Joe, list,
Thank you! Those quotes are both apropos and interesting in other ways.
Excessively brief samples:
Peirce:
"The point of contact is the living mind which is affected in a similar way by
real things and by their signs. And this is the only possible point of contact."
The mind alone recognizes sign and interpretant as corresponding to the real.
Yet that mind's recognition of the signs' corresponding to the object is not
the mind's sign for the object yet is the mind's _something_ regarding the
object, something involving experience of the object. Maybe it's just that,
experience, and experience is something "outside" semiosis, technically
non-semiotic in that sense, and supporting semiosis by external pressure? (No,
I don't think that, in case anybody is wondering :-))
and Peirce:
"1. Truth belongs to signs, particularly, and to thoughts as signs. Truth is
the agreement of a meaning with a reality.
"2. The meaning -- to lekton -- is the respect in which signs which translate
each other are conceived to agree. It is something independent of how the thing
signified really is and depends only on what is conveyed to whoever interprets
the sign rightly. ...."
Thirdness is reference to an interpretant. The interpretant is the sign's
meaning. The meaning is the respect in which signs which translate each other
are conceived to agree, and is independent of how the thing signified really
is.
BUT -- truth is the agreement of a meaning with a reality and _belongs to
signs_. So signs have truth, soundness, legitimacy -- and it's not an
non-semiotic issue; and it's not their meaning, value, etc., per se. It's a
further relationship of meaning, a relationship to the real.
Is truth a sign's being in 'real relation' to the object? Can an index -- when
defined as a sign defined in particular cases by a real relation with its
object -- be defined as sign defined in particular cases by its truth, its
legitimacy, its deserving of recognition as true? This does seem a consequence
of Peirce's view. I've said in other posts why I don't think that this works
for the index as usually conceived -- the index's representation of some other
object is just as mistakable as an icon's representation of another object.
Then it isn't really an index, but only a deceptive one at best, OF that
object. Likewise the icon, mistaken, isn't really an icon OF the supposed
object. But then the supposed index isn't an index, while the icon is still an
icon, at least of itself? But _the index is just as capable as the icon, just
as capable of self-reference in the absence of any other object_. So it's
still an index even if not an index of some given mistakenly supposed object.
And the defining of the index by 'real relation' (and not by singularity and
reaction) takes us decisively beyond the notion of an _actual_ or reactive
relation and, I think, leaves us with the mathematical diagram fitting the
definition of an index -- the geometric figure, the array of algebraic
expressions and their behavior, etc., which need not look or feel like their
objects at all and indeed are constructed in order to bridge, by confirmable
agreeings, large divergences of appearance & feeling.)
* * *
I guessed almost right about "imputation" and "attribution." -- except that
"attribution" is the 'genus' whereof 'imputation' is the species.
I said that a symbol is defined by its effecting an imputation by the
interpretant. But, as seems clearer to me now, that's just a detailing of
"defined by its effect on the interpretant' unless we can substitute
"attribution" for "imputation" and still come up with a general definition of
symbols:
What kind of sign is defined as that sign whereof the given case is defined by
the _attribution_ to which it determines the interpretant?
Can a blue icon be said to be a sign which, by presentment or approximation of
a quality, determines the interpretant to attribute the quality to an object?
I think that you could say it; if so, then "symbol" is not singled out by the
phrase "defined by the attribution to which it determines the interpretant."
But if that's the case, then it would not be enough to say that the symbol is
the sign defined by its effect on the interpretant.
Instead, one would need to say that the symbol is the sign defined by its
interpretant-effect achieved without presentment or approximation of the
quality or the reaction (or the representational relation?) which it represents
the object as having. Actually, Peirce (if I recall aright) does occasionally
specify an effect on the interpretant achieved other than by reaction with or
resemblance to the object -- achieved by the interpretive habit "itself" rather
than involving an interpretive habit arising in accordance with a reaction or a
resemblance.
I guess the thing is, that, once reaction or resemblance are involved, it's no
longer necessary to go on mentioning the effect on the interpretant, in order
to define the particular given sign. The blue icon is defined by its
resemblance to things blue. As a sign, its reference to an interpretant already
implies that its iconization of things blue means that it determines the
interpretant to an attribution of blueness to something -- but there one
doesn't add to the particular sign's definition by mentioning the effect on the
interpretant.
icon - reference to a ground (other than by reaction with the quale or by
symbolizing the quale, the quality, or the ground).
|> symbol - reference to an interpretant (other than by meaningful reaction or
resemblance to an object)
index - reference to an object (other than by resembling or symbolizing it).
Best, Ben
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Ransdell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 1:41 PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: MS 399.663f On the sign as surrogate
Ben, list:
Thanks for the response, Ben, and for the news from Gary about the conference.
I hope Stjernfelt's paper is made generally available soon. He has an
important paper in Transactions of the Peirce Society 36 (Summer 2000) called
"Diagrams as Centerpiece of a Peircean Epistemology"..
I'm caught by a luncheon engagement and can't do more at the moment than to add
some more quotes to provide some background for sorting out the imputation
factors along the lines you are suggesting: These are all from the early years
(1865-1873):
==========QUOTE PEIRCE===========
Writings 1,172f (1865) MS 94 Harvard Lecture I
"Concerning words also it is farther to be considered," [Locke] says, "that
there comes by constant use to be such a connection between certain sounds and
the ideas they stand for, that the names heard, almost as readily excite
certain ideas as if the objects themselves, which are apt to produce them, did
actually affect the senses." Now this readiness of excitation obviously
consists in this, namely, that we do not have to reflect upon the word as a
sign but . . . it comes to affect the intellect as though it had that quality
which it connotes. I call this the acquired nature of the word, because it is a
power that the word comes to have, and because the word itself without any
reflection of ours upon it brings the idea into our minds. . . . Now, I ask,
how is it that anything can be done with a symbol, without reflecting upon the
conception, much less imagining the object that belongs to it? It is simply
because the symbol has acquired a nature, which may be described thus, that
when it is brought before the mind certain principles of its use -- whether
reflected on or not -- by association immediately regulate the action of the
mind; and these may be regarded as laws of the symbol itself which it cannot
_as a symbol_ transgress.
Writings 1, 280 (1865) MS 106 Harvard Lecture X
Inference in general obviously supposes symbolization; and all symbolization is
inference. For every symbol as we have seen contains information. And in the
last lecture we saw that all kinds of information involve inference.
Inference, then, is symbolization. They are the same notions. Now we have
already analyzed the notion of a symbol, and we have found that it depends upon
the possibility of representations acquiring a nature, that is to say an
immediate representative power. This principle is therefore the ground of
inference in general.
Writings 1,477, Lowell Lecture IX 1866
Representation is of three kinds -- Likeness, Indication or Correspondence
in fact, and Symbolization. . . .
A representation is either a Likeness, an Index, or a Symbol. A likeness
represents its object by agreeing with it in some particular. An index
represents is object by a real correspondence with it -- as a tally does quarts
of milk, and a vane the wind. A symbol is a general representation like a word
or conception. Scientifically speaking, a likeness is a representation grounded
on an internal character -- that is, whose reference to a ground is
prescindible. An index is a representation whose relation to its object is
prescindible and is a Disquiparance, so that its peculiar Quality is not
prescindible but is relative. A symbol is a representation whose essential
Quality and Relation are both unprescindible -- the Quality being imputed and
the Relation ideal. Thus there are three kinds of Quality
Internal Quality (Quality proper) --
The Quality of an Equiparent and Likeness
External Quality --
The Quality of a Disquiparant and Index
Imputed Quality --
The Quality of a Symbol
And two kinds of Relation
Real Relation (Relation proper) --
The Relation of Likeness and Index
Ideal Relation --
The relation of a Symbol
. . .
Having thus made a complete catalogue of the objects of formal thought, we
come down to consider symbols, with which alone Logic is concerned -- and
symbols in a special aspect; namely, as determined by their reference to their
objects or correlates.
The first division which we are to attempt to make between different kinds
of symbols ought to depend upon their intention, what they are specially meant
to express -- whether their peculiar function is to lie in their reference to
their ground, in their reference to their object, or their reference to their
interpretant. A symbol whose intended function is its reference to its ground
-- although as a symbol it must refer also to an object and an interpretant,
and although the nature of its reference to its object is alone the study of
the logician -- is nevertheless intended to be nothing more than something
which has meaning and to which a certain character has been imputed; in other
words it is a symbol only because the imputation of a certain character has
made it one -- the imputation of the character is the same as putting it for a
thing or things -- so that it is merely considered as expressing a thing or
things in their internal characters -- as standing in place of a thing and as
being like that thing, an incarnation of a certain ground, though only by
imputation and not internally. If I write "White" -- this word[,] standing by
itself, means nothing; it stands there merely in place of a white thing so that
we have by imputation put a white thing on the board. So if we write
"Aristotle" this means nothing except so far as it embodies certain characters
of mind, of nationality, and of position in space and time, which belonged
internally and not by Imputation to the real Aristotle. Thus a term is a symbol
which is intended only to refer to a Ground or what is the same thing, to stand
instead of a Quale or what is again the same, to have meaning without truth.
Now suppose a Symbol whose intended function is the reference to an object
or correlate. The reference of a Symbol to its object is its truth. This kind
of symbol is therefore one which is intended merely to Embody a truth. So that
it is a proposition. But as reference to a correlate cannot be intended or even
supposed without reference to a ground, as truth supposes meaning, to intend
that a symbol should refer to a correlate is to intend that it should refer to
a correlate and ground, that is[,] be a relate, by imputation, or in other
words stand instead of a relate -- or represent a relate. So that to say that a
proposition is a symbol which is intended to refer to a correlate is the same
as to say that it is one which represents a relate as such.
In the third place, a symbol may be intended to refer to an interpretant
or to have force. It is, then, intended also to contain a statement, since
reference to an interpretant cannot be prescinded from the other references. It
is intended therefore to inculcate this statement into the interpretant, that
is to produce the equivalent statement with the interpretant -- not merely the
statement that this symbol makes the statement but a restatement. For an
interpretant is something which represents a representation to represent that
which it does itself represent. Now that which, thus, appeals to an
interpretant -- that is, is so constructed and intended so as to develop a
restatement on the part of another or assent -- is an argument, a syllogism
minus the conclusion, for the Conclusion of a syllogism is no part of the
argument but is the assent to it, the interpretant. An argument, therefore, is
a symbol intended to refer to an interpretant and I could show very easily that
this is the same as a symbol which from its form, represents a representation.
Collected Papers 1.558 (1867) On a New List of Categories
A reference to a ground may also be such that it cannot be prescinded from a
reference to an interpretant. In this case it may be termed an imputed quality.
If the reference of a relate to its ground can be prescinded from reference to
an interpretant, its relation to its correlate is a mere concurrence or
community in the possession of a quality, and therefore the reference to a
correlate can be prescinded from reference to an interpretant. It follows that
there are three kinds of representations. . .
.
. . .
[The third kind are] those the ground of whose relation to their objects is an
imputed character, which are the same as general signs, and these may be termed
_symbols_.
CP 5.309 1868
Everything has its subjective or emotional qualities, which are attributed
either absolutely or relatively, or by conventional imputation to anything
which is a sign of it. And so we reason,
The sign is such and such;
:. The sign is that thing.
This conclusion receiving, however, a modification, owing to other
considerations, so as to become --
The sign is almost (is representative of) that thing.
Writings 2,439-440; 1870 (Notes for Logic Lectures)]
The next question is in what sense can two things as incommensurable as a
meaning and a reality be said to agree.
The point of contact is the living mind which is affected in a similar way
by real things and by their signs. And this is the only possible point of
contact.
I say "a certain thing is blue." The image of blueness this excites in the
mind is not a copy of any blueness in the sentence. Therefore, even if the
sensation of blue be a copy of an external blue in the blue thing, there can be
no other agreement between the sentence and the thing than that they convey the
same notion to the mind.
The agreement between the meaning of a sign and a reality consists in the
former's exciting the same notion in the mind that the reality does.
This is obviously much too vague and shows us the necessity of beginning
with a systematic analysis of the conception of a sign.
W 2,439f MS 171: Spring 1870 Notes for Lectures on Logic to be given 1st term
1870-71
1. Truth belongs to signs, particularly, and to thoughts as signs. Truth is
the agreement of a meaning with a reality.
2. The meaning -- to lekton -- is the respect in which signs which translate
each other are conceived to agree. It is something independent of how the thing
signified really is and depends only on what is conveyed to whoever interprets
the sign rightly. Whether this meaning is something out of the mind or only in
the mind or nothing at all (as the Stoics who originated the term lekton
maintained) is a question which cannot affect the propriety of the definition
of truth here given.
3. The meaning must be carefully distinguished from the sign itself and from
the thing signified.
A real thing is something whose characters are independent of how any
representation represents it to be.
Independent, therefore, of how any number of men think it to be. Idealism
does not falsify definition.
The next question is in what sense can two things as incommensurable as a
meaning and a reality be said to agree.
The point of contact is the living mind which is affected in a similar way
by real things and by their signs. And this is the only possible point of
contact.
I say "a certain thing is blue." The image of blueness this excites in the
mind is not a copy of any blueness in the sentence. Therefore, even if the
sensation of blue be a copy of an external blue in the blue thing, there can be
no other agreement between the sentence and the thing than that they convey the
same notion to the mind.
4. The agreement between the meaning of a sign and a reality consists in
the former's exciting the same notion in the mind that the reality does.
This is obviously much too vague and shows us the necessity of beginning
with a systematic analysis of the conception of a sign.
Writings 3, p. 64 (1873) MS 212 On Representations
The representation not only has material qualities but it also imputes certain
qualities to its object. These we may call its imputed qualities. For example
the word `white' printed in a book is itself black so far as its own material
qualities are concerned but its imputed quality is white.
===========END PEIRCE QUOTES===============
There are more relevant quotes from later on, but this is enough for this
message.
Joe Ransdell
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