Jon AS, JAS: Again, I tend to think of an immediate interpretant as an interpretant of a type, each dynamical interpretant as an interpretant of a token, and the final interpretant as the interpretant of the sign. Any given proposition (sign) has a certain final interpretant, formulations of it in different languages and other systems of signs such as EGs (types) have somewhat different immediate interpretants, and each utterance of it (token) can have very different dynamical interpretants in the minds of different interpreters.
GF: OK, I missed that somehow. So when you refer to the three interpretants of the one sign, you are thinking of “type” and “token” as aspects of the one sign, not as different signs; so the proposition and its embodiment (sinsign) are one sign, not two. I’ve never thought of it that way, and I’m not sure I want to … but it raises some questions: Does the presumable tone aspect of a sign not get interpreted at all? Do all signs have both type and token aspects, or only legisigns? GF: A proposition as defined by Peirce is translatable as well as replicable. A printed, written or uttered text is only replicable, not translatable, and an interpretant is a kind of translation, in my view. JAS: How are you (and Peirce) defining "translatable" and "replicable" here? When someone reads or hears a printed, written, or uttered text, is the resulting dynamical interpretant in that person's mind a translation or a replication? GF: As for Peirce, I’m relying on the definition of proposition that I quoted earlier in this thread from CP 8.313. By a replica I mean simply a copy, in the sense that all printed copies of a published book are copies of the one book, all essentially identical except in numerical identity. (Peirce of course used “replica” as a technical term in his 1903 lectures and writings about both signs and graphs.) A translation of a text is embodied differently from the text, e.g. it’s in a different language, but is more or less recognizable to anyone who knows both languages as a translation, i.e. as a rendering of the same symbol that determined the embodiment of the original text. (And the more recognizable it is, the more we judge it to be a good translation.) So in that sense a dynamical interpretant is a translation, not a mere replica or copy of the sign. I don’t consider a copy of a written, printed or vocally uttered text to be an interpretant of it. This thread is reminding me of the parenthetical remark Peirce made in R 1476: CSP: It is by a patient examination of the various modes (some of them quite disparate) of interpretations of signs and of the connections between these (an exploration in which one ought, if possible, to provide himself with a guide, or, if that cannot be, to prepare his courage to see one conception that will have to be mastered peering over the head of another, and soon another peering over that, and so on, until he shall begin to think there is to be no end of it, or that life will not be long enough to complete the study) that … GF: That’s a replica, not an interpretant. Gary f. From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> On Behalf Of Jon Alan Schmidt Sent: 30-Oct-21 12:28 To: Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts Gary F., List: GF: I was referring not to the metaphysical priorities but to the methodical focus on “individual signs” as opposed to the sign-systems made of “connected signs.” As I see it, any sign-system comprised of connected signs must be treated as one sign in order to talk meaningfully about its two objects and three interpretants. That is all I mean by an "individual sign" from a methodological standpoint. GF: In your final paragraph here, I notice a terminological change from “individual” to “particular” and “quasi-individual,” and I don’t think you’ve confirmed my assumption that an “individual sign” must be a sinsign (e.g. the “embodiment” or “replica” of a proposition, as opposed to the proposition itself). Yes, I am still trying to figure out the best terminology here because you are correct that a truly individual sign technically must be a token, "A Single event which happens once and whose identity is limited to that one happening or a Single object or thing which is in some single place at any one instant of time, such event or thing being significant only as occurring just when and where it does" (CP 4.537, 1906). GF: Anyway I’m still inclined to think that the interpretant of a proposition is really of the proposition itself rather than being an interpretant of the existent sinsign which embodies it. Again, I tend to think of an immediate interpretant as an interpretant of a type, each dynamical interpretant as an interpretant of a token, and the final interpretant as the interpretant of the sign. Any given proposition (sign) has a certain final interpretant, formulations of it in different languages and other systems of signs such as EGs (types) have somewhat different immediate interpretants, and each utterance of it (token) can have very different dynamical interpretants in the minds of different interpreters. GF: A proposition as defined by Peirce is translatable as well as replicable. A printed, written or uttered text is only replicable, not translatable, and an interpretant is a kind of translation, in my view. How are you (and Peirce) defining "translatable" and "replicable" here? When someone reads or hears a printed, written, or uttered text, is the resulting dynamical interpretant in that person's mind a translation or a replication? Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt <http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt>
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