John, I’m in agreement with everything you say here, but I think it’s important
to recognize your preference for “mark” over “tone” as a term in semiotics or
ontology is a strictly personal preference (rather than a logical principle or
a fact of Peircean usage).
In the first place, the preference for “mark” reflects a preference for the
visual among sensory modalities. It is more restrictive in that sense than
“tone,” because “tone” is often used in reference to colors or to the
rhetorical qualities of a text, and thus to matters other than sound, but I
don’t recall ever hearing “mark” as a reference to sound, touch, taste, or
indeed any sensory modality other than the visual.
It seems to me that the terminological lesson we should learn from Peirce is
that no single word can be used to denote a class of signs, or a
phenomenological “category” or “element”, without being misleading to some
degree to some interpreter of some context. If we don’t bear in mind, at least
as a background understanding, that such concepts can have valid names other
than those we are currently using, I think we are ignoring an important feature
of language — and yes, I do think it’s a feature and not a bug.
It’s a fact that Peirce struggled with finding the best names for the concepts
he was trying to communicate, and often changed his mind; and I think that is a
more significant fact than the fact of which choice of name he might have made
in his last change of mind.
Gary f.
-----Original Message-----
From: John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net>
Sent: 13-Aug-18 23:22
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] A Sign Is Not a Real Thing
Gary F and Jon AS,
Thanks for the comments. They're consistent with what I said in my previous
note.
Gary
> the earliest text I’ve found where Peirce uses the term “token”:
CSP, late 1904 (EP2:326)
> including under the term “sign” every picture, diagram, natural cry,
> pointing finger, wink, knot in one’s handkerchief, memory, dream,
> fancy, concept, indication, token, symptom, letter, numeral, word,
> sentence, chapter, book, library, and in short whatever, be it in the
> physical universe, be it in the world of thought, that, whether
> embodying an idea of any kind...
In this quotation, Peirce is using the word 'token' as an example on the same
level as picture, diagram, natural cry...
That confirms my claim that in the earlier quotation (EP 2:303) he had not yet
chosen the word 'token' as a technical term in
his system. The quotation from 1906 (CP 4.537) is the most
widely quoted source for the triad Tone/Token/Type.
In any case, these examples show why we need complete, searchable
transcriptions of all of Peirce's MSS organized in chronological order. But
given the current sources, we can say
1. The 1904 quotations are from an early stage of Peirce's semiotic,
and they should not be considered definitive. The sentence
"A sign is not a real thing" from 1904 is not a reliable basis
for drawing firm conclusions about Peirce's complete system.
2. By 1906, he had developed his triad of tone/token/type. It
would be interesting to find any MSS that showed how, when,
and why he first chose those words.
3. Also in 1906, his research on modal logic led him to write
about the three "universes" of possibility, actuality, and
"the necessitated".
4. By combining modal logic with his system of signs, he coined
the triad Potisign/Actisign/Famisign. But in 1908, he said
that he preferred his earlier triad of more common words,
Tone/Token/Type. But he had some doubts about 'Tone', as
he said on 23 Dec 1908. See the attached EP2_480.jpg.
5. A few days later, he decided that 'Mark' was preferable
to 'Tone'.
Jon
> I believe that Lady Welby's reply to Peirce's letter of December 23,
> 1908 asking her about Tone vs. Mark was the one dated January 21,
> 1909 (SS 86ff). Consequently, it came several weeks after he wrote
> the other drafts of that letter.
Yes, but note that Lady W's reason was the same example that Peirce gave in
1906 (CP 4.537):
Jon
> if I remember right... she found Tone preferable because a tone of
> voice is a paradigmatic example.
If Peirce was not satisfied with the word 'tone', the fact that Lady W repeated
his own example would not be convincing.
Furthermore, 'mark' is a common English word that can be used for marks in any
of the senses (as Peirce called them, Optical, Tactile, and Acoustic). But
'tone' is limited to Acoustic.
Unless anyone can find later evidence that Peirce switched back to 'tone', I
would consider 'mark' to be his final choice.
Jon
> My suggestion is that for the sake of greater clarity, we should more
> carefully draw an explicit distinction between Signs as Types and
> their Replicas as Tokens, as well as the significant characters of the
> latter as Tones.
I agree with everything up to the final word in that sentence.
When I discuss or lecture about Peirce's triads, the word 'mark'
rolls off my tongue very smoothly, and people understand what I'm trying to
say. But the word 'tone' suggests a sound. It doesn't generalize to other
sensory modes.
John
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