It’s time to dive into Chapter 3 of Natural Propositions, and since it’s the longest and weightiest chapter in the book, I thought it best to name each thread by section number, to facilitate a stepwise approach to the Dicisign. In this first message, I’ll try to outline some of the basic ideas behind the Peircean concept of the proposition.
Traditionally, the proposition has usually been regarded as a basic unit of logic, just as the sentence is a basic unit of language; and often the structure of the logical unit has been identified or confused with that of the linguistic unit, on the assumption that a proposition is necessarily verbal. But in Peirce's view, a verbal sentence (spoken or printed) can only represent a proposition. Each utterance which represents that proposition is a replica of it; and if you say something about something in two different languages, the two individual utterances say the same thing, because each of them is a replica of the same proposition. A proposition, then, is not a linguistic phenomenon but a semiotic one: it is a kind of sign. It's the way that kind of sign functions that makes it a proposition. So what does a proposition do, and what kind of general form or structure enables it to do that sort of thing? This is the kind of question to which Peirce's doctrine of the Dicisign proposes a non-traditional answer. Chapter 3 of NP explains how Peirce redefines the proposition as a kind of Dicisign, and shows how this semiotic logic differs from traditional propositional logic. The Dicisign is a more general concept than the proposition, but the concept is most easily developed by starting with the logical structure of the proposition, because that is the most well-known and easily verbalized kind of Dicisign. In his Harvard Lectures of 1903, Peirce was using traditional terms when he said (EP 2:204): [[ A representamen is either a rhema, a proposition, or an argument. An argument is a representamen which separately shows what interpretant it is intended to determine. A proposition is a representamen which is not an argument, but which separately indicates what object it is intended to represent. A rhema is a simple representation without such separate parts. ]] However, this definition of “proposition” is crucially different from the received notion of same, as we will see more clearly in NP Chapter 3. So later in that year, when Peirce was developing his Speculative Grammar, Peirce invented a new triad of names for that traditional trichotomy, which names the three kinds of possible relation between representamen and interpretant: Sumisign, Dicisign, and Suadisign (EP2:275). In his own subsequent work, though, Dicisign (or Dicent sign) was the only one of the three new names that ‘stuck’. His diagram of the famous ten classes (EP2:296) reverts to “rheme” and “argument” for the other two. Peirce also referred to the Dicisign as a “quasi-proposition,” and sometimes even omitted the “quasi” — which is natural, because the proposition is the paradigmatic (though not the only!) kind of Dicisign. The very next work in EP2, “New Elements”, does not use the term “Dicisign” at all, but much of what it says about propositions illuminates the functioning of Dicisigns as “natural propositions”. For instance, EP2:307: [[ It is remarkable that while neither a pure icon nor a pure index can assert anything, an index which forces something to be an icon, as a weathercock does, or which forces us to regard it as an icon, as the legend under a portrait does, does make an assertion, and forms a proposition. This suggests the true definition of a proposition, which is a question in much dispute at this moment. A proposition is a sign which separately, or independently, indicates its object. ]] This, you will notice, repeats the definition of “proposition” which we find in Harvard Lecture V (above), but in a new context which also furnishes important clues to the deep structure of the Dicisign. The easiest way to approach this, i think, is to begin with the two essential parts of the Peircean proposition, namely the Subject and Predicate. For this purpose i would suggest reading the first paragraph of “Kaina Stoicheia” part III (EP2:303, or http://www.gnusystems.ca/KainaStoicheia.htm#1) along with NP 3.1. If there are any questions about Peirce’s usage of Subject and Predicate, it would be best to raise them now, because these will be crucial terms in Chapter 3. Same with questions to Frederik about 3.1, as I’ll be moving on to 3.2 shortly. gary f.
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
