[Arisbe] Inquiry Into Symbolization

[Jon Awbrey]

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All,

I think that it is time for me to take a little break --
to try and pose my current guess as to what Peirce is
going on about with all that guff about symbolization.

I find our pupallary Peirce trying to wriggle his way
out of the Cartesian/Kantian cocoon in which he finds
himself encased at the phase of metamorphosis in view. 

Remember that for Peirce "concepts are a species of symbols", and so
to talk about "symbolization" and "symbolizability" is tantamount to
invoking a generalization of "conceptualization" and "conceivability".

So the whole scene in question is taking place on the stage set by Kant,
whose depiction of the Creation, Development, and Elimination operators
that work on concept-ions Peirce has already intoned in his prologue to
the entire drama:

| The essential of a thing -- the character of it -- is the unity of the manifold therein contained.
| 'Id est', the logical principle, from which as major premiss the facts thereof can be deduced.
|
| What are called a _man's_ principles however are only certain beliefs of his that he may or may not
| carry out.  They therefore do not compose his character, but the general expression of the facts --
| the ACTS OF HIS SOUL -- does.
|
| What he does is important.
| How he feels is incidental.
|
| CSP, CE 1, page 6.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce,
|"Private Thoughts, Principally On The Conduct Of Life" (Number 37, August 1860),
|'Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 1, 1857-1866',
| Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1982.

If that is a bit too oracular, then he will echo it again in the interlude to come.

| This paper is based upon the theory already established, that the function of
| conceptions is to reduce the manifold of sensuous impressions to unity, and that
| the validity of a conception consists in the impossibility of reducing the content
| of consciousness to unity without the introduction of it.  (CSP, CP 1.545, CE 2.49).

Before I can say any more about this business I will have to dig up some old
essays of mine on the relationship between artificial sets and natural kinds.

Until Then,

Jon Awbrey

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