Jon, thanks for this — it not only answers my question, but also clarifies (for me anyway) the usefulness of Existential Graphs for directing attention to features of experience. I’ll probably never study this semiotic system in as much detail as you are doing, but maybe I’m starting to get Peirce’s pragmaticistic point about what can (and can’t) be done with language as a means of exploring meaning spaces (as I called them in my book). One thing I can’t do with language is explain why such exploration is worthwhile … it’s like trying to explain why evolution is worthwhile.
Message ends. Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Sent: 13-Apr-19 21:11 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Logical Analysis of Signs (was Phaneroscopy and logic) Gary F., List: I agree that the color assignments are arbitrary, as evidenced by Peirce's own inconsistency, and thus strictly conventional rather than iconic. As he himself recognized, that shortcoming pertains to tinctured surfaces just as much as colored Spots and/or Lines. The main utility that I see for the latter comes when we analyze a discrete predicate into a hypostatically abstracted subject and a continuous predicate. The color reflects the Universe to which the Dynamic Object denoted by the Spot belongs, as well as the corresponding continuous predicate that the Line attached to it signifies. However, I am starting to question this approach myself, in part because of another passage that I recently encountered, which also addresses your last point below. CSP: We remark among Existential Graphs two that are continuous; that is, they may be regarded as consisting of parts; but all parts of them are perfectly homogeneous with the whole. Continuity is not an Existential character; it only belongs to the Object of the nature of Laws. Consequently, the Continuous Graphs do not express Existential Predicates but only Logical Predicates. The two continuous Graphs are the Blank, which expresses Coëxistence and the Line of Identity, which expresses Numerical (i.e. individual) “Sameness.” The peculiarities of these two Graphs are partly Essential, and belong to the Phaneron, and are partly Accidental. This connection through the blank depends on the Creative power of the mind by which it makes entia rationis. The triad of combination is associative. All this should be said at this point. And point out that it supposes a triad. That ordinary Graphs are connected with the Blank is a totally different manner from their connection with one another is to be regarded as an accident of the particular mode of diagrammatization employed. In employing Graphs to study the properties of the Phaneron, two different ways of conceiving the relations of ordinary Graphs to the Blank, or Graph of Coëxistence, present themselves. One is to consider the latter Graph as a Graph of Inexhaustible, because Infinite, Valency; the other is that every Graph should be conceived as having an additional Peg by which it is joined to the Blank, or Graph of Coëxistence or Cobeing. And now the part of the Blank to which any Graph is joined should be regarded as a triad, so that the valency is not diminished by the junction. I mean that if p represents a Peg of the general Graph of Coëxistence, and the Graph g is joined to that Graph, it should be conceived as joined to a special portion of the Blank which is triadic, so that the junction still leaves a Peg free. For the representation of identity, on the other hand, the mode of diagrammatization of the System is entirely satisfactory, the special Graph of Teridentity being introduced when it is needed. (R 499s; 1906) I take "Existential Predicates" to be what I have been calling "discrete predicates," and "Logical Predicates" to be what Peirce elsewhere called "continuous predicates." This then seems to warrant my claim that the continuous relations of coexistence and identity can also be characterized as continuous predicates. The noteworthy difference between these and other continuous predicates, besides their being symmetrical (cf. R 284:88[83]; 1905), is that although they are generally treated as dyadic, they are really degenerate forms of triadic relations--tercoexistence and teridentity--in the sense that there is always room for another attachment. CSP: It follows in the first place that every line of identity ought to be considered as bristling with microscopic points of teridentity ... In the second place it follows that using “coexistence” in such a sense that it is mere otherness, then since if anything is not coexistent with itself the same is equally true of anything else ... it follows that a very appropriate symbol for ter-coexistence ... is simply any blank point of the sheet ... (SS 199; 1906 March 9) This explains what I noted in my post yesterday--the continuity of (ter)coexistence and (ter)identity is expressed with an infinite series of indefinite intermediate subjects, while that of "possessing a character" or "standing in a relation" is not. The former have "Inexhaustible, because Infinite, Valency"; while the latter have finite valency, but are still indecomposable once everything requiring Collateral Experience/Observation has been thrown into the subject. Put another way, we can add any number of Graphs to the Sheet of Assertion, and any number of branches to a Line of Identity at Spots of Teridentity; but a Line for "possessing the character of" (or "belongs to the class/collection of") could only be attached to exactly two Spots. Moreover, another convention would be needed for which Spot belongs at each end of the latter, since the signified relation is asymmetric. Perhaps I should adopt one of Peirce's proposed solutions after all--use red for a Concretive Spot ("Solomon"), blue for an Abstractive Spot ("wisdom"), and purple for the Line between them ("possesses"); or simply revert to traditional black Lines of Identity and use a two-Peg Predicate Spot for "possesses" (the character of) attached to a red Concretive Spot on the left Peg and a blue Abstractive Spot on the right Peg. The latter is consistent with using a Predicate Spot for "stands" (in the relation of) that has three or more Pegs, but would be very cumbersome for any sentence with multiple adjectives. Maybe I will just go back to one of my earlier ideas--color only each Subject Spot (if anything), and consider its single Peg to represent the corresponding continuous predicate. 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 Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 6:42 AM <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: … I don’t see “continuous predicate” and “continuous relation” as interchangeable, and I don’t see the line of identity (or coexistence) as a predicate, because I don’t see it as signifying anything. Do you? And if so, what advantage do you see in looking at it this way? Gary f.
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