[Inquiry] Re: Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems

[Jon Awbrey]

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PRO.  Note 33

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1.2.2.3.  Pragmatic Theory of Signs

The theory of signs that I find most useful was developed by the
logician, mathematician, and philosopher C.S. Peirce (1839-1914),
who is usually credited with pioneering pragmatic philosophy on
the American scene.  In this theory, also known as "semiotics",
signs are defined pragmatically, not by any essential substance,
but by the role that they play within a three-place relation of
signs, interpreting signs, and referent objects.  It is a tenet
of pragmatic thinking that "all thought takes place in signs".
Thought is not placed under any preconceived limitation or
prior restriction to symbolic domains.  It is merely noted
that a certain analysis of the processes of perception and
reasoning finds them to resolve into formal elements that
possess the characters and participate in the relations
that a definition will identify as distinctive of signs.

One version of Peirce's sign definition is especially useful for
the present purpose.  It establishes for signs a fundamental role
in logic and is stated in terms of abstract relational properties
that are flexible enough to be interpreted in the materials of
dynamic systems.  Peirce gave this definition of signs in his
1902 "Application to the Carnegie Institution":

| Logic is 'formal semiotic'.  A sign is something, 'A', which brings
| something, 'B', its 'interpretant' sign, determined or created by it,
| into the same sort of  correspondence (or a lower implied sort) with
| something, 'C', its 'object', as that in which itself stands to 'C'.
| This definition no more involves any reference to human thought than
| does the definition of a line as the place within which a particle
| lies during a lapse of time.  (Peirce, NEM 4, 54).
|
| It is from this definition, together with a definition of "formal",
| that I deduce mathematically the principles of logic.  I also make
| a historical review of all the definitions and conceptions of logic,
| and show, not merely that my definition is no novelty, but that my
| non-psychological conception of logic has 'virtually' been quite
| generally held, though not generally recognized.  (Peirce, NEM 4, 21).

A placement and appreciation of this theory in a philosophical context
that extends from Aristotle's early treatise 'On Interpretation' through
John Dewey's later elaborations and applications (Dewey, 1910, 1929, 1938)
is the topic of (Awbrey & Awbrey, 1992).  Here, only a few features of
this definition will be noted that are especially relevant to the goal
of implementing intelligent interpreters and inquiry driven systems.

Jon Awbrey

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