Frances, Gary, Steven, Joe, Theresa, list, I've taken a while to respond to this, partly because I've been busy, and partly because I wished, despite my difficulty in understanding it, to be responsive to it. I admit I've simplified my task by only briefly skimming all the posts that have followed it while I busied myself in other matters or slept, obliviously, to the excitement around here!
> [Francis] Recognizants you define as the experiences in mind of objects > acting as signs. If the experiential recognition however is itself not acting > as a sign or as part of a sign situation, then it is for the signer only > collateral to semiosis. This hence implies that not all phenomenal things > that exist in the world are signs or objects of signs, or perhaps even prone > to teleonomic designs and assigns. That's not quite how I _define_ recognizants, though it could be pieced together out of things that I've said. I've said that the recognizant is an experience. And I've said (most recently, to Jim Piat) that only something which is an object in its own right can also serve as a sign. I don't know what you mean by "signer" -- I would take a "signer" to be a sign-maker and to be pretty much the same thing as a sign. If I make a sign, assert or represent, that _p_ is the case, then not only am I making a sign that _p_ is the case, but also, in a sense, I become a sign that _p_ is the case. If the experience is only collateral to semiosis, then indeed there is something quite outside semiosis, something that one would have expected to be quite involved in determining & being determined by semiosis. Since experience & testing would be collateral to semiosis, all telical designs would be subject & subordinate to the harsh trial & error of biological-style blind evolution. > [Francis] If the pragmatist thrust on the matter is correctly understood by > me, the "experience" for Peirce when it is deemed within semiosis is itself > held by him to be a sign, and therefore an objective logical construct. Just > exactly what kind of sign it is remains unclear for me. It may go to > informative grammatic effects, or evaluative critical worths, or rhetorical > evocative responses; and all in the Morrisean pragmatic manner, if it can be > put that way. .... Yes, Peirce's view would be that experience participating as an element in semiosis would have to participate as an object, a sign or an interpretant. The only way to do that is to view the experience non-phenomenologically, view it in its indeterminateness, which means from the viewpoint from which it is not confirmatory, the viewpoint of some mind or quasimind other (or _qua_ other) than the one performing the semiosis in question. That seems inconvenient like a geocentric system's epicycles, and less effective, too. It elides the issue of confirmation as being not interpretation and as being nevertheless logically determinational. > [Francis] ... On the other hand, the "experience" may be partly preparatory > to semiosis, and thus often collateral to signs. .... Actually Peirce give examples of collateral experience coming subsequently to the signs to which it is collateral. Collateral experience must be had, one way or another and, if one does not already have it, and can't dig it up from memories, then one needs to go forth and acquire it. > [Francis] .... All things that are felt to continue evolving in the world and > that are given uncontrolled to sense after all are phenomenal representamen > that exist as objects, but not necessarily objects that act as signs. This > may be the condition for experiencing and recognizing objects, whether the > objects and recognizants are signs or not. Besides differentiating these > states or kinds of objects, there must also be a differentia maintained > between representamens and signs, because there are phenomenal representamens > that are continuent but not existent, and thus that are not objects or signs, > nor interpretants. I'm not sure what you mean here. If there are representamens that aren't signs, I'd think that for each such representamen there would be something x serving as that representamen, such that x would also be an object, even if only a "continuent" object rather than an existent, reactive object. I don't know what you mean by "continuent." > [Francis] You stated earlier that by "recognizant" is meant some experiential > recognition, formed as collateral to the sign and its interpretant in respect > of its object. This means that where a normal human signer senses the object, > they then recognize that object as being as they interpreted some sign to > represent that object. The experiential recognizant therefore would strictly > not be in semiosis nor be a sign. I wouldn't use the word "senses" there but, otherwise, that part is right. And the experiential recognizant would strictly (according to Peircean semiotics) not be in semiosis nor be a sign. That's the problem, because, in the strict sense, anything logically determinational is in semiosis. > [Francis] In other words, if the sign and interpretant do not carry or convey > any direct experience of the object, then the idea that any dependent > familiar understanding of the sign is thus outside the interpretant. The sign > may have the recognizant as an object and content it carries or have it as an > interpretant effect, but otherwise the sign and interpretant would not > intrinsically be the experienced recognizant itself. The recognizant cannot > be, within the same relation or mind, the mental experience or recognition of > the object, and also the sign or interpretant of the object. To hold that > both exist simultaneously in semiosis or in the same mind would be a logical > contradiction. That's it. And, indeed, a sign could represent its object to be a recognizant. An interpretant could interpret a sign as representing an object to be a recognizant. But those circumstances don't make the sign or interpretant be a recognizant. > [Francis] Signers .... I'm beginning to think that by "signer" you mean the one who "semiozes," the semiotic processor, the one carrying the process of semiosis out. I guess that would be the "semiost." Insofar as a sign is to a mind or quasimind, then the mind or quasimind in such question is the semiostic mind or quasimind. Have I got this right? > [Francis] Signers need the experience and recognition of objects, because > signs and interpretants in semiosis themselves do not convey the experience > of the objects that they signify or mean. The experience and recognition of > objects is thus necessarily collateral to the signs that signify those > objects. If the experiential recognizant is not part of semiosis, then its > presence in the act must therefore be accounted for by other means or in ways > other than semiosic. Well, here we diverge. Part of my point has been that accounting for the recognizant in "some other way" is not an option. It's one thing for me to argue that the recognizant is not the interpretant, the sign, or the semiotic object; it's another thing for me to argue that the recognizant needs to be recognized as a semiotic element. I've been arguing this in terms of logical determination. If the recognizant, qua recognizant, is logically determinational in the semiosis, then ipso facto & inextricably, it IS part of the semiosis. That's why I've gone to the trouble of talking elaborately about logical-determinational roles in semiosis, and about how, according to triadic sufficiency, object/sign/interpretant are a gamut of such roles, such that anything logically determinational is logically determinational as object or as sign or as interpretant. If you have something which is logically determinational as neither interpretant, sign, nor semiotic object, then, ipso facto, you have a fourth semiotic element. > [Francis] When the "experience" however is perhaps deemed before and outside > semiosis but within synechastics as a phenomenal representamen that is an > object but not yet fully a sign, then the "experience" here might be held by > him to be a phaneron that acts as a signer, such as the maker or giver or > sender or framer or driver or taker or user of a sign. For example, if a > phenomenal object by itself alone acts solely as a representative sign of > itself as its own object to itself for itself, as an isolated evolving atom > might, then that phaneron acts as a signer and is engaged in an act of > "experience" to the extent that it can do so. If this pushes the "experience" > too far back into its primordial physiotic beginnings, then the same > synechastic state might exist in biotics for say a newborn organism. One > thorn here of course is that it renders some "experiences" like that of some > objects or of some representamens or of some phenomena as being independent > of semiosis, at least in their early evolutionary growth, which may not be > allowed for the "experience" by Peircean pragmatism. The main point to > remember for me perhaps is that signs objectively and logically continue to > exist in the absence of mind or life or matter. They may be accidentally > discovered as dispositions by thinkers, but they are not arbitrarily invented > as deliberations by them; at least not as logicomathematic constructs. This > presumably would go to the idealism of pragmatist realism; and why Peirce > tried to avoid positing any global sense of psychologistic subjectivism into > his brand of logic and semiotics. This is all pretty murky to me. But I'm sure that Peirce holds that signs are signs for at least a quasi-mind. The representament was a distinction he made for in case something were to fit his technical definition of sign turned out really not to be quite on the mark. Peirce's idea was that, to the extent that Peircean signs turned out to diverge from that which people usually mean by "sign," then Peircean signs should be called "representamens." The hypothetical example given by Peirce was that of a sunflower, in turning sunward, producing another flower turning sunward. (And it's still triadic: the second flower turning sunward is an interpretant, and that's the reason WHY Peirce would be willing to consider the first sunflower a representamen at all: it leads to at least one interpretant sunflower turning; but, again, any further interpretant sunflower turnings would add nothing interpretively, but the interpretant chain could be further advanced in an oberving mind. When I discussed this recently, for purposes of immediate discussion I coined the term "interpretamen" for the kind of interpretant produced by such a representamen.) > [Francis] For me to fully appreciate what is meant by the concept of your > "recognizant" requires a fuller assay of objects, as they might be given to > sense in all of their various being. My thrust here is that there may in fact > be objects that act as synechastic objects and semiosic objects. These would > be the same objects, but in different evolutionary states. My tentative > understanding is that all objects are phenomenal phanerons, but that act as > existential representamens. As such, objects initially continue to exist as > synechastic objects, or representamens that are not yet signs of objects. > [Francis] In synechastics and before semiosics, there are perhaps two states > of objects. The first state posits objects in themselves solely alone as > phenomenal representamens, where they simply represent themselves by > themselves to themselves as themselves for themselves. The second state > posits objects with the mere potential of becoming signs, either of > themselves as their own signified objects, or of themselves as some other > signified objects, but only to themselves. This is the state when such > objects determine that all such objects will exist as signs. If only life > forms or even if only human forms as phenomenal representamens and as > existential objects have this determinative ability, then this biotic state > would be the genesis and limits of recognizants. It is my feeling however > that all organisms of living life are signers of signs, and can thus > consciously experience and recognize their own existence, at least to some > primitive extent, therefore recognizants are not limited to human forms. This > may of course not be so with mechanisms of dead matter. All life and matter > nonetheless may have this determinative ability, which is to determine that > objects will be signs, since all matter and life are all objects and are all > signers. The reason that I don't think that there are embodied recognizants universally in living things, is that many living things have no capacity to learn. The recognizant is embodied when its logical determination is embodied. If there are no confirmings or disconfirmings which are determined by and determine the process, then there's no recognizant. There are some sort of quasi-recognizants in the biological evolutionary process, but insofar as the biological evolutionary process does not really learn and retain, those can be considered actual recognizants only as initial recognizants whose "chains" are continued in observant minds like ours. This is the same sense in which we say that the material world is full of actual, embodied signs insofar as our minds are arranged to be addressed by those signs, and in spite of the absence of actual embodied interpretants in most of the material world. Now, my understanding of the biological evolutionary process is superficial & amateurish, so I'm particularly ready to stand corrected about it, and maybe there are arguably chains of interpretants & recognizants in it. In any case, to be an honest-to-goodness recognizant, the recognizant needs, like the interpretant, to be in a process indefinitely developing onward such that there are further recognizants OF previous recognizants AS recognizants, etc. > [Francis] In semiosics and after synechastics, there are then perhaps two > kinds of objects. This is after the very being of objects, because > representative signs are already initially determined. It is within semiosics > that synechastic objects determine the main kind representamens that are > signs will eventually be in acts of semiosis. This is the grammatical > information signs bear, aside from their critical and rhetorical aspects or > divisions. There are therefore two kinds of informative semiotic objects, > those objects being immediate and dynamic. Immediate objects determine signs > to be mainly pure icons, or almost pure. Dynamic objects determine signs to > be dominantly icons or indexes or symbols. These dynamic icons are somewhat > degenerative, and are thus called hypoicons. The further contents and defined > subjects of referred objects, beyond the information signs bear and the > informative effects they initially generate, then falls to their critical > values and meanings and worths, and later their rhetorical forces or powers. > [Francis] It seems to me that recognizants can certainly be synechastic > objects of organic and biotic life forms, at least when such objects and > forms are driven by evolution to act as signers. Whether recognizants however > have any role to play in semiosics or semiosis or semiotics remains unclear > to me. .... Again, I refer back to my discussions of logical determination. A recognition (a recognitive experience) formed as collateral to sign & interpretant in respect of the object either confirms or disconfirms or does something somewhere in between or complicated etc., in any case in such a way as to be determined by semiosis up to that point and to determine semiosis going forward. If it disconfirms the interpretant and the sign-as-interpreted, then it confirms another interpretant, a more general interpretant consisting in the negation of the disconfirmed interpretant. Without its involvement in logical determination, the recognizant has no practical role to play in anything at all, let alone in semiosis, and is a nonentity as far as I can tell, making no difference to anything. > [Francis] .... Tentatively, the recognizant is thus possibly a synechastic > object, but not yet a semiosic object or sign. In synechastics, the object > and sign and signer to include any recognizant are all together in > combination the sole phenomenal representamen and existent that then > determines semiosis and the very being of a sign and especially the main kind > a sign will be. > [Francis] If the recognizant is held to be the synechastic object of a > signer, and not also simultaneously the semiosic object of a sign, then there > is no contradiction. What is held to exist then is two different states of > objects, where one is a synechastic object of which the recognizant may be a > direct part acting as a signer, and one is a semiosic object of which the > recognizant may not be a part, unless it acts at the behest of a signer > indirectly as a sign. Mental recognizants therefore need not be held only as > signs, any more than do all objects or existents or representamens or > phanerons. I don't know what you're saying here. Are you saying that the recognizant could be held as the dynamic object of a mind, but not also the immediate object of a sign, and that this somehow avoids a contradiction? I'm lost here. But if you clarify what you mean by "synechastic" -- the "real" world "outside" semiosis? -- I think that the relevant response is for me to argue all the same, that considerations of logical determination firmly place the recognizant IN semiosis, since semiosis is process of logical determination. The object is source of practical differences, the sign carries them, the interpretant clarifies them, and the recognizant confirms them, and in that confirmation is the reasonable settling of questions & doubts which no interpretant unconfirmed ever could accomplish Best, Ben --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [email protected]
