Jack, I agree that you need something prior to semeiotic. In Peirce's classification of the sciences, mathematics comes first. It has three branches: (1) mathematical or formal logic, (2) discrete mathematics, (3) continuous mathematics.
Then philosophy depends on mathematics. Alll three branches of philosophy are free to use any kind of mathematics, including formal logic, which includes predicate calculus. The three branches of philosophy are (1) phaneroscopy, which analyzes anything present in mental experience, observed or imaginary, (2) normative science, and (3) metaphysics. What this means is that you can freely use monadic, dyadic, and triadic relations of formal logic to analyze anything observed or imagined in phaneroscopy. You don't need to consider Peirce's Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness because those issues belong to logic as semeiotic,which is a branch of normative science, which comes after formal logic and phaneroscopy. For your example of salt and snails, the salt is a compound, NaCl. That is its essence, and you can define a monadi predicate salt(x) which is true of anything that happens to consist of NaCl. You can also have a monadic predicate snail(x) which is true of any x that happens to be a snail.. Then you can define a dyad or dyadic predicate is-poisnous-to(x,y). Given those predicates, you can write For every x and y, If salt(x) & snail(y), then is-poisonous-to(x,y). This is a statement in formal logic, which one would observe by phaneroscopy. According to Peirce's classification of the sciences, that observation by phaneroscopy is prior to the normative science of semeiotic and prior to metaphysics, which depends on semeiotic. John ---------------------------------------- From: "JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY" <[email protected]> Jon, List Semeiotic is, however you define it, a schema for a series of relations between predicates (or qualities or whatever you want to call a classificatory schema). It is a formalism - to be frank. Now being a formalism the terms "dynamical object" and so on -- these are about as arbitrary as it gets. For they are "stand in" predicates for a given quality within a formal structure (semiotic). In understanding Kant's thing in itself, we must throw it all away (suspend it until the noumena has been comprehended insofar as it can be). Kant's noumenal/thing in itself is pre-form wherein the metaphysical may be of the physical but is always pre-physical. Pre-capacity to even understand form/content. That is what the noumena is (for humans). You cannot usefully use Peirce to address the thing-in-itself (via semiotic formalisms) for it transcends the very notion of form. The noumenal is pre-consubstantiality even as consubstantiality is how we make sense of it. It is not possible to represent the thing in itself via form, or any means, because it goes before - our attempts to do so will always be wrong. Except we know via consubstantiality/contiguity that it, the noumenal, necessarily is. So Salt-Snail-Poison Ignoring any formal terms, semeiotic or otherwise, it is best to restrict theses to the simplest terms possible. Quality/Element/Subject. To a physicist, perhaps all three are elements? That the "quality" of the "element" (salt) is "poison" to a snail, is the formal - semiotic - classifcation of the relation in its simplest possible form. That the Q of the E(s) is not poison to any other organism (or need not be) is the point. Thus, the essence of salt, as it is in itself, is proven (regardless of formal structure but via formal structure - as with Godel). Thus Q of E(S) = V(P-H[S]) but not [X]. To humans, always V(-X) (in itself, there, but not possible to represent). All mathematics/lexicals/sciences/logics produce a value within a formal relata (relational schema) which value is never the thing in itself (but we know the thing in itself necessarily is and is pre-form). That is as scientific as Semeiotic may ever be. But only if it understands the X restriction which enables its liftoff - the fallibilism upon which science is based and which Peirce always embraced - thus there should be no reticience in disregarding large chunks of Peircean terminology as that is what Peirce aimed for (semeiotic as science). Quality of Element(Snail) = Value(Poison-to-Human[-of-Snail]). That is the semeiotic "standing for" schema simplified. I.e, Salt-Snail-Poison = Value(Poison-to-Human[-of-Snail]. However, P-H[S] is necessarily not Poison to a Snail which in semiotic/formal terms is more like P(S[Sa]). The first has a human intermediary - we cannot pretend that this doesn't "count" (formal logic and mathematics will tell you that it does). Thus, what salt - as poison - is to a snail, in absentia of human understanding, cannot be the "same" thing (Reality or otherwise) as it is to a snail minus the human predicate. And this is only in logical terms - which occludes the fact that no animal understands such things via logic (of this lexical, received, variety, other than the human). We have no idea - no matter what anyone says - of how a snail perceives salt. We assume it is the same - or similar - as in "fire is hot" (Kantian objectivity 1.0) but similar, mutual threshold of understanding, is not the "same" (it cannot be, even from the biological point of view - it mightbe similar, but never the same, for the divergences among humans themselves tell us this with zero ambiguity: savoury for some, poisonous for others). Nor is it relativity, it is just true. Every single mathematical system ever derived partakes of precisely the same schema. Bar none. Formal relationships - genres if you like - which justify certain functions/operations within a given "habitus" (area of operational protocol - entirely habitual insofar as the numericals/etc go). And all such are discursivities - which is why logic goes ahead of mathematics in every schema you've ever seen (epistemological). This is why Russell derives a paradox and Godel derives incompleteness -- the terms are arbitrary discursivities (functional, yes, but not innate or universal in any sense -- consubstantiality may be universal, but no given terms used "with substance" to "map substance" is necessarily divine/universal). V(X), however, is universal in every sense but we cannot represent its existence in formal terms without missing the point. For example, V(X) explains Peirce's entire schema and continua (the result...) but Peirce's schema, in itself (not noumenal), cannot do the same thing. Q(uality) of E(lement) = derivation of V(alue) but never the thing in itself: (X). A representation - VALUE - of the thing which is never the thing in itself (X). Now, this can be formalized a million different ways but it never breaks. It's the simplest - insofar as I know - means of explaining formal logic relative to semiotic and the limitations/possibilities therein as it pertains to the noumenal proof. I know - as it goes - that for this to be a "proof" in the academic sense, I'd have to go further (but I just know it is proven and have been rather lazy of late - not very well). Happy to let others go at it - whether to falsify or prove. Jack
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