[Arisbe] Re: Language is but one possible formal system
Jon Awbrey
arisbe@stderr.org
Wed, 20 Jun 2001 21:16:35 -0400
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Gary Richmond wrote:
>
> Charles,
>
> I do not see any real connection between the triad:
> object-sign-interpretation--better, interpretant,
> or interpretant sign -- and Aristotle's four causes
> (a search of the electronic Collected Edition confirmed
> this, though that is far from a complete resource)
>
> But as a foil to Jon's analysis I'll offer this Peirce quotation:
>
> 347. . . . Suffice it to say that a sign endeavours to represent,
> in part at least, an Object, which is therefore in a sense the
> cause, or determinant, of the sign even if the sign represents
> its object falsely. But to say that it represents its Object
> implies that it affects a mind, and so affects it as, in some
> respect, to determine in that mind something that is mediately
> due to the Object. That determination of which the immediate
> cause, or determinant, is the Sign, and of which the mediate
> cause is the Object may be termed the Interpretant. . .
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Gary,
And you already know the obligatory parry:
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Subj: SUO: Sop To Cerberus: What In Hades Was CSP Talking About?
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
To: Arisbe <arisbe@stderr.org>, SemioCom <semiocom@listbot.com>,
Standardize Unto Others <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 15:33:30 -0400
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Those of you who do not know the reference deserve an explanation.
There is a critical passage where Peirce explains the relationship
between his popular illustrations and his technical theory of signs.
| It is clearly indispensable to start with an accurate
| and broad analysis of the nature of a Sign. I define
| a Sign as anything which is so determined by something
| else, called its Object, and so determines an effect
| upon a person, which effect I call its Interpretant,
| that the latter is thereby mediately determined by
| the former. My insertion of "upon a person" is
| a sop to Cerberus, because I despair of making
| my own broader conception understood.
|
| CSP, 'Selected Writings', page 404.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, "Letters to Lady Welby", Chapter 24, pages 380-432
| in 'Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)',
| Edited with an Introduction & Notes by Philip P. Wiener, Dover Publications,
| New York, NY, 1966.
A word to the wise is sufficient,
in no way universally sufficient.
Notice that this self-described "definition" of a Sign
is also self-labelled as an approximate definition, or
as a special application of a Lost Lenore (= Eurydice)
that might have been the lamented "broader conception".
As anybody, almost anybody, can plainly see, this sop
to Cerberus has to be taken with a due grain of salt
(= Lot's Wife).
I trust that will be the end of that -- hah!
Jon Awbrey
Incidental Musements:
http://www.bibleinfo.com/Asp/DisplayFullFAQ.asp?FAQid=32
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The fact that Peirce maintained what he himself called
a "non-psychological" view of signs and logic is pretty
much beyond dispute. What that means, of course, takes
a bit more reading to get clear about. All in all, it
seems to me that the contrasts between these sorts of
passages illustrates a number of issues:
1. In reading a complex thinker, say Peirce, Dickinson, Melville,
Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Rosen, to name a few, who happens
to write for several different audiences, and whose manner of
expression, if not always whose Big Idea, happens to develop
over time, it is crucial to sort out the illustrative cases
from the generic examples of what is overall being conveyed.
2. For all the same reasons, in the case of such a thinker,
it is critical to make an unbiased and wide selection
from the diversity of their writings in order to get
even a glimmer of what is primary and what is not.
3. It is a curious property of the English language that
the "or" construction, for instance, as used above in
the phrase "cause, or determinant" can be employed to
convey any one of the following logical operations:
a. inclusive disjunction
b. exclusive disjunction
c. equivalence ("id est")
d. exemplification ("for example")
e. generalization ("more broadly")
f. retraction of an over-generalization
Consequently, one is forced to read what Peirce says
in many other places in order to get at how he groks
the relationship between "cause" and "determination".
Anybody who desires to do this might well begin here:
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04784.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04785.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04786.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04787.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04791.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04794.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04795.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04796.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04797.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04798.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04802.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04814.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04956.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04958.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04962.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg05000.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg05056.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg05078.html
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg05111.html
E-joy!
Jon Awbrey
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