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Ben:
The requirement of collateral acquaintance with
the object is simply what is implicit in the definition of the interpretant, as
in the formulation of the New List, where it is said to represent the relate to
be a representation of the same correlate which the interpretant itself
represents, and there is no special problem involved in diagramming that.
It is merely a matter of (1) having one referential arrow from the
interpretant, I1, pointing to the sign, S1, as a sign,
hence pointing not at the node, S1, but at an arrow running from S1 to
O, and (2) having a second arrow from that interpretant running
to the object, O, without being mediated through S1's reference to
it. This is a matter of the internal structure of a given instance of
semiosis and is essential to the process being a semeiosical process.
Verification concerns the relationship of
one instance of semiosis, C1, regarded as a cognition of something,
O, and a second instance of semiosis, C2, also regarded as a cognition of
something that is purportedly the same object, O, that C1 is
about, and in agreement with it as regards what it predicates of
O. This means that, diagrammatically, C1 is one cognition, and C2 is
another cognition whose referential arrows will differ in one important
respect: the arrows of C2 will refer to O -- the same O -- just as those
of C1 do, but there will also be a further reference of the arrows of
C2 that are absent from those of C1, namely, those that refer to the
interpretant, I1, and sign, S1, of C1 since C2 is not only about
O but also about C1, i.e. about I1 as interpretant of S1 as sign of
O. In other words, the verifying cognition, C2, is both
about what C1 is about and also about C1 since it says of the sign in C1
that it is a representation of what it, S2, represents and which it
represents in the same way.
This makes for some interesting complexity of
reference, designed to show both the referential structure of C1 and show also,
by exhibition, the referential structure of C2, which includes reference to S1
and I1; and if it were easy here to do a lot of drawing of referential arrows
and the like we could see what all of that involves. But it is simply
a matter of drawing arrows from nodes with labels which differentiate
those nodes which are functioning as signs, nodes functioning as
interpretants of signs, and nodes which are functioning as the object of signs,
and also of drawing arrows from nodes which point to other arrows from
nodes. There is nothing, though, that requires some new type of
entity functioning as nodes other than something of the nature of a sign,
something of the nature of an interpretant of a sign, and something of the
nature of an object of a sign. Basically, It is still just a
diagram about signs referring to objects, some of which are being
referred to as signs and some of which are not.
One of the complexities to get into if
one gets into that sort of diagramming -- as no doubt some people already
have by now, in one way or another -- is that one can, I believe, use
sign-to-object referential arrows in such a way as to take account of whether
the signs involved in the referential structure are functioning iconically,
indexically, or symbolically. This involves nothing new either,
though I have found that in practice it is difficult to do this without
resorting to something like a third dimension in the process of doing so, and
that it is difficult to do on an unchanging two-dimensional surface in a
perspicuous way, though I suspect that it can be done fairly well now, given the
development of computer technologies and of programming skills that can take
advantage of the ability to graphically represent processes as undergoing
transformations and also to rotate the graphical entities themselves around so
that they can be viewed from different perspectives. I say I believe this
can be done because in process of trying to do so myself, at a time prior to the
development of the computational technologies required, I found that
although I could draw arrows that seemed to serve that purpose in
principle, I could not do so in a way that is visually perspicuous, so
that, at that time, I could see no advantage in working it out in detail
myself inasmuch as it would only yield an uninformatively
complex representation intuitively incapable of adding anything
to what one already understands on a verbal
basis.
But however that might be, the point is that
all that the representation of a cognition functioning as a verification
requires by way of notational elements is what is already
available for use in representing cognitions that are not verifications,
such as those that the verifying representations purport to verify.
And there are surely a vast number of cognitions that are neither
verifiers nor verified.
The reason why I used very simple examples of
verification to try to make my point to you was that I thought you would see
that the representation of verification is merely one of the things which the
distinction between sign, object, and interpretant might make possible, among
the many different things of logical interest that his basic analysis provides
the basic elements for. Why? Because the point to the basic category
analysis is to make it possible to represent cognitions of any and every
sort in a helpfully analytic way, and once you have the elements required
for the analysis of any given cognition, you ipso facto have what is
required for such special cases as, say, that of verifying cognitions, and
not all cognitions have that function, as for example in the case of the
cognitions being verified. And there are surely a vast
number of cognitions that go unverified.
One more sort of example to make my point.
Verification is relevant to any thing regarded as purportedly being the truth
about something where some occasion has arisen that makes that
questionable. It need not be verification of a scientific theory, for
example, but can be concerning some matter of fact about something at a
particular time or place. Anything reported in a newspaper is something
that normally ought be, if not verified, at least verifiable. Now suppose
that it is said that a certain event occurred at a certain time and place.
Someone has a belief or at least claims to have a belief that it occurred and
one is a reporter needing verification that it occurred at all. One way of
doing that would be to try to find out if there are other reports by other
persons that are in agreement with that report. Now, each of these other
reports may be, considered by itself, no more or less reliable than the report
in question, but it clearly makes a difference whether such other reports do or
do not agree and/or what proportion of them do. If the degree of agreement
is very high it might seem reasonable to conclude that the original report
has been verified, taking due account of the various reasons why this or that
report might or might not be such as to be counted as a verification or a
disverification. But there is nothing about the original or first
report, the cognition requiring verification, that makes it something to be
verified or disverified in contradistinction from being something that verifies
or disverifies it. Perhaps the verification is simply the sum total of
reports considered in respect to their agreement on the matter in
question. How could it possibly be supposed, then, that being a
verification of something is an analytic element on par logically with the
analytical elements that are involved in all of the cases, regardless of whether
they are verifiers or that which is verified? The universal categories are
analytical elements involved in all cases alike and any individual case must
already be fully constituted as being of the nature of a cognition of some sort
before the question of its verificational status can even arise. The
verificational factor therefore cannot be on par with the sort of universal
element we are concerned with when we are concerned with the categories.
I just don't see that anything you say takes
account of this, Ben.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 7:01
PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The "composite
photograph" metaphor
Charles, Joe, Gary, Jim, list,
Currently, I'm focused on answering Joe's recentest post to me,
particularly in regard to the question of how to argue that some very
complicated complexus of objects, signs, and interpretants will not amount to
a verification. My focus there has as much to do with trying to restrain my
prolixity as anything else!
Still, I'd like to attempt at least a brief response here.
A point which I'll be making in my response to Joe, and which may be
pertinent here, is that the "reflexivity" involved in semiosis is not
just that of feedback's adjusting of behavior but instead that of learning's
effect on the semiotic system's very design -- solidifying it or undermining
it or renovating it or augmenting it or redesigning it or etc.
Generally, I'd respond that that which Peirce overlooks in connection
with verification is
-- that verification is an experiential recognition of an interpretant
and its sign as truly corresponding to their object, and that verification (in
the core sense) involves direct observation of the object in the light (being
tested) of the interpretant and the sign. "In the light (being tested)" means
that the verification is a recognition formed _as_ collateral to sign and
interpretant in respect of the object. Experience, familiarity, acquaintance
with the object are, by Peirce's own account, outside the interpretant, the
sign, the system of signs.
-- and that, therefore, the recognition is not sign, interpretant, or
their object in those relationships in which it is the recognition of them;
yet, in being formed as collateral to sign and interpretant in respect of the
object, it is logically determined by them and by the object as represented by
them; it is further determined by the object separately by observation of the
object itself; and by the logical relationships in which object, sign, and
interpretant are observed to stand. Dependently on the
recognitional outcome, semiosis will go very differently; it logically
determines semiosis going forward. So, how will you diagram it? You
can't mark it as object itself, nor as sign of the object, nor as interpretant
of the sign or of the object. What label, what semiotic role, will you
put at the common terminus of the lines of relationship leading to it,
all of them logically determinational, from the sign, the object, and the
interpretant?
If, as verification, it is logically determined by object, sign, and
interpretant, and is neither the object itself, or sign or interpretant of the
object, then *_what_* is
it in its logically determinational relationship to object, sign and
interpretant?
My answer is that verification is just that, verification, a fourth
semiotic element on a part with object, sign, and interpretant.
The content of your summary seems at first glance generally correct,
except that I would not call it so much a summary as a placement of Peirce's
discussion of transuasion into an appropriate further Peircean
context.
Previously on peirce-l, I think it was over a year ago, I addressed the
issue of induction and verification in a general way:
[peirce-l] Re: [Arisbe] Re: Critique Of Short -- Section 4
--Discussion
Benjamin Udell Sun Jan 2 23:55:43 CST 2005
66~~~~~
> [Joe:] The purpose of the collateral knowledge is not to "confirm
the meaning" but to identify the object independently of its identification in
the sign.
The latter, not the former, was Peirce's purpose, but it
amounts to the same thing, & takes on importance since there would be no
other way to confirm the meaning. For instance, the experimentation which
conveys collateral acquaintance with the object to the experimenter's mind is,
by that very stroke, not an interpretant or sign.in the relevant relations.
It's an induction which concludes not in an interpretant but in a recognition
-- some degree of recognition -- though it certainly will also conclude in an
interpretant to the extent that the interpretant goes beyond the recognition
& represents the object in respects in which collateral experience has not
been furnished. The progression continues. But at some point I will address
how this works when the collateral experience is conveyed only weakly &
how it is that we are satisfied with that which we call evidence when the
evidence is not the object itself freshly observed.
~~~~~99
(The way in which I eventually addressed the issue was in terms (a) of a
general evidentiary power of signs in virtue of their deserving recognition on
the basis of experience, and in particular of a kind of sign,
classificationally seated alongside index, icon, & symbol, a sign
_defined_ in terms of the recognition which it would deserve and
which I call the "proxy" and (b) a certain slack and experimentability which
the mind has in understanding and practicing the difference between an
interpretant and a recognition/verification, not a distinction such that the
mind "makes" the distinction and employs it as an option tied neither to
penalty nor to reward, but, instead, a distinction such that the mind _learns_
how to practice it.)
Another way to put it is that, given the rule is that experience with the
object is outside the interpretant, then an interpretant takes form as
a _conception as reached by inference_, not as a judgment as
reached by inference, even if it takes the form of a proposition
(or even of an argument).
It is a conception as inferred-to consciously or unconsciously. In
the case of a conception unconsciously inferred-to, the interpretant
conception (or its embodiment as a commonly perceptible sign) may be
a sign formed "from life," like a painting of an actual person,
and intended more as an occasion for interpretation and less as an outcome of
interpretation. (Most of us, and most artists, will rightly not
regard such a painting as actually an "uninterpretive" sign; W.C. Williams'
novel _White Mule_ is not mere "slice of life" writing; but even
when one is aware of its interpretive aspects, there are
very likely even more aspects that could be fairly called interpretive
than those of which one is aware). The interpretant is the idea,
the clarification, the elucidation, that one comes up with from the sign;
the recognition is the establishment, in greater or lesser firmness, of said
idea, and takes form as a judgment as reached by inference, a
concluding judgment.
The inferred-to conception may be vibrant to the mind and important
to it, etc. I agree with the view to which Peirce came, that even a name can
reasonably have something like assertoric force, influencing the mind.
I've called the conscious inference to a conception "conceptiocination,"
though that is not a general enough term. Given that in commonsense
perception one can form a perceptual judgment, I would tend to regard that as
involving percepts rather than perceptual "conceptions."
It is perfectly possible to act upon an unverified -- or an inadequately
verified -- interpretant, and this is experimentation. It also may be bold and
may be rash or brave. It does, when deliberate, involve at least the conscious
recognition of the interpretant _as_ an interpretant, and this is a kind of
recognition which we experience, observe, and practice every day. Somebody
says, "well that's just your interpretation," and the addressee says, "well,
yes, but I believe that I'll be able to prove it this afternoon." Coming up
with an idea is one thing, establishing it is another. That's common
sense, and the burden is on critical common sense if it wishes to reject the
common sense. A recurrent problem , as Peirce pointed out in regard to
pre-modern science, is mistakenness about verification itself, not some lack
of verificatory spirit; and, as Peirce wrote elsewhere, everybody thinks
himself or herself already sufficiently good at logic. There is an order
of being, whereby we explain things by inferred objects, laws, etc., and an
order of knowledge, whereby we verify; in that sense, the explanatory
"ultimates" means what is farthest from the mind, while verificational
"ultimates" means what is nearest to the mind and most familiar. So it's
natural to believe oneself to have little of worth yet to learn about
logic unless one truly believes oneself to be low in intelligence by some
standard which one actually holds.
The question in the current discussion seems now to be revolving over the
issue of whether establishment and verification are a formal logical element
on a par with object, sign, and interpretant, though Joe's recentest post
raises the idea once again (if it was ever really left aside) of whether a
verification might be merely some complexus of objects, signs, and
interpretants in considerable multiplicity.
Best, Ben Udell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 12:08 PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor
Ben, list:
Ben,
I am struggling to understand exactly what it is you are saying Peirce
overlooks in connection with verification. In an effort to get some
further clarification of your position, I am including a statement of my
understanding of some of what Peirce says on the subject followed by some
questions.
I. Peirce on Verification
TRANSUASION (CP 2.98): A Transuasive Argument, or Induction,
is an Argument which sets out from a hypothesis, resulting from a previous
Abduction, and from virtual predictions, drawn by Deduction, of the results of
possible experiments, and having performed the experiments, concludes that the
hypothesis is true in the measure in which those predictions are verified,
this conclusion, however, being held subject to probable modification to suit
future experiments. Since the significance of the facts stated in the
premisses depends upon their predictive character, which they could not have
had if the conclusion had not been hypothetically entertained, they satisfy
the definition of a Symbol of the fact stated in the conclusion. This argument
is Transuasive, also, in respect to its alone affording us a reasonable
assurance of an ampliation of our positive knowledge. By the term "virtual
prediction," I mean an experiential consequence deduced from the hypothesis,
and selected from among possible consequences independently of whether it is
known, or believed, to be true, or not; so that at the time it is selected as
a test of the hypothesis, we are either ignorant of whether it will support or
refute the hypothesis, or, at least, do not select a test which we should not
have selected if we had been so ignorant. (END QUOTE)
I take the word "verification" as a synonym for the consequences of
Peirce's transuasive arguments (distinguishable from abductive and deductive
arguments) that set out the conditions under which individuals will be most
likely to agree to act as if statements referring to perceptual
events and relations between and among perceptual events are true. I say
"act as if" because I understand Peirce to say that "belief" necessarily
entails both cognitive and behavioral action. Granting that there are
semiosical antecedents to one's being able to name and otherwise classify
perceptual events like seeing a burning building, any physically and
psychologically normal person who sees a burning building will most likely
voluntarily or quasi voluntarily agree to report seeing or having seen a
burning building as a consequence of their experience's compelling them to act
as if they are or were in the actual presence of a burning building. The
cognitive assent in agreeing to say there is or was a building burning in
which Thirdness is predominant is inseparably connected to a nonvoluntary
inability dominated by Secondness to act as if seeing a burning
building is or was an hallucination, optical illusion, etc. To refuse to
report or to quibble over reporting that a building is or was burning would be
an instance of "paper doubt." Say what you will, the consequences of
acting as if there is or was no building burning are identical to what we
conventionally mean (the import of Peirce's pragmatic maxim) by saying that a
building is burning is true. Peirce's transuasive argument does not set
out conditions under which all rational individuals ought to agree, but
conditions under which, over time, most people will in actual fact agree
as a consequence of an inability to act as if what is predicted will not
occur. Belief has the character of a wager. Whatever a person's
state of mind, relative to present states of information the odds favor acting
as if the conclusions of transuasive arguments are true.
II. Questions
1. Do you generally agree with my summary of Peirce's transuasive
argument? If not, where in your opinion have I gone astray?
2. If you do generally agree with my account of transuasion, what
does Peirce's transuasive argument fail to address in connection with
verification? ---
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