Well, I am going to disagree with Jon. As John Collier points out, Peirce
was 'open' with his use of the term 'sign' and often used it to refer to
any one of the relations in the triad; i.e., to the symbol, to the icon, to
the index...and to the representamen and to the interpretant..and to the
whole thing. This is found all through his work and is so extensive that I'm
not going to list all the references.
But the FACT is, that the Triad has three aspects/relations/correlates
..whatever...and one must clarify them - and you don't achieve that by using
the same term for all three.
My understanding of the Representamen is not confined to 'a mental aspect'
for all semiosis is an aspect of Mind (and I'm not quoting that 4.551
again!) but that it refers to the process of mediation within the whole
triad. ..'as it is in itself' (8.334).
And a vital point, Jon, but the quote you provide below, with its
'Representamen is a First' requires clarification because some people
confuse the ordinal reference of these words (First, Second, Third) with the
Peircean categories (Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness). Yet another
terminological confusion.
Now, as to whether there can be a Representamen that is operating without a
mental mode, i.e., totally within Secondness - obviously - 'yes', as in the
Rhematic Indexical Sinsign and the Dicent Indexical Sinsign, which are
mechanical responses to an indexical (Secondness) stimuli. But, can this
triad even exist as that sunflower, as that object that reacts mechanically
without Mind? My answer of course, is 'no'.
So, I think it's important (at least it is for me) to differentiate and
acknowledge the representamen within the full triad Sign.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Awbrey" <jawb...@att.net>
To: "John Collier" <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
Cc: "Peirce List" <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2015 9:32 AM
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Triadic Relations
John, List,
To follow up on the question of the representamen vs. sign distinction,
as far as I can recall Peirce uses that only to distinguish the maximally
abstract and general concept of a sign, which he calls a "representamen",
from the more special concept of a sign with a mental interpretant, which
he calls a "sign", as in the following oft-quoted passage:
http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-February/001182.html
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
SOP. Note 1.
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
| A 'Sign', or 'Representamen', is a First which stands
| in such a genuine triadic relation to a Second, called
| its 'Object', as to be capable of determining a Third,
| called its 'Interpretant', to assume the same triadic
| relation to its Object in which it stands itself to
| the same Object.
|
| The triadic relation is 'genuine', that is, its three members are
| bound together by it in a way that does not consist in any complexus
| of dyadic relations. That is the reason the Interpretant, or Third,
| cannot stand in a mere dyadic relation to the Object, but must stand
| in such a relation to it as the Representamen itself does.
|
| Nor can the triadic relation in which the Third stands be merely similar
| to that in which the First stands, for this would make the relation of
the
| Third to the First a degenerate Secondness merely. The Third must
indeed
| stand in such a relation, and thus must be capable of determining a
Third
| of its own; but besides that, it must have a second triadic relation in
| which the Representamen, or rather the relation thereof to its Object,
| shall be its own (the Third's) Object, and must be capable of
determining
| a Third to this relation. All this must equally be true of the Third's
| Third and so on endlessly; and this, and more, is involved in the
familiar
| idea of a Sign; and as the term Representamen is here used, nothing
more
| is implied.
|
| A 'Sign' is a Representamen with a mental Interpretant.
|
| Possibly there may be Representamens that are not Signs.
|
| Thus, if a sunflower, in turning towards the sun, becomes by that very
act
| fully capable, without further condition, of reproducing a sunflower
which
| turns in precisely corresponding ways toward the sun, and of doing so
with
| the same reproductive power, the sunflower would become a Representamen
of
| the sun.
|
| But 'thought' is the chief, if not the only, mode of representation.
|
| C.S. Peirce, "Syllabus" (c. 1902), 'Collected Papers', CP 2.274
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
But I have never found this degree of subtlety to serve any purpose in
justifying the ways of Peirce to ordinary mortals, so I think it a far
better thing we do simply to use the word "sign" in the maximal general
sense, and to say "sign with a mental interpretant" when we intend that.
Regards,
Jon
On 2/1/2015 4:00 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
John, List,
The whole sign relation, say L subset of O x S x I, is called a sign
relation. For relations in general, Peirce wrote a k-tuple as x1 : x2 :
... : xk and called it an elementary relative or an individual relative.
Strictly speaking, relatives are terms denoting, not the objects denoted,
so we could call a triple (o, s, i) in L an elementary sign relation.
Regards,
Jon
http://inquiryintoinquiry.com
On Feb 1, 2015, at 3:09 AM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote:
Hi Jon,
What would you call the whole triadic relation in that case?
I have assumed that Peirce introduced 'representamen' to avoid the
potential confusion, but he isn't consistent by any means. (His care
about terminology was not always manifested.) I suppose we could use
'sign triplet', being the irreducible triplet containing the sign.
What do you think is best?
John
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Awbrey [mailto:jawb...@att.net]
Sent: February 1, 2015 5:48 AM
To: Peirce List
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Triadic Relations
Sung, List,
I think it best to use the word "sign" in a way that relates as
naturally as possible to its ordinary use. Of course we expect a
technical formalization of an informal concept to sharpen up the root
idea and cast new light on its meaning, but we do that all the better to
serve the original purpose of using that word.
So I can but recommend using "sign" to mean a thing 's' that has an
object 'o' and an interpretant sign 'i' in an ordered triple of the form
(o, s, i) that is an element of a sign relation L that is a subset of a
cartesian product O x S x I, for a given object domain O, sign domain S,
and interpretant sign domain I.
If you try your suggestion on any other sort of relation, say, the
dyadic relations indicated by "brother", "father", "mother", I think you
will see the sort of confusion that would be caused.
Regards,
Jon
An excellent post, Jon.
So, it may be useful to distinguish between two 'signs' (or
designations) of the sign -- (i) "the Sign" (capital letter S, as
adopted by Edwina) defined as the irreducible set of three elements,
object, representamen, and interpretant, and (ii) "the sign" (small
letter s) defined as synonymous with the representamen.
If we adopt this convention, the following statement would hold:
"The Sign is to the sign what a set is to one of its elements."
(013015-10)
A corollary to Statement (013115-11) would be
"Conflating the Sign and the sign is akin to conflating a set and its
elements." (013015-11)
All the best.
Sung
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Jon Awbrey <jawb...@att.net> wrote:
Re: John Collier
JC: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15541
JC: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15549
JC: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15557
JC: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15565
John, List,
Peirce's concept of determination is apt enough if understood in all
its implications and ramifications, but it does get some interpreters
locked into absolutist, behaviorist, causalist, determinist,
dyadicist, essentialist ways of thinking, especially if they are bent
that way to begin with.
A less narrow path to understanding is through the concept of
constraint,
especially as used in classical cybernetics and mathematical systems
theory.
Constraint is present in a system in measure as the set of likely
occurrences subsets the set of conceivable occurrences.
Constraint, determination, information, and relation are all affairs
of sets and systems of elements, not single elements taken out of
context.
Sets and systems of elements have properties that their member elements
do not.
That is why it is important to understand a sign relation as a set of
triples, not a single triple. Irreducibility, whether compositional
or projective, is a property of the set, not of individual triples.
Regards,
Jon
--
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