Jon AS, Francesco, Gary R, Gary F, Jerry LRC, and List,
I haven't had time to respond to the recent notes, but I dug into
more of Peirce's writings. There is much more to say. But in
this note, I'll recommend an article Jon cited, and show how the
quotation cited by Francesco clarifies the ambiguity about 'subject'.
JAS
an interesting 1997 book chapter by Mary Keeler and Christian Kloesel,
http://conceptualgraphs.org/revelator/web/papers/keelermargins1997.pdf
That's a good 53-page paper, which emphasizes the interconnections
among all aspects of Peirce's thought. It reinforces the points I've
made: Every aspect of Peirce's writings, especially on fundamental
issues of logic, language, phaneroscopy, semeiotic, and metaphysics,
must be interpreted in the context of all the others.
JAS
[Peirce] would not have called a single one of his writings as
"'finished,' ;definitive,' or 'final.'" That is obviously
problematic for anyone like me who has a strong "regularizing"
tendency, as Gary F. has helpfully (and accurately) described it.
Yes. Passages that were crossed out or rejected for publication
are clues to Peirce's thinking processes. The differences between
different drafts will often highlight important distinctions.
For example, Peirce defined the words 'term' and 'subject' in the
Century Dictionary. For 'subject', he defined 8 senses. For 'term',
his definition takes more than a page. It even includes a brief essay
about Aristotelian syllogisms.
To "regularize" his terminology, Peirce coined many neologisms.
For common words, such as 'subject', he would often add an
adjective, such as 'grammatical'. (CP has 26 occurrences of the
word 'grammatical'.)
CSP as quoted by FB
"The matter which the Graph-instances are to determine, and which
thereby becomes the Quasi-mind in which the Graphist and Interpreter
are at one, being a Seme of The Truth, that is, of the widest
Universe of Reality, and at the same time, a Pheme of all that is
tacitly taken for granted between the Graphist and Interpreter, from
the outset of their discussion, shall be a sheet, called the Phemic
Sheet upon which [graphs can be scribed and erased]"
("Prolegomena", pp. 525–526)
That quotation is important. But note that a pattern of graphs
on a sheet of paper is a Mark, which may be interpreted as a Token
of two different Types: as an icon (Seme) that maps to some pattern
in the Universe of Reality; or as a conjunction of EGs that assert
some proposition (Pheme).
Consider an example: In previous notes, we discussed the EG for
"Bob owns a red car". The EG for that sentence asserts a proposition
on a Phemic Sheet that represents the Quasi-mind of our discussion.
The UoD for that discussion contains two individuals, Bob and a car.
They are definite individuals, but only within the UoD of our example.
Now consider the pattern of EGs on that sheet in relation to
"the widest Universe of Reality". In that UoD, there are millions
of people named Bob, many of whom own red cars. But there is no
index that relates our Bob to any of the Bobs in Reality. Therefore,
the pattern of graphs on our Phemic Sheet is just a possibility.
It's a Seme with respect to the Truth.
JAS
Drawing attention to something actual is denoting that Object,
which is the function of an Index (EP 2:306-307; 1904); and
a Rheme obviously can be an Index, so it is false that a Rheme
"can refer only to possible objects."
No. A rheme is never an index.
Tony Jappy explains the difference between the "form" of a percept
(which may be represented by a predicate) and the indexical effect
of its position and direction in a particular occurrence. See
https://www.ocula.it/files/OCULA-15-JAPPY-Peirce-rhetoric-and-the-still-image.pdf
Consider Peirce's example: "a Rhematic Indexical Sinsign [e.g.,
a spontaneous cry] is any object of direct experience so far as it
directs attention to an Object by which its presence is caused."
The rhematic aspect is the auditory form of the cry. That would be
a quasi-predicate that could describe any possible cry of that kind.
But the indexical effect is the result of the direction of the sound,
which is the auditory equivalent of a pointing finger.
As another example, consider a dog barking on your left, and a
doorbell ringing on your right. In both cases, the pattern of
sound is the Rheme, and the direction of the sound is the Index.
A person who is deaf in one ear will recognize barking and bell,
but not know which way to look. But by moving or turning, that
person could detect a difference in volume that provides the
indexical effect. The rheme and index are determined by two
distinct aspects of the experience. In an EG, they map to a
monad for the form (rheme) and a line of identity for the index.
Peirce discussed those issues in CP 4.448:
The value of an icon consists in its exhibiting the features of a
state of things regarded as if it were purely imaginary. The value
of an index is that it assures us of positive fact. The value of
a symbol is that it serves to make thought and conduct rational and
enables us to predict the future. It is frequently desirable that
a representamen should exercise one of those three functions to the
exclusion of the other two, or two of them to the exclusion of the
third; but the most perfect of signs are those in which the iconic,
indicative, and symbolic characters are blended as equally as possible.
In short, the "characters" of the three members of any trichotomy
are defined as disjoint. But any particular instance of a sign
(such as the spontaneous cry) may blend or exhibit aspects of all
three. That is the reason for Peirce's ten classes of signs.
In his article, Jappy has many examples of perceptual occurrences
and the analyses that determine the icon and the index. In his 2014
article and his 2017 book, Jappy goes beyond Peirce's ten classes
to the 28 classes mentioned in a letter to Lady Welby in 1908.
Those classes (10 or 28) are "blends". But every trichotomy defines
three disjoint partitions, which map to disjoint parts of an EG.
John
-----------------------------
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 .
