[peirce-l] The "composite photograph" metaphor

[Gary Richmond]

Joe, Ben, Jim, List, I've begun to reread and in some cases read for the first time Christopher Hookway's papers as he is to be an invited speaker at ICCS07 at Sheffield University where he is a member of the faculty. There's an interesting and valuable paper of his in the Winter/Spring 2002 Transactions titled " '. . . a sort of composite photograph': Pragmatism, Ideas, and Schematism." Hookway argues that the metaphor of an idea being a kind of  "composite photograph" (which has a general character since composed of many particulars) is an important one which Peirce seems to value. He uses it many times and in various ways ways over lengthy period beginning in the 90's and extending into the 20th century. I won't attempt to summarize his complex argument and will only now comment that the metaphor suggests the way in which an idea is something like a photographic iteration of the many subjective experiences of the object of any idea (perhaps the ground?). Hookway argues that fully comprehended the metaphor is both integral to Peirce's architectonic science (as, for example, outlined in his classification of the sciences) as well as possibly proving key to a coherentist defense of his pragmatism. The composite image is a kind of "stereotype" (Hookway's _expression_) of all the particular images so that it somehow captures their common feature. This seems to me a notion which also relates to the formation of "collateral knowledge," but not  as a semeiotic or logical element (in effect, a fourth category), but as a psychological event which impacts the logical only in a given moment of semiosis. This is also why, I believe, that Peirce can say that collateral observation is not a part of any given sign, but that this composite representation of the object (held in memory I would hold--again pointing to its psychological structuring across time) is a precondition to recognizing a given sign at all. This occurs out of the depth of an interlocutor's collateral associations concerning an _expression_, say since I've just returned from  Denmark, "viking", stimulating a composite notion which is the idea of "viking" for him, so that a conversation, for example,  may proceed as both parties enter into a commens, or commind concerning the "viking" concept. There is no mystery here, and no need for a fourth category or fourth semiotic element as I see it. Of course this is yet very complex as every proposition (let alone a book or a court case!) involves not one index but a whole set of them. 2.439 In order properly to exhibit the relation between premisses and conclusion of mathematical reasonings, it is necessary to recognize that in most cases the subject-index is compound, and consists of a set of indices. Thus, in the proposition, "A sells B to C for the price D," A, B, C, D form a set of four indices. The symbol "--sells--to--for the price--" refers to a mental icon, or idea of the act of sale, and declares that this image represents the set A, B, C, D, considered as attached to that icon, A as seller, C as buyer, B as object sold, and D as price. If we call A, B, C, D four subjects of the proposition and "--sells--to--for the price--" a predicate, we represent the logical relation well enough, but we abandon the Aryan syntax. Hookway argues (although I will only present the conclusions here) that there are "some features of ideas that are to be explained by the metaphor" and although he does not explicitly do so, I would further associate these three "features" a, b, c with the categories, with firstness, secondness, and thirdness respectively. a) Ideas are iconic signs (their content can by "judged") |> c) Ideas are general (so they can be applied to new, unfamiliar cases) b) Ideas are composed from cases experienced (or through testimony) (cf p. 35 op cit) Peirce applies this notion not just to sensory experience, but also to disciplines as varied as mathematics on the one hand and ethics on the other. Finally, there are two directions, two "vectors" possible here. Moving one way (towards the formation of collateral knowledge), a number of particular experiential representations (each one formed semiotically) are "fused" into a single representation. Moving the other way (that is, in consideration of the need to confirm, etc.), the single representation calls up what Hookway calls "a sequence of shades, a sequence of particular images." This proves crucial to the final portion of his argument, connecting the metaphor to schema and, ultimately, the pragmatic maxim: "[T]he idea generates particular representations in the imagination or in the form of images; and the logical sequence of the idea is displayed in time in a sequence of magus. . . The idea that infuses perceptual experience provides a sort of iconic representation of how experience will develop, or how experience will be if its objects are of the kinds we take them to be. Composite photographs provide one exemplar or something that might do this sort of job without bringing to experience any contents we can think of as a priori." [Hookway, p. 41] As Hookway suggests, this turns out to be more like a "composite film" (which, btw, may be related but to me seems not to be the same as Peirce's logical notion of EGs as a "moving picture of thought") than a simple composite photograph. The implications of  this for pragmatism are, I think, intriguing, while for collateral knowledge and collateral observation the metaphor seems simply to suggest that "I recognize a specimen of this kind when the idea generates an iconic representation which fits the experience." Now this can occur acritically or critically, and the need for critical common sense in our inquiries begins to seem indispensable for the future of philosophy (and perhaps much else). As I wrote in my recently delivered ICCS conference paper, "The truth of any matter important to a community--if one can even speak of the fallible, tentative, and asynptotic approach to agreement in any significant matter as "truth", will certainly be our truth, not mine or yours. . ." Gary --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com