STOI. Semiotic Theory Of Information
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14551
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14559
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14614
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14616
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14626
STOI-DIS. Semiotic Theory Of Information -- Discussion
ET:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14628
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14639
ET:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14640
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14684
SJ:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14690
Sung, List,
The passage I excerpted is here:
Interpreters and Interpretants
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14674
But all the emphases got lost in the cut-and-paste copy.
Here is another copy using wiki-markups for ''italics''.
<quote>
Consider, what a word or symbol is; it is a sort of representation. Now a
representation is something which stands for something. ... A thing cannot
stand for something without standing ''to'' something ''for'' that something.
Now, what is this that a word stands ''to''? Is it a person?
We usually say that the word ''homme'' stands to a Frenchman for ''man''. It
would be a little more precise to say that it stands to the Frenchman's mind --
to his memory. It is still more accurate to say that it addresses a particular
remembrance or image in that memory. And what ''image'', what remembrance?
Plainly, the one which is the mental equivalent of the word ''homme'' -- in
short, its interpretant. Whatever a word addresses then or ''stands to'', is
its interpretant or identified symbol. ...
The interpretant of a term, then, and that which it stands to are identical.
Hence, since it is of the very essence of a symbol that it should stand to
something, every symbol -- every word and every ''conception'' -- must have an
interpretant -- or what is the same thing, must have information or implication.
</quote>(Peirce, Lowell Lecture 7, 1866, W:CE 1, 466-467).
It may do us good to fill in my ellipses. I will try to do that later on.
I consider this to be one of the most enlightening and insightful passages in
all of Peirce's writings on signs and inquiry. I made considerable use of it in
my work on Inquiry Driven Systems, where you may find further discussion here:
http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_:_Part_1#1.3.4.18._C.27est_Moi
In the passage cited Peirce shows us how to begin with the case of a concrete
interpretive agent, where the original ore of the interpretant sign is mined
from its psychological vein in the mind of a person, and the practical effect
that we seek for the sake of a formal theory of signs is gradually extracted
from its psychological matrix and refined from that o'er-concrescent ore.
To pan a pun ...
Jon
Sungchul Ji wrote:
Jon,
you quoted Peirce as saying
"The interpretant of a term, then, and that which (101314-1)
it stands to are identical."
I thought he also said somewhere something to the effect that
"The interpretant is the effect a sign has on the mind (101314-2)
of the interpreter."
According to (101314-2), the interpretant and that something to which it
stands for something are not identical.
Did Peirce contradict himself or am I missing something ?
With all the best.
Sung
____________________________________________________
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701
www.conformon.net
--
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