List,

I learn that Jon Schmid (henceforth JS) has proposed an ordering of the
three interpretants which differs from one that I suggest in a paper
published in *Semiotica *(which is indeed the published version of the text
mentioned by John Sowa in a private conversation). As JS states in his
posting, I prefer not to get involved in list disputes, but nevertheless
will offer an alternative interpretation which is dealt with in much
greater detail in Chapter Four of my recent book, where I dispute the
interpretant ordering of David Savan (the one proposed by JS). I quote JS
and reply to two of his objections to my ordering. These replies are
sufficient to support my position. First this statement:

‘The context of the destinate/effective/explicit passage is logical
determination for sign classification, not *causal* nor *temporal*
determination within the process of semiosis; hence, the genuine correlate
(If) determines the degenerate correlate (Id), which determines the doubly
degenerate correlate (Ii)’. (JS)

Here are two premisses on which we disagree irreconcilably:

1)      *That Peirce distinguished between the logical and the empirical
(causal, temporal).* As I understand Peirce, logic was the theory of
thought and reason. I don’t believe he considered that logic was simply the
concern of books and blackboards, rather that it was the process of
ratiocination out in the world and common to animate and inanimate agencies
alike (‘The action of a sign generally takes place between two parties, the
utterer and the interpreter. They need not be persons; for a chamelion and
many kinds of insects and even plants make their livings by uttering signs,
and lying signs, at that’ (R318: 419, 1907)). Semiosis, I believe, is
simply thought in action, irrespective of triggering agency, and a process
in which there is no difference between the logical and the empirical, a
process in which the empirical simply actualises the logical. Moreover, I
maintain that the six-correlate passage yielding 28 classes is also a
‘blueprint’ for the process of semiosis.

2)      *That Peirce attributed ‘horizontal’ phenomenological values within
the correlate/interpretant sequence (If genuine, Id degenerate, Ii doubly
degenerate).* If such values were to be associated with the interpretant,
for example, it would surely be more logical to apply them vertically
*within* each interpretant division, following the universe distinction
from least to most complex within the possible, existent and necessitant
universe  hierarchy. Although Peirce states in R318 ‘It is now necessary to
point out that there are three kinds of interpretant. Our categories
suggest them, and the suggestion is confirmed by careful consideration.’
(R318: 251, 1907), there is no suggestion in the manuscript that they are
hierarchically organized; they simply differ in complexity. JS’s
phenomenological hierarchy would suggest, too, that the dynamic object is
genuine and the immediate degenerate, which is surely not the case.

What proof do I have? None, simply, like those adduced by JS, opinions,
opinions based on snatches of text from various Peirce sources.


I would justify the order …S > Ii > Id > If for the following reasons
(there are others):

·         In the Logic Notebook, Peirce offers the following very clear
definition of the term ‘immediate’: ‘to say that A is immediate to B means
that it is present in B’ (R339: 243Av,1905). This corresponds to
descriptions Peirce gives of the immediate interpretant as being the
interpretant ‘in the sign’: ‘It is likewise requisite to distinguish the
Immediate Interpretant, i.e., the Interpretant represented or signified in
the Sign, from the Dynamic Interpretant, or effect actually produced on the
mind by the Sign’ (EP2: 482, 1908).

It seems illogical to me to seek to place the immediate interpretant in a
classification or process at two places from the sign in which it is
defined to be present.

·         As for the possibility of misinterpretation, consider the
descriptions Peirce gives LW in 1909 of his three interpretants:



‘My Immediate Interpretant is implied in the fact that each Sign must have
its peculiar interpretability before it gets any Interpreter. My Dynamical
Interpretant is that which is experienced in each act of Interpretation and
is different in each from that of any other; and the Final Interpretant is
the one Interpretative result to which every Interpreter is destined to
come if the sign is sufficiently considered. The Immediate Interpretant is
an abstraction, consisting in a Possibility. The Dynamical Interpretant is
a single actual event. The Final Interpretant is that toward which the
actual tends.’ (SS: 111, 1909)



...the Immediate Interpretant is what the Question expresses, all that it
*immediately* expresses. (CP: 8.314, 1909; emphasis added)

And of the *final interpretant* (If) he says this:

That ultimate, definitive, and final (i.e. eventually to be reached),
interpretant (final I mean, in the logical sense of attaining the purpose,
is also final in the sense of bringing the series of translations [to a
stop] for the obvious reason that it is not itself a sign) is to be
regarded as the ultimate signification of the [sign]. (LI: 356-357; 1906)



The Final Interpretant is the one Interpretative result to which every
Interpreter is destined to come if the Sign is sufficiently considered...
The Final Interpretant is that toward which the actual tends. (SS: 111,
1909)



But we must note that there is certainly a third kind of Interpretant,
which I call the Final Interpretant, because it is that which would finally
be decided to be the true interpretation if consideration of the matter
were carried so far that an ultimate opinion were reached. (EP2: 496; 1909)

It is difficult to see how such definitions might accord with JS’s
ordering: if the final interpretant as Peirce defines it here is that
toward which the actual tends one wonders at what point any actual
interpretation (Id) might take place, surely not *after *the final
interpretant. There is no suggestion here that the final interpretant
determines the sign’s meaning (of which the immediate interpretant is the
exponent). And surely misinterpretation and misconception depend upon the
degree of congruence between the intended meaning emanating from the
utterer and the actual reaction displayed by the interpreter. These
definitions (in which Ii is the sign’s inherent interpretability, Id the
actual reaction to a sign and If a future tendency) surely suggest that the
only possibility of misinterpretation comes from when, in an actual
semiosis, the Id reaction is not congruent with the intended
interpretation. We know from the draft to LW of March 1906 that 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’ (SS: 196-7, 1906). This, too, suggests that Ii follows
the sign of which it is the intended meaning and that Id is the
interpreter’s reaction that follows interpretation.

·         ‘The ten sign classes that result from applying the rule of
determination to these three trichotomies are much more plausible when the
order is (If, Id, Ii) than when it is (Ii, Id, If), especially when
accounting for the possibility of *mis*interpretations.’ (JS)

To which I reply that Chapter Four of my book has a Table (4.1) displaying 14
six- and ten-division typologies established between 1904 and 1908, of
which only the first two (both from 1904) have the order given by JS - *all*
the others have immediate > dynamic > variously named final interpretants.

NB LI followed by page number and year = Peirce, (2009), *The Logic of
Interdisciplinarity: The Monist-Series*, E. Bisanz, ed, Berlin: Akademie
Verlag GmbH, e.g. (LI 356-357, 1906)



With this I rest my case and leave the list members to make up their own
minds. I have no intention of engaging in protracted discussions.

TJ

Le mar. 2 avr. 2024 à 00:20, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> a
écrit :

> John, List:
>
> FYI, I removed Dr. Jappy from the cc: line because he has told me in the
> past that he greatly values his privacy and thus prefers not to be included
> in any List discussions.
>
> JFS: This is an unpublished article by Tony Jappy.
>
>
> The title is different, but the abstract exactly matches "From
> Phenomenology to Ontology in Peirce's Typologies" as published in *Semiotica
> *in 2019 (https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2018-0080). Regarding the content,
> as I have said before, I strongly disagree with equating "the Destinate
> Interpretant" to the immediate interpretant and "the Explicit Interpretant"
> to the final interpretant (SS84, EP 2:481, 1908 Dec 23), for at least four
> reasons.
>
>    - The terms themselves clearly imply the opposite, namely,
>    destinate=final/normal ("effect that would be produced on the mind by the
>    Sign after sufficient development of thought," CP 8.343, EP 2:482, 1908 Dec
>    24-28) and explicit=immediate ("the Interpretant represented or signified
>    in the Sign," ibid).
>    - The context of the destinate/effective/explicit passage is *logical 
> *determination
>    for sign classification, not *causal *nor *temporal *determination
>    within the process of semiosis; hence, the genuine correlate (If)
>    determines the degenerate correlate (Id), which determines the doubly
>    degenerate correlate (Ii).
>    - The ten sign classes that result from applying the rule of
>    determination to these three trichotomies are much more plausible when the
>    order is (If, Id, Ii) than when it is (Ii, Id, If), especially when
>    accounting for the possibility of *mis*interpretations.
>    - The S-If trichotomy unambiguously comes *before *the S-Id trichotomy
>    (CP 8.338, SS 34-35, 1904 Oct 12), so it makes sense for the If trichotomy
>    likewise to come *before *the Id trichotomy.
>
> I can elaborate on any or all of these if anyone is interested. As for the
> inserted comments ...
>
> JFS: Note that “Mark Token Type” is Peirce's final choice of labels for
> that trichotomy.
>
>
> In that draft letter to Lady Welby, Peirce states, "But I dare say some of
> my former names are better than those I now use. I formerly called a *Potisign
> *a *Tinge *or *Tone*, an *Actisign *a *Token*, a *Famisign *a *Type *...
> I think *Potisign Actisign Famisign* might be called *Mark Token Type (?)*
> ..." (CP 8.363-364, EP 2:488, 1908 Dec 25). The word "might" and the
> parenthetical question mark indicate that his choice of "mark" is *not *final.
> In fact, he reverts to "Tone" in a Logic Notebook entry dated two days
> later (27 Dec 1908,
> https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:15255301$636i).
>
> Moreover, two days earlier, Peirce writes, "For a 'possible' Sign I have
> no better designation than a *Tone*, though I am considering replacing
> this by 'Mark.' Can you suggest a really good name?" (SS 83, 1908 Dec 23).
> Lady Welby replies a few weeks later, "Your exposition of the 'possible'
> Sign is profoundly interesting; but I am not equal to the effort of
> discussing it beyond saying that I should prefer *tone* to *mark* for the
> homely reason that we often have occasion to say 'I do not object to his
> words, but to his *tone*'" (SS 91, 1909 Jan 21).
>
> I agree with her, especially since Peirce himself gives essentially the
> same rationale for "tone" when he introduces it--"An indefinite significant
> character such as a tone of voice can neither be called a Type nor a Token.
> I propose to call such a Sign a *Tone*" (CP 4.537, 1906). Besides, "mark"
> already had a well-established and quite different definition in logic,
> which Peirce presents in his entry for it in Baldwin's *Dictionary of
> Philosophy and Psychology* (https://gnusystems.ca/BaldwinPeirce.htm#Mark);
> and as discussed on the List recently, "markedness" is now an unrelated
> technical term in linguistics.
>
> JFS: In computer science and applications, the Lewis-style of modal logic
> has been useless in practical computations.
>
>
> Again, "useless" strikes me as an overstatement, and even if accurate, it
> does not entail that modern formal systems of modal logic will *never *turn
> out to be useful in these or any other applications. More to the point,
> such an assessment is *utterly irrelevant* for ascertaining what *Peirce *had
> in mind when writing R L376, including his statement, "I shall now have to
> add a *Delta *part [to Existential Graphs] in order to deal with modals."
> A straightforward reading of that text itself is that he simply needs a new
> notation to replace the unsatisfactory (broken) cuts of 1903 and
> nonsensical tinctures of 1906 for representing and reasoning about
> propositions involving possibility and necessity.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Fri, Mar 29, 2024 at 2:46 PM John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> wrote:
>
>> To provide some background and alternative interpretations of Peirce's
>> theories during his last decade, the attached article by Tony Jappy
>> discusses issues from a different perspective than the recent discussions
>> about Delta graphs.
>>
>> The article by Jappy is a 14-page summary of issues that he discussed in
>> much more detail in a  book he wrote in 2017.  I inserted commentary at
>> various points marked by "JFS:".  But I did not add, delete, or change any
>> of Jappy's text.  My comments do not discuss any issues about Delta graphs,
>> but they provide some background information that may be helpful for
>> interpreting L376.
>>
>> John
>>
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-- 
Tony Jappy

CRESEM : Centre de recherches sur les Sociétés et Environnements en
Méditerranée
University of Perpignan-Via Domitia,
66860 Perpignan Cedex,
France

e-mail: anthony.ja...@gmail.com, t...@univ-perp.fr

****************************************************************************
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