BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }JAS
list
1] You wrote: "Where on earth have I ever "denied that physical
things can be signs"? In your specific example of a rock, the rock
is not the Sign, it is the Object of the Sign; but we could easily
construct a different scenario in which the rock is a Sign of
something else--perhaps a treasure that is buried below it. I have
acknowledged on multiple occasions that anything is a Sign of itself
in a trivial sense, but unless it represents something else (Object)
to something else (Interpretant)--i.e., mediates between two other
correlates--it is not properly called a Sign"
I disagree with your 'referential' definition of the Sign. My
understanding of a Sign - and again, I stress that I mean the full
irreducible triad of O-R-I - is that it is a morphological
instantiation of data as mediated by laws. So, a Rock IS a Sign in
itself. No- not merely when it is used in a symbolic sense for 'the
site of buried treasure' - but, in itself, as a chemical compound of
raw data [sand, chemicals etc] which are the Object, and then as
mediatively formed by the laws which-form-rocks....into the
Interpretant which is that particular Rock.
2] And, you wrote: "Moreover, if the entire Universe is composed of
Signs, then Peirce's theorem of the science of semeiotics entails
that the entire Universe constitutes one Sign. For more on that,
please see what I just posted in the other thread, including the fact
that Peirce explicitly stated, "the entire body of all thought is a
sign, supposing all thought to be more or less connected"
I disagree with your reductionism. A 'common Sign' requires
connection; this can be by commonality of mediative laws; it can be
iconically [photocopy]; it can be indexically [plant vines] but - the
Universe is also diverse and many instantiations do NOT share
commonalities. What is common to the Universe is the process of
semiosis - generating morphological instances within laws. But the
results are diverse and open to chance and differentiation.
Edwina
On Sat 18/05/19 5:46 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
John, List:
JAS: If someone wishes to claim that a particular statement is
being taken out of context, then that person has the burden of
showing that this is the case, not merely asserting it.
JFS: Absolutely! That is an essential part of the methodeutic.
I am glad that we agree about this, but then ...
JFS: No. That claim is another example of ignoring the full
context.
This is yet another bald assertion, with no supporting argumentation
from Peirce's writings
JFS: Note that the great majority of Peirce's examples of signs are
physical things.
Please provide a few of those examples to clarify and substantiate
this claim.
JFS: Also look at the eleven senses of the word 'sign' that Peirce
defined for the Century Dictionary.
I would be glad to do so, if you would be so kind as to quote them.
JFS: Each one defines 'sign' as a physical thing. None of them
mentions the word 'percept'.
That seems dubious, since Peirce clearly considered Qualisigns/Tones
and Legisigns/Types to be Signs, not just Sinsigns/Tokens; and he
stated quite plainly that a Seme is a Sign and a Percept is a Seme
(cf. CP 4.537-539; 1906), which entails that a Percept is a Sign.
JFS: Wait a minute. In the paragraph above, you denied that
physical things can be signs. And in this one, you claim that the
physical universe is a sign. You can't have it both ways.
Where on earth have I ever "denied that physical things can be
signs"? In your specific example of a rock, the rock is not the
Sign, it is the Object of the Sign; but we could easily construct a
different scenario in which the rock is a Sign of something
else--perhaps a treasure that is buried below it. I have
acknowledged on multiple occasions that anything is a Sign of itself
in a trivial sense, but unless it represents something else (Object)
to something else (Interpretant)--i.e., mediates between two other
correlates--it is not properly called a Sign.
JFS: In any case, Peirce said "all this universe is perfused with
signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5.448). The
word 'perfuse' is rare: it only occurs once in CP. The clause
beginning with 'if' is tentative, and being composed of signs is not
the same as being a sign.
I agree that Peirce did not assert in the quoted statement (CP
5.448n1p5, EP 2:394; 1906) that the Universe is composed of Signs,
only that it is perfused with Signs, although the sentence
construction implies that he would not have been surprised one bit if
it turned out to be "composed exclusively of signs" after all. Note
also which universe Peirce had in mind--"not merely the universe of
existents, but all that wider universe, embracing the universe of
existents as a part, the universe which we are all accustomed to
refer to as 'the truth.'" That is reminiscent of the following.
CSP: The entelechy of the Universe of being, then, the Universe qua
fact, will be that Universe in its aspect as a sign , the "Truth" of
being. The "Truth," the fact that is not abstracted but complete, is
the ultimate interpretant of every sign. (EP 2:304; 1904, bold added)
Moreover, if the entire Universe is composed of Signs, then Peirce's
theorem of the science of semeiotics entails that the entire Universe
constitutes one Sign. For more on that, please see what I just
posted in the other thread, including the fact that Peirce explicitly
stated, "the entire body of all thought is a sign, supposing all
thought to be more or less connected" (R 1476:36[5-1/2]; c. 1904).
JFS: Nothing about that quotation is clear, and Peirce did not
mention God or any aspect of God in the surrounding context.
I never claimed otherwise. At most, that particular statement only
provides partial warrant for my minor premiss, which is that the
entire Universe is a Sign.
JFS: Finally, since 5.448 is silent about God, a Satanist could
take your argument, replace every occurrence of the word 'God' with
the word 'Satan' and conclude that Satan is the creator.
God only enters my Semeiotic Argumentation after its deductive
conclusion, which is that the entire Universe is determined by an
Object other than itself. Anyone is welcome to claim that Satan (or
anything else) is that Object, but thereby accepts the burden of
making a case for it based on the attributes that such an Object must
have. I suspect that it would amount to nothing more than equating
the proper names "Satan" and "God."
JFS: And as we have seen, there is no supporting argumentation for
the claim that CP 5.448 implies that God is the creator.
By itself, of course not; again, only to the extent that it serves
as one of several premisses in a supporting argumentation that I have
now presented, expounded, and defended at considerable length. Taking
my own statements out of context is just as inappropriate as doing so
with Peirce's statements.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]
On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 2:51 PM John F Sowa wrote:
On 5/18/2019 12:30 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
> If someone wishes to claim that a particular statement is being
> taken out of context, then that person has the burden of showing
> that this is the case, not merely /asserting/ it.
Absolutely! That is an essential part of the methodeutic.
> what I see is a Percept that has no parts, which I then interpret
> by prescinding predicates and abstracting subjects to formulate
> the Propositional Judgment, "That is a rock.
No. That claim is another example of ignoring the full context.
Note that the great majority of Peirce's examples of signs are
physical things.
Also look at the eleven senses of the word 'sign' that Peirce
defined for the Century Dictionary. Each one defines 'sign'
as a physical thing. None of them mentions the word 'percept'.
If Peirce's technical sense of the word 'sign' were inconsistent
with *every* sense by everybody (including himself in nontechnical
usage), that would be a gross violation of his ethics of
terminology.
> if the entire Universe--i.e., all three Universes of Experience,
> taken together--is a Sign, then what is its Object? Clearly it
> cannot be anything within any or all of the three Universes,
> so it must be something outside them.
Wait a minute. In the paragraph above, you denied that physical
things
can be signs. And in this one, you claim that the physical universe
is
a sign. You can't have it both ways.
In any case, Peirce said "all this universe is perfused with signs,
if
it is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5.448). The word
'perfuse'
is rare: it only occurs once in CP. The clause beginning with 'if'
is tentative, and being composed of signs is not the same as being
a sign. Nothing about that quotation is clear, and Peirce did not
mention God or any aspect of God in the surrounding context.
Finally, since 5.448 is silent about God, a Satanist could take your
argument, replace every occurrence of the word 'God' with the word
'Satan' and conclude that Satan is the creator. The ability to
derive two contradictory propositions Q and not-Q from P is a
reductio ad absurdum that demonstrates the falsehood of P.
> To make bald assertions without offering any supporting
> argumentation violates every principle of responsible scholarship.
I'm delighted that you agree.
And as we have seen, there is no supporting argumentation
for the claim that CP 5.448 implies that God is the creator.
As Stephen said, "Enough already."
John
Links:
------
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'s...@bestweb.net\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
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