List: It is relatively uncontroversial that Peirce consistently associated the logical breadth and denotation of a Sign with its Object. However, as we have discussed previously, there are at least two different ways of understanding the logical depth and signification of a Sign. Peirce's writings through 1904 associate them with the characters or qualities predicated of its Object, which constitute the "ground" of the Sign--arguably, what he started calling the Immediate Object at the end of that period.
CSP: Every term has two powers or significations, according as it is subject or predicate. The former, which will here be termed its *breadth*, comprises the objects to which it is applied; while the latter, which will here be termed its *depth*, comprises the characters which are attributed to every one of the objects to which it can be applied. (CP 2.473; 1867) CSP: By the informed depth of a term, I mean all the real characters (in contradistinction to mere names) which can be predicated of it* (with logical truth, on the whole) in a supposed state of information ... *That is, of whatever things it is applicable to. (CP 2.408; 1867) CSP: A symbol, in its reference to its object, has a triple reference: First, Its direct reference to its object, or the real things which it represents; Second, Its reference to its ground through its object, or the common characters of those objects; Third, Its reference to its interpretant through its object, or all the facts known about its object. What are thus referred to, so far as they are known, are: First, The informed *breadth *of the symbol; Second, The informed *depth *of the symbol; Third, The sum of synthetical propositions in which the symbol is subject or predicate, or the *information *concerning the symbol. By breadth and depth, without an adjective, I shall hereafter mean the informed breadth and depth. (CP 2:418-419; 1867) CSP: An operation increasing the depth of a term, whether with or without change of information, is known as a *determination*. (CP 2.428; 1893) CSP: The signification of a term is all the qualities which are indicated by it; of a proposition it is all of its different implications ... A general term denotes whatever there may be which possesses the characters which it signifies ... (CP 2:431,433; 1902) CSP: Every representamen is related or is capable of being related to a reacting thing, its object, and every representamen embodies, in some sense, some quality, which may be called its *signification *... (EP 2:203; 1903) CSP: Passing now to the consideration of the Predicate, it is plain enough that the last proposition, or any at all like it, only conveys its signification by exciting in the mind some image or, as it were, a composite photograph of images, like the Firstness meant. This, however, does not squarely meet the question, which is not what our mental constitution causes to happen, but how the predicate represents the Firstness that it signifies.* *The word *signify *has been the regular technical term since the twelfth century, when John of Salisbury (*Metalogicus*, II, xx) spoke of "quod fere in omnium ore celebre est, aliud scilicet esse quod appellativa (i.e., adjectives) *significant*, et aliud esse quod *nominant*. Nominantur singularia (i.e., existent individual things and facts), sed universalia (i.e., Firstnesses) significantur." (CP 2.317, EP 2:281; 1903) CSP: In addition however to *denoting *objects, every sign sufficiently complete *signifies characters*, or qualities ... All these characters are elements of the "Truth." Every sign signifies the "Truth." But it is only the Aristotelian *Form *of the universe that it signifies. (EP 2:304; 1904) CSP: The conception of the relation of antecedent and consequent amounts, therefore, to a confusion of thought between the reference of a sign to its *meaning*, the character which it attributes to its object, and its appeal to an interpretant ... The relation of an antecedent to its consequent, in its confusion of the signification with the interpretant, is nothing but a special case of what occurs in all action of one thing upon another, modified so as to be merely an affair of being represented instead of really being. It is the representative action of the sign upon its object. For whenever one thing acts upon another it determines in that other a quality that would not otherwise have been there. (EP 2:305; 1904) CSP: The totality of the predicates of a sign, and also the totality of the characters it signifies, are indifferently each called its logical *depth*. (EP 2:305; 1904) However, by 1906 and thereafter, Peirce's writings instead associate the logical depth and signification of a Sign with its Interpretant. CSP: No cognition and no Sign is absolutely precise, not even a Percept; and indefiniteness is of two kinds, indefiniteness as to what is the Object of the Sign, and indefiniteness as to its Interpretant, or indefiniteness in Breadth and in Depth. (CP 4.543; 1906) CSP: When we speak of the depth, or signification, of a sign we are resorting to hypostatic abstraction, that process whereby we regard a thought as a thing, make an interpretant sign the object of a sign ... a sign which should make its interpreter its deputy to determine its signification at his pleasure would not signify anything, unless *nothing *be its significate (CP 5.448n, EP 2:394; 1906) CSP: The next point is still less novel; for not to mention references to it by the Greek commentators upon Aristotle, it was between six and seven centuries ago that John of Salisbury spoke of it as "fere in omnium ore celebre." It is the distinction, to use that author's phrases, between that which a term *nominat*--its logical breadth--and that which it *significat*--its logical depth. In the case of a proposition, it is the distinction between that which its subject denotes and that which its predicate asserts. In the case of an argument, it is the distinction between the state of things in which its premisses are true and the state of things which is defined by the truth of its conclusion. (CP 5.471; 1907) CSP: For every sign, in functioning as such, produces a mental effect. How shall we name the entire mental effect which a sign by itself is calculated, in its proper significative function, to produce? The word *signification *is somewhat too narrow, since, as examples will soon show, this mental effect may be of the nature of an emotion or of that of an effort. No existing word is sufficiently appropriate. Permit me to call this total proper effect of the sign taken by itself the *interpretant *of the sign. (EP 2:429; 1907) CSP: "Significs" sounds to me narrower than Semeotic, since *signification *is only *one *of the *two *chief functions of signs ... So *significs *appears to be limited to the study of the relations of Signs to their Interpretants; and I presume you do so limit it. (CP 8.378; 1908) CSP: As to the Interpretant, i.e., the "signification," or "interpretation" rather, of a sign, we must distinguish an Immediate and a Dynamical, as we must the Immediate and Dynamical Objects. (EP 2:496; 1909) CSP: On the other hand, its *Interpretant *is the *Signification *of the concept, its *Inhalt*, its "connotation" (to use a bad term). As John of Salisbury, a clear and elegant writer of the twelfth century, a disciple of Abelard, said ... (EP 2:497; 1909) CSP: Now a definition does not reveal the Object of a Sign, its Denotation, but only analyzes its Signification, and *that *is a question not of the sign’s relation to its Object but of its relation to its Interpretant. (SS 118; 1909) In general, I tend to prefer Peirce's later writings as expressing what I take to be his more considered views; but in this case, the earlier passages make more sense to me, especially when conceiving semiosis using metaphysical terms such as Form, Matter, and Entelechy. As I recently quoted ... CSP: The mode of being of the composition of thought, which is always of the nature of the attribution of a predicate to a subject, is the living intelligence which is the creator of all intelligible reality, as well as of the knowledge of such reality. It is the *entelechy*, or perfection of being. (CP 6.341; c. 1909) I noticed that this is in a portion of the *Collected Papers* with several ellipses where the editors omitted some of the original text, so I took a look at the manuscript--R 200, "The Fourth Curiosity," dated by Robin to 1908 rather than c. 1909. There I discovered some interesting and relevant remarks that appear between CP 6.347 and CP 6.348. CSP: ... the logical *breadth*, extension, sphere, *Umfang*, denotation, or denomination of any sign is an *ens rationis* of which every definite and determinate existent object which goes to occasion the use of the sign is a factor; while the logical *depth*, comprehension, intension, content, Inhalt, "connotation" (an improper designation), or signification, is an *ens rationis* of which every monadic being or possible quality which enters into the proper Interpretant of the sign is an ingredient. The points I wish to make are that particularly, 1st, that Breadth and Depth, which the logic-books restrict to one class of signs, namely to terms, are equally applicable, by a legitimate and easy generalization of their meanings, not only to propositions and to arguments, but also to *icons*, *indices*, and all kinds of signs; 2nd, that Breadth refers to the Object, which occasions the use of the sign, while Depth refers to the Interpretant, or proper determinate of the sign; 3rd, that if we are to take Breadth in the sense in which it is made up of the external existents referred to, then, for the sake of uniformity, the Depth should be taken in such a sense that it is made up of the possibilities which are imagined or judged to be realized in those existents; and 4th, it is the predicates which express depth, and the subjects which indicate breadth. (R 200:E86-E87; 1908) Here Peirce explicitly associated the logical depth or signification of a Sign with "monadic being or possible quality" and "the possibilities which are imagined or judged to be realized in" the Object, which seems consistent with the earlier passages; yet he also stated that every such quality "enters into the proper Interpretant of the sign" and that "Depth refers to the Interpretant, or proper determinate of the sign," which seems consistent with the later passages. Subsequently, there is a lengthy discussion of propositions that comes between CP 6.348 and CP 4.647-681, which concludes as follows. CSP: The possibility of any definite predicate being true is the being of a corresponding *character*. That is the signification of the logical term "character." A character *belongs* to whatever singulars the corresponding predicate could truly be asserted of; and a character which belongs to anything existent is thereby said itself to *exist*, and to exist *in* the singulars of which that predicate is true. This ties predicates to characters, and characters to existents, which are the Objects (not Interpretants) of Signs. How do we reconcile these various comments that all appear within the same manuscript? 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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