Francesco, Jon S, List,
I find the interpretative argument that only propositions and arguments have immediate objects interesting, but I'm trying to square it with other things Peirce says about immediate objects and the classification of signs. Consider the following passage, where Peirce characterizes the immediate object of a percept: The Immediate Object of all knowledge and all thought is, in the last analysis, the Percept. This doctrine in no wise conflicts with Pragmaticism, which holds that the Immediate Interpretant of all thought proper is Conduct. Nothing is more indispensable to a sound epistemology than a crystal-clear discrimination between the Object and the Interpretant of knowledge; very much as nothing is more indispensable to sound notions of geography than a crystal-clear discrimination between north latitude and south latitude; and the one discrimination is not more rudimentary than the other. That we are conscious of our Percepts is a theory that seems to me to be beyond dispute; but it is not a fact of Immediate Perception. A fact of Immediate Perception is not a Percept, nor any part of a Percept; a Percept is a Seme, while a fact of Immediate Perception or rather the Perceptual Judgment of which such fact is the Immediate Interpretant, is a Pheme that is the direct Dynamical Interpretant of the Percept, and of which the Percept is the Dynamical Object, and is with some considerable difficulty (as the history of psychology shows), distinguished from the Immediate Object, though the distinction is highly significant. But not to interrupt our train of thought, let us go on to note that while the Immediate Object of a Percept is excessively vague, yet natural thought makes up for that lack (as it almost amounts to), as follows. A late Dynamical Interpretant of the whole complex of Percepts is the Seme of a Perceptual Universe that is represented in instinctive thought as determining the original Immediate Object of every Percept. Of course, I must be understood as talking not psychology, but the logic of mental operations. Subsequent Interpretants furnish new Semes of Universes resulting from various adjunctions to the Perceptual Universe. They are, however, all of them, Interpretants of Percepts. (CP 4.538) Finally, and in particular, we get a Seme of that highest of all Universes which is regarded as the Object of every true Proposition, and which, if we name it [at] all, we call by the somewhat misleading title of "The Truth." (CP 4.539) Without getting into the challenges of interpreting each suggestion Peirce offers here, I would like to focus attention on his claim that the "Immediate Object of a Percept is excessively vague". What does this imply about the possibility that some semes, if not all, have an immediate object--even if it is vague? Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________ From: Francesco Bellucci <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2018 10:31:21 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Direct experience and immediate object Jon, List Thanks for the summary. To say that particular/singular/universal is a division of propositions is to say that that which is either p, s, or u is only a proposition, i.e. that only propositions are either p, s, or g. Now Peirce says in 1904–1906 that signs are according to their IO are either p, s, or u. This means that only that which is either p, s, or u is divisible according to the IO (for otherwise Peirce should have said: some signs are divisible according to the IO into p, s, g and some other signs are divisible according to the IO into x, y, z). Now, since only propositions are either p, s, or g and since that which is either p, s, or u is divisible according to the IO, it follows that only propositions are divisible according to the IO. Now, that only propositions are divisible according to the IO ceratinly means that propositions have an IO, but does not exclude that non-propositional signs also have an IO. This I concede. But if one wonders what on earth the IO of a proposition is, that non-propositional signs have no IO becomes evident. For since propositions are divisible according to the IO into p, s, and g, that which constitutes the IO in them is that which allows such division. I see no warrant for claiming that the p-s-g aspect in a proposition is "part" of the IO, as Jon suggests. For in that case Peirce should have made it clear that propositions are divisible according to a part (= the quantificational part) of the IO into p, s, and g. He should have made it clear that the IO does not exhaust the quantificational dimension of propositions, and, I surmise, he should have made it clear that propositions are divisible according to one part of the IO into p, s, and g, and according to another part of the IO into, say, x, y, and z. As far as I know, Peirce never speak of "parts" of the IO, one of which would be the quantificational dimension. I think it is safe to conclude that that which constitutes the IO in a proposition is that which allows the division into p, s, and g. That which allows the division of propositions into p, s, and g is what Peirce calls the "subject" of a proposition: in "All men are mortal", the Peircean subject is "For any x..." while the predicate is "x is either not a man or is mortal"; in "Some men are wise" the Peircean subject is "For some x..." and the predicate is "x is both a man and mortal"; in "Socrates is mortal" the subject is "Socrates" and the predicate "x is mortal". The predicates in these sentences are rhemes. Rhemes do not have "subjects", they are not quantified. Since that which allows the division into p, s, and g is the IO, and since the IO is – in the case of those signs for which it is comprehensible what on earth the IO is – the subject, it follows that lack of a subject involves lack of an IO. In sum: In order for a sign to have an IO, it should be divisible into p, s, and g (this I think is evident from Peirce's claim taht "signs are divisible according to the IO into p, s, and g.) Rhemes are not divisible into p, s, and g Therefore, rhemes do not have an IO Francesco Rhemes do not have Immediate Objects. On Mon, Sep 10, 2018 at 5:26 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Francesco, List: To clarify, I do not dispute any of the following. 1. Only Dicisigns and Arguments distinctly/separately/specially indicate their Objects. 2. Only Arguments distinctly/separately/specially express their Interpretants. 3. The Immediate Object is the Object that is represented by the Sign to be the Sign's Object. 4. Rhemes are less complete Signs than Dicisigns, which are less complete Signs than Arguments. 5. Rhemes cannot be true or false. 6. Particular/singular/universal is a division of propositions. 7. Quantification is an aspect of a proposition's Immediate Object. However, I continue to to find the following inferences exegetically unwarranted and systematically problematic. 1. Rhemes do not have Immediate Objects. 2. Rhemes and Dicisigns do not have Immediate Interpretants. 3. Despite being Types and Symbols, propositions can have Immediate Objects that are Possibles (vague) or Existents (singular). 4. Quantification is required for any Sign to have an Immediate Object. It still seems to me that #1 would mean that Rhemes cannot denote their Objects at all, while #2 would mean that Rhemes and Dicisigns cannot signify their Interpretants at all; yet it was already well-established in logic, and explicitly affirmed by Peirce--both early and late--that terms (Rhematic Symbols) have Breadth and Depth. #3 would mean that in his late taxonomy, the trichotomy according to the Immediate Object comes after the one according to the relation between the Sign and Dynamic Object in the order of determination. #4 is an arbitrary restriction that Peirce himself, as far as I know, never imposed. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 2:16 PM, Francesco Bellucci <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Jon, List JAS: If one holds that only Sign-Replicas distinctly/separately representing their Objects have Immediate Objects, then one must also hold that only Sign-Replicas distinctly/separately representing their Interpretants have Immediate Interpretants. If a Rheme does not have an Immediate Object, then a Rheme or Dicisign does not have an Immediate Interpretant; but Peirce never said or implied this. Peirce said something like this, but before the distinction between different kinds of interpretants had emerged. He said that a proposition does not separately represent its interpretant: CSP: " A proposition is a symbol in which the representative element, or reason [i.e. interpretant, FB], is left vague and unexpressed, but in which the reactive element [i.e. the object, FB] is distinctly [i.e. separately, FB] indicated. [...] An argument is a bad name for a symbol in which the representative element [i.e. interpretant, FB], or reason, is distinctly expressed.” (R 484: 7-8, 1898) CSP: “[a] Proposition is a sign which distinctly indicates the Object which it denotes, called its Subject, but leaves its Interpretant to be what it may” (CP 2.95, 1902 CSP: "A representamen is either a rhema, a proposition, or an argument. An argument is a representamen which separately shows what interpretant it is intended to determine. A proposition is a representamen which is not an argument [i.e. which separately shows what interpretant it is intended to determine, FB], but which separately indicates what object it is intended to represent. A rhema is a simple representation without such separate part" (EP 2: 204, 1903) CSP “A term […] is any representamen which does not separately indicate its object; […] A proposition is a representamen which separately indicates its object, but does [not] specially show what interpretant it is intended to determine […] An argument is a symbol which especially shows what interpretant it is intended to determine” (R 491: 9-10, 1903). Now, the question is: in light of the later taxonomy of interpretants, what is the interpretant that the proposition does not, while the argument does, separately represent? CSP: …every sign has two objects. It has that object which it represents itself to have, its Immediate Object, which has no other being than that of being represented to be, a mere Representative Being, or as the Kantian logicians used to say a merely Objective Being ... The Objective Object is the putative father. (R 499; c. 1906, bold added) I beg you to notice what Peirce says: he says "has that object which it represents itself to have", which, if my English sustains me, means that the sign has that object which the sign represents itself to have, not that it has the object that the sign represents in its (i.e. the object's) qualities or characters. That is, the immediate object is the object that is represented by the sign to be the sign's object, not the object in the characters that the sign represents it to have. CSP: Every sign must plainly have an immediate object, however indefinite, in order to be a sign. (R 318:25; 1907, bold added) This indeed seems contrary to the claim that only propositions have an immediate object. There is another occurrence of such a claim, in another 1907 writing (a letter to Papini). Now I beg you to notice that since the beginning of this discussion I was talking of the classification of signs of 1904–1906, in which the notion of immediate object first emerged. The two contrary statements are from 1907, and I suspect that after 1907 his notion of immediate object changed. Perhaps the qualification "however indefinite" can help us explain how it changed. But in general, I repeat, I think that often "sign" has to be taken to mean "complete sign" (i.e. "proposition"). If in such apparently contrary statements we adopt this strategy, problems vanish. Peirce says as much: CSP: "a sign may be complex; and the parts of a sign, though they are signs, may not possess all the essential characters of a more complete sign" (R 7: 2). A rheme, though it is a sign, may not possess all the essential characters of a proposition. In particular, while a proposition separately represent its own object (i.e. while it has an immediate object), a rheme does not. CSP: "a sign sufficiently complete must in some sense correspond to a real object. A sign cannot even be false unless, with some degree of definiteness, it specifies the real object of which it is false" (R 7: 3–4). Please note that R 7 was probably composed in 1903, i.e. before the IO/DO distinction had emerged. The sufficiently complete sign must specify, with some degree of definiteness (either singularly, vaguely, or generally) the object, i.e. the DO in the later terminology, this specification, this "hint" ("The Sign must indicate it by a hint; and this hint, or its substance, is the Immediate Objec"), being the IO. He also says that "a sufficiently complete sign may be false" (R 7, p. 4). Rhemes cannot be false, only propositions can, precisely because they indicate an object of which they are false. CSP: The Immediate Interpretant consists in the Quality of the Impression that a sign is fit to produce, not to any actual reaction. (CP 8.315; 1909, bold added) CSP: My Immediate Interpretant is implied in the fact that each Sign must have its peculiar Interpretability before it gets any Interpreter ... The Immediate Interpretant is an abstraction, consisting in a Possibility. (SS 110; 1909, bold added) The second quote affirms that the Immediate Object can be indefinite; i.e., it need not be be distinctly/separately represented. There are various other passages like the third quote, where Peirce discussed the Immediate Object and/or Immediate Interpretant of "a Sign," implying no limitation whatsoever on the classes that he had in mind. In short, I see no warrant at all for claiming that he limited the Immediate Object to Dicisigns and Arguments, or the Immediate Interpretant to Arguments alone. The warrant is a fundamental exegetical claim, emphasized by John Sowa few posts ago: Peirce was a logician, and everything he says about "signs" has to have logical relevance. The 1904–1906 distinction into vague, singular, and general signs is a well-known logical distinction (particular, singular, and universal propositions), and since the immediate object is that which allows us to draw this distinction, I infer that the immediate object is only present where quantification is present. And rhemes are not quantified. best Francesco ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . 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