Gary F., List: When I call your approach "exegetical," what I mean is more or less what you described--reading and understanding the texts *as written*, without imposing any kind of external interpretative framework, or even one derived from the author's writings as a whole. The latter is more or less what I mean by my own "systematic" approach, and rewording is sometimes part of the process, along with assembling quotes from various places and times to serve as "proof-texts" for a particular thesis.
Again, I would never claim that my method is "better," just more compatible with how my own mind works, especially when it comes to associating and organizing ideas. In this specific case, I find it fascinating to consider and explore the possibility that one of the key developments in Peirce's *late *semeiotic--his recognition, beginning in 1904, of two Objects and three Interpretants--might have already been present in some of his *earliest *works, at least in embryonic form, nearly four decades previously. So far, the only hint to this effect that I have found elsewhere is in chapter IV, "The Interpretants," of Jorgen Dines Johansen's 1993 book, *Dialogic Semiosis: An Essay on Signs and Meaning*. He identified *nine *different concepts of the Interpretant and arranged them along the spectrum of the corresponding states of information, from Essential (minimum) to Substantial (maximum). He then classified the first four as different specifications of the Immediate Interpretant, the middle one as the Dynamic Interpretant, and the last four as different specifications of the Final Interpretant (pp. 172-174). He also offered a possible clue to reconciling the inconsistency that I posited in the initial post of this thread. JDJ: ... a precise definition of *information*, although considered to be the product of both *extension *and *comprehension*, is more closely connected with *comprehension *than with *extension*, since it is defined as the 'amount of comprehension a symbol has over and above what limits its extension' (W 1:287; 1865). Information, then, is that part of the comprehension of a symbol which exceeds what is necessary to delimit its extension. (p. 147) As Francesco Bellucci put it in *Peirce's Speculative Grammar: Logic as Semiotics*, "... there is no symbol that merely connotes the character contained in its definition without also connoting further characters, and thus embodying information about its object" (p. 41). In Peirce's own words ... CSP: Whatever symbol contains information contains more connotation than is necessary to limit its possible denotation to those things which it may denote. That is, every symbol contains more than is sufficient for a principle of selection. (W 1:282; 1865) CSP: ... every genuine symbol relates or purports to relate to some form embodied in its object. This is its *connotation*. It is, in fact, only by means of this reference to a form that a symbol acquires its applicability to the thing ... its denotation is created by its connotation. (W 1:287; 1865) Perhaps the tension that I have been sensing (rightly or wrongly) could be resolved by associating a Sign's Immediate Object with only the *portion *of its Depth that *demarcates *its Breadth, and its Interpretant (or Signification) with the *remaining *Depth--i.e., "its superfluous comprehension" (W1:467; 1866). From the quotes above, at first it sounds like the former is the Sign's Essential Depth and the latter is the difference between that and its Informed Depth. The problem is that Peirce explicitly linked a Sign's ground with its *Informed *Depth, not its *Essential *Depth, although what he said in the same passage about how the Sign's Interpretant corresponds to its information is not quite as straightforward. CSP: A symbol, in its reference to its object, has a triple reference ... 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 ... Third, The sum of synthetical propositions in which the symbol is subject or predicate, or the *information *concerning the symbol. (CP 2:418; 1867) In this context, "information" is clearly *Experiential *Information, while the sum of *analytic *propositions in which the symbol is subject or predicate is its *Essential *Information. Defined this way, Essential Information is *distinct from* Experiential Information, rather than *included within* it. Since Informed Breadth and Depth are the two dimensions of Experiential Information, presumably they are likewise distinct from Essential Breadth and Depth; so the question then becomes whether and how we can allocate Informed Depth as the Sign's ground between its Immediate Object and its Dynamic Interpretant. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 3:59 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Jon, > > That’s an interesting hypothesis, or set of hypotheses, but I don’t have > any more specific comment on it, because I haven’t read that 1867 paper of > Peirce’s since I published my paper on his concept of information in 2010. > > I don’t think your contrast of “systematic” and “exegetical” quite > captures the difference between our approaches, particularly if “exegesis” > means “critical explanation or interpretation of a text” by means of > *another* text. The more intensively I read a Peirce text, the less need > do I see for a verbal “interpretation” of it; to me, once I’m sufficiently > immersed in Peirce’s context and terminological habits, his text just means > exactly what it says, and I tend to find rewordings of it lacking in one > way or another — but I’m less and less inclined to attempt a competing > rewording. > > This might be a good time to share something I came across in a Peirce > manuscript recently, R 299 CSP 9-10: > > [[ … through all I write upon this subject I find myself in the plight > that has incommoded every man who has attempted a thorough revision of > philosophy; namely, that the old land-marks are so clean washed away that > he knows not how to begin a description of any field of thought. If (to > change the figure), he clothes an unfamiliar concept in the ready-made > language of philosophy, he will get a horrible misfit. If, once a few > categories are made clear, he resorts to definitions for the rest, even if > he surmounts the difficulty of analysis, the very greatest of human minds > will be apt to blunder in executing the correlative synthesis of an > unfamiliar notion. He may, no doubt, explain himself by conducting his > reader along the same path which he himself followed in reaching his new > concept, the reader’s mind, being hurried in as many minutes over the > course as the days, or perhaps weeks, that the pioneer’s exploration > consumed, will be kept tense so long that, by an inexfugible law of > chemistry, the brain becomes fatigued, and the thread of meaning gets lost. > The whole difficulty reminds me of the difficulty of representing the > geographical features of our Globe in a plane map. Each map-projection has > its own characteristic failure; and perhaps that projection is best which > has the faults of all the others, but has no one fault in so objectionable > a degree as it must have had if that one had been its only fault. In like > manner, I incline to think that the philosophist who has original > conceptions to communicate will do best to reunite all three of the faults > above-mentioned, in different judicious proportions in different cases. ]] > > If I had to give a name to what I try to do when reading Peirce, I might > call it “correlative synthesis of the thread of meaning”! 😊 Anyway, > metalinguistic digressions like this one make it clear that Peirce was > acutely aware of how difficult it is to make anything clear to somebody > else when you have to work with (and against) “the ready-made language of > philosophy.” I’ve caught an inkling of this awareness in the course of > working on my own book, although *Turning Signs* does not pretend to be > “a thorough revision of philosophy.” > > > > Gary f. >
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