Helmut, list
1] I will not get into any political commentary on this list.
2] If we can stick to Peirce - the phrase of 'in the future' is
definitely NOT a synonym for 'predestined'.
And Peirce's outline of the Final Interpretant is '"that which
would be finally 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
"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 8.315;
1909
"My Final Interpretant is […] the effect the Sign would produce
upon any mind upon which the circumstances should permit it to work
out its full effect'....SS 110-1.1909
"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" 1910. ILS 285
There are two areas in which the 'Final Interpretant' is operative
in the above quotations. One is that among human communicators who
are examining a 'thing' and desiring to understand its true identity
'in itself'. As such - there is indeed a 'final opinion' , a true
interpretation of what A-person said or wrote. The focus is not on
any single person achieving this 'final truth' but that all [or
almost all] of the population would reach that same conclusion.
Is this predestination? In a way! If one considers that there is
only ONE truth about whether X is a poison [to humans but not to
lizards]...one can say that this 'truth' exists 'per se' but it is
certainly not predetermined that we humans will ever arrive at such
knowledge.
But again - my point is that Peirce's massive work over many years
is not merely about human communication. That- to me, is not what
semiosis is about. Notice his 1910 definition - which doesn't refer
to A-person talking to B-person, but refers to HABITS, ie, the laws
as generated within the actions of semiosis. Here, Peirce defines the
Final Interpretant to mean that these laws, these habits have become
'solidified' and no longer open to adaptation and change - and
produces not only the same result, that Final Interpretant; but even,
possibly, can no longer function as an interpretant and the triad
collapses.
Therefore - to me, semiosis is an open, adaptive, generative process
and to speak of this hexagram only with reference to an interaction
between A-person and B-person trying to understand each other - is a
reference to only a minor aspect.
Edwina
On Tue 19/05/20 11:08 AM , "Helmut Raulien" h.raul...@gmx.de sent:
Edwina, List, I think, that "final" in "final interpretant" is not
meant like "in the future" or predestined, but just, that to
everything could exist a unique, unambiguous representation of its
momentary state and being. If a thing is blurred or ambiguous, this
vagueness or ambiguity would be exactly and unambiguously represented
by this final interpretant. Though the FI as a correlate is different
from all other FIs, the sign´s correlation with it is always the
same: It just is regarding any object as identical, unique,
non-exchangeable, non-alternative. That is, taking it seriously. This
is a very trivial relation, which is the basis for all relations and
all communication. I think that atoms, organisms, people, have all
internalized it, with only one exception, that is the president of
the US, who claims being able to construe alternative facts. Best,
Helmut 19. Mai 2020 um 14:09 Uhr
"Edwina Taborsky"
wrote:
Robert, Gary F, list - with regard to concerns about the concept of
a 'predestination' identity of something, i.e., the notion of a
'final truth' about this 'thing' - I question whether such an agenda
is the 'nature of Peircean semiosis'.
Whether one assumes that truth is a fact or an ideal - both
assumptions include the view that 'truth' exists about this 'thing'.
Now, in some instances of semiosis, we can indeed accept that there
is a truth vs a non-truth. For example, in the identity of a poison;
in the factual nature of an historical event.
But surely this is not definitive of the full nature of Peircean
semiosis. Did he spend all his years and work merely writing that 'if
you or a group work hard enough - you'll find out the truth of whether
X is a poison or the truth of what happened'....
This notion of an almost predestined reality of a 'thing'. which can
never change...seems to me to function only within pure Thirdness. It
ignores the brute accidents and changes of Secondness and totally
ignores the chance novelties introduced by Firstness. That is, it
ignores evolution and adaptation and novelty.
I consider that - apart from these factual situations of 'either-or'
[is it a poison or not; did this event occur or not] ….that
Peircean semiosis rejects a predestined Truth. Indeed, with the power
of Secondness and Firstness - Peircean semiosis rejects predestination
of any kind and sets up the world as complex, interactive, dynamic and
open to pure novelty, There is no 'final truth'.
Edwina
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