Frances to Ben and listers... There has been a lot of clarifying here on this topical subject. It does not seem to me however that there is yet any agreement on whether the collateral experience and even in the form of a recognizant is indeed part of semiosis and thus a trichotomic semiosis. In any event, here are a few further comments of mine that may be to the point.
If the semiosic recognizant, as the experience of a sign by any sentient organism, is to be held remaining within semiosis as an object that acts as the sign of another object, and also still be held as collateral in some way, then this collateral idea might be salvaged by assigning the experiential recognizant to the rhetorical or methodeutical division of semiosis, as say the pragmatic response to the grammatical interpretant effect and the critical judgemental worth of the sign. The rhetoric recognizant would then only be collateral or peripheral and marginal to grammatics and critics, but not to semiosics or semiotics as a whole, thereby leaving signs and their experience in tact as being only categorically trichotomic. If on the other hand, the recognizant is to be relegated as other than a sign in any division of semiosis, but still remain as an existent object, then it might be classed as a representamen that is not an object or sign, and thus fall outside the semiosic arena of phenomena and within the synechastic arena of phenomena. This would make the recognizant collateral to trichotomic semiosis, but would deny it the status of being a sign, although as a synechastic object it would be a preparatory candidate as a sign. The issue then turns on the categorical trichotomic structure of representamen that are not signs but that act to represent themselves intrinsically, and also of synechastic phenomena that may be infinitely continuent as mere fleeting things or existent as brute sporting objects. In any event and under realist pragmatism, all these aspects or entities would be phenomenal phanerons and representamens, including the recognizant and as either synechastic or semiosic. The evolving nature of the synechastic recognizant as a "dispositional tendency" prior to semiosis might account for its being collateral to semiosis. In a strict semiotic manner, any phenomenal representamen or thing that is logically determined is an objective construct and properly within semiosis, whereby it acts as an object and a sign of an object. In other words, if mind wants to sense or think or know about any phaneron, it must do it by utilizing signs, which signs then stand analogously for other things that may not be objects or signs, such as essences or unicorns or angels. Indeed, if the assumed nomenal or epiphenomenal aspects of the world are to be sensed at all, it must be only by phenomenal signs that act as analogies. The purpose of phenomenal representamen that act as objects is thus to be assigned naturally as signs and to be reassigned as signs of other objects. The main purpose of signs then is to make the continuent ideals of the world seem existentially real to sense in mind. If the experiential recognizant is not part of semiosis, then for me its presence in the phenomenal act of representation must therefore be accounted for by other means or in ways other than semiosic. The alternate option would likely be presemiotic or synechastic. To be the object of logical determination, such a synechastic object or thing need only be sensed analogously by semiosis and thus signs. To merely be the object or thing of phenomenal representation in the absence of sense or logic need not require the synechastic object to be semiotic. Even if the synechastic object or thing were on occasion a logical determination, this act alone would not render it intrinsically nor exclusively semiosic or semiotic. In the absence or presence of the recognizant, and with it as a synechastic object, semiotics would thus remain categorically trichotomic. The act of mind merely engaging in the logical determination of a synechastic representamen does not make that phenomenal thing or object intrinsically a semiosic object, neither finitely nor definitely or indefinitely, because there can be phenomenal representamen that is not a sign. Considerations of logical determination by mind will place the recognizant within semiosis as a sign, since semiosis is the place of logical determination, but the assigning or reassigning or conferring of such analogous placement with signs by itself does not constitute intrinsic semiosis for the object of signs, because many such objects are intrinsically synechastic and will remain so well after semiosis is exhausted with them. If you sense some continuent thing or existent object, such as a collateral recognizant for example, that is not logically determined as either a semiosic representamen or object or interpretant, then what is present to mind is not intrinsically a fourth semiosic category or fourth categoric phaneron, but rather is a trichotomic category outside semiotics and inside synechastics. There may be categories of zeroness and enthness other than terness before or beyond phenomenal representamen that are as yet unsensed or unknown, but until they are sensed, then like synechastic things they must be sensed and experienced and recognized analogously only by signs. It remains my contention that if the recognizant is held to be the synechastic object of a signer, and not simultaneously also 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. The recognizant could possibly be held originally and initially as the synechastic object of a mind, but not also simultaneously as the immediate object of a sign. This likely avoids any categorical confusion. The phenomenal world of representamen before and outside existent semiosics is of synechastics, which may be existent or continuent in the primordial manner. If any representamen is sensed, then it is an existent fact, and is real in quasi mind or mind. The factuality of phenomena is thus an objective material construct, whether it is sensed or not, but the reality of such phenomena is a subjective mental construct. These guesses of mine about the topical issues at hand may possibly go to avoiding the logical or semiotical contradictions that your theory of the recognizant seems fearful. On how to identify the finder or maker or user or whatever of a sign with a fit name, the phaneron in synechastics that engages a representamen to be an object and a semiosic sign of an object might be called a "signer" by me in the absence of some other suitable word. The terms phaneron or "representer" might of course do just as well. The terms "semist" or "semiost" or "semiosist" or "semiosism" as has been musingly suggested fail to be synechastically broad enough; as does the term object; and the term interpreter or "interpretamen" seems to be semiotically too narrow. The term recognizant or its suggested alternate "agnoscent" is supposedly not intended for this identifying purpose. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [email protected]
