Aw: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Terms, Propositions, Arguments

[Helmut Raulien]

Franklin,

thank you. Yes, it was very helpful, and a bit shocking for me to see, how many things I have been misunderstanding. My line of misunderstandings was based on not knowing, that the immediate object is about the sign itself too, as you have written. I will have to read more before taking part on this list. Beside the papers you have recommended, Letters to Lady Welby are good for me, I think, because there are many examples given.

Best,

Helmut

 

14. November 2015 um 23:52 Uhr
 "Franklin Ransom" 
 


Helmut,
 

I'm not familiar with those volumes, and when looking around I was unable to locate an English equivalent by Kloesel. Yes, I agree, the Collected Papers are expensive; I was fortunate to get them from Intelex before they stopped selling them to individuals. There is also a copy of the CP going around in an electronic version on the internet. I got a copy of that for under $3. It's not the best way, because images are lacking, which is very unfortunate for Vol.4 especially, and then also many symbols aren't portrayed well. Still, not bad for the price that I found it at. The commens is certainly helpful. The Guide for the Perplexed is secondary literature. I'm not familiar with Noth or Ort.

 

If you are inclined, I would suggest Essential Peirce, vol. 1 and 2 (there are only those two volumes). Also, it is a good idea to keep in mind that if you visit cspeirce.com, you will find at the top of the home page a link to writings by Peirce that have been made available online. I myself usually go there to reference the ULCE paper. If you have not had a chance to read the following papers yet, I highly recommend "The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear". "On a New List of Categories" is important for deeper understanding. Probably "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities" would be good. I don't think these are writings that would typically be thrown in with semiotics (except for "On a New List"), but they are invaluable for understanding the basic perspective and understanding that Peirce brings to his theory of semiotic.

 

Now with respect to your substantive remarks, I think there are a number of things to say.

 

When you say "The first is the meaning of the sign, that what the sign is about" and then "the sign has to present itself, so, be about itself as well", it's unclear here what you mean by this. So let me give two guesses on my part. First of all, there is the presentative aspect of the sign. That is, we consider an object, and in what sense that object serves as a sign. In Peirce's semiotic, this will mean that it either serves as a medium according to a, or the, quality the object embodies (Firstness), the brute existence of the object (Secondness), or the object as having some kind of habit (Thirdness). This is what the trichotomy dealing with qualisign, sinsign, and legisign is about. It deals with the sign in its presentative aspect, what the basis is for its power of mediation. Then besides this kind of presenting, there is the dynamical/immediate object distinction. There is the object in itself, independent of what we think of it, and this is the dynamic object; I believe this fits with your thought that one aspect is "the meaning of the sign, what the sign is about". Then there is the object as represented by the sign within the sign, and that is the immediate object. As the quote from Frederik's book shows, the idea is that the immediate object is not only about the dynamic object, but also the sign itself. So you say, "the sign has to present itself, so, be about itself as well." This seems to be exactly what the immediate obect accomplishes. So I think you have been misunderstanding, and this distinction between dynamical and immediate is what you are looking for. It is simply misleading because it is referred to as immediate object rather than, say, immediate sign, or self-representing sign. This is my guess.

 

Then there is what you have to say about arguments and propositions, and here I think you have some confusion. The issue was not whether an argument contains a proposition and a term; everyone takes that for granted, and in fact probably more than one term, and more than one proposition. The issue is whether the original argument itself could be regarded as a term, and likewise whether a proposition could be regarded as a term. This is different from the idea of containing. We haven't been discussing whether arguments contain propositions and terms, but whether an argument can itself, just as the argument it is, be regarded as being itself a term in some way? That's the issue which has been discussed.

 

Okay, now about some remarks you made about arguments and propositions. You said "[t]he dynamical object of this argument is the reason why it is like this, in nature, and also the common knowledge about this reason." I'm not so sure about this. It 

Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Terms, Propositions, Arguments

[Franklin Ransom]

Helmut,

You're welcome, and I'm glad it was so helpful to you.

I wish you the best of luck with the letters to Welby, and I express a word
of caution regarding them. It probably doesn't get more complicated or
'higher-level' in understanding than those letters, and much of what is
going on there is highly experimental for Peirce. I understand the
sentiment to want to jump in right there (I did that myself some years
ago), but it's not a good place to begin. The primary benefit of those
letters (so it seems to me) is their suggestiveness of ideas. but that's
not very helpful if one doesn't have a more basic understanding in place to
test.

It's sort of like the common layman attempt to talk about abstract
theoretical physics without knowing any of the basic ideas of physics, how
they're defined, and how calculus applies to them. Many people can't help
it, because everyone experiences time and space and such, and so each
person thinks they have a sense of the subject matter and can kind of grasp
what's being said (no matter how abstract the idea and the real need for
understanding the mathematics that goes with it). But really, a layman's
understanding is no understanding, and sometimes directly contradicts the
truth. I would say it is similar with the semiotics discussed in the
letters. We all think about signs and meaning, so we can't help wanting to
understand it all right away; but if one isn't well-prepared, it won't be
very helpful, and may actually prove harmful, for genuine understanding.
Even those early papers I suggested can be challenging (especially "On a
New List of Categories)", but at least they're not so experimental as the
letters to Welby, and they will make clear certain elementary ideas in
Peirce's semiotic, because that is the purpose of those papers.

Well, just a word of caution regarding the letters. If you think you can
handle it, by all means, have at it. But if you start feeling the need for
some rules of navigation to help you out on that open sea, I would just
suggest the same papers I already have. If you would like to discuss any of
them in a thread, I'll be happy to participate, with the exception of the
letters to Welby; I learned the hard way to avoid those for now.

-- Franklin



On Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 3:26 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:

> Franklin,
> thank you. Yes, it was very helpful, and a bit shocking for me to see, how
> many things I have been misunderstanding. My line of misunderstandings was
> based on not knowing, that the immediate object is about the sign itself
> too, as you have written. I will have to read more before taking part on
> this list. Beside the papers you have recommended, Letters to Lady Welby
> are good for me, I think, because there are many examples given.
> Best,
> Helmut
>
> 14. November 2015 um 23:52 Uhr
>  "Franklin Ransom" 
>
> Helmut,
>
> I'm not familiar with those volumes, and when looking around I was unable
> to locate an English equivalent by Kloesel. Yes, I agree, the Collected
> Papers are expensive; I was fortunate to get them from Intelex before they
> stopped selling them to individuals. There is also a copy of the CP going
> around in an electronic version on the internet. I got a copy of that for
> under $3. It's not the best way, because images are lacking, which is very
> unfortunate for Vol.4 especially, and then also many symbols aren't
> portrayed well. Still, not bad for the price that I found it at. The
> commens is certainly helpful. The Guide for the Perplexed is secondary
> literature. I'm not familiar with Noth or Ort.
>
> If you are inclined, I would suggest Essential Peirce, vol. 1 and 2 (there
> are only those two volumes). Also, it is a good idea to keep in mind that
> if you visit cspeirce.com, you will find at the top of the home page a
> link to writings by Peirce that have been made available online. I myself
> usually go there to reference the ULCE paper. If you have not had a chance
> to read the following papers yet, I highly recommend "The Fixation of
> Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear". "On a New List of Categories" is
> important for deeper understanding. Probably "Questions Concerning Certain
> Faculties Claimed for Man" and "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities"
> would be good. I don't think these are writings that would typically be
> thrown in with semiotics (except for "On a New List"), but they are
> invaluable for understanding the basic perspective and understanding that
> Peirce brings to his theory of semiotic.
>
> Now with respect to your substantive remarks, I think there are a number
> of things to say.
>
> When you say "The first is the meaning of the sign, that what the sign is
> about" and then "the sign has to present itself, so, be about itself as
> well", it's unclear here what you mean by this. So let me give two guesses
> on my part. First of all, there is the presentative