Ii think, again, that some of the debates are due to the multiple
meanings of terms. I'm not going to back up my lists with quotations
since most of us, I am assuming, already know them. [And - I don't
have the time at the moment].
1] I tried to show that the term of 'sign' has several meanings.
=It can mean the mediative middle term in the triad of O-R-I. In
this situation, its function can be, if it's in a mode of 2ns, to
simply transfer input data to output interpretation. If it's in a
mode of 3ns, it will add its stored general habits to that input data
and actually transform that data into an new output interpretation.
You can see this in the ten classes.
- The term can be used as an agential force, where it acts, first,
to actively interact with the external world. This seems to be the
most common use on this list.
- It can be used, as I also use it, to refer to the morphological
result of the triadic semiosic process, the Interpretant, [which as
Peirce noted, is also a sign]...and thus, can itself as a new triad,
interact with the external world.
2] The same multiple uses can be found in the use of Mind.
- since all semiosis is, as Peirce noted, dialogic or interactional,
then, the mind or quasi-mind can be that 'welding' of at least two or
more minds-which-are-run-by-the-habits-of-Thirdness. This is that
'commens'. It should be noted that apart from this dialogic
interaction, the two or more minds remain distinct. [see 4.551].
- Then, as Robert has noted, Mind can also be understood as the
stored, ongoing, collective and synchronic habits of a group -
whether it be an ethnic group of humans as referred to by Auke, or
the genetic code of a biological species.
- and, as I keep referring to - in one of my favourite quotes, 4.551
"Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in
the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical
world. "
In this example, Mind can be understood as the underlying principle
of rationality and logical interactions that is evident in the
universe. Needless to say - I attribute no theistic agency to this
Mind Principle. Indeed, I consider it a basic necessary process - to
prevent the dissipation of Matter/Energy by organizing it within the
principles of Mind.
Edwina
On Wed 10/06/20 6:57 AM , [email protected] sent:
Jon Alen, Robert, Edwina, John, List,
RM: We need the commens here to "contain" all these conventions and
therefore it cannot depend on the only minds that communicate; it is
out of minds. We discover it when we are born and then internalize it
throughout our lives.
JAS: Again, there may very well be something "out of minds" that
"contains all these conventions," which we "internalize throughout
our lives," but it is not what Peirce calls "the commens." Again,
he explicitly defines it as a "mind" that results from the fusing or
welding of distinct minds. Moreover, Peirce's concept of "mind" is
much broader than the notion of individual minds, perhaps even
encompassing what you are describing. As Andre De Tienne has written
[1], "Peirce in many places ... prefers to talk about the
'quasi-mind,' and this is a technical phrase used expressly to
indicate that the more familiar 'mind' is only a special
instantiation of a more general phenomenon, and that logic, or
semiotic, really analyzes not the workings of the human mind, but
those of that much more general entity" (p. 40).
Jon, Here we have in my opinion a typical example of the risks one
runs if only the words of the master count. The main risk is not a.
an incorrect understanding of Peirce, but b. of reality. Which of the
two would count heavier for Peirce?
In Peirce's days the social sciences were not as developed as the
natural. Something every historian of ideas will take account of. If
a person avant la lettre is thinking the concept through, it must be
no surprise to find terms that are at odds with later developments.
I think the commens is such a term. Especially the concept of culture
in the antropological sense was lacking, but arising. And when it did
arise in the early 1900's it was taken as a monilitic concept, even
by cultural relativists like Boas.
Peirce's commens fits in with this development and there are
striking similarities with this first cultural antropological
movement:
1. man as a growing sign, being a token that is part of a common
culture and, as a person, not an individual, only survives in the
measure in which the commens or culture is enriched with interpretive
habits.
2. The monolitic character of the commens. Peirce, I side with
Short here, was so much occupied with the project of science that it
hindered him in completing his system. The commens for Peirce is, in
short, to much colored by his preoccupation with truth and to little
with everyday bussiness where the truth seeking drive may be totally
absent in favor of greed and other motives.
It was in 1946 that the concept of plural culture was coined by
Furnivall. Even that idea did pass Peirce's mind, but only at some
moments and not persued for longer periods as to its concequences. It
was when he was contemplating the intended, effectual en
cominterpretant. You summerize what I wrote above with Peirce
quote's:
JAS: Indeed, as I have pointed out before, in Peirce's entire vast
corpus of writings he used "commens" only twice and "commind" only
once; and all three occurrences are in two consecutive paragraphs of
a single 1906 letter, which is also the only place where he mentions
the "effectual" interpretant and "communicational" interpretant (or
"cominterpretant"). The "intentional" (or "intended") interpretant
turns up in some of his Logic Notebook entries from around the same
time, as well; most notably a few weeks later, when he explicitly
abandons it because "So far as the intention is betrayed in the Sign,
it belongs to the immediate Interpretant. So far as it is not so
betrayed, it may be the Interpretant of another sign, but it is in
no sense the interpretant of that sign" (R 339:414[276r]).
--
If Peirce did have a thought A, and later had a thought not-A , we
may say that he indeed erred the first time with A, but as well that
he did err when he discarded A. I do side with Robert in this case.
Of course this leads to the question why he did abandon this
promissing road of inquiry? Probably his devotion to logic in which
the apprehension of the sign as an object is of no importance and
where we assume a quasi mind. So, probably his discarding of a may
have been done in a specific context and a particular line of
thought. As a backwoodsman, his work is fragmentary going in and
comming from all kinds of directions.
Best,
Auke
Op 10 juni 2020 om 4:49 schreef Jon Alan Schmidt :
Helmut, Robert, List:
Returning to substantive matters ...
HR: Isn't it so, that there are topics, about which Peirce did not
write so much, but other writers did?
Yes, of course; but this is a Peirce list, so in general our
discussions tend to focus on topics about which he did write.
HR: For example, the online "Commens Dictionary" is named after the
commens, which was a major topic of the last discussions, but if you
look it up in the dictionary, there is only one entry about it (the
"commens"), and the three interpretants effectual, intentional,
communicational, that accord to the three interpreters utterer,
interpreter, and both combined.
Indeed, as I have pointed out before, in Peirce's entire vast corpus
of writings he used "commens" only twice and "commind" only once; and
all three occurrences are in two consecutive paragraphs of a single
1906 letter, which is also the only place where he mentions the
"effectual" interpretant and "communicational" interpretant (or
"cominterpretant"). The "intentional" (or "intended") interpretant
turns up in some of his Logic Notebook entries from around the same
time, as well; most notably a few weeks later, when he explicitly
abandons it because "So far as the intention is betrayed in the Sign,
it belongs to the immediate Interpretant. So far as it is not so
betrayed, it may be the Interpretant of another sign, but it is in
no sense the interpretant of that sign" (R 339:414[276r]).
HR: I still am struggeling with the two concepts of
sign-as-representation, which is "not a real thing" versus
sign-as-event, which would be a real thing and include the real
things utterer and interpreter.
The distinction is between the sign in itself, which is "not a real
thing," versus a sign token, which is a real thing that conforms to a
sign type and is determined by the dynamical object to determine a
dynamical interpretant.
RM: A sign is always a real thing that represents because to be
sign it must be perceived
This assertion directly contradicts Peirce's plain statement that "a
sign is not a real thing. It is of such a nature as to exist in
replicas" (EP 2:303, 1904). To clarify, I do not believe that he is
thereby denying the reality of a sign in itself, but rather its
existence as a concrete thing apart from its instantiations in
replicas (tokens). This assertion also directly contradicts Peirce's
plain statement that "If a sign has no interpreter, its interpretant
is a 'would be,' i.e., is what it would determine in the interpreter
if there were one" (EP 2:409, 1907). Something need not be perceived
in order to qualify as a sign, as long as it is capable of
determining a dynamical interpretant by virtue of having an immediate
interpretant, "its peculiar Interpretability before it gets any
Interpreter" (SS 111, 1909), and a final interpretant, "the effect
the Sign would produce upon any mind upon which circumstances should
permit it to work out its full effect" (SS 110, 1909) .
RM: It has led you to internalize a convention shared by billions
of individuals that is a reality in the shared social space,
independent of these billions of minds, what I think Peirce calls the
commens.
There may very well be such a "shared social space, independent of
these billions of minds," but it is not what Peirce calls "the
commens." Again, he explicitly defines "the commens" (or "the
commind") as "that mind into which the minds of utterer and
interpreter have to be fused in order that any communication should
take place," which "consists of all that is, and must be, well
understood between utterer and interpreter, at the outset, in order
that the sign in question should fulfill its function" (EP 2:478,
1906). Taking the statue that stands in New York Harbor as "the sign
in question," the otherwise distinct minds of its utterer--presumably
the sculptor, Frédéric Bartholdi--and each interpreter "are at one
(i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself ... In the Sign they are, so
to say, welded" (CP 4.551, 1906). The result is that the idea of
liberty is communicated from the utterer to all the different
interpreters.
RM: I will quote just three that support my point, it seems to me,
but it is up to you to judge.
The quoted passage (CP 3.359-362) is from 1885--coincidentally, the
same year in which the disassembled Statue of Liberty arrived in New
York from France. Although generally consistent with Peirce's later
writings about semeiotic, we need to interpret it carefully in light
of those many subsequent texts. It is especially important to
recognize that what he means by "tokens" in CP 3.359 are what he
eventually calls "symbols." From 1906 on, he instead uses "tokens"
for the concrete embodiments of signs, which he calls "sinsigns" and
"replicas" in 1903-5.
RM: So a sign, a thing conceived by convention (what does
convention mean?) or even arbitrarily can represent an idea.
"By convention" and "arbitrarily" are almost synonymous in this
context. As CP 3.359 says, a symbolic sign denotes its object solely
by virtue of a habit. As Menno Hulswit has written [2], its dyadic
relation with its dynamical object is that of final causation. There
is nothing about the form or material of the physical statue in New
York Harbor that is efficiently caused by or directly connected with
the idea of liberty that it represents. It performs that function
only because that is its purpose.
RM: We need the commens here to "contain" all these conventions
and therefore it cannot depend on the only minds that communicate; it
is out of minds. We discover it when we are born and then internalize
it throughout our lives.
Again, there may very well be something "out of minds" that
"contains all these conventions," which we "internalize throughout
our lives," but it is not what Peirce calls "the commens." Again,
he explicitly defines it as a "mind" that results from the fusing or
welding of distinct minds. Moreover, Peirce's concept of "mind" is
much broader than the notion of individual minds, perhaps even
encompassing what you are describing. As Andre De Tienne has written
[3], "Peirce in many places ... prefers to talk about the
'quasi-mind,' and this is a technical phrase used expressly to
indicate that the more familiar 'mind' is only a special
instantiation of a more general phenomenon, and that logic, or
semiotic, really analyzes not the workings of the human mind, but
those of that much more general entity" (p. 40).
RM: What is described here is "sign-as-event, which would be a real
thing" that you also care about.
No, that would be a sinsign or token; what Peirce describes in CP
3.361 is an indexical sign, as the last quoted sentence plainly
states. Its distinction from a symbolic sign is not according to the
nature of the sign itself, but rather its dyadic relation with its
dynamical object, which is that of efficient causation. A properly
functioning weathercock points in a certain direction because the
wind is actually blowing from that way and forces it to do so
accordingly.
RM: In this case it is a quality of "the concrete thing that
represents" that makes the sign
No, that would be a qualisign or tone; what Peirce describes in CP
3.362 is an iconic sign, as again the last quoted sentence plainly
states. Hulswit refers to its dyadic relation with the dynamical
object as that of "necessary condition," but in my view it can also
be characterized as that of formal causation. A diagram token
embodies the form of the relations among the parts of whatever it
represents.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [4] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [5]
On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 3:11 PM Robert Marty <
[email protected] [6]> wrote:
Helmut, List
If I can tell Helmut there are no two concepts. A sign is always a
real thing that represents because to be sign it must be perceived
... Why wouldn't a sign as a representation" be a real thing? Let's
look at the statue that is at the entrance to New York Harbor ...
Isn't that an existing thing so a real thing? And yet when you
perceive it your mind is occupied by the idea of Liberty (and more
but we will leave it at that). Why would you do that? As a result of
your collateral experience that is earlier and external at the time
of perception. It has led you to internalize a convention shared by
billions of individuals that is a reality in the shared social space,
independent of these billions of minds, what I think Peirce calls the
commens. I have already made arguments for that and I will give more.
However, the experience of my debates has taught me at least one thing
is that one cannot make an assertion involving Peirce without a few
quotations. I will quote just three that support my point, it seems
to me, but it is up to you to judge.
Let's go to CP 3.359:
CP 3.359"A sign is in a conjoint relation to the thing denoted and
to the mind. If this triple relation is not of a degenerate species,
the sign is related to its object only in consequence of a mental
association , and depends upon a habit. Such signs are always
abstract and general, because habits are general rules to which the
organism has become subjected. They are, for the most part,
conventional or arbitrary. They include all general words, the main
body of speech, and any mode of conveying a judgment. For the sake of
brevity I will call them tokens."
What is described here is the sign as representation that concerns
you.
So a sign, a thing conceived by convention (what does convention
mean?) or even arbitrarily can represent an idea. We need the commens
here to "contain" all these conventions and therefore it cannot depend
on the only minds that communicate; it is out of minds. We discover
it when we are born and then internalize it throughout our lives.
That was the substance of my direct debate with Jon Alan and perhaps
indirect with a few others.
We continue:
CP 3.361 But if the triple relation between the sign, its object,
and the mind, is degenerate, then of the three pairs sign object sign
mind object mind two at least are in dual relations which constitute
the triple relation. One of the connected pairs must consist of the
sign and its object, for if the sign were not related to its object
except by the mind thinking of them separately, it would not fulfill
the function of a sign at all. Supposing, then, the relation of the
sign to its object does not lie in a mental association, there must
be a direct dual relation of the sign to its object independent of
the mind using the sign. In the second of the three cases just spoken
of, this dual relation is not degenerate, and the sign signifies its
object solely by virtue of being really connected with it. Of this
nature are all natural signs and physical symptoms. I call such a
sign an index, a pointing finger being the type of the class.
What is described here is " sign-as-event, which would be a real
thing" that you also care about."
Are you afraid of some dualism? No, because there's another case.
CP 362. The third case is where the dual relation between the sign
and its object is degenerate and consists in a mere resemblance
between them. I call a sign which stands for something merely because
it resembles it, an icon.
In this case it is a quality of "the concrete thing that represents"
that makes the sign; as a red thing to represent the quality of being
red, or the blood of a person represented by a trace or the communism
on the flag of China.
If you continue reading you will find some very interesting things
about algebraic notations...
Best regards,
Robert
Le mar. 9 juin 2020 à 18:35, Helmut Raulien < [email protected]
[7]> a écrit :
Gary F., Edwina, List, Isn´t it so, that there are topics, about
which Peirce did not write so much, but other writers did? For
example, the online "Commens Dictionary" is named after the commens,
which was a major topic of the last discussions, but if you look it
up in the dictionary, there is only one entry about it (the
"commens"), and the three interpretants effectual, intentional,
communicational, that accord to the three interpreters utterer,
interpreter, and both combined. Peirce did not write much about
interpreters. So I think it is useful to compare him with e.g.
Uexküll and systems theoreticians. For the advanced I think it also
is good to compare Peirce´s mathematics and relation logic with
other mathematics. So I think, it is not a waste of time for new list
members to not only read Peirce, but- not "advance" and "channel", but
compare his thoughts with the thoughts of others. Because new list
members may know other philosophers from school or from voluntary
reading, and not yet Peirce so well. I still am struggeling with
the two concepts of sign-as-representation, which is "not a real
thing" versus sign-as-event, which would be a real thing and include
the real things utterer and interpreter. I am close to asking myself,
is the more or less complete ignorance of the latter concept not a
hidden form of dualism?? Best,Helmut
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