Is there any cognitive scientist in this peirce-list?
kindly markku
Lähetetty laitteesta Windowsin sähköposti
Lähettäjä: Gary Richmond
Lähetetty: keskiviikko, 28. tammikuuta 2015 0:27
Vast.ott: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Kopio: Gary Richmond
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
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 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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