Jon, list,
You say “Peirce very clearly maintained in his later writings--beginning already in 1904 (CP 8.336)--that every Sign has an Immediate Object.” I don’t think it’s that clear at all. CP 8.336, to take your example, does not say anything about “every sign.” Moreover, in much of his late semiotic Peirce refers to propositions as “complete” signs, while simpler sign types are “partial” or “fragmentary”; and it looks to me as if many of his references to “signs” in general at this time (and even earlier) are references to such complete signs. In the Syllabus passage that refers to “primary” and “secondary” objects, Peirce is clearly focused on Dicisigns, which are very much like propositions, and what Bellucci actually says is that “There is a sense in which only propositions and proposition-like signs have immediate objects.” (His 2015 paper is a free download and is well worth reading, in my opinion.) Reading this part of Peirce’s Speculative Grammar, around EP2:276, is described by Peirce himself as “threading our way through a maze of abstractions,” but it seems quite plausible to me that the “Secondary Object,” being a part of the sign, fits reasonably well Peirce’s later definitions of the Immediate Object. I think this will need some further looking into. Which I don’t have time for right now, partly because I want to read your Additament piece first! Gary f From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com] Sent: 28-Jan-18 17:09 To: Jeffrey Brian Downard <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Immediate Objects and Phenomena (was Lowell Lecture 3.14) Jeff, List: CP 2.311 is from the 1903 Syllabus and discusses the Secondary Object, not the Immediate Object. Peirce referred to the Immediate Object earlier in the very same writing (CP 2.293)--a fact that is obscured by the editors' unfortunate insertion of CP 2.295-308, which came from elsewhere, but is evident from EP 2:274-277. That being the case, what is the warrant for treating the two terms as designating the same thing? Perhaps Bellucci is correct that only propositions have Secondary Objects, but Peirce very clearly maintained in his later writings--beginning already in 1904 (CP 8.336)--that every Sign has an Immediate Object. 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 <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 5:54 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu <mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> > wrote: Gary R, Gary F, Jon S, One of the texts that was giving rise to my questions about the relations between immediate objects, on the one hand, and their relations to signs and interpretants, on the other, is the earlier discussion of primary and secondary objects at CP 2.311-14. That discussion of the Dicisign is one of the main passages that Bellucci cites in support of his interpretative claim that only propositions have immediate objects. In order to make sense of Peirce's discussion, I am drawing on an analysis of the phenomena at hand. As such, I'm focusing on our experience of making assertions in propositions and of interpreting the propositions asserted by others. In doing so, I am trying to be careful to avoid confusing matters of phenomenology and matters of semiotics. Jon S suggests that there is only one place (that he knows of) where Peirce characterizes the immediate object of a dicisign in terms of how the interpretant represents the existential relation between an individual dynamical object and an indexical sinsign. As such, we might consider ignoring that one passage and, instead, focus on the places where he characterizes the immediate object in terms of how the dynamical object is represented in the sign. In fact, I believe there are many places where Peirce characterizes the immediate object in terms of how it is represented in both the sign and in the interpretant. One extended discussion is found in the text cited above. Other passages are cited in Belluci's papers and monographs on the speculative grammar. See, for instance, chapter 7 on the Syllabus in his monograph. Gary F and Gary R suggest that I do seem to be confused about the way Peirce is applying the modality of possibility within the contexts of both Peirce's phenomenology and his semiotics. I, on the other hand, am wondering about the sources of confusions--both mine and others--that might lurk in both areas of inquiry. As such, I want to point out just how many places where Peirce talks about the phenomena that can be observed using the following sorts of modifiers: scientific phenomena, physical phenomena, mental phenomena, objective phenomena, subjective phenomena, etc. I think that the term phenomena is being used in the context of a philosophical theory of phenomenology in a way that is entirely consonant with the way that scientists, like Peirce, would describe the phenomena that can be observed in the special science of, say, physics. For example, consider the debate that took place between the American groups (under Peirce's direction) and the European groups over whether one set of observations or another contained observational errors. In order to sort out the sources of such error, the two groups could observe the same gravitational phenomena at the same time and at the same place--but with different pendulums and stands. Hence the importance of thinking of the phenomena as public and reproducible. In saying that Peirce is using the term "phenomena" in phenomenology in a manner that is consonant with the way the term is used in the special sciences, I am pointing out that the main difference between the two is that philosophy focuses on phenomena that can be observed without any special equipment at any waking hour by any person. If we turn to semiotics and Peirce's discussion of the way possibility applies to different kinds of signs and how those representations are related to their objects and interpretants, this is the sort of passage that I find particularly puzzling: "An Icon, however, is strictly a possibility involving a possibility, and thus the possibility of its being represented as a possibility is the possibility of the involved possibility." CP 2.311 Figuring out how the modal conception of possibility modifies each part of that assertion is, I think, no easy task given the nested character of the modal operators. If anyone thinks it is easy, feel free to have a go at it. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 <tel:(928)%20523-8354>
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