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}Gary R, list.
First - enjoy the house-guests - and I'm sure you'll be busy for the
next few days. My busy time starts next week.
As for the linearity of input-mediation-output, no, it's not linear,
since my point is that the input data is transformed by the mediation
process to result in an output. So- the input of a sound is
transformed by the mediative knowledge to result in understanding
that sound. I don't see this as linear since none of the three
'steps' can exist on their own, but only within that triadic process.
I use the term 'function' to explain how mediation is a
transformative action - just as it is in the equation f{x]=y.
And again, I consider the whole triad as the Sign [capital S] and
use Peirce's term of 'representamen' to refer to that mediation. I
think it gets too confusing otherwise - and I don't want to imply
that the representamen/sign exists on its own as a complete
'argument' so to speak, while the triad can be analyzed, at least, as
having that separate existentiality.
Right, the object of an 'original interpretant' would, so to speak,
'disappear' and there is now a 'new object' and its interpretants.
And agreed, 'what was an interpretant is no longer that in the new
semiosis.
All the best as a busy host!
Edwina
On Fri 15/12/17 3:38 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, list,
Thanks for the clarification. I think we may be getting closer on
these matters while, as you probably know from past exchanges, I
don't subscribe to your model of semiosis as input -> mediation ->
output. To use an expression you sometimes employ, I see it as too
linear a model of semiosis. I do understand that you are committed to
it.
I am clearer now, I think, on how you're using 'function' here, but
I'll have to reflect on that a bit further. I would note, however,
that much as 'determines' can be confusing to those who don't
understand Peirce's use of it as meaning something like 'constrained'
in such expressions as "the object determines (bestimmt) the sign,
etc." and not as causing or generating the sign, I think that your
use of 'function' here might result in misleading mechanical
connotations of 'working' or 'operating'.
As for the Interpretant possibly becoming an object in another
semiosis, well, yes, as virtually anything can become the object of a
sign. But my point is that for any chain of interpretants in a given
semiosis that these interpretants remain signs of the selfsame
object. Granted, the interpretant of such a chain may become the new
object of another, a different sign, but then the object of which it
was sign 'disappears' so to speak from that new semiosis (that is,
vanishes as object of that sign). To say this slightly differently,
there is now a new object which will have its own sign and
interpretants. To suggest otherwise is, as I see it, at very least
confusing. The two semioses are wholly different since their objects
are truly different. And what was an 'interpretant' is no longer that
in the new semiosis.
I'll have to call it a day on list discussion as not one but two
sets of nieces and their husbands are arriving as house guests in the
next few hours and there's much to do before they arrive.
Best,
Gary
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690 [1]
On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Gary R, list
In clarification, I'd say that within the semiosic triad, the
Object is providing input data, the Representamen is providing
mediation; the Interpretant is providing output conclusion.
Essentially, this is the same as a Syllogism, where you have a major
premiss, minor premiss and conclusion.
The format
All M is P/ All S is M and therefore/ All S is P.
I use the term 'function' because my point is that none of these
three 'parts' of the triad exists 'per se' in that role outside of
the semiosic process. I don't mean any kind of 'innate function'!
As for my statement that 'the interpretant could function as an
object' means - not that it functions ONLY as an interpretant
..because an interpretant exists only within that triadic
interaction. My point is that, as a conclusion...it becomes a 'bit of
information' which can then initiate other triads. You say exactly
this - and I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough - that the 'interpretant
is made the object of a new and different sign'.
An example would be:
1] Object [noise]/
mediated by Representamen of my experience/
Interpretant: that's the sound of the key turning the door lock.
This Interpretant meaning could then function - within another
triadic process - as an Object:
2] Object [key turning door lock]
mediated by Representamen of my experience
Interpretant: Oh, he's finally home at last.
Edwina
On Fri 15/12/17 11:50 AM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com [3]
sent:
Edwina, Gary f, John, List,
Edwina wrote:
By giving them a different name [ sign, its object, its
interpretant] and the use of the term 'its' - the way I see it is
that Peirce is pointing out that they function, not as separate
Subjects but as interactive forms, each with a different function,
within one process, the semiosic process. In the next instant - that
'interpretant could function as an Object within a different triadic
process.
I might tend to agree with some of this except that I'm not sure I'd
say that each has "a different function" nor that the "interpretant
could function as an object."
Peirce says that the interpretant is the same "or perhaps slightly
developed" sign (if I recall correctly) that it is interpretant of.
And this interpretant sign will determine a further interpretant ad
infinitum . Thus, in semiosis each and every sign is an interpretant
in a chain of signs/interpretant signs each determined by the same
object (infinite semiosis). This is not the same as saying that the
"interpretant could function as an object." As I see it, this could
not happen unless some interpretant were made the object of
another--a new and different sign. Anyhow, that is my understanding
of the interpretant in semiosis.
Best,
Gary R
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690 [4]
On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 10:25 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
List - my few comments are
1] I don't think that Peirce confined semiosis to 'life', understood
as biological, but included the physic-chemical realm as well.
2] And yes, semiosis is a 'process' - a term for which I've been
chastised on this list for using - but it emphasizes the active
interaction that takes place within the triad.
3] I remain concerned about our understanding of Peirce's use of the
term 'subject'.
"But by “semiosis” I mean, on the contrary, an action, or
influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects,
such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative
influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between
pairs."
As he says, it's an action involving THREE sites. BUT, I don't
think these three are each, before the semiosic interaction,
understandable as separate existences, as separate agents - the way
we commonly understand the grammatical term of 'subject'. By giving
them a different name [ sign, its object, its interpretant] and the
use of the term 'its' - the way I see it is that Peirce is pointing
out that they function, not as separate Subjects but as interactive
forms, each with a different function, within one process, the
semiosic process. In the next instant - that 'interpretant could
function as an Object within a different triadic process.
Edwina
On Fri 15/12/17 6:49 AM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent:
John,
Thanks for this, it’s helpful in reducing somewhat the vagueness
of Peirce’s references to physics and chemistry in Lowell 3.4 —
and answering the question I posed, which was badly put in the first
place. What I was trying to “get” was why Peirce would focus on
“substances” of this particular kind to argue for the reality of
Thirdness. There is certainly a conceptual connection between
Thirdness and life, and the phenomenon of chirality doesn’t strike
me as especially exemplary of that connection.
But now I see the historical context these lectures as an earlier
stage in the gradual shift from conceiving the essence of life as a
substance (such as “protoplasm” or in this case “active
substance”) to conceiving it as a process (such as
Maturana/Varela’s “autopoiesis” or Kaufmann’s
“autocatalysis” or Deacon’s “teleogenesis”). Nowadays we
all see an intimate connection between semiosis and the life process,
but we forget that Peirce did not introduce the term “semiosis”
until 1907. MS 318, where he introduced it, is perhaps a better
example of what Peirce was driving at in Lowell 3.4.
[[ (It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis. All
dynamical action, or action of brute force, physical or psychical,
either takes place between two subjects,— whether they react
equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient,
entirely or partially,— or at any rate is a resultant of such
actions between pairs. But by “semiosis” I mean, on the contrary,
an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of
three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant,
this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into
actions between pairs. Σημείωσις in Greek of the Roman
period, as early as Cicero’s time, if I remember rightly, meant the
action of almost any kind of sign; and my definition confers on
anything that so acts the title of a “sign.”) ]EP2:411]
But I don’t think anybody sees the “three-body problem” in
astrophysics, for instance, as embodying the kind of complexity we
see in a semiotic or a living process; so it’s not just the
interaction of any three subjects that constitutes Thirdness. “The
third Universe comprises everything whose Being consists in active
power to establish connections between different objects, especially
between objects in different Universes” (EP2:435, emphasis mine).
I don’t suppose that I’m telling readers of this list anything
they don’t already know, I’m just trying to articulate it in a
way that seems clearer to me than Lowell 3.4 does. Perhaps others can
clarify it better.
Gary f.
-----Original Message-----
From: John F Sowa [mailto:s...@bestweb.net]
Sent: 14-Dec-17 15:27
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 3.4
On 12/13/2017 7:56 AM, g...@gnusystems.ca wrote:
> Peirce is referring to /organic/ compounds as “such active
substances.”
> But I still don’t know what he’s referring to as “those
substances
> which rotate the plane of polarization to the right or left.”
What
> would those be called by chemists today?
Many kinds of crystals and solutions rotate the plane of polarized
light. But organic molecules tend to be more complex than inorganic
molecules, and they frequently come in pairs that are identical,
except for *chirality* (left or right handedness).
The formulas of the L- and R- versions are identical, but because of
the geometry of the molecules, they differ in exactly the same way as
the right and left hands. When light passes through solutions of
those molecules, it reacts differently with the two kinds, but the
difference is only detected when the light happens to be polarized.
The two kinds of molecules are called *enatiomers* of each other.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiomer [5]
See below for an excerpt from the Wikipedia article about splitting
sucrose into *invert sugar*, a mixture of glucose and fructose.
John
___________________________________________________________________
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_sugar_syrup [6]
The term "inverted" is derived from the practice of measuring the
concentration of sugar syrup using a polarimeter. Plane polarized
light, when passed through a sample of pure sucrose solution, is
rotated to the right (optical rotation). As the solution is converted
to a mixture of sucrose, fructose and glucose, the amount of rotation
is reduced until (in a fully converted solution) the direction of
rotation has changed
(inverted) from right to left.
C12H22O11 (sucrose, Specific rotation = +66.5°) + H2O (water, no
rotation) → C6H12O6 (glucose, Specific rotation = +52.7°) +
C6H12O6 (fructose, Specific rotation = −92°)
net: +66.5° converts to −19.65° (half of the sum of the specific
rotation of fructose and glucose)
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