John, Gary R, Edwina, Jeff, lists,
I wan to address the question whether or not the representamen can be
viewed as a process. To do this, I will use the communication between the
utterer and the hearer (which Peirce often used) as a concrete model of
semiosis:
f g
Utterer ---------------> Sound ------------>
Hearer
|
^
|
|
|_______________________________|
h
Figure 1. The communication between the utterer and hearer. f =
vocalization of ideas; g = interpretation of sound pattern; h = information
flow.
f g
Utterer ---------------> Sound ------------>
Hearer
(Object) (Sign)
(Interpretant)
|
^
|
|
|__________________________________|
h
Figure 2. The postulate that communication is a token of semiosis viewed
as a type called "irreducible triad", "commutative triangle" or
"mathematical category". f = sign produciton; g = sign interpretation; h =
information flow.
If Figure 2 is right, we can conclude that
"The sign, also called the representamen, is a carrier of information, such
as spoken (012815-1)
or written words."
Several corollaries of (012815-1) may be inferred:
"The representamen is not a process, just as written words are not."
(012815-2)
"The sign is the name given to the process of semiosis which is irreducibly
triadic; i.e., the (012815-3)
three processes of sign production (f), sign interpretation (g) and
information flow (h) must
commute as defined in the mathematical theory of categories."
"Semiosis can be described as an example of the input-transformation-output
(ITO) process from (012815-4)
the point of view of the hearer, in which case the sign is an 'input', the
sign-induced brain processes
in the hearer is 'transformation' and the response of the hearer would be
the 'output'. A similar ITO
process can be envisioned for the utterer but not for the representamen
such as written words, since
words are equilibrium structures that are prevented by the laws of
thermodynamics from performing
any work, including transformation and mediation."
All the best.
Sung
On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 2:18 AM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> If you want to look at the representamen as dynamical (which I am pretty
> sure that Perice sanctions (I don't have relevant quotes handy), then it
> is, I would think, a state, not a process. To be a process it has to change
> its state, but it does not. I am pretty sure that Edwina has said nothing
> that implies anything different, so contrary to Sung, and perhaps Gary,
> there is agreement on this.
>
> I see no need for introducing extraneous factors to Peirce's theory of
> signs to make sense of this. However interesting they might be, they are
> not essential. IN particular I find complementarity here to have no
> explanatory power. At best it merely restates something that can be
> understood more directly (such as that each abstraction such as a
> representamen, has a dynamical correlate.
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> *From:* sji.confor...@gmail.com [mailto:sji.confor...@gmail.com] *On
> Behalf Of *Sungchul Ji
> *Sent:* January 28, 2015 5:02 AM
> *To:* PEIRCE-L
> *Cc:* biosemiotics
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] A question about the triadic relation of Sign
>
>
>
> Gary R wrote:
>
>
>
> ""The Representamen functions. . . as a process"? *Semiosis* may perhaps
> be seen as a process, but the Representamen? Maybe this is required by your
> input-mediation-output wff version of semiosis, but I know of no one else
> who sees it like this, the representamen as "an active. . .process that
> abstracts and generalizes and uses these generalizations to 'interpret' the
> incoming sensate data from the object."
>
>
>
>
>
> Now, it seems significant, from a semiotic point of view, that two eminent
> experts on Peircean semiotics should disagree on the meaning of as basic a
> term as "representamen" and its relation to Firstness. Would this perhaps
> support the suggested PIRPUS (Principle of the Insufficiency of Reading
> Peirce for Understanding Signs) ? Can this problem in the Peircean
> scholarship be remedied by extending the mostly 19th-century Peircean
> theory of signs to include the 21st-century principle of complementarity
> originating from the 20th-century physics ? The seed of complementarity
> may be already sown by Peirce in his primitive definition of the sign, in
> the form of what he called the "ground" of the reprsentemen, which may be
> interpreted as the "context" of discourses. This idea may be represented as
> a diagram/algebraic equation:
>
>
>
>
>
> New (or Extended) Semiotics = Peircean Semiotics +
> Bohr's Complementarity (or Moebius strip)
> (012715-10)
>
>
>
>
>
> With all the best.
>
>
>
> Sung
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 9:29 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Edwina, list,
>
>
>
> Just a few comments interleaved. I was only commenting on one of the
> questions brought about by Janos' post, so I'll only address that below:
>
>
>
> ET: 2) I also reject that the Platonic 'idea' is akin to 'qualia' - which
> is how Janos was describing the representamen-in-Firstness. The Platonic
> idea is akin to generalization and that is not the same as 'qualia'.
> Generalizations do indeed have the capacity to 'be possible' in
> actualization. Again, that's not the same as the sensual nature of
> 'qualia'. Therefore, I reject also your view that such Platonism is akin to
> Firstness. I think that two descriptions you provide, of the Platonic idea
> and the 'first universe' are not comparable to each other.
>
>
>
> The Platonic 'idea' as Peirce employs it need *not* be "akin to
> 'qualia'--you make it seem as if 'qualia' exhausted Peirce's associations
> with firstness. Indeed, more primitiveeven than qualities is the idea of
> possibility as 1ns. But, in fact, Peirce offers myriad associations and
> connotations for firstness. Here are some from "A Guess at the Riddle"
> (I've added emphasis to them for quick reference):
>
>
>
> The first is that whose being is * simply in itself**,* not referring
> to anything nor lying behind anything. . . .(CP 1.356).
>
>
>
> The idea of the absolutely first must be entirely separated from all
> conception of or reference to anything else; for what involves a second is
> itself a second to that second. The first must therefore be *presen*t and
> *immediate*, so as not to be second to a representation. It must be*
> fresh* and *new*, for if old it is second to its former state. It must be*
> initiative, original, spontaneous*, and *free*; otherwise it is second to
> a determining cause. It is also something * vivid* and *conscious*; so
> only it avoids being the object of some sensation. It *precedes all
> synthesis and all differentiation*; it has *no unity* and *no parts*. It
> *cannot
> be articulately thought*: assert it, and it has already lost its
> *characteristic
> innocence*; for assertion always implies a denial of something else. Stop
> to think of it, and it has flown! What the world was to Adam on the day he
> opened his eyes to it, before he had drawn any distinctions, or had become
> conscious of his own existence -- that is *first, present, immediate,
> fresh, new, initiative, original, spontaneous, free, vivid, conscious, and
> evanescent.* *Only, remember that every description of it must be false
> to it *(CP 1.357).
>
>
>
> And it is Peirce who says that the sign stands for something to a sort of
> idea "which I have sometimes called the ground of the sign." So if you say
> that you reject that notion of the ground of the representamen being
> understood as a kind of Platonic idea (as you just did) then you are
> rejecting Peirce's understanding of what the representamen is. You can do
> that, of course, but then you perhaps shouldn't be making the strong claims
> that you sometimes that your semiotics is Peircean. So, again a snippet
> from the 1897 passage I earlier quoted:
>
>
>
> *CSP: 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*
>
>
>
> ET: A 'quality or general attribute' is not the same thing as the sensate
> feeling of Firstness.
>
>
>
> So, again, I would refer you to the many associations of firstness other
> than "sensate feeling" that I just offered above.
>
>
>
> ET: And I disagree that the Representamen functions "as reflecting that
> first Universe of Experience, that is categorial firstness." Since the
> Representamen functions as the mediative process (between Object and
> Interpretant) then it doesn't reflect anything; it is an active rather than
> passive process that abstracts and generalizes and uses these
> generalizations to 'interpret' the incoming sensate data from the object.
>
>
>
> "The Representamen functions. . .as a process"? *Semiosis* may perhaps be
> seen as a process, but the Representamen? Maybe this is required by your
> input-mediation-output wff version of semiosis, but I know of no one else
> who sees it like this, the representamen as "an active. . .process that
> abstracts and generalizes and uses these generalizations to 'interpret' the
> incoming sensate data from the object."
>
>
>
> That makes no sense to me at all.
>
>
>
> 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 6:25 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> wrote:
>
> Just a few comments, Gary R:
>
>
>
> 1) I am not saying that the Representamen cannot be in a mode of
> Firstness, but, reject the statement of Janos that "From this I conclude
> that, in sign
> generation, a representamen in the mode of firstness must be involved
> always." I think that this rejects the reality of the 9 classes of signs
> in which the representamen is not in a mode of Firstness.
>
>
>
> And I also reject his "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." I think this is a
> confusion of the meaning of the term of 'sign'.
>
>
>
> 2) I also reject that the Platonic 'idea' is akin to 'qualia' - which is
> how Janos was describing the representamen-in-Firstness. The Platonic idea
> is akin to generalization and that is not the same as 'qualia'.
> Generalizations do indeed have the capacity to 'be possible' in
> actualization. Again, that's not the same as the sensual nature of
> 'qualia'. Therefore, I reject also your view that such Platonism is akin to
> Firstness. I think that two descriptions you provide, of the Platonic idea
> and the 'first universe' are not comparable to each other.
>
>
>
> A 'quality or general attribute' is not the same thing as the sensate
> feeling of Firstness.
>
>
>
> 3) And of course, I don't say " that all three categories may *not *occur
> associated with the ground of the representamen of the sign."
>
>
>
> That was my point to Janos - when I said that the ground/representamen is
> NOT always and necessarily only in a mode of Firstness. And I disagree
> that the Representamen functions "as reflecting that first Universe of
> Experience, that is categorial firstness." Since the Representamen
> functions as the mediative process (between Object and Interpretant) then
> it doesn't reflect anything; it is an active rather than passive process
> that abstracts and generalizes and uses these generalizations to
> 'interpret' the incoming sensate data from the object.
>
>
>
> Edwina
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> *From:* Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
>
> *To:* Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
>
> *Cc:* Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 27, 2015 5:27 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] A question about the triadic relation of Sign
>
>
>
> 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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> --
>
> 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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--
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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