Marccu s, Gary F., Janos, list,
One problem here is that many people are probably working with different
notions of what is cognition, what is perception. For my part I take
perception as a mode of cognition, but I don't know what others think
and I'm unsure what Peirce thought.
Marccu, Peirce's categories are categories of phenomenon and appear as
elements in every phenomenon, varying in such ways that one category or
another may be predominant in a given phenomenon. In "On a New List of
Categories" (1867), Peirce defined thirdness as "reference to an
interpretant." He later seems to have broadened the definition but, in
any case, if all perception and cognition involve reference to an
interpretant, in the sense at least of tending to determine or influence
an interpretant, then all perception and cognition have thirdness, even
if the interpretant is more 'third-ish' or tertian than some other
elements in perception and cognition.
Thinking of Peirce's categories in this way makes me think of colors
refracting in various ways from a crystal. An icon is the First in the
trichotomy icon, index, symbol, yet there are also three kinds of icons
(or 'hypoicons' - but that technicality doesn't matter here) - image,
diagram, and metaphor, and they are First, Second, and Third,
respectively, so, bringing both levels of classification in: image,
diagram, metaphor are Priman First, Secundan First, and Tertian First,
respectively.
Now, somebody may argue (as I've argued in the past - although some,
including Jon Awbrey and Edwina Taborsky, disagree) that /sign/ (or
representamen), /object/, /interpretant/, are generally First, Second,
and Third respectively. If it's so, then one can still also hold that,
as the correlates in semiosis, all three are Thirds - the sign is the
Priman Third, the semiotic object is the Secundan Third, and the
interpretant is the Tertian Third. Yet at the same time, as I said,
there are kinds of signs which themselves fall into First-Second-Third
trichotomies, such as icon, index, symbol. Moreover, that trichotomy
itself is a trichotomy of ways to classify the sign by how it represents
its object, and that makes it a 'Secundan' trichotomy. (Qualisign,
sinsign, legisign are the Priman trichotomy, classifying the sign in
virtue of its _/own/_ phenomenological category; and rheme, dicisign,
argument are the Tertian trichotomy, classifying the sign in virtue of
how it represents itself to its interpretant.) Furthermore, Peirce at
least once discussed how a sign, simply by being determined by its
object, was a Second to its object. It's complicated stuff. The
categories, like hues, are, as it were, refracted to the mind's eye in
complicated ways, by turnings of the triadic 'crystal' of proliferative
sign relations.
If you want to introduce a fourth category alongside Peirce' three,
there are ramifications. You need to define it at a general
philosophical level as Peirce defined his three, not only in terms of
cognitive science. Moreover you need to see whether Peirce's three
'work' with the fourth or whether your supposition of a fourth implies
revisions of them too. Peirce's categories are correlated with, and
sometimes expressed in terms of, such logical quantities as 'individual'
or 'singular', and 'general', so you'll need to see what happens with
such logical quantities in your system. While one cannot expect somebody
embarking on a 'four-ist' path to succeed in turning all Peirce's threes
into convincing fours overnight, it's a daunting even as a long-range
task. Why should you need to do all that? Well you don't need to do it,
if you aren't interested in convincing Peircean scholars in particular.
In semiotics, you need to argue, at a general, logical level, as to why
sign, object, and interpretant aren't enough. I myself argued long and
often for their insufficiency many years ago here at peirce-l, but I
didn't convince anybody, although I may have convinced a few people that
I've raised a certain issue or two that Peircean semiotics needs to deal
with. Sign and interpretant, said Peirce often enough in his later
years, do not convey acquaintance or experience with their object. So
how does one form an acquaintance or acquire experience with an object?
Through other signs and interpretants? - but these also do not convey
acquaintance or experience with their object. One's collateral
experience with the object helps determine the sign to an interpretant,
but sign and interpretant still do not convey acquaintance, experience,
or familiarity with the object. Now, there's an analogy that some have
noticed between 'source, encoding, decoding' and 'object, sign,
interpretant'. Shannon's communication scenario includes a fourth
"processing" stage, the destination. So I'd look for something analogous
in semiosis. If you actually pursue that, you'll end up pursuing
revisions of Peirce's classifications of signs, interpetants, the whole
thing. I've done only a little. It's complicated stuff.
Well, that's more than I've said in many years about issues of
experience and collateral experience in Peircean semiotics. I don't
think that I'll have much energy for defending my notions. But let it be
said that I never got thrown off peirce-l for voicing these ideas in the
past at peirce-l. I stopped arguing it partly because I thought the
argumentation was starting to dominate peirce-l and I thought that that
was bad for peirce-l.
Best, Ben
On 2/2/2015 1:04 PM, marccu s wrote:
Subjectivity or subject is a kind of mode of being like firstness,
secondness and thirdness. Those modes of being includes continuous
information formation within subject which can recognize himself as
real. This mode of being called subject, human being, is in relation
to other subjects and objects. But most of peircean semioticians
ignore the subject. In a case human being, this is a fourth mode of
being. It includes networked information processes - it can remember
how it was to be before and how it wants to be in future and so on.
Further there are different kind of modes of being in relation to
other subjects and objects. Thats why peircen categories are not enough.
sorry my english, kindly, markku
Lähetetty laitteesta Windowsin sähköposti
*Lähettäjä:* Gary Fuhrman
*Lähetetty:* lauantai, 31. tammikuuta 2015 17:16
*Vast.ott:* peirce-l@list.iupui.edu <mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
markku, Janos,
I used the term “generated thought” because Janos used it, and I was
trying to explain the point in his own terms. As such it’s different
from Peirce’s “Thought”, which is more generator than generated.
I’m not sure I understand your question well enough to answer it, but
… you say that
“If we follow Locke [I think you must mean Peirce] there is no
cognition outside triadic sign and in the other way you say that
perception is cognition.” You seem to see an inconsistency that I
don’t see. Perhaps you don’t see perception as semiotic, and indeed
that’s not the only way of looking at perception. But as far as I
know, for both Locke and Peirce, cognition depends on perception.
Perception becomes cognition by way of the perceptual judgement,
which is the recognition of a perceived object as belonging to an
already-known type or combination of types. Thus perception is
/continuous with/ cognition; and cognition is continuous with
semiosis. I’ve read quite a bit of cognitive science, neuroscience
etc., and I haven’t come across any well-supported theories in that
field that are incompatible with Peircean semiotics.
Peirce of course rejected the idea of a /tabula rasa/, but I don’t
see what that has to do with signs as triadic relations.
gary f.
*From:* marccu s
*Sent:* 30-Jan-15 6:18 PM
*To:* Gary Fuhrman; PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu
*Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] A question about the triadic relation of Sign
For exmple Locke is thought to be an originator of the idea of the
tabula rasa - a blank slate. In his Essay Concerning Human
Understanding he also had an idea of the nature of associationism. I
use the term I have learnt from Peirce-list; disagree.
But now, you tell to us that the interpretant, the "generated
thought" (thougth is something generated?), is a third, but Thirdness
proper belongs to perception (semiosis, cognition) as an irreducible
whole, not to its third stage in temporal order.
I do not understand. If we follow Locke there is no cognition outside
triadic sign and in the other way you say that perception is
cognition. Why so?
yst markku
> From: g...@gnusystems.ca <mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca>
> To: PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu <mailto:PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu>
> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:12:42 -0500
> Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] A question about the triadic relation of Sign
> Janos, now I see what your problem is.
A stimulus has to be *second* to whatever responds do it. A quality,
as a manifestation of Firstness, cannot be a stimulus. The response
must *also* be second to the stimulus. In other words, a
stimulus-response event is an instance of Secondness.
What you have here is a mistranslation of cognitive science terms
into Peircean phenomenological terms. So naturally your mapping of
perception onto semiosis will be faulty. Thirdness comes into it
when the quality of the brain event is recognized as a quality of
the object. "Thirdness is found wherever one thing brings about a
Secondness between two things" (Peirce, EP2:269) So the
interpretant, the "generated thought", is a third, but Thirdness
proper belongs to perception (semiosis, cognition) as an irreducible
whole, not to its third stage in temporal order.
gary f.
-----Original Message-----
From: Janos Sarbo
Sent: 30-Jan-15 7:09 AM
To: PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu <mailto:PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] A question about the triadic relation of Sign
Dear list,
Thank you for your reactions so far. Unless I missed something, as
yet the nature of a relation between triadic sign and qualitative
change has not been fully explained. On 01/29/15 John wrote:
"irreducible triads as not fully computable, and hence inherently
open-ended", which points in the direction of a possible
compatibility of the two concepts. For an illustration of my view,
that the relation between the two concepts can be a relation of
equivalence, I found a cognitive perspective helpful.
Following cognitive theory, human processing is triggered by an
appearing quality. This quality or stimulus, which is a potential
sign (cf. representamen), must be a 1st. The stimulus or input
qualia (which are an internal representation of qualities) is
triggering memory. The arising memory response, which is in
relation with the stimulus, must be a 2nd. The generated thought or
motor reaction, which is in a triadic relation with simulus and
memory response (cf. sign), must be a 3rd.
Note that in this model of human processing the appearing
quality/stimulus/potential sign/representamen is assumed to
function as an effect, not as a state.
The arising thought must be a quality (it may trigger a next
interpretation cycle) that must be different from stimulus and
memory response. Hence it must be (or involve) a qualitative change.
Best regards,
Janos
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