Gary F., List: GF: I was thinking that my top-down approach to these issues (based loosely on the “connected signs theorem” and your post on “Semiosic Synechism”) would turn out to be complementary to your bottom-up approach in this thread, analogous to the complementary views of light as waves and/or particles, but I guess that doesn’t work.
In what sense do you consider my approach in this exchange to be "bottom-up" rather than "top-down"? I have stated more than once that any *individual *sign that we choose to analyze is an artifact of that very analysis, since we arbitrarily mark it off within the *real *process of semiosis, which is always continuous. GF: Can we generalize from this to say that only an *individual *sign (i.e. a discrete and *existing *sign, a token or sinsign) has three interpretants? Which three interpretants do you have in mind? Again, I see the communicational and effectual interpretants respectively as the immediate and dynamical interpretants of the *uttered *sign, determinations of the commind and the interpreter's mind; and I see the intentional interpretant as a dynamical interpretant of *previous *signs, determinations of the utterer's mind that are connected such that they can have that one *actual *interpretant (CP 4.550). More generally, I have suggested in the past that the immediate interpretant pertains to each *type *of a sign, the dynamical interpretant to each *token *of a type, and the final interpretant to the sign *itself*--the idea being that one sign can have different types within different sign systems, such as "man" in English vs. "homme" in French--but I might need to rethink that theoretical scheme in light of recent discussions. GF: That would explain why your “Semiosic Synechism” post only mentions one interpretant of the “one sign” that results “if any signs are connected, no matter how.” Is this another consequence of the connected signs theorem? If so, could we also say that only an *individual *sign has two objects (immediate and dynamic), while the one sign which is a semiosic "perfect continuum" has only one? No, I believe that every sign--including the entire universe, conceived as "a vast representamen" that "is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs"--has two objects and three interpretants, but I did not attempt to sort them out in that post ( https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2021-10/msg00204.html). The immediate object is *internal *to the sign, the object as represented *in that sign*, while the dynamical object is *external *to the sign, the object as it is *in itself*. The immediate interpretant is *internal *to the sign, the interpretant as represented *in that sign*, while the dynamical interpretant is any *actual *effect of that sign and the final interpretant is the *ideal* effect of that sign. I have my own opinions about the external correlates in the case of the entire universe, but they tend to be controversial and are not essential to the topic of *this * thread. GF: If those two suggestions don’t work, perhaps you can propose some other general principle that we can salvage from this failure of communication. At the risk of belaboring the point, the most salient general principle here is that we can *only *discuss objects and interpretants in relation to a *particular *sign. In other words, the first step of semeiotic analysis is always demarcating the sign of interest by prescinding it from the continuous process of semiosis, thus marking it off as an *ens rationis*. Only then can we examine that quasi-individual sign to apprehend its immediate object and interpretant, from which we attempt to identify what dynamical object it is denoting and understand what *about *that object it is signifying. Again, the dynamical interpretant is any *actual *effect of the sign of interest, while the final interpretant is its *ideal *effect. Accordingly, semeiotic is a *normative *science in the sense that the *aim* of every interpreter of a given sign *ought *to be correctly recognizing its dynamical object *and *conforming one's dynamical interpretant to its final interpretant. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 8:08 AM <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote: > Jon AS, > > Evidently the two 1906 texts we’ve been discussing got fused or “welded” > in my quasi-mind. And meanwhile the sign you had uttered failed to fulfill > its function because the minds of utterer and interpreter were not fused > into a *commens* “at the outset” (EP2:478). I was thinking that my > top-down approach to these issues (based loosely on the “connected signs > theorem” and your post on “Semiosic Synechism”) would turn out to be > complementary to your bottom-up approach in this thread, analogous to the > complementary views of light as waves and/or particles, but I guess that > doesn’t work. > > Let me try to extract a principle or two from this failure so that I can > learn something from it. > > JAS: … the uttered sign … is clearly a token in this context, not a type. > As such, it is an *individual *sign that determines an *individual *dynamical > interpretant in the *individual *quasi-mind that is the > quasi-interpreter, which is what I sometimes call an *individual *event > of semiosis. > > GF: Can we generalize from this to say that only an *individual* sign > (i.e. a discrete and *existing *sign, a token or sinsign) has three > interpretants? That would explain why your “Semiosic Synechism” post only > mentions *one* interpretant of the “one sign” that results “if any signs > are connected, no matter how.” Is this another consequence of the connected > signs theorem? > > If so, could we also say that only an *individual* sign has two objects > (immediate and dynamic), while the one sign which is a semiosic "perfect > continuum" has only one? I’m referring here to this (from your Semiosic > Synechism post): > > JAS: Therefore, the entire universe as a vast argument is not a static > sign that is built up of discrete propositions that are built up of > discrete names, it is an ongoing inferential process--a semiosic "perfect > continuum" (CP 4.642, 1908), whose "material parts" are its connected > constituent signs including all "external representations" (CP 6.174, > 1908). In other words, it is "top-down" such that the whole is real and the > parts are *entia rationis*, rather than "bottom-up" such that the parts > are real and the whole is an *ens rationis*. > > GF: If those two suggestions don’t work, perhaps you can propose some > other general principle that we can salvage from this failure of > communication. > > Gary f. >
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