BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }JAS - as usual, you and I, each in our personal opinions of Peirce, have great differences.
I don't agree with a linear view of Peirce [early->late]; I think one has to take his whole works into consideration, for even if he was saying things in a different fashion, using different terms, and working his analysis out in more detail - I think that Peirce was very consistent in his basic approach. Your focus seems to be on terminology;; on terms having a specific meaning, which you understand as increasingly clarified and 'accurate' as Peirce grows older; and you tend to refrain from examining the functions of these terms in the real world. My focus is the pragmatic use of Peircean semiosis to explain the biological and societal realms. I gave my outline of the function of the Final Interpretant in enabling the adaptive capacity of habits. As for 'ultimate truth' - this is an entirely different function than an 'adaptive capacity of habits' - and refers to the scientific method of examining and analyzing objective reality. Nothing to do with the nature of habits, with adaptation, with generalization etc. So- we'll have to continue, each in our personal way, to disagree. Edwina On Thu 16/04/20 9:20 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent: Edwina, List: It should go without saying for all my posts, but the following is an expression of my personal opinions based on my interpretations of Peirce's writings. I always include the year of publication or composition whenever I cite them, because I believe that it is very important to pay attention to the development of Peirce's thought over time. CP 6.57-65 is from "The Doctrine of Necessity Examined," which appeared in The Monist in 1892, so it is highly tenuous (at best) to base the definition of the final interpretant on that passage dating more than a decade before he ever began distinguishing a sign's three different interpretants--initially calling this one "its interpretant in itself" (CP 8.333, 1904) and "its signified interpretant" (CP 8.337, 1904). Besides, a quick perusal of the online [1] Commens Dictionary is all that it takes to see most of his own explicit definitions of the final interpretant, as well as its "near synonyms"--eventual interpretant, rational interpretant, and normal interpretant. Here they are, along with a couple of other relevant excerpts. CSP: … when we speak of the interpretant of a sign, we may mean the rational interpretant which fairly and justly interprets it ... (R 284:59-60[54-55], 1905) CSP: The Eventual Interpretant of [a] Sign is all that General Truth that it destines, in view of the other general truths of the universe, conditionally upon its full acceptance. It is the sum and substance of all the real difference that its acceptance will make. ... Any Eventual Interpretant must be of the nature of a Habit or Law. (RS 46:6-7, c. 1906) CSP: …and there is the Normal Interpretant, which is the true Interpretand, which the sign ought to produce. Its true value. Take, for example, a witness in court. ... The Normal Interpretant is the modification of the verdict of the jury in which this testimony ought logically to result. (R 499(s):2-4, c. 1906) CSP: Finally there is what I provisionally term the Final Interpretant, which refers to the manner in which the Sign tends to represent itself to be related to its Object. I confess that my own conception of this third interpretant is not yet quite free from mist. (CP 4.536, 1906) CSP: ... the Normal Interpretant, or effect that would be produced on the mind by the Sign after sufficient development of thought. ...The ten respects according to which the chief divisions of signs are determined are as follows: ... 8th, according to the Nature of the Normal Interpretant ... (CP 8.343-344, EP 2:482-483, 1908) CSP: VIII. According to the Purpose of the Eventual Interpretant: Gratific; To produce action; To produce self-control. (CP 8.372, EP 2:490, 1908) CSP: But we must also note that there is certainly a third kind of Interpretant, which I call the Final Interpretant, because it is that which would finally be decided to be the true interpretation if consideration of the matter were carried so far that an ultimate opinion were reached. (EP 2:496, 1909) CSP: But the Significance of it, the Ultimate, or Final, Interpretant is her purpose in asking it, what effect its answer will have as to her plans for the ensuing day ... The Final Interpretant is the sum of the Lessons of the reply, Moral, Scientific, etc. (CP 8.314, EP 2:498, 1909) CSP: The Final Interpretant does not consist in the way in which any mind does act but in the way in which every mind would act. That is, it consists in a truth which might be expressed in a conditional proposition of this type: “If so and so were to happen to any mind this sign would determine that mind to such and such conduct.” (CP 8.315, EP 2:499, 1909) CSP: My Final Interpretant is, I believe, exactly the same as your Significance; namely, the effect the Sign would produce upon any mind upon which the circumstances should permit it to work out its full effect. ...... the Final Interpretant is the one Interpretative result to which every Interpreter is destined to come if the Sign is sufficiently considered. ... The Final Interpretant is that toward which the actual tends. (SS 110-111, 1909) CSP: The third sense in which we may properly speak of the Interpretant is that in which I speak of the Final Interpretant meaning that Habit in the production of which the function of the Sign, as such, is exhausted. (ILS 285, 1910) Taking all these into account, and giving more weight to the later texts as presumably reflecting Peirce's more considered views--perhaps largely "free from mist" by then--I still maintain that the final interpretant is whatever a sign necessarily would signify under ideal conditions; i.e., in the ultimate opinion after infinite inquiry by an infinite community. Notice that the logical interpretant, which Peirce discusses in various drafts of "Pragmatism" (1907), is not considered a "near synonym" of the final interpretant. Although some scholars have suggested that the emotional/energetic/logical interpretants are different names for the immediate/dynamical/final interpretants, I believe that this is untenable because every sign has a final interpretant, while "it is not all signs that have logical interpretants, but only intellectual concepts and the like" (CP 5.482, EP 2:410); i.e., symbolic signs. Moreover, Peirce himself explicitly distinguishes between a logical interpretant and the ultimate or final logical interpretant. CSP: ... I will call it the logical interpretant, without as yet determining whether this term shall extend to anything beside the meaning of a general concept, though certainly closely related to that, or not. Shall we say that this effect may be a thought, that is to say, a mental sign? No doubt, it may be so; only, if this sign be of an intellectual kind--as it would have to be--it must itself have a logical interpretant; so that it cannot be the ultimate logical interpretant of the concept. It can be proved that the only mental effect that can be so produced and that is not a sign but is of a general application is a habit-change; meaning by a habit-change a modification of a person's tendencies toward action, resulting from previous experiences or from previous exertions of his will or acts, or from a complexus of both kinds of cause. (CP 5.476) CSP: I do not deny that a concept, proposition, or argument may be a logical interpretant. I only insist that it cannot be the final logical interpretant, for the reason that it is itself a sign of that very kind that has itself a logical interpretant. The habit alone, though it may be a sign in some other way, is not a sign in that way in which the sign of which it is the logical interpretant is a sign. ... The deliberately formed, self-analyzing habit,--self-analyzing because formed by the aid of analysis of the exercises that nourished it,--is the living definition, the veritable and final logical interpretant. (EP 2:418) When a logical interpretant is a mental sign--a thought, a concept, a proposition, or an argument--it is a dynamical interpretant, the actual effect of another sign. A logical interpretant is only a final interpretant when it is a habit or a habit-change; specifically, I have suggested that it is a habit of feeling (association) for a term/seme, a habit of conduct (a belief) for a proposition/pheme, and a habit-change (an event of persuasion) for an argument/delome. In summary, the final interpretant is not itself a process, but rather the telos of the continuous process of semeiosis, the final cause toward which it tends in the long run. As for whether it is proper to attribute the notion of perfection to it, I will once again let Peirce speak for himself. CSP: The purpose of every sign is to express "fact," and by being joined with other signs, to approach as nearly as possible to determining an interpretant which would be the perfect Truth, the absolute Truth, and as such (at least, we may use this language) would be the very Universe. Aristotle gropes for a conception of perfection, or entelechy, which he never succeeds in making clear. We may adopt the word to mean the very fact, that is, the ideal sign which should be quite perfect, and so identical,--in such identity as a sign may have,--with the very matter denoted united with the very form signified by it. 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) Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [2] - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [3] On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 8:59 PM Edwina Taborsky wrote: Auke- I have a different view of the Final Interpretant - I see it as a means of 'changing habits'. My view of the Final Interpretant is that it is a continuous and infinite process of generalization, vital to the formation of habits. That is, the Logical or Final or Destinate Interpretant [the name isn't relevant] is an integral component of the universe's growth and increasing complexity. ["Everywhere the main fact is growth and increasing complexity" 6.58....and "I, for my part, think that the diversification, the specification, has been continually taking place" 6.57. And "there is probably in nature some agency by which the complexity and diversity of things can be increased" 6.58. What is this 'agency'? It's both 'pure spontaneity' or Firstness [6.59] AND - how does this spontaneity move into the actualities of Secondness? By means of habit formation. By means of Thirdness. "I make use of chance chiefly to make room for a principle of generalization, or tendency to form habits, which I hold has produced all regularities'. 6.63. See also 6.64 and 6.65...the 'phenomen of growth and developing complexity which appears to be universal'. That is, the semiosic process is one that is constantly enabling and increasing both the diversity and complexity of life. Mind enables Matter to become more diverse and complex. To enable this - semiosis does not just focus on the particular individual act of experience of an external object and the interpretation of that external object. Such a confinement of the world to Secondness would deny the realities of Types, of continuity and common adaptation and growth Semiosis also focuses on enhancing and expanding the depth and breadth, the complexity, of the development of habits, the knowledge base/Thirdness that is used within the process of the triadic semiosis. It achieves this enhancement/expansion of habits, of generalization - by means of the Final Interpretant, which is a process of constant generalization of the informational results of the previous Interpretants [the II and DI]. And this information comes from many sites. I think it's important that the 'input' to the FI comes from many sites. - "the logical interpretant should in all cases be a conditional future" . The Interpretants are, after all 'a modification of consciousness' 5.485. What is the nature of a conditional future? - 'those signs that have a logical interpretant are either generals or closely connected with generals" 5.488. See also 5.482 for this focus on the Logical/Final Interpretant as a general and in the 'conditional mood' of 'would be. - "the interpretant is a modifier of consciousness" 5.485 -"the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action' 5.400; 6.262 - this 'logical interpretant' has the function of a 'habit-change' [see 5.476 The works of Peirce are filled with these analyses - too many to quote here. That is - my understanding of the Final Interpretant is that its role is to develop and change habits, relevant to the actual world [of Secondness] and yet capable of the obvious expansion of diversity and complexity in life. In the biological realm, what we see is that the Final Interpretant accepts information/data from many individual agents; it generalizes this data; and then, this generalization becomes dominant and acts to change the species habits stored within Thirdness such that, a bird develops a new beak; a moth develops different coloured wings..and so on. The Final Interpretant is not 'often' used; most of life operates within Firstness/Secondness - and a stable Thirdness. But, the Final Interpretant is, I feel, the key to how we change habits. The Final Interpretant is a means of enabling the infinite evolution of the world's diversity and complexity. It collects data from multiple sites - generalizes them, and this new 'habit' becomes dominant and changes the habits-of-formation of a species. With regard to your example of the changes in style in the life of an artist - I'd say the process is similar, where the artist develops a 'normative style of his art'..and then, by means of interaction with others, with experience etc...comes to a Final Interpretant phase, where he changes his 'normative style of art'. Notice that my view of the Final Interpretant is an evolutionary one; there is no notion of a final Perfection, but instead, a concept of infinite capacity, via input data from multiple sites, plus the action of generalization.. to change the habits of a Type. Edwina Links: ------ [1] http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/final-interpretant [2] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [3] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [4] http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'tabor...@primus.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
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