Ben,
Just one word about a small part of your response (I am now lacking time
for a much detailed response). You wrote:
I had said that "your scenario implies that a mind gets
object-acquaintance from a sign (the previous interpretant) to that
same mind about the object." So you contradicted Peirce in order to
get those two triangles.
"A mind gets acquaintance with the object from a sign" : Yes and No. The
apparent contradiction seems to me to be solved precisely by the duality
between the continuous agreggate of experience of some object and the
instantaneous effect of the same object through its actual sign.
1)On the side of continuity the interpreter's mind holds an history, a
digest of an object through the aggregation of a multiplicity of
instantaneous signs of it. Such an aggregation we call experience. In
this sense we can say that object acquaintance comes -indirectly- with a
series of signs. This lets open several questions: a) the identity of
the object to which such an experience refers and b) the kind of the
processes that proceed to the aggregation (the question of memory, be it
individual or collective, c)how short could be the series in order to be
effective for acquaintance, etc. I remember an old discussion on the
list with Cathy Legg in order to know what happens with the first sign
of some object (for example the first occurrence of a new word).
2)On the other side there is the instantaneous effect of a sign of the
same object for the interpreter's mind. This effect does not bear
anymore the identity of the object. In this sense the sign does not
offers acquaintance with its object. It can only tell something about it.
3) Putting into relation 1) and 2) does the whole job. But analytically
speaking, collateral experience is not genuinely distinct from the basic
S-O-I relation. It is only a particular manifestation of such a relation
qua entering into a continuous series of actualized signs.
To my understanding of this, if somebody wanted to do a basic revision
of Peirce's semiotic it should consist not to add a fourth element but
to argue that without psychology (the aggregation process in some human
head) there could hardly be any semiosis at all. The other "angle
d'attaque" would be to argue that the recourse to time (the series of
signs) requires to change the theory of signs. None of them was accepted
by Peirce of course.
Regards
Bernard
---
Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
