Frances to Ben and others... Recognizants you define as the experiences in mind of objects acting as signs. If the experiential recognition however is itself not acting as a sign or as part of a sign situation, then it is for the signer only collateral to semiosis. This hence implies that not all phenomenal things that exist in the world are signs or objects of signs, or perhaps even prone to teleonomic designs and assigns.
If the pragmatist thrust on the matter is correctly understood by me, the "experience" for Peirce when it is deemed within semiosis is itself held by him to be a sign, and therefore an objective logical construct. Just exactly what kind of sign it is remains unclear for me. It may go to informative grammatic effects, or evaluative critical worths, or rhetorical evocative responses; and all in the Morrisean pragmatic manner, if it can be put that way. On the other hand, the "experience" may be partly preparatory to semiosis, and thus often collateral to signs. All things that are felt to continue evolving in the world and that are given uncontrolled to sense after all are phenomenal representamen that exist as objects, but not necessarily objects that act as signs. This may be the condition for experiencing and recognizing objects, whether the objects and recognizants are signs or not. Besides differentiating these states or kinds of objects, there must also be a differentia maintained between representamens and signs, because there are phenomenal representamens that are continuent but not existent, and thus that are not objects or signs, nor interpretants. You stated earlier that by "recognizant" is meant some experiential recognition, formed as collateral to the sign and its interpretant in respect of its object. This means that where a normal human signer senses the object, they then recognize that object as being as they interpreted some sign to represent that object. The experiential recognizant therefore would strictly not be in semiosis nor be a sign. In other words, if the sign and interpretant do not carry or convey any direct experience of the object, then the idea that any dependent familiar understanding of the sign is thus outside the interpretant. The sign may have the recognizant as an object and content it carries or have it as an interpretant effect, but otherwise the sign and interpretant would not intrinsically be the experienced recognizant itself. The recognizant cannot be, within the same relation or mind, the mental experience or recognition of the object, and also the sign or interpretant of the object. To hold that both exist simultaneously in semiosis or in the same mind would be a logical contradiction. Signers need the experience and recognition of objects, because signs and interpretants in semiosis themselves do not convey the experience of the objects that they signify or mean. The experience and recognition of objects is thus necessarily collateral to the signs that signify those objects. If the experiential recognizant is not part of semiosis, then its presence in the act must therefore be accounted for by other means or in ways other than semiosic. When the "experience" however is perhaps deemed before and outside semiosis but within synechastics as a phenomenal representamen that is an object but not yet fully a sign, then the "experience" here might be held by him to be a phaneron that acts as a signer, such as the maker or giver or sender or framer or driver or taker or user of a sign. For example, if a phenomenal object by itself alone acts solely as a representative sign of itself as its own object to itself for itself, as an isolated evolving atom might, then that phaneron acts as a signer and is engaged in an act of "experience" to the extent that it can do so. If this pushes the "experience" too far back into its primordial physiotic beginnings, then the same synechastic state might exist in biotics for say a newborn organism. One thorn here of course is that it renders some "experiences" like that of some objects or of some representamens or of some phenomena as being independent of semiosis, at least in their early evolutionary growth, which may not be allowed for the "experience" by Peircean pragmatism. The main point to remember for me perhaps is that signs objectively and logically continue to exist in the absence of mind or life or matter. They may be accidentally discovered as dispositions by thinkers, but they are not arbitrarily invented as deliberations by them; at least not as logicomathematic constructs. This presumably would go to the idealism of pragmatist realism; and why Peirce tried to avoid positing any global sense of psychologistic subjectivism into his brand of logic and semiotics. For me to fully appreciate what is meant by the concept of your "recognizant" requires a fuller assay of objects, as they might be given to sense in all of their various being. My thrust here is that there may in fact be objects that act as synechastic objects and semiosic objects. These would be the same objects, but in different evolutionary states. My tentative understanding is that all objects are phenomenal phanerons, but that act as existential representamens. As such, objects initially continue to exist as synechastic objects, or representamens that are not yet signs of objects. In synechastics and before semiosics, there are perhaps two states of objects. The first state posits objects in themselves solely alone as phenomenal representamens, where they simply represent themselves by themselves to themselves as themselves for themselves. The second state posits objects with the mere potential of becoming signs, either of themselves as their own signified objects, or of themselves as some other signified objects, but only to themselves. This is the state when such objects determine that all such objects will exist as signs. If only life forms or even if only human forms as phenomenal representamens and as existential objects have this determinative ability, then this biotic state would be the genesis and limits of recognizants. It is my feeling however that all organisms of living life are signers of signs, and can thus consciously experience and recognize their own existence, at least to some primitive extent, therefore recognizants are not limited to human forms. This may of course not be so with mechanisms of dead matter. All life and matter nonetheless may have this determinative ability, which is to determine that objects will be signs, since all matter and life are all objects and are all signers. In semiosics and after synechastics, there are then perhaps two kinds of objects. This is after the very being of objects, because representative signs are already initially determined. It is within semiosics that synechastic objects determine the main kind representamens that are signs will eventually be in acts of semiosis. This is the grammatical information signs bear, aside from their critical and rhetorical aspects or divisions. There are therefore two kinds of informative semiotic objects, those objects being immediate and dynamic. Immediate objects determine signs to be mainly pure icons, or almost pure. Dynamic objects determine signs to be dominantly icons or indexes or symbols. These dynamic icons are somewhat degenerative, and are thus called hypoicons. The further contents and defined subjects of referred objects, beyond the information signs bear and the informative effects they initially generate, then falls to their critical values and meanings and worths, and later their rhetorical forces or powers. It seems to me that recognizants can certainly be synechastic objects of organic and biotic life forms, at least when such objects and forms are driven by evolution to act as signers. Whether recognizants however have any role to play in semiosics or semiosis or semiotics remains unclear to me. Tentatively, the recognizant is thus possibly a synechastic object, but not yet a semiosic object or sign. In synechastics, the object and sign and signer to include any recognizant are all together in combination the sole phenomenal representamen and existent that then determines semiosis and the very being of a sign and especially the main kind a sign will be. If the recognizant is held to be the synechastic object of a signer, and not also simultaneously the semiosic object of a sign, then there is no contradiction. What is held to exist then is two different states of objects, where one is a synechastic object of which the recognizant may be a direct part acting as a signer, and one is a semiosic object of which the recognizant may not be a part, unless it acts at the behest of a signer indirectly as a sign. Mental recognizants therefore need not be held only as signs, any more than do all objects or existents or representamens or phanerons. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
