Jeff, lists,
Given that I'm sitting on a jury trial beginning at 2:00 this afternoon,
one which may last several weeks, I'll have to let Frederik answers to my
first two questions stand in lieu of my own for now, Jeff, only reiterating
what I'd earlier mentioned, viz. that I have found the distinction between
operational and optimal iconicity of value in my own work. Especially the
introduction of optimal iconicity as a desideratum has motivated me to
strive for* l'iconicità più ottimale *in my own diagrams and to look for
and value it in others'.
I also believe that Peirce's moving more and more to an extreme realism has
a decided impact on all aspects of his work in the final decades of his
life, including his semiotics and especially his pragmatism. I am one of
those who sees Peirce's work as evolving in particular ways over the course
of his career, perhaps especially as this involves his rethinking
scholastic realism. However, I've no time left to discuss any of this
further, I'm afraid.
I'm still hoping to have the chance to discuss "the very long quotation" in
Chapter 8, as well as brief discussions of the last two sections of that
chapter. But should you--or anyone--care to continue the discussion of EGs,
especially as concerns the matter of Peirce's going beyond material
implication there, please do! I'm heartened to learn that you are
interested in discussing that passage, Jeff, and will participate as fully
in that discussion as time allows.
Best,
Gary
[image: Gary Richmond]
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690*
On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:52 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <
jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> wrote:
> Gary R., Lists,
>
> You've asked a series of questions.
>
> 1. Do list members find Frederik's notion of two kinds of iconicity of
> interest and value? If so, what is that value? It isn't clear to me what
> the value is of suggesting that Peirce is working with two notions of
> iconicity--despite Peirce's own efforts to develop a unified conception.
> I'll agree that there are a number of aspects that are involved in Peirce's
> conception of iconicity, and that we can draw on the EGs as a tool for
> clarifying some of the aspects that might be hard to articulate using other
> means. What is more, I accept that Peirce was motivated by the aim of
> developing an optimally iconic graphical logic. Frederik is clear that he
> takes himself to be refining Peirce's conception of the icon because he
> believes there are lingering confusions and vagueness in his conception.
> Having said that, I don't think that the separation between the two notions
> clarifies matters in the way I was hoping it might.
>
> 2. Also, what does one make of Frederik's notion that the introduction
> of would-bes greatly modifies Peirce's conception of Thirdness and that it
> enriches the pragmatic maxim in now involving real possibilities? I don't
> think that Peirce introduced a new concept of would-be's. This seems to
> imply that he didn't have a conception, and that he later saw there was
> something he had missed. Rather, he had an account of how we might
> interpret conditionals, and he later sees that his logical theory leads him
> to treats some arguments as bad that are really good (and vice versa). As
> such, he is modifying his semiotic theory and then revising his
> metaphysical account of real possibilities in light of revisions that he
> made in his theory of logic. I do agree that the revisions in his logical
> theory involve a developing sense of how we might understand the role of
> triadic relationships in semiotics.
>
> 3. And finally, is there any interest in discussing the long passage on
> EGs on how Peirce relativizes and goes beyond material implication? Yes,
> but I need to spend more time re-reading those sections of chapter 8.
>
> --Jeff
>
> Jeff Downard
> Associate Professor
> Department of Philosophy
> NAU
> (o) 523-8354
> ________________________________
> From: Gary Richmond [gary.richm...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 2:32 PM
> To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee
> Cc: Peirce List
> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7869] Re: Natural Propositions:
> Chapter 8
>
> Lists,
>
> I'd like to continue this reflection on Frederik's discussion of iconicity
> in existential graphs by considering a passage quoted by him, one which
> succinctly states the purpose of EGs (NP, 271-18):
>
> . . [The] purpose of the System of Existential Graphs, as it is stated in
> the Prolegomena [4.533], [is] to afford a method (1) as simple as possible
> (that is to say, with as small a number of arbitrary conventions as
> possible), for representing propositions (2) as iconically, or
> diagrammatically and (3) as analytically as possible. . .These three
> essential aims of the system are, every one of them, missed by Selectives.
> ("The Bedrock beneath Pragmaticism" [2], 1906, 4.561, note 1)
>
> So, in a word, Peirce wants to make his graph system "as simple as
> possible" in having a minimum of arbitrary conventions, and to represent
> propositions as iconically and analytically as possible. This involves,
> firstly, preferring the line of identity to selectives. But in
> consideration of his Beta graphs Peirce finds that it not always possible
> or, rather, it is not always desirable to do so in very complex graphs (for
> essentially visual and psychological reasons). So, somewhat reluctantly, he
> substitutes selectives for identity lines in such complex graphs. Frederik
> gives the reason for this reluctance:
>
> The substitution of selectives for the line of identity is less iconic
> because it requires the symbolic convention of identifying different line
> segments by means of attached identical symbols. The line of identity, on
> the other hand, is immediately an icon of identity because it makes use of
> the continuity of the line. . . [and is also] a natural iconical
> representation of a general concept [NP, 218].
>
> Yet Peirce introduces selectives because in such complicated graphs
> "involving many variables taking many predicates," the complex network of
> lines of identity becomes visibly hard for the vision system of a human to
> handle (Frederik considers the possibility of a kind of mind which could
> comfortably observe such a complicated network, and such a mind may perhaps
> be suggested by the machine reading of even exceedingly complex conceptual
> graphs as has been made possible with Sowa's CGs). Frederik concludes:
>
> [T]he important issue here is Peirce's very motivation for preferring
> identity lines to Selectives in the first place: they are more iconical,
> because they represent in one icon entity what is also, in the object, one
> entity. This thus forms an additional, stronger iconicity criterion in
> addition to the operational iconicity criterion (NP, 218-19, emphasis
> added).
>
> Here Frederik reminds us that Peirce's arguments against the use of
> selectives is in particular directed towards his own, earlier algebraic
> formalization which, it should be noted, is the very first version of
> modern symbolic logic. Thus, while in some cases Beta graphs with
> selectives are deemed heuristically superior to graphs without selectives,
> and while the two versions are logically equivalent, Peirce yet clearly
> preferred the more iconical version all things being equal.
>
> So we arrive at the second important reason to prefer "more iconic" graph
> representations, an ontological one, that "Beta graphs more appropriately
> depict logical relations like they really are, thus adding to the pragmatic
> operational criterion of iconicity an ontologically motivated extra
> criterion" (NP, 219). This connects the optimal iconicity notion to
> Peirce's realism, which, while realism is there from the get go (as Max
> Fisch and, later, Robert Lane have convincingly argued), his realism became
> more and more extreme over the course of his philosophical career (Frederik
> rehearses the famous diamond example contrasting Peirce's earlier "more
> nominalistic" version of 1878 in "How To Make Our Ideas Clear" with the
> "extreme realism" of 1905 in "Issues of Pragmatism," which essay allows for
> "real possibles" such that were the diamond to be tested, say at some
> future time, that it would be found to be hard).
>
> Frederik holds that Peirce's admitting would-bes into his philosophy,
> "considerably changes and enriches" not only his conception of Thirdness,
> but also the pragmatic maxim, it finally allowing for real possibilities.
>
> Perhaps this is a good place to stop for now since at this point in the
> chapter Frederik quotes the important long passage I mentioned in my first
> post in this thread and analyzes it in terms of how Peirce "relativized"
> material implication to go beyond it in revising parts of his Beta and
> Gamma graphs. However, that is a somewhat technical discussion and I'm am
> not sure that there is enough interest here in EGs to continue it.
>
> At this point I would like to ask the following questions: Do list members
> find Frederik's notion of two kinds of iconicity of interest and value? If
> so, what is that value? Also, what does one make of Frederik's notion that
> the introduction of would-bes greatly modifies Peirce's conception of
> Thirdness and that it enriches the pragmatic maxim in now involving real
> possibilities? And finally, is there any interest in discussing the long
> passage on EGs on how Peirce relativizes and goes beyond material
> implication?
>
>
> Best,
>
> Gary R
>
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