Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process
Gary R., List: Thank you for your efforts in this slow read. It is instructive. I am rather reluctant to comment as history dictates that my scientific approach to reading C S Peirce are idiosyncratic with respect to the surfaces of philosophy which are used to base these discussions and which, in my opinion, do not cohere with the mathematical, chemical and empirical roots of his thinking. My principle purpose of this post is to point to the role of indexing in the indexical symbol systems. In these symbol systems, the presupposition is that the composition of messages (signs of all ilk) is constructed from the indexical components of the communications system and use purposefully designed signs to point to the roles of indexing. For example, the transitivity sign or the equivalence sign. For example, one notes with dismay that indexing indexical signs are nearly absent from modern set theory. This is, in my opinion, among the reasons that CSP declined to give set theory serious consideration for a generalized inductive logic. [ Purposefully, this is a wide-sweeping statement!] In this sense, the indexical symbol systems are self - referential. In this sense, the indexical symbols can be composed into icons and iconic representations of qualisigns. In this sense, the indexical symbol systems can operate with a logical grammar that differs from the usual utterances of the spoken language where the indexing plays a trivial role. From my idiosyncratic perspective, the indexical symbol systems are constructed to communicate with symbols, utterances (sounds) being a secondary mode of expressing the meaning. Thus, the empirical content of indexical symbol systems can be used to construct logics that a ostensive with nature. This is to be contrasted with the alphabetic systems that intrinsically focus on the telic choices of the utterer, the personal emotional choices of the individual.). CSP's teleologic perspective was extremely wide and used the concepts of logic is all three of the trivium, not merely the grammar of the relative pronoun. Idiosyncratically Yours Jerry On Aug 14, 2011, at 4:11 PM, Gary Richmond wrote: List, Gary Fuhrman sent me the following response to Section 3 of Joe's paper. He will be away from his home and, it would appear offline for a few weeks for personal reasons, thus unable to participate in the remainder of this slow read. He offered this post on the off chance that it might be of some use in the small read. I think he makes some interesting and controversial points regarding especially the treatment of indexicality in Joe's paper. I'll only make a very few brief comments as I'm preparing to send my last post (Section 4, paragraph 16) on this read to the list tomorrow and need to work on that. Gary F. wrote: GF: With reference to your comment on paragraph 12 of JR's essay, I couldn't agree more [[ that indexicality necessarily has a crucial job to perform in bringing about the unified object Joe intends (the meaning of his essay), never allowing the reader to forget that there is this unified object. ]] GF: Well, i might prefer to say that the meaning of his essay is the interpretant rather than the object of it ... but it's the object, and the sign's connection with it through its indexical function, that i'm concerned with here. GR: I would agree with Gary that the meaning of the essay is the interpretant--I should have written something like Joe's 'purpose' or 'purpose in writing the essay' (that is, his own understanding of the meaning of the topic of his essay). GF: Referring to “a complex written sign, such as the present essay”, JR says that “the indices proper which this or any such sign contains are themselves sinsigns.” But surely there's more to proper indexicality than a sign being a sinsign. And i'm wondering whether a verbal sign (signsign or not) can ever be a proper index. Consider JR's example: [[ ... if a child simply says ball in the immediate presence of a ball, that sinsign--the word ball considered as something actually occurring--may index that ball even though the legisign it replicates is symbolic rather than indexical. If, on the other hand, the ball is indicated with the use of a pointing finger or demonstrative pronoun the indexing does indeed occur under the control of a specifically indexical legisign. ]] GF: In the case of a one-word utterance like the example given in the first sentence, i think it is questionable whether the word ball can properly index that ball at all (as a pointing finger can). And if we add “a pointing finger or demonstrative pronoun” to the utterance, it's not entirely clear what it means to say that “the indexing does indeed occur under the control of a specifically indexical legisign.” GR: At first I didn't think I agreed with Gary F. here, and not only because his argument would seem to
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process
Jerry, List, I glad you've found this slow read instructive even if, perhaps, in a negative sense. Still, I think that we who are philosophers here would like to imagine that we too are doing science in Peirce's sense of cenoscopy. Your characterizing your 'idiosyncratic' approach as apparently the only scientific approach to interpreting Peirce in this forum is disturbing. In fact, I hope I've misunderstood you as it would seem to be a rather contemptuous thing to imply. So, please do prove me wrong here. On the other hand, I have found your 'chemical' approach to Peirce similarly instructive. Thanks, for example, for your concise presentation of the role of indexing in the formal indexical symbol systems you refer to which, no doubt, have great analytical value. However, I don't think I'm quite ready to give up on philosophy as it is practiced in this forum (what you consider to be the mere surfaces of philosophy). So, while in your strictly formal sense the indexical symbol systems are self-referential, in Peirce's semeiotic more broadly considered, indices certainly need not be so. And Peirce's idea of the teleology of semiosis implies the very evolution of signs themselves, including indices [biological analog: when certain dinosaurs evolved into birds, much of what could be (that is, could have been) indicated had, and even structurally and forever--changed]. So, while in your strictly formal sense, the indexical symbols can be composed into icons and iconic representations of qualisigns, in Peirce's different, in being much more inclusive, semeiotic sense involving the logic by which the categories are themselves generated (see The Logic of Mathematics), in that sense they are not composed butinvolved (semiotic 3ns involves 2ns involves 1ns). So, while in your strictly formal sense, the indexical symbol systems can operate with a logical grammar that differs from the usual utterances of the spoken language where the indexing plays a trivial role, in philosophy, the usual utterances of the spoken language will suffice even as a logica docens come into being to critically reflect on them (pragmatism being, in one sense, but critical commonsensism). And, as Joe (and Peirce) argue, indexing hardly plays a trivial role in language use, but is as essential as the two other categorial roles in semiosis (so, also, in semeiotic science). You wrote: [JC] From my idiosyncratic perspective, the indexical symbol systems are constructed to communicate with symbols, utterances (sounds) being a secondary mode of expressing the meaning. Thus, the empirical content of indexical symbol systems can be used to construct logics that a ostensive with nature. This is to be contrasted with the alphabetic systems that intrinsically focus on the telic choices of the utterer, the personal emotional choices of the individual.) It is my sense that you concern yourself, Jerry, with a strictly formal and analytical logical system. Meanwhile we speaking, listening, reading, writing, thinking and feeling humans are involved in a semiotic process which can be seen to be (at least potentially) continuously changing, growing, evolving. So, I don't think your perspective is so much idiosyncratic as it is exceedingly narrow (and I've no doubt that there's some good professional reason for that, but it's hardly good reason to denounce what goes on here as superficial). You concluded: [JC]: CSP's teleologic perspective was extremely wide and used the concepts of logic is all three of the trivium, not merely the grammar of the relative pronoun. I would find it hard to imagine that even one person here would disagree with you about that. So perhaps you aren't as idiosyncratic as you think you are? And perhaps it is not so much our having superficial discussions here as it is your attempting to narrow the range of those discussions (to narrow is not necessarily to deepen). I would also remind you of Peirce's motto: Do not block the way of inquiry. And of Jesus': Judge not lest ye be judged. Best, Gary Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York ``` 718 482-5700 Jerry LR Chandler jerry_lr_chand...@me.com 8/14/2011 5:40 PM Gary R., List: Thank you for your efforts in this slow read. It is instructive. I am rather reluctant to comment as history dictates that my scientific approach to reading C S Peirce are idiosyncratic with respect to the surfaces of philosophy which are used to base these discussions and which, in my opinion, do not cohere with the mathematical, chemical and empirical roots of his thinking. My principle purpose of this post is to point to the role of indexing in the indexical symbol systems. In these symbol systems, the presupposition is that the composition of messages (signs of all ilk)
