John,
Yes, there are plenty of “earlier thoughts along those lines” of a semiotic generalized beyond the human experience of signs. In fact they are “as plenty as blackberries,” if you read Peirce chronologically looking for them. His anti-psychologism, for example, which he consistently maintained from the 1860s on, is essentially a refusal to limit the application of logical principles to what goes on in human minds or brains. But his logic/semiotic was always generalized from the human experience of sign use, as he says in CP 1.540. And necessarily so, because “experience is our only teacher” and we humans can only learn from our experience. I still don’t see a “change in terminology” here, unless it’s the change in usage of the word “sign” which occurred after 1903. The terminological change was that Peirce gave up using the term “sign” in a way that limited it to the human realm. In Lowell 3.13 he distinguished between “sign” and “representamen”; after 1905 the distinction disappears and “sign” means the same thing as “representamen.” But that change was only terminological, in my view; there was no change in the object to which Peirce used those words to direct our attention. So I don’t see what it is that you think needs more explanation. By the way, this is one of the areas where the unPeircean use of the word “sign” to refer to a triadic relation (rather than a subject of a triadic relation) tends to cause confusion. Peirce’s 1903 distinction between “sign” and “representamen” was not a distinction between the whole triadic relation and one component of it. This terminological issue is perfectly clear if you read what Peirce actually wrote instead of someone else’s revised version of semiotics — and if it’s Peircean semiotics that you’re trying to understand. Gary f. -----Original Message----- From: John F Sowa [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 20-Jan-18 23:11 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Biosemiosis (was Lowell Lecture 3.12 On 1/20/2018 4:54 PM, <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] wrote: > What change in terminology are you referring to? I was thinking about the following point: Gary F > Peircean semiotics is naturally associated with a notion of “sign” > which is not limited to human use of signs; but the Lowell lectures > may represent his first clear move in that direction. I was asking about signs "not limited to human use". If the Lowell lectures show the "first clear move", are there earlier unclear moves? Hints? Suggestions? Musements? The clearest MSS were the most likely to be selected for publication in CP and EP. But there may be fragmentary MSS with passages that are crossed out. Perhaps he had earlier thoughts along those lines, but he didn't have a "sop for Cerberus". John
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