Re: [PEIRCE-L] [EXTERNAL] RE: A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts
Gary F, list, That was slightly opaque, but, yes, exactly that - of the language/language-using "bodymind" being united within the process of semiosis (the unity/binding of substances in/through language more generally). Thanks Jack From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu on behalf of g...@gnusystems.ca Sent: Friday, October 29, 2021 12:33 PM To: 'Peirce-L' Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [EXTERNAL] RE: A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts Jack, I’m not sure what you mean by “consubstantiality” — maybe the language and the language-using bodymind being of the same substance, or the same kind of agency? Peirce does seem to assert that, and I’ve applied the idea in my book, but I don’t know that it’s scientifically testable. When I said that the object was the “key constituent of the commens”, I meant that it’s the one on which attention is focussed consciously. The shared language has to be functioning implicitly. We don’t think about the the grammatical principles which govern what we say while we are saying it. But I guess that was an infelicitous way of expressing the idea. Gary f. From: JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY Sent: 28-Oct-21 13:42 To: 'Peirce-L' ; g...@gnusystems.ca Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] RE: [PEIRCE-L] A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts Gary F, List, Hi Gary, I'm not sure what prompted the current topic, but I think that when discussing dialogism and Peirce we come closest to the most pragmatic frame of reference which it is possible to establish within a Peircean framework. GF: It is therefore the object, and not the shared language, that is the key constituent of the commens, “that mind into which the minds of utterer and interpreter have to be fused in order that any communication should take place.” Whilst I agree with this quite broadly, I would just like to prod you a little. My own reading suggests that it is a mixture of the two (a basically dialectical relationship between shared language and Object) which is the "key constituent of the commens". That is, imagine the Saussurean langue for a moment and take it as unideal - as asymmetrical. If our means of decoding a "shared" language vary according to unique, though overlapping, contextual conditions (collateral experience) which surround the acquisition of language, then there is scope within Saussure's framework for the role of a Peircean object. I wonder, also, what your thoughts are regarding consubstantiality -- of language as volitional movement which seeks to index objective relations which are never, or quite rarely, contained within language itself? Interesting topic which dovetails nicely with some of my own research right now. Best Jack _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► 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] [EXTERNAL] RE: A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts
Jack, I'm not sure what you mean by "consubstantiality" - maybe the language and the language-using bodymind being of the same substance, or the same kind of agency? Peirce does seem to assert that, and I've applied the idea in my book, but I don't know that it's scientifically testable. When I said that the object was the "key constituent of the commens", I meant that it's the one on which attention is focussed consciously. The shared language has to be functioning implicitly. We don't think about the the grammatical principles which govern what we say while we are saying it. But I guess that was an infelicitous way of expressing the idea. Gary f. From: JACK ROBERT KELLY CODY Sent: 28-Oct-21 13:42 To: 'Peirce-L' ; g...@gnusystems.ca Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] RE: [PEIRCE-L] A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts Gary F, List, Hi Gary, I'm not sure what prompted the current topic, but I think that when discussing dialogism and Peirce we come closest to the most pragmatic frame of reference which it is possible to establish within a Peircean framework. GF: It is therefore the object, and not the shared language, that is the key constituent of the commens, "that mind into which the minds of utterer and interpreter have to be fused in order that any communication should take place." Whilst I agree with this quite broadly, I would just like to prod you a little. My own reading suggests that it is a mixture of the two (a basically dialectical relationship between shared language and Object) which is the "key constituent of the commens". That is, imagine the Saussurean langue for a moment and take it as unideal - as asymmetrical. If our means of decoding a "shared" language vary according to unique, though overlapping, contextual conditions (collateral experience) which surround the acquisition of language, then there is scope within Saussure's framework for the role of a Peircean object. I wonder, also, what your thoughts are regarding consubstantiality -- of language as volitional movement which seeks to index objective relations which are never, or quite rarely, contained within language itself? Interesting topic which dovetails nicely with some of my own research right now. Best Jack _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► 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] [EXTERNAL] RE: A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts
Gary F, List, Hi Gary, I'm not sure what prompted the current topic, but I think that when discussing dialogism and Peirce we come closest to the most pragmatic frame of reference which it is possible to establish within a Peircean framework. GF: It is therefore the object, and not the shared language, that is the key constituent of the commens, “that mind into which the minds of utterer and interpreter have to be fused in order that any communication should take place.” Whilst I agree with this quite broadly, I would just like to prod you a little. My own reading suggests that it is a mixture of the two (a basically dialectical relationship between shared language and Object) which is the "key constituent of the commens". That is, imagine the Saussurean langue for a moment and take it as unideal - as asymmetrical. If our means of decoding a "shared" language vary according to unique, though overlapping, contextual conditions (collateral experience) which surround the acquisition of language, then there is scope within Saussure's framework for the role of a Peircean object. I wonder, also, what your thoughts are regarding consubstantiality -- of language as volitional movement which seeks to index objective relations which are never, or quite rarely, contained within language itself? Interesting topic which dovetails nicely with some of my own research right now. Best Jack From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu on behalf of g...@gnusystems.ca Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2021 2:04 PM To: 'Peirce-L' Subject: [EXTERNAL] RE: [PEIRCE-L] A key principle of normative semeiotic for interpreting texts *Warning* This email originated from outside of Maynooth University's Mail System. Do not reply, click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the content is safe. Jon AS, List, GF: Peirce does not say in CP 4.551 that the two minds are welded in the uttered sign itself. JAS: To what other sign could he be referring in that passage? GF: I’ll quote the entire passage below, but first we have to resolve the ambiguity introduced with the term “uttered sign.” In my view, Peirce is referring in that passage to the symbol, the legisign, which is embodied in the “individual sign,” the fully determinate text or “utterance,” which is a sinsign. Here I am applying to the text a distinction which Peirce applies to a proposition in this excerpt from a 1905 letter to James: CSP: … according to me, reality is a conception that every man has because it is involved in every proposition; and since every man makes assertions he deals with propositions. (Of course, I have not fully defined a proposition, because I have not discriminated the proposition from the individual sign which is the embodiment of the proposition. By a proposition, as something which can be repeated over and over again, translated into another language, embodied in a logical graph or algebraical formula, and still be one and the same proposition, we do not mean any existing individual object but a type, a general, which does not exist but governs existents, to which individuals conform.) (CP 8.313) GF: If we need a name for the legisign or type which is embodied in a text, let’s call it the Thought. Since the Thought is dialogic, it is continuous with the rest of the dialogue, the one sign in which all the connected signs (Thoughts) of the dialogue are embedded. I consider the text to be of a lower dimensionality than the dialogue because the text, having been uttered, is static, while the dialogue is not — and neither is the Thought (a portion of the dialogue), because its embodiment is not yet fully determined. It is on the way to its final interpretant, which (as we have agreed) is an ideal and not an individual sign that will exist. This Thought is what is “conveyed” in a moment of communication. Now if we re-read that paragraph from the 1906 letter to Welby with the understanding that the Thought (and not the utterance or text which embodies it) is the sign in question, we can more easily see how its three interpretants are related: CSP: There is the Intentional Interpretant, which is a determination of the mind of the utterer; the Effectual Interpretant, which is a determination of the mind of the interpreter; and the Communicational Interpretant, or say the Cominterpretant, which is a determination of that mind into which the minds of utterer and interpreter have to be fused in order that any communication should take place. This mind may be called the commens. It consists of all that is, and must be, well understood between utterer and interpreter, at the outset, in order that the sign in question should fulfill its function. This I proceed to explain. GF: For now I will just make two more comments on this. First, the commens consists of all that is well understood between the two communicants at the outset of the moment
