Gary F., Gary R., List: Prompted by the on-List exchange below a couple of days ago, I looked up the referenced manuscript (R 9) on the Digital Peirce Archive ( https://rs.cms.hu-berlin.de/peircearchive) and went about transcribing it, along with the accompanying ones (R 7-11) that all contain drafts dated by Robin as c. 1903? for a prospective work with the title, "On the Foundations of Mathematics." The two comments about a Sign being its own Object or Interpretant are both in the first paragraph, which I reproduce here.
CSP: A sign is not a real thing. The same sign may occur, or as we may say, can be *uttered*, over and over again. We may call these things embodying the same sign *replicas* of it. They need not be alike as things. Man, *homo*, ἄνθρωπος are the same sign. A sign is intended to correspond to a real thing or fact, or to something relatively real; and this *object* of the sign may be the very sign itself, as when a map is precisely superposed upon that which it maps. It is a perfection in a sign if it separately represents its object; in which case it becomes a *proposition*, and is true or false. A sign is also intended to determine, in a mind or elsewhere, a sign of the same object; and this *interpretant* of the sign may be the very sign itself; but as a general rule it will be different. It is a perfection in a sign separately to signify its intended interpretant. If it does this, it becomes an *argumen[ta]tion* or *argument*. (Some pedants insist on the former word; but the very best usage supports the latter.) Gary F.'s suggestion that this "is obviously a partial draft of what became the 'New Elements' essay" is warranted by the overall subject matter and even just the opening sentence, which appears intact in the final version (EP 2:303; 1904). In the hope of prompting some further conversation, I offer the following observations. Peirce's example of a Sign that is its own Object is "when a map is precisely superposed upon that which it maps." This calls to mind the aphorism, "The map is not the territory," which is derived from Alfred Korzybski's statement that "A map is *not *the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a *similar structure* to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness." In Peirce's terminology, a map is an *Icon*--more specifically, a *Diagram*--of the territory that it represents; and as he said about an Icon in R 7, "Its object is whatever that resembles it its interpretant takes it to be the sign of, and is a sign of that object in proportion as it resembles it." Since any Object obviously resembles itself in every possible way, it is *always *an Icon of itself; i.e., the territory is an *exact *map of itself, although no longer very useful for being so. Peirce also explicitly affirmed at least once that an Object can *contain* an Index of itself. CSP: An *Index *can very well represent itself. Thus, every number has a double; and thus the entire collection of even numbers is an Index of the entire collection of numbers, and so this collection of even* numbers contains an Index of itself. (CP 2.311, EP 2:276; 1903) *This seems like a possible mistake on Peirce's part, since "all" would make more sense here; i.e., the collection of *all *numbers contains an Index of itself, namely, the collection of *even *numbers. However, I suppose that just as every Object is an Icon of itself, arguably every Object is an Index of itself. I seem to recall that Peirce somewhere denied that a quality (1ns) or thing (2ns) merely representing *itself *qualifies as a Sign (3ns). However, I have not yet been able to find a passage to that effect, other than the various places where he clearly stated that a Sign's Dynamic Object is *external *to and *independent *of the Sign. Peirce gave no example of a Sign that is its own Interpretant, instead simply noting that "as a general rule it will be different." My best guess as to what he *might *have had in mind is the translation of the same Sign from one language to another. He mentioned earlier in the paragraph that "Man, *homo*, ἄνθρωπος are the same sign"; i.e., these are all *Replicas *of the same Sign. When an English-speaker as the Utterer says "man," and a French-speaker as the Interpreter thinks "homme," this is arguably a case where the Dynamic Interpretant is "the very sign itself," although necessarily a different Instance of it. Finally, Peirce called it "a perfection in a sign if it separately represents its object," and likewise "a perfection in a sign separately to signify its intended interpretant." In other words, a Proposition is a more perfect Sign than a Term, and an Argument is an even more perfect Sign than a Proposition. This is consistent with his remarks in "New Elements" about Signs that are "sufficiently complete" to denote Objects and signify characters (EP 2:303-304); that "An *icon *can only be a fragment of a completer sign" (EP 2:306), which he also stated in R 8, where he went on to say that an index such as the exclamation "Oh!" is likewise "only the fragment of a sign"; and that "a symbol, if sufficiently complete, always involves an index, just as an index sufficiently complete involves an icon" (EP 2:318). We discussed on the List what *the *perfect Sign might be a few months ago (https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2018-03/msg00085. html). Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 2:09 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote: > > Turning now to your concluding comments, I am very eager to inquire with > you on the intriguing notion of Peirce's comments that not only the > interpretant but also the object of the sign may be the sign itself. > > On Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 12:37 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> However, speaking as part of community of *inquiry*, I was intrigued by >> your quote, Gary: [[ "A sign is also intended to determine, in a mind or >> elsewhere, a sign of the same object; and this *interpretant* of the >> sign may be the very sign itself. . ." ]] I don’t recall ever hearing >> this from Peirce before, so I did some digging and found that it comes from >> MS 9, which is obviously a partial draft of what became the “New Elements” >> essay, and therefore probably written not long after the Lowell lectures of >> 1903. And on that same page, Peirce wrote that not only the interpretant >> but also the “object of the sign may be the very sign itself.” I won’t go >> any further into this now, but I think it’s (yet another) clue that might >> get us closer to the truth about Peirce’s system. So if and when I post >> about it further, I’ll be acting as a member of the community of >> *inquiry* which is a subset of Peirce-l. I assume there is no objection >> to that kind of post, i.e. that none of us wish to block the way of inquiry. >> >
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