[PEIRCE-L] Theosemiotic, the entire universe as a narrative or argument?

[Gary Richmond]

List,

In an off List message Gary Fuhrman offered this quotation by the Peirce
scholar, most recently president of the Charles S. Peirce Society (now past
president) through the covid lockdown year of 2020, Michael Ramposa.


“For anyone who embraces theosemiotic, the entire universe is a text, not
so much a library, where two separate volumes might be pulled off the
shelves and juxtaposed, but a single grand narrative, with an infinite
variety of subplots.”  —Raposa, Michael L.. *Theosemiotic* (pp. 189-190).
Fordham University Press. .


In regard to this quotation Gary F asked the question:  "What’s the
difference between a narrative and an argument? Is the entire universe
both?" (Or neither; or something else.)


It would seem that for Peirce the answer is that the universe *is* an
"argument."


For those who embrace theosemiotic (and even for those who don't), what are
your thoughts?


Best,


Gary R




“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
► 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 UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the 
body.  More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html .
► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP;  moderated by Gary Richmond;  and 
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.

[PEIRCE-L] Peirce abduction-perception hypothesis vs Lakoff conceptual metaphor theory

[alu0101252100]

I have doubts about abduction as an inferential process.

Peirce sign as a dynamic process of inference. Sign is not only what is in the
place of things but, above all, a sign is what, when we know it, makes us know
something else. A sign is associated with its object by similarity, by
contiguity, by causality; but this association occurs because a judgment
causes another judgment wich it is a sign. And this is nothing more and
nothing less than inference. Inference is the only semiotic process that
Peirce recognizes.

The non-inferential sign relation with the object is only a direct experience
that is not even knowledge because it is not mediated by interpretation.

Abduction is an inferential process that shades into perceptual judgment
without any sharp line of demarcation between them. And it comes to us like a
flash, an act of insight that is paradoxically a dynamic series of
interpretations. It is the idea of putting together what we had never before
dreamed of putting together which flashes the new suggestion before our
contemplation (Third Cotary Proposition CP 5.181).

I think there is a contradiction between the perception-abduction hypothesis
as inference and the Lakoff-Johnson conceptual metaphor theory. In Metaphors
We Live By (1980) the metaphor stands as the foundation of the knowledge
system, understood not as a logical instrument, but rather as an analogic
instrument, a fundamental metaphorical device that structures reality through
neurological processes (mirror neurons): projection of a source domain onto a
target domain that looks for similarities between different structures.

In view of Lakoff's theory, I think (it seems to me to be a more consistent
hypothesis than extremely fallible acts of intuition) that what brings new
knowledge, the idea of putting together what we had never before dreamed of
putting together is not a process of inferential nature (Object-Interpretant-
Representamen) that is produced from perceptual judgments, and that Peirce
calls abduction, but, rather, a direct process by acquaintance (Object-
Representamen) happened before the perceptual judgments and the chain of
inferences, substantiated in a biological neurological automatic device that
looks for and finds similarities between different domains or structures.

If we give credibility to this perspective, we now reposition the direct
relation, knowledge for knowledge (which Peirce pointed out as insufficient)
as the fundamental relation of knowledge, in terms of what brings something
new to knowledge, so that abduction, as an inferential solution, it would not
be necessary.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
► 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 UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the 
body.  More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html .
► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP;  moderated by Gary Richmond;  and 
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.

[PEIRCE-L] Peirce abduction-perception hypothesis vs Lakoff conceptual metaphor theory

[Miguel Pedro Hernández Díaz]

I have doubts about abduction as an inferential process.

Peirce sign as a dynamic process of inference. Sign is not only what is in
the place of things but, above all, a sign is what, when we know it, makes
us know something else. A sign is associated with its object by similarity,
by contiguity, by causality; but this association occurs because a judgment
causes another judgment wich it is a sign. *And this is nothing more and
nothing less than inference.* Inference is the only semiotic process that
Peirce recognizes.

The non-inferential sign relation with the object is only a direct
experience that is not even knowledge because it is not mediated by
interpretation.

Abduction is an inferential process that shades into perceptual judgment
without any sharp line of demarcation between them. And it comes to us like
a flash, an act of insight that is paradoxically a dynamic series of
interpretations. It is the idea of putting together what we had never
before dreamed of putting together which flashes the new suggestion before
our contemplation (Third Cotary Proposition CP 5.181).

I think there is a contradiction between the perception-abduction
hypothesis as inference and the Lakoff-Johnson conceptual metaphor theory.
In Metaphors We Live By (1980) the metaphor stands as the foundation of the
knowledge system, understood not as a logical instrument, but rather as an
analogic instrument, a fundamental metaphorical device that structures
reality through neurological processes (mirror neurons): projection of a
source domain onto a target domain that looks for similarities between
different structures.

In view of Lakoff's theory, I think (it seems to me to be a more consistent
hypothesis than extremely fallible acts of intuition) that what brings new
knowledge, *the idea of putting together what we had never before dreamed
of putting together* is not a process of inferential nature (Object-I
nterpretant-Representamen) that is produced from perceptual judgments, and
that Peirce calls abduction, but, rather, a direct process by acquaintance
(Object-Representamen) happened before the perceptual judgments and the
chain of inferences, substantiated in a biological neurological automatic
device that looks for and finds similarities between different domains or
structures.

If we give credibility to this perspective, we now reposition the direct
relation, knowledge for knowledge (which Peirce pointed out as
insufficient) as the fundamental relation of knowledge, in terms of what
brings something new to knowledge, so that abduction, as an inferential
solution, it would not be necessary.
-- 
Saludos,
Miguel Pedro Hernández Díaz
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
► 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 UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the 
body.  More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html .
► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP;  moderated by Gary Richmond;  and 
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.

RE: [PEIRCE-L] A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts

[gnox]

Jon,

GF: So in that sense a dynamical interpretant is a translation, not a mere 
replica or copy of the sign.

JAS: That is what I expected you to say, and I agree. However, it seems 
inconsistent with your previous statement--"A printed, written or uttered text 
is only replicable, not translatable." A printed, written, or uttered text is 
translated every single time it is read or heard, thus producing another 
dynamical interpretant, and therefore is obviously translatable as well as 
replicable. What am I missing?

GF: My previous statement assumes that the type is one sign and its embodiment 
(the token, the existing “text”) is another. Your perception of inconsistency 
is based on the assumption that type and token are not two “signs” but one. 
Both assumptions are arbitrary  . That’s 
all.

Gary f.

 

From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu  On 
Behalf Of Jon Alan Schmidt
Sent: 31-Oct-21 21:05
To: Peirce-L 
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting 
texts

 

Gary F., List:

 

GF: So when you refer to the three interpretants of the one sign, you are 
thinking of “type” and “token” as aspects of the one sign, not as different 
signs ...

 

Although I would not call them "aspects," this is basically where I landed 
after wrestling for a while with the ambiguity of "sign" throughout Peirce's 
writings on semeiotic. However, I would not be surprised to discover that there 
are problematic elements of my resulting speculative grammar that I have not 
yet fully recognized.

 

In summary, every sign has one final interpretant that is common to all its 
types and all their tokens, every type has one immediate interpretant that is 
common to all its tokens, and every token has one dynamical interpretant for 
each distinct effect of it. The underlying diagrammatic conception is that the 
sign itself is a continuum of three dimensions for an argument, two dimensions 
for a proposition, or one dimension for a name. Its types are portions of the 
same dimensionality, and its tokens are discrete points within those portions 
where different spaces, surfaces, and lines intersect.

 

GF: ... so the proposition and its embodiment (sinsign) are one sign, not two.

 

Each actual expression of the proposition is one token of one sign in 
accordance with one type. Another expression of the proposition in the same 
language is a different token of the same sign in accordance with the same 
type. An expression of the proposition in a different language is a different 
token of the same sign in accordance with a different type.

 

GF: Does the presumable tone aspect of a sign not get interpreted at all?

 

I understand a tone to be a quality of a token that affects its dynamical 
interpretants. Two tokens of the same type, but with different tones, can thus 
have different dynamical interpretants. Examples of tones in this sense include 
voice inflections, punctuation marks, and font changes for emphasis such as 
bold, italics, or underline.

 

As you probably know, Marc Champagne takes a very different approach in his 
2018 book, Consciousness and the Philosophy of Signs. He employs "tone" for the 
qualitative presentation of a sign and "type" for each different meaning that 
it can have. In his example, "Because of his long fast, he was too weak to 
stand fast or hold fast or even to run fast," he thus counts one tone, four 
tokens, and three types. While this seems like a potentially useful 
distinction, I do not see how it is at all compatible with Peirce's explicit 
definitions of a type as "a definitely significant Form" and a tone as "[a]n 
indefinite significant character such as a tone of voice" (CP 4.537, 1906; 
emphasis mine).

 

GF: Do all signs have both type and token aspects, or only legisigns?

 

My understanding of Peirce's different sign taxonomies is that 
qualisign/sinsign/legisign in 1903 is virtually synonymous with tone/token/type 
in 1906, such that the latter terminology effectively replaces the former. That 
is why, as you might have noticed, I generally avoid the earlier terms and 
stick with the later ones. In any case, I do lean toward all signs having both 
types and tokens, including natural signs as well as uttered signs. For 
example, ripples on the surface of a lake are a type of a natural sign that 
indicates the direction of the wind, which is embodied in a token wherever 
there are actual ripples on the surface of an actual lake.

 

GF: So in that sense a dynamical interpretant is a translation, not a mere 
replica or copy of the sign.

 

That is what I expected you to say, and I agree. However, it seems inconsistent 
with your previous statement--"A printed, written or uttered text is only 
replicable, not translatable." A printed, written, or uttered text is 
translated every single time it is read or heard, thus producing another 
dynamical interpretant, and therefore is obviously translatable