Clark- perhaps I wasn't clear.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that I, myself, thought that the
Representamen functioned as a kind of 'Sovereign Will 'agent. I was instead
suggesting that Gary F's insistence on considering ONLY the Representamen as
'the Sign' [rather than the full triad] does just that - It transforms that
mediative process which is the Representamen, into a kind of Sovereign Power. A
form of Platonism in that it privileges the 'Mind' as an Agential power over
the objective reality, or a even a form of nominalism in that it also rejects
the external object's power. I reject both versions.
You wrote: "the object determines the interpretant via the sign-token" . I
agree with this, acknowledging that your term of 'sign-token' means
'representamen'.
I see your point about the sign-token [representamen] 'clearing the space' for
the unveiling of the object, by which I understand that knowledge increases
(within the continuity of commonality of object held by the Representamen) to
enable a person to understand the objective reality of the object.
So, in essence, I think we are in agreement on all points.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Clark Goble
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2015 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates and triadic relations
On Nov 30, 2015, at 7:22 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
Agreed. As I've said, I don't agree with confining the term 'sign' to refer
to and only to one single Relation in the whole triad; that of the
Representamen or ground. That transforms this one Relation, the Representamen,
from being the vital mediative action in a full process and makes it into
almost a Sovereign Will Agent. Such a privileging and reductionism ignores
that a Sign (full triad) functions and can only function not within one
Relation but within three Relations, and furthermore - as that full triadic
process, the Sign emerges within the semiosic process and takes on an
existential material nature. So, that full triad, the Sign, functions and
exists as a molecule, a cell, a weathervane, a word, an argument.
Well yes and no. I’m not sure what you mean by sovereign will agent. Almost
sounds like libertarian free will which I’m not sure Peirce is committed to.
Going back to Scotus, who I linked to, the key notion is determination. The
object determines the interpretant via the sign-token. I think it follows from
Peirce’s semiotics that this entails that the sign-token must determine the
interpretant. I don’t think “sovereign will” makes sense in this context, which
tends to be a more internalist nearly Cartesian way of thinking. Nor do I think
this is really the third person conception of physicalists of the nominalist
bent. (Which frankly is most of them) The medievals had a middle voice as did
the Greeks but that way of thinking tends to be rare in modern philosophy. It
is an important point in Heidegger and many who followed in that vein.
Interestingly relative to Scotus the middle voice argument usually is made by
the proponents of analogy against Scotus. Heidegger sees this voice as key to
understanding the pre-socratics (since he’s caught up on Plato being the source
of philosophical error as much if not more than Descartes). So his examples of
“to arise” (middle voice) and “to give birth to” (active voice) arise both out
of medieval but also these early Greek ways of speaking. The key to the middle
voice is that things happen without necessarily someone or something making
them happen. The actor is just missing.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I take Peirce to be doing with his
sign-process. This may just be me inappropriately reading Heidegger’s notion of
aletheia into Peirce’s signs. But I think the sign-token is this vehicle that
clears a space for this unveiling of the object. The relationship between
object and interpretant through the sign-token is this happening in the middle
voice. More key, is that I think one can see inquiry as being the clearing that
lets this happen. So there’s a certain quietism in both Peirce and Heidegger
tied to this middle voice.
To my eyes, this middle voice is why Peirce’s externalism is so important.
Properly speaking while the object determines the interpretant the sign is
necessary. Not only is this a middle term in terms of the diagram, but it also
is a middle voice.
So to your point about will, I think the middle voice tends to clear that
problem up.
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