Gary R., List:
I agree with your comments about Atkins's unfortunate take on the
trichotomy according to the Sign itself. It certainly does not pertain to
"the Sign-Vehicle," since this is a term that Peirce himself never used.
The closest that he came was when he wrote in an unidentified fragment, "A
sign stands *for *something *to *the idea which it produces, or modifies.
Or, it is a vehicle conveying into the mind something from without" (CP
1.339). On the other hand, he clearly *distinguished *a Sign from a
vehicle when discussing the "somewhat imperfect example" of a mosquito
transmitting a disease.
CSP: ... the active medium is in some measure of the nature of a *vehicle*,
which differs from a medium of communication in acting upon the transported
object and determining it to a changed location, where, without further
interposition of the vehicle, it acts upon, or is acted upon by, the object
to which it is conveyed. A sign, on the other hand, just in so far as it
fulfills the function of a sign, and none other, perfectly conforms to the
definition of a medium of communication. (EP 2:391; 1906)
At about the same time, Peirce also wrote, "One selfsame thought may be
carried upon the vehicle of English, German, Greek, or Gaelic; in diagrams,
or in equations, or in graphs: all these are but so many skins of the
onion, its inessential accidents" (CP 4.6; 1906). Here it seems to be a
Sign-*Replica*, rather than the Sign *itself*, that serves as a "vehicle."
As I have said before, I find it noteworthy that Peirce's late taxonomy
sometimes characterized this division as being according to the Mode of
Apprehension or Presentation of the Sign, rather than its Mode of
Being--although this difference becomes less significant if we understand
"mode of being" in a phenomenological rather than metaphysical/ontological
sense. There is certainly a parallel between Qualisign/Sinsign/Legisign,
Tone/Token/Type, and Potisign/Actisign/Famisign; but to treat them as
strictly equivalent is only one plausible interpretation, by no means
definitive.
I find Atkins's list of all ten 1908 trichotomies misleading in that he
overlooks Peirce's own comments at EP 2:489 to the effect that he switched
#5 to #7 (note the repetition of "Imperative"), such that #5 became ("with
great hesitation") Hypothetic/Categorical/Relative. I have previously
suggested that these correspond to the number of lines of identity
(zero/one/multiple) needed to represent the Sign in an Existential Graph.
I have also offered my own proposal and supporting rationale for ordering
all ten trichotomies to produce 66 Sign classes (3, 2, 1, 4, 8, 6, 5, 9, 7,
10).
Finally, Peirce's remark at EP 2:483, as quoted by Atkins, potentially
provides mild warrant for the somewhat innovative framework that I posted
yesterday. He went on to characterize both Potisign/Actisign/Famisign and
Descriptive/Designative/Copulant as "tolerable but not thoroughly tried
conception[s]," although the latter was closer to being one of which he
"had a clear apprehension," if only he had been "satisfied with the
distinction between Descriptives and Denominatives." Unfortunately, he did
not signal his level of confidence in any of the others.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 3:08 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> List,
>
> For those who may not be familiar with the trichotomic terminology of
> Peirce's last classification of signs or who wish to refresh their
> memories, I've copied a portion of Albert Atkins 2010 article, "Peirce's
> Theory of Signs" in the *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* as perhaps
> an aid to better following several of the threaded discussions which employ
> that late terminology.
>
> Yet even Atkins brief comments are themselves not uncontroversial. For
> example, take trichotomy 1. Atkins writes:
>
> In respect of the Sign itself (what we have been calling the
> Sign-Vehicle), a sign may be either a (i) Potisign (ii) Actisign or (iii) a
> Famisign.
>
> (By the time of the final accounts, Peirce was experimenting with
> terminology so these types are perhaps more familiar as Qualisigns,
> Sinsigns and Legisigns).
>
> I'm rather certain that not all semioticians would agree that
> "Sign-Vehicle" is an accurate expression for "the Sign itself" in the
> context of Peirce's semeiotics. But more to the point of current list
> discussions, it remains a question whether the trichotomy
> Poti-/Acti-/Famisign is equivalent to Quali-/Sin-/Legisign, that the former
> is just a terminological experiment. Is there a subtle change suggested by
> the new terminology, or is it just Peirce's suggestion for an improved
> terminology?
>
> Here are Atkins remarks and the 10 trichotomies of the Final
> Classification.
>
> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/
> The Final Classification
>
> Just as the Early and Interim Accounts include a corresponding
> classification of sign types, Peirce's final account holds similar
> typological ambitions. Peirce states explicitly that there are sixty-six
> classes of sign in his final typology. (See EP2. 481). Strictly speaking,
> the six elements that we have detailed yield only twenty eight sign types,
> but we are interested in Peirce's very final typology. He believes that we
> can obtain these sixty-six classes, rather in the manner of the 1903
> typology, by identifying ten elements of signs and signification, each of
> which has three qualifying classes, and then working out their permissible
> combinations. These ten elements include the six sign elements identified
> above, plus four other elements that focus on the relation between signs,
> objects and interpretants. The ten elements and their respective sign
> types, taken from Peirce's 1908 letters to Lady Welby (EP2 483–491), then,
> are as follows:
>
> 1. In respect of the Sign itself (what we have been calling the
> Sign-Vehicle), a sign may be either a (i) Potisign (ii) Actisign or (iii) a
> Famisign.
>
> (By the time of the final accounts, Peirce was experimenting with
> terminology so these types are perhaps more familiar as Qualisigns,
> Sinsigns and Legisigns).
>
> 2. In respect of the Immediate Object, a sign may be either i)
> Descriptive (ii) Designative or (iii) a Copulant.
> 3. In respect of the Dynamic Object, a sign may be either (i)
> Abstractive (ii) Concretive or (iii) Collective.
> 4. In respect of relation between the Sign and the Dynamic Object, a
> sign may be either, (i) an Icon (ii) an Index or (iii) a Symbol.
> 5. In respect of the Immediate Interpretant, a sign may be either (i)
> Ejaculative, (ii) Imperative or (iii) Significative.
> 6. In respect of the Dynamic Interpretant, a sign may be either (i)
> Sympathetic (ii) Shocking or (iii) Usual.
> 7. In respect of the relationship between the Sign and Dynamic
> Interpretant, a sign may be either (i) Suggestive (ii) Imperative or (iii)
> Indicative.
> 8. In respect of the Final Interpretant, a sign may be either, (i)
> Gratiffic (ii) Action Producing or iii) Self-Control Producing.
> 9. In respect of the relation between the Sign and the Final
> Interpretant, a sign may be either a (i) Seme (ii) Pheme or (iii) a Delome.
> [earlier, rheme, dicisign, argument GR]
> 10. In respect of the relation between the Sign, Dynamic Object and
> Final Interpretant, a sign may be either (i) an Assurance of Instinct (ii)
> an Assurance of Experienceor (iii) an Assurance of Form.
>
> The reason that Peirce believes these ten elements will yield sixty-six
> classes is clear enough, the same combinatorial considerations given for
> the interim typology (outlined above in 3.4) apply here. However, the
> precise manner and order in which these elements interact will determine
> what the sixty-six classes of signs will look like in the final typology.
> Unfortunately, these ten divisions and their classes represent a baffling
> array of under-explained terminology, and there is little to indicate
> precisely how we should set about the task of combining them. Even though
> we may be confident on the number of signs in the final typology, other
> details are sketchy and underdeveloped, and there still exists no fully
> satisfactory account of the sixty-six classes. *As Nathan Houser points
> out, “a sound and detailed extension of Peirce's analysis of signs to his
> full set of ten divisions and sixty-six classes is perhaps the most
> pressing problem for Peircian semiotics”. *. . [Emphasis added, GR]
>
> There is, of course, good work on the final typology (see (Burks and Weiss
> 1949), (Sanders 1970), (Savan 1988), (Jappy 1989), (Muller 1994), and
> (Farias and Queiroz 2003) for the best of this work) [this is now a quite
> incomplete list GR], but ultimately, it is not clear that any account will
> overcome the problems posed by the incomplete and cursory nature of the
> final account. Indeed, it is not clear that Peirce himself was fully at
> ease with his final typology and how its elements should hang together. As
> he himself said:
>
> The ten divisions appear to me to be all Trichotomies; but it is possible
> that none of them are properly so. Of these ten Trichotomies, I have a
> clear apprehension of some, an unsatisfactory and doubtful notion of
> others, and a tolerable but not thoroughly tried conception of others.
> (EP2. 483)
>
> Best,
>
> Gary
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
> *718 482-5690*
>
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