Jon Alan Schmidt quoted Gary Fuhrman and then wrote: GF: Maybe I’m just not equipped to think like a mathematician about semiosis.
JAS: And maybe--even probably--I am just not equipped to think like a special (physical or psychical) scientist about semeiosis. Inquiry benefits from both perspectives, and few are as adept at both as Peirce evidently was. I just don't see what the problem is here. Peirce did a tremendous amount of abstract theorizing in developing his semeiotic that, from my perspective, it is *principally *that and *importantly* that. How can any serious Peirce scholar deny the value of Peirce's semeiotic theorizing? (Btw, I'm not at all suggesting that Gary Fuhrman is one of those persons who deny the value of semeiotic theory; not at all! It's just that, as he's remarked, it's not something he's, at least currently, much interested in.) And let's not forget that Peirce even stated that one truly can't be an adept servant of both masters, theory and practice as he put it then. They require different "skill sets" as we might put it today. That Peirce himself was the exception to his own rule is just more evidence of his extraordinary genius. If someone on the list isn't interested in semeiotic theorizing -- Peirce's or any contemporary scholar's (although I personally don't see how any serious Peirce scholar can completely ignore those theoretical underpinnings) -- then let that person merely skip or delete those posts. But to argue that there is no reason for or right to such theorizing is simply unreasonable, strictly illogical, and simply absurd. And those of us who *do* appreciate the theory -- and, in my view, the theoretical advances which Robert Marty, for example, has had a distinguished career making, and which Jon has,in my opinion, recently been working toward (which, btw, in his intellectual modesty he's tended to refer to, properly I'd say, as guesses, hypotheses, and abductions) would wish that those who *do not* find semeiotic theory, theoretical grammar, and the like of much or any interest simply ignore those who *do*, stop their pointless criticism on their, frankly, untenable principles, and get on with their own work. Best, Gary "Time is not a renewable resource." gnox *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 8:57 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> wrote: > Gary F., List: > > 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. > > > Indeed, all our individual *experiences *with individual sign tokens have > real contexts. Speculative grammar *abstracts *from those different > experiences and their different contexts to ascertain what *all *signs > have in common. We can then say that something *lacking *any of those > essential characters is *not *a sign. That is precisely why I > exclude qualisigns--a quality in itself cannot represent something else, so > it cannot be a sign at all, only an "indefinite significant character" of a > sign token in which it inheres. > > GF: Maybe I’m just not equipped to think like a mathematician about > semiosis. > > > And maybe--even probably--I am just not equipped to think like a special > (physical or psychical) scientist about semeiosis. Inquiry benefits from > both perspectives, and few are as adept at both as Peirce evidently was. > > GF: My apologies for laying my cuckoo egg in your (and Robert’s) nest. > > > No apology necessary, I always appreciate your insights. > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > > On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 6:07 AM <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Jon, I see where you’re coming from. But when it comes to *the practice >> of theorizing*, the Peirce advice that has most leverage on me is this: >> “every >> kind of proposition is either meaningless or has a real Secondness as its >> object. This is a fact that every reader of philosophy should constantly >> bear in mind, translating every abstractly expressed proposition into its >> precise meaning in reference to an individual experience” (EP2:279). 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. Maybe I’m just >> not equipped to think like a mathematician about semiosis. My apologies for >> laying my cuckoo egg in your (and Robert’s) nest. >> >> >> >> Gary f. >> >
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