(My apologies if these came through more than once. I’d sent them from the wrong email address and despite resending them didn’t see them appear in my feed)
On Jul 3, 2014, at 4:03 PM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> wrote: > You're mixing apples and oranges, using the word 'sign' equivocally. > Saussure's 'sign' is not Peirce's 'sign' or even Peirce's 'symbol'; > Saussure's 'sign' is Peirce's 'linguistic symbol'. Even there Saussure has limits that Peirce would never countenance. It’s best to just not conflate the two. Peirce just thinks so differently that even where you find similarity it’s easy to be mislead by the similarity. I’m trying to recall a really good overview of this. I think Eco has a few places he goes through differences, although I’m not always happy with some of Eco’s presentations of semiotics. However I *think* he does relate Peirce to other thinkers in his chapter on “Symbol” in Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. It’s been 15 years since I read it last though, and my memory was that he makes errors in various places in it. This appears to get at certain other aspects of the comparison http://www.indiana.edu/~slavicgf/e103/assignments/Chandler_ch1_pt2.pdf I’ve only glanced through it quickly, but it seems like the author is very good about noting certain inconsistencies of terminological use by both Saussure and Peirce which can waylay those not as experienced with each. The author also notes that Peirce’s dialogical thinking is missing from Saussure. I should also note it tends to be missing even from a lot of contemporary philosophy of language - leading to various types of error. Thus the problems with say Searle’s approach to systematize Austin’s speech acts. Going back to Sungchul’s point, I think this is important when considering mathematics and physics. Consider Peirce’s “Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism” Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world; and one can no more deny that it is really there, than that the colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there. Consistently adhere to that unwarrantable denial, and you will be driven to some form of idealistic nominalism akin to Fichte's. Not only is thought in the organic world, but it develops there. But as there cannot be a General without Instances embodying it, so there cannot be thought without Signs. We must here give "Sign" a very wide sense, no doubt, but not too wide a sense to come within our definition. Admitting that connected Signs must have a Quasi-mind, it may further be declared that there can be no isolated sign. Moreover, signs require at least two Quasi-minds; a Quasi-utterer and a Quasi-interpreter; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct. In the Sign they are, so to say, welded. Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of human Psychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every logical evolution of thought should be dialogic. You may say that all this is loose talk; and I admit that, as it stands, it has a large infusion of arbitrariness. It might be filled out with argument so as to remove the greater part of this fault; but in the first place, such an expansion would require a volume - and an uninviting one; and in the second place, what I have been saying is only to be applied to a slight determination of our system of diagrammatization, which it will only slightly affect; so that, should it be incorrect, the utmost certain effect will be a danger that our system may not represent every variety of non-human thought. (CP 4.551) The place of a quasi-mind seems rather pertinent in understanding the surprising relationship between say physics and mathematics. Again, I suspect Peirce’s ontology is the most controversial part of his thought. Most philosophers are rather disparaging to it. However it does make such matters rather understandable. Even if one treats these only as virtual I think it renders certain mysterious matters rather intelligible. Without dialogical thinking so much about semiotics becomes mysterious. Thus we’re left asking why they world seems so mathematical. However if we recognize the world as a system under semiosis - a system in dialog - then rather than being mysterious we see it as natural.
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