John, List:
It appears that our disagreements about all of this are and will remain
intractable. We simply prefer different but *equally valid* (and equally
Peircean) analyses of a proposition--you throw everything possible into the
predicate, leaving only an indicated subject; I throw everything possible
into the subject, leaving only a continuous predicate. What these
necessarily have in common, though, is that "every proposition
contains a *Subject
*and a *Predicate*, the former representing (or being) an Index of the
Primary Object, or Correlate of the relation represented, the latter
representing (or being) an Icon of the Dicisign in some respect" (CP 2.316,
EP 2:279; 1903). This makes it frankly *untenable *to claim that "the
logical subject is a predicate" and "a grammatical subject ... is a
proposition."
JFS: Therefore, the logical subject is a predicate, which is a Rheme,
which is a Seme.
No--again, by definition a logical *subject *cannot also be a *predicate*;
at least, not within the *same *proposition. "Seme," like "term,"
names a *class
*of Signs; "subject" and "predicate" name the two different *functions *that
a Seme (or term) can perform *within a proposition*, depending on how it is
analyzed. Peirce's late 1908 approach *simplifies *the analysis of a
proposition by treating all of its constituent Semes as subjects that are
"married" by a single continuous predicate. By contrast, since a Rheme is
an *incomplete *proposition with a blank for at least one of its subjects,
it can *only* perform the function of a predicate.
JFS: In an EG, the grammatical subject has a line of identity attached to
the monad: Car———. This EG is a medad because every peg is attached to a
line. It states the proposition (Pheme) "There is a car."
No--a Spot with a Line of Identity attached is not a grammatical *subject*,
it is a complete *proposition*. In your analysis, the proposition is
"There exists an x and there exists a y, such that x is identical to y and
y is a car"; it has two subjects (x and y) and two predicates ("_____ is
identical to _____" and "_____ is a car"). In my analysis, the proposition
is "Something is identical to something that belongs to the class of car";
it has three subjects ("something," "something," and "car") and one
continuous predicate ("_____ is identical to _____ that belongs to the
class of _____").
JFS: But the grammatical subject has two parts, a monad and a line of
identity. That makes it a medad, which is a proposition, which is a Pheme.
No--again, by definition a grammatical *subject *cannot (by itself) be a
*proposition*, since it is only *one part* of a proposition; namely,
whatever is *not *the grammatical predicate.
JFS: This quotation confirms four points: (1) Peirce was always thinking
in terms of EGs; (2) he did not believe that they had any limitations; (3)
they were his primary tool for analyzing the Phaneron; therefore, (4) they
are the formal logic he used to derive the normative sciences.
No--a single quotation from a single manuscript does not demonstrate that
Peirce was *always *thinking in terms of EGs, and the fact that he *believed
*that EGs could be extended to other kinds of Signs does not make it so;
after all, the *only *version that he himself developed cannot represent
anything *except *propositions. In fact, it can only represent
*asserted *propositions,
not other Instances of them like questions and commands. As such, EGs are
indeed a useful tool for thinking *about *the Phaneron; but as my recent
exchanges with Gary R. and Gary F. amply demonstrate, that is not at all
the same thing as *practicing *Phenomenology itself.
JFS: The universes discussed in CP 4.539, when considered as
possibilities, are complex Semes formed as conjunctions of multiple simpler
Semes.
No--there are no "complex Semes," that is a contradiction in terms. A Seme
is the *simplest *kind of Sign--"anything which serves for any purpose as a
substitute for an object of which it is, in some sense, a representative or
Sign" (CP 4.538; 1906). The various Universes of CP 4.539 are the *Objects
*of Semes, not *themselves* Semes.
JFS: But a conjunction of Semes does not become a Pheme until, by some
judgment, it is asserted about something determined by some index.
Yes--in your analysis, which treats all Semes except variables as
*predicates*. In mine, a conjunction of Semes does not become a
Proposition (Pheme) unless and until they are "married" as *subjects *by a
continuous predicate, which is usually embodied as *syntax*; that is why
"it is not true, as ordinarily represented, that a proposition can be built
up of non-propositional signs" (CP 4.583; 1906).
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
On Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 9:55 PM John F Sowa <[email protected]> wrote:
> Gary F, Francesco, and Jon AS,
>
> The puzzle is solved. I thank all three of you for forcing me
> to consider more passages by Peirce. They show how and why EGs
> are the Bedrock that determines where the stones fit in the mosaic.
>
> I took a fair amount of time to write this note because I plan
> to combine some of this material with another article I'm writing.
>
> GF
> > this looks to me like an evasive maneuver on your part. Peirce's
> > definition of "Seme" is part of his speculative grammar and has
> > nothing to do with Existential Graphs.
>
> No. Every aspect of Peirce's semeiotic from the 1860s to 1914 is
> based on his logic. Although his logic and semeiotic evolved over the
> years, every feature of his earlier logics has an exact translation to
> features of his later versions.
>
> That makes logic the touchstone (standard or criterion) for analyzing
> and relating different versions of his terminology. For example, look
> at the way he introduced the word 'Seme':
>
> > CSP: A familiar logical triplet is Term, Proposition, Argument.
> > In order to make this a division of all signs, the first two
> > members have to be much widened. By a Seme, I shall mean anything
> > which serves for any purpose as a substitute for an object of which
> > it is, in some sense, a representative or Sign. The logical Term,
> > which is a class-name, is a Seme. (CP 4.538)
>
> The triplet "Term, Proposition, Argument" comes from Aristotelian-
> scholastic logic, which was familiar to every university graduate
> in the 19th c. To see exactly what Peirce meant by a logical Term,
> look at the way he translated syllogisms to existential graphs in
> NEM 3:168. (Copied as p. 8 of http://jfsowa.com/peirce/eg1911.pdf )
>
> In Fig. 11 to Fig 17, he drew the EGs for stating and proving the
> syllogism Barbara: Any M is P. Any S is M. Therefore, any S is P.
> The letter S is a subject term, P is a predicate term, and M is the
> middle term, which appears in both subject and predicate position.
>
> The letters S, M, and P represent monads (monadic predicates), each
> of which has one unattached peg. Therefore, the logical subject is
> a predicate, which is a Rheme, which is a Seme.
>
> But in the sentence "Some car is red", the noun phrase "Some car" is
> the grammatical subject, and the noun 'car' is the logical subject.
> In an EG, the grammatical subject has a line of identity attached to
> the monad: Car———. This EG is a medad because every peg is attached
> to a line. It states the proposition (Pheme) "There is a car."
>
> FB
> > In R 295, a draft of the "Prolegomena", Peirce says:
> >
> > The first member of the triplet, the “Seme,” embraces the logical
> > Term, the Subject or Object of a sentence, everything of any kind,
> > be it a man or a scribed character, such as h or Pb, which will
> > serve or is supposed to serve, for some purpose, as a substitute
> > for its Object. (R 295, p. 26ff)
>
> Since it's a draft, we should ask why Peirce replaced it with CP 4.538.
> The most likely reason is that he noticed an ambiguity in R 295.
>
> To see why R 295 is ambiguous, consider "the logical Term, the Subject
> or Object of a sentence". The qualifiers before and after 'Subject'
> have contradictory implications. The phrase "logical Term" implies
> a monad with an unattached peg. But the phrase "of a sentence"
> implies a grammatical subject, which would contain indexical words
> like 'any', 'some', 'all', 'a', 'the'... Each of those words maps
> to a line of identity in an EG. (See CP 3.460 about indexicals.)
>
> In the final version (CP 4.538), Peirce wrote "logical triplet"
> at the beginning of the paragraph, and "logical Term" at the end.
> But he avoided the word 'subject'. He did use the word 'object',
> but only as something in the universe of discourse (UoD), not as
> a grammatical part of a sentence.
>
> For more about Semes and Phemes, note EP 2:490, 1908, triad IX:
> > As to the Nature of the Influence of a Sign [a Seme is] like a simple
> > sign [a Pheme is] with Antecedent and Consequent [and a Delome is]
> > with Antecedent, Consequent, and principle of sequence.
>
> As a Seme, the logical subject is simple. It has only one part,
> which is represented by a monadic predicate in an EG. But the
> grammatical subject has two parts, a monad and a line of identity.
> That makes it a medad, which is a proposition, which is a Pheme.
>
> FB
> > The subject of a sentence, for example "Hamlet" in "Hamlet is mad"
> > is, according to R 295, a seme.
>
> No. This is a third way that the word 'subject' is ambiguous.
> As Peirce said many times, a name is a kind of index. Unlike a
> common noun, such as 'man', a name like 'Hamlet' does not require
> an indexical in front of it to be a grammatical subject.
>
> In CP 4.538, Peirce wrote "The logical Term, which is a class-name,
> is a Seme." That does not include names of individuals. This issue
> was debated from antiquity to the 19th c. Aristotle did not allow
> names to occur as terms in syllogisms, but some of his followers did.
> Even those who allowed names in syllogisms restricted them to subject
> position, never middle or predicate position.
>
> And by the way, there is also a fourth meaning of the word 'subject':
> some object in the UoD that a grammatical subject refers to. Peirce
> kept all the logical/semeiotic relationships clear in his own mind.
> To understand what he wrote, quoting MSS is not enough. We must
> reconstruct the logic he had in mind.
>
> FB
> > I know of no classification of signs after 1906 in which "rheme"
> > is used instead of "seme", and I know some (R 339, p. 285r, R 795,
> > EP 2, p. 490) in which "seme" appears instead of "rheme"
>
> I never disputed that point. I claimed that a Seme is a predicate
> or a quasi-predicate. I'm happy to consider 'Rheme' as a synonym
> for 'predicate'.
>
> Since Seme is a First in the triad Seme, Pheme, Delome, a widening
> of Term (also a First) must include another kind of First. Therefore,
> a quasi-predicate, whatever it may be, must be a First.
>
> But the word 'quasi-predicate' has been questioned because Peirce
> only used it once in 1903. Therefore, I'll cite Tony Jappy, who
> used the word 'quasi-predicate' in publications that also address
> Peirce's late categories.
>
> His recent book discusses quasi-predicates:
> > Jappy, Tony (2017) Peirce’s Twenty-Eight Classes of Signs and
> > the Philosophy of Representation, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
>
> But I'll quote from his 1914 article, which can be freely downloaded:
>
> https://www.ocula.it/files/OCULA-15-JAPPY-Peirce-rhetoric-and-the-still-image.pdf
>
> Jappy, 1914, p. 8
> > in the 1903 system the proposition, a dicisign, was defined as a double
> > sign associating an index and a rheme (CP 2.251). In 1906 these two
> > terms are dropped and Peirce simply refers to the ‘part appropriated
> > to representing the object, and another to representing how [the] sign
> > itself represents that object’ (EP2 478); in other words one part
> > representing the sign’s partial objects (the indexical elements of
> > 1903), and another representing the form of the relations holding
> > between these partial objects.
>
> In the 1903 version, the logical subject is the rheme, and the
> grammatical subject is the index + rheme. In 1906, the word 'Term'
> is "widened" to include percepts (in CP 4.539) that go beyond the
> symbols of language or logic. But in NEM 3.917, Peirce had also
> discussed the option of precisive abstraction, "leaving something
> out of account in order to attend to something else".
>
> A percept or image that represents a form would be a Seme, which
> may be simplified (by precisive abstraction) to a monad in EGs.
> The indexical elements would be linked to that monad by a line
> or ligature. The combination of both parts is a Pheme.
>
> But Peirce had also planned to extend EGs much farther:
> > Now Existential Graphs furnish us the best diagram of thought
> > that has ever yet been invented. And do not forget that I have
> > only developed one Department of it. There are countless Objects
> > of consciousness that words cannot express; such as the feelings
> > a symphony inspires or that which is in the soul of a furiously
> > angry man in presence of his enemy. But all these can perfectly
> > be expressed in Graphs... And therefore there can be no better
> > instrument for thinking about Constituents of the Phaneron —
> > which is itself too evanescent for definite comprehension — than
> > to think about Existential Graphs. (R 499s: 17, 1906).
>
> This quotation confirms four points: (1) Peirce was always thinking
> in terms of EGs; (2) he did not believe that they had any limitations;
> (3) they were his primary tool for analyzing the Phaneron; therefore,
> (4) they are the formal logic he used to derive the normative sciences.
>
> Jappy, pp. 10, 11
> > Now this characteristic two-part structure is to be found... in the
> > dicent sinsign illustrated by the photographs to be examined below.
> > This is how Peirce had described the photograph in 1903...
> > [Quoting CP 2:230, 1903]
> >> It will be remarked that this connection of the print, which is
> >> the quasi-predicate of the photograph, with the section of the
> >> rays, which is the quasi-subject, is the Syntax of the Dicisign;
>
> Further on p. 11, Jappy uses the phrase "nonverbal communication
> (NVC signs)" for the indexical features of NVCs that determine
> the quasi-subjects. As examples of NVCs, he mentions proximity,
> orientation, posture, facial expression, gesture and appearance.
>
> On p. 12, Jappy adds "A NVC sign such as proximity or interpersonal
> spacing tends to be culturally variable, and is often associated
> with orientation." The quasi-predicates, however, describe the
> objects that are indicated by the NVCs.
>
> The detail added by Jappy is consistent with what Peirce wrote
> about quasi-predicates in 1903 and with what he wrote about Semes
> and Phemes in CP 4.538-550:
> > The Immediate Object of all knowledge and all thought is, in the
> > last analysis, the Percept... 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...
> > 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 4.539)
>
> In summary, quasi-predicates are percepts, images, or patterns of
> percepts and images from any sensory source, including feelings.
> An NVC is a nonverbal indexical of a quasi-subject that determines
> some object in the UoD which is described by a Seme.
>
> The universes discussed in CP 4.539, when considered as possibilities,
> are complex Semes formed as conjunctions of multiple simpler Semes.
> But a conjunction of Semes does not become a Pheme until, by some
> judgment, it is asserted about something determined by some index.
>
> JAS
> > Not surprisingly, I agree completely with Francesco
>
> Unfortunately, you were both misled by the same ambiguity. But if
> it's any consolation, you were partly right: a logical subject is
> a kind of Seme, but a grammatical subject is a Pheme.
>
> John
>
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