"Recently you verbally partly outlined how such a diagram would work, and I
responded quite specifically on how it seemed that it would work and posed you a
question about it, and haven't heard about it from you since then."
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 12:02
PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The "composite
photograph" metaphor
Joe, list,
Joe, I don't know why it seems to you like I'm suddenly releasing a
"tirade of verbal dazzle." The prose there looks pretty mundane to me and I
certainly didn't mean it intimidate you. Generally when I write such prose I'm
just trying to present links in arguments, keep from being confusing, and keep
the internal cross-references clear. I try (not always successfully) to avoid
trying to write "dazzling" prose because often enough when I've looked at it
months later it seems a bit stilted and labored. My editing consists most of
all in replacing pronouns with nouns and phrases, even though it leads to
repetition, because it worked very well for Fritjof Capra in his _The Tao
of Physics_, and he pushed that sort of writing about as far as it can
reasonably go, to excellent effect.
As for showing that there's no subtle weird complex way that one could
reduce verification to the triad, I don't know why you were expecting such in
my response to Jim. I've said earlier that I was working on
something, and that it would take maybe a week. Then you soon
posted to me on other stuff in regard to verification, and that led to the
current discussion, so I don't know where you think that I'd have found the
time to work on the no-reduction argument. And when I said that I've
practical matters also to attend to, I wasn't just making it up. Now, I
didn't see any reason to rush the kind of argument which you asked me to make,
since it would be the first time that I'd made such an argument on
peirce-l. And I see it as dealing with more challenges than you see it
as dealing with, for I don't seem able, even after all this time, to get you
to _focus_ on analyzing the verificatory act, for instance, of checking
on what a person says is happening at some house. You refer to such an act but
you don't look at it.
Somebody tells me there's a fire at a house, I form an interpretation
that there's a fire at that house, I run over and look at it, and looka there,
it's on fire! Feel the heat! Look at the fire trucks! Cross to the other
side of the street in order to get past it. Verification, involving experience
of the object(s). Now, if that experience merely represented the house to me,
the smoke, its source, etc., then it wouldn't be acquainting me with the house
as the house has become. Doubts about this lead to the interesting
question of _what are signs for, anyway_? Meanwhile, if the house
really is on fire, then subsequent events and behaviors will corroborate the
verification. Once, from around 16 blocks away, I saw billowing smoke rising
from the vicinity of my building. I rushed up to the elevated train station
but couldn't get a clearer view. Finally I ran most of the way to my building,
where I observed that the smoke was coming from a block diagonally away -- the
Woolworth's store was aflame and my building was quite safe and sound.
I hadn't sat around interpreting a.k.a. construing, instead I had
actively arranged to have a special experience of the objects
themselves, an experience logically determined in its references and
significances both prior and going forward, by the interpretation that my
building was afire; and the experience determined semiosis going forward as
well, and was corroborated in my interactions with fellow witnesses and by
subsequent events, including the gutting and rebuilding the store.
- Was the experience the object in question?
- No.
- Was it the sign?
- No.
- Was it the interpretant?
- No.
- Was it determined logically by them?
- Yes.
- Was it, then, another interpretant of the prior interpretants and
their object?
- No, because it was not an interpretant of the object, instead it
further acquainted me with the object.
Now, if you don't see a problem for triadicism there, then I'd say that
you've set the bar exceedingly high for seeing a problem. And if you reply
that you don't find that sequence of questions and answers convincing of
anything, even of the plausible appearance of a problem, without pointing to
just where the logic breaks down, then I'll conclude that you've merely
skimmed it, and haven't reasoned your way through it at all.
Yes, generally I point out that sign and interpretant don't
give experience of the object and that verification involves
experience of the object. There's a cogent general argument right
there. But if you see no problem for semiotics in the question of signs
and experience, no problem that can't be "taken care of" later, some time,
when somebody gets around to it, meanwhile let somebody prove beyond this
doubt, then that doubt, then another doubt, that there's some sort of problem
there that needs to be addressed, well, then, you'll never feel a burden
of need to deal with it. Generally I''m okay with this, because it leads
to my exploring interesting questions.
In response to my points about collateral experience, some asked, among
other things -- "but how does that make 'recognition' or confirmation be
_part_ of semiosis, part of an inference process?" A surprising
doubt, but, like the oftener unsurprising doubts raised, certainly
_interesting_. Indeed, what would be a criterion for
something's being a basic semiotic element? So, after a while, I
developed ways to discuss how a verification is involved qua verification in
the process of logical determination, involved both as determined by it and as
determining it. I took my time and thought it through in some detail. I've
learned a lot from doing it. I really liked doing it. Now, does triadicism
mean that everything logically determined or determinant is so as object,
sign, or interpretant? It seems to me to be obvious that triadicism
means that. But if people aren't sure about it, then for people it's a
_question_ rather than a commonly obvious statement, one which seems at
least important and which I've discussed one way or the other at least a dozen
times and probably more, and still I've no idea what your view is on it
or on any number of important questions. You know, the answer to that
question goes to the question of whether verification is something on a par
with object, sign, and interpretant. It's a question which forms at least part
of the question of the _criterion_ for whether something is a basic
semiotic element. If I recall rightly, nobody besides myself has
plainly, or even tentatively, explicitly affirmed or denied it. Then you say
that I'm _avoiding_ making some argument.
But what do you really think the odds are that there is such a
reduction? One would think that you or somebody could have produced an
example by now. I mean, if you think that it can be reduced, then do it
-- reduce it. Show me the diagram wherein a verification relation
consists of nothing but objects, signs, and interpretants.
Why would I expect that there is even a small burden of such on you at
all? If there really were such a reduction, _one would expect
examples of how verification is really made of nothing but objectification,
representation, and interpretation to be readily forthcoming_. One
would even have some degree of expectation that it would make at least
plausible sense in a pretty common-sense way, rather than only after the
clarification of deep murky areas of complication. In the absence, after
all this time, of such examples, the chances of there being such a reduction
have to be considered pretty slim. Yes, I certainly doubt that you or anybody
else can do it, but what surprises me a little is that you, of all
people, hardly even try. Recently you verbally partly outlined how such a
diagram would work, and I responded quite specifically on how it seemed that
it would work and posed you a question about it, and haven't heard about it
from you since then.
Best,
Ben Udell
>> BU: However, my argument has been that, when one
pays sufficient attention to the relationships involved, one sees that a
verification is _not_ a representation, in those relationships in
which it is a verification, -- just as an object is not a sign in those
relationships in which it is an object. Even when a thing-in-its-signhood is
the object, the subject matter, then it is _in that respect_ the
object and not a sign, though it wouldn't be the object if it were not a sign
(and indeed every object is a sign in some set of relationships). These
logical distinctions don't wash away so easily.
> JR: That is right, but none of this shows that recognition --
or cognition -- is not capable of being analyzed and explicated in terms of
complexes of sign-object-interpretant relationships -- along with the
secondness and firstness relationships they presuppose -- as they structure a
process the peculiar complexity of which is made possible by the changing
identities and differences of the entities in the process that occur and recur
in it. Your unleashing of your verbal abilities at this point in your
response in a tirade of verbal dazzle, where you should be focusing your
efforts in a careful analytical way instead, is blinding you to the task at
hand.
> That is how what you say from this point on in your message
appears to me, Ben. This is positively my last response to you on this
particular topic. If others are persuaded that you have actually shown
what needs to be shown instead of burying it verbally, that will no doubt
impress me. But at this time I don't see it and have a strong sense of
being intimidated verbally rather than reasoned with. Perhaps I am merely
being obtuse. I recognize this as a possibility but I find no tendency
in myself to believe it. Perhaps at another time things will appear
differently to one of the two of us.
> Jim below says things pretty near to that which I'm saying in terms
of the distinction between object and sign, and it seems that the "bad
regression" stuff that I've said about his previous stuff no longer applies.
Object and signs are roles. They are logical roles, and their distinction
is a logical distinction, not a metaphysical or physical or material or
biological or psychological distinction, though it takes on complex
psychological relevance insofar as a psyche will be an inference process and
will not only develop structures which manifest the distinction, but will also
tend consciously to employ the distinction and even thematize it and make a
topic (a semiotic object) out of it (like right now).
However, my argument has been that, when one pays sufficient attention to
the relationships involved, one sees that a verification is _not_ a
representation, in those relationships in which it is a verification, -- just
as an object is not a sign in those relationships in which it is an object.
Even when a thing-in-its-signhood is the object, the subject matter, then it
is _in that respect_ the object and not a sign, though it wouldn't be the
object if it were not a sign (and indeed every object is a sign in some set of
relationships). These logical distinctions don't wash away so easily.
Meaning is formed into the interpretant. Validity, soundness, etc., are
formed into the recognition.
Meaning is conveyed and developed through "chains" and structures of
interpretants. Validity, soundness, legitimacy, is conveyed and developed
through "chains" and structures of recognitions.
One even has some slack in "making" the distinction between interpretant
and verification -- it's a slack which one needs in order to learn about the
distinction so as to incorporate those learnings into oneself as a semiosic
sytem and so as to employ the distinction in a non-reckless but also
non-complacent manner.
(For everything -- (a) boldness, (b) confident behavior, (c) caution, (d)
resignation --
there is a season -- (a) bravery, (b) duely confident
behavior, (c) prudence, (d) "realism" --
& an out-of-season -- (a)
rashness, (b) complacency, (c) cowardice, (d) defeatism.)
In a sense the distinction (interpretant vs. verification) which I'm
discussing is an aspect of the ancient one traceable between
meaning, value, good, end (telos), actualization, affectivity
and
factuality, validity, soundness, true, entelechy, reality,
establishment, cognition.
To make it four-way:
1. object ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 3. interpretant
2. sign ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ 4. recognition, verification
1. strength, dynamism ~ ~ ~ 3. vibrancy, value, good
2. suitability,
richness ~ ~ ~ 4. firmness, soundness, truth etc.
1. will & character ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 3. affectivity & sensibility
2.
ability & competence ~ ~ 4. cognition & intelligence
1. agency ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 3. act, actualization
2. bearer ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 4. borne, supported
1. beginning, leading, arche ~ ~ 3. end, telos, culmination
2. middle,
means ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 4. check, entelechy
1. multi-objective optimization process ~ ~ 3. cybernetic process
2.
stochastic process ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 4. inference process
1. forces ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 3. life
2. matter ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ 4. intelligent life
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Piat
To: Peirce Discussion
Forum
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2006 1:54 PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The
"composite photograph" metaphor
Charles Rudder wrote:
>> That is, there is an immediate--non-mediated and, hence,
cognitively autonomous relation between cognizing subjects and objects
consisting of phenomena and/or things in themselves who are in some sense able
to "see" or "recognize" objects and relations between and among objects as
they are independent of how they are represented by signs and their
interpretants. On this account of cognition, signs and systems of signs
are "instrumental" auxiliaries to cognition and their semiosical
instrumentality is subject to being and is consciously or unconsciously
continuously being extrasemiosically evaluated, validated, or "verified" by
cognizing subjects; a process which Peirce, who makes cognition and cognitive
growth an exclusively semiosical process, ignores.>>
Dear Charles, Folks
Here's my take --
That one has some sort of non-representational "knowledge" of objects
against which one can compare or verify one's representational or semiotic
knowledge does seem to be a popular view of the issue of how reality is
accessed or known. But I think this is a view Peirce rejected in
the New List.
However this is not to say that there is no practical distinction between
what is meant by an object and what is meant by a representation of an
object. An object is that which is interpreted as standing for (or
representing) itself. A sign is something that is interpreted as
standing for something other than itself. Thus one can compare one's
interpretation of a sign of a collateral object with one's interpretation of
the referenced collateral object itself even though both the object of the
sign and the collateral object are known only through representation.
The collateral object and the object of some discussion of it are in theory
the same object. The distinction is between one's direct representation
of the object vs it's indirect representation to one by others. In both
cases the object is represented.
There are no inherent distinctions between those objects we interpret as
objects and those we interpret as signs -- the distinction is in how we
use them. The object referred to by a sign is always collateral to the
sign itself unless the sign is referring to itself in some sort of convoluted
self referential fashion. The distinction between direct (albeit
mediated) knowledge of an object and the sort of second hand knowledge one
gains from the accounts of others poses no special problems. There is
nothing magic about direct personal knowledge that gives it some sort of
special objective validity over the accounts of others. What makes such
personal aquaintance valuable is not their imagined "objectivity" but
their trustworthiness (in terms of serving one's own interests as opposed to
the interests of others). OTOH multiple observation gathered from
different "trustworthy" POVs do provide a more complete and thus more reliable
and useful (or "true"as some say) account of reality.
And finally, verification (conceiving a manifold of senuous
impressions as having some particular meaning) IS representation -- at least
for Peirce (as I understand him).
Just some thoughts as I'm following this discussion.
Best,
Jim
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