[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor

[Gary Richmond]

Charles, list,   One of the Peirce quotations in your "as if" post strongly supports your notion, reiterated here, that it is possible and, indeed, desirable to make a double trichotomic distinction of Sign - External Object - Interpreter and Sign - Immediate Object - Interpretant, and that especially the relation between these Inner and Outer semeiotic trichotomies might prove fertile grounds for further inquiry. I've myself (and bouncing off your "as if" post) have begun work reflecting upon and diagramming some of your questions, ideas, also my own abductions as to the relationship holding between the two triads, etc. However, it's much too early for me to offer a report on any of this except to say that you are asking some very stimulating questions, Charles, which have certainly gotten me thinking in refreshing new directions. In any case, here is the quotation in your "as if" post which I'm pointing to: “Were I to undertake to establish the correctness of my statement that the cardinal numerals are without meaning, I should unavoidably be led into a disquisition upon the nature of language quite astray from my present purpose. I will only hint at what my defence of the statement would be by saying that, according to my view, there are three categories of being; ideas of feelings, acts of reaction, and habits. Habits are either habits about ideas of feelings or habits about acts of reaction. The ensemble of all habits about ideas of feeling constitutes one great habit which is a World; and the ensemble of all habits about acts of reaction constitutes a second great habit, which is another World. The former is the Inner World, the world of Plato's forms. The other is the Outer World, or universe of existence. The mind of man is adapted to the reality of being. Accordingly, there are two modes of association of ideas: inner association, based on the habits of the inner world, and outer association, based on the habits of the universe.”  (CP 4.157) Commenting on this passage you wrote: CR: I am also thinking that Consciousness as such is First for the Inner World, that the Present as such is First in the Outer World, and that Action—“responsiveness – “reactiveness”—that mediates relations between the Inner and Outer Worlds creates a Third World and Third Worlds within worlds among which is the Human World, which, as I see it, would be to say that, as Peirce puts it, “MAN” is a Sign—a Representamen. Your present extension of this idea seems to me generally sound, while I am thinking at this point that one might extend the notion of Interpreter quite a bit further than you seem to be doing. For example, in biological evolution higher and more complex systems and structures tend to entrain less complex systems (making them sub-systems in respect to the evolutionary advances made) suggesting to me that there is something which receives & contributes "as if" it were Interpreter, and so this sentient 'something' need not necessarily be human in contributing to "acts of representation". In other words, while it would appear to be true that from the standpoint of the further evolution of consciousness it is necessary that we humans direct ourselves to the reflective self-control of our own form of evolution (and all that this implies for re-presentation); yet without any help from us the cosmos apparently "represented" to itself exactly the patterns necessary for the evolution of that creature -- homo sapiens -- which could eventually undertake that very human self-reflective task (and where else would our power of representation come from if not from Firstness and Thirdness active in the Universe itself?--however, you may see my use of "represented" here as too vague and loose as to be useful).  I might add that while we humans have seemingly not yet fulfilled our own evolutionary vocation--this being epitomized in my thinking of the past few year by especially the Engelbartian abduction of the co-evolution of man and machine--does not mean that we never will. The Peircean doctrine offers hope that we may yet rise to our fully human vocation, that is, to express the truly reasonable (and loving) in itself. It is perhaps precisely the interpenetration of hierachies of the ordering of the inner and outer semiotic worlds which might lead to this fulfillment since, as your concluding quotation in the "as if" post has it, the distinction between the two "is after all only relative." “The main distinction between the Inner and the Outer Worlds is that inner objects promptly take any modifications we wish, while outer objects are hard facts that no man can make to be other than they are. Yet tremendous as this distinction is, it is after all only relative. Inner objects do offer a certain degree of resistance and outer objects are susceptible of being modified in some measure by sufficient exertion intelligently directed.”  (CP 5.45) So, again, further inquiry into the relationship between the two semiotic triads would seem of some considerable value. Dropping down in your recent post, you wrote: <>CR: What I have outlined above is at least obliquely related to my speculation on the Inner and Outer Worlds at the end of my “as if” post.  The Outer World furnished with objects in themselves interacts with the Inner World furnished with conscious, actively responsive and responding beings (mind or quasi-mind—a FIRST) whose response (collectively) and responses (particularly and singularly) to the interaction (a SECOND) bring a Third Semiosical World into being wherein, relative to the First World (what is first for us is not first for Nature), Second World objects in themselves furnish Dynamical Objects for the Signs that inhabit the Third World while the responses of First World beings furnish their Interpretants – Semiosical Objects.  The way in which these two "semiosical worlds" connect and, perhaps, interpenetrate is still not very clear to me. For example, you say that as conscious beings we have a  "response (collectively) and responses (particularly and singularly)" to an interaction with the objective world which bring a "Third Semiosical World into being". From a human-dialectical standpoint that may be so, but as "what is first for us is not first for Nature" there remains the possibility of other categorial-semiotic  paths, for example the involutional path FROM thirdness, which involves secondness, which in turn involves firstness (this is analyzed at some length by Peirce in "The Logic of Mathematics"). Peirce's own ordering of the categories for biological evolution would have thirdness placed second (sporting, then new HABIT TAKING, finally some resultant structural change). I've only begun to publish some of my own preliminary analyses of the six possible vectors (categorial paths) and their inter-relations, principally for papers delivered at ICCS (a rather knowledge representational-centric conference where philosophy--at least, as it impacts KR--is yet central to the proceedings; see, for example, "Trikonic Analysis-Synthesis and Critical Common Sense on the Web" for an outline of the 6 vectors: http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/richmond/ccsarisbe.pdf ), yet I have become increasing convinced that the Hegelian order--firstness, then secondness, then thirdness--as quintessential as it may be (Peirce also emphasizes this point in "The Logic of Mathematics" paper) is yet inadequate for representing all categorial-semiotical "flow". Your final speculation "that there may be something ontologically antecedent to Peirce’s Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness" is especially intriguing. You concluded: CR: I have always found the similarities and differences between “Unity” as such and Qualitative suchness which either manifests or participates in Unity, and between Unity as such and Continuity which also either manifests or participates in a Unity that differs from the Unity of Firstness, somewhat ambiguous.  In thinking about the possibility of my First World, Second World, and Third World . . . I keep running into the possibility of a ONE WORLD embodying the First and Second Worlds together with the evolution of the Third World. The concluding lectures of Peirce's 1898 cosmological series may aid in the consideration of this matter. There in consideration of the origins of our cosmos, what quasi-evolves ("quasi-" because "time is not yet") does so out of a (proto-?) continuity, that is an "as if" thirdness which is yet real, or how could a Platonic world of this particular character have come into being at all with no canvas of continuity to play upon? Peirce illustrates this in his famous blackboard metaphor where the blackboard represents the aboriginal continuity which will become original chance "sportings" of Platonic ideas, leading to chance interactions of these ultimately bringing about this Universe and the evolution of our world, true continuity, time and space and intelligent consciousness, etc.. Gary Charles F Rudder wrote: Gary, Ben, Jim, list,   Thanks, Gary, for calling attention to the possible connection between yours and my Inner and Outer distinction that, until you mentioned it, had not occurred to me, and for reminding me of the location of my "as if" post.  Not sure that I follow you close enough to compare our notions, in lieu of a comparison, I am elaborating on some thigs I have said in light of possibly taking a run later at a comparison later on.   I use the word “semiosis” in reference to sign processes or the activity of human and possibly other sentient beings mediated by signs, and the word “semiotic” or theory of signs in reference to analyses of sign processes.  That is, I take semiosis as the subject of semiotic.  My saying that there are two semiosical triads is to say that as I understand Peirce, his analysis (semiotic) reveals that sign processes (semiosis) embody two interrelated but distinguishable triads, the triad (Interpreter – Sign – Object) that accounts for the existence of signs and the triad (Interpretant – Sign – Object) that accounts for how signs acquire and determine their significant effects.  I understand Peirce to say that anything suited to be a sign becomes a sign when and only when it is interpreted as a sign.  The world is not littered with signs waiting to be interpreted, but with things suited to becoming and being signs if and when they are interpreted as signs.  In short, involuntary and deliberate acts of interpretation or representation bring signs qua signs into existence.  Apart from Interpreters or Representers involved in acts of interpretation or representation there would be no signs, and, hence, no Interpretants.    I understand Peirce to say in “New Elements” that, interpreted or uninterpreted, anything suited to be an Index when interpreted as an Index will be interpreted as being just the Index that it is suited to be.  I take this to mean both that anything suited to be an Index is not, but would become, an Index when it is interpreted as an Index and just the Index that it is suited to be (its connection to an object makes its Dynamical Object nonnegotiable).  Uninterpreted as an Index, what is absent from anything suited to be an Index that is required for it to be and function as a sign is an Interpretant which determines and embodies the Semiosical Object of the sign that must be furnished either, like Ben’s response to seeing smoke that an artist might have represented Iconically, more or less directly by an Interpreter’s interpreting it as an Index, or indirectly by its being represented as an Index in and by a Symbol that differs from Icons and Indices by its determining its Interpretant.  Peirce goes on to say in “New Elements” that being interpreted is part of what must be included in anything’s being suited to be a Symbol.  Uninterpreted, anything suited to be some kind of sign may be suited to be an Icon or Index, but it is not suited to be a Symbol.  Acts of Interpretation or Representation (re-presentation) do not, as with Icons and Indices, interpret or represent things always already suited to be Symbols, but actually participate in suiting things to be Symbols.   As I presently see it, the contribution of acts of representation to suiting things to be Symbols is to the Interpretant.  Together with the sign’s contribution to determining its Interpretant, acts of representation participate in determining the Interpretants of Symbols and, hence, to some degree, “complete” them.  The Symbol’s determining its interpretant for an Interpreter occurs together with the Interpreter’s contribution.  [I am thinking here of signs and not replicas of signs such as instruction manuals.]  Symbols manifest a “vagueness” that varies according to the ratio, so to speak, of the Interpreter’s to the Sign’s contribution to determining its Interpretant.  The symbolic interpretations of the performance of a play among various members of the audience will vary considerably as a consequence of their Interpretants being to a considerable degree idiosyncratically determined by the Interpreters.  The symbolic interpretations of mathematicians reviewing an original proof of a theorem, the Interpretants of which are to a greater degree determined by the form of the argument, will vary considerably less.  [I would say that Ben’s “Recognition” is included in (not outside) the Interpretant as an element of the Interpreter’s contribution to its determination.]   What I have outlined above is at least obliquely related to my speculation on the Inner and Outer Worlds at the end of my “as if” post.  The Outer World furnished with objects in themselves interacts with the Inner World furnished with conscious, actively responsive and responding beings (mind or quasi-mind—a FIRST) whose response (collectively) and responses (particularly and singularly) to the interaction (a SECOND) bring a Third Semiosical World into being wherein, relative to the First World (what is first for us is not first for Nature), Second World objects in themselves furnish Dynamical Objects for the Signs that inhabit the Third World while the responses of First World beings furnish their Interpretants – Semiosical Objects.   One further speculation:   When Ben first joined the list and introduced his “fourth,” I responded by saying something to the effect that I have wondered if it might make sense to think that there may be something ontologically antecedent to Peirce’s Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness.  I have always found the similarities and differences between “Unity” as such and Qualitative suchness which either manifests or participates in Unity, and between Unity as such and Continuity which also either manifests or participates in a Unity that differs from the Unity of Firstness, somewhat ambiguous.  In thinking about the possibility of my First World, Second World, and Third World (which, by the way, is in no way influenced by my study of Karl Popper), I keep running into the possibility of a ONE WORLD embodying the First and Second Worlds together with the evolution of the Third World.   Charlies  --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com