g...@gnusystems.ca
Jon,
No, I haven’t found an instance of Peirce using “evolve” or “evolution” (or “involution”) in this kind of technical sense when discussing semeiotic. In fact, I’ve only found one place where he uses the verb “evolve” at all after 1903, and that one (in the “Neglected Argument” of 1908) puts it in quotation marks:
[[ The student, applying to his own trained habits of research the art of logical analysis,—an art as elaborate and methodical as that of the chemical analyst,—compares the process of thought of the Muser upon the Three Universes with certain parts of the work of scientific discovery, and finds that the “Humble Argument” is nothing but an instance of the first stage of all such work, the stage of observing the facts, of variously rearranging them, and of pondering them until, by their reactions with the results of previous scientific experience, there is “evolved” (as the chemists word it), an explanatory hypothesis. ]]
However, Peirce often refers to the “growth” and “development” of signs (more specifically, symbols), and this is clearly a process that takes time, like the process of “evolution” in our usual current sense of that word. “Involvement” on the other hand is not a process but a relation we discover by analysis. Peirce’s semeiotic trichotomies (three of them in 1903, ten in 1908) are all arrived at by analysis, and that analysis — including the order of elements in each — is based on the phenomenological categories. The problem is, how does the order of determination relate to the analysis that produces the trichotomies? Is determination a process that takes time, and does the time it takes have a single direction like experienced (phenomenological) time? If so, then we have a problem trying to map the order of determination onto an analytical classification of signs. This may explain apparent anomalies such as the fact that the Object determines the Sign, yet Peirce in one place says that the immediate object determines the sign. This is the kind of thing I was driving at with my distinction between “analytical” and “synechistic” approaches to semeiotic questions.
Gary f.
From: Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
Sent: 28-Jun-18 20:41
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Direct experience and immediate object
Jeff, Gary F., List:
When I see the word "involve" or "involution" in a conversation about Peirce, I tend to think of how he used those terms with respect to his Categories--3ns involves 2ns, which involves 1ns. In the context of semeiotic, this applies across each of the trichotomies--Necessitants involve Existents, which involve Possibles--rather than from one trichotomy to another, which is where the order of determination governs (cf. EP 2:481; 1908). Specifically, according to NDTR (EP 2:291-297; 1903) ...
- Legisigns (indirectly) and Sinsigns (directly) involve Qualisigns.
- Symbols involve Indices, which involve Icons (restated in "New Elements," EP 2:318; 1904).
- Arguments involve Dicisigns, which involve
- Rhemes.
Peirce went on to extend this notion to some of the ten classes of Signs--Rhematic Indexical Sinsigns and Dicent Sinsigns involve Iconic Sinsigns, Dicent Indexical Legisigns involve Iconic Legisigns, and Dicent Symbols involve Rhematic Symbols. On the other hand, no passages come to mind where Peirce used "evolve" or "evolution" in this kind of technical sense when discussing semeiotic; are there any?
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
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