Ben, List, I guess I have trouble making sense of the notion of determination here. I know you are saying what Peirce says; that isn’t at issue for me. What bothers me is that without an interpretant there is no representamen, so the interpretant is necessary for the representamen. It isn’t sufficient, since there may be two or more representamens (ma?) with the same interpretant. So if sufficiency is necessary and sufficient for determination, then the interpretetant does not determine the representamen. There can be two representamens (or more) for the same object, so we have the same situation. So here it seems to me that the object does not determine the representamen. But then I think, similarly, the same representamen could have different interpretations, which would imply different objects, but the object is selected by the interpretant (isn’t it?) which seems to me to be determination.
So I am no more clear than before. It seems to matter where you start. Or maybe there is a better notion of determination that resolves this that I have missed. Puzzled, John From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:bud...@nyc.rr.com] Sent: January 29, 2015 7:23 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; 'Peirce-L' Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Triadic Relations John C., Jeff, lists, John, You're right, in the sense of 'ordered pair' (e.g., such that, in set theory, _relation_ is defined as ordered pair), it's true that there's no intuitive sense of 'more' or 'less' or 'earlier' or 'later' to which the relation appeals as a rule. Every arbitrary sequence is ordered in a sense; the order for the sequence is given by the sequence itself and it may or may not follow some pattern of an iterated operation or the like. I thought that Jeff had an ordering rule in mind but maybe he didn't. I too said that we should not think of the object, sign, and interpretant as 'falling dominoes'. It's because falling dominoes are dyadic in action, while semiosis is triadic. You also say, I am not at all clear that there is a unique "order of semiotic determination" [End quote] The process of semiotic determination is what _defines_ sign, object, and interpretant. Some first thing (the sign) is determined by some second thing (the object) to determine some third thing (the interpretant) to be related to the second thing (object) as the first thing (sign) is related to the second thing (object). The order of semiotic determination directly reflects that. Insofar as something acts as a _source_ of semiotic determination, it is a semiotic object. A sign is a kind of means or mediator of semiotic determination, and an interpretant is a kind of end - usually a secondary end insofar as in its turn it is usually also a sign, a mediator toward further interpretation. (Peirce somewhere discusses the 'ultimate logical interpretant' which brings semiosis to a close and is not a sign, at least not a sign in the semiosis that leads to it, but a disposition to conduct thenceforward.) Best, Ben On 1/29/2015 3:52 AM, John Collier wrote: Ben, List, I believe that a weaker is required for an ordered triple. Any finite set can be ordered. The Axiom of Choice, which is controversial, implies that any set including infinite ones can be ordered. The order need not be anything like 'more' or 'less' in any intuitive sense. For example in a function, like f=ma, <m,a> is an ordered pair, one from one domain and another from another domain such that their product is in another domain which is the range of the function. Obviously, under the Newtonian interpretation m and a are not either more or less than the other in any intuitive (or even nondegenerate) sense. I think that this is worth remembering when thinking of Peircean triads in particular. I would go further than saying that we should not think of object, sign and interpretant as "falling dominos", since I am not at all clear that there is a unique "order of semiotic determination". This follows from the way I understand irreducible triads as not fully computable, a! nd hence inherently open-ended. Best, John -----Original Message----- From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:bud...@nyc.rr.com] Sent: January 28, 2015 7:07 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee<mailto:biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee>; 'Peirce-L' Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Triadic Relations Jeff, Jon, lists, I think that all that is required for an ordered triple, or an ordering of any length, is a rough notion of 'more' or 'less', for example an ordering of personal preferences, and this is enough for theorems, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem. Exact quantities are not required. In the case of object, sign, interpretant, insofar as the object determines the sign to determine the interpretant to be determined by the object as the sign is determined by the object, the order of semiotic determination is 'object, sign, interpretant', although object, sign, interpretant are not to be understood as acting like successive falling dominoes. Best, Ben On 1/27/2015 2:08 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote: [....] Here is the starting question: Doesn't the notion of an ordered triple require that we already have things sorted out in such a way that we are able to ascribe quantitative values to each subject that is a correlate of the triadic relation? [....]
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