Dear Francesco, list,
Thanks for being patient with me for it is not obvious to me, yet.
You said:
The statue of Peirce's example is an Actisign because it is a singular that
acts as a sign
But what I was asking is, given that that is the rule to which you refer
when you say,
As an actual piece of granite, *the* statue is obviously an Actisign
Do you mean to say that is how you were intending to mean by “the” statue?
That is, why did you say *the* statue and not *that* statue, when Peirce
used the demonstrative pronoun, *that,* and not the definite article, *the*?
That is what is not obvious to me.
With best wishes,
Jerry R
On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 3:03 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Francesco, List:
>
> FB: I beg you to notice that my posts have all been about the immediate
> object intended as the subject of a proposition
>
>
> As I understand it, the subject of a proposition is a Rheme whose Object
> is also an Object of the proposition. Should we understand the Immediate
> Object of a proposition to be a Sign?
>
> FB: The statue is an Actisign, but its object is general, and thus is a
> Symbol. But according to the rules, a Symbol cannot be an Actisign. The
> problem is already here.
>
>
> The second sentence here is true, but the first sentence is false; the
> generality of the Object *itself *(Abstractive/Concretive/Collective) has
> absolutely no bearing on the nature of its *relation *to the Sign
> (Icon/Index/Symbol), since these correspond to *different *trichotomies
> for classifying Signs. A Collective Actisign Icon is perfectly consistent
> with Peirce's later taxonomies.
>
> FB: Perhaps the solution is that a Symbol cannot be a "normal" Actisign
> but it can be an Actisign which is a replica of a Famisign. The distinction
> between standard Sinsigns and Replicas comes from the Syllabus.
>
>
> Indeed--what I have been suggesting on the List for some time now is that *all
> *Signs are general Types, such that there are no Sinsigns/Actisigns other
> than Replicas (Tokens), and there are no Qualisigns/Potisigns other than
> significant characters (Tones) embodied in Replicas. This is my
> interpretation of Peirce's statements that "a sign is not a real thing. It
> is of such a nature as to exist in *replicas*" (EP 2:303; 1904); and "the
> sign's mode of being is ... such that it consists in the existence of
> replicas destined to bring its interpreter into relation to some object ...
> The sign only exists in replicas" (NEM 4:297,300; 1904). That which is a
> real *thing*--i.e., that which exists in itself (Matter) or as embodied
> characters (Form)--*cannot *be a Sign (Entelechy).
>
> FB: I think he was not wrong to classify particular propositions as
> Descriptives, the passage clearly shows that with "Descriptive" he means
> "Some S is P".
>
>
> Yes, but he thus classified a particular proposition ("Some *S* is *P*")
> as a Descriptive Symbol, which is *impossible*; all Symbols, and
> therefore all propositions, are Copulatives. Even if we treat it as a
> Sinsign/Actisign serving as a Replica, it could only be either a
> Designative or a Copulative.
>
> FB: Also, I don't understand whether you are using "general object" in
> the sense of the object of a symbol or in the sense of distributive
> generality, or in neither sense.
>
>
> By "General Object" I mean basically what Peirce called the Dynamic Object
> of a Collective Sign. If I am right that all Signs are Types, then it
> follows that all Signs have General Objects; i.e., all Signs are
> Collectives. However, rather than *classifying *Signs, my organizing
> principle is recognizing that there are three kinds of *triadic relations*
> in semiosis--genuine, between the General Object, Sign (Type), and Final
> Interpretant; degenerate, between each individual Dynamic Object,
> Sign-Replica (Token), and Dynamic Interpretant; and doubly degenerate,
> between an Immediate Object, a set of Sign-Qualities (Tone), and an
> Immediate Interpretant.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 12:14 PM, Francesco Bellucci <bellucci.francesco@
> googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Jon, List
>>
>> thanks for these observations. My comments are interspersed below.
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 5:39 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
>> jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Francesco, List:
>>>
>>> I need to digest your latest reply before responding, but it seems to
>>> move on to more fundamental issues than the quantification aspect of the
>>> Immediate Object, and I wanted to offer a few more comments about the
>>> latter.
>>>
>>
>> I beg you to notice that my posts have all been about the immediate
>> object intended as the subject of a proposition
>>
>>>
>>> Consistent with his earlier division of the Immediate Object into
>>> vague/singular/general, Peirce in 1908 explicitly characterized particular
>>> and universal propositions as Descriptives and Copulatives, respectively,
>>> while discussing the example of the many statues of Civil War soldiers that
>>> one could find throughout the northern United States in the early 20th
>>> century.
>>>
>>> CSP: That statue is one piece of granite, and not a Famisign. Yet it is
>>> what we call a "General" sign, meaning that it is *applicable *to many
>>> singulars. It is not *itself* General: it is its Object which is taken
>>> to be General. And yet this Object is not truly Universal, in the sense of
>>> implying a truth of the kind of "Any *S* is *P*"; it only expresses
>>> "Some *S* is *P*." This makes it *not *a //*Copulant*/*Copulative*//
>>> but only a *Descriptive*. (EP 2:486)
>>>
>>>
>>> As an actual piece of granite, the statue is obviously an Actisign;
>>> i.e., an individual Instance (Token) of a general Sign (Type). Peirce here
>>> further classified it as a Descriptive, because he held that the equivalent
>>> proposition would be particular, rather than singular or universal;
>>> presumably "*S*" corresponds to "Civil War soldier" and "*P*" to "a
>>> person who looked like this." However, that conflicts with what he went on
>>> to say later in the very same manuscript.
>>>
>>
>> The statue is an Actisign, but its object is general, and thus is a
>> Symbol. But according to the rules, a Symbol cannot be an Actisign. The
>> problem is already here. Perhaps the solution is that a Symbol cannot be a
>> "normal" Actisign but it can be an Actisign which is a replica of a
>> Famisign. The distinction between standard Sinsigns and Replicas comes from
>> the Syllabus.
>>
>>>
>>> CSP: But an Actual Occurrence always determines the Possibility of its
>>> character; whence no Descriptive can be a Famisign ... As an example of
>>> this, no number of Descriptive propositions of the type "Some *S* is *P*"
>>> can ever determine the truth of a Copulative Proposition "Any *S* is *P*."
>>> It is, if possible, still more obvious that Possibility can never determine
>>> Actuality and therefore *a Descriptive cannot be an Actisign* ... (EP
>>> 2:488; bold added)
>>>
>>>
>>> I am a strong proponent of the principle of charity, seeking to
>>> harmonize any author's writings as much as possible; but Peirce clearly
>>> must have been incorrect in one or the other of these passages, because
>>> they are directly contradictory. The latter one is fully consistent with
>>> the order of determination for the semeiotic Correlates as spelled out in
>>> something that he wrote no more than a few days earlier (EP 2:481), so my
>>> judgment is that he was wrong to classify the statue--and, for that matter,
>>> a particular proposition--as a Descriptive.
>>>
>>
>> I think he was not wrong to classify particular propositions as
>> Descriptives, the passage clearly shows that with "Descriptive" he means
>> "Some S is P". Since he says that a Descriptive cannot be an Actisign, in
>> order for this to be an instance of the furst rule (R1, a first determines
>> only a first) the trichotomy Descriptive/Designative/Copulant has to
>> precede the trichotomy Potisign/Actisign/Famisign.
>>
>>
>>> Again, my current proposal is that instead we treat quantification as
>>> the aspect of a proposition's *Immediate *Object that converts the
>>> Sign's *General *Object into the Replica's *Dynamic *Object.
>>>
>>
>> If quantification really were an aspect of a proposition's immediate
>> object, while didn't Peirce say, in all his writings on the classification
>> of signs, that the vague/singular/general division does not exhaust the
>> immediate object of propositions, and is inapplicable to non-propositional
>> signs. Also, I don't understand whether you are using "general object" in
>> the sense of the object of a symbol or in the sense of distributive
>> generality, or in neither sense. If you use "general object" in neither
>> sense, I think your use is unPeircean.
>>
>>>
>>> Every proposition in itself, as a Symbol and therefore a general Sign,
>>> must be a Copulative. As with "Any man is mortal," the continuous
>>> predicate in this case is "_____ possesses the character of _____," where
>>> the two blanks correspond to a Designative as the subject ("*S*" with a
>>> quantifier) and a Descriptive as the predicate ("*P*"). The subject of
>>> each *Replica *of the proposition must have an *individual *Dynamic
>>> Object, which is why a quantifier--which Peirce sometimes tellingly called
>>> a "Selective"--is necessary; it indicates whether the *choice* of that
>>> individual from the Sign's (collective or continuous) General Object is
>>> left up to the Utterer ("Some *S*"), the Interpreter ("Any *S*"), or
>>> neither ("This *S*").
>>>
>>> CSP: A sign (under which designation I place every kind of thought, and
>>> not alone external signs) that is in any respect objectively indeterminate
>>> (i.e., whose object is undetermined by the sign itself) is objectively
>>> *general *in so far as it extends to the interpreter the privilege of
>>> carrying its determination further ... A sign that is objectively
>>> indeterminate in any respect is objectively *vague *in so far as it
>>> reserves further determination to be made in some other conceivable sign,
>>> or at least does not appoint the interpreter as its deputy in this office
>>> ... Every utterance naturally leaves the right of further exposition in the
>>> utterer; and therefore, in so far as a sign is indeterminate, it is vague,
>>> unless it is expressly or by a well-understood convention rendered general.
>>> (CP 5.447, EP 2:350-351; 1906)
>>>
>>>
>>> Peirce's 1908 example could perhaps be taken either way. On the one
>>> hand, each statue is vague/particular ("Some *S* is *P*") in the sense
>>> that the sculptor as the Utterer determined the specific appearance of the
>>> person depicted by it, which might or might not correspond to an actual
>>> person. On the other hand, each statue is general/universal ("Any *S*
>>> is *P*") in the sense that for many different local families as the
>>> Interpreters, "that very realistic statue represents the mourned one who
>>> fell in the war" (EP 2:486).
>>>
>>
>> I beg you to notice that in the first passage that you quote "general
>> object" has to be taken in the sense of "object of a symbol". For he says:
>> "It is not itself General: it is its Object which is taken to be General",
>> i.e. is not a legisign/famisign, but is a symbol. Cf.: "Of course, I always
>> use ‘general’ in the usual sense of general as is its object. If I wish to
>> say that a sign is general as to its matter, I call it a Type, or Typical."
>> (R 293). It seems to me that you are confusing the generality of the object
>> (dynamic object of symbol) and the distributive universality of the subject
>> of a proposition (immediate object of a proposition).
>>
>> Best,
>> Francesco
>>
>
>
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