Kirsti, John, list,
My source for the usage of SEMEION was Liddell and Scott (which can be searched online). As John says, the primary meaning is “mark”. My answer to the question of whether a sign has parts was, I thought, implied by the Peirce quote in the blog post I linked to, http://gnusystems.ca/wp/2017/11/stigmata/: “upon a continuous line there are no points (where the line is continuous), there is only room for points,— possibilities of points.” But if you mark a point on the line, one of those possibilities is actualized; and if the line has a beginning and end, then it has those two points (discontinuities) already. I was suggesting an analogy to a sign: for instance, you can say that a dicisign has subject(s) and predicate, but in late Peircean semeiotics, the analysis into these “parts” is somewhat arbitrary, and in some cases, so is the choice of whether it has one “subject” or several. The more “complete” a sign is, the more the element of continuity (or Thirdness) is predominant in it, and thus the more room there is in it for possibilities of parts, i.e. the more opportunity for analyzing it into “partial signs.” Sorry for being so elliptical in my post, but that was my point (if you’ll pardon the expression). I have a very unPeircean fondness for conciseness. By the way, the manuscript of Lowell 4 has a very detailed and previously unpublished explanation of (hypostatic) abstractions such as “dormitive virtue”, so that may be of use for continuing your recent discussion of abstraction, when we reach that point in the next lecture. Gary f. -----Original Message----- From: John F Sowa [mailto:s...@bestweb.net] Sent: 22-Dec-17 01:01 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 3.6 Kirsti and Gary F, K > Euclid introduced the word SEMEION, and defined it as that which has > no parts, and his followers started to that word instead of the > earlier STIGME . GF > By the way, according to my sources, Aristotle used the word σημεῖον > for point before Euclid. [And from web site] According to the Liddell > and Scott lexicon, the word σημεῖον (the usual Greek word for sign and > root of semeiotic) was also used by Aristotle for a mathematical > point, or a point in time. In this sense it was synonymous with στιγμή > (stigma). I checked Liddell & Scott, Chantraine's dictionnaire étymologique, and Heath's translation and commentary on Euclid. The base word is the verb 'stigo', which means to mark something; for example, as a sign of ownership. From that, the word 'stigma' (ending in alpha instead of eta) meant the mark caused by a pointed instrument. The word 'stigme' originally meant a spot in a bird's plumage; then it came to mean any spot, a small mark, or an instant. Aristotle explicitly said that a point was a marker on a line, not a part of the line. Heath said that Euclid generally followed Aristotle. But in vol. 1, p. 156, he said that 'semeion' was probably "considered more suitable than 'stigme' (a puncture) which might claim to have more reality than a point." In summary, all three words (stigma, stigme, and semeion) could refer to a mark, but semeion is more abstract and general than the others. K > Does a sign have parts? - How about meaning? The word 'semeion' could be used to refer to any kind of mark. Euclid used it for just one particular kind. For that use in geometry, the thing it refers to has no parts. K > the Romans & later Boethius changed it to PUNCTUM in their commentaries. I believe that it was good idea to have two distinct words: 'signum' for sign, and 'punctum' for point. John
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