Frances to Joe and others... There is a tendency for me to equate "immediate" or "immediacy" with all metaphysical quiddities and representamens that are not signs, as well as with all categorical primaries and firstnesses or firsts and qualities that exist to sense, but especially to align them with representamens that are signs within acts of semiosis.
My reason for trying to do this semiotically and grammatically at least is to make representamens seem consistent as being immediate representamens along with immediate objects and immediate interpretants. The theoretical use this could have might include differentiating semiosic representamens that are signs from synechastic representamens that are not signs. There might then of course be no need to use immediacy as a label for "things" before "objects" or for representamens and phenomena outside semiosis. If for example a diagrammatic table where drawn to illustrate the structure of "grammatic" signs, it might hence be as follows. ---------------------------------------------- immediate representamens ---------------------------------------------- immediate dynamic objects objects ---------------------------------------------- immediate dynamic final interpretants interpretants interpretants ---------------------------------------------- This basic layout and usage of "immediate" for representamens seems reasonable to me, but nothing could be found in Peircean writings yet to support the use of the term "immediate representamen" for some reason, other than as you explained earlier below. The structure of this diagrammatic table however is perhaps rough or vague. It is vertical and even upside down in regard to the usual structure shown of trichotomies, so that there appears to be here three "immediate" firsts aligned to the left column and margin, yet only one "final" third aligned to the right column and margin. If the table were flipped the other side up, then the top row would have three horizontal classes as firsts and the right column would have three vertical classes as thirds, which only seems partly consistent with the trichotomic structure of categories. This problem may simply go to the limits of graphic or visual diagrams, which after all are iconic and merely similar in form to their referred objects, and logically senseless in that icons can be neither false nor true. There is an implication here that all semiotic immediates are probably grammatic in stature and somewhat iconic in structure. Perhaps when immediates as say subicons or when icons and their diagrams become dynamic objects or say dynamic object signs, aligned or connected more so to or as designated hyposemic indexes, will they become somewhat logically sensible and thus must be either false or true. In any event, all representamens to me seem inherently and intrinsically immediate, whether they are synechastically not signs or semiosically as signs, therefore labelling representamens as "immediate representamens" might more clearly assign or reassign them as being semiosic in the field and semiotic in the study. Joe wrote... The passage Jim found runs as follows: "It is usually admitted that there are two classes of mental representation, Immediate Representations or Sensations and Mediate Representations or Conceptions." In the context in which that occurs, Peirce goes on to say: "The former are completely determinate or individual objects of thought; the latter are partially indeterminate or general objects." And he then goes on (in the next paragraph) to say: "But according to my theory of logic, since no pure sensations or individual objects exist... ." I omit the rest of the long and complex sentence since it adds nothing to the point at issue, which is that he does not himself accept the "usually admitted" theory, which he contrasts as based on a different metaphysics than his. I cannot myself think of any reason why he would want to use such a term. The word "icon" is after all his term for a representing entity which presents its object immediately in the sense that no distinction can be drawn between the iconic sign and that of which it is an icon: they are numerically identical... (There is still a formal distinction to be drawn between icon and object, in the sense that there is a difference between representing and being represented, but this does not entail that what represents and what is represented cannot be the same thing. Otherwise there would be no such thing as self-representation. But of course there is.) So of what use would there be for the term "immediate representation" where that is equivalent to "immediate sign" or "immediate representamen"? It would only introduce an awkward expression of no distinctive use in his theoretical work with the negative potentiality of throwing it into confusion. That is why I am questioning your trying to do this. I don't understand what theoretical use it could have. Jim answered... "It is usually admitted that there are two classes of mental representation, Immediate Representations or Sensations and Mediate Representations or Conceptions." - from Essential Peirce, Volume 1, page 106 Frances wrote... No sources could be found by me in Peirce or on Peirce for the terms "immediate representamen" and "immediate sign" but my search continues. The terms "Immediate Representations" and "Mediate Representations" found in Peirce however do raise the further issue of some differences that Peirce might have held between representation and representamen, as well as some differences that he might also have held between representamen and sign. Joe queried... Where does Peirce talk about "immediate representamen" or "immediate sign"? I can't think of any use he would have for such a term. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
