Edwina,
You wrote:
"I agree with Gary R's analysis here, and reject Gary F's and Sung's
insistence that the singular term is a sign. " (122715-1)
If you still believe in this statement after reading my post just set off
to PEIRCE-L, please let me know.
Sung
On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
> I agree with Gary R's analysis here, and reject Gary F's and Sung's
> insistence that the singular term is a sign. Agreed, the 9 parameters, as
> Gary R, calls them (I call them the 9 Relations) can't be defined, in
> themselves, as signs (Gary F), or as Sung terms them, elementary signs.
>
> Such an approach, in my view, rejects the basic dynamics of Peircean
> semiosis and instead, reduces the system to a mechanical one, where
> 'complex signs' are formed from simple signs. I think that loses the basic
> dynamics of the Peircean semiosis.
>
> As for my sticking to my three relations rather than one relation in the
> analysis of the triad, I referred to this, privately to John Deely, as
> similar to the Christian argument between the Athanasian versus Arian
> analysis of the Trinity - with the former viewing the Trinity as One, and
> the latter, as three interactions. I am not persuaded, so far, that my
> view of the semiosic triad, as a 'whole' of three relations is wrong, for
> in my view - to say that it is ONE relation, misses the fact that each of
> the three 'nodes' can be in a different categorical mode. The insistence on
> the triad as ONE relation doesn't capture this fact.
>
> Even saying it is One Triadic relation, doesn't, to me, capture that
> fact. The Interpretant (output) and the Object (input) relations to the
> representamen (sign) can each be in a different categorical mode, so
> calling them the SAME relation obscures this fact. What IS a fact is their
> dependency on the Representamen as mediator - that dependency is, to me,
> the SAME.
>
> Edwina
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
> *To:* Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, December 21, 2015 9:02 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>
> Gary F. list,
>
> Gary wrote:
>
> I think you may be glossing over some important terminological
> considerations here, Gary. They may not seem to you important or even
> relevant to your present inquiry here--which has come to feel like a kind
> of slow read of portions of NDTR--but I think that there are *crucial*
> distinctions to be made here, as difficult as they are given the various
> ways Peirce expresses himself at particular phases and moments of his
> semiotic analyses in NDTR. You wrote:
>
> GF: Some of the arguments over terminology in this thread make no positive
> contribution to this inquiry that I can see. For instance, if Peirce says
> that “an *Icon* is a sign” and “a *Symbol* is a sign” (as he does here),
> I don’t see that we have anything to gain by asserting that an icon is
> *not* a sign, or that a symbol is *not* a sign. Peirce’s nomenclature is
> difficult enough without introducing claims that directly contradict what
> he actually says.
>
>
> However, within the context of the 10 classes of signs, it seems clear
> enough, at least to me, that when, for example, he writes "an *Icon* is a
> sign," that he can only mean that the Sign will relate to its Object in
> some *iconic* way, and that he does *not* mean that the Sign taken as a
> whole is an Icon, since signs in themselves are either qualisigns,
> sinsigns, or legisigns.
>
> So, to say "an *Icon* is a sign" seems a kind of loose way of speaking
> which has the potential for conflating what I've been referring to as the 9
> parameters (3 x 3 x 3 in consideration of the categorial possibilities
> available in relation to the Object, the Interpretant, or the Sign as
> such). To confuse those parameters with the 10 classes--where *not one*
> of the 10 none is an 'Icon' as such, and where only three are 'iconic',
> viz. (1, 2, and 5), all
> three of these being,
> btw, 'rhematic'
> . In
> like manner, I would *not* characterize the 6 signs of the 10 which
> *are* rhematic as 'rhemes"
> since
> one is a qualisign, two are sinsigns, and three are legisigns. Those six
> are not rhemes, but 'rhematic'.
> Only one of the six should properly be termed 'rheme' (namely, the
> symbolic legisign).
>
>
> So, again, what I'm suggesting is
> that
> there is a kind of unfortunate looseness in Peirce's terminology in the
> course of his analysis. While this most certain
> ly
> *is* problematic, we shouldn't allow that difficulty to lead us into
> discussing aspects
> (expressed more properly as adjectives)
> of the sign
> as if they
> were the whole of the sign
> :
> the sign *as* sign. I do not see this distinction as being, say,
> '
> fastidious
> '
> .
>
> In short, one needs to recall that at 2.264 that Peirce writes: "The three
> trichotomies of Signs result together in dividing Signs into TEN CLASSES OF
> SIGNS," and I consider it a grave error in semiotic analysis not to clearly
> distinguish the elements of the trichotomies from the classes. Or, in other
> words,
> conflating
> those three trichotomies involving nine categorial parameters with the
> ten classes themselves has, in my opinion, historically brought about a
> great deal of confusion, so that it behooves us to clear up--and not gloss
> over--the potential confusion
> s
> resulting from that conflation.
>
> I should add that I agree with you (and what I took John Collier to be
> saying recently) in opposing what Edwina has been arguing, namely,
> y
> our holding, contra Edwina, that the sign is *not* three relations, but
> one genuine triadic relation. Peirce has been quoted here repeatedly as
> stating that a sign should *not *be conceived as "a complexus of dyadic
> relations" (although, admittedly, his terminology can get a little loose in
> this matter as well). Finally, the *integrity* of the sign is further
> emphasized by his insisting that the interpretant stands in *the same
> relation* to the object as the sign itself stands (I don't see that
> Edwina deals with that last principle in her three-relations analysis
> whatsoever).
>
> You concluded:
>
> GF: I’d like to return to the “mirror” idea that Gary R. picked up on
> awhile back, by suggesting that the *involvement*described above is a
> sort of mirror image of *degeneracy*, in the way that the two concepts
> are applied to these sign types here and in Kaina Stoicheia.
>
>
> I would very much like to take up this mirror image notion in terms of
> involvement (categorial involution) *and* degeneracy (and the relation of
> the two), although I don't think that this thread is the place to do it. I
> began another thread on that 'mirror' theme, and perhaps after the first of
> the year we can take up these issues there if you and others are interested.
>
> Meanwhile, I wish you and all Peirce e-forum members a happy, healthy, and
> intellectually productive new year!
>
> Best,
>
> Gary R
>
>
> [image: Gary Richmond]
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
> *C 745*
> *718 482-5690 <718%20482-5690>*
>
> On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 1:12 PM, <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote:
>
>> Resuming the close examination of Peirce’s “Nomenclature and Divisions of
>> Triadic Relations”, we move on to the second trichotomy, which divides
>> signs “according as the relation of the sign to its object consists in the
>> sign's having some character in itself, or in some existential relation to
>> that object, or in its relation to an interpretant” (CP 2.243).
>>
>>
>>
>> My reason for including Peirce’s text in these posts is mostly to bring
>> us back to his own terminology, since it is *his* analysis of semiosis
>> that we are investigating here. Some of the arguments over terminology in
>> this thread make no positive contribution to this inquiry that I can see.
>> For instance, if Peirce says that “an *Icon* is a sign” and “a *Symbol*
>> is a sign” (as he does here), I don’t see that we have anything to gain by
>> asserting that an icon is *not* a sign, or that a symbol is *not* a
>> sign. Peirce’s nomenclature is difficult enough without introducing claims
>> that directly contradict what he actually says.
>>
>>
>>
>> So here is the second trichotomy:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> CP 2.247. According to the second trichotomy, a Sign may be termed an
>> *Icon,* an *Index,* or a *Symbol.*
>>
>> An *Icon* is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by
>> virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses, just the same,
>> whether any such Object actually exists or not. It is true that unless
>> there really is such an Object, the Icon does not act as a sign; but this
>> has nothing to do with its character as a sign. Anything whatever, be it
>> quality, existent individual, or law, is an Icon of anything, in so far as
>> it is like that thing and used as a sign of it.
>>
>> 248. An *Index* is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by
>> virtue of being really affected by that Object. It cannot, therefore, be a
>> Qualisign, because qualities are whatever they are independently of
>> anything else. In so far as the Index is affected by the Object, it
>> necessarily has some Quality in common with the Object, and it is in
>> respect to these that it refers to the Object. It does, therefore, involve
>> a sort of Icon, although an Icon of a peculiar kind; and it is not the mere
>> resemblance of its Object, even in these respects, which makes it a sign,
>> but it is the actual modification of it by the Object.
>>
>> 249. A *Symbol* is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by
>> virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to
>> cause the Symbol to be interpreted as referring to that Object. It is thus
>> itself a general type or law, that is, is a Legisign. As such it acts
>> through a Replica. Not only is it general itself, but the Object to which
>> it refers is of a general nature. Now that which is general has its being
>> in the instances which it will determine. There must, therefore, be
>> existent instances of what the Symbol denotes, although we must here
>> understand by “existent,” existent in the possibly imaginary universe to
>> which the Symbol refers. The Symbol will indirectly, through the
>> association or other law, be affected by those instances; and thus the
>> Symbol will involve a sort of Index, although an Index of a peculiar kind.
>> It will not, however, be by any means true that the slight effect upon the
>> Symbol of those instances accounts for the significant character of the
>> Symbol.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Let’s compare what Peirce says about each sign type in this second
>> trichotomy with his definition of the three types in the first trichotomy.
>> Since the Qualisign and the Icon are each first in their respective
>> trichotomies, each exemplifies Firstness, but in a different way. The
>> Firstness of the Qualisign is its being a quality in itself. The Firstness
>> of the Icon, on the other hand, is the Firstness of its relation to its
>> Object, specifically the fact that it “refers to the Object that it
>> denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses,
>> just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not.”
>>
>>
>>
>> Now compare the Secondness of the Index in its trichotomy with the
>> Secondness of the Sinsign, which is its being an actual existent thing or
>> event. The Index “refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of being
>> really affected by that Object.” Again, its Secondness is that of its
>> relation to its Object — which, as a genuine Secondness, *involves* a
>> Firstness (namely “a sort of Icon”). The *peculiarity* of that
>> Firstness, I would guess, is that its genuine Secondness to the Object *does
>> *have something to do with its character, which is not the case with the
>> Icon as defined above.
>>
>>
>>
>> Finally, we come to the Thirdness of the Symbol in its trichotomy. The
>> Thirdness of a Legisign is that it is in itself a “law” and a “general
>> type.” The Symbol, being also a Legisign, is general in its mode of being
>> but *also* in its relation to its Object. This entails that it acts
>> through a Replica, *and* that there must be existent instances of what
>> the Symbol denotes, although we must here understand by “existent,”
>> existent in the possibly imaginary universe to which the Symbol refers.
>> Hence, just as genuine Secondness involves Firstness, so also does the
>> Thirdness of a Symbol *involve* Secondness, in the form of “a sort of
>> Index, although an Index of a peculiar kind.”
>>
>>
>>
>> To close, I’d like to return to the “mirror” idea that Gary R. picked up
>> on awhile back, by suggesting that the *involvement* described above is
>> a sort of mirror image of *degeneracy*, in the way that the two concepts
>> are applied to these sign types here and in Kaina Stoicheia. I won’t
>> elaborate on that, though, but just wish everyone a happy Solstice!
>>
>>
>>
>> Gary f.
>>
>>
>>
>> } We are natural expressions of a deeper order. [Stuart Kauffman] {
>>
>> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ *Turning Signs* gateway
>>
>>
>>
>>
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--
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Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
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