Gary, list,
I think, the OD is not fully represented in the sign, but the full OD is represented in the sign. As representation is nonlocal (functional), and a sign is representation, it is both true, that the OD is external to the sign, and that it is a part of the sign.
Though not a local (extrenality is about locality), but a functional part, but a part. This part is a function or a representation too, or mostly it is:
A hundred-dollar-bill e.g. is one only by its function, by what it represents, not by the thing itself that it is, as this thing only is worth maybe a cent. So the OD of a 100-$-bill is representation, at least 99.99 % of it. The rest, 0.01 %, is matter. Matter is too effete to be dynamic, so the OD is 100% representation... was that logical? Ok, maybe matter matters too, and in the case of money, locality too, in whose pocket it is..., so I say "mostly".
So is the OD a sign? If it is (or mostly is) a representation, it is, but for the whole world for which it represents something, not in the actual sign, in which it is the OD.
Best, Helmut
24. August 2018 um 21:44 Uhr
"Gary Richmond" <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
"Gary Richmond" <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
Jon, list,
Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
I would like to suggest the following for consideration and comment.
-
- Genuine triadic relation - Dynamic Object, Sign (Type), Final Interpretant
- Degenerate triadic relation - Dynamic Object, Sign-Replica (Token), Dynamic Interpretant
- Doubly degenerate triadic relation - Immediate Object, Sign-Quality (Tone or Mark), Immediate Interpretant
I have offered the first two characterizations on multiple occasions previously, but the third is a new proposal derived from my recent hypothesis that a Sign-Quality (Tone or Mark) is a character embodied in a Sign-Replica (Token) that facilitates the latter's recognition as an Instance of the Sign (Type). The words "man" and "man" are two different Replicas of the same Sign, and have similar Sign-Qualities because they belong to the same Sign System. The words "man" and "homme" are also two different Replicas of the same Sign, but have different Sign-Qualities because they belong to different Sign Systems.Being internal to a Sign-Replica, a Sign-Quality relates to the Object as represented (IO) and the Interpretant as expressed (II), and does so in a monadic rather than dyadic way--consistent with Peirce's omission of trichotomies for IO-S and S-II in his 1908 taxonomy. As such, a Sign-Quality corresponds to the minimal state of Essential Information--i.e., Sign System Acquaintance, which includes familiarity with non-verbal cues like tone of voice and volume. I still need to think through the implications of this for the definition of the Immediate Object as distinct from the Dynamic Object and all three Interpretants.I am also starting to wonder if we should likewise differentiate (a) the Dynamic Object that permanently relates to the Sign (Type) and Final Interpretant from (b) the Dynamic Object that relates to the Sign-Replica (Token) and Dynamic Interpretant in an individual Instance of the Sign. For our recurring examples of a weathercock and ripples on a lake, perhaps (a) is the direction of the wind in general, in accordance with the laws of nature (i.e., inveterate habits of matter) that govern their behavior at any place and time; while (b) is the direction of the wind here and now, which someone actually interprets them to be indicating.As always, feedback--including well-founded criticism--would be appreciated.
Jon, I suppose I should review your earlier posts on 1. and 2. above but haven't the time at the moment to search and locate them. While I think I approved them in my earlier thinking, a constant concern of mine just arose again.
Namely, I still have trouble imaging how the Dynamic Object can stand in any genuine triadic relation to the Sign. While 'it' determines the OI and while it does this "in the mind," one knows the OD only by collateral knowledge, that is various experiences of it. I am always taken back to the thought that, at least in human semiosis, the OD can't really be known in its fullness, that only some 'part' of it can ever be represented in a Sign (even if that sign were a monograph on the Object) and that that partial hint or suggestion of the OD is the OI.
1908 | Letters to Lady Welby | SS 83It 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. The Mediate Object is the Object outside of the Sign; I call it the Dynamoid Object. The Sign must indicate it by a hint; and this hint, or its substance, is the Immediate Object. Each of these two Objects may be said to be capable of either of the three Modalities, though in the case of the Immediate Object, this is not quite literally true.
The result for me is that while I have no trouble with 3. above, the first two present unresolved issues in my thinking.
I think you have said that you see the OD as itself a Sign. I can't quite see it as such. If it is known through collateral knowledge, which Peirce says that it is, then even if each of those experiential moments of it were signs, the OD itself is not a Sign. To me what is known of it by collateral experience/knowledge hints at or suggests or indicates a Sign (as Peirce writes) perhaps prompts a Sign, or rather, an OI.
1908 [c.] | Letters to Lady Welby | MS [R] L463:15As to the Object of a Sign, it is to be observed that the Sign. . .really is determined by its Object. . . the Sign may be said to pose as a representative of its Object, that is, suggests an Idea of the Object which is distinguishable from the Object in its own Being. The former I term the Dynamoid Object (for I want the word “genuine” to express something different); the latter the Immediate Object (a well-established term of logic.) Each of these may have either of the three Modalities of Being, the former in itself, the latter in representation.
And even more to my point:
1909 | Letters to William James | EP 2:498. . . the Dynamical Object, which, from the nature of things, the Sign cannot express, which it can only indicate and leave the interpreter to find out by collateral experience.
Now the nature of the OD in biosemiosis may prove to be less problematic where it--or at least some part of it--might really function as Object (collateral knowledge may mean something different in that idioscopic science, or not not be needed at all).
What I am finding most valuable about your inquiry, Jon, is that your various hypotheses are making me reflect more deeply on semiotic matters which had once seemed settled. You are causing me to rethink some of my earlier suppositions which I thought were, at least tentatively and fallibly, more or less settled.
Meanwhile, I continue to see the OD as that which would be known at the impossible (since asymptotic) conclusion of an "unlimited" inquiry.
1909 | Letters to William James | EP 2:495As to the Object, that may mean the Object as cognized in the Sign and therefore an Idea, or it may be the Object as it is regardless of any particular aspect of it, the Object in such relations as unlimited and final study would show it to be. The former I call the Immediate Object, the latter the Dynamical Object. For the latter is the Object that Dynamical Science (or what at this day would be called “Objective” science) can investigate.
I don't, in other words, see it in its fullness entering into any given instance of semiosis.
Best,
Gary
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
718 482-5690
On Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 9:11 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote:
List:For Peirce, degeneracy has to do with relations. Genuine and degenerate 2ns correspond to the two different kinds of dyadic relations.CSP: This distinction between two kinds of seconds, which is almost involved in the very idea of a second, makes a distinction between two kinds of Secondness; namely, the Secondness of genuine seconds, or matters, which I call genuine Secondness, and the Secondness in which one of the seconds is only a Firstness, which I call degenerate Secondness; so that this Secondness really amounts to nothing but this, that a subject, in its being a second, has a Firstness, or quality. (CP 1.528; 1903)In Aristotelian terms ...CSP: ... there are two sorts of connection which do not involve anything but Matter and Form; namely, the determination of Matter by Form [degenerate], and the blind reaction of Matter with Matter [genuine]. (NEM 4:297; 1904)Likewise, as Edwina pointed out, there are three different kinds of triadic relations (CP 1.365-367). A genuine triadic relation involves dyadic relations, but is not reducible to them; a degenerate triadic relation is reducible to its constituent dyadic relations; and a doubly degenerate triadic relation is qualitative in nature. This is consistent with Peirce's description of Symbols, Indices, and Icons respectively as genuine, degenerate, and doubly degenerate Signs based on the nature of their relations with their Dynamic Objects (EP 2:306-307). With that in mind, I would like to suggest the following for consideration and comment.
- Genuine triadic relation - Dynamic Object, Sign (Type), Final Interpretant
- Degenerate triadic relation - Dynamic Object, Sign-Replica (Token), Dynamic Interpretant
- Doubly degenerate triadic relation - Immediate Object, Sign-Quality (Tone or Mark), Immediate Interpretant
I have offered the first two characterizations on multiple occasions previously, but the third is a new proposal derived from my recent hypothesis that a Sign-Quality (Tone or Mark) is a character embodied in a Sign-Replica (Token) that facilitates the latter's recognition as an Instance of the Sign (Type). The words "man" and "man" are two different Replicas of the same Sign, and have similar Sign-Qualities because they belong to the same Sign System. The words "man" and "homme" are also two different Replicas of the same Sign, but have different Sign-Qualities because they belong to different Sign Systems.Being internal to a Sign-Replica, a Sign-Quality relates to the Object as represented (IO) and the Interpretant as expressed (II), and does so in a monadic rather than dyadic way--consistent with Peirce's omission of trichotomies for IO-S and S-II in his 1908 taxonomy. As such, a Sign-Quality corresponds to the minimal state of Essential Information--i.e., Sign System Acquaintance, which includes familiarity with non-verbal cues like tone of voice and volume. I still need to think through the implications of this for the definition of the Immediate Object as distinct from the Dynamic Object and all three Interpretants.I am also starting to wonder if we should likewise differentiate (a) the Dynamic Object that permanently relates to the Sign (Type) and Final Interpretant from (b) the Dynamic Object that relates to the Sign-Replica (Token) and Dynamic Interpretant in an individual Instance of the Sign. For our recurring examples of a weathercock and ripples on a lake, perhaps (a) is the direction of the wind in general, in accordance with the laws of nature (i.e., inveterate habits of matter) that govern their behavior at any place and time; while (b) is the direction of the wind here and now, which someone actually interprets them to be indicating.As always, feedback--including well-founded criticism--would be appreciated.Regards,Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran LaymanOn Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 3:19 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:Helmut, list
Sorry- but I don't see that when Peirce wrote about the degenerate modes, he also used the term 'form'.
He refers to 'two distinct grades of Secondness and three grades of Thirdness' [1.365] And refers to s 'degenerate sort' [1.365]
Edwina
On Thu 23/08/18 3:58 PM , "Helmut Raulien" h.raul...@gmx.de sent:Edwina, List,Yes, but when Peirce wrote about degenerateness, he mostly used the term in combination with "form": "Degenerate form" of something. "Form", I would say, is "class". The sign classes is a classification of compositions. I think the topic of classification versus composition, and their mixed forms, is quite complicated. Here is a quote, I dont remember the website I have got it from, in which Peirce is fighting with the distinction between composition and classification (though Peirce had not read Stanley N. Salthe:)CP Principles of Philosophy, III. Phenomenology, 5. Degenerate Cases, 528:"At the same time, it is an idea of which Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness are component parts, since the distinction depends on whether the two elements of Firstness and Secondness that are united are so united as to be one or whether they remain two. This distinction between two kinds of seconds, which is almost involved in the very idea of a second, makes a distinction between two kinds of Secondness; namely, the Secondness of genuine seconds, or matters, which I call genuine Secondness, and the Secondness in which one of the seconds is only a Firstness, which I call degenerate Secondness; so that this Secondness really amounts to nothing but this, that a subject, in its being a second, has a Firstness, or quality. It is to be remarked that this distinction arose from attending to extreme cases; and consequently subdivision will be attached to it according to the more or less essential or accidental nature of the genuine or the degenerate Secondness."Best, Helmut23. August 2018 um 20:45 Uhr
"Edwina Taborsky"
wrote:Helmut, list
When I am referring to such terms as genuine Secondness and degenerate Secondness - as I'm sure you know, these are the terms Peirce used to describe these categories. Nothing to do with a natural language understanding of the term 'degenerate'.
Edwina
On Thu 23/08/18 12:16 PM , "Helmut Raulien" h.raul...@gmx.de sent:Edwina, List,you know, one of my favourite topics is that of the distinction between classification and composition (following Stanley N. Salthe). In this respect I have come to the conclusion, that degeneration only is a matter of classification, like in the sign classes (I write classification subcategories with an oblique, and composition subcategories with a dot). In classification the first subcategories are: 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 2/1, 2/2, 2/3, 3/1, 3/2, 3/3. Like the sign classes. But in composition, e.g. S, IO, DO, II, DI, FI, or also in primisense, altersense, medisense, the composition of consciousness, the first subclasses are: 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3. Because here it is composition, you cannot speak of degeneracy, is my opinion. Parts are not degenerate, only classes may be. A cogwheel is not a degenerate gearbox, but a mule may be seen as a degenerate rodent, because it cannot see very well.Best,Helmut23. August 2018 um 17:43 Uhr
"Edwina Taborsky"
John, list
Agreed - my point is that the world is more complex than a simple set of two or even three terms. That's why Peirce expanded his categories into their genuine and degenerate modes.
I would think that Peirce's top-level would be Mind [pure Mind, 3-3 which is aspatial and atemporal].
Then, one would move into spatial and temporal existentialities...of rest of the modes [3-2, 3-1, 2-2, 2-1, 1-1]
However - this is an interesting exploration - but, my focus is more on the pragmatic application of Peircean semiosis...ie. what happens when an environmental stress requires a species to adapt its knowledge base and change its mode of existence...
Edwina
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