[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: So what is it all about?

[Charles F Rudder]

Bernard, List   Bernard,   I apologize for not replying more promptly.  A lot of things, including reconsidering what I have posted after reviewing what Peirce says in "New Elements" and other sources, are draining my time these days.   I am responding to your comments on replicatability and the questions you raise at the conclusion of you post.   In regard to your saying, "could we not go as far as to say that the 'essential nature of signs' is also of being replicatable?" I would say that the essential nature of a sign as Peirce sets it out in "New Elements" at least turns on its being replicatable as a consequence of the connection between replicatability and the existence of signs.  Peirce does not say that signs do not exist but that, contrary to the nature of a real thing, a sign "is of such a nature as to exist in replicas."  "A real thing," Peirce says, "does not so exist in replicas."  The non-replicatability of a real thing is a consequence of its being a singular event that is strictly here and now.  As Peirce puts further on in a different context, "But, it may be objected, an index has for its object a thing hic et nunc, while a sign is not such a thing. This is true, if under 'thing' we include singular events, which are the only things that are strictly hic et nunc."  What I has in mind in agreeing with Martin that pure icons to not exist and by intimating that pure indices don't either was that pure icons and indices could not exist in the only mode in which signs do exist because they would not be replicatable.  While we seem to generally agree on replicatability as it pertains to the nature of signs, I do not see anything in the text of "New Elements" that points either to a connection between Peirce's scholium and his Speculative Rhetoric or to the relevance of replicatability to such a connection.  This is not to say that it isn't there, but that so far I fail to see it.   QUOTE   BM:  Now, I have questions about your idea that "the interpretant represents the sign as the same sign that it replicates". In fact, the replica is the sign itself, and the interpretant will become a replica of another sign....perhaps, sooner or later. My reading of Peirce led me to think that the interpretant is such that it is in the same relation to the object as the sign itself is. Nothing makes necessary that the interpretant be some kind of clone of the sign it interprets, no? Furthermore I don't understand what you are calling a "rule" in this context nor the reasons you have to say that "for anything to be a sign it must be a symbol".   END QUOTE   Although not convinced, I am tempted to say that Peirce's preface is an exercise in "meta-semiotic" the subject of which is the sign, and more particularly, the proposition, as such irrespective of how signs in general and propositions in particular may be classified, parsed, and so forth.   In any case, having said that a sign is not a real thing and is of such a nature as to exist in replicas, Peirce's going on to say, "The being of a sign is merely being represented." I take to mean that what a sign is, the essential nature of a sign from which it derives its capacity for representing an object distinguishable from the sign by which it is represented, consists in a sign's capacity for representing itself as a sign, and as the sign it is, whatever its object may be.  I am assuming that a replica being, as you say, "the sign itself," does not merely resemble, but is identical to the sign of which it is a replica--that there is no loss of "fidelity" in a signs replication.  Hence, it appears to me that the conditions under which a sign is replicatable must be logically antecedent to a sign's being replicated with the result that, replicated or not, the possibility of its being replicated with the necessary "fidelity" must inhere in the sign.   At the most rudimentary level, if a sign exists the possibility of its existence consists in its being replicatable, and its actual existence consists in its being a replica of itself.  At more developed levels, the actual existence of a particular sign distinguishable from other particular signs consists in its being a replica of itself which, in conjunction with other signs, participates in a more completed sign wherein what is signified by the particular signs in themselves is amplified, so to speak, through their joint participation in a more completed sign.  So, I would say that a replica of a particular sign is in a sense a "clone" (and in a sense not a "clone" inasmuch as a replica is not a "reproduction") the signification of which, through its participation in more completed signs, is not restricted to its "clonedness."  If, for instance, every "the" on a printed page is one and the same sign, the signification of the word in itself is identical in every instance in which we are prompted to think it and is "amplified" by its participation in the sentences in which it occurs, the paragraphs in which sentences occur, the essays and other documents in which paragraphs participate, and so forth.  As I see it, the principal significance of signs existing in replicas is a consequence of the escape from "clonedness" (an eternal recurrence of the same) of particular signs lying in their participation with other signs in the growth of more completed signs--as you put it, in "the life of signs."   I take Peirce's examples of replicas as indicating that when a sign is replicated there will be something adapted to being a sign together with something else, a recurrence of "the" on a printed page, a translation of a book, etc., where the "something else" is irrelevant to--plays no part in--there being a replica; a consequence of which it seems to me makes the occurrence of a replica an act of interpretation.  That is, interpretation brings replicas into existence, and hence participates in replicas being replicas.  And, there being no sign other than a symbol that is a sign by virtue of its being interpreted together with a symbol's representing by means of a rule, the possibility of the existence of signs--of signs being of such a nature as to exist in replicas--inheres in a sign's  "symbolicity" that entails a rule that is logically antecedent to its reliacatability.   After reconsidering my earlier contention that every sign, whether an icon, an index, or a symbol, must be a more degenerate (iconicity predominates), less degenerate (indexicality predominates), or nondegenerate ("symbolicity" predominates) symbol together with a closer reading of "New Elements," I am now thinking that I conflated Peirce's distinction between theory (perception) and practice (exertion) reflected in his distinction between a sign's being  fit to be used as such or adapted to fulfill a function and the circumstance, namely, being interpreted, under which a sign actually functions as a sign.  In setting out what he says is an "infallible criterion for distinguishing between and index and a symbol." Peirce notes that, "although an index, like any other sign, only functions as a sign when it is interpreted, it remains equally fitted to be the very sign that would be if interpreted." while a symbol, "that should not be interpreted, would either not be a sign at all, or would only be a sign in an utterly different way."  I am now thinking that, apart from being interpreted, no sign functions as a sign and that an interpretation of a sign becomes a part or element of the interpreted sign.  That is, with the exception of a nondegenerate symbol, anything that is uninterpreted as a sign which is suited to being an icon or an index becomes a more or less degenerate symbol when it is interpreted as a sign.    If this makes any sense (everything I say here is tentative and subject to revision in consideration of objections, questions, etc. by list members and closer readings of Peirce), what I said above about the existence of signs and "symbolicity" being a logically necessary antecedent to the existence of signs--the actual existence of  signs is confined to more degenerate, less degenerate, and nondegenerate symbols--would pertain to the function of signs (practice--semiosis--"the life of signs") rather than to the theoretical study of signs being fit to be used as such (semiotic).   Charles             On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 19:11:17 +0100 Bernard Morand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Charles and List, I extract a few lines from your very interesting post, because they seem to me to deserve a special attention. You wrote : --------------------C.F. Rudder---------------- Although further on as a means of making explicit what he means by saying that, "Logic is the study of the essential nature of signs." Peirce reasserts his earlier contention that "A sign is something that exists in replicas." in order to point out that the distinction between signs and replicas is "of the very minutest interest to logic, which is a study, not of replicas, but of signs [what replicas replicate].", it is nonetheless the case that for anything to be a sign it must be replicatable and, hence, it must embody, however vaguely, a rule.  For anything to be a sign it must be re-representable by a sign the interpretant of which represents it as the same sign that it replicates; which is to say that a rule, entailed in its determination of its interpretant, governing its replication must be included in its capacity to represent.  In short, for anything to be a sign it must be a symbol--a sign that represents by means of a rule--that takes the form of a proposition.  As I see it, this is a, if not the, major overall thrust of Peirce's scholium. -------------------------------------------------- I agree with your conclusion and it is the reason why I focussed on the subject of replicas previously. If a sign is "what replicas replicate" as you write with talent, then could we not go as far as to say that the "essential nature of signs" is also of being replicatable? So when Peirce is restating that logic studies signs but not replicas, one would have to read: logic is not concerned with replicas in themselves but logic is concerned with signs which are things endowed with a capacity of replication. This could be seen as a mere play with words but I don't think so. I think Peirce is trying all along the New Elements to see how his critical logic can be linked (and could furnish a basis) to the speculative rhetoric. As to the latter Peirce knows only its general principles at this time and the problem at hand will be to confront these principles with what can be elaborated about the (3) interpretant(s), the continuity of semiosis and so on. All these aspects involve what I call for the sake of  simplicity "the life of signs" (as opposed to their essential nature), causalities, time and space, etc. Then the idea that metaphysics are concerned here. It is true that Peirce makes at several places in the text that he will not go very far in this direction.  Nevertheless I believe that here they are because beneath the surface the problem is  the relationship between the Firstness of the nature of signs, the Secondness of their replicas and the Thirdness of their final cause. But your remark reminds us (to my sense) that the works to come will have to remain firmly grounded on what is already establihed, the logic of signs. This would be of such a nature as to dismiss the idea that Peirce changed his mind when working on the interpretant.     . Now, I have questions about your idea that "the interpretant represents the sign as the same sign that it replicates". In fact, the replica is the sign itself, and the interpretant will become a replica of another sign....perhaps, sooner or later. My reading of Peirce led me to think that the interpretant is such that it is in the same relation to the object as the sign itself is. Nothing makes necessary that the interpretant be some kind of clone of the sign it interprets, no? Furthermore I don't understand what you are calling a "rule" in this context nor the reasons you have to say that "for anything to be a sign it must be a symbol". Bernard --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com