Gary R, Jeff, Edwina, Lists,
I was recently thinking about Peirce's definition of sign Gary quoted, in
connection with the complementarity principle and the Moebius strip that I
discussed yesterday on these lists.
"*The sign stands for something*, its object. It stands for that object, *not
in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea,
*(012715-1)
*which I have sometimes called the ground *of the representamen. . . . "
*" 'Idea' is here to be understood in a sort of Platonic sense*, very
familiar in everyday talk; I mean in that sense in which
(012715-2)
we say that one man catches another man's idea . . ."
It seems to me that the word 'ground' in Statement (012715-1) is not the
same as 'the repreentamen' as Gary F seems to imply but rather is the
commonsensical 'context' of discourse. If this interpretation is right,
"The definition of sign given by Peirce may implicate 4 rather than 3 (as
usually assumed) entities -- i.e.,
(012715-3)
object, sign (also called representamen), interpretant, and ground."
The validity of (012715-3) seems self-evident from our own experience that
the context of discourse (i.e., semiosis) is essential in any successful
communication: An identical statement can be interpreted oppositely
depending on the context of discourse. The Moebius strip (MS) provides us
with a concrete example of this, since MB, when viewed locally, clearly has
two opposite sides, A and B; but when viewed globally MB has only one side
which is both A and B. So, depending on the context (or ground) of
discourse, A and B are opposite or the same.
The word 'ideas' appearing twice in (012715-2) may be similarly understood,
i.e., as meaning the 'context' of discourse:
"In order for one man to catch another man's idea, the interlocutors must
have a common context.
(012715-4)
Without a common context, one man cannot catch another man's idea."
Statement (012715-4) is tantamount to assuming that Peirce used "ideas" in
two different meanings (and hende two different grounds or contests) -- the
first 'idea' as meaning the context or ground of discourse and the second
'idea' as a sign or representamen.
The complementarity principle (CP) that I discussed yesterday explicitly
implicates the crucial role of the context of discourse in defining
meanings:
(1) A and B are mutually exclusive.
(2) A and B are essential for C.
(3) C transcends the level where A and B have meanings.
In other words, CP postulates two levels of meanings -- the level where A
and B are meaningful and the level where C is meaningful but not A nor B.
Again applying these conclusions to Peircean semiotics, it may be necessary
to invoke at least two distinct contexts (or grounds) of discourse whenever
Peirce seems to make statements that are irreconcilably opposite. For
example, (a) Thought can occur only in living systems. (a) Thought also
occurs in crystals. Statements (a) and (b) are mutually exclusive under
one context of discourse, i.e., specialized sciences but can merge under
another context, i.e., mathematical category theory (if we can identify
thought with semiosis which in turn identified with a category) or some
form of metaphysics.
All the best.
Sung
On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 5:27 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Janos, Edwina, list,
>
> There are those of us who do indeed see the representamen as Peirce refers
> to it as "a First," that is as categorial firstness. This interpretation
> is, in good part, based on Peirce's analysis of what it is that the
> representamen can represent, and at times--notably in the *New List*, but
> also elsewhere, such as a fragment the CP editors date at ca.1897--that
> 'something' that can be represented in the representamen is analyzed as a
> kind of 'idea' which he terms the *ground*.
>
> For example, in the oft quoted 1897 fragment just mentioned Peirce writes:
>
> A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for
> something *in some respect or capacity.* It addresses somebody, that is,
> creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more
> developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the
> first sign. *The sign stands for something*, its object. It stands for
> that object, *not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea,
> which I have sometimes called the ground *of the representamen. *"Idea"
> is here to be understood in a sort of Platonic sense*, very familiar in
> everyday talk; I mean in that sense in which we say that one man catches
> another man's idea . . . (emphasis added, CP 2.228).
>
>
> Here "idea" (in this "sort of Platonic sense") is clearly associated with
> firstness. This will be the case throughout Peirce's career as I see it.
> For example, in the late *Neglected Argument* Peirce gives the character
> of his three categories in these comments on three universes of experience.
> Interestingly his example of "the third Universe" is that of a Sign
> "which has its Being in its power of serving as intermediary between its
> Object and a Mind":
>
> Of the three Universes of Experience familiar to us all, *the first
> comprises all mere Ideas, those airy nothings to which the mind of poet,
> pure mathematician, or another might give local habitation and a name
> within that mind. Their very airy-nothingness, the fact that their Being
> consists in mere capability of getting thought, not in anybody's Actually
> thinking them*, saves their Reality. The second Universe is that of the
> Brute Actuality of things and facts. I am confident that their Being
> consists in reactions against Brute forces, notwithstanding objections
> redoubtable until they are closely and fairly examined. The third Universe
> comprises everything whose being consists in active power to establish
> connections between different objects, especially between objects in
> different Universes. Such is everything which is essentially a Sign -- not
> the mere body of the Sign, which is not essentially such, but, so to speak,
> *the
> Sign's Soul, which has its Being in its power of serving as intermediary
> between its Object and a Mind*. Such, too, is a living consciousness, and
> such the life, the power of growth, of a plant. Such is a living
> constitution -- a daily newspaper, a great fortune, a social "movement"
> (emphasis added,CP 6.455).
>
>
> But what I most want to emphasize here is that this conception of a kind
> of Platonic idea as firstness parallels that in the 1897 snippet when
> Peirce comments that "The sign stands for something, its object. It stands
> for that object, not in all respects, but *in reference to a sort of
> idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen*.
> "Idea" is here to be understood in a sort of Platonic sense."
>
> In the *New List* Peirce refers to this Platonic like idea as "a pure
> abstraction":
>
> Moreover, the conception of a pure abstraction is indispensable, because
> we cannot comprehend an agreement of two things, except as an agreement in
> some respect, and this respect is such a pure abstraction as blackness.
> Such a pure abstraction, reference to which constitutes a quality or
> general attribute, may be termed a ground (CP 1.550)
>
>
> And adds, rather tellingly as I see it:
>
> Reference to a ground cannot be prescinded from being, but being can be
> prescinded from it (CP 1.551).
>
> And, similarly, in speaking of the object he writes:
>
> Reference to a correlate cannot be prescinded from reference to a ground;
> but reference to a ground may be prescinded from reference to a correlate (CP
> 1.552).
>
>
> And, finally, in speaking of the interpretant in relation to the object,
> completing the tricategorial analysis, he writes:
>
> Reference to an interpretant cannot be prescinded from reference to a
> correlate; but the latter can be prescinded from the former (CP 1.553).
>
> Peirce will later greatly modify his terminology, but the basic categorial
> idea will continue into his late semiotics: namely, that what a sign
> represents is not the object itself, but this ground-idea, which 'idea' may
> be the sign of a quality (qualisign), an 'idea' of an existential relation
> to an object (sinsign), or the 'idea' of a law (legisign). But in
> all three cases, this "Platonic idea" occurs in the Universe of Experience
> which we term categorial Firstness.
>
> Or as Peirce puts it:
>
> Let us now see what the appeal of a sign to the mind amounts to. It
> produces a certain idea in the mind which is the idea that it is a sign of
> the thing it signifies and an idea is itself a sign, for an idea is an
> object and it represents an object. The idea itself has its material
> quality which is the feeling which there is in thinking (W3:67-68).
>
>
> I don't expect to convince Edwina on this (or I would have long ago), but
> I will say that those Peirce scholars who see categoriality in the basic
> sign-object-interpretant structure of semiosis and not only in the nine
> sign parameters (3 x 3), and their combinations into the 10 sign classes,
> would *not* say that all three categories may *not *occur associated with
> the ground of the representamen of the sign. In a word, this approach sees
> the representamen as reflecting that first Universe of Experience, that is
> categorial firstness.
>
> There may be a tendency for some to reify the sign and its 'parts', but
> surely that is an error. It seems far better to see the sign in this way:
>
> It seems best to regard a sign as a determination of a quasi-mind; for if
> we regard it as an outward object, and as addressing itself to a human
> mind, that mind must first apprehend it as an object in itself, and only
> after that consider it in its significance; and the like must happen if the
> sign addresses itself to any quasi-mind. It must begin by forming a
> determination of that quasi-mind, and nothing will be lost by regarding
> that determination as the sign (MS 283 as quoted in *Peirce on Signs*,
> 255, edited by James Hoopes).
>
>
> 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 <718%20482-5690>*
>
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 11:46 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Janos - I think that it might help if you defined your use of the terms:
>> representamen and sign. Without this definition, I am puzzled by your
>> comment.
>>
>> A representamen is, in the Peircean framework, the mediative aspect of
>> the semiosic triad. Therefore, it doesn't 'exist per se' on its own as a
>> sign. It isn't, in itself, a triadic sign. And no, I don't agree that 'in
>> sign generation, a representamen in the mode of firstness must be involved
>> always'. Again, I suggest that you read the Peircean outline CP 2.254 etc,
>> to understand that the representamen is in a mode of Firstness in only one
>> of the ten sign classes - and, to understand that the representamen is
>> never 'interpreted as a sign'; it is one part of the semiosic triad that
>> makes up the Sign.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Janos Sarbo" <ja...@cs.ru.nl>
>> To: "Edwina Taborsky" <tabor...@primus.ca>; <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 10:40 AM
>> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] A question about the triadic relation of Sign
>>
>>
>>
>> Edwina:
>>> In my view any representamen can be interpreted as a sign, and can be
>>> interpreted as a sign of any one of the 10 sign types. Which one of those
>>> types the arising sign will have depends on the interpreting system's
>>> state, knowledge, etc. From this I conclude that, in sign generation, a
>>> representamen in the mode of firstness must be involved always. I think
>>> this view is compatible with the analytical one, by virtue of the
>>> involvement and subservience relation between the categories and so the
>>> hierarchy of sign aspects.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> janos
>>>
>>> On 01/26/2015 02:49 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
>>>
>>>> Janos: I don't agree that the triad requires the representamen to be
>>>> always 'interpreted as a quality', i.e., in the mode of Firstness. If you
>>>> take a look at the ten classes of signs (2.256 as outlined in 1903), you
>>>> will see that in only one of these ten classes is the Representamen in a
>>>> mode of Firstness. It is in a mode of Secondness in three, and in a mode of
>>>> Thirdness in six classes.
>>>>
>>>> Edwina
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Janos Sarbo" <ja...@cs.ru.nl>
>>>> To: <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
>>>> Sent: Monday, January 26, 2015 4:12 AM
>>>> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] A question about the triadic relation of Sign
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Lists,
>>>>>
>>>>> I have a question about triadic relation of Sign. If I correctly
>>>>> understand this concept, the generation of an irreducible triadic
>>>>> relation of representamen, object and interpretant, requires the
>>>>> representamen to be interpreted as a quality. The arising triadic
>>>>> relation must be a (novel) quality as well. This brings me to my
>>>>> question: How is the concept of a Sign (and so thirdness) different
>>>>> from
>>>>> the concept of a qualitative change?
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>> Janos Sarbo
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> --------------------
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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--
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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