[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor
Nor do I know what else to say to you on this topic, Ben, except that I just don't get the sense that we are even talking about the same topic. It baffles me, but I will just have to leave it at that. Joe - Original Message - From: Benjamin Udell To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2006 5:02 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor Charles, Joe, Gary, Jim, Jacob, list, The occasion here is that Charles wrote, "I am still trying to find out if I have any grasp at all of what you think the (Interpretant -- Sign -- Object) relation omits." The idea that one can't even grasp what I'm saying leads me to make one last try. What do I think the relation omits? I think that the (Interpretant -- Sign -- Object) relation omits recognition, verification, establishment. I mean "recognition," "verification," "estabishment," and the like, in a pretty commonsense way. I'm trying to think of how to get the tetradic idea across. First, I'd point out that the difference between interpretation and verification can be taken in a common-sense way with which we are all familiar. That common-sense way is at the basis of how I mean it. But I've pointed that out in the past. I've even brought the plot of _Hamlet_ (because peirce-l is classy :-)) into the discussion. Now, there's a weak sense of the word "understanding" where one says "well, it's my _understanding_ that Jack is going to come" -- one is saying that one doesn't _know_ whether Jack is actually going to come -- one hasn't _verified_ it, even to oneself -- one means that, instead, it's _merely one's interpretation_. I think that we're all familiar with these ways of talking and thinking. I talk and think that way, and my impression is that most people talk and think that way. Those ways of talking and thinking are quite in keeping with object-experience's being outside the interpretant. An interpretation is a construal. An unestablished, unsubstantiated interpretation is a _mere_ construal in the strongest sense of the word "mere." (In a similar way, one should think of a sign which is unsubstantiated in whatever respect as a _mere_ sign, a _mere_ representation, in that respect.) One should not let the _word_ "interpretant" evoke anything stronger in such a case, but, instead, one should stick with the common notion of interpretation. Even a biological mutation, considered as an interpretant, should be considered as a construal and as a random experiment which "experience" or actual reality will test. Research and thought had thousands of years to show that one can make much progress by merely making representations and construals about other researchers' representations and contruals and by, at best, verifying representations and construals _about_ representations and construals -- doing so via books about other books and by researchers' going back and checking the originals and considering the ideas presented there. This sort of thing in the end makes little progress when the subject matter is not thought itself but instead, say, physics or biology. One needs to verify by experiences of the subject matter. The logical process must revisit the object, somehow, some way. Second, I'd point to the analogy between decoding and interpretation, an analogy which has been referred to and alluded to often enough, e.g., in David Lodge's "Tout décodage est un nouvel encodage." I'd point to the extended analogy, and ask, why does triadic semiotics have no analogue for the recipient? source ~~~ object encoding ~~ sign decoding ~~ interpretant recipient ~~ ? Is it merely that in early scenarios the decoding was usually mechanical and the recipient a human? Why does a recipient notice redundancies and inconsistencies which a decoder does not notice? What is the difference in function between a decoding and a "recipience"? Why, at the fourth stage, does the analogy suddenly break down between information theory and triadic semiotics? Does one of them have the wrong scenario? Which one? Is it normal or is it a warning alarm, when a tenable analogy just suddenly goes bad? If the interpretant is analogous both to decoding and to recipient, what functions analogous to theirs does it combine? Should a semiotic philosopher be concerned about such questions? Especially a Peircean one accustomed to tracing extensive analogies and correlations, a philosopher who believes in doing that sort of thing? But I've pointed this all out in the past. Third, I'd point out the following logical stream of thought: Peirce says that to represent an object is not to provide experience or acquaintance with the object. There are good reasons to agree with Peirce about th
[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor
Charles, Joe, Gary, Jim, Jacob, list, The occasion here is that Charles wrote, "I am still trying to find out if I have any grasp at all of what you think the (Interpretant -- Sign -- Object) relation omits." The idea that one can't even grasp what I'm saying leads me to make one last try. What do I think the relation omits? I think that the (Interpretant -- Sign -- Object) relation omits recognition, verification, establishment. I mean "recognition," "verification," "estabishment," and the like, in a pretty commonsense way. I'm trying to think of how to get the tetradic idea across. First, I'd point out that the difference between interpretation and verification can be taken in a common-sense way with which we are all familiar. That common-sense way is at the basis of how I mean it. But I've pointed that out in the past. I've even brought the plot of _Hamlet_ (because peirce-l is classy :-)) into the discussion. Now, there's a weak sense of the word "understanding" where one says "well, it's my _understanding_ that Jack is going to come" -- one is saying that one doesn't _know_ whether Jack is actually going to come -- one hasn't _verified_ it, even to oneself -- one means that, instead, it's _merely one's interpretation_. I think that we're all familiar with these ways of talking and thinking. I talk and think that way, and my impression is that most people talk and think that way. Those ways of talking and thinking are quite in keeping with object-experience's being outside the interpretant. An interpretation is a construal. An unestablished, unsubstantiated interpretation is a _mere_ construal in the strongest sense of the word "mere." (In a similar way, one should think of a sign which is unsubstantiated in whatever respect as a _mere_ sign, a _mere_ representation, in that respect.) One should not let the _word_ "interpretant" evoke anything stronger in such a case, but, instead, one should stick with the common notion of interpretation. Even a biological mutation, considered as an interpretant, should be considered as a construal and as a random experiment which "experience" or actual reality will test. Research and thought had thousands of years to show that one can make much progress by merely making representations and construals about other researchers' representations and contruals and by, at best, verifying representations and construals _about_ representations and construals -- doing so via books about other books and by researchers' going back and checking the originals and considering the ideas presented there. This sort of thing in the end makes little progress when the subject matter is not thought itself but instead, say, physics or biology. One needs to verify by experiences of the subject matter. The logical process must revisit the object, somehow, some way. Second, I'd point to the analogy between decoding and interpretation, an analogy which has been referred to and alluded to often enough, e.g., in David Lodge's "Tout décodage est un nouvel encodage." I'd point to the extended analogy, and ask, why does triadic semiotics have no analogue for the recipient? source ~~~ object encoding ~~ sign decoding ~~ interpretant recipient ~~ ? Is it merely that in early scenarios the decoding was usually mechanical and the recipient a human? Why does a recipient notice redundancies and inconsistencies which a decoder does not notice? What is the difference in function between a decoding and a "recipience"? Why, at the fourth stage, does the analogy suddenly break down between information theory and triadic semiotics? Does one of them have the wrong scenario? Which one? Is it normal or is it a warning alarm, when a tenable analogy just suddenly goes bad? If the interpretant is analogous both to decoding and to recipient, what functions analogous to theirs does it combine? Should a semiotic philosopher be concerned about such questions? Especially a Peircean one accustomed to tracing extensive analogies and correlations, a philosopher who believes in doing that sort of thing? But I've pointed this all out in the past. Third, I'd point out the following logical stream of thought: Peirce says that to represent an object is not to provide experience or acquaintance with the object. There are good reasons to agree with Peirce about this, which I've discussed in the past. It is rooted in the fact that, except in the limit case of their identity, the sign is not the object but only, merely, almost the object. However, in being almost the object, it does convey information about the object; however, acquaintance with the object can't be gained from the sign. Now, when one forms an acquaintance or experience with an object, what does that give to one, that a sign, indeed, acquaintance with a sign, does not give to one? Why is object acquaintance or object experience involved with confirming s
[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor
Charles, Joe, Gary, Jim, Jacob, list, >[Charles] Following up on Joe's saying: >>[Joe] "If I am understanding you correctly you are saying that all semeiosis is at least incipiently self-reflexive or self-reflective or in other words self-controlled AND that the adequate philosophical description of it will REQUIRE appeal to a fourth factor (which is somehow of the essence of verification) in addition to the appeal to the presence of a sign, of an object, and of an interpretant, allowing of course for the possibility of there being more than one of any or all of these, as is no doubt essential for anything of the nature of a process. The appeal to the additional kind of factor would presumably have to be an appeal to something of the nature of a quadratic relational character. To be sure, any given semeiosis might involve the fourth factor only in a triply degenerate form, just as the third factor might be degenerate in a double degree in some cases, which is to say that the fourth factor might go unnoticed in a single semeiosis, just as thirdness might go unnoticed in a single semeiosis." Note for anybody reading at http://www.mail-archive.com/peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu/maillist.html : I find that a few recent posts from me and Joe didn't get posted at mail-archive.com. They can be found here: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/1311 (post from me August 19, 2006) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/1312 (post from Joe Ransdell August 19, 2006) >[Charles] and your saying: >>[Ben] "Generally, I'd respond that that which Peirce overlooks in connection with verification is >>[Ben] -- that verification is an experiential recognition of an interpretant and its sign as truly corresponding to their object, and that verification (in the core sense) involves direct observation of the object in the light (being tested) of the interpretant and the sign. "In the light (being tested)" means that the verification is a recognition formed _as_ collateral to sign and interpretant in respect of the object. Experience, familiarity, acquaintance with the object are, by Peirce's own account, outside the interpretant, the sign, the system of signs. >>[Ben] -- and that, therefore, the recognition is not sign, interpretant, or their object in those relationships in which it is the recognition of them; yet, in being formed as collateral to sign and interpretant in respect of the object, it is logically determined by them and by the object as represented by them; it is further determined by the object separately by observation of the object itself; and by the logical relationships in which object, sign, and interpretant are observed to stand. Dependently on the recognitional outcome, semiosis will go very differently; it logically determines semiosis going forward. So, how will you diagram it? You can't mark it as object itself, nor as sign of the object, nor as interpretant of the sign or of the object. What label, what semiotic role, will you put at the common terminus of the lines of relationship leading to it, all of them logically determinational, from the sign, the object, and the interpretant? >[Charles] I am still trying to find out if I have any grasp at all of what you think the (Interpretant -- Sign -- Object) relation omits. >[Charles] Suppose I am given a photograph to use as a means of finding a person whom I have never seen. As far as I can see there would be nothing "tested" in my looking for the person unless I fail to find the person, in which case, assuming that the person was present, I might wonder if the photograph is recent, if the person has gained or lost weight, grown or shaved a beard, etc. That is, I might question what I sometimes fall the "fidelity" of a sign or how precisely the Immediate or Semiosical Object of the sign represents its Dynamical Object--in this illustration how closely the features of the photographic image resemble the features of the person photographed. Having failed in an attempt to _use_ a sign, I might and actually have questioned its _usefulness_ as a sign. Inference may be deliberate, conscious, controlled (and that's reasoning or ratiocination) or nondeliberate, unconscious, uncontrolled. The question of whether inference or testing or such things take place, is not the question of whether one is conscious of inferring or testing or such things and of learning thereby, but rather of whether intentionally or unintentionally, indeed consciously or unconsciously, one so infers or tests such that, intentionally or unintentionally, and consciously or unconsciously, one learns. It is quite natural to look back on experiences and realize that they involved trials whereof one was unaware or only confusedly aware at the time. The point is whether one incorporates and practices one's learnings from them, whether or not one is aware of having done so. Not
[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor
Ben, Joe, list: Following up on Joe's saying: JR: "If I am understanding you correctly you are saying that all semeiosis is at least incipiently self-reflexive or self-reflective or in other words self-controlled AND that the adequate philosophical description of it will REQUIRE appeal to a fourth factor (which is somehow of the essence of verification) in addition to the appeal to the presence of a sign, of an object, and of an interpretant, allowing of course for the possibility of there being more than one of any or all of these, as is no doubt essential for anything of the nature of a process. The appeal to the additional kind of factor would presumably have to be an appeal to something of the nature of a quadratic relational character. To be sure, any given semeiosis might involve the fourth factor only in a triply degenerate form, just as the third factor might be degenerate in a double degree in some cases, which is to say that the fourth factor might go unnoticed in a single semeiosis, just as thirdness might go unnoticed in a single semeiosis." and your saying: BU: "Generally, I'd respond that that which Peirce overlooks in connection with verification is -- that verification is an experiential recognition of an interpretant and its sign as truly corresponding to their object, and that verification (in the core sense) involves direct observation of the object in the light (being tested) of the interpretant and the sign. "In the light (being tested)" means that the verification is a recognition formed _as_ collateral to sign and interpretant in respect of the object. Experience, familiarity, acquaintance with the object are, by Peirce's own account, outside the interpretant, the sign, the system of signs. -- and that, therefore, the recognition is not sign, interpretant, or their object in those relationships in which it is the recognition of them; yet, in being formed as collateral to sign and interpretant in respect of the object, it is logically determined by them and by the object as represented by them; it is further determined by the object separately by observation of the object itself; and by the logical relationships in which object, sign, and interpretant are observed to stand. Dependently on the recognitional outcome, semiosis will go very differently; it logically determines semiosis going forward. So, how will you diagram it? You can't mark it as object itself, nor as sign of the object, nor as interpretant of the sign or of the object. What label, what semiotic role, will you put at the common terminus of the lines of relationship leading to it, all of them logically determinational, from the sign, the object, and the interpretant?" CR: I am still trying to find out if I have any grasp at all of what you think the (Interpretant -- Sign -- Object) relation omits. Suppose I am given a photograph to use as a means of finding a person whom I have never seen. As far as I can see there would be nothing "tested" in my looking for the person unless I fail to find the person, in which case, assuming that the person was present, I might wonder if the photograph is recent, if the person has gained or lost weight, grown or shaved a beard, etc. That is, I might question what I sometimes fall the "fidelity" of a sign or how precisely the Immediate or Semiosical Object of the sign represents its Dynamical Object--in this illustration how closely the features of the photographic image resemble the features of the person photographed. Having failed in an attempt to use a sign, I might and actually have questioned its usefulness as a sign. When, for instance, I introduce an _expression_ like "fidelity of a sign" I think about how other people might interpret it in an effort to evaluate and predict its usefulness as a means of representing what I have in mind. When, as I have here, I use the _expression_, I am both trying to represent what I have in mind and, if light of any response I may get, trying to evaluate its usefulness--the "fidelity"of its "correspondence" to an Object--as a means of representing what I am thinking. Does what I have set out above come anywhere close, Ben, to characterizing and illustrating the kind of circumstances in which you think something more than Peirce's (Interpretant - Sign - Object) is involved? In any case, it appears to me that there is a reflexivity in what I have described in so far as in my using the _expression_ "fidelity of a sign" in an attempt to engage in conversation with you and others on the list, I am also in conversation with myself about using the _expression_. It also seems to me that I am using the _expression_ as a sign with its interpretant to represent an object other than the sign while at the same time I am making the _expression_ an object of a different sign and interpretant; which is to say that the reflexivity is semiosical or part of a semiosical p
[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor
W will just have to leave it as a stand off, Ben. I have no more to say on this than I have already said. Joe - Original Message - From: Benjamin Udell To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2006 2:21 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor Joe, Gary, Jim, Charles, Jacob, list, It's obvious that in _some_ sense or other I disagree with Peirce about how semiosis is related to experience. However, I think I find sufficient material in Peirce to make the argument in Peirce's own terms, especially in Peirce's discussions of collateral experience, where he plainly says that one needs experience collateral to sign and interpretant of the object in order to identify the object. And I don't get the idea of finding the equation or dis-equation of an experience and a sign/interpretant so confusing that "it literally makes no sense," so confusing that one can't make sufficient sense of it in order to argue against it in terms of what experience is, what interpretation is, etc. If it were true that it is, -- in your words, "a confusion in virtue of talking about the interpretant as being an 'experience or observation.' In talking about the sign-object-interpretant relationships we are doing so in the process of analyzing such things as experience or observation (or verification) and it literally makes no sense to me put in that way," -- then Peirce's discussions of collateral experience would make no sense. He's far too specific in delineating relationships of semiosis to experience for those delineations to be compatible with that which you say. Why would Peirce say things like "All that part of the understanding of the Sign which the Interpreting Mind has needed collateral observation for is outside the Interpretant. It is...the prerequisite for getting any idea signified by the sign." Why would Peirce say, "Its Interpretant is all that the Sign conveys: acquaintance with its Object must be gained by collateral experience"? Note that he does not say that _collateral_ acquaintance with its Object must be gained by collateral experience. He is not stating such a truism. Instead, he says that acquaintance, any acquaintance at all, must be gained by collateral experience. Peirce is saying that the _representing_ of the object is never an _acquainting_ with the object (except, as usual, in the limit case where the representing sign and its object are the selfsame thing). But that is just the sort of statement which you say _makes no sense_ to you. How do you account for that? Do you deny that that's what he is saying? If so, how do you justify such a denial? I don't know why it makes no sense to you to speak of denying or affirming that one's experience of an object is or isn't one's sign of an object, least of all can I understand why this would be a consequence of talking about object-sign-interpretant relationships in the process of analyzing such things as experience or observation. You talk as though experience were something like the moon or the color green or the letter "C," which one would certainly not expect to see treated as basic semiotic elements on a par with object, sign, and interpretant. But we have Peirce right above characterizing _all_ signs in terms of experience and, in particular, distinguishing them -- _all_ of them -- from acquaintance, observation, experience of the object. How could this make sense if it doesn't make sense to speak of an object experience as being a sign of the object or not being a sign of the object? I have only one Peirce collateral-experience discussion which presents me with any problems for my views or, more specifically, for my use of his views -- you have all the rest of his collateral-experience discussions contradicting you. You say, "The semeiotical terminology is properly used in explication of such notions as that of experience, observation, verification, etc. and therefore signs and interpretants cannot except confusedly be equated with such things as observations or experiences or verifications." I would say that conceptions of objects, signs, interpretants, and verifications are all of them analytic tools for analyzing processes of objects, signs, interpretants, and verifications (and more generally, experiences), and none of this stops us from clearly dis-equating experiences/verifications from interpretations, etc. Or maybe you mean that sometimes one's experience of the object is one's sign of the object, and sometimes not? I.e., that one only confusedly equates or confusedly dis-equates them because there's no such general rule? But I don't understand why anybody would think, that, even if only sometimes, something serving as _another_ sign
[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor
Joe, Gary, Jim, Charles, Jacob, list, It's obvious that in _some_ sense or other I disagree with Peirce about how semiosis is related to experience. However, I think I find sufficient material in Peirce to make the argument in Peirce's own terms, especially in Peirce's discussions of collateral experience, where he plainly says that one needs experience collateral to sign and interpretant of the object in order to identify the object. And I don't get the idea of finding the equation or dis-equation of an experience and a sign/interpretant so confusing that "it literally makes no sense," so confusing that one can't make sufficient sense of it in order to argue against it in terms of what experience is, what interpretation is, etc. If it were true that it is, -- in your words, "a confusion in virtue of talking about the interpretant as being an 'experience or observation.' In talking about the sign-object-interpretant relationships we are doing so in the process of analyzing such things as experience or observation (or verification) and it literally makes no sense to me put in that way," -- then Peirce's discussions of collateral experience would make no sense. He's far too specific in delineating relationships of semiosis to experience for those delineations to be compatible with that which you say. Why would Peirce say things like "All that part of the understanding of the Sign which the Interpreting Mind has needed collateral observation for is outside the Interpretant. It is...the prerequisite for getting any idea signified by the sign." Why would Peirce say, "Its Interpretant is all that the Sign conveys: acquaintance with its Object must be gained by collateral experience"? Note that he does not say that _collateral_ acquaintance with its Object must be gained by collateral experience. He is not stating such a truism. Instead, he says that acquaintance, any acquaintance at all, must be gained by collateral experience. Peirce is saying that the _representing_ of the object is never an _acquainting_ with the object (except, as usual, in the limit case where the representing sign and its object are the selfsame thing). But that is just the sort of statement which you say _makes no sense_ to you. How do you account for that? Do you deny that that's what he is saying? If so, how do you justify such a denial? I don't know why it makes no sense to you to speak of denying or affirming that one's experience of an object is or isn't one's sign of an object, least of all can I understand why this would be a consequence of talking about object-sign-interpretant relationships in the process of analyzing such things as experience or observation. You talk as though experience were something like the moon or the color green or the letter "C," which one would certainly not expect to see treated as basic semiotic elements on a par with object, sign, and interpretant. But we have Peirce right above characterizing _all_ signs in terms of experience and, in particular, distinguishing them -- _all_ of them -- from acquaintance, observation, experience of the object. How could this make sense if it doesn't make sense to speak of an object experience as being a sign of the object or not being a sign of the object? I have only one Peirce collateral-experience discussion which presents me with any problems for my views or, more specifically, for my use of his views -- you have all the rest of his collateral-experience discussions contradicting you. You say, "The semeiotical terminology is properly used in explication of such notions as that of experience, observation, verification, etc. and therefore signs and interpretants cannot except confusedly be equated with such things as observations or experiences or verifications." I would say that conceptions of objects, signs, interpretants, and verifications are all of them analytic tools for analyzing processes of objects, signs, interpretants, and verifications (and more generally, experiences), and none of this stops us from clearly dis-equating experiences/verifications from interpretations, etc. Or maybe you mean that sometimes one's experience of the object is one's sign of the object, and sometimes not? I.e., that one only confusedly equates or confusedly dis-equates them because there's no such general rule? But I don't understand why anybody would think, that, even if only sometimes, something serving as _another_ sign of the object in a given context and situation would be a collateral experience of the object, when experience of the object will be outside that sign qua sign-in-that-situation-and-context. It's just a logical contradiction. In a given situation for a given mind, experience of the object is outside the sign, interpretant, and sign system. Therefore, in that situation for that mind, that mind's experience of the object will not be serving as that mind's sign or int
