[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor

[Jim Piat]

Charles Rudder wrote:        >> That is, there is an immediate--non-mediated and, hence, cognitively autonomous relation between cognizing subjects and objects consisting of phenomena and/or things in themselves who are in some sense able to "see" or "recognize" objects and relations between and among objects as they are independent of how they are represented by signs and their interpretants.  On this account of cognition, signs and systems of signs are "instrumental" auxiliaries to cognition and their semiosical instrumentality is subject to being and is consciously or unconsciously continuously being extrasemiosically evaluated, validated, or "verified" by cognizing subjects; a process which Peirce, who makes cognition and cognitive growth an exclusively semiosical process, ignores.>>   Dear Charles, Folks   Here's my take --   That one has some sort of non-representational "knowledge" of objects against which one can compare or verify one's representational or semiotic knowledge does seem to be a popular view of the issue of how reality is accessed or known.   But I think this is a view Peirce rejected in the New List.    However this is not to say that there is no practical distinction between what is meant by an object and what is meant by a representation of an object.  An object is that which is interpreted as standing for (or representing) itself.  A sign is something that is interpreted as standing for something other than itself.  Thus one can compare one's interpretation of a sign of a collateral object with one's interpretation of the referenced collateral object itself even though both the object of the sign and the collateral object are known only through representation.  The collateral object and the object of some discussion of it are in theory the same object.  The distinction is between one's direct representation of the object vs it's indirect representation to one by others.  In both cases the object is represented.    There are no inherent distinctions between those objects we interpret as objects and those we interpret as signs  -- the distinction is in how we use them.  The object referred to by a sign is always collateral to the sign itself unless the sign is referring to itself in some sort of convoluted self referential fashion.  The distinction between direct (albeit mediated) knowledge of an object and the sort of second hand knowledge one gains from the accounts of others poses no special problems.  There is nothing magic about direct personal knowledge that gives it some sort of special objective validity over the accounts of others.  What makes such personal aquaintance valuable is not their imagined "objectivity"  but their trustworthiness (in terms of serving one's own interests as opposed to the interests of others).  OTOH multiple observation gathered from different "trustworthy" POVs do provide a more complete and thus more reliable and useful (or "true"as some say) account of reality.    And finally,  verification (conceiving a manifold of senuous impressions as having some particular meaning) IS representation -- at least for Peirce (as I understand him).    Just some thoughts as I'm following this discussion.    Best, Jim  --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com