Gary F., List: JAS: If even a Percept is a Seme (Sign) that Retroductively produces a Perceptual Judgment, which is a Proposition (Sign), how can we gain acquaintance with *anything *in a way that is *not *entirely mediated by Signs?
GF: If we can’t, then there is no such thing as direct, unmediated experience of *anything*. Would you really want to make that assertion? I quite intentionally asked a question, rather than making an assertion. If all thought is *in *Signs, then would not all *cognitive *experience have to be *mediated *by Signs? Peirce distinguished knowledge/experience as *direct *vs. *indirect*, not *unmediated *vs. *mediated*; I am wondering if this simply corresponds to knowledge/experience obtained from Percepts as Signs determined (directly) *by *their Objects vs. Signs uttered (indirectly) *about *their Objects. Again, the Perceptual Judgments that result from Percepts are Retroductive in nature, and the key difference from ordinary Retroductions is that they are not *deliberately *adopted; they share the *compulsive *nature of the Percepts themselves. GF: It would seem to entail that there are no *real relations* as opposed to *relations of reason*: No, it only entails exactly what Peirce stated in the passage that you went on to quote (EP 2:382-383; 1906)--that we cannot veritably *describe *a real relation to someone who has had no *direct *(i.e., perceptual) experience of it. That is presumably why he typically relied on common examples of such experiences that were likely to be *familiar *to his readers--e.g., pushing on a door--to explain what he meant by 2ns. GF: As you said yourself, “Peirce required *direct *experience for *all * knowledge." Yes, and every *uttered *Sign must be *embodied *in a Token--an Instance of a Type that we can *recognize *within a particular Sign System with which we are *already *acquainted--and then *perceived *by us before we can interpret it *as a Sign*. In that sense, even *indirect *knowledge/experience (through Signs) requires *direct *knowledge/experience (of their Tokens). GF: I think proper names are represented in EGs, if at all, by *Selectives*. Spots represent *rhemes*, i.e. predicates, which are always general, unlike the Selectives, which ‘name’ lines of identity when they need to be distinguished from other lines. No, Peirce ultimately *abandoned *Selectives because they violated all three of his purposes for EGs--they are *not *simple, *not *analytic, and (especially) *not *iconic (cf. CP 4.561n; 1908). Moreover, a *discrete *predicate as represented by a Spot can always be analyzed into a subject (label) and a *continuous *predicate (Pegs). The EGs for "Cain killed Abel" and "Brutus killed Caesar" have monadic Spots for the proper names, not Selectives, presumably because the *Object *of any proper name as a subject of a Proposition is always *general *to some degree--i.e., not *absolutely *determinate (e.g., Phillip drunk vs. sober). GF: Finally, Jon, your closing sentence quotes Peirce’s own statement of what I’ve been saying all along, that the ultimate *meaning *of religious concepts consists not in their conveying theoretical knowledge of an external Object but in their influence on the conduct of their interpreters: You seem to be drawing a distinction here that Peirce did not--according the maxim of pragmaticism, the ultimate meaning of *any *concept, religious or otherwise, *including *theoretical knowledge of an external Object, consists in its influence on the conduct of its interpreters. Do you disagree? Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Sun, May 26, 2019 at 1:24 PM <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote: > Jeff, JAS, Gary R, list, > > Having said all I have to say about theology and metaphysics, I’d like to > focus here on semiotic questions, especially those raised by Jeff in his > post of May 20 (copied below), but starting with this question from Jon: > > JAS: What remains unclear to me is why you seem to think that such > Collateral Experience/Observation cannot be *entirely *mediated by > *other *Signs. If even a Percept is a Seme (Sign) that Retroductively > produces a Perceptual Judgment, which is a Proposition (Sign), how can we > gain acquaintance with *anything *in a way that is *not *entirely > mediated by Signs? > > GF: If we can’t, then there is no such thing as direct, unmediated > experience of *anything*. Would you really want to make that assertion? > It would seem to entail that there are no *real relations* as opposed to > *relations > of reason*: > > [CSP:[ Relations are truly, though not very lucidly, said to be either > relations of reason or relations *in re*. The latter expression the more > obtrusively fails to hit its nail squarely on the head. It would be better > to say that relations are either dicible or surd. For the only kind of > relation which could be veritably described to a person who had no > experience of it is a relation of reason. A relation of reason is not > purely dyadic: it is a relation through a sign: that is why it is dicible. > Consequently the relation involved in duality is not dicible, but surd; and > duality must contain as an ingredient of it a surd disquiparance. ] > EP2:382-3] > > The quote from EP2:304 included in your post, Jon, refers to such a surd, > dyadic relation as an “experiential reaction,” the only source of “direct > knowledge of real objects.” As you said yourself, “Peirce required > *direct *experience for *all *knowledge. See > http://gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm#dirxp for more of Peirce’s remarks on > direct experience. > > JAS: Both [common nouns and proper names] are represented in EGs by > labeled Spots, and therefore correspond to *general concepts*; > > GF: I don’t think so; I think proper names are represented in EGs, if at > all, by *Selectives*. Spots represent *rhemes*, i.e. predicates, which > are always general, unlike the Selectives, which ‘name’ lines of identity > when they need to be distinguished from other lines. > > Finally, Jon, your closing sentence quotes Peirce’s own statement of what > I’ve been saying all along, that the ultimate *meaning* of religious > concepts consists not in their conveying theoretical knowledge of an > external Object but in their influence on the conduct of their > interpreters: “After all, he explicitly considered his (Retroductive) > Neglected Argument for the Reality of God to be ‘the First Stage of a > scientific inquiry, resulting in a hypothesis of the very highest > Plausibility, whose ultimate test must lie in its value in the > self-controlled growth of man's conduct of life’ (CP 6.480, EP 2:446; 1908). > > Now to Jeff’s post, with its extended quote from Peirce that includes a > plethora of important points about “Meaning.” Jeff has pointed out some of > the implications; here I’ll only focus on one sentence: “If a Sign is > other than its Object, there must exist, either in thought or in > expression, some explanation or argument or other context, showing how, > upon what system or for what reason the Sign represents the Object or set > of Objects that it does.” > > If we consider signs as *systems*, we can view them as organized in > *holarchies*, to use the term coined by Arthur Koestler. Every complex > system can be analyzed into subsystems, but it also functions as a whole > within the larger system which is its context. In Peirce’s scenario, this > is an *explanatory* context, but as Jeff says, it raises questions about > any case where a sign is part of another sign — which I would say is the > *usual* situation if the sign is a *symbol* such as a proposition or an > argument. The Universe as Sign, being a “text without a context” (as Thomas > Berry says), would be an exception, maybe the *only* exception. > > In living holarchies at least, the various levels of the holarchy are > discrete *in re* and not as *entia rationis*, as sign and object are when > the one is external to the other. This makes them discontinuous — but when > the holons are nested within one another, the causal/determinative > *relations* between levels may very well be continuous. These systemic > causal relations are quite complex, as Peirce explains in “New Elements” > (EP2:315). Even when operating at the same level in a holarchy, like > concepts represented on the recto of an EG, they may be *mutually* > determinative, > as Peirce observes in the conclusion of his 1906 “Prolegomena” (CP 4.572). > All of this suggests that the requirement for the Object to be necessarily > *other* than the Sign is not only “perhaps arbitrary,” as Peirce says, > but vastly oversimplified in the case of complex and recursive sign systems. > > I feel I’m not explaining this very well, so maybe it would be better for > interested readers to just read again and ponder CP 2.230 as quoted by Jeff > (below). By the way, according to Cornelis de Waal (2014), that passage is > an excerpt from R 637, written in October 1909. > > Gary f. >
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