Jon, Edwina, List, (Just gone 12 here, so post for the 17th qua the restrictions). JAS: "the nature of reality in all of its aspects" is decidedly not "a function of all perceivers and interactors"--by Peirce's own definition as quoted above, it is such as it is regardless of what anyone thinks about it. But if the final interpretant, under ideal conditions, is the truth of the “thing” (or object), then reality would in some sense be a function of perceivers and experiencers—for that interpretant would stand to/for (be interpreted as) such. That is: how do you handle this in terms of the broader teleological argument? That the truth would-be/is the final interpretant, which surely requires, in and out of the ideal, interpretation (semiosis)? And which, surely, is not abstracted from the commens (community, I use it coeval here) which interprets, in theory, said final interpretant. I am, of course, aware of Peirce’s definitions of the real, and so forth (including DO/IO/EO), “whatever it is regardless.” Yet do you—such it appears—think that, in theory at least, such a thing can be known? And if it can be known, I do not see how you can so easily preclude those to whom it would be known. You may say, and I might agree, that it is such whether they come to know it or not—but insofar as they do come to know it, the FI, they surely would play some part here. And in fact, this seems to be precisely Peirce’s point about the community of inquirers: that reality is what it is regardless, but that the “final interpretant” can only be approached through the indefinite process of inquiry, which is always communal, fallible, and yet asymptotically convergent??
Thus, even if the real is independent, the pathway to it—the very possibility of the FI—seems, here, to include interpretation within a community, which means that perceivers/experiencers may not be (or may be?) constitutive of reality itself, but surely are indispensable to the realization and recognition of its truth (in this idea(l)/understanding of what such truth would be qua the final interpretant which presupposes/includes some community of some kind doing some interpretative "work")? Is it whatever it is, the real, regardless of whatever anyone thinks of it except in the instance of infinite inquiry under ideal circumstances, where it would be what? Also "not-regardless" of what people think, for by the final interpretant, they would, in this ideal sense, also "know" it? More questions than statements to be fair. It's an interesting area and I see disagreements. Edwina: I’m not sure what a ‘real flower’ is. Again - that’s partly the point. Mike’s example makes sense to me- he is explaining that the semiosic capacities and Thirdness modes of different species differ and when a human connects with the External Object [ the flower] it produces a particular Interpretant according to the knowledge base [ interpretive capacities, Thirdness] of the human being. And surely, unless I am mistaken, the kind of experience a bee has of a flower, or a flower of a bee, is such a radically ontological difference in experience of said "object" (however termed) that you cannot bridge that? That is, as nominalism and realism was discussed, I wonder if you don't have to be an inverted nominalist — one who would deny the real existence of the human as distinct and universal to some respect — to also claim that we can have the same experience, in knowledge, of a flower as a flower has of a bee or a bee of a flower? I see that as a necessarily unbridgeable gap — knowing about, here, insofar as we do, is not being. I don't see what would change here, over time, in the ideal to remove that obstacle. A human can only experience as a human experience, and so forth... Best Jack ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2025 10:59 PM To: Peirce-L <[email protected]> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Objects and Interpretants (was 3ns and Its Function) List: As I have pointed out previously, in the handful of places where Peirce refers to an "external object," he is not defining a third semiotic object as distinguished from the dynamical and immediate objects. Two such passages are especially relevant. First, "An external object is anything that is not affected by any cognitions, whether about it or not, of the man to whom it is external" (CP 5.525, c. 1905). For any dynamical object of a sign, if it is not affected by my cognitions about anything, then it is an external object to me; but it is also possible for the dynamical object of a sign to be an internal object to me, such as when I describe a dream that I had last night. Second, when we invoke Peirce's maxim of pragmatism, "the real becomes that which is such as it is regardless of what you or I or any of our folks may think it to be. The external becomes that element which is such as it is regardless of what somebody thinks, feels, or does, whether about that external object or about anything else. Accordingly, the external is necessarily real, while the real may or may not be external; nor is anything absolutely external nor absolutely devoid of externality" (CP 8.191, c. 1904). Every external object is a real object, and therefore a possible dynamical object of a sign; and even an internal object is not "absolutely devoid of externality," so it is likewise a possible dynamical object of a sign. Peirce provides semiotic analyses of two different sign tokens in CP 8.314 (EP 2:498, 1909 Mar 14) without ever employing the term "external object." The first sign token is his wife's question, "What sort of a day is it?" Its "Object, as expressed" is what Peirce defines earlier in the same paragraph as "the Immediate Object--the Object as represented in the sign," namely, "the weather at that time." Its "Dynamical Object, which, from the nature of things, the Sign cannot express, which it can only indicate and leave the interpreter to find out by collateral experience," is "the impression which I have presumably derived from peeping between the window curtains." This dynamical object is an external object to Peirce's wife but an internal object to Peirce himself. The second sign token is his answer, "It is a stormy day." As he goes on to explain, "Its Immediate Object is the notion of the present weather so far as this is common to her mind and mine,--not the character of it, but the identity of it," i.e., "the weather at that time"--the same immediate object as the first sign token. However, in this case, "The Dynamical Object is the identity of the actual and Real meteorological conditions at the moment." This dynamical object is an external object to both Peirce and his wife. Notice his emphasis on the fact that the immediate and dynamical objects both have to do with the identity of what the sign is about. Moving on to Mike's example, a real flower is an external object to everyone because it is not affected by anyone's cognitions about anything. We directly perceive and experience the real flower itself when we encounter it--it is the dynamical object of our perceptual judgments and subsequent inferences about the flower, independent of and unaffected by those and any other representations of it. By contrast, "What we understand the flower to be" is our dynamical interpretant of those thoughts, and what we would understand the flower to be under ideal circumstances is their final interpretant. We misunderstand the flower to the extent that our dynamical interpretants deviate from that final interpretant, which is the truth about the flower. Accordingly, "the nature of reality in all of its aspects" is decidedly not "a function of all perceivers and interactors"--by Peirce's own definition as quoted above, it is such as it is regardless of what anyone thinks about it. In my own formulation, reality is the dynamical object of every sign whose final interpretant is the truth--not what any finite community of inquirers actually does affirm, but what an infinite community of inquirers ultimately would affirm. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 10:55 AM Mike Bergman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: List, In my opinion, Edwina keeps pointing to us on the list about the true nature of Peirce's formulation of the triadic process in semiosis. Here is another example. Humans can not see in the UV spectrum, but bees and butterflies do. When we (humans) look at the External Object of certain flowers, the Dynamic Object that we perceive lacks the UV clues seen by pollinators, which act sometimes like runway lights guiding to the nectar sources (for many colorful flowers). We know these UV markers are there because we have been able to enhance our native perceptions with UV filters on cameras and such, so our knowledge of the External Object is somewhat enhanced even though we can not directly perceive these markers. In fact, there are other markers including scents and pheromones that are also beyond our direct perception. What we understand the flower to be (the Dynamic Object) can continually grow and become more refined over time as we add additional sensors and indirect knowledge, but we can never truly know the fulsome External Object. The powerful insight of Peirce was that the nature of reality in all of its aspects is a function of all perceivers and interactors, human or not, individual or not, and it is the combination of all of these interpreters that gets us closer to the full reality of external objects. It is a lesson of humility and says much about what we may each claim to be the 'truth'. Best, Mike On 9/15/2025 9:24 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote: List, Jerry,Jack, Again, I need to define terms.- the External Object and the Dynamic Object: The Dynamic Object is, in my understanding, the 2nd correlate of the Peircean triad [ DO-R-I] . The triadic process begins within the sign-unit or sign-vehicle which holds the Representamen or knowledge base of ‘mediation. The Representamen picks up data from the External Object which data then becomes known as the Dynamic Object. See Peirce’s well known outline of the weather 8.314, where he writes; “This is a sign, whose Object, as expressed is the weather at the that time, but whose dynamical Object is the impression which I have presumably derived from peeping between the window curtains. “ [Note; In this example, the sign unit or sign-vehicle is either Peirce or Mrs. Peirce and my emphasis points out the External Object ]. And “By the way, the dynamical object does not mean something out of the mind. It means something forced upon the mind in perception, but including more than perception reveals. It is an object of actual experience” EPII, p 478 Note – the External Object is ‘the weather at the time’, while the DO is the 2nd correlate of the semiosic triad, the ‘impression of that External ‘weather at the time’. There” are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those reals affect our senses according to regular laws, ….5.384. This is a definition of the External Object. Now- as to Ethics – I’m not sure how it fits in with my comparative outline of Thirdness as ’genuine’ [pure] or degenerate[ affiliated with Secondness and/or Firstness]. I would say only that Ethics is as pointed out in 5.34 is a ‘normative science’ that differentiates between good and bad- and, in particular, uses ” efforts of will’ – which obviously has to mean that it involves Secondness or indexicality. Or- one could conclude that analysis based on ethics is Thirdness-as-Secondness, because it considers the pragmatic effects of the semiosic interaction. Edwina
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