[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Gary, list, Well, I can't remember any more just what conversation it might have been that started that notion going in my mind till it turned into something mythical. Any record is lost on my old ruined hard drive. I simply have to stop relying on these vague recallings when I post to peirce-l. In the old days, it didn't seem to matter too much, somebody could always correct me. But now the peirce-l posts go to mail-archive.com, and there get picked up by the big search engines, so for the foreseeable future there I am saying "Gary Richmond said x" etc. When it comes to this sort of thing, from now on I must get it right the first time. (Speaking of wishing not to rely solely on my memory, also I have to save things from the Internet oftener. I once found a fascinating discussion of how it turned out that deductive math theory of information turned out to be equivalent to areas in abstract algebra. Now it's gone!) Best, Ben Gary wrote, Ben wrote: qualisign = tone = potisign sinsign = token = actisign legisign = type = famisign While these are often called alternate names of the same things, Gary has said that they aren't just sets of synonyms but instead reflect some differences of conception. I.e., for some purposes we treat them as 9 qualisigns correlated to the same 3 legisigns, but maybe they're really 9 legisigns.My position has rather been that these are three sets of synonyms (with perhaps some subtle changes of emphasis) with the exception of "token" which is used by Peirce for a brief time as equivalent to "symbol". See, for example in "On the Algebra of Logic": CP 3.360 A sign is in a conjoint relation to the thing denoted and to the mind. If this triple relation is not of a degenerate species, the sign is related to its object only in consequence of a mental association, and depends upon a habit. Such signs are always abstract and general, because habits are general rules to which the organism has become subjected. They are, for the most part, conventional or arbitrary. They include all general words, the main body of speech, and any mode of conveying a judgment. For the sake of brevity I will call them tokens.†3And the editors' footnote: Peirce: CP 3.360 Fn 3 p 210 †3 More frequently called 'symbols'; the word 'token' is later (in 4.537) taken to apply to what in 2.245 is called a 'sinsign.Unfortunately at the moment I won't be able to get further into this matter or some of the other points of Ben's interesting post.Gary --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Ben wrote: qualisign = tone = potisign sinsign = token = actisign legisign = type = famisign While these are often called alternate names of the same things, Gary has said that they aren't just sets of synonyms but instead reflect some differences of conception. I.e., for some purposes we treat them as 9 qualisigns correlated to the same 3 legisigns, but maybe they're really 9 legisigns. My position has rather been that these are three sets of synonyms (with perhaps some subtle changes of emphasis) with the exception of "token" which is used by Peirce for a brief time as equivalent to "symbol". See, for example in "On the Algebra of Logic": CP 3.360 A sign is in a conjoint relation to the thing denoted and to the mind. If this triple relation is not of a degenerate species, the sign is related to its object only in consequence of a mental association, and depends upon a habit. Such signs are always abstract and general, because habits are general rules to which the organism has become subjected. They are, for the most part, conventional or arbitrary. They include all general words, the main body of speech, and any mode of conveying a judgment. For the sake of brevity I will call them tokens.†3 And the editors' footnote: Peirce: CP 3.360 Fn 3 p 210 †3 More frequently called 'symbols'; the word 'token' is later (in 4.537) taken to apply to what in 2.245 is called a 'sinsign. Unfortunately at the moment I won't be able to get further into this matter or some of the other points of Ben's interesting post. Gary Benjamin Udell wrote: Wilfred, list, (Note: if responding to this html, please remember to delete any unneeded graphics and text.) As far as I can tell, when a quality functions as a sign, then it functions only iconically, the idea being that that's all that it semiotically _can_ do _as_ a quality. A quality is just a possibility. The colors of litmus in a litmus test are not qualisigns but indexical reactions which can, of course, be resembled, iconized, but which are functioning indexically. Likewise, a symbolic color is functioning as a sinsignal replica of a legisign, and not as a qualisign. I'm not sure whether those things clarify your questions, and anyway I stand ready to be corrected on these matters by listers. I have to admit, I'm not too firm on qualisigns myself. According to Joseph Ransdell (as opposed to Thomas L. Short), the general idea of "the" is the legisign (aka type aka famisign), the appearances "the," "el," "la," "lo," "le," "der," "die," "das," etc. are different qualisigns (aka tones aka potisigns), and the individual instance on the page or utterance in real life is the sinsign (aka token aka actisign). The idea of an "individual" instance in an electronic document is a bit more problematic, but that problem is certainly not peculiar to Peircean signs theory. qualisign = tone = potisign sinsign = token = actisign legisign = type = famisign While these are often called alternate names of the same things, Gary has said that they aren't just sets of synonyms but instead reflect some differences of conception. I.e., for some purposes we treat them as 9 qualisigns correlated to the same 3 legisigns, but maybe they're really 9 legisigns. What's not clear to me is this. If, say, I have a diagrammatic image, as reproduced in text books, and it's neither the individual diagram (sinsign) nor the general complex idea of the diagram (iconic rhematic legisign) then it's an icon of "some" individual diagram. Every qualisign is an icon, though not every icon is a qualisign. In any case, is it the case that, whatever the involved icon's object, said object is the qualisign's object? Now, if Dutch _paard_ and English "horse" are two qualisigns attached to the same idea, that of a horse, then of what are they icons? Of the individual instances (sinsigns) embodying them? I guess so. Now, if, for instance, I have an iconic sinsign for a horse, then it's an icon for a horse AND a sinsign for a horse -- indeed, for the same horse, be it an actual horse, or a generic typical horse, or some fictional horse, etc., etc. So, if the qualisignal icon has AN object, then one would think that it would be the same object in regard to both the qualisignal & iconic aspects. Otherwise one would (I think) have to think of the total sign as a composite, somehow, of a qualisign and an icon, rather than as a sign with qualisignal & iconic dimensions. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Wilfred, list, (Note: if responding to this html, please remember to delete any unneeded graphics and text.) As far as I can tell, when a quality functions as a sign, then it functions only iconically, the idea being that that's all that it semiotically _can_ do _as_ a quality. A quality is just a possibility. The colors of litmus in a litmus test are not qualisigns but indexical reactions which can, of course, be resembled, iconized, but which are functioning indexically. Likewise, a symbolic color is functioning as a sinsignal replica of a legisign, and not as a qualisign. I'm not sure whether those things clarify your questions, and anyway I stand ready to be corrected on these matters by listers. I have to admit, I'm not too firm on qualisigns myself. According to Joseph Ransdell (as opposed to Thomas L. Short), the general idea of "the" is the legisign (aka type aka famisign), the appearances "the," "el," "la," "lo," "le," "der," "die," "das," etc. are different qualisigns (aka tones aka potisigns), and the individual instance on the page or utterance in real life is the sinsign (aka token aka actisign). The idea of an "individual" instance in an electronic document is a bit more problematic, but that problem is certainly not peculiar to Peircean signs theory. qualisign = tone = potisign sinsign = token = actisign legisign = type = famisign While these are often called alternate names of the same things, Gary has said that they aren't just sets of synonyms but instead reflect some differences of conception. I.e., for some purposes we treat them as 9 qualisigns correlated to the same 3 legisigns, but maybe they're really 9 legisigns. What's not clear to me is this. If, say, I have a diagrammatic image, as reproduced in text books, and it's neither the individual diagram (sinsign) nor the general complex idea of the diagram (iconic rhematic legisign) then it's an icon of "some" individual diagram. Every qualisign is an icon, though not every icon is a qualisign. In any case, is it the case that, whatever the involved icon's object, said object is the qualisign's object? Now, if Dutch _paard_ and English "horse" are two qualisigns attached to the same idea, that of a horse, then of what are they icons? Of the individual instances (sinsigns) embodying them? I guess so. Now, if, for instance, I have an iconic sinsign for a horse, then it's an icon for a horse AND a sinsign for a horse -- indeed, for the same horse, be it an actual horse, or a generic typical horse, or some fictional horse, etc., etc. So, if the qualisignal icon has AN object, then one would think that it would be the same object in regard to both the qualisignal & iconic aspects. Otherwise one would (I think) have to think of the total sign as a composite, somehow, of a qualisign and an icon, rather than as a sign with qualisignal & iconic dimensions. But in that case we cannot say that the general legisign "horse," the English word "horse," and the individual instance of the word "horse" all have a common semiotic object in some sense. For the English word "horse" is not an icon of a horse, be it an individual horse or an average general horse. And if it's not an icon of a horse then it's not a qualisign of a horse. A qualisign for a horse would have to look or sound like a horse. The qualisign of the horse would be the semblance of the horse, apart from particular embodiments of that semblance. So the qualisign "horse" does not have the same semiotic object, in any sense, as the legisign "horse" or the sinsign "horse." And while there will tend to be divergence (depending on the fineness of the analysis) between the semiotic objects of the legisign "horse" and the sinsign "horse," there is still a commonality of object between them which is lacking with the qualisign "horse." It is not the qualisign English word "horse" which has the horse as its semiotic object; rather it is the English word "horse," as a _replica_ of the legisign "horse," that has the horse as its semiotic object. And I guess that one could say that there is a _qualisignal replica_ rather than only a _sinsignal replica_, but that conjunction of sign aspects "qualisignal replica" is unlike that of "qualisignal icon." The qualisign's semiotic object is the sinsign "horse." The replica's semiotic object is the horse. Really what there is, is an iconic qualisign of a sinsignal replica of a legisign. The sinsignal replica & the legisign whereof it is the replica have the same semiotic object -- the horse. The iconic qualisign has the sinsignal replica "horse" has its semiotic object. And not any actual individual sinsignal replica, rather the sinsignal replica "horse" in general. So in no case can we, strictly speaking, say "The English word "horse" has the horse as its semiotic object just as the Dutch word _paard_ has." The English word "horse" considered distinctly both from the Dutch
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Bernard, Gary, list, How come I never notice these errors until a minute after I send them? THIS is the triangular arrangement with regard to the "all-ascending" ordering of the 10 classes of signs. A ~ ~ E B ~ ~ ~ J ~ ~ F ~ ~ ~ H C ~ ~ ~ I ~ ~ G D ALL-ASCENDING (1-2-3) ORDER Sign with regard to own pheno-menologi-cal categ. (& thus of phen. cat. of potential ref. to obj.) Sign w.r.t. phen. cat. of its ref. to obj. Sign w.r.t.phen. cat. of its interp.'s ref. to obj. Examples qualisigns iconic rhematic A. a feeling of "red" / sinsigns \ iconic rhematic B. an individual diagram indexical < rhematic C. a spontaneous cry dicentic D. a weathercock or a photograph /legisigns \ iconic rhematic E. a diagram apart from its factual individuality indexical < rhematic F. a demonstrative pronoun dicentic G. a street cry / symbolic \ rhematic H. a common noun dicentic I. a proposition argumental J. a syllogism Anyway, even with the correction, the triangle below, as I said, isn't the final product. Best, Ben --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Hist-Logic group URL
Google apparently changed the address for the Hist-Logic history of logic group. Try typing http://groups.google.com/group/Hist-Logic in the address bar, and it should come up. Irving H. Anellis [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.peircepublishing.com -- ___ Search for businesses by name, location, or phone number. -Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign
Gary Richmond a écrit : Thanks you Ben and Bernard! Gary Benjamin Udell wrote: Thank you, Bernard! -Ben Fig 1 and Fig. 2 seem to be identical except that the second one has colors which indicate explicitly that there are rows and columns. But the third figure seems to focus on the first trichotomy by developing the previous figure from the particular point of view of this first trichotomy. Ben: is there some hidden meaning when you turn the descriptors of the first trichotomy to plural? In fact, the developped graph formula in Fig. 3 seems to me to have the disadvantage of loosing the idea of a tabular representation in favour of a weaker list representation (three trichotomies related by the simple idea of sequence). I think that the great merit of the Peirce's proposal is that his classification is definitely closed when considered in its tabular form: the sum of the parts make the whole. This is a revolution because since Porphyrus and Aristotle we where used to classify by means of trees (built on the criteria of kinds and species). The main problems of such graphs has been shown in Artificial Intelligence: 1) they can be expanded infinitely in the bottom direction and there is no criteria for stopping and 2) there is no means to distinguish concepts from concepts' instances May be Ben your successive figure transformations and particularly the last one are designed in order to add further a fourth trichotomy (quadritomy ?) to the initial list of three ? As an aside I am now reading some writings from Lacan. Do you know Ben that he ruminated over some problem which looks like yours (at least from the point of view of Form). He had got a triadic system (Real, Symbolic, Imaginary) which he thought as making together a borromean knot. But he felt that it could have a fourth element that he figured as being the node formed by the three initial elements. I sometimes wonder whether your fourth category is not in part such a node formed by the three genuine ones. Bernard Fig.1 Qualisign Sinsign Legisign Icon Index Symbol Rheme Dicisign Argument Fig.2 qualisigns – iconic – rhematic / sinsigns \ iconic – rhematic indexical < rhematic dicentic / legisigns \ iconic – rhematic indexical < rhematic dicentic / symbolic \ rhematic dicentic argumental Fig.3 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
