Gary F., Tom, list,
Gary, are you sure you're not confusing denotation with designation or
indication? The denotation of 'red' is all red things, or the population
of red things; the comprehension (or significance) of 'red' is the
quality _/red/ _ and all that that implies. That's why denotation
(breadth) and comprehension (depth) vary inversely when the information
remains the same. Anyway, that's how I've understood it.
Best, Ben
On 10/4/2014 7:11 PM, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
Tom, I’m afraid you’re adding to the confusion here by talking about
“two kinds of denotation.”
In a proposition, the subject denotes objects, while the predicate
signifies characters. This is what Peirce is saying in your quote from
“Kaina Stoicheia” (MS 517), and it’s the standard terminology in
Peircean logic. If we confuse denoting with signifying, we will end up
confusing indices with icons, and then we’ll be lost when it comes to
the semiotics of dicisigns, which must connect iconic with indexical
signs.
gary f.
*From:* Tom Gollier [mailto:tgoll...@gmail.com]
*Sent:* 4-Oct-14 5:55 PM
Evgenii and list,
I find your example interesting in that the two kinds of denotation:
"If a sign, B, only signifies characters that are elements (or
the whole) of the meaning of another sign, A, then B is said to be a
predicate (or essential part) of A. If a sign, A, only denotes real
objects that are a part or the whole of the objects denoted by another
sign, B, then A is said to be a subject (or substantial part) of B."
(MS 517)
involved with the subject and predicate of a dicisign seem clearer.
1. The analogical denotation of the subject between the shape of the
artwork and the shape of the United States. While this analogy is not
so problematic here, it can be, and I think the commentators have been
too quick to dismiss it, if they even mention it. The casuistry
surrounding this denotation has been lost to philosophy, thanks to
Pascal, but it still survives, to some extent, in our legal
profession, and being the basis of applying the dicisign in the first
place, it should not be ignored.
2. The consequential denotation of the predicate, the guns filling the
United States. This does involve the "operations" of the dicisign and
the way that the guns "fill" the country. As with all works of art,
there is some ambiguity there. But more importantly, as denoting the
same object as the subject, it involves the truth of the different
expressions, they different ways guns fill or characterize the
country. The denotation of the predicate seems to depend on the truth
or falsity of what is being expressed, perhaps even the extensional
correspondence of the two "objects" being denoted.
Tom
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