Clark, List: I tracked down the passage in Short's book that I was only dimly remembering when we had this exchange a few days ago in the thread on "Pragmatic Theory of Truth."
TLS: ‘[E]ach Sign must have its peculiar Interpretability’, Peirce said. He did not mean that the interpretability is peculiar to the sign (i.e., shared by no other sign), which would be false, but that the sign (using the word opaquely) has only that one interpretability. A different immediate interpretant would constitute a different sign. It follows that something, X, having diverse immediate interpretants,Ri1, Ri2, ... , is that many distinct signs, S1, S2, ... That fits the way we ordinarily count signs. Suppose that in nineteenth-century Arizona a rancher observes some puffs of smoke on the horizon: they are a sign of fire; they are also a sign that the Apaches are on the warpath. We count these as two signs, albeit they are the same smoke ... Any dynamic interpretant of a given sign must actualize that sign’s immediate interpretant, in one way or another; otherwise, it would not be an interpretant of *that *sign. And, yet, dynamic interpretants of the same sign will differ from one another: ‘My Dynamical Interpretant is that which is experienced in each act of Interpretation and is different in each from that of any other’. (pp. 188-189) It turns out that Short "counts" different Signs based on different *Immediate *Interpretants, but not based on different *Dynamic *Interpretants. This makes sense, given that the Immediate Interpretant is *internal *to the Sign, while the Dynamic Interpretant is *external *to it; especially since each occurrence of the latter is *distinct*, even for the same Sign. So I wonder--does this "counting" principle also apply to Immediate (internal) vs. Dynamic (external) *Objects*? Maybe so; in Short's example, the puffs of smoke would seem to constitute the same *Dynamic *Object, but have different *Immediate *Objects as a Sign of fire vs. a Sign of Apaches on the warpath. This leads to my suggestion that every Sign has an Immediate Object and Immediate Interpretant that are real possibilities internal to it, thus forming a triad; but a Sign may or may not have a Dynamic Object and a Dynamic Interpretant that are actualities external to it, as three correlates of a triadic relation. Again, what do you think? Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt <http://www.linkedin.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 9:29 PM, CLARK GOBLE <cl...@lextek.com> wrote: > > On Mar 28, 2017, at 6:45 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > CG: Don’t we here have to distinguish between the mark and the sign? > > > I know what you mean, but I am not sure that "mark" is the right word > here, especially since Peirce used that term in some later writings as a > synonym for "qualisign." I just had in mind the "thing" (also not the best > word for it) that acts as a sign. > > Yeah, the terminology can get tricky. Especially since it’s signs all the > way down. > > CG: Two signs can’t be the same sign unless they also have the same > interpretant and object, can they? > > > I seem to recall that T. L. Short took this position in *Peirce's Theory > of Signs*, but consistent with that book's reputation overall, I do not > know whether it truly reflects Peirce's view or just his own. Besides, > given that semeiosis is continuous, is it even legitimate to "count" signs > as distinct individuals at all? > > I don’t think it’s just Short’s. I’m not sure how else to conceive of > equating signs. In some sense we must be able to do so. > > CG: Does the icon have its character really or merely as interpreted? > That’s the very question that divides nominalism from realism. > > > Yes, and I think that the icon really *has *its character regardless; but > the question is whether *merely *having that character *makes *it an > icon, apart from anyone or anything *interpreting *it as such. Again, is > it sufficient for something to have only an Immediate Interpretant--"its > peculiar interpretability"--in order to "qualify" as a sign, or is that > "status" only achieved once it has a Dynamic Interpretant? > > Hopefully my later post clarified that a bit. I confess I’m reaching for > proper language because most terms are ambiguous about the distinction I’m > trying to raise. Realism vs. nominalism is probably the best way to think > of it I’ve decided. >
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