BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Gary R, List:
Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears
in the semiosic action of interaction.
If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component
of all existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then,
I am understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic
interaction. So, even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the
dialogic semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the
interaction. Two Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's -
even if the dialogue is with oneself. And then, I presume, the
Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another emerges within the next semiosic
interaction.
That's my reading of it at the moment. And, as with all semiosis, I
consider that this involves the physic-chemical and biological realms
as well as the human conceptual realms of semiosis.
Edwina
On Fri 16/02/18 3:59 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, Jon S., list,
OK, I'll start the thread by offering the few quotes in Commens on
Quasi-mind. Again, I won't be able to join in the discussion until
sometime next week.
Best,
Gary R
1906 | Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism | CP 4.551
Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the
work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world;
and one can no more deny that it is really there, than that the
colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there. Consistently
adhere to that unwarrantable denial, and you will be driven to some
form of idealistic nominalism akin to Fichte’s. Not only is thought
in the organic world, but it develops there. But as there cannot be a
General without Instances embodying it, so there cannot be thought
without Signs. We must here give “Sign” a very wide sense, no
doubt, but not too wide a sense to come within our definition.
Admitting that connected Signs must have a Quasi-mind, it may further
be declared that there can be no isolated sign. Moreover, signs
require at least two Quasi-minds; a Quasi-utterer and a
Quasi-interpreter; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one
mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct. In the
Sign they are, so to say, welded. Accordingly, it is not merely a
fact of human Psychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every
logical evolution of thought should be dialogic. You may say that all
this is loose talk; and I admit that, as it stands, it has a large
infusion of arbitrariness. It might be filled out with argument so as
to remove the greater part of this fault; but in the first place, such
an expansion would require a volume - and an uninviting one; and in
the second place, what I have been saying is only to be applied to a
slight determination of our system of diagrammatization, which it
will only slightly affect; so that, should it be incorrect, the
utmost certain effect will be a danger that our system may not
represent every variety of non-human thought. 1906 | The Basis of
Pragmaticism | MS [R] 283:118 [variant]
… quasi-mind is an object which from whatever standpoint it be
examined, must evidently have, like anything else, its special
qualities of susceptibility to determination. 1906 | Letters to Lady
Welby | SS 195
I almost despair of making clear what I mean by a “quasi-mind;”
But I will try. A thought is not per se in any mind or quasi-mind. I
mean this in the same sense as I might say that Right and Truth would
remain what they are though they were not embodied, & though nothing
were right or true. But a thought, to gain any active mode of being
must be embodied in a Sign. A thought is a special variety of sign.
All thinking is necessarily a sort of dialogue, an appeal from the
momentary self to the better considered self of the immediate and of
the general future. Now as every thinking requires a mind, so every
sign even if external to all minds must be a determination of a
quasi-mind. The quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign.
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
