[peirce-l] Re: naming definite individuals

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:56:16 -0800

Benjamin Udell a écrit :
Bernard, Jim, list,
 
I got too excited, I'm not at all sure that "subindex" can be equated with "degenerate index."
 
Best, Ben
==============
 
Ben,
I was ready to  write you that if  a "degenerate index" makes sense because it signifies degenerate secondness, the parallel with hypoicons would not hold anymore because there is not "degenerate firstness".
The whole passage from Essential Peirce, Vol. 2, p. 273-274 (which comes from the Syllabus of 1903) is certainly of service here. The two paragraphs concerning respectively the Icon and the Index are written under the same structure. First a definition is given and some doubtful limiting cases are discussed. Then we find respectively the consideration of hypoicons and hyposemes. Nevertheless I think that these latter considerations are of a different tone than the definitions or case studies (and then that they are not related to the degenerescence subject). For hypoicons we find the following exposition of motives: "But a sign may be iconic, that is, may represent its object mainly by its similarity, no matter its mode of being". I understand this as addressing any kind of sign, be it a qualisign (which is evident), a sinsign or a legisign provided that they bear an iconic ingredient. I think that hyposemes can be understood the same way except for qualisigns which can never be indexical.
As a matter of fact the common presentation structure we see  for icons and indices is not reproduced in the subsequent paragraph concerning symbols. There seems to have nothing like "hyposymbols". And we can guess why: an hyposymbol can't be anything else than a legisign. Thus the concept would be empty or redundant.

Apologies for writing in a previous message the phrasing "subindices or other hyposemes". I did not intend to mean that there could be a distinction between both of them. I was just replicating a typical French phrasing where "other" ("autres") is meant to emphasize that we, speaker and recipient,  know very well and otherwise that they are the same! Some case of imputed context  if I can say so. I infer from your reply that such a  language artifice does not work the same way in English. Or may be my English itself was not what it should have been.

Bernard
Bernard, Jim, list,
 
I should have noted that EP 2.273, combined with EP 2.274, in fact contains "The Answer!" about subindices. A subindex is a degenerate index. It can be singular or general. I would note to Mats Bergman & the Commens Dictionary folks, that the passage from 2.273 might be best included along with 2.274 under the "subindex" entry.
 
1903 ('A Syllabus of Certain Topics of Logic', EP 2:273)
66~~~~~~~
An _Index_ or _Seme_†1 ({séma}) is a Representamen whose Representative character consists in its being an individual second. If the Secondness is an existential relation, the Index is _genuine_. If the Secondness is a reference, the Index is _degenerate_. A genuine Index and its Object must be existent individuals (whether things or facts), and its immediate Interpretant must be of the same character. But since every individual must have characters, it follows that a genuine Index may contain a Firstness, and so an Icon as a constituent part of it. Any individual is a degenerate Index of its own characters.
~~~~~~~99
1903 ('A Syllabus of Certain Topics of Logic', EP 2:274)
66~~~~~~~
_Subindices_ or _hyposemes_ are signs which are rendered such principally by an actual connection with their objects. Thus a proper name, personal demonstrative, or relative pronoun or the letter attached to a diagram, denotes what it does owing to a real connection with its object but none of these is an Index, since it is not an individual.
~~~~~~~99
 
Best, Ben
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