Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Franklin Ransom]

Edwina,

I don't see this discussion as beneficial for either of us, and think it's
time to let it go. I appreciate your clearly very spirited attempt to
correct my misunderstanding and ignorance, and I'm sorry that we can't
understand one another on this issue.

-- Franklin

-

On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 5:56 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Franklin -  briefly, I don't see language as 'just grammar' and therefore,
> disagree with your description of me:
>
> I suppose that you have somehow gotten stuck on the idea that the
> development of a language must be a development of its grammar.
>
> I don't see that the development of the knowledge base of a society
> requires a 'development of the grammar' of its language! [From what to
> what] Just as I don't see that the words/terms must be in place BEFORE
> the thought - as you seem to believe. I believe the opposite - the thought
> is expressed by a slew of new words or, using old words, by giving them new
> meanings.
>
> I see a language as a grammar and words - and the words can change their
> meaning, and also, new words can be created. But - I don't equate the
> cognitive nature of a group with their language. You seem to do this.
>
> Of course a word, since it is purely a symbol, only means what the human
> mind has defined it to mean. But - does man think only in words? Of course
> not - as Peirce noted, man uses both words and other external symbols (eg,
> graphs, diagrammes, mathematics) to articulate his thoughts.
>
> No, I don't pit Firstness versus Thirdness and I didn't say that it
> 'erases' Thirdness. Remember, that Thirdness is about generalities and it
> can, as such, permit multiple versions and meanings of the same symbol. Nor
> did I say that the human mind is independent of language - and wonder how
> you came up with both these conclusions about my views. BUT, MIND, as a
> natural axiom of the universe, IS independent of language - As I pointed
> out - it appears in the work of bees, of crystals. The human mind, with
> very little innate knowledge, is not independent of symbolic communication
> - which, in one format, language, operates within a grammatical structure
> expressed in 'bits' or words.
>
> Edwina
>
> - Original Message -
> *From:* Franklin Ransom 
> *To:* Peirce-L 
> *Sent:* Sunday, December 20, 2015 4:40 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>
> Edwina,
>
> My point is that ANY peoples, - since they have the capacity for thought -
>> and thus, ANY language, can achieve such a result - and it doesn't require
>> any 'development of the language'.
>
>
> It certainly does require that the language has developed the terms that
> allow more complex thoughts to be articulated.
>
> I suppose that you have somehow gotten stuck on the idea that the
> development of a language must be a development of its grammar. As I had
> been saying to Sungchul originally, language is a term than can be taken in
> a wider sense, and it depends in what sense that term is meant. Clearly,
> you want to identify language and grammar as the same thing. I believe that
> the vocabulary of a language is also part of what that language is, and the
> development of a language's available vocabulary is a development of that
> language. Shakespeare, for example, is commonly understood to have
> transformed the English language and made it much more expressive in terms
> of its vocabulary. Whether one should include the culture and history that
> goes with a language as being part of the language, is also a matter for
> consideration. I'm not trying to say that one should think of language in
> that way, only that this is one way to think about the meaning of the term;
> and one needs to get clear about what is meant by the term 'language' when
> discussing language. I said that at the outset, and I would have
> appreciated it if you read the original discussion and understood that
> before accusing me of erroneous views based on your own presumption as to
> what language is and what must be meant by its development. I attempted to
> clarify that by a language being capable of articulating scientific
> terminology, I did not mean that it required a change in its general
> grammar to do so, but that there is a community of thought, expressed in
> that language, that has developed in that language to express scientific
> concepts and understanding. Not every human language has come to develop in
> this way with respect to every science there is as of today, and there will
> no doubt be sciences in the future that language today, even the one we
> currently use, has yet to develop the way to thinking through and
> articulating.
>
> I have made no attempt to deny that Firstness is at work in language, and
> have specifically said that creativity and innovation is important. But I
> think you overstated the 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Sungchul Ji]

Edwina, Helmut, John, Gary R, List,

You wrote:

"Helmut - I can see the value of using your term of '9 types of
representamen relations'. (122015-1)
Certainly, these 9 are NOT signs, . . . "

These '9 types of representmane relations' are the *objects* of the 9 types
of *signs* that Peirce named 'qualisign', 'singsign, 'legisign',
 'dicisign', etc.  For example, icon, index , and symbol are the *signs*
referring to the* relation* between  representamen and its object in the
mode of being of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, respectively.  It
seems to me that you are conflating *representmen *and *object.   *

The 3x3 table of the 9 types of signs  is an *ambiguous* diagram, since it
an be intepreted  in more than one ways with equal validity, like the
figure shown below.  Clearly the figure can be interpreted as depicting  a
*lion*, a *cat*, or *both*, not unlike our 9 types and 10 classes of
signs.  I see both a lion  (*relations, i.e., objects*) and a cat (name of
the relations, i.e., *signs*) in the picture, but, metaphorically speaking,
Edwina seems to see only a lion, and Helmut only a cat.



[image: Inline image 1]

Retrieved from
http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/research/philosophyresearch/cspe/illusions/
on 12/20/2015.


All the best.

Sung





On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 6:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Helmut - I can see the value of using your term of '9 types of
> representamen relations'. Certainly, these 9 are NOT signs, despite
> Sung's description of them as 'elementary signs'. A sign is, by definition,
> a triad - and therefore, in my view, even the representamen-in-itself,
> can't be a sign, because it is not in a triad. The triad is the sign.
>
> That is why I refer to the interactions between the Representamen and the
> Object; the Representamen and the Interpretant - as Relations. And of
> course, Peirce does this as well, I've provided the quotes previously. The
> Representamen-in-itself is also a Relation, a depth relation, with its
> history.
>
> Edwina
>
> - Original Message -
> *From:* Helmut Raulien 
> *To:* colli...@ukzn.ac.za
> *Cc:* Sungchul Ji  ; PEIRCE-L
> 
> *Sent:* Sunday, December 20, 2015 5:40 PM
> *Subject:* Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>
> John, Sung, list,
> for me, as far as I understand, "types" and "classes" are synonyms. The
> difference between the "9 types of signs" and the "10 classes of signs" is
> not, as I understand it, a matter of "type" versus "class", but of what it
> is a type/class of. Id say, the 10 classes are classes of triadic signs,
> and the 9 types are classes (or types) of sign relations: 3 representamen
> relations, 3 object relations, and 3 interpretant relations. What I am not
> completely clear about, is, what the representamen, object, or
> interpretant, has a relation with: Is it the representamen, or the whole
> sign? I think it is the representamen, as Edwina often has said, because,
> if they were relations between the whole triadic sign and either element of
> its, this would be some circular affair, as the whole triadic sign already
> is a relation between (or composition of?) these three relations...A
> logical loop. So, my temporal understanding is to replace "9 types of
> signs" with "9 types of representamen relations". Is that correct?
> Best,
> Helmut
>
> 20. Dezember 2015 um 15:08 Uhr
>  "John Collier"  wrote:
>
> Sorry Sung, but this doesn'the help me. It seems to me that you are only
> picking out different ways of classifying the same things, which is fine,
> but they are not different things, as you seem to be saying. There is no
> difference in the dynamical objects involved. If there is, you have not
> shown this. You need tof show how the different classifications are
> grounded in different expectations about possible experiences. You haven't
> done that yet. From your response here it seems that you are confusing
> different ways of talking about the same things with different objects. I
> don't know of anyone who makes the mistake of confusing the objects of the
> classifications. Perhaps you could give an example. Of course someone could
> be misled by the difference in the immediate objects, which depends on how
> we are thinking, if they are confused about what Peirce is talking about
> with these classifications, I don't think that there are Peirce scholars
> who make that mistake. So perhaps you could provide examples. There is a
> good reason why Peirce didn't use different names. There is no need to.
> This is quite different from the baryon-quark case, where the difference
> has experimental consequences.
>
> John
>
> Sent from my Samsung device
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: Sungchul Ji 
> Date: 20/12/2015 14:04 (GMT+02:00)
> To: PEIRCE-L 
> Subject: Re: 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Edwina Taborsky]

No, Sung. Again, it would help if you would actually read Peirce before you 
jump in with your views. 
We are talking about the meaning of these terms. The term of 'icon' refers to 
the relation between the Representamen and the Object. So, no-one, including 
me, is 'conflating 'representamen' and 'object'. ALL nine terms refer to the 
Relations of the Representamen; in itself as R-R, between R-O, and R-I. 

These 9 terms are not, as you insist, 'elementary terms', nor are they 
ambiguous. They are very specifically outlined, repeatedly, as to their 
meaning, in numerous Peircean texts.

And as John Collier's post just explained, these relations are not stand-alone. 
COLLIER:" I take it that the contained (or implied) pairwise relations are 
abstractions, and cannot (do not) exist on their own. So talking about, say, 
the relation between the representamen and its object always has the 
interpretant in the background."

That is - the relations operate within the semiosic triad. THREE relations - 
but you can't 'decompose' them.

Your lion-cat picture is totally irrelevant to the discussion.
Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Sungchul Ji 
  To: PEIRCE-L 
  Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 7:41 PM
  Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations


  Edwina, Helmut, John, Gary R, List,


  You wrote:


  "Helmut - I can see the value of using your term of '9 types of representamen 
relations'. (122015-1)
  Certainly, these 9 are NOT signs, . . . "

  These '9 types of representmane relations' are the objects of the 9 types of 
signs that Peirce named 'qualisign', 'singsign, 'legisign',  'dicisign', etc.  
For example, icon, index , and symbol are the signs referring to the relation 
between  representamen and its object in the mode of being of Firstness, 
Secondness, and Thirdness, respectively.  It seems to me that you are 
conflating representmen and object.   


  The 3x3 table of the 9 types of signs  is an ambiguous diagram, since it an 
be intepreted  in more than one ways with equal validity, like the figure shown 
below.  Clearly the figure can be interpreted as depicting  a lion, a cat, or 
both, not unlike our 9 types and 10 classes of signs.  I see both a lion  
(relations, i.e., objects) and a cat (name of the relations, i.e., signs) in 
the picture, but, metaphorically speaking, Edwina seems to see only a lion, and 
Helmut only a cat. 









  Retrieved from 
http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/research/philosophyresearch/cspe/illusions/
 on 12/20/2015.





  All the best.


  Sung










  On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 6:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

Helmut - I can see the value of using your term of '9 types of 
representamen relations'. Certainly, these 9 are NOT signs, despite Sung's 
description of them as 'elementary signs'. A sign is, by definition, a triad - 
and therefore, in my view, even the representamen-in-itself, can't be a sign, 
because it is not in a triad. The triad is the sign.

That is why I refer to the interactions between the Representamen and the 
Object; the Representamen and the Interpretant - as Relations. And of course, 
Peirce does this as well, I've provided the quotes previously. The 
Representamen-in-itself is also a Relation, a depth relation, with its history. 

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Helmut Raulien 
  To: colli...@ukzn.ac.za 
  Cc: Sungchul Ji ; PEIRCE-L 
  Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 5:40 PM
  Subject: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations


  John, Sung, list,
  for me, as far as I understand, "types" and "classes" are synonyms. The 
difference between the "9 types of signs" and the "10 classes of signs" is not, 
as I understand it, a matter of "type" versus "class", but of what it is a 
type/class of. Id say, the 10 classes are classes of triadic signs, and the 9 
types are classes (or types) of sign relations: 3 representamen relations, 3 
object relations, and 3 interpretant relations. What I am not completely clear 
about, is, what the representamen, object, or interpretant, has a relation 
with: Is it the representamen, or the whole sign? I think it is the 
representamen, as Edwina often has said, because, if they were relations 
between the whole triadic sign and either element of its, this would be some 
circular affair, as the whole triadic sign already is a relation between (or 
composition of?) these three relations...A logical loop. So, my temporal 
understanding is to replace "9 types of signs" with "9 types of representamen 
relations". Is that correct?
  Best,
  Helmut

  20. Dezember 2015 um 15:08 Uhr
   "John Collier"  wrote:
   
  Sorry Sung, but this doesn'the help me. It seems to me that you are only 
picking out different ways of classifying the same things, which is fine, but 
they are not different 

[PEIRCE-L] Re: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Jon Awbrey]

Sung,

Having a character that makes it a sign is not yet being a sign to someone of 
something. The first is potential, the second is actualization. 

Regards,
Jon

http://inquiryintoinquiry.com

> On Dec 21, 2015, at 12:33 AM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:
> 
> Edwina,
> 
> You said
> 
> "All signs are triads".
> 
> I disagree.  Not all signs are triads.  Only symbols are.  There can be signs 
> without interpretant (e.g., a piece of mould with a bullet hoe in it; see 
> below) or without object (e.g., a lead-pencil streak as representing a 
> geometric line), according to Peirce: 
> 
> 
> "An icon is a sign which would possess the character which renders it 
> significant, even though its object had no existence; such as a lead-pencil 
> streak as representing a geometrical line. An index is a sign which would, at 
> once, lose the character which makes it a sign if its object were removed, 
> but would not lose that character if there were no interpretant. Such, for 
> instance, is a piece of mould with a bullet hole in it as a sign of a shot; 
> for without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole 
> there, whether anyone has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not. A 
> symbol is a sign which would lose the character which renders it a sign if 
> there were no interpretant. Such is any utterance of speech which signifies 
> what it does only by virtue of it being understood to have that 
> signification."  
> 
> (Peirce, Philosophical Writings, 104, as cited in 
> http://goldberg.berkeley.edu/pubs/Index-and-the-Interface-Kris-Paulsen-Article-Spring-2013.pdf).
>   
> 
> All the best.
> 
> Sung
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 9:31 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
>> Sung - if you want to consider the term 'Icon' as the 'name ' for the 
>> Relation between the Representamen and the Object--- AND as a 'sign' of that 
>> Relation...then, the term, ICON, must be operating within a triad. It is not 
>> in itself, as that word, as you insist, an 'elementary sign'.
>>  
>> Again - that word ICON, to be considered a sign, must itself be functioning 
>> within a triad. The term ICON, as a sign, is made up of those three 
>> relations: R-R, R-O and R-I. There is no such thing as an 'elementary sign'. 
>> All signs are triads. So, when I hear or read the word ICON, [R-O], my 
>> Representamen in its memory [R-R], mediates that sight/hearing of ICON, to 
>> result in an Interpretant [R-I] of the relation between the R and the O. 
>> That's a full triad. Not an elementary sign.
>>  
>> Again- your lion and cat are irrelevant felines.
>>  
>> Edwina
>> - Original Message -
>> From: Sungchul Ji
>> To: Edwina Taborsky
>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 8:42 PM
>> Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
>> 
>> Hi Edwina,
>> 
>> You wrote:
>> 
>> "We are talking about the meaning of these terms.
>>  (122015-1)
>> The term of 'icon' refers to the relation between the 
>> Representamen and the Object."
>> 
>> I disagree.
>> 
>> We are not talking about just the meaning of these terms but also their 
>> names.
>> 
>> We agree that the meaning of 'icon' is the relation between representamen 
>> and object in the mode of Firstness.
>> 
>> Where we do not agree is that I regard 'icon' as the name of (and hence a 
>> sign for) the relation between representamen and object in the mode of 
>> Firstness.
>> 
>> Again you are seeing only the lion and not the cat. 
>> 
>> Sung
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
>>> No, Sung. Again, it would help if you would actually read Peirce before you 
>>> jump in with your views. 
>>> We are talking about the meaning of these terms. The term of 'icon' refers 
>>> to the relation between the Representamen and the Object. So, no-one, 
>>> including me, is 'conflating 'representamen' and 'object'. ALL nine terms 
>>> refer to the Relations of the Representamen; in itself as R-R, between R-O, 
>>> and R-I.
>>>  
>>> These 9 terms are not, as you insist, 'elementary terms', nor are they 
>>> ambiguous. They are very specifically outlined, repeatedly, as to their 
>>> meaning, in numerous Peircean texts.
>>>  
>>> And as John Collier's post just explained, these relations are not 
>>> stand-alone. COLLIER:" I take it that the contained (or implied) pairwise 
>>> relations are abstractions, and cannot (do not) exist on their own. So 
>>> talking about, say, the relation between the representamen and its object 
>>> always has the interpretant in the background."
>>>  
>>> That is - the relations operate within the semiosic triad. THREE relations 
>>> - but you can't 'decompose' them.
>>>  
>>> Your lion-cat picture is totally irrelevant to the discussion.
>>> Edwina
>>> - Original Message -
>>> From: Sungchul Ji
>>> To: PEIRCE-L
>>> Sent: Sunday, December 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Edwina Taborsky]

Franklin - you seem to be taking this debate personally.  Where did I refer to 
your opinions as 'misunderstanding and ignorance'? Do you really feel that if 
someone disagrees with your views, that it therefore suggests that you both 
misunderstand and are ignorant??!!

As for 'spirited' - a series of interactions in a debate is just that; it 
doesn't imply any ulterior WILL- to -reform the other in the debate.

Best wishes,
Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Franklin Ransom 
  To: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 6:11 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations


  Edwina,


  I don't see this discussion as beneficial for either of us, and think it's 
time to let it go. I appreciate your clearly very spirited attempt to correct 
my misunderstanding and ignorance, and I'm sorry that we can't understand one 
another on this issue.


  -- Franklin


  -


  On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 5:56 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

Franklin -  briefly, I don't see language as 'just grammar' and therefore, 
disagree with your description of me:

I suppose that you have somehow gotten stuck on the idea that the 
development of a language must be a development of its grammar.

I don't see that the development of the knowledge base of a society 
requires a 'development of the grammar' of its language! [From what to 
what] Just as I don't see that the words/terms must be in place BEFORE the 
thought - as you seem to believe. I believe the opposite - the thought is 
expressed by a slew of new words or, using old words, by giving them new 
meanings.

I see a language as a grammar and words - and the words can change their 
meaning, and also, new words can be created. But - I don't equate the cognitive 
nature of a group with their language. You seem to do this.

Of course a word, since it is purely a symbol, only means what the human 
mind has defined it to mean. But - does man think only in words? Of course not 
- as Peirce noted, man uses both words and other external symbols (eg, graphs, 
diagrammes, mathematics) to articulate his thoughts. 

No, I don't pit Firstness versus Thirdness and I didn't say that it 
'erases' Thirdness. Remember, that Thirdness is about generalities and it can, 
as such, permit multiple versions and meanings of the same symbol. Nor did I 
say that the human mind is independent of language - and wonder how you came up 
with both these conclusions about my views. BUT, MIND, as a natural axiom of 
the universe, IS independent of language - As I pointed out - it appears in the 
work of bees, of crystals. The human mind, with very little innate knowledge, 
is not independent of symbolic communication - which, in one format, language, 
operates within a grammatical structure expressed in 'bits' or words.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Franklin Ransom 
  To: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 4:40 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations


  Edwina, 


My point is that ANY peoples, - since they have the capacity for 
thought - and thus, ANY language, can achieve such a result - and it doesn't 
require any 'development of the language'.


  It certainly does require that the language has developed the terms that 
allow more complex thoughts to be articulated.


  I suppose that you have somehow gotten stuck on the idea that the 
development of a language must be a development of its grammar. As I had been 
saying to Sungchul originally, language is a term than can be taken in a wider 
sense, and it depends in what sense that term is meant. Clearly, you want to 
identify language and grammar as the same thing. I believe that the vocabulary 
of a language is also part of what that language is, and the development of a 
language's available vocabulary is a development of that language. Shakespeare, 
for example, is commonly understood to have transformed the English language 
and made it much more expressive in terms of its vocabulary. Whether one should 
include the culture and history that goes with a language as being part of the 
language, is also a matter for consideration. I'm not trying to say that one 
should think of language in that way, only that this is one way to think about 
the meaning of the term; and one needs to get clear about what is meant by the 
term 'language' when discussing language. I said that at the outset, and I 
would have appreciated it if you read the original discussion and understood 
that before accusing me of erroneous views based on your own presumption as to 
what language is and what must be meant by its development. I attempted to 
clarify that by a language being capable of articulating scientific 
terminology, I did not mean that it required a change in its general grammar to 
do so, but that there is a community of thought, expressed 

FW: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[John Collier]

I had intended to send this to the list as well. But forgot. I see that Helmut 
has addressed my concern in a post to the list that crossed mine to him.

John Collier
Professor Emeritus, UKZN
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: John Collier
Sent: Monday, 21 December 2015 01:36
To: 'Helmut Raulien'
Subject: RE: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

Helmut,

That is pretty close to my understanding, but I definitely would not refer to 
the “whole triadic sign” as a composition of three relations. That would 
suggest that a decomposition is possible, but it is not, according to Peirce. I 
take it that the contained (or implied) pairwise relations are abstractions, 
and cannot (do not) exist on their own. So talking about, say, the relation 
between the representamen and its object always has the interpretant in the 
background. I think that this is especially clear when we consider the relation 
of each kind to itself, say, the representamen to the representamen. As has 
been noted a number of times on this thread, a qualisign has the same thing 
playing all three roles. It contains its own object and its own interpretant. 
But to say that it is some composition of the three would be misleading. I 
agree with Edwina when she says that it is best to think of these as relations: 
the interpretant determines the object of the sign. So we can think of this 
determination (the – abstract -- relation) as being the interpretant. The 
interpretant, in the same way, determines the object of the representamen. The 
inverse relations give the object relation and the representamen relation, 
which in the light of the interpretant are the determination of the (abstract) 
relation between the representamen and its object. But none of this makes sense 
two by two; the whole sign can’t be broken up that way. The closest you can 
come is to put the third into the background in each case of what appears to be 
a dyadic relation, on the surface at least. This is a Lockean partial 
consideration, a Peircean prescinding, or, as I have called it, abstracting.

I think that of the nine possible “types” some are not signs at all, or even 
abstractions from  signs. All of the ten are signs.

John Collier
Professor Emeritus, UKZN
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Helmut Raulien [mailto:h.raul...@gmx.de]
Sent: Monday, 21 December 2015 00:41
To: John Collier
Cc: Sungchul Ji; PEIRCE-L
Subject: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

John, Sung, list,
for me, as far as I understand, "types" and "classes" are synonyms. The 
difference between the "9 types of signs" and the "10 classes of signs" is not, 
as I understand it, a matter of "type" versus "class", but of what it is a 
type/class of. Id say, the 10 classes are classes of triadic signs, and the 9 
types are classes (or types) of sign relations: 3 representamen relations, 3 
object relations, and 3 interpretant relations. What I am not completely clear 
about, is, what the representamen, object, or interpretant, has a relation 
with: Is it the representamen, or the whole sign? I think it is the 
representamen, as Edwina often has said, because, if they were relations 
between the whole triadic sign and either element of its, this would be some 
circular affair, as the whole triadic sign already is a relation between (or 
composition of?) these three relations...A logical loop. So, my temporal 
understanding is to replace "9 types of signs" with "9 types of representamen 
relations". Is that correct?
Best,
Helmut

20. Dezember 2015 um 15:08 Uhr
 "John Collier" > wrote:

Sorry Sung, but this doesn'the help me. It seems to me that you are only 
picking out different ways of classifying the same things, which is fine, but 
they are not different things, as you seem to be saying. There is no difference 
in the dynamical objects involved. If there is, you have not shown this. You 
need tof show how the different classifications are grounded in different 
expectations about possible experiences. You haven't done that yet. From your 
response here it seems that you are confusing different ways of talking about 
the same things with different objects. I don't know of anyone who makes the 
mistake of confusing the objects of the classifications. Perhaps you could give 
an example. Of course someone could be misled by the difference in the 
immediate objects, which depends on how we are thinking, if they are confused 
about what Peirce is talking about with these classifications, I don't think 
that there are Peirce scholars who make that mistake. So perhaps you could 
provide examples. There is a good reason why Peirce didn't use different names. 
There is no need to. This is quite different from the baryon-quark case, where 
the difference has experimental consequences.

John

Sent from my Samsung device


 Original message 
From: Sungchul Ji 

Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Helmut Raulien]

John, Sung, list,

for me, as far as I understand, "types" and "classes" are synonyms. The difference between the "9 types of signs" and the "10 classes of signs" is not, as I understand it, a matter of "type" versus "class", but of what it is a type/class of. Id say, the 10 classes are classes of triadic signs, and the 9 types are classes (or types) of sign relations: 3 representamen relations, 3 object relations, and 3 interpretant relations. What I am not completely clear about, is, what the representamen, object, or interpretant, has a relation with: Is it the representamen, or the whole sign? I think it is the representamen, as Edwina often has said, because, if they were relations between the whole triadic sign and either element of its, this would be some circular affair, as the whole triadic sign already is a relation between (or composition of?) these three relations...A logical loop. So, my temporal understanding is to replace "9 types of signs" with "9 types of representamen relations". Is that correct?

Best,

Helmut

 

20. Dezember 2015 um 15:08 Uhr
 "John Collier"  wrote:
 


Sorry Sung, but this doesn'the help me. It seems to me that you are only picking out different ways of classifying the same things, which is fine, but they are not different things, as you seem to be saying. There is no difference in the dynamical objects involved. If there is, you have not shown this. You need tof show how the different classifications are grounded in different expectations about possible experiences. You haven't done that yet. From your response here it seems that you are confusing different ways of talking about the same things with different objects. I don't know of anyone who makes the mistake of confusing the objects of the classifications. Perhaps you could give an example. Of course someone could be misled by the difference in the immediate objects, which depends on how we are thinking, if they are confused about what Peirce is talking about with these classifications, I don't think that there are Peirce scholars who make that mistake. So perhaps you could provide examples. There is a good reason why Peirce didn't use different names. There is no need to. This is quite different from the baryon-quark case, where the difference has experimental consequences. 

 

John

 


Sent from my Samsung device



 Original message 
From: Sungchul Ji 
Date: 20/12/2015 14:04 (GMT+02:00)
To: PEIRCE-L 
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
 

John, List,
 

You wrote:


"So it seems to me that, unless you have a rather special meaning for “measurable”
(or even “detectable”) in the case of signs that I cannot fathom without more clarity
than I have now by what you mean by distinction you are trying to make, the distinction
between elementary signs and composite signs have no basis in what exists; you would
be making a distinction without a difference, and thus containing no information."

 

The distinction between elementary signs and composite signs is the same as the distinction between the  9 types of signs and the 10 classes of sign that Peirce himself made. (If you do not like these terms, any one is entitled to come up with better replacements.) So the distinction must have been in Peirce's mind whenever Peirce wrote about the 9 types and 10 classes.  The only thing that I am trying to do here, since 2012, is to give "names" or "representamens" to these distinct objects, so that we can avoid conflating them, or so that we can have two different interpretants.  Right now, we have only one representamen, "sign", to refer to two different objects (9 types and 10 classes) making them appear the same and yet they are not as you can plainly see in the fact that Peirce distinguished between 9 types and 10 classes.  This is why many, if not all, students of Peirce, seem confused.

 

All the best.

 

Sung

 

 

 

 


 
On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 4:02 AM, John Collier   wrote:




Sung, Lists,

 

I am unclear what you mean by measurable. The reason why this is important is that if there is no difference to possible experience, by the Pragmatic Maxim there is no difference in meaning. No elementary particle properties are directly measurable.  The best we can do is to have evidence for them by way of properties that are directly measurable, together with the theory (the measurements of quark properties are what is called “theory-laden”). So the notion of measurement that you are using is void unless there is some measurable difference between “there are nine elementary signs” and “there are ten composite signs”). The same would, of course hold for quarks and baryons unless there is a detectable difference to experience. In this case the difference is, of course, by your notion of a baryon as isolatable, that we can isolate baryons but not quarks (for a combination of 

Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Helmut Raulien]

 
 

Supplement: I think: The 10 classes of (triadic) signs are 3 classes, that have 6 subclasses (modes), that have 10 subclasses. The 9 types of representamen relations are 3 classes with 9 modes. These three classes are: Relation of the representamen with itself, with the object, and with the interpretant. So the Peircean relation reduction of  the triadic sign "R-O-I"  is: "R-R", "R-O", "R-I". This Peircean relation reduction is different from that by Ogden / Richards, which is: R-O, O-I, I-R. "Reduction" is meant as one of two kinds of relation reduction of triadic relations, one of which sometimes works, and the other not, because of irreducibility, see Jon Awbry´s work.




John, Sung, list,

for me, as far as I understand, "types" and "classes" are synonyms. The difference between the "9 types of signs" and the "10 classes of signs" is not, as I understand it, a matter of "type" versus "class", but of what it is a type/class of. Id say, the 10 classes are classes of triadic signs, and the 9 types are classes (or types) of sign relations: 3 representamen relations, 3 object relations, and 3 interpretant relations. What I am not completely clear about, is, what the representamen, object, or interpretant, has a relation with: Is it the representamen, or the whole sign? I think it is the representamen, as Edwina often has said, because, if they were relations between the whole triadic sign and either element of its, this would be some circular affair, as the whole triadic sign already is a relation between (or composition of?) these three relations...A logical loop. So, my temporal understanding is to replace "9 types of signs" with "9 types of representamen relations". Is that correct?

Best,

Helmut

 

20. Dezember 2015 um 15:08 Uhr
 "John Collier"  wrote:
 


Sorry Sung, but this doesn'the help me. It seems to me that you are only picking out different ways of classifying the same things, which is fine, but they are not different things, as you seem to be saying. There is no difference in the dynamical objects involved. If there is, you have not shown this. You need tof show how the different classifications are grounded in different expectations about possible experiences. You haven't done that yet. From your response here it seems that you are confusing different ways of talking about the same things with different objects. I don't know of anyone who makes the mistake of confusing the objects of the classifications. Perhaps you could give an example. Of course someone could be misled by the difference in the immediate objects, which depends on how we are thinking, if they are confused about what Peirce is talking about with these classifications, I don't think that there are Peirce scholars who make that mistake. So perhaps you could provide examples. There is a good reason why Peirce didn't use different names. There is no need to. This is quite different from the baryon-quark case, where the difference has experimental consequences. 

 

John

 


Sent from my Samsung device



 Original message 
From: Sungchul Ji 
Date: 20/12/2015 14:04 (GMT+02:00)
To: PEIRCE-L 
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations
 

John, List,
 

You wrote:


"So it seems to me that, unless you have a rather special meaning for “measurable”
(or even “detectable”) in the case of signs that I cannot fathom without more clarity
than I have now by what you mean by distinction you are trying to make, the distinction
between elementary signs and composite signs have no basis in what exists; you would
be making a distinction without a difference, and thus containing no information."

 

The distinction between elementary signs and composite signs is the same as the distinction between the  9 types of signs and the 10 classes of sign that Peirce himself made. (If you do not like these terms, any one is entitled to come up with better replacements.) So the distinction must have been in Peirce's mind whenever Peirce wrote about the 9 types and 10 classes.  The only thing that I am trying to do here, since 2012, is to give "names" or "representamens" to these distinct objects, so that we can avoid conflating them, or so that we can have two different interpretants.  Right now, we have only one representamen, "sign", to refer to two different objects (9 types and 10 classes) making them appear the same and yet they are not as you can plainly see in the fact that Peirce distinguished between 9 types and 10 classes.  This is why many, if not all, students of Peirce, seem confused.

 

All the best.

 

Sung

 

 

 

 


 
On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 4:02 AM, John Collier   wrote:




Sung, Lists,

 

I am unclear what you mean by measurable. The reason why this is important is that if there is no difference to possible experience, by the Pragmatic Maxim there is no difference in meaning. No elementary 

Aw: FW: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Helmut Raulien]

John, list,

ok, so I send my answer also to the list. Apart from this (below) mathematical approach by Jon, which I am not very able to deal with properly, I think, that your term abstraction, and also the Lockean partial consideration, and the Peircean prescinding (Ive got to read about them), are guiding towards a good understanding, like (quasi-?) analysis can be something, that does not take apart things or reduce them in reality, but only in the mind, as a thought-experiment. Interesting, what you suggested, that in this case the interpretant is present in the background- in the mind.


Hi John,

yes, I just had added a supplement about this problem: I remembered having talked with Jon Awbrey about relation reduction: On one hand there is this "irreducibility", on the other there are the three relations that make the triadic sign. But to make something, should mean, that it can be taken apart again ("decomposed", as you have called it, or, say, "reduced"). I cannot find his answer, but I remember, that he said, that mathematically there are two kinds of relation reduction. Applying the first of these two kinds to triadic relations shows, that it never works, as triadic relations are always irreducible by this kind of reduction attempt. The other kind of reduction sometimes works, and sometimes not. In the case of the sign it works. I remember, one kind of reduction is called "projective reduction", and the other "compositional reduction", or some other word with "C". Sorry, I cannot find this thread. Maybe we should ask Jon.

Best,

Helmut

 


 

 21. Dezember 2015 um 01:14 Uhr
"John Collier"  wrote:
 




I had intended to send this to the list as well. But forgot. I see that Helmut has addressed my concern in a post to the list that crossed mine to him.

 


John Collier

Professor Emeritus, UKZN

http://web.ncf.ca/collier


 




From: John Collier
Sent: Monday, 21 December 2015 01:36
To: 'Helmut Raulien'
Subject: RE: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations



 

Helmut,

 

That is pretty close to my understanding, but I definitely would not refer to the “whole triadic sign” as a composition of three relations. That would suggest that a decomposition is possible, but it is not, according to Peirce. I take it that the contained (or implied) pairwise relations are abstractions, and cannot (do not) exist on their own. So talking about, say, the relation between the representamen and its object always has the interpretant in the background. I think that this is especially clear when we consider the relation of each kind to itself, say, the representamen to the representamen. As has been noted a number of times on this thread, a qualisign has the same thing playing all three roles. It contains its own object and its own interpretant. But to say that it is some composition of the three would be misleading. I agree with Edwina when she says that it is best to think of these as relations: the interpretant determines the object of the sign. So we can think of this determination (the – abstract -- relation) as being the interpretant. The interpretant, in the same way, determines the object of the representamen. The inverse relations give the object relation and the representamen relation, which in the light of the interpretant are the determination of the (abstract) relation between the representamen and its object. But none of this makes sense two by two; the whole sign can’t be broken up that way. The closest you can come is to put the third into the background in each case of what appears to be a dyadic relation, on the surface at least. This is a Lockean partial consideration, a Peircean prescinding, or, as I have called it, abstracting.

 

I think that of the nine possible “types” some are not signs at all, or even abstractions from  signs. All of the ten are signs.

 


John Collier

Professor Emeritus, UKZN

http://web.ncf.ca/collier


 




From: Helmut Raulien [mailto:h.raul...@gmx.de]
Sent: Monday, 21 December 2015 00:41
To: John Collier
Cc: Sungchul Ji; PEIRCE-L
Subject: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations



 




John, Sung, list,



for me, as far as I understand, "types" and "classes" are synonyms. The difference between the "9 types of signs" and the "10 classes of signs" is not, as I understand it, a matter of "type" versus "class", but of what it is a type/class of. Id say, the 10 classes are classes of triadic signs, and the 9 types are classes (or types) of sign relations: 3 representamen relations, 3 object relations, and 3 interpretant relations. What I am not completely clear about, is, what the representamen, object, or interpretant, has a relation with: Is it the representamen, or the whole sign? I think it is the representamen, as Edwina often has said, because, if they were relations between the whole triadic sign and either element of its, this would be some circular affair, as the whole triadic sign 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Edwina Taborsky]

Helmut - I can see the value of using your term of '9 types of representamen 
relations'. Certainly, these 9 are NOT signs, despite Sung's description of 
them as 'elementary signs'. A sign is, by definition, a triad - and therefore, 
in my view, even the representamen-in-itself, can't be a sign, because it is 
not in a triad. The triad is the sign.

That is why I refer to the interactions between the Representamen and the 
Object; the Representamen and the Interpretant - as Relations. And of course, 
Peirce does this as well, I've provided the quotes previously. The 
Representamen-in-itself is also a Relation, a depth relation, with its history. 

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Helmut Raulien 
  To: colli...@ukzn.ac.za 
  Cc: Sungchul Ji ; PEIRCE-L 
  Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 5:40 PM
  Subject: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations


  John, Sung, list,
  for me, as far as I understand, "types" and "classes" are synonyms. The 
difference between the "9 types of signs" and the "10 classes of signs" is not, 
as I understand it, a matter of "type" versus "class", but of what it is a 
type/class of. Id say, the 10 classes are classes of triadic signs, and the 9 
types are classes (or types) of sign relations: 3 representamen relations, 3 
object relations, and 3 interpretant relations. What I am not completely clear 
about, is, what the representamen, object, or interpretant, has a relation 
with: Is it the representamen, or the whole sign? I think it is the 
representamen, as Edwina often has said, because, if they were relations 
between the whole triadic sign and either element of its, this would be some 
circular affair, as the whole triadic sign already is a relation between (or 
composition of?) these three relations...A logical loop. So, my temporal 
understanding is to replace "9 types of signs" with "9 types of representamen 
relations". Is that correct?
  Best,
  Helmut

  20. Dezember 2015 um 15:08 Uhr
   "John Collier"  wrote:
   
  Sorry Sung, but this doesn'the help me. It seems to me that you are only 
picking out different ways of classifying the same things, which is fine, but 
they are not different things, as you seem to be saying. There is no difference 
in the dynamical objects involved. If there is, you have not shown this. You 
need tof show how the different classifications are grounded in different 
expectations about possible experiences. You haven't done that yet. From your 
response here it seems that you are confusing different ways of talking about 
the same things with different objects. I don't know of anyone who makes the 
mistake of confusing the objects of the classifications. Perhaps you could give 
an example. Of course someone could be misled by the difference in the 
immediate objects, which depends on how we are thinking, if they are confused 
about what Peirce is talking about with these classifications, I don't think 
that there are Peirce scholars who make that mistake. So perhaps you could 
provide examples. There is a good reason why Peirce didn't use different names. 
There is no need to. This is quite different from the baryon-quark case, where 
the difference has experimental consequences. 

  John

  Sent from my Samsung device


   Original message 
  From: Sungchul Ji 
  Date: 20/12/2015 14:04 (GMT+02:00)
  To: PEIRCE-L 
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

  John, List, 

  You wrote:

  "So it seems to me that, unless you have a rather special meaning for 
“measurable”
  (or even “detectable”) in the case of signs that I cannot fathom without more 
clarity
  than I have now by what you mean by distinction you are trying to make, the 
distinction
  between elementary signs and composite signs have no basis in what exists; 
you would
  be making a distinction without a difference, and thus containing no 
information."

  The distinction between elementary signs and composite signs is the same as 
the distinction between the  9 types of signs and the 10 classes of sign that 
Peirce himself made. (If you do not like these terms, any one is entitled to 
come up with better replacements.) So the distinction must have been in 
Peirce's mind whenever Peirce wrote about the 9 types and 10 classes.  The only 
thing that I am trying to do here, since 2012, is to give "names" or 
"representamens" to these distinct objects, so that we can avoid conflating 
them, or so that we can have two different interpretants.  Right now, we have 
only one representamen, "sign", to refer to two different objects (9 types and 
10 classes) making them appear the same and yet they are not as you can plainly 
see in the fact that Peirce distinguished between 9 types and 10 classes.  This 
is why many, if not all, students of Peirce, seem confused.

  All the best.

  Sung





  On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 4:02 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Franklin Ransom]

Edwina,

My point is that ANY peoples, - since they have the capacity for thought -
> and thus, ANY language, can achieve such a result - and it doesn't require
> any 'development of the language'.


It certainly does require that the language has developed the terms that
allow more complex thoughts to be articulated.

I suppose that you have somehow gotten stuck on the idea that the
development of a language must be a development of its grammar. As I had
been saying to Sungchul originally, language is a term than can be taken in
a wider sense, and it depends in what sense that term is meant. Clearly,
you want to identify language and grammar as the same thing. I believe that
the vocabulary of a language is also part of what that language is, and the
development of a language's available vocabulary is a development of that
language. Shakespeare, for example, is commonly understood to have
transformed the English language and made it much more expressive in terms
of its vocabulary. Whether one should include the culture and history that
goes with a language as being part of the language, is also a matter for
consideration. I'm not trying to say that one should think of language in
that way, only that this is one way to think about the meaning of the term;
and one needs to get clear about what is meant by the term 'language' when
discussing language. I said that at the outset, and I would have
appreciated it if you read the original discussion and understood that
before accusing me of erroneous views based on your own presumption as to
what language is and what must be meant by its development. I attempted to
clarify that by a language being capable of articulating scientific
terminology, I did not mean that it required a change in its general
grammar to do so, but that there is a community of thought, expressed in
that language, that has developed in that language to express scientific
concepts and understanding. Not every human language has come to develop in
this way with respect to every science there is as of today, and there will
no doubt be sciences in the future that language today, even the one we
currently use, has yet to develop the way to thinking through and
articulating.

I have made no attempt to deny that Firstness is at work in language, and
have specifically said that creativity and innovation is important. But I
think you overstated the case for how great a role Firstness plays a role,
to the point of erasing the presence of Thirdness. I referenced the idea of
the Cartesian ego because you seemed to be expressing the view that the
human mind, as it exists today, is altogether independent of language, and
could get along thinking just as well without the use of an inherited
language. I strongly believe that this is a false view of the matter, and
that we are, in large part, dependent upon language for our thinking (not
completely, of course, as there is genuine creative force at work as well).
I am reminded of a quote from Peirce, "Some Consequences of Four
Incapacities", EP 1, p.54; CP, vol. 5, para.313-314; italics in original,
bold added by me:

"313. ...Again, consciousness is sometimes used to signify the *I think*,
or unity in thought; but the unity is nothing but consistency, or the
recognition of it. Consistency belongs to every sign, so far as it is a
sign; and therefore every sign, since it signifies primarily that it is a
sign, signifies its own consistency. The man-sign acquires information, and
comes to mean more than he did before. But so do words. Does not
electricity mean more now than it did in the days of Franklin? Man makes
the word, and the word means nothing which the man has not made it mean,
and that only to some man. *But since man can think only by means of words
or other external symbols, these might turn round and say: "You mean
nothing which we have not taught you, and then only so far as you address
some word as the interpretant of your thought."* In fact, therefore, men
and words reciprocally educate each other; each increase of a man's
information involves and is involved by, a corresponding increase of a
word's information.

314. Without fatiguing the reader by stretching this parallelism too far,
it is sufficient to say that there is no element whatever of man's
consciousness which has not something corresponding to it in the word; *and
the reason is obvious. It is that the word or sign which man uses is the
man himself.* For, as the fact that every thought is a sign, taken in
conjunction with the fact that life is a train of thought, proves that man
is a sign; so, that every thought is an *external *sign, proves that man is
an external sign. That is to say, the man and the external sign are
identical, in the same sense in which the words *homo* and *man* are
identical. *Thus my language is the sum total of myself; for the man is the
thought.*"

-- Franklin



On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Edwina Taborsky 

RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[gnox]

Jeff,

 

Well, the only good way I know of understanding one of Peirce’s distinctions is 
to observe exactly how he applies it, and hope that the object he’s applying it 
to is something like what we find in our collateral experience as objects for 
the interpretants that Peirce’s applications determine in our minds.

 

If MS 7 isn’t clear enough on what makes a “sufficiently complete” sign, I 
think we have to supplement it with some excerpts from Kaina Stoicheia:

 

EP2:303-4: “Every sign that is sufficiently complete refers to sundry real 
objects. All these objects, even if we are talking of Hamlet's madness, are 
parts of one and the same Universe of being, the “Truth.” But so far as the 
“Truth” is merely the object of a sign, it is merely the Aristotelian Matter of 
it that is so. In addition however to denoting objects, every sign sufficiently 
complete signifies characters, or qualities.”

…

“The purpose of every sign is to express “fact,” and by being joined with other 
signs, to approach as nearly as possible to determining an interpretant which 
would be the perfect Truth, the absolute Truth, and as such (at least, we may 
use this language) would be the very Universe. Aristotle gropes for a 
conception of perfection, or entelechy, which he never succeeds in making 
clear. We may adopt the word to mean the very fact, that is, the ideal sign 
which should be quite perfect, and so identical,—in such identity as a sign may 
have,—with the very matter denoted united with the very form signified by it. 
The entelechy of the Universe of being, then, the Universe qua fact, will be 
that Universe in its aspect as a sign, the “Truth” of being. The “Truth,” the 
fact that is not abstracted but complete, is the ultimate interpretant of every 
sign.”

 

EP2:305: “ … A pure icon is independent of any purpose. It serves as a sign 
solely and simply by exhibiting the quality it serves to signify. The relation 
to its object is a degenerate relation. It asserts nothing. If it conveys 
information, it is only in the sense in which the object that it is used to 
represent may be said to convey information. An icon can only be a fragment of 
a completer sign.”

 

EP2:307: “It is remarkable that while neither a pure icon nor a pure index can 
assert anything, an index which forces something to be an icon, as a 
weather-cock does, or which forces us to regard it as an icon, as the legend 
under a portrait does, does make an assertion, and forms a proposition. This 
suggests the true definition of a proposition, which is a question in much 
dispute at this moment. A proposition is a sign which separately, or 
independently, indicates its object. No index, however, can be an 
argumentation. It may be what many writers call an argument; that is, a basis 
of argumentation; but an argument in the sense of a sign which separately shows 
what interpretant it is intended to determine it cannot be.”

 

EP2:313: ”… I maintain that every sufficiently complete symbol governs things, 
and that symbols alone do this. I mean that though it is not a force, it is a 
law.”

 

The tentative conclusion I would draw from this is that a symbol can be 
“sufficiently complete” if it is a dicent symbol (proposition) or an argument, 
while an icon is necessarily fragmentary, and an index is somewhere in between 
those two, in terms of completeness. But what makes a symbol “complete” is 
precisely that it involves both an icon and an index (or involves an index 
involving an icon), and is thus able to convey information, which neither an 
index nor an icon can do by itself. I would also note that the degree of 
incompleteness of a sign corresponds directly to its degree of degeneracy 
(EP2:306).

 

Peirce doesn’t use this language of “sufficiently complete” outside of MS 7 and 
Kaina Stoicheia (as far as I know), and both of these are framed as essays on 
the logic/semeiotic of mathematics — but i’m not sure how those two facts are 
related. Anyway that’s about all I can say for now in response to your question.

 

Gary f.

 

} The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. [Einstein] {

http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway

 

-Original Message-
From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu] 
Sent: 19-Dec-15 13:33
To: 'PEIRCE-L' 
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

 

Hello Gary F., List,

 

In MS 7, Peirce says:  "Secondly, a sign may be complex; and the parts of a 
sign, though they are signs, may not possess all the essential characters of a 
more complete sign."  How should we understand this distinction between a 
sufficiently complete sign and those parts of a sign that are less complete?

 

--Jeff

 


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Franklin Ransom]

Jeff, Gary F, list,

It's nice to see some clear textual proof for the presence of Firstness in
the percept. However,

and then something like a diagram (what he will later call a percipuum)
> comes in as the interpretant of the qualisign.


Where does Peirce refer to the percipuum as a diagram? Or to a diagram as
an interpretant of a qualisign? The latter case should be impossible,
following the modal determination of the aspects of the sign; a qualisign
can only be determined, and in turn determine, at the level of Firstness in
each aspect, though a diagram is clearly representing relations, not
qualities. If one wants to turn to the ten-trichotomy classification, I
think it inadvisable to use the term qualisign, since it is unclear that in
the ten-trichotomy system, a qualisign could not have a dynamical object
that is in the mode of Secondness or Thirdness, and consequently that the
immediate object is in such modes, prior to the determination of the sign
in the aspect in which it is apprehended, which is properly the aspect of
the qualisign (though Gary F's comments with respect to this identification
are important to keep in mind).

-- Franklin

--

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 9:12 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <
jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> wrote:

> List,
>
> GF:  There is no vagueness in a percept; it’s a singular. So I don’t see
> how the concept of qualisign can serve the purpose you suggest here. I
> think the qualisign is simply a necessary result of Peirce’s introduction
> of the trichotomy of signs based on the sign’s mode of being in itself. It
> has to be First in that trichotomy.
>
> Peirce does say that percepts are, in some respects, vague.  Here is one
> place in "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmatism:  "But not to interrupt
> our train of thought, let us go on to note that while the Immediate Object
> of a Percept is excessively vague, yet natural thought makes up for that
> lack (as it almost amounts to), as follows. A late Dynamical Interpretant
> of the whole complex of Percepts is the Seme of a Perceptual Universe that
> is represented in instinctive thought as determining the original Immediate
> Object of every Percept.†2 Of course, I must be understood as talking not
> psychology, but the logic of mental operations. Subsequent Interpretants
> furnish new Semes of Universes resulting from various adjunctions to the
> Perceptual Universe. They are, however, all of them, Interpretants of
> Percepts. CP 4.539  I.e., A complex of percepts yields a picture of a
> perceptual universe. Without reflection, that universe is taken to be the
> cause of such objects as are represented in a percept. Though each percept
> is vague, as it is recognized that its object is the result of the action
> of the universe on the perceiver, it is so far clear." CP 4.539 Fn 2 p 425
>
> Here is a place where he says that percepts have a singular character:
> "the reader questions, perhaps, the assertion that conclusions of reasoning
> are always of the nature of expectations. "What!" he will exclaim, "can we
> not reason about the authorship of the Junius Letters or the identity of
> the Man in the Iron Mask?" In a sense we can, of course. Still, the
> conclusion will not be at all like remembering the historical event. In
> order to appreciate the difference, begin by going back to the percept to
> which the memory relates. This percept is a single event happening hic et
> nunc. It cannot be generalized without losing its essential character. For
> it is an actual passage at arms between the non-ego and the ego. A blow is
> passed, so to say. Generalize the fact that you get hit in the eye, and all
> that distinguishes the actual fact, the shock, the pain, the inflammation,
> is gone. It is anti-general. The memory preserves this character, only
> slightly modified. The actual shock, etc., are no longer there, the quality
> of the event has associated itself in the mind with similar past
> experiences. It is a little generalized in the perceptual fact. Still, it
> is referred to a special and unique occasion, and the flavor of
> anti-generality is the predominant one."  CP 2.146
>
> For the sake of understanding the division in NDTR between signs based on
> the mode in which they are apprehended (i.e., qualisign, sinsign,
> legislgn), I do think it would help to spell out the manner in which each
> of these types of signs is determined by its object.  For example, in the
> Minute Logic, which was written in 1902 (one year before NDTR), Peirce says
> the following about the relation between the percept and the perceptual
> jugment:  "The most ordinary fact of perception, such as "it is light,"
> involves precisive abstraction, or prescission. But hypostatic
> abstraction, the abstraction which transforms "it is light" into "there is
> light here," which is the sense which I shall commonly attach to the word
> abstraction (since prescission will do for 

RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[John Collier]

Sung, Lists,

I am unclear what you mean by measurable. The reason why this is important is 
that if there is no difference to possible experience, by the Pragmatic Maxim 
there is no difference in meaning. No elementary particle properties are 
directly measurable.  The best we can do is to have evidence for them by way of 
properties that are directly measurable, together with the theory (the 
measurements of quark properties are what is called “theory-laden”). So the 
notion of measurement that you are using is void unless there is some 
measurable difference between “there are nine elementary signs” and “there are 
ten composite signs”). The same would, of course hold for quarks and baryons 
unless there is a detectable difference to experience. In this case the 
difference is, of course, by your notion of a baryon as isolatable, that we can 
isolate baryons but not quarks (for a combination of theoretical and 
experimental reasons). So it seems to me that, unless you have a rather special 
meaning for “measurable” (or even “detectable”) in the case of signs that I 
cannot fathom without more clarity than I have now by what you mean by 
distinction you are trying to make, the distinction between elementary signs 
and composite signs have no basis in what exists; you would be making a 
distinction without a difference, and thus containing no information.

John Collier
Professor Emeritus, UKZN
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: sji.confor...@gmail.com [mailto:sji.confor...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of 
Sungchul Ji
Sent: Sunday, 20 December 2015 07:05
To: PEIRCE-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

Hi Gary R,

You wrote :

"As I thought I'd made clear over the years, and even quite recently, I do not 
consider the 9 parameters  (121915-1)
as signs at all, so that when I am discussing signs as possibly embodied signs, 
I am always referring to
the 10 classes."


I have two comments on (121915-1) and a suggestion:

(1) If 'qualisign' is not a sign, why do you think Peirce used the word "sign" 
in "qualisign" ?

(2)  The problem, as I see it, may stem from what seems to me to be an 
unjustifiably firm belief on the part of many semioticians that there is only 
one kind of sign in Peirce's writings, i.e., the triadic ones (or the 10 
classes of signs). But what if, in Peirce's mind, there were two kinds of 
signs, i.e., the 9 types of signs and the 10 classes of signs, although he used 
the same word "sign" to refer to both of them, just as physicists use the same 
word "particles" for both quarks and baryons.  They are both particles but 
physicists discovered that protons and neutrons are not fundamental particles 
but are composed of triplets of more fundamental particles called quarks.

(3)  I think the confusions in semiotics that Peirce himself seemed to have 
contributed to creating by not naming the 9 types of signs and 10 classes of 
signs DIFFERENTLY may be removed by adopting two different names (belatedly) 
for these two kinds of signs, e.g., the "elementary signs" for the 9 types and 
the "composite signs" for the 10 classes of signs as I recommended in 
[biosemiotics:46]. The former is monadic and incomplete as a sign, while the 
latter is triadic and hence complete as a sign.  Again this situation seems 
similar to the relation between quarks and baryons: Quarks are incomplete 
particles in that they cannot be isolated outside baryons whereas baryons 
(which are composed of three quarks) are complete particles since they can be 
isolated and experimentally measured.

All the best.

Sung





On Sat, Dec 19, 2015 at 7:25 PM, Gary Richmond 
> wrote:
Sung, list,

When I gave the example of the qualisign as a sign which " 'may not possess all 
the essential characters of a more complete sign', and yet be a part of that 
more complex sign,"  I was in fact referring to the rhematic iconic qualisign 
following Peirce's (shorthand) usage, since "To designate a qualisign as a 
rhematic iconic qualisign is redundant [. . .] because a qualisign can only be 
rhematic and iconic."
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/peirce.html

As I thought I'd made clear over the years, and even quite recently, I do not 
consider the 9 parameters as signs at all, so that when I am discussing signs 
as possibly embodied signs, I am always referring to the 10 classes.

What I intended to convey in my last message was that the qualisign (that is, 
the rhematic iconic qualisign) *must* be part of a more complete sign (clear 
enough, I think, is Peirce's discussions of the 10 classes), that it simply 
cannot exist independently of that fuller sign complex (e.g., a 'feeling of 
red' doesn't float around in some unembodied Platonic universe).

Now, I'm off to a holiday party, but I thought I'd best make this point clear 
before there was any further confusion.

Best,

Gary R



[Gary Richmond]

Gary Richmond
Philosophy 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Edwina Taborsky]

Sung - it would help if you would read Peirce. You have, yourself, admitted 
that you are not a scholar of Peirce, and yet, you insist that you understand 
his works - which you have not read - better than those who have done so. 

Your claim that because Peirce used the term 'sign' in, eg, Qualisign, that it 
makes that singularity a full sign is a specious argument.

Again, there are no elementary or composite Signs. The Sign, in itself, is 
triadic. It is made up of three Relations. Your mechanical reductionism denies 
the very nature of semiosis as a dynamic networking process.

The first relation of the triad is 'in itself', the Representamen (see 8.334); 
it is 'that which represents' 2.273. It 'stands to somebody for something" 
2.228. The second one is between that Representamen and the dynamic object (see 
8.335 and 2.228). Here, this relation is defined as an icon, index or symbol. 
As such, it affects the nature of the Representamen. A symbolic interaction 
can't have a Representamen in a mode of Firstness! This Reprsentamen-Object 
relation therefore does not exist 'per se' and thus, is not in itself an 
'elementary sign'. Such reductionism denies the very nature of the sign - which 
is always a triad. The third relation is to the Interpretant - and equally, the 
Interpretant doesn't exist 'per se' - but is a relation, an interaction - and 
is a rheme, dicent or argument. 

Again, your mechanical reductionism has nothing to do with Peircean semiosis, 
and your insistence that his theory be changed to fit into your reductionist 
boxes and columns simply doesn't work.

And a 'representamen' is not a name. It IS true that Peirce used the term 
'sign' to refer to both the full semiosic process and the key Relation, the 
'Representamen' but if you would read Peirce, then you would be able to see how 
he divides this triadic PROCESS into, not 'elementary signs' but relations, eg, 
'signs may be divided as to their own material nature, as to their relations 
with their objects, and as to their relations to their interpretants" 8.333.

He certainly does NOT define these 3x3 triads as 'elementary signs' - but as a 
division into three relations. The three relations are: 'as it is in itself' 
(8.334); 'relation to their dynamic objects' (8.335) and relation to its 
signified interpretant' 8.337. Each is further divided by categorical mode of 
Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness. That gets the nine relations. They are NOT 
'elementary signs' - since they are not, by definition, signs.

Edwina



Edwina

  - Original Message - 
  From: Sungchul Ji 
  To: PEIRCE-L 
  Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 7:04 AM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations


  John, List,


  You wrote:

  "So it seems to me that, unless you have a rather special meaning for 
“measurable” 
  (or even “detectable”) in the case of signs that I cannot fathom without more 
clarity 
  than I have now by what you mean by distinction you are trying to make, the 
distinction 
  between elementary signs and composite signs have no basis in what exists; 
you would 
  be making a distinction without a difference, and thus containing no 
information."


  The distinction between elementary signs and composite signs is the same as 
the distinction between the  9 types of signs and the 10 classes of sign that 
Peirce himself made. (If you do not like these terms, any one is entitled to 
come up with better replacements.) So the distinction must have been in 
Peirce's mind whenever Peirce wrote about the 9 types and 10 classes.  The only 
thing that I am trying to do here, since 2012, is to give "names" or 
"representamens" to these distinct objects, so that we can avoid conflating 
them, or so that we can have two different interpretants.  Right now, we have 
only one representamen, "sign", to refer to two different objects (9 types and 
10 classes) making them appear the same and yet they are not as you can plainly 
see in the fact that Peirce distinguished between 9 types and 10 classes.  This 
is why many, if not all, students of Peirce, seem confused.


  All the best.


  Sung










  On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 4:02 AM, John Collier  wrote:

Sung, Lists,



I am unclear what you mean by measurable. The reason why this is important 
is that if there is no difference to possible experience, by the Pragmatic 
Maxim there is no difference in meaning. No elementary particle properties are 
directly measurable.  The best we can do is to have evidence for them by way of 
properties that are directly measurable, together with the theory (the 
measurements of quark properties are what is called “theory-laden”). So the 
notion of measurement that you are using is void unless there is some 
measurable difference between “there are nine elementary signs” and “there are 
ten composite signs”). The same would, of course hold for quarks and baryons 
unless there is a detectable difference to 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Edwina Taborsky]

Franklin - thanks for your reply. Please see my comments below:
  - Original Message - 
  From: Franklin Ransom 
  To: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 2:53 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations


  Edwina,


  I will quote myself from the response I gave to Matt Faunce right before 
replying to you.


  "Matt, list,


Can you give your source for this?


  1) I cannot. I confess that my statement was not well-thought out. I did not 
mean to imply anything about the possibility of developing scientific 
terminology in any given human language. What I meant "about the development of 
a language to the point where it can articulate scientific terminology" is 
thinking about the case of where we find ourselves today, in the state in which 
scientific terminology has actually developed to the point it has. Obviously 
not every human language in history has developed to the point of having the 
terminology that the sciences today command. For example, the use of Latin 
words for developing terms identifying species in biology, and the whole host 
of such terms that have been developed. Or the development of mathematical 
language to the point where physical theories like the general and special 
theories of relativity can be articulated.

  EDWINA: I don't think that 'language' develops as a language and then 
possibly at some time, this development enables it to 'develop scientific 
terminology'. Indeed, I don't know what you mean by 'development of a 
language'. You seem to be suggesting that there is something in the grammar 
that must develop!? 
  I think that the terms used to 'name scientific issues' can be created in any 
language. I don't see what has to develop in a language to render it then and 
only then, capable of 'articulating scientific terminology'.


  2) I take it for granted though that it is widely acknowledged that human 
languages do differ with respect to the rules of construction and the things 
that can be said. If there has not been a vocabulary established in a given 
language for discussing projective geometry, people speaking only that language 
won't be able to say things about it without going through the work of 
developing a system of terminology in order to say things about it, or by 
translating from another language.

  EDWINA: Of course a language can develop a new system of terminology! The 
English and other modern-use languages have all developed such a capacity for 
'discussing projective geometry'. Any language can and does develop new terms. 
All the time. That's the nature of thought, and thus, of language - its 
openness to new terms. 


  3) My essential point though was just to point out that trying to look to 
human language as a model for representing reasoning, or the subject matter of 
logic, is an ill-considered and ill-advised venture, precisely because there is 
so much difference between human languages. It's not as though a universal 
human language has been discovered by linguists, so I raised concerns about 
Sungchul's reliance on 'human language' as his model for representing 
reasoning. If one is to accept Sunchul's approach, we would have to admit that 
there are different kinds of reasoning, one for each human language, and logic 
would cease to be a general science of reasoning, and would become 
indistinguishable from linguistics."

  EDWINA: I agree with you that language should not be used as a model for 
representing reasoning or logic, since - although language IS logically ordered 
- this doesn't mean that its logical order is also a model for logical 
reasoning. Peirce repeats that 'reasoning is of a triadic constitution' (6.321) 
- and this doesn't fit in with the constitution of a language. As he also says, 
logic is 'independent of the structure of the language in which it may happen 
to be expressed" 3.430.And I also reject, as do you, that there are 'different 
kinds of reasoning, one for each human language'. But the very FACT that 'the 
world is chiefly governed by thought [1.349] means that it includes ALL three 
modal categories. Not just Thirdness, habit, a 'frozen language'. 


  4) If you think this statement does not clarify my position well enough, 
please let me know what specifically you feel continues to be an important 
issue. If it helps, by saying that human languages differ with respect to the 
things that can be said, I don't mean to imply that the language can't develop, 
say, a mathematical science that will permit it to talk about, say, principles 
of geometry. But if the work has not been done to develop that terminology, 
then the average member of that linguistic community will find it very 
challenging to think and express those principles, and will have to commit to 
developing the language in a determinate to talk about those sorts of ideas.
  EDWINA: I think that you have indeed explained your position - and I've 
outlined, I think my differences. By the 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations

[Franklin Ransom]

Edwina,

I will quote myself from the response I gave to Matt Faunce right before
replying to you.

"Matt, list,

Can you give your source for this?


I cannot. I confess that my statement was not well-thought out. I did not
mean to imply anything about the possibility of developing scientific
terminology in any given human language. What I meant "about the
development of a language to the point where it can articulate scientific
terminology" is thinking about the case of where we find ourselves today,
in the state in which scientific terminology has actually developed to the
point it has. Obviously not every human language in history has developed
to the point of having the terminology that the sciences today command. For
example, the use of Latin words for developing terms identifying species in
biology, and the whole host of such terms that have been developed. Or the
development of mathematical language to the point where physical theories
like the general and special theories of relativity can be articulated.

I take it for granted though that it is widely acknowledged that human
languages do differ with respect to the rules of construction and the
things that can be said. If there has not been a vocabulary established in
a given language for discussing projective geometry, people speaking only
that language won't be able to say things about it without going through
the work of developing a system of terminology in order to say things about
it, or by translating from another language.

My essential point though was just to point out that trying to look to
human language as a model for representing reasoning, or the subject matter
of logic, is an ill-considered and ill-advised venture, precisely because
there is so much difference between human languages. It's not as though a
universal human language has been discovered by linguists, so I raised
concerns about Sungchul's reliance on 'human language' as his model for
representing reasoning. If one is to accept Sunchul's approach, we would
have to admit that there are different kinds of reasoning, one for each
human language, and logic would cease to be a general science of reasoning,
and would become indistinguishable from linguistics."

If you think this statement does not clarify my position well enough,
please let me know what specifically you feel continues to be an important
issue. If it helps, by saying that human languages differ with respect to
the things that can be said, I don't mean to imply that the language can't
develop, say, a mathematical science that will permit it to talk about,
say, principles of geometry. But if the work has not been done to develop
that terminology, then the average member of that linguistic community will
find it very challenging to think and express those principles, and will
have to commit to developing the language in a determinate to talk about
those sorts of ideas.

I would like to add that you have not acknowledged that your own position,
Edwina, is in conflict with Peirce's views, in that language does have an
impact on what we think, and so does play some role in determining the
thoughts we have, as individuals and as a community. Thought determines
thought, and all thought being in signs, this means that language does
determine thought to some extent. Your "radical freedom from language"
theory is really just nothing but the discredited idea of the Cartesian
ego. The habits of language persist and we are forced often to work within
the confines of those habits. Yes, innovation and creativity is possible,
but not in the "blank slate" way you suggest. Peirce would not have to
spend so much effort on terminology, to the point of articulating an ethics
of terminology, if the words we use don't matter for how we think. Just
consider your debates regarding sign and representamen. Does it matter that
you get that terminology right with everyone else, if you agree that
language doesn't really matter and everyone really does understand already
what is being thought about? Why care about getting clear about the
language being used, if not to get clear about the thinking with everyone
else?

-- Franklin

--

On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 10:23 AM, Edwina Taborsky 
wrote:

> Franklin - I'm not sure that you are saying anything that much different
> from your previous
>
> "Human languages differ with respect to the rules of construction and the
> things that can be said, and they also develop and evolve over time; the
> development of a language to the point where it can articulate scientific
> terminology is not a development shared by every human language."
>
> I note that you refer not simply to the words available to the society but
> to the logical rules-of-construction' and 'the things that CAN be
> said'.and your conclusion that not every human language can 'articulate
> scientific terminology'  seems to me the same conclusion in this post.
>
> I