Re: [PEIRCE-L] Genuinely triadic relations, laws and symbols

[Neal Bruss]

What’s the state of the Peirce Edition Project, started up with NEH support?  
Many thanks.

From: Dan Everett 
Reply-To: Dan Everett 
Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 7:49 PM
To: Ben Udell 
Cc: "peirce-l@list.iupui.edu" 
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Genuinely triadic relations, laws and symbols

Thanks very much, Ben.

If it is 60% drawings, then we are down to 10 million words.

I suspect the answer is somewhere in the middle of 25 and 10 million.

Dan


On Apr 17, 2019, at 7:43 PM, Ben Udell 
mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Gary, Dan,
The 100,000-page estimate comes from Joe Ransdell.
The manuscript material now (1997) comes to more than a hundred thousand pages. 
These contain many pages of no philosophical interest, but the number of pages 
on philosophy certainly number much more than half of that. Also, a significant 
but unknown number of manuscripts have been lost.
"Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic", end note 2 
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/leading.htm#note2
 , 1997 revision of 1977 version in Semiotica 19, 1977, pp. 157–178.
However, someone wrote that around 60% of Peirce's surviving pages contain 
mostly of drawings. I can't remember who said that, but I think that it was 
somebody involved with the German project of dealing with Peirce's drawings . 
Aud Sissel Hoel didn't say it in her April 2, 2010 blog post on the Peirce 
Archive project at Picture Act and Embodiment
https://web.archive.org/web/20110707185056/http://www.audsisselhoel.com/wordpress/?p=69
Maybe it was in one of the PDFs for Das bildnerische Denken: Charles S. Peirce. 
  [Visual Thinking: Charles S. Peirce] that the publisher took offline
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola
Best, Ben
On 4/17/2019 5:15 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Dan, List,

Thanks, Dan. I had a feeling that if anyone would take up that challenge--and 
meet it--it would be you. I would have expected a very large number of words, 
but not that large a number! Btw, how did you come to assume 100,000 pages? 
Have I seen that estimate somewhere before?

OK, here's an absolutely impossible back of an envelope calculation to try to 
estimate: How many diagrams did Peirce produce? Not just EGs, but all sorts of 
diagrams. This is impossible to calculate, I would imagine, because some things 
which, while they would appear to be in verbal form may, in fact, diagrams of a 
sort. In addition, some diagrams are so complex that they may include other 
diagrams: diagrams within diagrams.

Additionally, one might also try to calculate how many words accompanied those 
many diagrams in the interest of explaining aspects of them?

I suppose with a great deal of research one could sort of estimate the number, 
but perhaps not. Meanwhile, I know that you, Dan, are currently busy 
researching other matters of considerably more importance. So, I'd like to 
immediately discourage you from even thinking about attempting these additional 
calculations!

Best,

Gary


Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York



On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 4:56 PM Daniel L Everett 
mailto:danleveret...@gmail.com>> wrote:
A back of the envelope calculation is that CSP wrote app 25 million words. I 
assume 10 pages at 25 lines to a page 10 words to a line.

But in that neighborhood. Some published papers were much denser some 
handwritten pages much less.

Dan
Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 17, 2019, at 16:47, Gary Richmond 
mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com>> wrote:
John, Edwina, Jeff, List,

John wrote:

JS: Peirce frequently said that he thinks in diagrams and that he has
considerable difficulty in translating his thoughts into words.

I'm not sure how frequently he said it, but Peirce certainly did say it, and no 
doubt he thought essentially in diagrams. There are several on this list, 
including me, who have commented that they too tend to think in

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Knowledge Bases in Inquiry, Learning, Reasoning

[Neal Bruss]

On Gary’s first point, cf. Peirce,  "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits 
becoming physical laws", discussed by
Lucia Santella, in Sign System Studies, the reference at 
https://philpapers.org/rec/SANMAE-8

I recall, and cannot find, Peirce saying somewhere something like that the 
purpose of signs for inquiry is the reduction of thinking, that is, that when 
habits are formed and deployed, they leave consciousness (my term, not 
Peirce’s) free to observe new objects (again, my terms).  Do any of you have 
the source for Peirce on this, or something like it?


From: Gary Richmond 
Reply-To: Gary Richmond 
Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 3:57 AM
To: Peirce-L 
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Knowledge Bases in Inquiry, Learning, 
Reasoning

Jon, list,

1.  I am inclined to agree with you on this.  As I understand it, the end of 
semiosis--both its final cause and its termination--is the production of a 
habit; a substance is a bundle of habits; and a material substance is a bundle 
of habits that are so inveterate, it has effectively lost the capacity for 
Habit-change.

Nicely said. And I would suggest that to the extent that a person has 
"effectively lost the capacity for Habit-change," has become, say, 'set in his 
ways' or 'married to his theories, that he is, in a sense, to that extent 
intellectually 'hardened' or spiritually 'deadened'.

I'll be interested to see how you develop your idea that the "irreducibly 
triadic action of semiosis" requires a Quasi-interpreter. I agree that 
'things', especially those in nature, can serve as Quasi-utterers of degenerate 
Signs.

2.  Something is a Sign by virtue of having a DO, an IO, and an II--not 
necessarily a DI, so I do not see the relevance of the mother's inability (at 
first) to interpret the Sign (correctly, in my view) as standing for the hot 
burner.  She would presumably find this out very quickly, of course, after 
rushing into the kitchen.

I disagree. Whether or not the mother interprets the DI (the cry of her 
daughter) correctly or not, the cry is part of the child's semiosis, not that 
of the mother. You continue:

The Dynamic Object determines the Sign--perhaps a neural signal of pain--of 
which the girl's scream is a Dynamic Interpretant; and every Sign determines 
its Interpretant to stand in the same relation to the Sign's Dynamic Object as 
the Sign itself does.  Hence both the internal neural signal and the external 
scream are Indices of the hot burner; at least, that is how I see it at the 
moment.

I would say that the Interpretant standing in the same relation to the Sign's 
DO as the Sign does concerns the child's sign only. I see the mother as 
grounding (in the sense of semiotic 'determination') her Immediate Object for 
her, the mother's) semiosis not in the distant burner but in the cry of her 
child. So I still hold that the child is the Dynamic Object of the mother's 
Sign action (semiosis). Again, in my understanding the interpretant standing 
"in the same relation to the Sign's Dynamic Object as the Sign itself does" 
applies to a different Sign, namely, that of the child.

3.  Did you mean to say "Quasi-mind," rather than "Quasi-sign"?  My current 
tentative definition of "Quasi-mind" is a bundle of Collateral Experience and 
Habits of Interpretation (i.e., a reacting substance) that retains the capacity 
for Habit-change (i.e., learning by experience), and thus can be the 
Quasi-utterer of a genuine Sign (since this requires a purpose) and the 
Quasi-interpreter of any Sign.

Yes, of course I meant Quasi-mind and not Quasi-sign (an impossibility, I'd 
think). I'll have to reflect on your "current tentative definition of 
'Quasi-mind' " which at first blush seems quite promising.

4.  I addressed this already in the "Aristotle and Peirce" thread.

It would be helpful for me if you'd comment on my thought that Edwina may be 
using 'Form' in a different sense than Peirce such that in her sense it would 
connect more to 3ns than to 1ns. And of course I'd be especially eager to hear 
what Edwina thinks about that interpretation.

Best,

Gary R


[Gary Richmond]

Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
718 482-5690

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 10:01 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Gary R., List:

1.  I am inclined to agree with you on this.  As I understand it, the end of 
semiosis--both its final cause and its termination--is the production of a 
habit; a substance is a bundle of habits; and a material substance is a bundle 
of habits that are so inveterate, it has effectively lost the capacity for 
Habit-change.  As a result, it seems to me that the behavior of such "things" 
can in most or all cases be adequately analyzed in terms of dyadic 
action/reaction, rather than the irreducibly triadic action of semiosis.  In 
fact, I am leaning toward seeing the latter as requiring a Quasi-mind (see #3 
belo

Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Representamen Discussion

[Neal Bruss]

T.L. Short writes in  “Life Among the Legisigns,” (Transactions, 18:4, Fall, 
1992, p. 290), “(By ‘determines’ Peirce means ‘delimits the possible’ rather 
than ‘causes’ 8.177).

From: Helmut Raulien 
Reply-To: Helmut Raulien 
Date: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 at 2:54 PM
To: "tabor...@primus.ca" 
Cc: "tabor...@primus.ca" , Jon Alan Schmidt 
, "peirce-l@list.iupui.edu" 
Subject: Aw: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Representamen Discussion

Edwina, Jon,
I think you are both right: When we talk about the word "vase" we have seen 
written, this written word is the dynamic object. When somebody just reads the 
word "vase", the word is a representamen.
In the first case, during the talk, there is a semiotic chain in which 
interpretants become representamens, which again determine interpretants, all 
the time being determined by the same object. This is a mediating process, 
though not in one sign, but in a chain of signs. In the second case one may 
ideationally confine the sign to the reader´s mind (and not to the entire 
phaneron), and say, that the representamen in this case is not the written 
word, but the primal sensation of the word in the reader´s mind (its appearance 
in the primisense of his), and, stretch or not, call that a mediating process. 
But if you don´t confine the sign to the reader´s mind, but say it is an affair 
of the phaneron, you may say that the written word is the representamen
(I am a representamen too: trying to mediate).
Best,
Helmut

 06. Februar 2018 um 20:21 Uhr
Von: "Edwina Taborsky" 


Jon - NO. NO.

It may have been a Representamen according to YOUR analysis. But it was, right 
from the start, to me - a Dynamic Object.

The first time - my Interpretant of it was that it referred to your discussion 
with Gary R.

The second time - my Interpretant of it was that it was just a word.

BUT - in both cases, it was a DYNAMIC OBJECT. What changed was my 
Interpretant...which changed according to the thought processes of my mediating 
Representamen.

And I disagree with you. The Representamen mediates. Of course it is 
'something' that mediates'. What else could it be other than a 
force-which-mediates.  What is this something?? The knowledge base of the agent 
which is involved with the Dynamic Object. So, the knowledge held within the 
Representamen's habits...mediates the sensate data from the external 'Dynamic 
Object' and transforms it into the Interpretant.

Jon - we are not getting anywhere. I think you should wait and see if others 
want to get into this discussion of yours.

Edwina



On Tue 06/02/18 2:13 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
Edwina, List:

Initially the bare word "vase" stood for my previous discussion with Gary R. to 
 your interpreting mind.  Hence it was indeed a Representamen according to my 
analysis, but with a different Dynamic Object than I anticipated.  It was only 
in your subsequent analysis that you classified it as a Dynamic Object, 
presumably with respect to your thought-Signs about it.

Obviously, I agree with Helmut's reading of Peirce on how a Representamen (or 
Sign) is repeatedly defined.  It is not a process or action, it is a Subject or 
Correlate that is  involved in the process or action of semiosis.  Per your own 
quote (CP 2.311), the Representamen is something that mediates, not the act of 
mediation.

Regards,

Jon S.

On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 1:07 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

Helmut - no, Peirce's term was not 'medium' which simply means a 
carrying-agent. His term was mediation.

"A Representamen mediates between its Interpretant and its Object" 2.311

Edwina

On Tue 06/02/18 1:37 PM , "Helmut Raulien" h.raul...@gmx.de sent:
Edwina, List,
now I have read the entries in the Commens dictionary about "representamen" and 
"sign" (in some places Peirce says, that a sign is a special kind of 
representamen, the one that creates an interpretant in a human mind, in another 
place he says that both are synonyms). You wrote:

"I disagree with your understanding of the Representamen. I maintain that it is 
a process of mediation -an action of transformation, using its Mind knowledge,  
and not a 'thing' that 'stands for' something else. I think you are reducing 
the triad to a set of dyadic relations."

But in many places Peirce writes, that a sign is anything that mediates between 
an object and an interpretant. "Anything" may be a thing, may it not? Why not 
the word "vase"? And it is a medium, not a process of mediation. It is 
determined by the object and determines the interpretant. Peirce writes this 
many times, and it does not mean that these two roles of the sign (patient and 
agent, being determined and determining) are two dyadic relations fully 
representing the triadic relation by being products of reduction out of it.
Best,
Helmut
06. Februar 2018 um 19:02 Uhr
Von: "Edwina Taborsky"

Jon - I had no recognition of the word as associated with a container for 
flowers.  I associated it with your discussion with Ga

[PEIRCE-L] Objective Idealism

[Neal Bruss]

Dear List,

I would appreciate very much the philosophers’ mentioning their favorite few 
texts on Peirce’s Objective Idealism.

Many thanks,

Neal Bruss


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Instinct

[Neal Bruss]

Re: instinct, and excuse me if you¹ve covered this already.  Does Peirce
ever write anything about amalgams of logical, emotional, and energetic
interpretants, in any combination?

On 7/15/15, 10:36 AM, "Jeffrey Brian Downard" 
wrote:

>List,
>
>John, I was not trying to suggest that the Century definitions of
>instinct are unhelpful.  Rather, my suggestion was that they are good
>place to start if you want to understand how Peirce is using the word.
>The definitions show the generality of his conception--and how it fits
>with established usage running back to Shakespeare and Milton.  In his
>own work, he might very well have developed refined scientific
>explanations of the nature of different sorts of instincts as they are
>expressed in protoplasm, plants, lower animals, humans (or crystals, for
>that matter), but we would need to look at the particularities of what he
>says in order to work that out.
>
>Stephen, I don't see a how your expression of the Peircean paradigm,
>which takes instincts to be knowledge as learned fits with the first two
>definitions he provides.  It does fit with what he says about the special
>cases of lower and higher animals, but that does not appear to capture
>the generality of his other definitions of instincts as the expression of
>internal potencies or principles.  My hunch is that Peirce is starting
>from a set of nominal definitions which express how the term is typically
>used, and then drawing on the explanations of the nature of instincts
>that have been especially informative in the history of philosophy and
>the sciences (e.g., Aristotle, Darwin), and then trying to refine those
>explanations as he works towards a higher degree of clarity about the
>real nature of such things.
>
>In order to work out the character of Peirce's explanations, a comparison
>to other positions that he was considering--such as William
>James's--might be helpful.  See:  "What is an Instinct?"
>
>--Jeff
>
>Jeff Downard
>Associate Professor
>Department of Philosophy
>NAU
>(o) 523-8354
>
>From: Stephen Jarosek [sjaro...@iinet.net.au]
>Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 1:28 AM
>To: 'John Collier'; mig...@cegri.es; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
>Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Instinct
>
>A further observation regarding the distinction between the Peircean
>paradigm (knowledge, including instinct, as learned) versus genocentrism
>(instinct as data in the DNA). If we interpret the Peircean paradigm in
>the context of "knowing how to be," then we obtain a major insight into
>what unifies the many agents within any collective (like people in a
>culture, bees in a hive, etc) into a unified whole. The need to "know how
>to be" motivates every agent in a collective to observe its partner
>agents and how they behave... the penalty for misbehaving often impacts
>adversely on survival. Contrast this with the genocentric paradigm, which
>portrays the winning behaviours as "adaptive" and the "best" adapted
>agents being selected as the progenitors of selfish genes. One paradigm
>integrates and unifies, and the other isolates and divides. One is likely
>and sustainable, the other, as part of the long line of happy accidents
>that is presumed to define genocentric evolution, is unlikely and
>unsustainable. One resists the corrosive effects of entropy, the other
>must invariably succumb to it.
>
>From: Stephen Jarosek [mailto:sjaro...@iinet.net.au]
>Sent: Wednesday, 15 July 2015 8:15 AM
>To: 'John Collier'; mig...@cegri.es;
>peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
>Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Instinct
>
>List,
>I find the notion of instinct as a separate and distinct category of
>knowledge, ³written down in the DNA,² as it were, problematic. There must
>be, imho, a way to account for instinct within the context of pragmatism,
>the three categories, and ultimately, ³knowing how to be.² I suspect that
>DNA entanglement (nonlocality) might have a crucial part to play... this
>is an unsubstantiated hunch on my part, and I know that many people are
>reluctant to go down this ³DNA entanglement² route. But I figure that an
>interpretation within the context of DNA entanglement will resolve a
>number of intractable issues in biology, physics and biophysics, this
>instinct distinction being number one among them... I would also rank the
>problem of entropy (the natural proclivity of ordered DNA ³data² to
>disorder) as equally important, but that lies beyond this question of the
>instinct distinction.
>sj
>
>From: John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za]
>Sent: Wednesday, 15 July 2015 2:36 AM
>To: mig...@cegri.es;
>peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
>Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Instinct
>
>Thanks to everyone who responded, but especially to Miguel for sending
>this gem. Now I just have to figure out what lies behind it.
>
>I agree with Jeff that the Century Dictionary entries are not
>particularly useful.
>
>I should