John, Edwina, list, looking at the subject line:
I did introduce the nonagons in my reply to Jon Alan because I think that besides discussing theory with the help of examples, in order to stay grounded, it is needed to look from what perspective and with what interest we discuss the terminology and the measure in which what we state is compatible with Peirce's text. A main devide being an object orientation or a process interpretation of semiotics, both have their value. But there also are more subtle ones. Let me take my discussion with Jon Alan as an example. He is not wrong in my opinion, but has a very broad scope, in the sense that he is not interested in the meaning issue (semantical dimension) and the effectiviness issue (pragmatical dimension). It can be illustrated by an example. JAS to GF: I agree, but as I stated, "My purpose is to analyze the process of semeiosisin general"; i.e., the aspects of semeiosis that are operative in every context. While a student I read, in a psycholingistics journal, some recordings of and discussions about schizophrenics conversating. It was impossible to make sense of the conversation, but they adhered to the speaking conventions and constructed their sentences as correctly as in 'normal' conversations. It seemed to me that they conversed without a common goal and a goal that, individually, might shift for each new sentence they met with. Jon Alan, so it seems to me, restricts himself to that kind of 'anything goes as long as it adhers to the most basic rules' kind of approach. It is detached from reality, strictly formal and devoid of interaction. But not 'wrong' in its domain.And indeed, it make sense to only distinguish three interpretants. Jon Alan's denial of qualisigns, and personal choice to talk about tones instead, is of theoretical interest because it sheds light on the point at which we may differentiate between a totally context free semiotics and a "the proces of semiosis" covering semiotics (process implying a goal and context). Qualities, that can be looked at as nerve firings or agitations, that run unintellectual in a continuous stream through our sheets. Collections (pure icon) of firings (sinsigns) may have a familiar pattern (legisign). If one leaves out the qualisigns, one is context free. One could wonder whether semiotically speaking a characteristic of schizophrenics is, that their ability to sort out the collections of qualities got meddled, only the context free rules count. Comming back to the orientations in semiotic analyzis: object ( a kind of secondness, Claudio and I would suggest your graph work, but in different ways), process (a kind of thirdness orientation, Gary F, Edwina and I), distinction. Jon Alan can be understood to work looking at the sign only (firstness orientation). Note that each approach is needed, and of course, each approach is represented by a lot of other persons in a variety of shades. It is almost tempting to try to collectively make a nonagon with semiotics in the center by asking listers to score their primary focus. And to provide their reasons. In an extended version it could be asked to score others, and provide reasons. I would class Claudio and John bot in the object range in the symbol field, in the shade iconic symbol. But Claudio more at the iconic side and John more at the symbolic side. Why, one could ask? I keep it at this, a rhematic adress of the reader that the above alinea is intended to have. The main problem of peircean semiotics is that it didn't grow into a research program in the sense of Lakatos. That is because the different proponents of the different viewpoints didn't succeed in finding common ground. Auke > Op 2 mei 2020 om 16:37 schreef "John F. Sowa" <[email protected]>: > > > Edwina, Gary F, Jon AS, > > ET> My question about 'pure theorizing' so to speak, also arises from the > quote below: > > "Now the whole process of development among the community of students of > those formulations by abstractive observation and reasoning of the truths > which must hold good of all signs used by a scientific intelligence is an > observational science, like any other positive science, notwithstanding its > strong contrast to all the special sciences which arises from its aiming to > find out what must be and not merely what is in the actual world. (CP 2.227, > c. 1897; my emphasis] > > Yes. Every science, including semeiotic, must begin with observational > data. That is why I have insisted on examples. Without data, it's > impossible to discover, test, evaluate, or even discuss any scientific claims. > > ET> After all - since mankind's emergence- we have had multiple theories > about our reality - most of which have a logical basis, are reasonably > coherent and yet - have no capacity other than their own insistence and our > acceptance - to move out of a pure Argument and into the real world of > Secondness and explain what is going on in this real world. > > Yes. For Peirce, semeiotic is a fallible science. It *aims* to find out > what must be. But as we can see from physics -- the most advanced of all the > special sciences -- every theory that has been proposed is eventually shown > to be limited to the kinds of observations on which is has been tested. > > ET> many different research disciplines are exploring this real world - > and their vocabulary differs - even though they are talking about the same > processes! Therefore - I think that the Peircean world should not reject the > research of other disciplines merely because the terms are different. The > analysis is dealing with the very same processes - and it can be shown that > the logical and pragmatic infrastructure of the Peircean framework is similar > to that of these other disciplines. > > In his 1903 classification, Peirce made room for those sciences. He > admitted that he had not done much work in many of them, but he did not say > that their work or terminology was unworthy of being considered a science. > > GF>I simply find myself unable to come up with an individual experience > that could be referred to as a sign token and has no context. Every example > of a sign that I can remember or imagine experiencing has some kind of > context which limits the kind of interpretant(s) it can generate. > > Yes. Science begins with data and is tested on data. The best theories > are true of a wider context than the examples from which they were derived. > But it's not possible to make claims beyond the range that has been tested. > > GF>: First, in the real world there is no disembodied mind and no > disembodied semiosis. Hence there is no context-free semiosis. > > Yes. > > John > > > ----------------------------- > 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 . > > > > >
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