Charles, list:
I don't see how you can assert that, " there is a truth that is
prior to semiosis, in my opinion, also is consistent with Peirce’s
thinking. "
My understanding of Peirce is that there is nothing outside of
semiosis! 'the entire universe - not merely the universe of
existents, the universe which we are all accustomed to refer to as
'the truth' - that all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is
not composed exclusively of signs' 5.449f. [That is - there is no
'force' aka truth, that is prior to or outside of semiosis].
"Truth is the conformity of a representamen to its object, ITS
object, mind you" 5.554. [Truth is obviously operative within the
semiosic process - not prior to it].
And the methods of attaining this truth [the conformity of a
representamen to its object] - is via..induction, deduction,
abduction.
I understand that you are a Buddhist - which does indeed, posit an a
priori Truth - but I don't find any such concepts within the work of
Peirce. Such a view would greatly change the power of semiosis,
reducing it to almost a mechanical function.
Edwina
On Tue 24/11/20 12:38 AM , Charles Pyle char...@pyle.tv sent:
Hi Jerry,
It is not my hypothesis. The linguistic theory of markedness has
been around since at least the 1930’s. Since then it has been
tested against a vast body of data from a huge number of languages by
generations of linguists. Nevertheless, as with so much of
linguistics, markedness theory seems not to have come to the
attention of the rest of the academic world, let alone the civilian
world.
If you do a google search on “markedness theory” you will find a
lot of information. The top item returned to me just now had a nice
statement about the beginning of markedness theory.
----begin quote
Markedness Theory proposes that in the languages of the world
certain linguistic elements are more basic, natural, and frequent
(unmarked) than others which are referred to as marked. The concept
of Markedness is first proposed by the Prague School scholars Nikolai
Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy and Roman Jakobson.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c855/a0ad0e00662ee7b813c6d332f7374ef221e4.pdf
[1]
----end quote
There is also an informative Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markedness [2]
As to falsification of the hypothesis, as I said it has been subject
to extensive empirical testing.
As to the relation between markedness theory and Peirce, again
numerous scholars in many different fields have explored the
relationship.
Michael Shapiro is a well-known scholar of markedness theory and he
has been active on this list for many years. See this article for
example.
https://cspeirce.iupui.edu/menu/library/aboutcsp/shapiro/shapiro-mclc.pdf
[3]
Finally, I note that markedness theory in no way vitiates Peirce’s
doctrine of the tripartite nature of the sign. And the idea that there
is a truth that is prior to semiosis, in my opinion, also is
consistent with Peirce’s thinking.
Cheers,
Charles Pyle
From: Jerry LR Chandler
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 6:57 PM
To: Charles Pyle
Cc: Peirce List
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] multiple-valued logic
Hi Charles
Your post below left me stone cold!
One counter example to your hypothesis (conjecture?) is the language
of chemistry.
It is built on positive evidence and reproducible empirical
observations. The propositional webs of inferences of chemical
structures is one of the several facets of chemical logic that CSP
exploited in constructing his philosophies.
The sensory properties of matter are fixed by experience. Taste and
smell are remembered and associated with activities and events. The
timelessness of chemical names, such as water, or sugar or gold
or…. are deeply embedded in human communication.
Chemical language grows from these positive impressions of sensory
experiences on feelings / emotions. The connections between chemical
receptor encoded directly from the chemical genetic structures and the
chemical circumstances is firmly grounded in decades of experience
and centuries of experience. The consistency of the chemical
language has remained unchallenged for centuries.
What separates the acquisition of chemical language from other
languages?
What, if any, role does Popperian falsification theory play in your
assertions?
Cheers
Jerry
On Nov 22, 2020, at 6:14 PM, Charles Pyle wrote:
Hi Helmut,
Yes, as you surmise. I think it is reasonable to take this as a
refinement of Spencer-Brown. Let me explain it a little further.
The space in which language grows is a kind of gravitational field
where truth is the center from which language arises in the form of
marks each of which is an elaboration of some prior, and each mark is
a sign of falsity. Thus the structure of language arises layer by
layer as a structure of falsity. The more marked, the more false. And
it is a gravitational space because the false tends by its nature to
fall apart and reveal the underlying, whether it is only a relatively
less false underlying layer, or the ultimate underlying layer of
truth itself. Because of the nature of the relation between truth and
falsity, falsity must be continually reinforced, repaired, defended,
etc. or it will fall apart.
In terms of markedness, truth is unmarked and unmarkable. Truth is
silent. Every element of language arises from some prior by
elaborating on the prior. Thus the first event in the arising of
language is the production of a sound that interrupts silence and in
doing so creates the derivative ground on which language is
elaborated. The most unmarked vowel, the most open vowel, the most
sonorant vowel is a. So in theory we can hypothecate a as the first
mark which establishes the space of language as deviant from truth.
Both truth and its manifestation as silence are actual continuities.
Sound is a kind of false continuity. It sounds like a continuity. But
it has a beginning and an end, whereas silence was already there
before the sound begins, and it will be there after the sound ends.
Silence is even there during the sound: sound consists of a rapid
sequence of pulses of energy; between each of the pulses of energy is
a brief gap that has the characteristics of silence, i.e. the absence
of sound. Sound is a kind of continuity of discontinuity. You can
clearly see this in a sonographic analysis of sound. And here we can
also see how it is that the very ground of language is deviant from
sound, seeking to interrupt the continuity of truth by means of a
faux continuity, and thus is essentially a sign of falsity.
Given this fundamental ground, the next logical step would be to
mark the vocalic ground continuity by its opposite, that is, to
interrupt the continuity, which is done in language by a consonant
resulting in such basic infantile linguistic forms as ama, aba, aka,
ata, etc. Driven by factors of timing these are often morphed into
mama, baba, kaka, tata, etc. From here phonologically the vowel space
is further divided into at least three elements naturally occupying
the extreme margins of the vocalic space resulting in a vowel
inventory of a, i, u. And of course these can be further divided.
Consonants are similarly elaborated by the logic of opposition. Roman
Jakobson provided the classical explanation of this process of
development here:
Jakobson, Roman. 1968. Child Language Aphasia and Phonological
Universals, Janua Linguarum, Series Minor, 72, Moutoun, The Hague.
And I reframed his explanation in the context of Peirce’s theory
of signs in “Wild Language” which can be found
here:https://umich.academia.edu/CharlesPyle [5]
Charles Pyle
From: Helmut Raulien
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2020 4:25 PM
To: Charles Pyle
Cc: Peirce-L
Subject: Aw: RE: [PEIRCE-L] multiple-valued logic
Charles,
wow, interesting! I think about it. By first glance it seems to me
like a linguistic elaboration of Spencer-Brown. Do all polarities
come from a marked starting point, looking out for an opposite in
unmarked space?
I apologize to everybody "conservative". Please see my use of the
term confined within the example I gave, and not generalized to its
political meaning. Or replaced with "conventional" or "formerly
conventional".
Best, Helmut
22. November 2020 um 22:06 Uhr
"Charles Pyle"
wrote:
Helmut,
Speaking as a linguist, I must point out that the view of language
you take in the paragraph I quote below is profoundly mistaken.
--begin quote from Helmut----------
The conservative concept of sexuality is male-female, so binary,
like black-white, hot-cold, right-wrong, up-down, open-closed,
well-unwell. When somebody claims for him*herself to belong to a
third gender, conservative people see, that this way their world is
made more complicated and harder to grasp, they feel a loss of
control, and blame this person for deliberately being the reason for
that.
--end quote from Helmut-----------
To begin with, the examples you cite exemplify the particular kind
of asymmetric binary opposition, in technical linguistic terms is
called the logic of ‘markedness’, of which the entire structure
of language is comprised from bottom to top: phonology morphology,
syntax, semantics. For example in phonology we find the same type of
asymmetric opposition in the pairs p-b, p-f, p-t, t-d, etc. Taking
p-f as a specific example, it is a well-tested language universal
that (put in non-technical terms) if a language as f then it has p,
but a language can have p without f. The effects of such a claim can
be manifest in the order in which children learn language (they learn
p before f), the order in which language loss takes place in aphasia,
etc., the order in which language is recovered in the recovery from
aphasia, and the phonology systems of language. An example
illustrating the latter type of evidence can be seen Philippine
languages, which do have p but not f. When Filipinos who are not
also not native speakers of English try to pronounce English word
with f like ‘fish’ they would say ‘pis’. And they would
pronounce Filipino as Pilipino.
So it is incorrect to characterize the desire to preserve the logic
of the word pairs you cite as particularly conservative in a
political sense, or in terms of an underlying moral anxiety in
relation to sexual deviance. If you use language, you use this logic.
And it is not just an arbitrary characteristic of these few pairs of
words. You can’t just fudge around with the logic of a few pairs of
words without attacking the fabric of language itself. Thus the
resistance to loss of control you talk about should be seen as
conservative in relation to language itself, not conservative in
relation to politics or morality.
Furthermore, one must be aware the logic of opposition in language
is asymmetric. All oppositions in language are asymmetric. What is in
play here is not just asymmetry in relation to concepts that have
come to be politically or socially sensitive such as male-female,
black-white, right-wrong, open-closed, etc., but in relation to all
concepts and structures of language. To illustrate, I assume I can
take it as self-evident that the opposition between one and many,
manifest in grammar as singular-plural is asymmetric: singular is
first and plural is second. When you start counting, you must begin
with 1 and then you can get to 2. If you have two eggs in a basket,
then you have one egg in the basket, but the reverse is not true.
And in keeping with this self-evident character of numerology there
has been found to be a universal of language, an empirical claim
supported by lots of evidence, that if a language has grammatical
singular and plural, then the singular is unmarked and the plural is
marked. (And, by the way, if that language has also dual, it is twice
marked in relation to singuilar.) That is, some piece of form is
added to a word to mark it as plural e.g. dog vs dog+s, tree vs
tree+s. Similarly, while many people would not regard it as
self-evident that truth is prior to falsity, I hold that it is, and
have argued as such in various publications. In keeping with the
order of this asymmetry truth is unmarked and falsity is marked.
Similarly, down is first and up is second. Similarly, happy is first
and sad is second. Thus we can say ‘unhappy’ but not ‘unsad.’
Similarly well and unwell.
People often cite right vs left as an example of symmetric
opposition, but language, generically, has presupposed that right is
first and left is second. Numerically, most people are right handed.
And in many cultures left-handed people are punished for learning to
write with their left hand, sometimes forced to learn to write with
their right hand. And in many cultures left is explicitly associated
with evil or dirtiness and right with cleanness and good.
There are also cases where the asymmetry goes contrary to what is
conventionally believed. For example, the conventional view holds
that the past is first, the present it next, and then comes the
future. But to the contrary language presupposes that the present is
first and the past is second. This contrary view does make sense,
however, in that we experience things first in the present, and then
they become past. We take a picture in the present, but it instantly
becomes past. In keeping with this experiential view the language
universal is that the past is marked in relation to the present. Thus
look vs look+ed.
Obviously the male-female and black-white oppositions, and indeed
the true-false opposition, have become the locus of a raging power
struggle in western society. In service of this struggle we might
want to try to modify the logic and semantics of these fundamental
pairs of words, but it would not help that endeavor to suppose such
changes are merely going to be resisted by political or morally
conservative people. The resistance is embodied in the very fabric
of language. Perhaps we need to deconstruct language itself, but you
cannot just deconstruct a few pairs of words without attacking the
logic underlying them.
Charles Pyle
https://umich.academia.edu/CharlesPyle [10]
From: Helmut Raulien
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2020 11:00 AM
To: Peirce-L
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] multiple-valued logic
List,
As Peircean semiotics is a three-valued logic, I think it bears
relevance for the discussion about multiple-valued logic. But I have
the impression, that multipleness is sometimes explained away by
just adding a "maybe" to the values "yes" and "no" (e.g.
Lukasiewicz). I think, this is wrong. I think, multipleness comes
from more than one dimension of (binary) polarities being relevant
for one problem. If a problem is analysed by more than one dimension
of polarities, it can be shown, that the logic, the problem depends
on, is tri- or more- adic. According to Peirce and others, a
more-than-three-adicity can be reduced to three-adicities, but a
three-adicity cannot always, or can hardly ever, be reduced to
binarities.
I would say, when different polarities create a triadicity, which
from then on cannot be reduced back to them, this is an emergence.
A polarity is logically an easy thing to grasp, and a traidicity is
not. So this emergence often brings with it a feeling of loss of
control, and anger. This is an explanation for homophobia and
transphobia:
The conservative concept of sexuality is male-female, so binary,
like black-white, hot-cold, right-wrong, up-down, open-closed,
well-unwell. When somebody claims for him*herself to belong to a
third gender, conservative people see, that this way their world is
made more complicated and harder to grasp, they feel a loss of
control, and blame this person for deliberately being the reason for
that.
The reason for sexuality being not binary anymore is, that in an
open society there are more than one polarity-dimensions now. One
dimension is the biological male-female distinction (the sex),
another dimension is the social dimension (the gender): What sex do I
want to be, and the third dimension is the attraction: Which sex am I
attracted to for having as a partner. A fourth dimension is, do I
care about sex at all, or am rather tired of the whole topic.
I just have mentioned this example due to its obvious relevance in
contemporary discussions, but there are many more examples in
nowadays culture, e.g. the rightism-leftism-discussion. Today it is
not so easy anymore to distinguish between what is rightist and what
leftist, like it was in former decades.
Well, I just wanted to propose looking at all these things sensibly,
with using adicy-models and the concept of emergence and
irreducibility of triads. I have the feeling, that a triadic view is
opposed to digitalism, which, with its binary 1-0-distinction in the
small transistor-scale just creates polarities, fiter bubbles,
hatred, in the large scales of communication too.
Best,
Helmut
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