[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Frances Kelly wrote:

Frances to Jean-Marc...

  


Hi, see the quote below - it's from the collected papers 1.365.

especially:
"... besides genuine Secondness, there is a degenerate sort *which does 
not exist as such*, but is only so conceived."


Peirce calls them 'internal', 'relations of reason', 'degenerate thirds, 
seconds'.


Firsts have no degenerate species.

One can say without much of a doubt that the Firsts, Seconds and Thirds 
used to refer to the elements of a triadic relation (taken with respect 
to one another of course) are of that type. Their existence is due to 
the mind that creates them by analysing the relation.


see also CP 1.530



This muse is somewhat off topic, but may be related to the subject.
You recently stated here that Peirce wrote some thirds and seconds are
degenerate, which means that they have no real existence. The
statement that degenerate categories have no real existence is
intriguing, but it does confuse me somewhat in that my understanding
of Peircean degeneracy is that such categories will have real
existence, but will fail to be true to the conditions of their ground.
In regard to symbols for example, there are three categories called
abstract symbols and singular symbols and genuine symbols, but only
genuine symbols are not degenerate, because they are faithful to their
conventional ground in that they are formally arbitrary, unlike the
other symbols. In any event, degenerate symbols and genuine symbols
would both continue to have real existence, regardless of the absence
or presence of degeneracy.

At issue here perhaps is likely the strict Peircean meaning of such
terms as "object" and "real" and "existence" in that say representamen
that are not signs have no objects, and are not real if not sensed,
yet might have existence as representamen even if not sensed and not
real. My reading of meaning into these Peircean terms may of course be
off base here. The term "have" here for the thing categories might
possess as a sensible objective property, independent of say life and
mind, is also a problem for me. For example, would genuine symbols
like some lingual words "have" existence or "have" arbitrarity within
their form, merely waiting to be sensed and thus be real. The
dependence of reality on sense also seems to imply that what is real
might be a mental construct, unlike factuality and even actuality
which might be held as a material construct. In other words, if an
existent fact and whether it is actual or not is not sensed, then it
simply is not real, so that a fact is only as real as sense.


Jean-Marc Orliaguet partly wrote...

"Peirce was a "three-category realist" acknowledging the reality of
Firsts and Seconds and Thirds early on. ...Peirce acknowledged the
reality of actuality or of secondness...the reality of firsts (the
universe of possibility) and of course the reality of thirdness (the
universe of thought or signs)...However he wrote that some thirds and
seconds are degenerate, meaning that they have no real existence."


  




Peirce: CP 1.365ššš
>ššš365. Thus, the whole book being nothing but a continual
exemplification of the triad of ideas, we need linger no longer upon
this preliminary exposition of them. There is, however, one feature of
them upon which it is quite indispensable to dwell. It is that there
are two distinct grades of Secondness and three grades of Thirdness.
There is a close analogy to this in geometry. Conic sections are
either the curves usually so called, or they are pairs of straight
lines. A pair of straight lines is called a degenerate conic. So plane
cubic curves are either the genuine curves of the third order, or they
are conics paired with straight lines, or they consist of three
straight lines; so that there are the two orders of degenerate cubics.
Nearly in this same way, besides genuine Secondness, there is a
degenerate sort which does not exist as such, but is only so
conceived. The medieval logicians (following a hint of Aristotle)
distinguished between real relations and relations of reason. A real
relation subsists in virtue of a fact which would be totally
impossible were either of the related objects destroyed; while a
relation of reason subsists in virtue of two facts, one only of which
would disappear on the annihilation of either of the relates. Such are
all resemblances: for any two objects in nature resemble each other,
and indeed in themselves just as much as any other two; it is only
with reference to our senses and needs that one resemblance counts for
more than another. Rumford and Franklin resembled each other by virtue
of being both Americans; but either would have been just as much an
American if the other had never lived. On the other hand, the fact
that Cain killed Abel cannot be stated as a mere aggregate of two
facts, one concerning Cain and the other concern

[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Arnold Shepperson wrote:

Jean-Marc, Patrick
 
Patrick has a point in that Peirce's categories are such that in 
representation the higher-order presupposes the lower (is that the way 
to use `presuppose, by the way?).  Jean-Marc equally has a point in 
noting that Peirce became a `Three-Category Realist' in his later 
thinking.  Both points seem to highlight the role of transitivity in 
Peirce's thought, and perhaps the more solid sources for understanding 
this may be found in his mathematical writings, I would guess.  Also, 
the Logic Notebook perhaps has more pertinent material than the CP, 
the editorial dismemebrment of which is well enough known.
 
Cheers
 
Arnold Shepperson
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Hi, I don't think there's any contradiction. semiosis being an 
inferential process that "reconstructs" the forms of reality, a third 
can be created by a combination of a dyad with a monad. A second will 
evolve into a Third.  This will be an "internal" third or degenerate 
third, a third by construction --call it what you like. but a third anyway.


the only forms that are directly experienced from reality are the 
Seconds -- with which we experience the "clash" to use a Peirce 
expression.  Thirds are constructed by inference. Firsts are embedded in 
Seconds.


the phenomenological approach which consists in studying how forms can 
be combined together have the advantage that there is no need to resort 
to teleology to explain how these forms (First, Second, Thirds) "can be 
seen to emerge" from semiosis.


PS: this is an interesting discussion but I'm off the list for a while...

Regards
/JM


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[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Patrick Coppock wrote:

At 0:11 -0400 25-06-2006, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:

I will be at the Whitehead Conference in Salzburg next week so I do 
not anticipate much time for replies.

...
However, for us to believe that Firsts, Seconds and Thirds actually 
"exist", beyond their being mere transitory events in an ongoing 
semiosic process, would be fallibilistic in Peirce's terms, or a 
"Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness" in Whitehead's terms.


Not at all.
Peirce was a "three-category realist", acknowledging the reality fo 
Firsts, Seconds and Thirds early on. What you call "Fallacy of Misplaced 
Concreteness" is just another word for "nominalism" in that context. 
Peirce was not a nominalist.


Peirce acknowledge the reality of actuality or of secondness (around 
1890). Look for "outward clash", or  "Scotus" in the CPs and his 
criticism of Hegel's idealism.


He acknowledged the reality of firsts (the universe of possibility), and 
of course the reality of thirdness (the universe of thought or signs) I 
don't have the exact references, but that's not too difficult to find if 
you go through the Collected Papers, look for "nominalism", "realism", 
"idealism" ...


However he wrote that some thirds and seconds are degenerate, meaning 
that they have no real existence.


Regards
/JM


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[peirce-l] Re: First, second, third, etc.

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary,

no hard feelings!

everything is fine.

/JM

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[peirce-l] triad != trichotomy !!

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

A triad is not a trichotomy!
This is the source of a lot of confusion. I understood that by reading 
Gary's article. Now everything makes sense.


- A triad is a relation between three things
- A trichotomy is a division of something into three things

1) the TRICHOTOMIES of signs lead to the following divisions:
- qualisign (1) sinsign (2) legisign (3)
- icon (1) index (2) symbol (3)
- Rheme (1) Dicisign (2) Argument (3)

the 3 divisions obtained by trichotomies cannot have their place 
interchanged, a qualisign is associated to firstness and it will never 
be associated with secondness inside this division. The reason is that 
the categories themselves are used to perform the trichotomies. This is 
settled I think there is no discussion about that.


2) (S, O, I) however is a TRIAD, a genuine triad. Not a trichotomy... 
The elements of the relations are obtained by a triadic analysis - not 
through a "trichotomic" analysis. There is no reason why their position 
cannot change.


this seems to be the source of a lot of confusion.

PS: I won't have too much time to participate on the list these coming days.

/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: First, second, third, etc.

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:

I will let you have the last word. Stay calm.


JO: I am perfectly calm.



well, I took a look at your powerpoint slides and read the article on 
the peirce-l site, to see what you meant with "opening your mind". I can 
tell that you straight-away that I hadn't missed anything with not 
"opening it". You are representing triads using triangles, that only 
puts me off. Then basically your entire theory about trikons is about 
associating the categories 1, 2 and 3 with all sorts of concepts 
(possibility, actuality, necessity, feeling, action-reaction, thought) I 
don't see the added-value, you can find this is in the collected papers 
already.


sorry I just don't buy the semi-technical, 
"wanna-appear-like-a-mathematician" type of theories, "trikons of 
trikons" and with vectors everywhere and fancy diagrams in 
three-dimension. I missed the reference to quantum mechanics.


as to the reference to Peirce, it is clear that you are using his name 
to get people's interest.


it might sound harsh, but this is really what I think.

thank you for letting me have the last word. I won't comment more on this.

/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: First, second, third, etc.

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:

  
  
  I am appalled at the fact that one can
confuse
these two aspects, it reveals a complete misunderstanding of Peirce's
categories.
  
  
You' are "appalled" at certain scholars' "complete misunderstanding of 
Peirce's categories." That is to say, you have closed your mind to
anything but your own decidedly narrow way of looking at things==you
are completely right, anyone who thinks otherwise is completely wrong
("complete misunderstanding"). But at least we who don't see it your
  way are in good company. Peirce himself you suggest writes
truisms,
so
  
CP 1.537 Now in genuine Thirdness, the
first,
the second, and the third are all three of the nature of thirds, or
thought, while in respect to one another they are first, second, and
third.

JO: this is almost a Lapalissade, what is Peirce saying here?
nothing more than that in a triadic relation, there are three things, a
first thing, a second thing and a third thing.  (I'm using
non-capitalized words for ordinals and the capitalized words 'First',
'Second', 'Third' to denote classes of relations or categories)
So either Peirce is a fool or his critic is. Peirce is no fool
  
You don't seriously inquire but look for confirmation of your own set
in stone viewpoint (the complete opposite of Peirce's procedure which
was endlessly self-critical), and perhaps only an ament--this English
word has several meanings, but  I'm using it in the sense of "one with
a short memory"--in this case of many places where your arguments were
proven weak or questionable by certain participants this forum (not
that you ever addressed any of that; how could you? it would
have suggested that you might not be "completely" right), I say only an
ament would act as you have in this recent discussion, forgetting that
inquiry & the growth of knowledge is a threaded cable as Peirce
said. I myself have nothing more to say to you here. If I am "appalled"
by anything, it is that chauvinism should again try to pass for
scholarship. 


my comments have been no match with the level of your insults, Gary. I
only said that writing that there were three things in a triad (a
first, a second and a third) is a truism (of course you extrapolated by
claiming that I meant that Peirce wrote truisms) Also I said that I was
appalled by the fact that one can confuse ontological categories with
ordinals. It is my right to be appalled.

in response to that you call me all possible names (a chauvinist, a
fool, a narrow-minded person, stubborn, one with a short memory...)

I will remind you that you started by questioning the validity of the
argument that I was defending in a previous mail with a condescending:

==
Gary (06/23/06) "It is elementary stuff for tout le monde (excepting
apparently a few) and for the very good reasons offered in your recent
analysis, at least for those with minds open to 'see' (not to suggest
that Jim's isn't open--but can he see? :-)
==

should I conclude that if one doesn't "see" as you do, one is
narrow-minded?

also you are at the same insulting everyone who is presenting the same
view as I am (i.e. Bernard a few hours ago, R.Marty in 1997 :-)
although I doubt he changed his mind since then?, and Andre de Tienne
who wrote an article on the elements of the triad).

are all these people narrow-minded too in your opinion? or would you
accept the fact that one has a different point of view from yours?

PS: I know that you can sometimes overreact so I won't take offense. I
am perfectly calm.

/JM
 

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[peirce-l] Re: First, second, third, etc.

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Bernard Morand wrote:

Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:



Here is an article that I scanned some time ago, it was written by 
Andre de Tienne:


http://www.medic.chalmers.se/~jmo/semiotic/Peirce_s_semiotic_monism.pdf

the first page is missing, but I think than anyone interested in 
signs and in triadic relations should read it.


to summarize: being a 'first', 'second' or 'third' within a genuine 
triadic relation (like in S, O, I) is a role, a function that the 
elements have with respect to one another (i.e. being something, 
being something else, being something that mediate between the other 
two elements), it is not a property attached to the sign, the object 
or the interpretant forever. The order of the elements (1, 2, 3) are 
like ordinal labels: they can change roles, because their function 
changes depending on how the relation is being analysed.


Yes I agree. May be the inverse argument makes things clearer: If the 
functional role of each element is determined by some categorial 
intrinsic quality of it, then the Categories (qua system) are nothing 
but an ontology for objects. This is precisely what Peirces' semiotic  
was struggling against, I think.


This is also the aim of my little game. If you take "Protected 
Designation of Origin" (PDO) as a compound of elements each of which 
is capable of an intrinsic categorial determination, we will get:

Origin = 1 because it bears the value of Firstness
Designation = 2 because it is a Reaction, an agent/patient pattern,  
between something that is pointed at and its name

Protected = 3 because it mediates betwen the designation and the origin.

But a relational analysis, that is to say the analysis of the roles of 
each partial element INTO the whole sign (Let PDO to stand for such a 
sign), shows:

- Designation for PDO remains a Second
while:
- Protected for PDO is a First
- Origin for PDO is a Third
Conclusion: The Origin is the interpretant of the Protection system 
for its object, the Designation : Some place in the South West of 
France is the interpretant of the AOC for Bordeaux.
The demonstration is quite complex because it involves a combination 
of rules given by CSP in CP 2.235, 2.236, 2.237 and I skip it:
- 

235. We must distinguish between the First, Second, and Third 
Correlate of any triadic relation.
The First Correlate is that one of the three which is regarded as 
of the simplest nature, being a mere possibility if any one of the 
three is of that nature, and not being a law unless all three are of 
that nature.
236. The Third Correlate is that one of the three which is regarded as 
of the most complex nature, being a law if any one of the three is a 
law, and not being a mere possibility unless all three are of that 
nature.
237. The Second Correlate is that one of the three which is regarded 
as of middling complexity, so that if any two are of the same nature, 
as to being either mere possibilities, actual existences, or laws, 
then the Second Correlate is of that same nature, while if the three 
are all of different natures, the Second Correlate is an actual 
existence.

--

The linguistic aspect of the game, and the syntactic habit in 
different languages is worth noticing too. The necessary linear 
structure of the linguistic chain can't mark easily such a triadic 
construction.  So we have virtually the ambiguity in every language: 
Protected (Designation of Origin) / (Protected Designation) of Origin. 
However the syntactic habit (inverse in French and in English) spares 
the complex calculus of knowing which is S, O or I by constraining 
their position in the chain. For example English puts the sign 
"Protected" at the head of the chain while French puts it at the tail.


Bernard


exactly, one can note that the expression used by Peirce is "the one of 
the three which is regarded as ..." which makes it clear as you say that 
the categories used in that context have no ontological bearings. They 
are extremely weak categories, degenerate categories, relations of 
reason, ...


basically take one thing (A), take another thing (B) and you have a 
first (A) and a second (B), the firstness and the secondness here mean 
nothing more than "A is such as it is" and "B is other than A",  in the 
context of the relation that is being considered.


however when Peirce writes "being a mere possibility, actual existences, 
or laws" or "of that nature" he is referring to the phenomenological 
nature of the elements in their ontological aspect.


I am appalled at the fact that one can confuse these two aspects, it 
reveals a complete misunderstanding of Peirce's categories.


/JM




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[peirce-l] First, second, third, etc.

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Here is an article that I scanned some time ago, it was written by Andre 
de Tienne:


http://www.medic.chalmers.se/~jmo/semiotic/Peirce_s_semiotic_monism.pdf

the first page is missing, but I think than anyone interested in signs 
and in triadic relations should read it.


to summarize: being a 'first', 'second' or 'third' within a genuine 
triadic relation (like in S, O, I) is a role, a function that the 
elements have with respect to one another (i.e. being something, being 
something else, being something that mediate between the other two 
elements), it is not a property attached to the sign, the object or the 
interpretant forever. The order of the elements (1, 2, 3) are like 
ordinal labels: they can change roles, because their function changes 
depending on how the relation is being analysed.


as a consequence the object and the interpretant too can mediate between 
the other two elements of the relation.



here are some excepts:

"... The function of a given element can vary, depending on the 
perspective taken in the analysis of the triad. It can thus happen that 
an element that was considered as a third from a certain perspective A, 
will be considered as a second or a first from a different perspective B 
or C. This is possible because the elements are not considered in their 
categorial hierarchy, but in their functional identity. I will soon draw 
extensively on this important feature.In the third place, Peirce makes 
in his theory of the categories the crucial"


"Peirce's favorite word to characterize thirdness is mediation. A third 
is a medium between a first and a second. If each of the correlates of a 
genuine triad is a third, that means that each of them is something that 
mediates between the other two correlates. This much granted, let us 
examine in this light the triadic sign. Peirce's general definition of 
the sign is that which stands for an object to an interpretant. What we 
have here are the three terms of a purportedly genuine triad: sign, 
object and interpretant. Each is a third - each can thus be viewed as a 
mediating term."



Please read it, Gary, Ben & co maybe it will provide you with some 
valuable information.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: A sign as First or third...

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:

Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:
PS: this is a detail, but you probably meant "genuine triadic 
relationship" instead of "genuine trichotomic relationship" 
("trichotomic" means something that divides something into 3 parts, 
while "genuinely triadic" means something that connects three things 
into one)
No, I meant trichotomic as Peirce uses it in such works as Trichotomic 
and A Guess at the Riddle. I mean it /exactly/ as Peirce uses it.


Jean-Marc, as did Ben earlier, I feel the game is over. But thank you 
again for helping to provide the opportunity to think these matters 
through.


Gary


however Peirce never used the expression "trichotomic relation", so I 
don't know what you mean. What is the difference with a "triadic relation"?


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: A sign as First or third...

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:

  
  
Jean-Marc, List,
  
Please see my most recent post addressed to Jim for what should serve
as a response to your question. My argument there in a nutshell is that
in a genuine trichotomic relationship all elements do in one
sense mediate between the others and even necessarily so or it
would not be a genuine trichotomic relationship; but as soon as
one begins to take into consideration categorial associations in some
context, then a particular order (one of six possible ones, which I
call trikonic vectors following Parmentier)   matters, both as
to categorial association and their logical and/or temporal movement.
However there are frequently several orders (vectors) of possible
importance once could consider.

this is impossible: if only the sign mediates between the object and
the interpretant then the relation is by definition not a genuine
triadic relation. 
It will be degenerate, it is quite clear in the following text:

1.274
A Sign, or Representamen, is a First which stands in such a genuine
triadic relation to a Second, called its Object, as to be capable
of determining a Third, called its Interpretant, to assume the same
triadic relation to its Object in which it stands itself to the same
Object. The triadic relation is genuine, that is its three members are
bound together by it in a way that does not consist in any complexus of
dyadic relations. That is the reason the Interpretant, or Third,
cannot stand in a mere dyadic relation to the Object, but must stand in
such a relation to it as the Representamen itself does.

this is true of signs "in context" with all the determinations you like.

PS: this is a detail, but you probably meant "genuine triadic
relationship" instead of "genuine trichotomic relationship"
("trichotomic" means something that divides something into 3 parts,
while "genuinely triadic" means something that connects three things
into one)

/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: A sign as First or third...

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:
JO: Now when a first thing among the three is considered in itself 
(i.e as a First *within the relation*), the second thing can then be 
considered as "other than" the first (i.e. as a Second in opposition 
to the first thing *still within the relation*), and the third thing 
is considered as mediating between the first and the second, (i.e in 
its role as a Third). There you have both the categories and the 
ordinals.

*
order has no importance. *[emphasis added] 
It is not correct to conclude as Jean-Marc does that " order has no 
importance." Let's take the order Jean-Marc employs, what I've called 
the Hegelian order, but which is also Peirce's order of 
something/other/medium. Can one start with medium? Of course not! So 
even dialectic demands and precisely /is /this order 1st, thesis, 2nd 
antithesis, 3rd synthesis.Can one start with antithesis or synthesis? 
Of course not!


I agree but this is not comparable at all (see below)


Take any member of the relation, it will mediate between the other two.
This has just been disproved, again in his sense that "order has no 
importance" at this level of analysis.


So again, and in my opinion, Peirce is not expressing a "truism" here, 
but rather, like so much else that can result from prepared, 
clear-headed and open-minded diagram observation (at least since 
Euclid ) it may be seen to be a "self-evident truth."


Gary, sorry I didn't find anything in your "demonstration" that is in 
contradiction with what I wrote earlier. You write "This has just been 
disproved" but you have only shown that in the Hegelian dialiectic the 3 
moments cannot be interchanged, I never claimed they could... We are 
concerned with genuine triadic relations and the 
thesis/antithesis/synthesis (which by the way Hegel never called with 
these terms) is a degenerate one.


to be more on the topic, are you interested in Andr¨ De Tienne's article 
in which he shows in a 6-page article how:


- the sign mediates between the object and the interpretant
- the object mediates between the sign and the interpretant
- the interpretant mediates between the sign and the object

and based on Peirce's writings?

he writes for instance:

"... On the one hand, we can take this to mean that in a genuine triad, 
the “first” is a first of a third, the “second” is a second of a third, 
and the “third” is a third of a third, so that we are in fact working 
with two different categorial levels, one being the level of firstness, 
secondness, and thirdness, and the other the level of firstness of 
thirdness, secondness of thirdness, and thirdness of thirdness. This is 
certainly correct, but I repeat, not sufficient. One should also 
consider that each “third” element of the triad can be a “third of a 
third”, that is, a mediating element between the other two."


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: A sign as First or third...

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:

  
  
Jean-Marc,
  
You wrote:
  
1) we have the terms 'second', 'third' (without capital letter) without
referent.
  
The text which originally prompted this discussion is:
  1. 274. A Sign, or Representamen, is a First
which stands in such a genuine triadic relation to a Second, called its
Object, as to be capable of determining a Third, called its
Interpretant, to assume the same triadic relation to its Object in
which it stands itself to the same Object. 
It is quite true that Peirce doesn't always capitalize ordinals. As
I've contemplated the structure of the above passage what strikes me,
however, as most significant is the combination of the article 'a'
connected to the capitalized _expression_, for example "a Third". In all
the English speaking world if one simply wanted to say "this follows
this follows this" one would say something like "A Sign stands, first,
in relation to x, second in relation to, etc."  never "a
First". A First here  means a categorial something, one of the
three elements of a "genuine triadic relation" at
this level of analysis.
  


although this is not how I understand it either -- they are not adverbs
like "first", "secondly", "thirdly". I understand it as:

    A Sign, or Representamen, is a first
[thing] which stands in such a genuine triadic relation to a second
[thing] 


as it is written in:

    A sign may be defined as something (not necessarily
existent) which is
so determined by a second something called its Object that it
will tend
in its turn to determine a third something called its
Interpretant


would you say in the sentence above that "a second something" and a
"third something" are categorial (whatever "categorial" might mean to
you)? 


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: A sign as First or third...

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

For the record, here some more definitions where the use of English
grammar is not entirely consistent.

Is it a question of prestige or can't anyone who was so 100% positive
that these cannot be ordinal labels comment on this?


1) we have the terms 'second', 'third' (without capital letter) without
referent.

1903 - C.P. 1-541 - Lowell Lectures: Lecture III, vol. 21, 3d
Draught .
My definition of a representamen is as follow:
A
REPRESENTAMEN is a subject of a triadic relation TO a second,
called
its OBJECT, FOR a third, called is INTERPRETANT, this triadic
relation
being such that the REPRESENTAMEN determines its interpretant to stand
in the same triadic relation to the same object for some interpretant.
-

2) here Peirce uses 'First', 'Second' and 'Third' as adjectives: 

1903 - C.P. 2_242 - Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations,
as far as they are determined .
A Representamen is the First Correlate of a triadic relation,
the
Second Correlate being termed its Object, and the possible Third
Correlate being termed its Interpretant,

-

3) here Peirce uses 'first', 'second', 'third' as adjectives with a
noun: 'something', a 'second something', a 'third something',

1906 - MS 292. Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism .
A sign may be defined as something (not necessarily
existent) which is
so determined by a second something called its Object that it
will tend
in its turn to determine a third something called its
Interpretant


source: http://www.univ-perp.fr/see/rch/lts/MARTY/76defeng.htm

/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:

  
  
...btw, do you or anyone else
know of any other place where he refers to 'sign' as a third?)  I know
only of this one, which I think may illuminate the passage being
considered in so far as Peirce notes that "in genuine Thirdness, the
first, the second, and the third are all three of the nature of
thirds."
  CP 1.537 Now in genuine Thirdness, the first,
the second, and the third are all three of the nature of thirds, or
thought, while in respect to one another they are first, second, and
third. 


this is almost a Lapalissade, what is Peirce saying here?
nothing more than that in a triadic relation, there are three things, a
first thing, a second thing and a third thing.  (I'm using
non-capitalized words for ordinals and the capitalized words 'First',
'Second', 'Third' to denote classes of relations or categories)

Take any of these 3 things and they will mediate between the one
(first) and the other (second).

this is true of all 3 members of the relation, that is to say that all
members
are genuine Thirds in that they mediate between a first member and
another member of the relation.

which one *is* the first, which one *is* the second, which one *is* the
third?
the question makes no sense. Give me the relation, then I'll tell you
which members, within the relation, is the first, the second and the
third relate..
 
Now when a first thing among the three is considered in itself (i.e as
a First *within the relation*), the second thing can then be considered
as "other than" the first (i.e. as a Second  in opposition to the first
thing *still within the relation*), and the third thing is considered
as mediating between the first and the second, (i.e in its role as a
Third). There you have both the categories and the ordinals.

order has no importance. Take any member of the relation, it will
mediate between the other two.

then there is the phenomenological nature of the elements that are in
the relation, when we say, the sign is a quality (a First) or an
existent (a Second) or a law (a Third), this is again different from
what's described above.

there are also different forms of connections between the elements of
the relation (by Firstness, by Secondness, or by Thirdness) when
describing the relations between the relates (S-O and S-I for instance)

/JM



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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Benjamin Udell wrote:

  Aw Jim, you're a trouble maker!

  
  

  66~~
*A _Sign_, or _Representamen_, is a First which stands in such genuine triadic relation to a Second, called its _Object_, as to be capable of detemining a Third, called its _Interpretant, to assume the same triadic relation to its Object in which it stands itself to the same Object.*
~~99
  

  
  
Normal English? With capitalization of the ordinals, no less? In English we would say a "given thing," "a second thing," etc. English is characterized by intransigent normalcy. So Peirce is going to use some capitalized ordinals without explicit referents, as if he were talking about Firsts, Seconds, & Thirds in the usual Peirce way, in order to say simply "something," "another thing," and "a third thing"? Peirce is complicated but he is not sadistic toward the reader.
  


but that's exactly what Peirce says in 2.92:

"A Sign is anything which is related to a Second thing,
its Object, in respect to a Quality, in such a way as to bring a Third
thing, its Interpretant, into relation to the same Object, and that
in such a way as to bring a Fourth into relation to that Object
in the same form, ad infinitum."

in other texts Peirce simply wrote "a Second ..." dropping the noun
which he probably thought was redundant and did not add any
information. Sometimes he writes explicitly "Category the Second", or
"of the nature of the Second" - in that case there is no ambiguity that
this is the category that he's referring to. 

it is ironic that a Frenchman has to teach you Peirce's English, isn't
it ? ;-) 

/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:

Here is a verifying passage:, from the neglected Argument paper

Peirce: CP 6.452
 The word "God," so "capitalized" (as we Americans say), is the 
definable proper name, signifying Ens necessarium; in my belief Really 
creator of all three Universes of Experience.
 Some words shall herein be capitalized when used, not as vernacular, 
but as terms defined. Thus an "idea" is the substance of an actual unitary 
thought or fancy; but "Idea," nearer Plato's idea of {idea}, denotes 
anything whose Being consists in its mere capacity for getting fully 
represented, regardless of any person's faculty or impotence to represent 
it.


Joe Ransdell
  


Why not hit the "search" button again while you're at it?

Here are some texts where Peirce capitalizes words, to refer to ordinals:

CP 4.553
Convention the *Second;*  Of the Matter of the Scripture, and the 
Modality P1 of the Phemes expressed.


CP 4.567
The more scientific way would be to substitute for the *Second* and 
*Third* Permissions the following Permission:


CP 6.472 The purpose of Deduction, that of collecting consequents of the 
hypothesis, having been sufficiently carried out, the inquiry

enters upon its *Third* Stage

CP 2.92 A Sign is anything which is related to* a Second thing*, its 
Object, in respect to a Quality, in such a way as to bring *a Third 
thing*, its Interpretant, into relation to the same Object, and that in 
such a way as to bring *a Fourth *into relation to that Object in the 
same form, ad infinitum.


I don't see how anyone who understands English can claim that "a Second 
thing", "a Third thing" or "a Fourth" do not refer to ordinals but to 
categories.


/JM



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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:

Ben,  list,

It seems to me that you are quite right about the "distinctly 
un-English" use of the ordinals 'First', 'Second' and 'Third' by 
Peirce in the passages being considered. Capitalization is used for 
'terms defined' as he writes, for example, at the beginning of the NA 
and elsewhere.


You quoted Jean-Marc then commented:

J-MO If the sign was a First as you commented on CP 2-274 according to the 
cenopythagorean category Firstness, how would you explain that the sign taken 
in itself can be a quality (a First), an existent (a Second) or of the nature 
of a law (a Third)?
  
BU: It can be a First, a Second, etc., in various ways and respects. This is elementary stuff in Peirce.
It/ is/ elementary stuff for /tout le monde /(excepting apparently a 
few) and for the very good reasons offered in your recent analysis, at 
least for those with minds open to 'see' (not to suggest that Jim's 
isn't open--but can he see? :-)




I know at least 2 other people who don't think that this is elementary, 
and the ability to doubt is a requirement I think to gain knowledge.


1) Jon Awbrey with which you had a similar discussion on arisbe-l a year 
ago.

http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2005-June/002802.html

2) R.Marty in 1997 on peirce-l (I found this mail in my archives, I 
doubt it is available anywhere though since the peirce-l messages were 
not archived at that time)


=
From: "marty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sender: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re:Back to the ground : putting in order the house?

[...] Personally I choose Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness for the 
comprehension and Primans, secondans and tertians for the elements of 
the  extension. Thus one avoids confusions with the words first, second 
and  third used as ordinals, the major confusion occurring with CP 2-274 :


..quote..

A sign, or Representamen, is a First which stands in such a genuine 
triadic relation to a Second, called its Object, as to be capable of 
determining a  Third, called its Interpretant, to assume the same 
triadic relation to its Object in which it stand itself to the same Object.


end of 
quote...


It is clear that the sign isn't always a Priman (a First), otherwise how 
can we understand the classification of the signs in which the sign can 
be a priman, a secundan or a tertian? First , here, cannot be confused 
with "firstness"; using "priman" the confusion is not possible

=


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Benjamin Udell wrote:

Jean-Marc, list

  

It is unfortunate that Peirce used the terms 'First', 'Second' and 'Third' in 
the place of ordinals when he used the same vocabulary for the categories.
In the texts that you chose the terms do not refer to categories, they simply refer to 3 things presented in 
a given order, as in the English language, when you say: "first I will make some coffee", 
"secondly I will get some bread" and "thirdly I'll eat breakfast".



No. Wrong. Referring to "a First" and "a Second" and "a Third" is _not_ normal 
English and certainly not normal written English. It distinctively coheres, rather glaringly to anybody 
fluent in English, with the specific sense lent to that set of forms by Peirce. Peirce's manner of using 
those ordinal words is so distinctly un-English that one sees whole discussions about Peirce which avoid 
quoting him saying such things, because it sounds strange in English.

  

One cannot deduce from that that "making coffee" is firstness, "getting some bread" is 
secondness and that "eating breakfast" in thirdness



  

If the sign was a First as you commented on CP 2-274 according to the 
cenopythagorean category Firstness, how would you explain that the sign taken 
in itself can be a quality (a First), an existent (a Second) or of the nature 
of a law (a Third)?



It can be a First, a Second, etc., in various ways and respects. This is 
elementary stuff in Peirce.

At this point, I honestly think that you are grasping at straws. I'm sorry, but 
it's over.

Best, Ben Udell

  


Ben,

you know the song?

   A B C
   It's easy as, 1 2 3
   As simple as, do re mi

maybe you should consider the following definition, where Peirce to 
avoid any confusion with the categories uses the letters A, B, C.


1902 - NEM IV pp. 20 - 2. Parts of Carnegie Applications .

... Namely, a sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its 
interpretant sign determined or created by it, into the same sort of 
correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in which itself 
stand to C// ...


(source is 
http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/rsources/76defs/76defs.htm)


why would A be firstness, B secondness and C thirdness?


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

before answering, I'd like to comment on an obvious confusion (see below)

Benjamin Udell wrote:

[...]
-- are defined by reference to the Sign, the Object, and the 
Interpretant, respectively.  The Sign is the First, the Object is the 
Second, and the Interpretant is the Third. In CP227-229, which leads 
toward the discussion of the trichotomies:

66~~
*A _/Sign/_, or _/Representamen/_, is a First which stands in such 
genuine triadic relation to a Second, called its _/Object/_, as to be 
capable of detemining a Third, called its _/Interpretant/, to assume 
the same triadic relation to its Object in which it stands itself to 
the same Object.*

~~99
 
So that settles that.
 
[]
 
66~~
*A _/Sign/_, or _/Representamen/_, is a First which stands in such 
genuine triadic relation to a Second, called its _/Object/_, as to be 
capable of detemining a Third, called its _/Interpretant/, to assume 
the same triadic relation to its Object in which it stands itself to 
the same Object.*

~~99
 
In the first trichotomy, the Sign or First is classed in terms of its 
own category. The first trichotomy is of the Sign or First classed in 
terms of _/its own/_ cenopythagorean category, _/irrespectively 
of/_ its Second or Object and _/irrespectively of/_ its Third or 
Interpretant. There's firstness.
 
In the second trichotomy, the Sign or First is classed in terms of its 
relation to its Second. The second trichotomy is of the Sign or First 
classed in terms of the cenopythagorean category of that in _/respect 
or regard/_ of which it represents its Second or Object and 
_/irrespectively of/_ its Third or Interpretant. There's 
secondness. (If said respect/regard is of a quality, then the 
respect/regard is a ground.)
 
In the third trichotomy, the Sign or First is classed in terms of its 
relation to its Third. The third trichotomy is of the Sign or First 
classed in terms of the cenopythagorean category in which its Third or 
Interpretant will represent the First or Sign as representing its 
Second or Object. There's thirdness.
 
[...]

Best, Ben Udell


It is unfortunate that Peirce used the terms 'First', 'Second' and 
'Third' in the place of ordinals when he used the same vocabulary for 
the categories.


In the texts that you chose the terms do not refer to categories, they 
simply refer to 3 things presented in a given order, as in the English 
language, when you say: "first I will make some coffee", "secondly I 
will get some bread" and "thirdly I'll eat breakfast".


One cannot deduce from that that "making coffee" is firstness, "getting 
some bread" is secondness and that "eating breakfast" in thirdness


If the sign was a First as you commented on CP 2-274 according to the 
cenopythagorean category Firstness, how would you explain that the sign 
taken in itself can be a quality (a First), an existent (a Second) or of 
the nature of a law (a Third)?


this is what I meant in a previous message: you are mixing the 
categories with ordinals. You have just confirmed my earlier intuition.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:
I was intending to warn Ben against adopting a bullying tone toward you, as 
his frustration seemed to be mounting.  Perhaps a mistake on my part but a 
response in part to your own complaints about his tone, which you were 
construing as an attempt to silence you.   Also I had been about to answer 
you with the same point that Ben made and didn't want to feel required to 
duplicate it.


Joe
  


OK,

I searched the web  for trichotomies + categories, found this article 
which I think is symptomatic of the risk entailed by mixing trichotomies 
with categories:


http://www.chass.toronto.edu/french/as-sa/ASSA-No10/No10-A2.html

I reads half-way through the article:
= QUOTE ==
The first division of the three trichotomies is identical with Firstness 
and the representamen, and it consists of Qualisign, Sinsign and 
Legisign. It is worth noticing that the first trichotomy consists of 
(non)sign, i.e. signs which do not relate to anything; they are monadic 
and exist sui generis. But still, they form the basis for the creation 
of meaning.

= END QUOTE ==

there is a confusion here: the first trichotomy is concerned with signs 
that *are* signs - it does not produce "would-be" signs or "non-signs" 
cut from all relations.


this echoes what Bernard mentioned in a previous message, namely the 
false impression that classifications create objects when in reality 
these objects have no existence outside the context of the classification.


/JM


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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:

Ben:
 
I don't think you or your position would lose any credibility by 
letting Jean-Marc have the last word on the matter.   
 
Joe Ransdell


That's unfair in my opionion. Being accused of not answering, I answer 
to Ben with counter-arguments and now the question should be shoved 
under the carpet ...


/JM


- Original Message -
*From:* Benjamin Udell 
*To:* Peirce Discussion Forum 
*Sent:* Wednesday, June 21, 2006 4:14 PM
*Subject:* [peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

Jean-Marc:
 
In reading Joe's response to you, I am reminded that you still

haven't taken a stand on the three main trichotomies and their
categorial correlations. If you do in fact understand the
correlations, you may feel that it destroys your argument to admit
that you understand them. But then it comes to the same thing.
 






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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Benjamin Udell wrote:

Jean-Marc,

You've evaded the question again. So, we can take your default as your tacit 
admission that you don't grasp even the appearance of the categorial 
correlations with the three trichotomies. I suppose that this tacit admission 
of yours is better than nothing, but it is really quite an astonishing 
admission for you to have made. It's not particularly illuminating of the 
philosophical topic when the interlocutor simply abandons the field, but I'll 
take the win.

Best, Ben Udell

  


Ben, this is not meant to get you angry or anything, but it is my right 
to have a different opinion. If it also differs from others' it is OK.


The correlation that you mention -- if there is any -- is not used to 
derive the 10 classes. If there was a correlation it would be 
interesting but for aesthetic considerations. To take an example it is 
possible to derive 28 classes of signs on the basis of 6 or 10 
trichotomies, without considering any correlation between the 
trichotomies and the categories.


the most important aspect for deriving the classes are the relations of 
determination between S, O and I, and the phenomenology of these 
elements when considering all the possible modes of connections between 
them. This is where the categories are getting involved, including their 
degenerate modes.


otherwise for the matter of associating any given trichotomy with a 
category I would associate it with thirdness, because a trichotomy 
always involves 3 things.


And I would associate dichotomies with secondness, and non-divisibility 
with firstness, monads.


/JM



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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Benjamin Udell wrote:

Jean-Marc:
 
In reading Joe's response to you, I am reminded that you still haven't 
taken a stand on the three main trichotomies and their categorial 
correlations. If you do in fact understand the correlations, you may 
feel that it destroys your argument to admit that you understand them. 
But then it comes to the same thing.
 


I have answered to that already: there are no obvious correlations, this 
is a pure guess, an abduction of yours. That many people find it easy to 
draw a correlation does not mean that they are right.


Indeed:
- the first is the trichotomy of the sign in itself
- the second is a trichotomy of the relation between the sign and its 
(dynamic) object
- the third is a trichotomy of the relation between the sign and its 
(final) interpretant


I don't see why you are claiming that the third trichotomy is associated 
to the third category more so than the second trichotomy is. What makes 
you think so?


If you claim so, it is up to you to show why there is a correlation. It 
is not my task, it's yours, and in that case drawing powerpoints is not 
enough. You need to come with some deductive argument, not with a series 
of images in 3D.


Now considering Joe's argument, to answer the post that you are 
referring to, according to which only 3 trichotomies would be 
representative of Peirce's view, and the rest would be speculation, I 
can reply to that argument that even though Peirce did not settle for an 
exact list of trichotomies he did not have any trouble considering that 
there were more than 3. He writes that very explicitly:


==
CP 8.343
...* I base a recognition of ten respects in which Signs may be 
divided*. I do not say that these divisions are enough. But since *every 
one of them turns out to be a trichotomy*, it follows that in order to 
decide what classes of signs result from them, I have 310 or 59049, 
difficult questions to carefully consider; and therefore I will not 
undertake to carry my systematical division of signs any further, but 
will leave that for future explorers.

==

In writing that there is no mention that,  since there are only three 
categories, there also ought to be only three trichotomies and not more.


This only is enough to question the argument according to which you 
claim there is a correlation between the trichotomies and the 
categories. Are the 4th trichotomy and the 5th correlated with some 
fourthness or fifthness, etc ?


I think that you are mixing trichotomies with triads, ordinals and with 
the categories.


PS: Also please stop using such a childish language as "I'll take the 
win", "you lose the argument" ... it is your argument, not mine.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:

Benjamin Udell wrote:

Jean-Marc,

I spoke of the three trichotomies, not the five or six or ten. If you 
don't address what's said, why do you bother sending posts to a place 
like peirce-l?

If you do not address this structure, specifically,

 
the 1st trichotomy pertains to the sign's own category, the 2nd to 
the category in which the sign refers to its object, and the 3rd to 
the category in which the sign entails its interpretant. 


then I think that you lose this argument by sheer default.

Best, Ben UDell.
  


the same three trichotomies that you mention also appear also in the 6 
and the 10 trichotomies in a different order.


you obviously don't understand what you are writing about.
/JM



I make a precision in case you still don't understand my point:

if the 3 trichotomies (S, S-Od, S-If) are ordered in a given way, how 
can you claim that the order of the 3 trichotomies matters if it is 
changes when 3 or 6 other trichotomies are added?


I think that this is a perfectly valid answer to your question. If you 
still don't grasp it I can draw a powerpoint.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Benjamin Udell wrote:

Jean-Marc,

I spoke of the three trichotomies, not the five or six or ten. If you don't 
address what's said, why do you bother sending posts to a place like peirce-l?
If you do not address this structure, specifically,

  
the 1st trichotomy pertains to the sign's own category, 
the 2nd to the category in which the sign refers to its object, and 
the 3rd to the category in which the sign entails its interpretant. 



then I think that you lose this argument by sheer default.

Best, Ben UDell.
  


the same three trichotomies that you mention also appear also in the 6 
and the 10 trichotomies in a different order.


you obviously don't understand what you are writing about.
/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Benjamin Udell wrote:

Jean-Marc, list,

I don't even agree in the end with Peirce's classification but it's pretty obvious that whether one partially or totally orders the 10 classes depends on the criteria. And it's pretty obvious that the trichotomies are ordered (or orderable) in a Peircean categorial way, specifically:  
the 1st trichotomy pertains to the sign's own category, 
the 2nd to the category in which the sign refers to its object, and 
the 3rd to the category in which the sign entails its interpretant. 
If one incorporates this ordering of the trichotomies into the ordering of the classes, then one ends with a complete ordering of the classes. One can also so prioritize as to arrive simply at the partially ordered lattice. This is at least partly a matter of whether one prioritizes the Peircean category of the trichotomy (the ordinality of the "parameter") or the Peircean category of the term IN the trichotomy (the ordinality of the "parametric value"). How does one decide? Well, one looks at it both ways, both ways have their illuminative aspects, so one ends up finally not choosing one way dispensing permanently with the other way. So there seems to be some optionality in how one orders these things. Jean-Marc, however, seems to believe that the ordering question is quite determinate, and leads inevitably to the partial ordering. He does this by dismissing without analyzing the certainly very categorial appearance of the ordering of the trichotomies. Certainly Peirce was quite conscious of this categorial structure of the trichotomies, since his 10-ad of trichotomies is obviously an attempt to extend that structure.


Where most Peirceans seem to regard this matter as settled and fairly simple, 
Jean-Marc differs, which is his right.  But I don't see in any of this thread 
where Jean-Marc addresses what certainly appears to be a Peircean categorial 
orderability of the trichotomies. Instead he has merely asserted that they are 
like categories of male/female and old/young, and he has not actually pursued a 
comparison of his example with the Peircean trichotomies in order to argue for 
his counter-intuitive assertion. So I think that we're still awaiting an 
argument. If this argument is supposed to be in Robert Marty's book, then 
perhaps Jean-Marc can summarize it. If Jean-Marc is unprepared to do that, 
perhaps Robert can do it.

Best, Ben Udell

  


Which "Peirceans" are you thinking of? I'll tell you about the 
Peirceans, concerning the ordering of the trichotomies.


First Peirce, among the Peirceans, gives over the years five different 
orderings of the trichotomies. Beginning with the triad (S, S-Od, S-If), 
then continuing  with the 6 trichotomies (1904 and 1908) in different 
orders and the finally with the ten trichotomies (letter to  Lady Welby 
1908 and 8-344) yet again in different orders - This is summarized on 
page 231 of Marty's book.


None of the orderings are the same, by the way. This is for Peirce's 
account.


Then two other authors Lieb (1977) and Kawama (1976)  listed in the same 
table propose a different ordering of the 10 trichotomies. Marty also 
mentions on the same page that Jappy proposed a non-linear ordering of 
the trichotomies.


Then Marty claimed that some of the trichotomies are redundant. (this is 
summarized in a mail dated 2006/06/16 sent to peirce-l which you most 
likely overlooked.) which would not yield to 66 classes of signs but 
only 28.


Bernard Morand however claims that there is no redundancy and that each 
trichotomy is independent.


is this what you call "settled and fairly simple"? I think you have a 
very simplified understanding of these issues.


Best
/JM




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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

gnusystems wrote:

I'd like to second what Joe says here,

[[ but my own interest in the classification system is not with what can 
be learned from it by manipulating graphical models of it but with 
understanding what use it might have when it comes to understanding how 
to apply it in the analysis and understanding of distinctively 
philosophical problems such as have formed the staple of philosophical 
concern from the time of the Greeks on.   I wonder if anyone knows of 
any attempts to do that. ]]


Specifically, i'm wondering what this classification of signs can 
contribute to the old but still vexed problem of characterizing the 
cognitive "gap" between humans and other animals. One has to put "gap" 
in quotation marks because no one seriously doubts the continuity of the 
evolutionary process which has produced human cognition (though some see 
more "leaps" in the process than others do). There has been some 
empirical progress on this problem recently -- in fact i'm now reviewing 
a recent book on exactly that, for the Journal of Consciousness 
Studies -- but interpreting the data remains a problem of philosophical 
concern; and the same goes for the cognitive development process of 
individual humans. The origin-of-language problem is one aspect of this.


In this light, Joe's (or any) ordinal numbering of Peirce's tenfold 
classification looks much like a developmental sequence. Part of the 
resemblance is that if we look at the two "ends" of the sequence, 
there's no question about which is which. Adult humans are capable of 
handling arguments, while human infants and adult monkeys are not; and i 
would presume that qualisigns are implicit in sentience itself. But 
ordering the "steps" or "stages" in between is much more problematic, 
both logically and empirically. [...]


precisely, there isn't a linear sequence connecting qualitative 
knowledge and symbolic knowledge. This is what the lattice structure 
tells you. There are several paths instead of a linear sequence between 
1 and 10.


this is described in Marty's book - in the chapter about the correlation 
between the lattice and knowledge, epistemology, etc. There is also a 
comparison with Piaget's different stages of intellectual development.


see the original article in:
"S¨miotique de l'¨pist¨mologie" SEMIOSIS 10 (1978), Agis Verlag, Baden 
Baden, pp. 24-37


/JM



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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Bernard Morand wrote:

Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:



the classification is obtained in a deductive the way, but the 
sequence order is arbitrary.


let us say I want to classify a group of people according to 2 
divisions:


- men / women (1st division)
- under age / adult (2nd division)

that's 4 classes, OK?

if I consider the "men / women" division a first dichotomy and the 
"under age / adult" division the second dichotomy, are you saying 
that the classes of people are magically ordered just because of that 
choice?


what are the order relations among the classes of signs? that the 
first question to answer before laying down the numerals


/JM

I think that your example funishes a good basis for reflexion 
Jean-Marc. And I am not sure you are right in this special case. A 
division among men and women is made on the basis of a discriminant, 
the sex. The other division is made on the age as a discriminant. But 
sex and age are two mutually  independant attributes of people.What is 
aimed at is to  distribute a stock of individuals among  four 
pre-given classes. Observe in passing that the purpose is not to 
define what are men or women. This activity is what is called nowadays 
data analysis for which the attributes that make the division are let 
to the choice of the classifier. These attributes can be calculated in 
order to confer some nice or formal properties to the resulting 
classification but in a sense they are arbitrary (dependant on he who 
makes the classification). Note too that the potential list of 
candidate discriminants is infinite.
I think that this is not what is at work with the classification of 
1903. If words could convey good meanings in themselves I would say 
that it is much more a categorization than a classification. There are 
not individual signs in our hands in order to put them in the one box 
or the other. We have a set of characters which are  structured 
according to the law of prescission (and not discrimination) and make 
a system. It is this law which gives a sense to the order of the 
trichotomies and which makes that the attributes used to make the 
classes are not mutually independant. For example if a sign has for 
its object an index, it cannot be an argument,but  it can be a rheme a 
dicisign. The fact that such a categorization does not require any 
individual makes it dependant only on what Peirce sometimes calls the  
"formal structure" of the elements of thought and consciousness (CP 
8.213). An important consequence is that such a classification enables 
to determine all what is possible (and thus impossible) contrary to 
the data analysis tradition which describes what exists. If I was to 
revive some old controversies, I would hold that Peirce was a 
precursor in structuralism :-). However a  natural classification is 
based on genealogy and final cause for Peirce, two criteria that 
structuralism did not bother with.
This is the reason why I was reproaching to Joe the use of plural in 
his figure for qualisigns, sinsigns, legisigns as if they were 
individual class members and not structural elements, as well as the 
separation of the classification into three sub-trees. In fact, it has 
no effect on the surrounding  text but nevertheless I think that the 
presentation of the figure in itself can be misleading. It  conveys an 
idea of the first trichotomy as being more material than formal (and 
also more decisive than the two others)
On the status of classifications for Peirce, there would be something 
worth adding. He often makes a distinction between what he calls 
"natural classes" which are built from the formal structure of 
elements with "artificial classes" which are built for a special 
purpose. I think that his conception of artificial classification is 
very near from the approach taken by data analysis. I wonder whether 
the Welby classification was not an "artificial" one. Peirce had not 
the habit of confusing himself with his scientific study but here he 
says "MY second way of dividing signs". This puzzled me for several 
years.


Bernard



I would say that the only thing that one cannot divide further into 
categories is the monad. Everything else is subject to categorizations 
and thus to classifications.


the result of a classification in the example above would yield the 
following classes:


- man / of age
- woman / of age
- man / under age
- woman / of age

while the categorizations are the divisions:

- man / woman
- of age / under age

then there are no determinations in this example

to get back to the subject. I agree that the classifications involve all 
three aspects - not any one taken individually. One cannot separate 
legisign(s) from the iconic / indexical / symbolic aspects, etc.


this is probably why one can read sometimes that there are theoretically 
27 classes of signs by combination  and only 10 are possible, which is a 
non-sens

[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:

Jean-Marc says:

I am surprised that you are claiming that the classes can be traversed
by a unique, "natural", ordered sequence from 1 to 10 while at the same
time you claim to have come up with a structure similar to a lattice,
these are contradictory assertions.

REPLY:
I made no such claim, I said there is an order and there is, most assuredly, 
an order, and that is not a matter of convention.  It is an order of 
presupposition -- or, from another perspective, of internal complexity --  
and it can be read from top to bottom in the lattice representation. 
Whether or to what extent it can be filled out further is something that has 
to be worked out laboriously by actually thinking the conceptions through, 
as distinct from manipulating graphical representations containing the names 
for the classes,  If the word for the structure is not "lattice" please 
supply the correct one.  I am referring to what Merkle calls by that name in 
his representation of Merrel's and Marty's versions of it.  The one I came 
up with is identical with that one.  I'll send it along in a separate 
message.  The only important difference is that I gave the classes nicknames 
of my own.



Joe Ransdell
  


the numbers on the boxes (1, 2, 3, ...) that you wrote are purely 
conventional. since when you are calling a class '5' and another one '3' 
you imply that "5 is bigger than "3", which in a lattice it is not.


you have to write 3-3-1, 3-3-2, 3-3-3, 1-2-3... to be correct. Check 
Marty's work for a correct presentation.


/JM




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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:

J-MO = Jean-Marc Orliaguet
JR = Joseph Ransdell

J-M:
  

Also note that the various trichotomies are not ordered. It is purely a
convention to call a trichotomy the first, second, or third trichotomy,
etc. So deducing an ordering of the classes from that information only,
as it has been done many times including on this list, is incorrect.



JR:
  

It is not a matter of convention only: the three trichotomies are based on
the difference between firstness, secondness, and thirdness, which is
sufficient in itself to make the ordering of them as first, second, and
third something having informative content of some possible importance.



J-M:
yes, but this does no influence the results in any way, especially this
has nothing to do with ordering the classes. If one started with the
second trichotomy instead of the first, one would get let us say an
(index, sinsign, rheme) instead of a (sinsign, index, rheme) ... but in
a different order if one followed your method (3 would be 5 or something)

no, really... the order relations between the classes of signs comes
from the internal relations of determination between the sign, object
and interpretant. That is totally independent of the way in which you
perform the trichotomies.

REPLY BY JR:
The sequential order is not conventional.  Peirce begins, in CP 2.254 with 
the simplest possible sign, the qualisign,
which is so simple that its peculiar value as a sign can be due to nothing 
other than what it is by hypothesis: sign and object are the same, thus it 
can only be in icon when considered in relation to its object. That same 
simplicity constrains it to be only a rheme by constraining its interpretant 
to being the only thing it can possibly be, the quality which is the sign 
itself.
This is the first class of sign: the rhematic iconic qualisign.  When we get 
to 2.263, nine paragraphs later, for the tenth class
of signs, we have traversed a path of continually increasing complexity 
through the intervening eight classes.  In what sense of complexity?  I 
couldn't describe informatively, at this time, what that sense is, but I can 
say that if you analyze what you have at the end of the process -- the 
argument (i.e. argument symbolic legisign) -- you find that it involves an 
instance of a sign class of the ninth class (the dicent symbol legisgn or, 
for short, the proposition), which in turn involves an instance of the 
eighth and an instance of the seventh, each of which involve signs of still 
prior classes, and so forth until you end at the beginning with the 
qualisign involved.

...
:Joe Ransdell 
  


It increases in complexity, indeed but only for the first 2 and the last 
2 classes in a comparable way (the one being involved in the other); 
apart from these there is no total order hence no "preferred" way to 
order the classes from 1 to 10.


instead they are partially ordered in a lattice and finding 
counter-examples is easy:


1) the dicent indexical legisign involves and is involved in no rhematic 
symbol
2) the dicent sinsign involves and is involved in no rhematic indexical 
legisign

3) the indexical sinsign involves and is involved in no iconic legisign

I am surprised that you are claiming that the classes can be traversed 
by a unique, "natural", ordered sequence from 1 to 10 while at the same 
time you claim to have come up with a structure similar to a lattice, 
these are contradictory assertions.


/JM


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[peirce-l] Re: Sinsign, Legisign, Qualisign - help!

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Gary Richmond wrote:

Jerry,

Here's the 'classic' presentation of qualisign, sinsign, legisign (why 
they are given in the order of the subject of the thread I don't know, 
but the categorial order I just gave them in is as to their firstness, 
secondness, and thirdness). In any event, this is the order in which 
Peirce first presents them.


In earlier texts, the icon / index / symbol was considered the most 
important one and the one from which the other classes were derived.


CP 2.275 ...  The most fundamental [division of signs] is into Icons, 
Indices, and Symbols.


then Peirce continues by dividing icons into images (qualisign), 
diagrams (iconic sinsigns), metaphors (iconic legisigns). These are the 
same classes that you would have found had you started with the 
qualisign / sinsigns / legisign division.


see CP 2.283 for the division of indices

to be honest I think that Peirce gives the divisions in that order 
because when you have several things to talk about ... you have to start 
with the first one before you can start with the second :-) The results 
of the divisions eventually are the same, thank God..


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:

Jean-Marc says:

For the record, it must be added that a lot of the information found in
this very exhaustive piece of work has readily been available to
researchers since the 80s and before, including the work done by Robert
Marty on lattices (see the chapter on 'partially ordered sets' for an
overview of why the linear representation of the classes of signs from 1
to 10 is a bit of a problem...

Also note that the various trichotomies are not ordered. It is purely a
convention to call a trichotomy the first, second, or third trichotomy,
etc. So deducing an ordering of the classes from that information only,
as it has been done many times including on this list, is incorrect.

REPLY:

It is not a matter of convention only: the three trichotomies are based on 
the difference between firstness, secondness, and thirdness, which is 
sufficient in itself to make the ordering of them as first, second, and 
third something having informative content of some possible importance.
  


yes, but this does no influence the results in any way, especially this 
has nothing to do with ordering the classes. If one started with the 
second trichotomy instead of the first, one would get let us say an 
(index, sinsign, rheme) instead of a (sinsign, index, rheme) ... but in 
a different order if one followed your method (3 would be 5 or something)


no, really... the order relations between the classes of signs comes 
from the internal relations of determination between the sign, object 
and interpretant. That is totally independent of the way in which you 
perform the trichotomies.


And I don't recall anyone deducing the ordering of the classes from that 
information only, though I may have overlooked such a demonstration.   Could 
you be more specific about that?  Peirce himself presents the ten classes in 
a certain sequence (CP 2.254-263) which is at least in large part deductive 
in character, though whether or not the deduction that occurs there is based 
on that information only depends upon what you mean by "that information 
only": what information, exactly?  This is not nitpicking.   The question of 
precisely what is going on there is an important one.


Joe Ransdell 
  


the classification is obtained in a deductive the way, but the sequence 
order is arbitrary.


let us say I want to classify a group of people according to 2 divisions:

- men / women (1st division)
- under age / adult (2nd division)

that's 4 classes, OK?

if I consider the "men / women" division a first dichotomy and the 
"under age / adult" division the second dichotomy, are you saying that 
the classes of people are magically ordered just because of that choice?


what are the order relations among the classes of signs? that the first 
question to answer before laying down the numerals


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Benjamin Udell wrote:

Gary, Joe, list,
 
I downloaded the chapter from Merkle's dissertation last night and it 
downloaded quite quickly compared to the daytime when the Internet is 
busier. What graphics! Very little in the way of my shadings, very 
much in the way of exactness and complexity. If somebody asked me to 
do a graphic with, for instance, over 700 relational lines in the 
right places, I'd promise nothing! Amazing stuff. And he brings 
together and compares quite a variety of arrangements of Peircean sign 
classes and related conceptions by various scholars. If the logical 
and mathematical structure across Peirce's signs interests you, hie 
thee to Merkle's chapter 
http://www.dainf.cefetpr.br/~merkle/thesis/CH4.pdf . I saved my copy 
to disk, that way I don't cause him (or his server) bandwidth charges 
by downloading it from his server any time I want to see it.
 
Best, Ben Udell
 
So far I've looked mainly at the graphics.



For the record, it must be added that a lot of the information found in 
this very exhaustive piece of work has readily been available to 
researchers since the 80s and before, including the work done by Robert 
Marty on lattices (see the chapter on 'partially ordered sets' for an 
overview of why the linear representation of the classes of signs from 1 
to 10 is a bit of a problem...


Also note that the various trichotomies are not ordered. It is purely a 
convention to call a trichotomy the first, second, or third trichotomy, 
etc. So deducing an ordering of the classes from that information only, 
as it has been done many times including on this list, is incorrect.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:
 

[image here]

On the high-res picture it is clear that the annotations were added 
afterwards. Compare the line style of the figures and letters (1, 2, 3, 
... B) with Peirce's thicker more irregular feather pen's style. The 
handwriting is differently too compared with other manuscripts.


and why would Peirce write that some words have a brown color?

/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: If a valence of four had been known to Peirce, would he have constructed a logic of firstness, secondness, thirdness and fourthness?

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Jerry LR Chandler wrote:

  
Dear Jean-Marc:
  
  
On May 14, 2006, at 1:08 AM, Peirce Discussion Forum digest wrote:
  
  
  Subject: Re: If a valence of four had been
known to Peirce, would

 he have constructed a logic of firstness, secondness, thirdness and
fourthness?

From: Jean-Marc Orliaguet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 20:13:43 +0200

X-Message-Number: 7


Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


(...)
  
The first quote suggests that Peirce used a direct one to one
  
correspondence relation with the concept of valence as the principle
  
basis for his generalized logic.
  
This in turn suggests a simple bijective correspondence between the
  
concept of chemical valence values and firstness, secondness and
  
thirdness.
  
  
This is very, very surprising to me!
  
Remarkedly simple.
  
But how does this basis justify the generalization to a general system
  
of logic?
  
  
In particular:
  
  
If a valence of four had been known to Peirce, would he have
  
constructed a logic of firstness, secondness, thirdness and fourthness?
  
  


what do you mean? do you think Peirce didn't know about the carbon atom

by that time? and Mendeleev's periodic law of elements, etc. ?


  
  
I suggest that you look at the chronology of events and re-consider
what Peirce might have known and when he might have become aware of it.
  
  
Conflicting theories of valence were plentiful until roughly 1925. 
While no general theory of valence is completely satisfactory today, at
least we understand that chemical bonding is essentially an electrical
phenomena that relates positional distributions of electrons and nuclei
to stability.  Of course, neither the concept of an electron nor of a
nuclei were available to Peirce until near the end of his life.
  
  
  
Cheers
  
  
Jerry LR Chandler
  


This is pure speculation. I consider this excerpt more to the point.

Collected Papers 5.469

==
§2. THE VALENCY OF CONCEPTS

(...) Mendeléeff's classification of the chemical elements, with
which all educated men are, by this time, familiar, affords neat
illustrations of this, since the distinctions between what he calls
"groups," that is to say, the different vertical columns of his table,
consists in the elements of one such "group" entering into different
forms of combination with hydrogen and with oxygen from those of
another group; or as we usually say, their valencies differ; (...)

(...) Thus, the predicate "is blue" is univalent, the predicate "kills"
is bivalent (for the direct and indirect objects are, grammar aside, as
much subjects as is the subject nominative); the predicate "gives" is
trivalent, since A gives B to C, etc. 

Just as the valency of chemistry is an atomic character, so
indecomposable concepts may be bivalent or trivalent. Indeed,
definitions being scrupulously observed, it will be seen to be a truism
to assert that no compound of univalent and bivalent concepts alone can
be trivalent, although a compound of any concept with a trivalent
concept can have at pleasure, a valency higher or lower by one than
that of the former concept. 

Less obvious, yet demonstrable, is the fact that no indecomposable
concept has a higher valency. Among my papers are actual analyses of a
number greater than I care to state. They are mostly more complex than
would be supposed. 

Thus, the relation between the four bonds of an unsymmetrical
carbon atom consists of twenty-four triadic relations. Careful
analysis shows that to the three grades of valency of indecomposable
concepts correspond three classes of characters or predicates. Firstly
come "firstnesses," or positive internal characters of the subject in
itself; secondly come "secondnesses," or brute actions of one subject
or substance on another, regardless of law or of any third subject;
thirdly comes "thirdnesses," or the mental or quasi-mental influence of
one subject on another relatively to a third. 

Since the demonstration of this proposition is too stiff for the
infantile logic of our time (which is rapidly awakening, however), I
have preferred to state it problematically, as a surmise to be verified
by observation. (...)

==

I think it is quite clear that:

- Peirce knew about Mendeleev's periodic table of elements 
- Peirce knew that the carbon atom had 4 bonds.
- Peirce made a difference between the concept of valency and the
concept of indecomposable elements of a relation.
- You don't have access to the Collected Papers.

Regards   
/JM



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[peirce-l] Re: If a valence of four had been known to Peirce, would he have constructed a logic of firstness, secondness, thirdness and fourthness?

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Jerry LR Chandler wrote:


(...)
The first quote suggests that Peirce used a direct one to one 
correspondence relation with the concept of valence as the principle 
basis for his generalized logic.
This in turn suggests a simple bijective correspondence between the 
concept of chemical valence values and firstness, secondness and 
thirdness.


This is very, very surprising to me!
Remarkedly simple.
But how does this basis justify the generalization to a general system 
of logic?


In particular:

If a valence of four had been known to Peirce, would he have 
constructed a logic of firstness, secondness, thirdness and fourthness?




what do you mean? do you think Peirce didn't know about the carbon atom 
by that time? and Mendeleev's periodic law of elements, etc. ?


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: So what is it all about?

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:


Theresa and list:

I notice a blunder in my account in my recent message of the Peirce - Royce 
relationship, namely, a misidentification of the number of the lecture at 
Harvard in which Peirce re-addressed the difference between his and Royce's 
view on the self-representing map, owing to a misreading by me of Turrisi's 
account of the two additional lectures that were added to the originally 
scheduled eight.  That should have been the eighth rather than the seventh 
lecture.  But it is actually a bit more complicated than that, and I will 
return to this in another message which I am currently composing that gets 
into a bit more detail about the relationship of Royce to the 1903 lecture 
series generally.


Joe Ransdell

...

Why is this important? Because it is in knowing who Peirce was addressing
that we are given the clues we need as to why he is saying them. Of course,
this must be shown in detail in interpreting the text, and I intend to do
this. But Jean-Marc and Bernard are quite mistaken, in my opinion, in their
view that it is better just to start from the text without understanding
such matters of context as this. In this case, that means understanding to
whom Peirce is speaking in what he is saying. I cannot think of what reason
they could give for such an interpretational maxim as that.

Joe Ransdell

 



Joe,

as long as the context does not become more important than the text 
itself, it is certainly interesting to know about it, but it feels as if 
you are dismissing the text by doing so.


also very few on the list have access to the context in which Peirce 
wrote that passage.


maybe you should give an account of which parts of the text you find 
"intriguing", or "baffling" since I personally find the content of New 
Elements clearer and more articulate than what Peirce wrote around 
1870-1880.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: So what is it all about?

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Bernard Morand wrote:



I would suggest to take another direction to try answering the 
question of what the New Elements are about. Not to try searching into 
the context of his work at this time, which would certainly be useful 
but for which we will find nothing but indices. It would be more 
fruitful to examine the text we have at hand, some kind of 
"endoporeutic" method if I can say so.




Somehow related, there was a programme on France Culture last week on 
Berkeley where perception, theory vs practise, idealism vs materialism, 
were discussed:


   Commentaires: Berkeley, Trois dialogues entre Hylas et Philonous - 
Emission du 20.01.2006
   
http://www.radiofrance-podcast.net/podcast/16409-20.01.2006-ITEMA_20019448-0.mp3


Otherwise I agree: starting with the text before considering the context 
is sound.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: preliminary remark #1

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:


To those on the list interested in the New Elements discussion:

There seems to me to be enough interest in the project of trying to figure
out what is happening in the New Elements for me to try to get it off to a
sort of official start at this point by making some preliminary remarks
about it in messages with subject headers which will make it as easy as
possible to keep track of what is happening as we go along by making use of
our newfound ability to have recourse to a threaded archive.  (I don't mean
to discourage the discussion as already ongoing, but think it would be a
good idea to make a sort of formalistic beginning to it as well.)  What I
will probably do myself is to continue to handle my mail primarily with
Outlook Express but use a desktop bookmark to go to the Gmane Archive as is
necessary in order to see what kind of order is getting established by the
threading mechanism there. The URL for the archive is:

http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce

or you can use the newsgroup gmane.science.philosophy.peirce for the same
purpose, if you know how to do newsgroups. So I am starting off with the
subject header

 ..

Later,

Joe Ransdell


 



so have you given up on the "direct knowledge" thread already? Why start 
20 new threads when the ones that are ongoing are still dangling?

this is very distracting...

/JM






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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Bill Bailey wrote:

J-Mo:  > interesting notion in this context. Adding glasses or 
telescopes between

> the perceiver and the object perceived does not make the act of
> perception more or less direct in its nature.

Well, I guess it becomes a question of degree at some point.  The 
telescope or microscope might or might not be exactly what we would 
see with the naked eye were it much more powerful, but, certainly, an 
electron microscope yields results that must be interpreted "as if" a 
visual instrument "saw" them.  What is important is what we must know 
about the electron microscope in order to understand what is being 
seen.  That seems to me to be a highly mediated level of knowledge 
that would deserved to be called "indirect."   I do think we need the 
notions of  "immediate" and "mediated," "direct" and "indirect" for 
theoretical discussions.  All we need keep in mind, as I think Peirce 
surely did, that the baseline of information is the medium of some 
type necessary to sign function.




Yes, but the question is not whether one "understands what is being 
seen". This is another issue. Interpretation of what is seen is a 
different process.


compare:

New Elements:
"... We have also direct knowledge of qualities in feeling, peripheral 
and visceral ..."


CP 1.593
"... A peculiar quality of feeling accompanies the first steps of the 
process of forming this impression; but later we have no direct 
consciousness of it. ..."


there is no contradiction because we are comparing different phenomena: 
i.e. direct experience and the memory of the experience.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Bill Bailey wrote:

JR, J-MO, List:  All information occurs in a medium of some kind, so 
immediacy must ultimately be understood more as theoretical than 
actual.  The radiant energy of light striking our eyes is not what the 
optical nerve carries to the brain, but rather electro-chemical 
analogues of it.  It does even make much sense to speak of isomorphism 
between the electro-chemical events of our physiological system and 
the external events that occasion them.  I don't have the expertise to 
claim anything for Peirce, but I can't believe that he meant 
"immediacy" in the sense of wholly unmediated.  I would think he meant 
the term to be understood as "the immediacy of sensory response."  In 
that view, I would think "direct" would refer to knowledge derived 
from perceptual experience and "indirect" would  refer to something 
like the mediation of instrumentation.





Yes, obviously this is why I'm saying that the physical, optical, 
physiological, chemical, materialistic (..) view of perception is not an 
interesting notion in this context. Adding glasses or telescopes between 
the perceiver and the object perceived does not make the act of 
perception more or less direct in its nature.


This is not what Peirce had in mind in New Elements anyway, when he 
wrote "we have direct knowledge of things ...".


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:


J-MO = Jean-Marc Orliaguet
JR = Joe Ransdell

Jean-Marc says:

[J-MO]  I don't really understand the subtle distinctions that you are 
making

between "direct" and "unmediated" and between "indirect" and "mediated",
and in what way they contribute to a better philosophical understanding..

REPLY:

[JR]  The difference in meaning between direct/indirect and 
immediate/mediate is not especially subtle.  They are simply different 
distinctions, as far as normal English usage goes,  For example, as regards 
vision, I am presently perceiving the keyboard of my computer quite directly 
inasmuch as there is nothing intervening between my eyes and the keyboard 
that I would have to get past in order to perceive it.  But whether or not 
my perception of it is mediated is another matter.   In fact, since I wear 
glasses, it is mediated by those lenses, but it is precisely that mediation 
which enables me to perceive it directly rather than making it necessary 
ghgor me to resort to some indirect means of perceiving it.   Peirce's usage 
of these terms is another matter, though.  It is getting clear on those 
disttinctions that is the problem, as I see it, and it is a mistake to 
simply dismiss the difference as unimportant.  I don't claim to have 
accomplished anything in pointing that out other than making a start on 
addressing the problem the difference poses.


 



OK, but the argument is also far-fetched. Theoretically it is always 
possible to find differences between two concepts.
But the question is: why base your entire argumentation on it? It 
appears as though you already know the conclusion and that you are 
trying to adapt the concepts accordingly. I don't see the added value, 
because the approach is suspicious.


And indeed, I don't understand the sentence:

"In fact, since I wear glasses, it is mediated by those lenses, but it is precisely 
that mediation which enables me to perceive it directly"

if you perceive it through glasses then you don't perceive it directly ...

for example: if you perceive Pluto through a powerful telescope, you 
won't perceive the planet directly. Or you might think: "now I see it 
directly", but it is an illusion, you are always depending on the 
telescope, even though it appears as though you see the planet directly. 
The assertion that the perception is direct in the meaning that you give 
to the word "direct" (i.e. nothing *physically* standing in-between) is 
not correct.


I doubt that this is what Peirce was meant to say anyway, otherwise he 
would have written:


"We have a direct knowledge of real objects in every experiential 
reaction PROVIDED that nothing stands in between OR ELSE if that the 
thing that stands in between is really transparent OR even better: it 
has magnifying powers."


but we are not talking about optics are we?

/JM



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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Clark Goble wrote:



On Jan 23, 2006, at 4:57 PM, Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:

Such a sentence as "whether or not direct knowledge is to be  
construed as unmediated" is disturbingly convoluted, especially as  
Peirce does not seem to introduce such distinctions himself.  
Sometimes he uses in a same sentence "direct", as another word for  
"unmediated" or "immediate". I fail to see the rationale for  
introducing a distinction. It is a bit like shoving a needle under  
the fingernails.



I shouldn't try to speak for Joseph, but isn't the fundamental  
question whether our knowledge comes by signs?  If so, then isn't  
that the issue?  It seems when you refer to CP 6.392 I became  
intrigued by whether this was indirect knowledge through something  
else versus direct knowledge yet still via signs.  Not having CP  
handy, could you perhaps expand the quote?  To me my first thought  
would be that the difference is between seeing and object and being  
told about the object's properties.  Is that incorrect?


If we have knowledge that is unmediated in the sense of involving no  
signs, then is that knowledge really knowledge as typically spoken  
of?  If it involves signs, then isn't it mediated by the very meaning  
of signs?


Honestly curious here for some clarification.

Clark Goble
Lextek International
(801) 375-8332





Hi, the quote is taken from the definition of the word "PROXIMATE"

Peirce: CP 6.390 §17. PROXIMATE

6.390. Lat. past participle of proximare, to approach, but it is used to 
translate proximus, next. The word occurs in Glanvil's Vanity of 
Dogmatizing, but in no English treatise on logic before Watts. In 
philosophy, synonymous with IMMEDIATE, though not so strong.


then later on:

Peirce: CP 6.392
392. Proximate knowledge is direct knowledge of a thing, not knowledge 
through something else. Better called direct knowledge.


CP 6.392 Proximate witness, testimony. There is hardly any such thing in 
English law. It is the witness who testifies, not to his own experience, 
but to facts which he knows by the immediate testimony of others.



For what it is worth, the "direct knowledge of a thing, not knowledge 
through something else" cannot occur through signs, otherwise signs 
would not be counted as "something else".


BTW I am not arguing anything, I am just paraphrasing sentences written 
in plain English.


/JM

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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:


Jean-Marc says:

Of course, not to restart an old debate... I am curious about how the
following lines are going to be interpreted:

"We have a direct knowledge of real objects in every experiential
reaction, whether of /Perception/ or of /Exertion/ (the one theoretical,
the other practical). These are directly /hic et nunc/. But we extend
the category, and speak of numberless real objects with which we are not
in direct reaction. We have also direct knowledge of qualities in
feeling, peripheral and visceral. But we extend this category to
numberless characters of which we have no immediate consciousness."

REPLY:

As I recall it, Jean-Marc, the main bone of contention in that earlier
discussion had to do with whether or not direct knowledge is to be 
construed
as unmediated and thus with the relation of the distinction 
direct/indirect
and the distinction immediate/mediate, and this in the context of 
questions

about his analysis of perception generally. I see no reason not to raise
that "old debate" once again in hopes of coming to a better 
understanding of

it than we could agree upon then. I think, though, that I would prefer to
get into that only after we get ourselves better situated in respect 
to what

is going on in general in the New Elements. Overall, I find the rationale
of it baffling. It is not a complete paper of course, but even considered
as only an intended preface to a book on the logic of mathematics, it is
seems puzzlingly incomplete, at the least. Why does he start off with the
theory vs. practice distinction? What does that have to do with the logic
of math? And what exactly does he have in mind in distinguishing the
theoretical from the practical? Is this the same as what we would now
identify as the distinction between theoretical science and 
engineering? Or

what he elsewhere calls practical sciences? Or is it rather the
distinction between the normative science of logic and the normative 
science

of ethics? (A certain parallel with something in John Locke suggests this
possibility to me.) Assuming this was written in 1904, he has been doing
the classification of the sciences stuff for some time, but how does this
distinction fit in with the distinctions he draws there? Maybe I'm 
missing
the obvious, and it may turn out not to be important, anyway, but it 
seems

worth raising a question about initially.

I intended to get a bit further into this, taking up the three 
connections
of the sign with truth in the first part of Part III, which seems to 
me to
parallel the three references (to the ground, to the correlate, and to 
the
interpretant) in the New List, but I'm under siege from something 
flu-like
or maybe a bad cold and getting so groggy I had best stop with this 
much for

the moment.

Joe Ransdell





Here are some quick thoughts:

* the terms needs some clarification.

 I don't really understand the subtle distinctions that you are making 
between "direct" and "unmediated" and between "indirect" and "mediated", 
and in what way they contribute to a better philosophical understanding..


 Such a sentence as "whether or not direct knowledge is to be construed 
as unmediated" is disturbingly convoluted, especially as Peirce does not 
seem to introduce such distinctions himself. Sometimes he uses in a same 
sentence "direct", as another word for "unmediated" or "immediate". I 
fail to see the rationale for introducing a distinction. It is a bit 
like shoving a needle under the fingernails.


For example according to:

  CP 6.392¨ Proximate knowledge is direct knowledge of a thing, not 
knowledge through something else. Better called direct knowledge.


if "knowledge through something else" is "mediated knowledge", then CP 
6.392 simply says that "direct knowledge" is not "mediated knowledge", 
or that "direct knowledge" is "unmediated".  But there is nothing that 
is "construed" here, since these are just definitions of concepts that 
everyone already understands.


 Furthermore, the complex distinctions you introduce make the following 
sentence utterly incomprehensible:
"We have also direct knowledge of qualities in feeling (...) But we 
extend this category to numberless characters of which we have no 
immediate consciousness"


Hence, as a matter of intellectual coherence, it is better not to 
artificially add complexity to concepts that from the beginning are 
simply defined, and that are synonymous.




* The text cited was written in 1904. Peirce's thought evolved a bit 
since the earliest writtings from idealism to realism. It is not 
surprising to find some parts of the text "baffling" from an idealist 
perspective. The following:

"We have a direct knowledge of real objects in every experiential reaction"
is the opposite of idealism for which what can be only directly known 
for sure are ideas.


the same sentence can also be found in:

  CP 1.532-1.532. As to Secondness, I have said that our only direct 
knowledge of it is in willin

[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:

I finally got a transcription of the New Elements manuscript of 1904 up at 
Arisbe.  I thought we might try figuring out what is going on there.  If you 
have a copy of Volume 2 of the Essential Peirce you already have a copy of 
it, but it is helpful to have it in digitized form.  The URL is


  http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/stoicheia/stoicheia.htm

 



Of course, not to restart an old debate... I am curious about how the 
following lines are going to be interpreted:


"We have a direct knowledge of real objects in every experiential 
reaction, whether of /Perception/ or of /Exertion/ (the one theoretical, 
the other practical). These are directly /hic et nunc/. But we extend 
the category, and speak of numberless real objects with which we are not 
in direct reaction. We have also direct knowledge of qualities in 
feeling, peripheral and visceral. But we extend this category to 
numberless characters of which we have no immediate consciousness."


Regards /JM

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[peirce-l] Re: What is RSS?

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Joseph Ransdell wrote:

Does anybody know what "RSS" means or refers to, who would be willing to 
describe it in terms comprehensible to ordinary human beings, like me, who 
lack background in technical expertise in computing?


Joe Ransdell 

 



RSS is just a format for describing a collection of resources published 
on the web (articles, posted news or emails, blog posts, ..).


To syndicate means to convert a list of resources into the RSS format 
(or any other syndication format)


When the RSS content is published on a website and regularly gets 
updated, it becomes available on the web as a "feed", like a news feed.


RSS-compliant readers (such as Firefox) can subscribe to feeds and 
interpret their content to convert it back into standard web links.


To "aggregate" means to collect feeds from different RSS sources to 
create and to publish a new feed.


/JM

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