Vinicius, this makes sense to me, but I wouldn't want to try explaining it to someone with no background in semiotic/logic .
Franklin, I can't seem to come to grips with your argument (or questions) because I keep stumbling over phrases like "the quantity of interpretant" which make no sense to me, and right now I don't have the time it would take me to sort these things out, so I'll leave that to others. In a proposition, the subject denotes objects (an indexical function) while the predicate signifies characters (an iconic function), so I associate the index with breadth and the icon with depth; but I don't associate either breadth or depth with the interpretant, so I don't see why you seem to associate the interpretant with depth. But that's all I can say right now. gary f. From: Vinicius Romanini [mailto:vinir...@gmail.com] Sent: 31-Mar-14 3:51 PM To: Frank Ransom Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu 1 Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 5, Semeiotics, or the doctrine of signs Frank, Gary, list Since I raised the question about misrepresentation and misinterpretation "en passant", without going into further analysis, I might indeed have instilled more doubts than clearing the mist (as Deely would put). As I first say, my opinion that misrepresentation is lack of information on the extension (breadth) of a term, while misinterpretation is lack of information on the comprehension (depth) is based on the following reasoning, which I will try to keep as much as possible to level of a non-technical discussion. Peirce does not draw this distinction so clearly, but i think it is implicit in his semeiotic. The received view about logical extension and comprehension when Peirce began his doctrine of signs was that they were a commutative and reversible operation like breadth x depth. The term "man" when at its maximum extension would cover human being (be it living, death at yet to be born). Its comprehension would then be at its minimum: rational. So whenever someone says "is rational" to something, he would be signifying something that is a "man". And whenever someone would point at something and say "man", he would be denoting something that is "rational". If you zoom in and cover less extension, what we get is that you also increase the comprehension. So I say "Brazilian man", I restricted the extension and now get a comprehension that also includes "a male human born in Brazil, Latin American, Portuguese speaker and son on). We have then something like a rubber band. If you stretch it, it covers more Area but gets thinner (less depth). If you contract it, it covers less Area, but you get a thicker depth. Peirce found out that semeiosis implies growth, learning, development. This is information. But he also found out that only symbols grow. Symbols are concepts (grounded by ideas), words, but also propositions, assertions, books, a library and, if we get serious, the whole universe. Whatever is growing, becoming more complex, is also internalizing information. Information implies symmetry breaking, non-commutative processes, arrow-directness, finious process, final causation, purpose, teleology, association of ideas in the mind. So instead of a rubber band, now you have a protoplasm band. It feels, it generalizes feeling, it produces sensations (new predicates), it breaks old habits and acquire new ones. That is information: an increase of either comprehension or extension without the diminishing of the other. So you get a thicker band, or a larger area, without having to lose on the other side. All living beings produce information, which also means that there is a sense in which the whole universe is a living being - at least a semeiotic living being. The question is: how is information produced? By perception, for sure, because perception is the only door for novelty, freshness, pure chance, tychism. Symbols, when they get to their maximum extension, tend to become exhausted, the habit they carry is stiff, almost a rule of thumb, stereotypes, prejudices. They need a new injection of perceptual judgments to shake their souls. That's what percepts do: they are firstness and reactions among firstess. No symbolic content. In the perceptual judgement, novelty enters the mind, curious facts are perceived and call for new hypothesis which will transform our old concepts into more developed ones. Symbols grow when you expose them to real life. In a contextual situation, hic et nunc, a concept you have about "man" (for instance) receives the indexical shock of a perceptual presence of a man that was not part of you conception yet. Let's say you meet an Australian aborigene for the first time. It's presence is indexical, but brings along with it all sorts of new qualities: color of skin, dust covering the body, a particular smell, accent, body tatoos etc. So both extension and comprehension were augmented. That is a new cognition. An index and a symbol are attached. It is like putting a quantifier in a logical symbol to denote a specific element of a kind. New cognitions are always inferential, and must always begin with hypotheses (the perceptual judgment). The symbol we are talking about now is an argument, moved by purpose, capable of self-control and retroduction for continuous corrections and production of new hypothesis. That all above being said, we can now talk about misrepresentation and misinterpretation. Misrepresentation is false information on the side of extension (the subsumption of the object under a concept). Let's suppose that the Australian aborigine was fake. Actually, it was a Brazilian man dressed for carnival. The indexical element was real (perceptually existent), but the icon was fake (the perceived qualities were not genuine). Nevertheless, the interpretation was not wrong. It would not be fair to condemn the interpreter that was fooled by a false index. The interpreter did his job as he should have done. Perceptual judgements are fallible, an so are our cognitions. That's the core of Peirce's fallibilism. When taken to a judge, you would swear that the mistake was not your fault. You just could not help it. The blame is to be put in whoever set up to falsely represent the real. You misrepresented the real, but your interpretation was correct. Misinterpretation is false information on the side of comprehension (the knowledge that allows a community to recognize the unique characters of a member of a class). Now let's suppose that Australian aborigine was real. The sign then indicates with true information (the index and the icon are both real), but the interpreter now thinks that it is someone dressing a phantasy, that it's a practical joke, it's someone having fun in carnival. That might put him in trouble. You avoid misrepresentation when you can correctly denote (indicate) if an object of your perception belongs or not to a the extension of the concept. For instance, had you arrived earlier on the scene, you would have observed the Brazilian man dressing up as the aborigene, and misrepresentation was eliminated. You avoid misinterpretation if you correctly signify its real characters (comprehension), but now perception must be a collective endeavor. It must be part of the commens, the sum of all synthetical propositions gathered during inquiry by a community of interpreters. So you ask the person who he is. Or ask people around you to check if your interpretation is backed with other people's. Different sensations must be gathered and united. These differences may seem just logical quibbles for some, but they are actually crucial when you have to deal, for instance, with bioethical issues. A medical mistake might be caused by misrepresentation (some medical apparatus was not working properly but the conduct was taken correctly in a particular state of information). Or the apparatus was fine but there was not sufficient knowledge about the case, even if a group of doctors gathered to discuss it trying to avoid mistakes. On the second case, an ethical committee usually deliberate about the whole situation. This distinction has clearly pragmatic effects, an I propose that it should be adopted. We know that even a broken clock is "right" twice a day. If it stopped at 6, and someone ask you what time it is and you happen to look at the broken clock showing 6 precisely when, by pure chance, is really 6 pm, then was it a misrepresentation or a misinterpretation of the real time? The same about the weathervane. Vinicius
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