Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations - The union of units unify the meaning of unity.

[Jerry LR Chandler]

List, 

The argument given in Matt's email below is problematic.  I will raise a 
question and make a brief and casual effort to place a Peircian interpretation 
on symbolic communication in terms of current scientific terminology. 

While human language is a very powerful source of human communication, is it 
complete with regard to expressibility of information?

I give two examples of what I consider to be the incompleteness of utterances 
as the sole source of the meaning of information.

1. Mathematical equations can be read as sentences, but when the number of 
terms is large, the reader must evaluate the individual symbols as units of the 
whole and as the unity (wholeness of the equation) for the message to be 
communicated.  This is NOT the usual linear process extracting meaning of a 
written or spoken sentence.

2. A chemical icon (rheme) is even more difficult to interpret. The message 
emerges from a perception of its components, its arrangement of components and 
often, it role in the chemistry of life such as "DNA".  It can requires a huge 
number of words (the name of each symbol) and ALL of the individual relations 
among them (bonding pattern) but also A QUANTITATIVE EXACT NAME for the 
specific entity.  

These two examples go to the very root of understanding the unity of human 
communication among two academic units - mathematics and chemistry. Musical 
symbols, as units, are less exact as the artist must interpret them, thereby 
adding information during a performance. 

Human communication CAN requires icons (in the traditional sense) with a 
countable number of terms (indices) that are visualizable  and interpretable 
within the logical rules (legisigns) that can be formed from multiple premises 
(rhemata) and multiple possible arrangements (dicisigns) such that arguments 
can be made that are consistent with the individual members of a category 
(sinsigns), their proper attributes (qualisigns), and their common symbols in a 
symbol system designed for that purpose.

 (The preceding sentence strives to integrate the nine rather arbitrary terms 
of CSP into a meaningful thought.)

The two examples above are both examples of the perplexity of artificial symbol 
systems that put exact and extreme requirements on the meaning of 
expressibility and completeness, the consistency of arguments and the logical 
soundness for the meaning of signs and symbols.

Cheers

Jerry 




On Dec 14, 2015, at 4:08 AM, Matt Faunce wrote:

> On 12/13/15 6:24 PM, Franklin Ransom wrote:
>> Human languages differ with respect to the rules of construction and the 
>> things that can be said, and they also develop and evolve over time; the 
>> development of a language to the point where it can articulate scientific 
>> terminology is not a development shared by every human language.
>> 
> Can you give your source for this? I remember reading the opposite from two 
> different linguists. Michael Shapiro is one. (I'd have to search for the 
> exact statements, but the keyword I'd use is 'passkey'.) Edward Vajda writes
> 
> " Human language is unlimited in its expressive capacity."
> 
> "Today, it is quite obvious that people living with Stone Age technology 
> speak languages as complex and versatile as those spoken in the most highly 
> industrialized society.  There are no primitive languages.  Virtually no 
> linguist today would disagree with this statement."
> 
> -- 
> Matt
> 
> -
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> 
> 
> 
> 


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations - The union of units unify the meaning of unity.

[Matt Faunce]

On 12/14/15 8:00 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:

1. Mathematical equations can be read as sentences, but when the 
number of terms is large, the reader must evaluate the individual 
symbols as units of the whole and as the unity (wholeness of the 
equation) for the message to be communicated.  This is NOT the usual 
linear process extracting meaning of a written or spoken sentence.


If I've learned one thing from learning a new philosophy, with its new 
assumptions, it's that I, for one, won't get anywhere reading it 
linearly. Since the philosopher has to explain a new sphere of thought 
via a string of words, it takes me at least two readings, but usually a 
lot more, often reading the first chapter of several other books, 
articles on Jstor, various online encyclopedia entries, etc., just to 
make any good sense of the first chapter of the book I first picked up. 
It's like making a sculpture, the first reading gives me a rough view of 
the overall scope and shape. The next few passes fill in many details. 
Another pass for the refinement. Etc. Only after I've grasped the 
overall concept of a new philosophy can I can jump to the right 
conclusions about the meanings (connotations) of the terms and phrases 
as they're strung along.


--
Matt


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Matt Faunce]

On 12/13/15 6:24 PM, Franklin Ransom wrote:
Human languages differ with respect to the rules of construction and 
the things that can be said, and they also develop and evolve over 
time; the development of a language to the point where it can 
articulate scientific terminology is not a development shared by every 
human language.


Can you give your source for this? I remember reading the opposite from 
two different linguists. Michael Shapiro is one. (I'd have to search for 
the exact statements, but the keyword I'd use is 'passkey'.) Edward 
Vajda writes


" Human language is unlimited in its expressive capacity."

"Today, it is quite obvious that people living with Stone Age technology 
speak languages as complex and versatile as those spoken in the most 
highly industrialized society. _There are no primitive languages_.  
Virtually no linguist today would disagree with this statement."


--
Matt


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Sungchul Ji]

Matt, Franklin, List,

""Today, it is quite obvious that people living with Stone Age technology
speak languages
as complex and versatile as those spoken in the most highly industrialized
society.
*There are no primitive languages*.  Virtually no linguist today would
disagree with this statement."

If living cells use a language as I believe (so much so that I was
motivated to coin the word, "cellese", to refer to it in 1999; NYAS *870*
:411-417) and since we, including our primitive ancestors, are organized
systems of cells, the language of Homo sapiens must be at least as complex
and versatile as cellese.  As our scientific knowledge increases in
biology, we are finding out that cellese is much more complex and versatile
than once thought.  In fact the more we know about cellese (e.g., signal
transduction) through scientific research, the more unknowns seem to be
revealed.

Sung

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 5:08 AM, Matt Faunce  wrote:

> On 12/13/15 6:24 PM, Franklin Ransom wrote:
>
> Human languages differ with respect to the rules of construction and the
> things that can be said, and they also develop and evolve over time; the
> development of a language to the point where it can articulate scientific
> terminology is not a development shared by every human language.
>
> Can you give your source for this? I remember reading the opposite from
> two different linguists. Michael Shapiro is one. (I'd have to search for
> the exact statements, but the keyword I'd use is 'passkey'.) Edward Vajda
> writes
>
> " Human language is unlimited in its expressive capacity."
>
> "Today, it is quite obvious that people living with Stone Age technology
> speak languages as complex and versatile as those spoken in the most highly
> industrialized society.  *There are no primitive languages*.  Virtually
> no linguist today would disagree with this statement."
>
> --
> Matt
>
>
>
> -
> PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
> peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L
> but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the
> BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] in case you were wondering

[Clark Goble]

> On Dec 14, 2015, at 12:57 AM, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> I agree with the connection to the Pragmatic Maxim, especially in its later 
> formulations, but I am pretty sure that there are even earlier formulations 
> have a subjunctive component.

I just checked and you’re right. It appears the preliminary drafts to his 
changed proposal published in Popular Science Monthly in 1878 were written in 
1873. So much earlier than I thought. However even in these drafts, “Logic of 
1873” (CP 7.340-1), they are a tad problematic. Peter Skagestad makes hay with 
this in his argument that the maxim and Peirce’s realism are at odds. (He 
argues it’s only this middle period which has the position coherent with 
scholastic realism - although I disagree with Skagestad’s views here)

I must confess I primarily just stick to Peirce in the mid 1890’s onward so I 
don’t get even more confused by his using the same terms but with slightly 
different meanings. He can be difficult enough in his terminology as is at 
times.

> I think that verificationism is about meaning in all cases, not about the 
> definition or nature of truth, though the two are connected by the notion of 
> “truthmakers” – that which makes something true. 

I agree with that - although clearly this is the main thing that splits the 
different strains of pragmatism.

> I am not keen on possible worlds as a way to deal with modality, partly 
> because of the Platonic implications.

I think possibilities as forms are about the only way to salvage a strain of 
platonism. However I think it’s different enough from the types of platonism or 
neoplatonism most think of as characteristic of the movements so as to not pose 
a problem. I just am careful not call it platonism unless people are clear on 
terms. Platonic has a pretty strong negative connotation in our philosophical 
community. For perhaps understandable reasons since typically platonism sees 
forms as a cause in a stronger since than possibility really suggests.

> As I described it, this takes us Aleph 3 cardinality at least, raising issues 
> about accessibility of the possible worlds for things like verifiability (or 
> truth, for that matter). I don’t see this as a bad thing, though it takes us 
> some way from the usual interpretations of acceptance in the long run that 
> people like Putnam and Rescher ascribe to Peirce. Since I think that this 
> idea leads to at best internal realism, and Peirce has a stronger form of 
> realism, I would say that Peirce should have had a stronger form of the end 
> of though, not just the end in our world, but, as you suggest, across all 
> possible worlds (assuming a rigorous notion of possible worlds, perhaps of 
> the form I have suggested).

I think Peirce in his own conceptions was moving much more to a kind of maximal 
cardinality. (Cantor moves to something similar, adopting some odd notions out 
of Jewish Kabbalism as I recall of the En Sof) But that’s from some articles I 
read long ago. Whether that’s required for Peirce’s epistemology is of course a 
different matter.



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations - The union of units unify the meaning of unity.

[Matt Faunce]

On 12/14/15 8:00 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:

List,

The argument given in Matt's email below is problematic.  I will raise 
a question and make a brief and casual effort to place a Peircian 
interpretation on symbolic communication in terms of current 
scientific terminology.


While human language is a very powerful source of human communication, 
is it complete with regard to expressibility of information?


I give two examples of what I consider to be the incompleteness of 
utterances as the sole source of the meaning of information.


One idea is that music, science, and mathematics were only able to be 
born because language enabled them. For this reason Joseph Margolis 
calls these non-language sign systems /lingual/. That is, lingual 
systems are natural extensions of language by encultured people.


Matt

1. Mathematical equations can be read as sentences, but when the 
number of terms is large, the reader must evaluate the individual 
symbols as units of the whole and as the unity (wholeness of the 
equation) for the message to be communicated.  This is NOT the usual 
linear process extracting meaning of a written or spoken sentence.


2. A chemical icon (rheme) is even more difficult to interpret. The 
message emerges from a perception of its components, its arrangement 
of components and often, it role in the chemistry of life such as 
"DNA".  It can requires a huge number of words (the name of each 
symbol) and ALL of the individual relations among them (bonding 
pattern) but also A QUANTITATIVE EXACT NAME for the specific entity.


These two examples go to the very root of understanding the unity of 
human communication among two academic units - mathematics and 
chemistry. Musical symbols, as units, are less exact as the artist 
must interpret them, thereby adding information during a performance.


Human communication CAN requires icons (in the traditional sense) with 
a countable number of terms (indices) that are visualizable  and 
interpretable within the logical rules (legisigns) that can be formed 
from multiple premises (rhemata) and multiple possible arrangements 
(dicisigns) such that arguments can be made that are consistent with 
the individual members of a category (sinsigns), their proper 
attributes (qualisigns), and their common symbols in a symbol system 
designed for that purpose.


 (The preceding sentence strives to integrate the nine rather 
arbitrary terms of CSP into a meaningful thought.)


The two examples above are both examples of the perplexity of 
artificial symbol systems that put exact and extreme requirements on 
the meaning of expressibility and completeness, the consistency of 
arguments and the logical soundness for the meaning of signs and symbols.


Cheers

Jerry




On Dec 14, 2015, at 4:08 AM, Matt Faunce wrote:


On 12/13/15 6:24 PM, Franklin Ransom wrote:
Human languages differ with respect to the rules of construction and 
the things that can be said, and they also develop and evolve over 
time; the development of a language to the point where it can 
articulate scientific terminology is not a development shared by 
every human language.


Can you give your source for this? I remember reading the opposite 
from two different linguists. Michael Shapiro is one. (I'd have to 
search for the exact statements, but the keyword I'd use is 
'passkey'.) Edward Vajda writes


" Human language is unlimited in its expressive capacity."

"Today, it is quite obvious that people living with Stone Age 
technology speak languages as complex and versatile as those spoken 
in the most highly industrialized society. _There are no primitive 
languages_.  Virtually no linguist today would disagree with this 
statement."


--
Matt



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RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

List,

GF:  There is no vagueness in a percept; it’s a singular. So I don’t see how 
the concept of qualisign can serve the purpose you suggest here. I think the 
qualisign is simply a necessary result of Peirce’s introduction of the 
trichotomy of signs based on the sign’s mode of being in itself. It has to be 
First in that trichotomy.

Peirce does say that percepts are, in some respects, vague.  Here is one place 
in "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmatism:  "But not to interrupt our train 
of thought, let us go on to note that while the Immediate Object of a Percept 
is excessively vague, yet natural thought makes up for that lack (as it almost 
amounts to), as follows. A late Dynamical Interpretant of the whole complex of 
Percepts is the Seme of a Perceptual Universe that is represented in 
instinctive thought as determining the original Immediate Object of every 
Percept.†2 Of course, I must be understood as talking not psychology, but the 
logic of mental operations. Subsequent Interpretants furnish new Semes of 
Universes resulting from various adjunctions to the Perceptual Universe. They 
are, however, all of them, Interpretants of Percepts. CP 4.539  I.e., A complex 
of percepts yields a picture of a perceptual universe. Without reflection, that 
universe is taken to be the cause of such objects as are represented in a 
percept. Though each percept is vague, as it is recognized that its object is 
the result of the action of the universe on the perceiver, it is so far clear." 
CP 4.539 Fn 2 p 425

Here is a place where he says that percepts have a singular character:  "the 
reader questions, perhaps, the assertion that conclusions of reasoning are 
always of the nature of expectations. "What!" he will exclaim, "can we not 
reason about the authorship of the Junius Letters or the identity of the Man in 
the Iron Mask?" In a sense we can, of course. Still, the conclusion will not be 
at all like remembering the historical event. In order to appreciate the 
difference, begin by going back to the percept to which the memory relates. 
This percept is a single event happening hic et nunc. It cannot be generalized 
without losing its essential character. For it is an actual passage at arms 
between the non-ego and the ego. A blow is passed, so to say. Generalize the 
fact that you get hit in the eye, and all that distinguishes the actual fact, 
the shock, the pain, the inflammation, is gone. It is anti-general. The memory 
preserves this character, only slightly modified. The actual shock, etc., are 
no longer there, the quality of the event has associated itself in the mind 
with similar past experiences. It is a little generalized in the perceptual 
fact. Still, it is referred to a special and unique occasion, and the flavor 
of anti-generality is the predominant one."  CP 2.146

For the sake of understanding the division in NDTR between signs based on the 
mode in which they are apprehended (i.e., qualisign, sinsign, legislgn), I do 
think it would help to spell out the manner in which each of these types of 
signs is determined by its object.  For example, in the Minute Logic, which was 
written in 1902 (one year before NDTR), Peirce says the following about the 
relation between the percept and the perceptual jugment:  "The most ordinary 
fact of perception, such as "it is light," involves precisive abstraction, or 
prescission. But hypostatic abstraction, the abstraction which transforms "it 
is light" into "there is light here," which is the sense which I shall 
commonly attach to the word abstraction (since prescission will do for 
precisive abstraction) is a very special mode of thought. It consists in taking 
a feature of a percept or percepts (after it has already been prescinded from 
the other elements of the percept), so as to take propositional form in a 
judgment (indeed, it may operate upon any judgment whatsoever), and in 
conceiving this fact to consist in the relation between the subject of that 
judgment and another subject, which has a mode of being that merely consists in 
the truth of propositions of which the corresponding concrete term is the 
predicate. Thus, we transform the proposition, "honey is sweet," into "honey 
possesses sweetness." CP 4.235

Is Peirce suggesting in this passage that a visual impression of light or a 
taste impression of sweetness can function as a sign (e.g., a qualisign) 
because the feeling is abstracted--both prescissively and hypostatically--from 
the percept?  Another possibility is that the impressions of light and taste 
can function as qualisigns insofar as they are precissively abstracted from the 
object, and then something like a diagram (what he will later call a percipuum) 
comes in as the interpretant of the qualisign.  The remarks he makes about the 
conventional symbols expressed as part of a perceptual judgment (e.g., "it is 
light" "honey is sweet") are the data that we can analyze for the sake of 
sharpening our account of 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Clark Goble]

> On Dec 14, 2015, at 3:08 AM, Matt Faunce  wrote:
> 
> On 12/13/15 6:24 PM, Franklin Ransom wrote:
>> Human languages differ with respect to the rules of construction and the 
>> things that can be said, and they also develop and evolve over time; the 
>> development of a language to the point where it can articulate scientific 
>> terminology is not a development shared by every human language.
>> 
> Can you give your source for this? I remember reading the opposite from two 
> different linguists. Michael Shapiro is one. (I'd have to search for the 
> exact statements, but the keyword I'd use is 'passkey'.) Edward Vajda writes
> 
> " Human language is unlimited in its expressive capacity."
> 
> "Today, it is quite obvious that people living with Stone Age technology 
> speak languages as complex and versatile as those spoken in the most highly 
> industrialized society.  There are no primitive languages.  Virtually no 
> linguist today would disagree with this statement."

I don’t know about that quote in particular. However a decade or so back 
Michael Tomasello had a fascinating book on the evolution of language in The 
Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. While he doesn’t speak of it in Peircean 
terms he creates a model where it appears a certain kind of thirdness in terms 
of interpretation of signs develops. Once that evolves then he sees language’s 
capabilities as being largely there and develops fast. It’s been a while since 
I read it but I think he keeps the traditional dating of the evolution of 
language to around 80,000 - 100,000 years. The evolution after that is really 
developing the language and culture once you have the capability.

I know he has a newer text based upon some lectures he gave called The Origins 
of Human Communication although I’ve not read that one.
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Edwina Taborsky]

Franklin Ransom is using a discredited analysis of language, referred to as 
sociolinguistic relativism or determinism, where language defines the knowledge 
base; i.e., language determines thought. Followers of this linear causality are 
such as Whorf-Sapir, and Basil Bernstein. It doesn't stand up to empirical 
analysis.  But it enjoyed its own limelight within the works of various people 
who saw language or culture as determinant of thought, and even, there were 
some who suggested that some languages should be eradicated (eg native) because 
the language was defined as 'primitive' and prevented the users from thinking 
'in a modern or scientific way'. 

Instead, the human brain creates language and thus, can express anything by 
coming up with new terms and expressions. 

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Clark Goble 
  To: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 11:48 AM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations




On Dec 14, 2015, at 3:08 AM, Matt Faunce  wrote:


On 12/13/15 6:24 PM, Franklin Ransom wrote:

  Human languages differ with respect to the rules of construction and the 
things that can be said, and they also develop and evolve over time; the 
development of a language to the point where it can articulate scientific 
terminology is not a development shared by every human language.


Can you give your source for this? I remember reading the opposite from two 
different linguists. Michael Shapiro is one. (I'd have to search for the exact 
statements, but the keyword I'd use is 'passkey'.) Edward Vajda writes

" Human language is unlimited in its expressive capacity."

"Today, it is quite obvious that people living with Stone Age technology 
speak languages as complex and versatile as those spoken in the most highly 
industrialized society.  There are no primitive languages.  Virtually no 
linguist today would disagree with this statement."



  I don’t know about that quote in particular. However a decade or so back 
Michael Tomasello had a fascinating book on the evolution of language in The 
Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. While he doesn’t speak of it in Peircean 
terms he creates a model where it appears a certain kind of thirdness in terms 
of interpretation of signs develops. Once that evolves then he sees language’s 
capabilities as being largely there and develops fast. It’s been a while since 
I read it but I think he keeps the traditional dating of the evolution of 
language to around 80,000 - 100,000 years. The evolution after that is really 
developing the language and culture once you have the capability.


  I know he has a newer text based upon some lectures he gave called The 
Origins of Human Communication although I’ve not read that one.


--



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Matt Faunce]

On 12/13/15 9:38 AM, Franklin Ransom wrote:


Matt wrote:

EP2.227: "perceptual judgments contain general elements," whereas
percepts don't. So, if you have a general type (legisign) in mind
then you have a perceptual judgment. So, smoke, as understood as
being a type, e.g., relating to other instances of smoke, is a
perceptual judgment.


Smoke, qua type, is not a perceptual judgment. A perceptual judgment 
is not the general element, but includes the general as its predicate.


I meant that the token of a type 'smoke' is a perceptual judgment. I 
hoped that would've been understood from the context, e.g., my clause 
"relating to /other instances/ of smoke," as an instance is a token, not 
a generality. As usual, I could've written it better. Then I continued 
to give my argument for the fact that there can be no token in 
perception without that token being of a type, concluding with "If this 
is correct then all perceptual judgments are dicisigns."Let me add 
bracketed insertions to my first paragraph to clarify what I meant:


 EP2.227: "perceptual judgments contain general elements," whereas 
percepts don't. So, if you have a general type (legisign) in mind then 
you have a perceptual judgment. So, [the token of] smoke [in your mind], 
as understood as being a type, e.g., relating to other instances of 
smoke, is a perceptual judgment.


I continued...


Any dichotomy made within a percept is a perceptual judgment. One
very basic dichotomy is 'me and not me'. The judgment 'x is not
me' is judging x to be the general class of 'not me'. The judgment
'x is not y' is to generalize x by thinking it belongs to the
general class of not y.  For example, let's say 'x is not y' is
'the dark part* of my percept is different from the light part';
this is a way of typifying x, the dark side, as 'not y', 'not of
the same type as the light part.'

In merely seperating the tone of dark from the tone of light, the
tone of dark becomes a token of the type 'not the tone of light'.
I can't imagine there can be a token that's not also a type of
this most basic kind. If this is correct then all perceptual
judgments are dicisigns.

Your question about how the categories fit into this analysis is a
good one.

* Here I mean the word 'dark' as only indicating the mere tone
(qualisign), i.e., before 'dark' is typified with other instances
of dark. Similarly, 'x is not y' etc., need not be verbalized
propositions. It seems to me that this basic level of dicisign
precedes the sinsign, in that 'x', 'the dark tone' only comes as a
result of the distinction (this basic level generalization)


Matt

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