Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:
the classification is obtained in a deductive the way, but the
sequence order is arbitrary.
let us say I want to classify a group of people according to 2 divisions:
- men / women (1st division)
- under age / adult (2nd division)
that's 4 classes, OK?
if I consider the "men / women" division a first dichotomy and the
"under age / adult" division the second dichotomy, are you saying that
the classes of people are magically ordered just because of that choice?
what are the order relations among the classes of signs? that the
first question to answer before laying down the numerals
/JM
I think that your example funishes a good basis for reflexion Jean-Marc.
And I am not sure you are right in this special case. A division among
men and women is made on the basis of a discriminant, the sex. The other
division is made on the age as a discriminant. But sex and age are two
mutually independant attributes of people.What is aimed at is to
distribute a stock of individuals among four pre-given classes. Observe
in passing that the purpose is not to define what are men or women. This
activity is what is called nowadays data analysis for which the
attributes that make the division are let to the choice of the
classifier. These attributes can be calculated in order to confer some
nice or formal properties to the resulting classification but in a sense
they are arbitrary (dependant on he who makes the classification). Note
too that the potential list of candidate discriminants is infinite.
I think that this is not what is at work with the classification of
1903. If words could convey good meanings in themselves I would say that
it is much more a categorization than a classification. There are not
individual signs in our hands in order to put them in the one box or the
other. We have a set of characters which are structured according to
the law of prescission (and not discrimination) and make a system. It is
this law which gives a sense to the order of the trichotomies and which
makes that the attributes used to make the classes are not mutually
independant. For example if a sign has for its object an index, it
cannot be an argument,but it can be a rheme a dicisign. The fact that
such a categorization does not require any individual makes it dependant
only on what Peirce sometimes calls the "formal structure" of the
elements of thought and consciousness (CP 8.213). An important
consequence is that such a classification enables to determine all what
is possible (and thus impossible) contrary to the data analysis
tradition which describes what exists. If I was to revive some old
controversies, I would hold that Peirce was a precursor in structuralism
:-). However a natural classification is based on genealogy and final
cause for Peirce, two criteria that structuralism did not bother with.
This is the reason why I was reproaching to Joe the use of plural in his
figure for qualisigns, sinsigns, legisigns as if they were individual
class members and not structural elements, as well as the separation of
the classification into three sub-trees. In fact, it has no effect on
the surrounding text but nevertheless I think that the presentation of
the figure in itself can be misleading. It conveys an idea of the first
trichotomy as being more material than formal (and also more decisive
than the two others)
On the status of classifications for Peirce, there would be something
worth adding. He often makes a distinction between what he calls
"natural classes" which are built from the formal structure of elements
with "artificial classes" which are built for a special purpose. I think
that his conception of artificial classification is very near from the
approach taken by data analysis. I wonder whether the Welby
classification was not an "artificial" one. Peirce had not the habit of
confusing himself with his scientific study but here he says "MY second
way of dividing signs". This puzzled me for several years.
Bernard
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