”, CP 2.272 represents the relationships >between the concept the structure of a sentence and the logical content of it. > Thus, CSP is maladroitly separating the words of a sentence into what he >believes are more important terms from terms of ???? (lesser important?). >The listing of the terms, medad, monad, dyad, triad, etc, lacks sentential >meaning to this reader because CSP fails to relate the medad, monad, dyad,… >to either the subject or predicate or prepositions, or adjectives, or adverbs, >etc., of the statement. In short, the fancy terms, medad, monad, dyad, triad,… simply say a sentence may contain 0,1,2,3, or more proper names. What I find interesting in CP 2.272 is that one meaningful use of this queer quasi- grammatical categorization is in the notion of parts of a whole which was later developed into an important part of mathematical logic (Lesniewski’s logic). This is consistent with 3.420-421. On the positive note, the rheme appears to extend the earlier usage of syncategorimata (sp?). Perhaps JAS would like to relate CP 2.272 AND 3.420-1 to his views of meaningful information since any proper name could mean either breadth or depth. depending on the grammar and context of the organization of the proposition. Cheers Jerry
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