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

[Helmut Raulien]

Clark, list,

you wrote: " If you have the form but not the matter then it’s degenerate.". Thank you: This way eventually, after a long time,  I think I understand why it is called degenerate. Maybe it is like this: "matter" may be understood for "reason", like in the question "Whats the matter?", in which someone is asking for the reason for somebody elses behaviour. The reason (matter) has generated the behaviour (form). In the same way, the reason for two parallel lines might have been an elliptical function, but with the focal points very far apart. At this border case of the function, that has generated the lines (the form), one cannot see or reverse-engineer the elliptical function (the matter). The reason has gotten lost (also in the other border case of the ellipse, in which the two focal points are very close, then the form is a circle). In a sign, the reason for sending the sign has been to transport a meaning. If someone does not see the meaning, but only the sign-vehicle, then for him the meaning, the reason for the sign, the matter of the sign, has gotten lost. If an alien visiting the earth first meets some penguins and dolphins, he/she/it  probably does not see, that their fins have evolved from wings and legs, because the wing- and leg- aspects of the fins are degenerate, i.e. the generation of wings and legs is not present in the fins anymore.

Best,

Helmut

 

 17. Dezember 2015 um 18:42 Uhr
 "Clark Goble" 
 


 


On Dec 16, 2015, at 10:32 PM, John Collier  wrote:
 

In the passage from Peirce that you quote below, by way of Clark, I think the distinction is that the degenerate seconds consider them in terms of their form alone, which degenerates our understanding of them to firsts associated with them, making our understanding of something that is internal. 


 

If I recall (don’t have time to look it up) but in at least a few places Peirce treats degeneracy as a form/matter distinction. If you have the form but not the matter then it’s degenerate. That is while he’s making the geometric analogy his distinctions are just the classic medieval distinctions among types of relations (especially as found in Scotus)

 

- - - - - - 

 

A quick quote from my Peirce-L note. This is a post from 7/15/03 by Jean-Marc Orliaguet.

 


Peirce distinguished between the logical / formal categories and "metaphysical" (ontological?) categories, i.e. the categories of pure forms and categories of the "matter of phenomena". Considered as a form, a dyad is a dyad no matter if it is created by the mind by connecting two qualities or if it is the material dyad of a real fact. But ontologically, a dyad of pure imagination is not a material dyad, it is simply a dyad composed of two monads. Two qualities do not make matter.  Peirce uses the terms genuine / degenerate categories to distinguish between them. A degenerate category has the same form but not the same "matter" as a genuine category.

example with secondness:

* genuine secondness :   o_o

(no mind intervention, pure secondness, no mediation. Here you see the difference between Peirce and Hegel as well as between Peirce  and some peirce-l extreme idealists )


* degenerate secondness : o.o

using here : '' to represent the intervention of a mind (through a mediating third, a scaffolding, which is "forgotten", erased)


Peirce: CP 1.452 452. The metaphysical categories of quality, fact, and law, being categories of the matter of phenomena, do not precisely correspond with the logical categories of the monad, the dyad, and the polyad or higher set, since these are categories of the forms of experience. The dyads of monads, being dyads, belong to the category of the dyad. But since they are composed of monads as their sole matter, they belong materially to the category of quality, or the monad in its material mode of being. It cannot be regarded as a fact that scarlet is red. It is a truth; but it is only an essential truth. It is that in being which corresponds in thought to Kant's analytical judgment. It is a dyadism latent in monads.

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

[Helmut Raulien]

 

Supplement: So, degeneracy is not a de-evolution or reverse (de-) generation, but an incomplete or wrong comprehension of how something has been generated (and so the reason why it has), based on the fact, that the generation process is not easily observable, not observable at all, or not observable due to a lack of observation-competence by the observer. All in all it is a matter of reason and meaning not conveyed. This way one can say, that the immediate (internal) object is degenerate (because no sign can be able to represent each and every aspect of a dynamical object outside of the sign). This goes along with your internal-external-distinction. And also the two modes of the interpretant, which are not the final one, are. Now the question for me remains: What about the sign classes? In case this consideration is correct so far, can it be transferred to sign classes in a way, that one can say: firstness of secondness or secondness of thirdness is degenerate, that would be eg. a rhematic indexical legisign (eg. by Peirce: Demonstrative pronoun)? Demonstrative pronouns are eg "this", "that", "these", "those". Is there a loss of meaning or reason too? I have the impression that it is so, but cannot fix the thougt now.

Best,

Helmut


 




Clark, list,

you wrote: " If you have the form but not the matter then it’s degenerate.". Thank you: This way eventually, after a long time,  I think I understand why it is called degenerate. Maybe it is like this: "matter" may be understood for "reason", like in the question "Whats the matter?", in which someone is asking for the reason for somebody elses behaviour. The reason (matter) has generated the behaviour (form). In the same way, the reason for two parallel lines might have been an elliptical function, but with the focal points very far apart. At this border case of the function, that has generated the lines (the form), one cannot see or reverse-engineer the elliptical function (the matter). The reason has gotten lost (also in the other border case of the ellipse, in which the two focal points are very close, then the form is a circle). In a sign, the reason for sending the sign has been to transport a meaning. If someone does not see the meaning, but only the sign-vehicle, then for him the meaning, the reason for the sign, the matter of the sign, has gotten lost. If an alien visiting the earth first meets some penguins and dolphins, he/she/it  probably does not see, that their fins have evolved from wings and legs, because the wing- and leg- aspects of the fins are degenerate, i.e. the generation of wings and legs is not present in the fins anymore.

Best,

Helmut

 

 17. Dezember 2015 um 18:42 Uhr
 "Clark Goble" 
 


 


On Dec 16, 2015, at 10:32 PM, John Collier  wrote:
 

In the passage from Peirce that you quote below, by way of Clark, I think the distinction is that the degenerate seconds consider them in terms of their form alone, which degenerates our understanding of them to firsts associated with them, making our understanding of something that is internal. 


 

If I recall (don’t have time to look it up) but in at least a few places Peirce treats degeneracy as a form/matter distinction. If you have the form but not the matter then it’s degenerate. That is while he’s making the geometric analogy his distinctions are just the classic medieval distinctions among types of relations (especially as found in Scotus)

 

- - - - - - 

 

A quick quote from my Peirce-L note. This is a post from 7/15/03 by Jean-Marc Orliaguet.

 


Peirce distinguished between the logical / formal categories and "metaphysical" (ontological?) categories, i.e. the categories of pure forms and categories of the "matter of phenomena". Considered as a form, a dyad is a dyad no matter if it is created by the mind by connecting two qualities or if it is the material dyad of a real fact. But ontologically, a dyad of pure imagination is not a material dyad, it is simply a dyad composed of two monads. Two qualities do not make matter.  Peirce uses the terms genuine / degenerate categories to distinguish between them. A degenerate category has the same form but not the same "matter" as a genuine category.

example with secondness:

* genuine secondness :   o_o

(no mind intervention, pure secondness, no mediation. Here you see the difference between Peirce and Hegel as well as between Peirce  and some peirce-l extreme idealists )


* degenerate secondness : o.o

using here : '' to represent the intervention of a mind (through a mediating third, a scaffolding, which is "forgotten", erased)


Peirce: CP 1.452 452. The metaphysical categories of quality, fact, and law, being categories of the matter of phenomena, do not precisely correspond with the logical categories of the monad, the dyad, and the polyad or higher set, since these are categories of the forms of experience. The dyads of monads, being dyads, belong to 

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

[Sungchul Ji]

Hi Gary F,

Thank you very much.
I read it once, but I am afraid I will need more than one reading to really
understand what Peirce was trying to say.

All the best.

Sung

On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 5:54 PM,  wrote:

> NDTR is an acronym for “Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations,”
> EP2:289-99, fifth section of the 1903 Syllabus, and the main text this
> thread has been referring to, so far.
>
>
>
> Since I included in my post a few quotes from MS 7, which we discussed at
> some length back in the spring of 2014, I’ll post my transcription of the
> manuscript here (from a photocopy of it posted to the list by Vinicius
> Romanini, I think). It’s an interesting text because it prefigures (or
> refigures?) many of the things Peirce says about signs in “New Elements,”
> which follows immediately after NDTR in EP2. The lack of paragraphing is
> Peirce’s.— gary f.
>
>
>
> *On the Foundations of Mathematics*
>
> *MS 7, c. 1903 [gf transcription, 4 Apr 2014, Peirce's underlining
> rendered as italics] *
>
> §1. Mathematics deals essentially with *Signs*. All that we know or think
> is so known or thought by signs, and our knowledge itself is a sign. The
> word and idea of a sign is familiar but it is indistinct. Let us endeavor
> to analyze it.
>
> It is plain at the outset, first, that a sign is not any particular
> *replica* of it. If one casts one's eye down a printed page, every ‘the’
> is the same word, and every e the same letter. The exact identity is not
> clear. Secondly, a sign may be complex; and the parts of a sign, though
> they are signs, may not possess all the essential characters of a more
> complete sign. Thirdly, a sign sufficiently complete must be capable of
> determining an *interpretant* sign, and must be capable of ultimately
> producing real results. For a proposition of metaphysics which could never
> contribute to the determination of conduct would be meaningless jargon. On
> the other hand, the cards which, slipped into a Jacquard loom, cause
> appropriate figures to be woven, may very properly be called signs although
> there is no conscious interpretation of them. If not, it can only be
> because they are not interpreted by signs. In fact, in the present
> condition of philosophy, consciousness seems to be a mere quality of
> feeling which a formal science will do best to leave out of account. But a
> sign only functions as a sign when it is interpreted. It is therefore
> essential that it should be capable of determining an interpretant sign.
> Fourthly, a sign sufficiently complete must in some sense correspond to a
> real object. A sign cannot even be false unless, with some degree of
> definiteness, it specifies the real object of which it is false. That the
> sign itself is not a definite real object has been pointed out under
> “firstly”. It is only *represented*. Now either it must be that it is one
> thing to *really be* and another to *be represented*, or else it must be
> that there is no such thing [a]s *falsity*. This involves no denial that
> every real thing may be a representation, or sign, but merely that, if so,
> there must be something more in reality than mere representation. Since a
> sufficiently complete sign may be false, and also since it is not any
> replica or collection of replicas, it is not real. But it refers to a real
> *object*. Consequently, a sign cannot have a sign as its sole object;
> though it may refer to an object through a sign; as if one should say,
> “Whatever the Pope, as such, may declare will be true,” or as a map may be
> a map of itself. But supposing the Pope not to declare anything, does that
> proposition refer to any real object? Yes, to the Pope. But, *fifthly*,
> even if there were no pope, still, like all other signs sufficiently
> complete, there is a single definite object to which it must refer; namely,
> to the ‘Truth,’ or the Absolute, or the entire Universe of real being.
> *Sixthly*, a sign may refer, in addition, and specially, to any number of
> parts of that universe. *Seventhly*, every interpretant of a sign need
> not refer to all the real objects to which the sign itself refers, but
> must, at least, refer to the Truth. *Eighthly*, an interpretant may refer
> to an object of its sign in an *indefinite* manner. Thus, given the sign,
> ‘Enoch was a man, and Enoch was translated,’ an interpretant of it would be
> ‘Some man was translated.’ *Ninethly*, a sign may refer to its
> interpretant in such a way that, in case the former sign is incomplete, the
> interpretant, being an interpretant of the completer sign, may refer to a
> sign to which the first sign does not specially refer, but only
> *generally* refers. Thus, the sign ‘Any man there may be is mortal’ does
> not refer to any real man, unless it so happens that it is a part of a sign
> which otherwise refers to such a real thing. But if it be a part of a sign
> of which another part is ‘some man sings,’ the sign ‘some man is 

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

[Sungchul Ji]

Gary F, Jeff, List,

Please excuse my ignorance.

What is NDTR ?

Thanks in advance.

Sung

On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 3:46 PM,  wrote:

> Jeff, list,
>
>
>
> It does get tricky when we consider the percept as a sign — as the
> excerpts you quote in your first two paragraphs (below) demonstrate; and I
> think it gets equally tricky when we consider the qualisign as a percept.
> But my more specific responses here will be inserted below, starting with
> your third paragraph …
>
>
>
> Gary f.
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu]
> Sent: 14-Dec-15 09:12
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> GF: Peirce does not say that his first trichotomy in NDTR is based on the
> mode in which they are apprehended; rather he says it is “according as the
> sign in itself is a mere quality, is an actual existent, or is a general
> law.” I’ve been accustomed to referring to this parameter as the “mode of
> being” of the sign in itself.
>
> Later, in his 1908 letter to Welby, Peirce’s first trichotomy of signs is
> “According to the Mode of Apprehension of the Sign itself.” Until now, I’ve
> been thinking that this was equivalent to the Sign’s “mode of being,” and
> that his first trichotomy in the Welby letter is equivalent to the first
> trichotomy in NDTR. Now I think there may be a difference significant
> enough to explain why the names of the first-trichotomy sign types in 1908
> are not *qualisign, sinsign*, and *legisign *as they are in NDTR. If we
> are looking at two different trichotomies here (rather than one trichotomy
> differently named), then Peirce’s 1908 list of “The Ten Main Trichotomies
> of Signs” completely dispenses with the first trichotomy in NDTR, so that
> it does not include a division according to the mode of being of the sign
> in 

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

[Clark Goble]

> On Dec 18, 2015, at 1:26 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:
> 
> "If you have the form but not the matter then it’s degenerate.". Thank you: 
> This way eventually, after a long time,  I think I understand why it is 
> called degenerate.

Yeah, it’s a terminology I kind of struggle with a lot too. I kept confusing it 
with the idea of simply one term missing but that’s not really right. While I 
don’t think the form/matter covers everything, it at least gets the mind 
oriented to the direction Peirce was thinking.

I really liked that post from Jean-Marc back in the day here. First I think he 
correctly notes we have to distinguish between logical categories and 
metaphysical categories. (I’d add in phenomenological categories) I think 
conflating all those leads to confusion when reading Peirce in particular. (As 
I think we’ve seen with the extended discussion this month) Honestly reading a 
quick primer on medieval theories of relations helped me the most as I’m 
convinced those are the main influence on Peirce even if he’s also coming from 
the physics/chemistry of his day as well.

The part of Jean-Marc’s post I especially liked was how degenerate secondness 
has mediation but that often this mediation is forgotten, erased or effaced. 
This has some big parallels to certain strains of semiotics/phenomenology in 
Continental philosophy as well as gets at the common critiques of that position 
from a Peircean perspective. (Which I think misses what’s going on due to the 
issue of degeneracy)  



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

[gnox]

Jeff, list,

 

It does get tricky when we consider the percept as a sign — as the excerpts you 
quote in your first two paragraphs (below) demonstrate; and I think it gets 
equally tricky when we consider the qualisign as a percept. But my more 
specific responses here will be inserted below, starting with your third 
paragraph …

 

Gary f.

 

-Original Message-
From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu] 
Sent: 14-Dec-15 09:12



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.

 

GF: Peirce does not say that his first trichotomy in NDTR is based on the mode 
in which they are apprehended; rather he says it is “according as the sign in 
itself is a mere quality, is an actual existent, or is a general law.” I’ve 
been accustomed to referring to this parameter as the “mode of being” of the 
sign in itself. 

Later, in his 1908 letter to Welby, Peirce’s first trichotomy of signs is 
“According to the Mode of Apprehension of the Sign itself.” Until now, I’ve 
been thinking that this was equivalent to the Sign’s “mode of being,” and that 
his first trichotomy in the Welby letter is equivalent to the first trichotomy 
in NDTR. Now I think there may be a difference significant enough to explain 
why the names of the first-trichotomy sign types in 1908 are not qualisign, 
sinsign, and legisign as they are in NDTR. If we are looking at two different 
trichotomies here (rather than one trichotomy differently named), then Peirce’s 
1908 list of “The Ten Main Trichotomies of Signs” completely dispenses with the 
first trichotomy in NDTR, so that it does not include a division according to 
the mode of being of the sign in itself. I think this too is plausible, but 
before giving my reasons, I’d better quote the whole discussion of the first 
trichotomy in the 1908 letter so we can compare it with the 
qualisign/sinsign/legisign trichotomy. Here it is (EP2:483):

 

 

I. A 

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

[gnox]

NDTR is an acronym for “Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations,” 
EP2:289-99, fifth section of the 1903 Syllabus, and the main text this thread 
has been referring to, so far.

 

Since I included in my post a few quotes from MS 7, which we discussed at some 
length back in the spring of 2014, I’ll post my transcription of the manuscript 
here (from a photocopy of it posted to the list by Vinicius Romanini, I think). 
It’s an interesting text because it prefigures (or refigures?) many of the 
things Peirce says about signs in “New Elements,” which follows immediately 
after NDTR in EP2. The lack of paragraphing is Peirce’s.— gary f.

 

On the Foundations of Mathematics

MS 7, c. 1903 [gf transcription, 4 Apr 2014, Peirce's underlining rendered as 
italics] 

§1. Mathematics deals essentially with Signs. All that we know or think is so 
known or thought by signs, and our knowledge itself is a sign. The word and 
idea of a sign is familiar but it is indistinct. Let us endeavor to analyze it. 

It is plain at the outset, first, that a sign is not any particular replica of 
it. If one casts one's eye down a printed page, every ‘the’ is the same word, 
and every e the same letter. The exact identity is not clear. Secondly, a sign 
may be complex; and the parts of a sign, though they are signs, may not possess 
all the essential characters of a more complete sign. Thirdly, a sign 
sufficiently complete must be capable of determining an interpretant sign, and 
must be capable of ultimately producing real results. For a proposition of 
metaphysics which could never contribute to the determination of conduct would 
be meaningless jargon. On the other hand, the cards which, slipped into a 
Jacquard loom, cause appropriate figures to be woven, may very properly be 
called signs although there is no conscious interpretation of them. If not, it 
can only be because they are not interpreted by signs. In fact, in the present 
condition of philosophy, consciousness seems to be a mere quality of feeling 
which a formal science will do best to leave out of account. But a sign only 
functions as a sign when it is interpreted. It is therefore essential that it 
should be capable of determining an interpretant sign. Fourthly, a sign 
sufficiently complete must in some sense correspond to a real object. A sign 
cannot even be false unless, with some degree of definiteness, it specifies the 
real object of which it is false. That the sign itself is not a definite real 
object has been pointed out under “firstly”. It is only represented. Now either 
it must be that it is one thing to really be and another to be represented, or 
else it must be that there is no such thing [a]s falsity. This involves no 
denial that every real thing may be a representation, or sign, but merely that, 
if so, there must be something more in reality than mere representation. Since 
a sufficiently complete sign may be false, and also since it is not any replica 
or collection of replicas, it is not real. But it refers to a real object. 
Consequently, a sign cannot have a sign as its sole object; though it may refer 
to an object through a sign; as if one should say, “Whatever the Pope, as such, 
may declare will be true,” or as a map may be a map of itself. But supposing 
the Pope not to declare anything, does that proposition refer to any real 
object? Yes, to the Pope. But, fifthly, even if there were no pope, still, like 
all other signs sufficiently complete, there is a single definite object to 
which it must refer; namely, to the ‘Truth,’ or the Absolute, or the entire 
Universe of real being. Sixthly, a sign may refer, in addition, and specially, 
to any number of parts of that universe. Seventhly, every interpretant of a 
sign need not refer to all the real objects to which the sign itself refers, 
but must, at least, refer to the Truth. Eighthly, an interpretant may refer to 
an object of its sign in an indefinite manner. Thus, given the sign, ‘Enoch was 
a man, and Enoch was translated,’ an interpretant of it would be ‘Some man was 
translated.’ Ninethly, a sign may refer to its interpretant in such a way that, 
in case the former sign is incomplete, the interpretant, being an interpretant 
of the completer sign, may refer to a sign to which the first sign does not 
specially refer, but only generally refers. Thus, the sign ‘Any man there may 
be is mortal’ does not refer to any real man, unless it so happens that it is a 
part of a sign which otherwise refers to such a real thing. But if it be a part 
of a sign of which another part is ‘some man sings,’ the sign ‘some man is 
mortal’ becomes an interpretant of it. This may be more conveniently expressed 
by speaking of an ‘utterer’ and an ‘interpreter.’ Then the utterer says to the 
interpreter, “you are at liberty to understand me as referring to any man [of] 
whom you can get any indication, and of him, I say, ‘he is mortal.’” Tenthly, a 
sign sufficiently complete must