Joseph Ransdell wrote:
J-MO = Jean-Marc Orliaguet
JR = Joseph Ransdell
J-M:
Also note that the various trichotomies are not ordered. It is purely a
convention to call a trichotomy the first, second, or third trichotomy,
etc. So deducing an ordering of the classes from that information only,
as it has been done many times including on this list, is incorrect.
JR:
It is not a matter of convention only: the three trichotomies are based on
the difference between firstness, secondness, and thirdness, which is
sufficient in itself to make the ordering of them as first, second, and
third something having informative content of some possible importance.
J-M:
yes, but this does no influence the results in any way, especially this
has nothing to do with ordering the classes. If one started with the
second trichotomy instead of the first, one would get let us say an
(index, sinsign, rheme) instead of a (sinsign, index, rheme) ... but in
a different order if one followed your method (3 would be 5 or something)
no, really... the order relations between the classes of signs comes
from the internal relations of determination between the sign, object
and interpretant. That is totally independent of the way in which you
perform the trichotomies.
REPLY BY JR:
The sequential order is not conventional. Peirce begins, in CP 2.254 with
the simplest possible sign, the qualisign,
which is so simple that its peculiar value as a sign can be due to nothing
other than what it is by hypothesis: sign and object are the same, thus it
can only be in icon when considered in relation to its object. That same
simplicity constrains it to be only a rheme by constraining its interpretant
to being the only thing it can possibly be, the quality which is the sign
itself.
This is the first class of sign: the rhematic iconic qualisign. When we get
to 2.263, nine paragraphs later, for the tenth class
of signs, we have traversed a path of continually increasing complexity
through the intervening eight classes. In what sense of complexity? I
couldn't describe informatively, at this time, what that sense is, but I can
say that if you analyze what you have at the end of the process -- the
argument (i.e. argument symbolic legisign) -- you find that it involves an
instance of a sign class of the ninth class (the dicent symbol legisgn or,
for short, the proposition), which in turn involves an instance of the
eighth and an instance of the seventh, each of which involve signs of still
prior classes, and so forth until you end at the beginning with the
qualisign involved.
...
:Joe Ransdell
It increases in complexity, indeed but only for the first 2 and the last
2 classes in a comparable way (the one being involved in the other);
apart from these there is no total order hence no "preferred" way to
order the classes from 1 to 10.
instead they are partially ordered in a lattice and finding
counter-examples is easy:
1) the dicent indexical legisign involves and is involved in no rhematic
symbol
2) the dicent sinsign involves and is involved in no rhematic indexical
legisign
3) the indexical sinsign involves and is involved in no iconic legisign
I am surprised that you are claiming that the classes can be traversed
by a unique, "natural", ordered sequence from 1 to 10 while at the same
time you claim to have come up with a structure similar to a lattice,
these are contradictory assertions.
/JM
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