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 <mailto: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
Gary Richmond
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690 <tel:718%20482-5690>*
On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 6:25 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca
<mailto: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 <mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com>
*To:*Peirce-L <mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
*Cc:*Gary Richmond <mailto: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
Gary Richmond
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690 <tel:718%20482-5690>*
On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 11:46 AM, Edwina Taborsky
<tabor...@primus.ca <mailto: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
<mailto:ja...@cs.ru.nl>>
To: "Edwina Taborsky" <tabor...@primus.ca
<mailto:tabor...@primus.ca>>; <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
<mailto: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
<mailto:ja...@cs.ru.nl>>
To: <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu <mailto: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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to
REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
peirce-L@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-L@list.iupui.edu> . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to
l...@list.iupui.edu <mailto:l...@list.iupui.edu> with the line
"UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to
REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
peirce-L@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-L@list.iupui.edu> . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to
l...@list.iupui.edu <mailto:l...@list.iupui.edu> with the line
"UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to
REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
peirce-L@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-L@list.iupui.edu> . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to
l...@list.iupui.edu <mailto:l...@list.iupui.edu> with the line
"UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
peirce-L@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-L@list.iupui.edu> . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu
<mailto:l...@list.iupui.edu> with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in
the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
--
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 <http://www.conformon.net>
