List: Nearly four months ago, I posted the following.
JAS: I have been musing recently on the well-known remark by Peirce that "just as we say that a body is in motion, and not that motion is in a body, we ought to say that we are in thought, and not that thoughts are in us" (CP 5.289n1, EP 1:42n1; 1868). He also asserted in the same series of articles that "all thought is in signs" (CP 5.253, EP 1:24; 1868), so by substitution we ought to say that our individual (Quasi-)minds are in semiosis, and not that signs are in our individual (Quasi-)minds. As Peirce recognized, despite not having the benefit of Einstein's insights, Zeno's famous paradoxes are dissolved by understanding *continuous *motion through space-time as a more fundamental reality than *discrete *positions in space and/or moments in time. We arbitrarily *mark *the latter to facilitate measurement and calculation for particular purposes, but space is not *composed *of points and time is not *composed *of instants. Likewise, I suggest that semiosis is *continuous*, and we arbitrarily isolate *discrete *signs--or rather, Instances of Signs--to facilitate analysis for particular purposes. We can say that a Dynamic Object determines a Token of a Type to determine a Dynamic Interpretant in an individual (Quasi-)mind, treating this as an actual event "occurring just when and where it does" (CP 4.537; 1906). Nevertheless, the Type is not *composed *of its Tokens. In the wake of our various discussions since then, I believe that these comments still hold up quite well. In fact, I recently came across a passage in a discarded manuscript draft for the end of "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (CP 4.572) that sheds further light on the matter. CSP: [I mentioned on an early page of this paper that this System leads to a different conception of the Proposition and Argument from] the traditional view that a Proposition is built up of Names, and an Argument of Propositions. It is true that of the four meanings of the term Argument (for the Middle Term, for the Copulation of Premisses, for the setting out of Premisses and Conclusion, and for the Logical operation of converting Premisses into Conclusion), the second and third justify the traditional account. But in the last sense, which alone is the essential one, an Argument is no more built up of Propositions than a motion is built up of positions. So to regard it is to neglect the very essence of it ... Just as it is strictly correct to say that nobody is ever in an exact Position (except instantaneously, and an Instant is a fiction, or *ens rationis*), but Positions are either vaguely described states of motion of small range, or else (what is the better view), are *entia rationis* (i.e. fictions recognized to be fictions, and thus no longer fictions) invented for the purposes of closer descriptions of states of motion; so likewise, Thought (I am not talking Psychology, but Logic, or the essence of Semeiotics) cannot, from the nature of it, be at rest, or be anything but inferential process; and propositions are either roughly described states of Thought-motion, or are artificial creations intended to render the description of Thought-motion possible; and Names are creations of a second order serving to render the representation of propositions possible. (R 295:117-118[102-103]; 1906) Semeiosis is a continuous "inferential process," analogous to *motion*; definite Propositions are "artificial creations" for the purpose of describing that Argument, analogous to *positions*; and Semes are "creations of a second order" for the purpose of representing those Propositions--perhaps analogous to coordinates? I suspect that Peirce had something similar in mind when he wrote another passage less than two years earlier, which I have quoted previously. CSP: Experience is first forced upon us in the form of a flow of images. Thereupon thought makes certain assertions. It professes to pick the image into pieces and to detect in it certain characters. This is not literally true. The image has no parts, least of all predicates. Thus predication involves precisive abstraction. Precisive abstraction creates predicates. Subjectal abstraction creates subjects. Both predicates and subjects are creations of thought. But this is hardly more than a phrase; for *creation *and *thought *have different meanings as applied to the two … That the abstract subject is an *ens rationis*, or creation of thought does not mean that it is a fiction. (NEM 3:917-918; 1904 Nov 21) An Argument can be *analyzed *into definite Propositions married by a logical leading principle, and a Proposition can be *analyzed *into abstracted subjects married by a prescinded predicate. However, these parts are all "creations of thought," *entia rationis*, Perceptual Judgments rather than Percepts themselves--which is presumably why "A proposition can be separated into a predicate and subjects in more ways than one" (NEM 3:885; 1908 Dec 5). Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
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