Ben,
List,
Ben I
have the feeling that much of your uneasyness is a consequence of the way in
which you use the terms. It seems as if you promote the semiotic aspects that
can be discerned (are involved) in signs to full fledged signs. I try to make
this clear between the lines.
BU:
There is a qualisign which is the English
word "red," and which consists in the appearance and/or sound of the word as
written/printed/uttered. The qualisign "red"'s semiotic object is the
sinsign "red" which is the single actual appearance of the word "red" on the
page or its single utterance. The sinsign "red" is a replica of the symbol "red"
(and is an index). This bothers me because the semiotic object of both the
legisign and sinsign "red"s is the red thing or redness (dependently on
context), but the semiotic object of the qualisign "red" is the sinsign "red,"
because a qualisign is always an icon and can have for its object only that
which it resembles.
---
I
would state things differently like: the English word "red" involves the
qualisign aspect. With "qualisign aspect" we draw attention to the
qualities of a sign, its appearance or sound when written, printed,
uttered, part of thought or perceived, to the exclusion of all other
aspects.
Since 'qualisign' is a possible and not an existent it
needs the sinsign aspect for its embodiment. Without embodiment it
will never be able to function as a sign and will have object nor
interpretant.
Only
when we engage in a study of the process by which mind processes signs it makes
some sense to ask for the object of a qualisign (aka emotional interpretant).
One of the objects in the range of possibilities is the sinsign that arouse
the feeling. We must be aware however that the sign in this case is
not "red", but the "feeling of red" and the object is not "the object of the
sinsign red", but the "sinsign red" itself. Here we have one of the possible
sources of error in the process by which signs generate their meaning effects.
The
sinsign 'red' is not a replica of the symbol red, it is a replica of the
legisign "red". The symbol "red" is as you state indexically connected with the
replica sinsign. But since it is a habit, it must be a symbolical idexical aka
replica indexical relation.
The
relation material word - word form differs from the relation word - meaning.
BU:
And actually, I don't
understand how it is that the sinsign "red," -- when used mainly as a replica of
the symbol (and not used indexically with an implicit "over there!") -- can be
regarded as having redness or something red as its semiotic object. If its
semiotic object is redness or something red, because it is a replica, then I
don't see why a qualisign "red" should not have redness or something red as its
semiotic object by virtue of being a kind of qualisignal version of a replica of
the symbol. I'd rather say that the single utterance/appearance of "red" is
simply a symbolic sinsign (or "sinsignal symbol") and that the
qualisign "red" is simply a symbolic qualisign.
The
sinsign can only have something as its object if it is not only recognized as a
sinsign but also as a replica sinsign (legisign) with a symbol attached. If we
prescind from that for the sake of analysis, we attribute other
objects. It is akin to what happens if we shift from a syllogism and its object
to one of the propositions and its object.
The,
in a sinsign embodied, qualisign can only involve the legisign and symbol if
there is an established habit that determines such involvement. It is more safe
to assume the lower sign types (the 10 types resulting from the three triads of
aspects) involved in the higher, than to assume the higher to be present in the
lower. A symbolic sign involves qualisigns, but a qualisign is not on its own
account a symbolic sign.
BU:
The only purpose that I
can see in the constraints which eliminate these options is to maintain a rule
which restrains the multiplication of signs but does little else except to
multiply problems, having us adding little detours and curlicues like the
conception of the "replica" and like the qualisign's being an icon of an
indexical sinsign which is a replica of a symbol.
I see
an other purpose. Every distinction is justified by its ability to discern
sources of error. The idea of a detour arises if we assume meaning aspects to be
present when they are in fact not present.
Best,
Auke
In everyday language and
thought we think of such qualities as colors as quite capable of being symbolic
in certain typical contexts, and certain appearances such as that of the English
word "horse" are so tied habitually with specific symbolic significations that I
think it's just strange to say that it's false that the qualisign "horse" has
for its semiotic object not a horse but an individual utterance, writing, or
printing of the word "horse."
Now, suppose I define a kind of
sign which I call an "evocant," and define it as any sign which is either a
symbol or a replica of a symbol. The distinction between sinsign &
legisign is not abolished by this. Instead, the replica becomes simply the
sinsignal evocant and the symbol is the legisinal evocant. Well, it wouldn't be
enough. If I define the evocant simply as either symbol or replica, then I've
defined it as either symbol or a kind of index whose significative power I've
already found problematic. Instead I have to argue that a singular thing is
capable of "evoking" and I have to define this as a power much like symbolizing.
I'd have to argue that the habits which constitute symbols can be tied to
qualisigns in such a way as to embody themselves in sinsigns such that the
qualisign "horse"'s object, the sinsign "horse"'s object, and the legisign
"horse"'s object, are all the horse, insofar as all three evoke the horse in the
interpretant mind. Now is it really false that the qualisign, the appearance,
"horse" evokes a horse in its interpretant's mind? I think that the appearance
of the word does evoke a horse in my mind at least, because of the habitual
connection of that appearance with an idea of a horse. Furthermore the interplay
of singular utterances, qualitative appearances, and habits, do affect the
symbol in its habitual character.
---Best, Ben Udell
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