Gary R,
These last two posts of yours have made this thread a lot more interesting, to me at least, because they open up dimensions of the subject that I hadn’t anticipated. Actually I was going to wrap up my mini-study today, but now I think it may take awhile longer to draw out some of the implications. I’ll insert my comments into your message below, and respond to your other message separately, although (as I’ll argue there) the issues involved are closely connected. Gary f. From: Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com] Sent: 28-Nov-15 17:37 Gary F, list, Gary, your study is quite helpful and I look forward to its continuation. Before I comment in a separate post on a remark you made in your most recent installment, I'd like to say a few general things about semiosis as distinct from the abstract involutional analysis of classes of possible signs, exactly the table of ten classes. Everyone agrees that for Peirce semiosis is a triadic process. But, as you've suggested, a confusion arises when his table of signs isn't put into an appropriate context. As I see it, speaking now only of each of the ten classes, it is just that, an abstract analysis of one of ten classes of possible signs. Further, even in the abstraction of Peirce's table, some of these classes cannot stand on their own and must be part of a more developed sign class when embodied (as you've already noted, Gary). To try to keep this as uncomplicated at possible, I'll consider only the first class, the rhematic iconic qualisign, or qualisign for short. Neither this sign nor any of the others of the ten classesr represent an actual semiosis (being that triadic quasi-movement whereas the object (2ns) determines the sign (1ns) for the interpretant sign (3ns). GF: Yes, I agree; to represent the actual semiosic process, we would need a series of diagrams, of the kind Peirce called “moving pictures of thought.” The triangular layout of the ten sign sign classes (EP2:296) does not give us that; nor does a single graph in Peirce’s EG system. We can introduce some sense of directional movement in diagrams by using arrows of some kind (as your trikonic diagrams do, and as Vinicius Romanini does in his Minute Semeiotic (beginning with http://www.minutesemeiotic.org/?p=37); and I gather that Jeff Downard is working on some such diagrams also.) But we still have to label the parts of the diagram to make them look like quasi-things; and, chances are, we will need various kinds of “moving pictures” to represent various kinds of semiosis. The problem is that when we compare various diagrams that seem to differ, we have to sort out those that differ in their labelling from those that differ because their objects (the semiosic processes) differ. And some will differ because of differences in context, too. For instance, you mention here the “triadic quasi-movement whereas the object (2ns) determines the sign (1ns) for the interpretant sign (3ns).” It occurs to me that it might be better to label the object 2c, or #2, for Second Correlate rather than 2ns, and the same for 1ns and 3ns. But that’s because I’m thinking in the context of Peirce’s NDTR; and at least in the opening section of that essay, Peirce does not consider that particular quasi-movement of determination, where the object determines the sign; he only mentions the determination of the interpretant by the sign (CP 2.241). Why is that? I’m not sure. This kind of thing introduces some ambiguity into our attempts to explain the relationship between your trikonics and Peirce’s triangle of ten sign types, for instance. But those relationships could be important for understanding semiosis diagrammatically. I think the first stage in bringing all these diagrams together is to apply the ethics of terminology that requires us to use Peirce’s terms as exactly as he did, when possible — and when it’s not possible, to invent new terms and avoid those that Peirce used for some other purpose. And when we use post-Peircean terms, we will have to define them as carefully as Peirce defined his, before we apply them to the analysis of semiosic phenomena. Rather, each is a class of that kind of representamen which Peirce calls a sign (thanks for making this point as clearly as you did, Gary, and with definitive textual support, as far as I'm concerned). And each is analyzed, not in the order of some impossible semiosis (in which absurd case this first sign, the qualisign, might wholly nonsensically be termed an iconic qualisignific rheme following the semiosic O -> S -> I formula just mentioned]). Rather, Peirce analyzes them involutionally whereas the Interpretant (3ns) involves the object (2ns) which in turn involves the sign itself (1ns) in order to render, in this case, the class rhematic iconic qualisign [following the strictly analytical formula, I involves O involves S (note, Peirce refers to this both as the order of involution and as the order of analysis, by which he means specifically categorial analysis from 3ns, through 2ns, to 1ns]. GF: Here again I’ll have to ponder this further. It is obvious that 3ns involves 2ns that involves 1ns, but in NDTR, Peirce only seems to speak of sign types involving other sign types; I’m not sure that the Interpretant “involves” the Object in the same way. So, the first sign of ten, the qualisign, when embodied will be rhematic (qualitatively possible) in relation to its interpretant; it will be iconic in relation to its object; and it will be, as the very sign that it is, a sign of quality. Each of the ten classes require embodiment, and it is only then that we can even begin to speak of semiosis. Most agree, I assume, that the classification of signs belongs to semiotic grammar, the analysis of how signs can signify (and closely related matters). GF: Yes, very well put, I think. I'll discuss your intriguing comment in a separate post with a different Subject heading. Best, Gary
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