List: I have been musing recently on the well-known remark by Peirce that "just as we say that a body is in motion, and not that motion is in a body, we ought to say that we are in thought, and not that thoughts are in us" (CP 5.289n1, EP 1:42n1; 1868). He also asserted in the same series of articles that "all thought is in signs" (CP 5.253, EP 1:24; 1868), so by substitution we ought to say that our individual (Quasi-)minds are in semiosis, and not that signs are in our individual (Quasi-)minds.
As Peirce recognized, despite not having the benefit of Einstein's insights, Zeno's famous paradoxes are dissolved by understanding *continuous *motion through space-time as a more fundamental reality than *discrete *positions in space and/or moments in time. We arbitrarily *mark *the latter to facilitate measurement and calculation for particular purposes, but space is not *composed *of points and time is not *composed *of instants. Likewise, I suggest that semiosis is *continuous*, and we arbitrarily isolate *discrete *signs--or rather, Instances of Signs--to facilitate analysis for particular purposes. We can say that a Dynamic Object determines a Token of a Type to determine a Dynamic Interpretant in an individual (Quasi-)mind, treating this as an actual event "occurring just when and where it does" (CP 4.537; 1906). Nevertheless, the Type is not *composed *of its Tokens. Moreover, every Instance contributes to the Sign's *Informed* Breadth by adding that Token's *Dynamic *Object; as Peirce put it, "Breadth refers to the Object, which occasions the use of the sign" (R 200:E87; 1908). Nevertheless, this collection could never amount to the Sign's *Substantial *Breadth, which (I have argued) corresponds to its *General *Object. In other words, the Sign (as a Type) and its General Object are both *continuous*, while each Instance (as a Token) and its Dynamic Object (even if it includes multiple items) are both *discrete*. In fact, it seems to me that a necessary condition for a Token to be an Instance of a Type is that the Token's Dynamic Object must likewise be an instantiation of the Type's General Object. When I pick something up and say out loud, "This is a vase," the word "vase" that I pronounce is an *actual* constituent of the *real *continuum of all *potential *Tokens of the corresponding Type, which could be in any spoken or written language or other Sign System; and I am asserting that what I now hold in my hands is an *actual *constituent of the *real *continuum of all *potential *vases. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
----------------------------- 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] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
