John, list - Agreed, there are no 'basic relations' that exist per se. A relation by definition exists only within an interaction. And certainly, the triad is not 'simple composition' - which would imply that those separate relations are each existential in themselves; the triad is a complex dynamic whole.
The two relations which we understand most commonly - " in respect to their relations to their dynamic objects" 8.335; and "in regard to its relation to its signified interpretant" 8.337. But the third, the representaman, [which Peirce often also calls 'the sign'] has a relation as well, namely "as it is in itself' 8.334. I judge that to be a relation of depth, 'in itself', for the representamen, being also a mediator, must have some ground to its nature, to function as that mediation. "A sign mediates between the interpretant sign and its object" 8.332. Or, referring to their ordinal nature, "Shall we say that a Sign brings a Second, its Object, into cognitive relation to a Third" 8.332. The representamen isn't simply a passive mechanical door that moves the data from the object node to the interpretant node. Something happens at that representamen; it analyzes, thinks, 'minds' that data - and that requires a depth of information at that site. Again, "the essential function of a sign is to render inefficient relations efficient- not to set them into action but to establish a habit or general rule whereby they will act on occasion" 8.332. I don't think that I would define the representamen relation as a 'higher order' of one order higher. I'm suggesting that the representamen relation, because it has depth of knowledge already in itself - that generalization of rules which exists longer than the particular experience - is a 'relation in itself'. None of these relations exist 'per se' but are analyzed via, as John points out, precision. That includes the representamen relation, which cannot exist per se - unless one follows the Forms of Plato- and Peirce was an Aristotelian. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: John Collier To: Edwina Taborsky ; Gary Richmond ; Peirce-L Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 7:45 AM Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations Edwina, List, I worry a bit about the idea that there are three relations involved might lead to exactly the mistake that Edwina is arguing against, that the triadic relation is somehow composed of three more basic relations. I suggested a while back that the triadic sign relation is not reducible, and hence can’t be composed of more basic relations. This is a common situation in emergent phenomena in general. A decomposition would leave something out, basically the nonreducibility of the triad, which requires further explanation in terms of what the triad itself is. This is not to say that Edwina is not right that there are three relations involved in the triad, and that ignoring this obscures their role. It’s just that the relation among them is not simple composition, but a more complexly organized and irreducible relation (which is the triad itself). Edwina talks of inputs and outputs. I have no problem with this, since an irreducible triad can be related to other things via its nodes. But this is not what Edwina means. She refers to the relations between the other nodes and the representamen, which is also OK as long as they are not merely composed to make the triadic relation. I am a bit puzzled because I count only two relations here, which are constrained by the two being related to the representamen in the same way (this is a third relation, but is one order higher – a relation of the other two relations) than the other two in specific triad instances, it seems to me). However, Peirce himself refers to the relation of each of the representamen and the interpretant to the object (the relationship he calls “depends on), each in the same way as the other (a third relation, but as it is a type identity perhaps we can ignore this, since identity doesn’t introduce anything new). Edwina has a dependency on the representamen as a mediator. This involves another third, higher order relation (a relation between relations) between the object-representamen and interpretant-representamen relations. There appear to e a plethora of relations contained in (or implied by – same thing, I would say) the basic triadic sign. My suggestion earlier was that there is the triadic relation (in each instance of sign) and that other relations mentioned in the last paragraph, including the three (two?) Edwina mentions are arrived at by precision (in this case hypostatic abstraction). I did not make this last point as clear as I might have in my previous posts on this issue. Edwina is right that the relata to the representamen can vary in kind (but across different triads), which does suggest individuation, but I would argue that on my account of how Edwina’s (and other) relations implied by the triad fir together all we need to maintain this type difference is a difference in types of triadic semiotic relations. John Collier Professor Emeritus, UKZN http://web.ncf.ca/collier From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] Sent: Sunday, 27 December 2015 4:24 PM To: Gary Richmond; Peirce-L Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations I agree with Gary R's analysis here, and reject Gary F's and Sung's insistence that the singular term is a sign. Agreed, the 9 parameters, as Gary R, calls them (I call them the 9 Relations) can't be defined, in themselves, as signs (Gary F), or as Sung terms them, elementary signs. Such an approach, in my view, rejects the basic dynamics of Peircean semiosis and instead, reduces the system to a mechanical one, where 'complex signs' are formed from simple signs. I think that loses the basic dynamics of the Peircean semiosis. As for my sticking to my three relations rather than one relation in the analysis of the triad, I referred to this, privately to John Deely, as similar to the Christian argument between the Athanasian versus Arian analysis of the Trinity - with the former viewing the Trinity as One, and the latter, as three interactions. I am not persuaded, so far, that my view of the semiosic triad, as a 'whole' of three relations is wrong, for in my view - to say that it is ONE relation, misses the fact that each of the three 'nodes' can be in a different categorical mode. The insistence on the triad as ONE relation doesn't capture this fact. Even saying it is One Triadic relation, doesn't, to me, capture that fact. The Interpretant (output) and the Object (input) relations to the representamen (sign) can each be in a different categorical mode, so calling them the SAME relation obscures this fact. What IS a fact is their dependency on the Representamen as mediator - that dependency is, to me, the SAME. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary Richmond To: Peirce-L Sent: Monday, December 21, 2015 9:02 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations Gary F. list, Gary wrote: I think you may be glossing over some important terminological considerations here, Gary. They may not seem to you important or even relevant to your present inquiry here--which has come to feel like a kind of slow read of portions of NDTR--but I think that there are crucial distinctions to be made here, as difficult as they are given the various ways Peirce expresses himself at particular phases and moments of his semiotic analyses in NDTR. You wrote: GF: Some of the arguments over terminology in this thread make no positive contribution to this inquiry that I can see. For instance, if Peirce says that “an Icon is a sign” and “a Symbol is a sign” (as he does here), I don’t see that we have anything to gain by asserting that an icon is not a sign, or that a symbol is not a sign. Peirce’s nomenclature is difficult enough without introducing claims that directly contradict what he actually says. However, within the context of the 10 classes of signs, it seems clear enough, at least to me, that when, for example, he writes "an Icon is a sign," that he can only mean that the Sign will relate to its Object in some iconic way, and that he does not mean that the Sign taken as a whole is an Icon, since signs in themselves are either qualisigns, sinsigns, or legisigns. So, to say "an Icon is a sign" seems a kind of loose way of speaking which has the potential for conflating what I've been referring to as the 9 parameters (3 x 3 x 3 in consideration of the categorial possibilities available in relation to the Object, the Interpretant, or the Sign as such). To confuse those parameters with the 10 classes--where not one of the 10 none is an 'Icon' as such, and where only three are 'iconic', viz. (1, 2, and 5), all three of these being, btw, 'rhematic' . In like manner, I would not characterize the 6 signs of the 10 which *are* rhematic as 'rhemes" since one is a qualisign, two are sinsigns, and three are legisigns. Those six are not rhemes, but 'rhematic'. Only one of the six should properly be termed 'rheme' (namely, the symbolic legisign). So, again, what I'm suggesting is that there is a kind of unfortunate looseness in Peirce's terminology in the course of his analysis. While this most certain ly is problematic, we shouldn't allow that difficulty to lead us into discussing aspects (expressed more properly as adjectives) of the sign as if they were the whole of the sign : the sign as sign. I do not see this distinction as being, say, ' fastidious ' . In short, one needs to recall that at 2.264 that Peirce writes: "The three trichotomies of Signs result together in dividing Signs into TEN CLASSES OF SIGNS," and I consider it a grave error in semiotic analysis not to clearly distinguish the elements of the trichotomies from the classes. Or, in other words, conflating those three trichotomies involving nine categorial parameters with the ten classes themselves has, in my opinion, historically brought about a great deal of confusion, so that it behooves us to clear up--and not gloss over--the potential confusion s resulting from that conflation. I should add that I agree with you (and what I took John Collier to be saying recently) in opposing what Edwina has been arguing, namely, y our holding, contra Edwina, that the sign is not three relations, but one genuine triadic relation. Peirce has been quoted here repeatedly as stating that a sign should not be conceived as "a complexus of dyadic relations" (although, admittedly, his terminology can get a little loose in this matter as well). Finally, the integrity of the sign is further emphasized by his insisting that the interpretant stands in the same relation to the object as the sign itself stands (I don't see that Edwina deals with that last principle in her three-relations analysis whatsoever). You concluded: GF: I’d like to return to the “mirror” idea that Gary R. picked up on awhile back, by suggesting that the involvementdescribed above is a sort of mirror image of degeneracy, in the way that the two concepts are applied to these sign types here and in Kaina Stoicheia. I would very much like to take up this mirror image notion in terms of involvement (categorial involution) and degeneracy (and the relation of the two), although I don't think that this thread is the place to do it. I began another thread on that 'mirror' theme, and perhaps after the first of the year we can take up these issues there if you and others are interested. Meanwhile, I wish you and all Peirce e-forum members a happy, healthy, and intellectually productive new year! Best, Gary R Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York C 745 718 482-5690 On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 1:12 PM, <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote: Resuming the close examination of Peirce’s “Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations”, we move on to the second trichotomy, which divides signs “according as the relation of the sign to its object consists in the sign's having some character in itself, or in some existential relation to that object, or in its relation to an interpretant” (CP 2.243). My reason for including Peirce’s text in these posts is mostly to bring us back to his own terminology, since it is his analysis of semiosis that we are investigating here. Some of the arguments over terminology in this thread make no positive contribution to this inquiry that I can see. For instance, if Peirce says that “an Icon is a sign” and “a Symbol is a sign” (as he does here), I don’t see that we have anything to gain by asserting that an icon is not a sign, or that a symbol is not a sign. Peirce’s nomenclature is difficult enough without introducing claims that directly contradict what he actually says. So here is the second trichotomy: CP 2.247. According to the second trichotomy, a Sign may be termed an Icon, an Index, or a Symbol. An Icon is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not. It is true that unless there really is such an Object, the Icon does not act as a sign; but this has nothing to do with its character as a sign. Anything whatever, be it quality, existent individual, or law, is an Icon of anything, in so far as it is like that thing and used as a sign of it. 248. An Index is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of being really affected by that Object. It cannot, therefore, be a Qualisign, because qualities are whatever they are independently of anything else. In so far as the Index is affected by the Object, it necessarily has some Quality in common with the Object, and it is in respect to these that it refers to the Object. It does, therefore, involve a sort of Icon, although an Icon of a peculiar kind; and it is not the mere resemblance of its Object, even in these respects, which makes it a sign, but it is the actual modification of it by the Object. 249. A Symbol is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to cause the Symbol to be interpreted as referring to that Object. It is thus itself a general type or law, that is, is a Legisign. As such it acts through a Replica. Not only is it general itself, but the Object to which it refers is of a general nature. Now that which is general has its being in the instances which it will determine. There must, therefore, be existent instances of what the Symbol denotes, although we must here understand by “existent,” existent in the possibly imaginary universe to which the Symbol refers. The Symbol will indirectly, through the association or other law, be affected by those instances; and thus the Symbol will involve a sort of Index, although an Index of a peculiar kind. It will not, however, be by any means true that the slight effect upon the Symbol of those instances accounts for the significant character of the Symbol. Let’s compare what Peirce says about each sign type in this second trichotomy with his definition of the three types in the first trichotomy. Since the Qualisign and the Icon are each first in their respective trichotomies, each exemplifies Firstness, but in a different way. The Firstness of the Qualisign is its being a quality in itself. The Firstness of the Icon, on the other hand, is the Firstness of its relation to its Object, specifically the fact that it “refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not.” Now compare the Secondness of the Index in its trichotomy with the Secondness of the Sinsign, which is its being an actual existent thing or event. The Index “refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of being really affected by that Object.” Again, its Secondness is that of its relation to its Object — which, as a genuine Secondness, involves a Firstness (namely “a sort of Icon”). The peculiarity of that Firstness, I would guess, is that its genuine Secondness to the Object does have something to do with its character, which is not the case with the Icon as defined above. Finally, we come to the Thirdness of the Symbol in its trichotomy. The Thirdness of a Legisign is that it is in itself a “law” and a “general type.” The Symbol, being also a Legisign, is general in its mode of being but also in its relation to its Object. This entails that it acts through a Replica, and that there must be existent instances of what the Symbol denotes, although we must here understand by “existent,” existent in the possibly imaginary universe to which the Symbol refers. Hence, just as genuine Secondness involves Firstness, so also does the Thirdness of a Symbol involve Secondness, in the form of “a sort of Index, although an Index of a peculiar kind.” To close, I’d like to return to the “mirror” idea that Gary R. picked up on awhile back, by suggesting that the involvement described above is a sort of mirror image of degeneracy, in the way that the two concepts are applied to these sign types here and in Kaina Stoicheia. I won’t elaborate on that, though, but just wish everyone a happy Solstice! Gary f. } We are natural expressions of a deeper order. [Stuart Kauffman] { http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway ----------------------------- 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 . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to 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 . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. 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