Forwarded at Nathan Houser's request. Thank you for your persistence, Nathan! - Best, Ben. ===================
Message for Peirce-L The last thing I want to do is intrude on a good ongoing discussion but I guess I'd better take a moment to introduce the October slow read of Joe's early paper on "Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic." JR originally presented this paper in 1976 in Atlanta at the inaugural meeting of the Semiotic Society of America and published it in the proceedings. It was republished with revisions in 1977 in Semiotica. It is worth remembering that in 1976 when Joe wrote this paper Peirce's semiotics was not widely known. (Yesterday I composed and posted an earlier version of this introductory message but it disappeared in cyberspace. I recomposed my message and tried sending it again twice failing both times. I'll give up for now and send it to Ben (Gary is on vacation) and ask him to post it on the forum and I'll work with the tech people at IUPUI to find out why my posts aren't going through. In the meantime, in case the cyber logjam breaks, you may receive three earlier versions of this post. In at least one of them my signature routine reverted to my pre-retirement signature with titles I no longer hold - my apologies to André De Tienne and David Pfeifer.) I should point out that shortly after agreeing to lead the October discussion, I lost contact with Peirce-L and only managed to restore my connectivity (apparently not entirely yet) in mid-September during the lively discussion of JR's "Sciences as Communicational Communities." I missed all of the previous slow read discussions which probably dealt with many of the same issues I'll raise for the October read. Let me know if I ask you to consider topics you've already poured over in earlier slow reads and, of course, bring your own questions to the forum. As it happens, I'm just beginning an extended weekend family visit and won't be able to take up discussion of "Leading Ideas" until next Tuesday (the 4th). But I'll make some introductory remarks now and will try to at least comment on any posts that come in before the 4th. JR began this paper by pointing out that Peirce conceived of semiotics as a foundational theory capable of unifying sub-theories dealing with communication, meaning, and inference. This may call for some discussion. He then claims that 90% of Peirce's "prodigious philosophical output" is directly concerned with semiotic." This is an odd claim in a way since it does not seem to be straightforwardly true. How can we make sense of it? Issues that may require clarification or revision in light of earlier slow read discussions and/or further development in Joe's later writings: What are the so-called semiotical sciences (what JR also called "special semiotic")? Why does JR equate mind with semiosis? It seems to me that mind is generally regarded as something like a system of signs, or a semiotic system, while thought, as dynamic, not static, is equated with semiosis. JR says that Peirce conceived of truth as "a more generic . . . conception, namely the conception of a goal-directed activity which normally moves from a state of dissatisfaction to a state of satisfaction." Isn't this too broad? It seems to me that playing a game falls under this conception. What is the "extra ingredient" that makes such goal-directed activity truth seeking? More generally, what are the key elements, according to JR, of Peirce's "basic model" for science/semiosis/cybernetics, namely, "the truth-seeking tendency in human life"? And, perhaps more importantly, is this really a universal tendency? Is the end-state of every sign-interpretational process really the object of that process? Perhaps, we might ask, does truth merge with reality at the end of semiosis? This seems to be what JR is saying. Some Peirce scholars (Hookway, for example) say that this is not Peirce's mature view. A related question/concern is whether, as JR seems to have supposed, our only access to real objects is by way of the immediate objects of semiosis. Other things we may want to consider (although it's mainly up to you to decide this) are JR's interesting and rather brilliant way of explaining how the concept of a semiotic object might be derived from the concept of an utterer (with reference to MS 318 - of which the relevant parts are published in EP2); his suggestion that "the need to account for the possibility of error in interpretation" is a "generic feature of all semiosis"; and his account of Peirce's conception of symbolic signs and their relation to iconic and indexical signs. These are only suggestions to help focus your early reading of JR's "Some Leading Ideas." We'll see where things go. Remember that the slow read discussions are not intended to dominate the Peirce-L forum. Joe would have been distressed over the thought that the normal give and take of Peirce-L might be suppressed by a discussion of his papers. So fell free to raise independent questions whenever the urge strikes. Nathan ________________________________________________________________ Nathan Houser Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Senior Fellow, Institute for American Thought Indiana University at Indianapolis --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
