Gary R, I think that’s a good exposition of the “reference” issues, including some aspects of the matter that I hadn’t thought of.
This is heartening because I find it difficult to write about these ‘categorial’ issues as they are presented in Lowell 3 — difficult because they take us back to the very basics of experience itself, or to the elements of the phenomenon, which is the other side of the same coin. The deeper we probe into this, the more vast the implications and the applications, and the harder it is to illustrate the conceptions with concrete examples, because any example that comes to mind (like Spike the cat) brings irrelevant or misleading associations along with it. Also, if the writer thinks about the reader’s response, he’s apt to say (as Peirce did earlier in Lowell 3), “It must be extremely difficult for those who are untrained to such analyses of conceptions to make any sense of all this.” But then other readers (on a list like this one) are likely to feel that they’ve heard it all before and want to skip ahead. Hence the writer’s despair. But I might as well stumble on regardless. Before probing further into Lowell 3.11, and specifically CP 1.536, I’d like to requote this bit from earlier in Lowell 3: [[ The secondness of the Second, whichever of the two objects be called the Second, is different from the Secondness of the first. That is to say it generally is so. To kill and to be killed are different. In case there is one of the two which there is good reason for calling the First, while the other remains the Second, it is that the Secondness is more accidental to the former than to the latter; that there is more or less approach to a state of things in which something, which is itself First, accidentally comes into a Secondness that does not really modify its Firstness, while its Second in this Secondness is something whose being is of the nature of Secondness and which has no Firstness separate from this.… The extreme kind of Secondness which I have just described is the relation of a quality to the matter in which that quality inheres. The mode of being of the quality is that of Firstness. That is to say, it is a possibility. It is related to the matter accidentally; and this relation does not change the quality at all, except that it imparts existence, that is to say, this very relation of inherence, to it. But the matter, on the other hand, has no being at all except the being a subject of qualities. This relation of really having qualities constitutes its existence. But if all its qualities were to be taken away, and it were to be left quality-less matter, it not only would not exist, but it would not have any positive definite possibility — such as an unembodied quality has. It would be nothing, at all.] (CP 1.527)] Now, the very word “matter” has common associations that would make this line of thinking hard to follow. We are often inclined to think of “matter” as physical stuff, like the clay which an artisan or artist might shape into a bowl or a sculpture, or like the clay that God shaped into Adam in one of the Genesis stories. But clay already has qualities that make it clay. Can we imagine “quality-less matter” at all? Or an “unembodied quality”? If not, we can’t imagine a pure First or a pure Second either. Neither one could exist (as clay can exist) because existence is the “very relation of inherence” of qualities in matter. So thinking of the quality as First and the matter as Second, we can say that the quality determines the matter to its existence. This is different from another kind of determination which is involved in a triadic relation. Peirce explains the difference in CP 1.536: [[ We have here a First, a Second, and a Third. The first is a Positive Qualitative Possibility, in itself nothing more. The Second is an Existent thing without any mode of being less than existence, but determined by that First. A Third has a mode of being which consists in the Secondnesses that it determines, the mode of being of a Law, or Concept. Do not confound this with the ideal being of a quality in itself. A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A Law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be. ]] If I read this right, Peirce is saying here that a First can determine a Second by being embodied here and now, and thus being accidentally involved in a Secondness while retaining its essential Firstness as a possibility; but a Third can attain or retain its essential Thirdness only by continuously determining Secondnesses, whenever the situation arises that makes this possible. For me, this has an important bearing on the discussion we were having last year on the list about the “order of determination” in semiosis. Also on the question Stephen Rose asked the other day about what Peirce means by “continuity.” Of course, whole books have been and are being written on that subject, so I didn’t (and still don’t) have the nerve to say anything more about it here. But let’s go on the genuine Thirdness: [[ Now in Genuine Thirdness, the First, the Second, and the Third are all three of the nature of thirds, or Thought, while in respect to one another they are First, Second, and Third. The First is Thought in its capacity as mere Possibility; that is, mere Mind capable of thinking, or a mere vague idea. The Second is Thought playing the rôle of a Secondness, or Event. That is, it is of the general nature of Experience or Information. The Third is Thought in its rôle as governing Secondness. It brings the Information into the Mind, or determines the Idea and gives it body. It is informing thought, or Cognition. But take away the psychological or accidental human element, and in this genuine Thirdness we see the operation of a Sign. ] CP 1.537 ] That last sentence takes us to the crux of the challenge of Peircean semiotics and Peircean phenomenology: Experience is our only teacher in science, as he says elsewhere, and all of our experience is human experience — yet we are tasked to “take away the psychological or accidental human element” from our comprehension of the elements of the phenomenon, and specifically of semiosic phenomena. Nominalists and others will say it can’t be done; Peirce says “Why not?” And that’s where I’ll have to leave it for today, though I don’t suppose I’ve made a dent in the “endless future” of this inquiry. Gary f. From: Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com] Sent: 5-Jan-18 20:40 Gary f, list, All of this is very interesting both from the standpoints of phenomenology and of semiotics (and, it would seem, how they necessarily involve each other). I don't know whether I have anything much to add to what you've already written, but first let me see if I fully grasp your meaning. You wrote: Gf: [H]ow is this specialized usage [of "Reference"] related to the ordinary usage of the common noun “reference” rooted in the verb “refer”? For instance, when I type the term “cat” to refer to the cat who is curled up on the sofa nearby, is there a dyadic relation between cat and word which is an instance of Degenerate Secondness? Spike the cat (to give him his proper name) is certainly an “existing individual,” and thus a Second, but does the common noun belong to a different “category of being,” a First which “is a mere First”? This may seem a trivial question, but it is definitely asemiotic question, because a word is definitely a sign. Now, semiosis is all about triadic relations; so what we are looking into here is the role of degenerate Secondness in triadic relations. I approached this topic several years ago in Chapter 7 of Turning Signs, http://gnusystems.ca/TS/xpt.htm#tention, and though I still have my doubts about it, I haven’t come up with any improvements. Regarding a sign, even a symbol like “cat,” as a “First” is not really a problem in the light of Peirce’s definition of the sign in the Syllabus (EP2:290-91) as “First Correlate of a triadic relation.” But I’d like to know what other Peirceans think on this issue. I certainly agree that seeing 'a symbol like “cat,” as a “First” is not really a problem in the light of Peirce’s definition of the sign. . . as “First Correlate of a triadic relation" since from the standpoint of semiotics this is a case of degenerate 2ns because an actual cat is an Object and the word "cat" is but a sign. This seems clear enough, fairly obvious, I think. But getting closer to the heart of the matter, you quoted Peirce: [[ . . . I always left these references out of account, notwithstanding their manifest importance, simply because the algebras or other forms of diagrammatization which I employed did not seem to afford me any means of representing them. I need hardly say that the moment I discovered in the verso of the sheet of Existential Graphs a representation of a universe of possibility, I perceived that a reference would be represented by a graph which should cross a cut, thus subduing a vast field of thought to the governance and control of exact logic. ] CP 4.579 ] (1906) In one sense the word "cat" is a mere possibility because there is a "universe of possibility" as regards how the Object, 'cat,' might be symbolized (e.g. by gatto, chat, Katze, etc.) as well as the name given to any actual cat, in this case, Spike. Indeed, some actual cats given one name by one owner are given another name by their next owner. And there are other 'possibilities' as well. Can we say that one loses the genuine 2ns of 'cat' unless one experiences (say, actually looks at, pets, feels the claws of a cat digging into his flesh, etc.) a real cat, say Spike? That "looking at" grounds ones cat-reference in actuality==genuine 2ns (not just facticity==degenerate 2ns). For example, one can imagine a person in a place where there are no cats and, so, has never seen an actual cat, but who has read extensively on cats, seen videos of cats, etc. This person would not really have a 'sense' of catness at all, I don't believe (I also just recalled those fanciful European visual depictions of Amerindians in the years just following the 'discovery' of the New World based on verbal descriptions of First Nation peoples). This seems in line with what you wrote in Chapter 7 of your book,Turning Signs <http://gnusystems.ca/TS/xpt.htm#tention> http://gnusystems.ca/TS/xpt.htm#tention Gf: The reader of philosophy should be aware that ‘mere reference’ is only a ‘degenerate Secondness’ (CP 1.535, 1903). In order to fix her attention on a dynamic object within the sphere of experience, she must translate an ‘abstractly expressed proposition into its precise meaning’ – but since she can only do so by drawing upon her prior experience with the terms translated, her reading is at risk of getting trapped inside the bubble of language. ‘All degenerate seconds may be conveniently termed Internal, in contrast to External seconds, which are constituted by external fact, and are true actions of one thing upon another’ (EP1:254). Nor is it only abstractions and fantasies which are subject to this degeneracy: the representation of ‘facts’ in a ‘true’ story is equally degenerate, since it can only refer symbolically to the dynamic object of the story, the external facts. The difference between genuine and degenerate Secondness, or external fact and internal reference, is the difference between living through an event and imagining or recalling it. So, if I have grasped you meaning in your comments on the Lowell segment and your Chapter 7 of Turning Signs, I would tend to strongly agree with your analysis of the distinction between genuine and degenerate 2ns. You closed that stimulating chapter of your book with this observation and question, one which I'd like to discuss at some point along the way (perhaps even in a separate thread). Gf: ‘Experience’ itself is only a word, like other words: how then do you reach the point where you can judge for yourself whether experience is your only teacher or not? Best, Gary R On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 5:58 PM, <g...@gnusystems.ca <mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca> > wrote: List, Peirce’s recursive application of the categories seems to reach a climax with the Firstness of Thirdness here, as he tells us that the “slight glimpse” into phenomenology given so far in this lecture is intended “merely to lead up to Thirdness and to the particular kind and aspect of thirdness which is the sole object of logical study.” But before we plunge into that, I’d like to point out a couple of questions raised by Peirce’s reference here to the term “reference.” Summarizing his previous remarks, he says that “genuine Secondness was found to be Action, where First and Second are both true Seconds and the Secondness is something distinct from them, while in Degenerate Secondness, or mere Reference, the First is a mere First never attaining full Secondness.” He did not use the term “reference” earlier in this lecture, but he did use it in the part of the 1903 Syllabus devoted to dyadic relations, CP 3.572: “The broadest division of dyadic relations is into those which can only subsist between two subjects of different categories of being (as between an existing individual and a quality) and those which can subsist between two subjects of the same category. A relation of the former kind may advantageously be termed a reference; a relation of the latter kind, a dyadic relation proper.” This seems consistent with the identification of “Reference” as “Degenerate Secondness” — but what is “advantageous” about using the term “reference” in this way? And how is this specialized usage related to the ordinary usage of the common noun “reference” rooted in the verb “refer”? For instance, when I type the term “cat” to refer to the cat who is curled up on the sofa nearby, is there a dyadic relation between cat and word which is an instance of Degenerate Secondness? Spike the cat (to give him his proper name) is certainly an “existing individual,” and thus a Second, but does the common noun belong to a different “category of being,” a First which “is a mere First”? This may seem a trivial question, but it is definitely a semiotic question, because a word is definitely a sign. Now, semiosis is all about triadic relations; so what we are looking into here is the role of degenerate Secondness in triadic relations. I approached this topic several years ago in Chapter 7 of Turning Signs, http://gnusystems.ca/TS/xpt.htm#tention, and though I still have my doubts about it, I haven’t come up with any improvements. Regarding a sign, even a symbol like “cat,” as a “First” is not really a problem in the light of Peirce’s definition of the sign in the Syllabus (EP2:290-91) as “First Correlate of a triadic relation.” But I’d like to know what other Peirceans think on this issue. There’s also a connection here with Peirce’s ‘epiphany’ about existential graphs in 1906, when he said that: [[ in all my attempts to classify relations, I have invariably recognized, as one great class of relations, the class of references, as I have called them, where one correlate is an existent, and another is a mere possibility; yet whenever I have undertaken to develop the logic of relations, I have always left these references out of account, notwithstanding their manifest importance, simply because the algebras or other forms of diagrammatization which I employed did not seem to afford me any means of representing them. I need hardly say that the moment I discovered in the verso of the sheet of Existential Graphs a representation of a universe of possibility, I perceived that a reference would be represented by a graph which should cross a cut, thus subduing a vast field of thought to the governance and control of exact logic. ] CP 4.579 ] But I think this message is long enough already, and I’ll leave commenting on the rest of Lowell 3.11 for later. Gary f.
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