[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Gary Richmond]

PS I should have added this excerpt in relation to the TRICHOTOMIC passage as it reminds us that categorial Thirdness == mediation and that all three elements in a genuine trichotomic relationship mediate between the other two in some sense. CP 1.328 I. . .. Thirdness, in the sense of the category, is the same as mediation. For that reason, pure dyadism is an act of arbitrary will or of blind force; for if there is any reason, or law, governing it, that mediates between the two subjects and brings about their connection. The dyad is an individual fact, as it existentially is; and it has no generality in it. The being of a monadic quality is a mere potentiality, without existence. Existence is purely dyadic. and this one where we learn that "Thirdness. . .is only a synonym for Representation." CP 5.104 Now Thirdness is nothing but the character of an object which embodies Betweenness or Mediation in its simplest and most rudimentary form; and I use it as the name of that element of the phenomenon which is predominant wherever Mediation is predominant, and which reaches its fullness in Representation. CP 5.105 . Thirdness, as I use the term, is only a synonym for Representation, to which I prefer the less colored term because its suggestions are not so narrow and special as those of the word Representation. Now it is proper to say that a general principle that is operative in the real world is of the essential nature of a Representation and of a Symbol because its modus operandi is the same as that by which words produce physical effects. Nobody can deny that words do produce such effects. Take, for example, that sentence of Patrick Henry which, at the time of our Revolution, was repeated by every man to his neighbor: and this one in which we are reminded that in Peirce's thinking that "the three categories. . .have in truth [an] enormous importance for thought." CP 5.77 Fn P1 Para 1/3 p 52 Grant me that the three categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, or Quality, Reaction, and Representation, have in truth the enormous importance for thought that I attribute to them, and it would seem that no division of theories of metaphysics could surpass in importance a division based upon the consideration of what ones of the three categories each of different metaphysical systems have fully admitted as real constituents of nature. Gary Richmond wrote: Jim, Ben, List, Jim Piat wrote: Yes, but Peirce also wrote (chapter 20 Trichotomic of The Essential Peirce Vol 1 page 281  line two of paragraph two)  that  "A sign is a third mediating between the mind addressed and the object represented". So I find this confusing. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com