Edwina, Jon AS, Gary R, and List,
I apologize if anyone was offended by the release of excerpts from
offline notes. My only excuse is that I sent it at 2:10 AM. The
next morning, I was surprised that I had hit SEND.
The conclusion of that note is far more important than a debating
point. I wanted to warn anybody who was misled by the ambiguity
in the word 'subject'. The conclusion that a Seme could be a
subject is not just false, it is horribly false. It contradicts
and undermines Peirce's entire system of semeiotic.
That would be a terrible claim for Peirce List to publicize.
To emphasize why that claim is false, I'm repeating the summary
of the reasoning that shows the contradiction. See below.
John
______________________________________________________________________
The derivation of the contradiction can be summarized in three points:
1. In CP 4.538, Peirce said that the triad Term, Proposition, Argument
had to be widened, and he proposed a new triad Seme, Pheme, Delome.
In 4.539, he discussed issues about percepts, which showed why the
category Seme needed to go beyond purely symbolic Terms.
2. But Jon claimed that Subject would be an appropriate widening.
He was misled by an ambiguity in the word 'subject': as a logical
term, it's a predicate, which is a Rheme, which is a Seme; but as
a grammatical subject, it would refer to something actual.
3. But that triad would contradict the foundation of Peirce's system.
A Seme is a First. It represents a pure possibility, such as a
Mark/Tone, Potisign, or Qualisign. But a grammatical subject in
language refers to something that exists. It's a Second, such
as a Token, Actisign, or Sinsign. To claim that a grammatical
subject could be a Seme would mix Firstness and Secondness,
and create a contradiction in the center of the system.
The reason why Jon was misled is that the word 'subject' without
any qualifiers is ambiguous. A Term in Aristotle's syllogisms may
be used in either subject position or predicate position. As a
Term without an indexical word in front (a, some, any, every...),
it would be a predicate, which is a Seme.
But a grammatical subject refers to something that exists (or is
assumed to exist) in the Universe of Discourse. That kind of
subject would be a Second. It would be a Pheme, not a Seme.
That's all there is to the debate. But it touches on many abstract
issues about Peirce's logic and semeiotic. That complexity obscured
the threat to destroy the entire system.
Summary: The only thing to remember is three brief points.
(1) A Seme is a widening of Rheme (Predicate) to include nonsymbolic
percepts. (2) But the word 'subject' is ambiguous because it could
mean either a predicate (pure possibility) or a grammatical subject
(something actual). (3) Allowing a Seme to refer to something actual
would break the distinction between Firstness and Secondness.
That would contradict Peirce's entire system of semeiotic.
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