[Inquiry] Re: Examples Of Inquiry -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

EOI.  Discussion Note 6

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

JA = Jon Awbrey
TG = Tom Gollier

Al fine ...

TG: Of course, this is where I always get hit with that
    "sign, sign, everything's a sign" refrain, and it's
    true the object can be represented by a sign.  That's
    what we're doing here.  If we represent it with another
    sign, it's own sign apart from the sign and interpretant
    of this diagram, then we just play the same game we're
    playing now with a different sign and its interpretant
    and its object.  That's not what seems to be going on
    with the "ordinary" guy in Dewey's example.  With him
    there's just the abstractive observation (sign) resulting
    in an imagined diagram (interpretant) from which he infers
    "rain".  The object, the context or situation, is indeed the
    third element, the one we are in fact making explicit only
    in this one respect with this sign and this interpretant.

I refrain from that refrain, as it seems beside the point to me.
But I think that you might be misled by CP 2.227 into thinking
that AO is involved in every sign process, instead of being
the peculiar feature of logical reflection.  Just my very
rough and chancey guess at this point, though.

TG: In short, I've always felt it's a cheap trick to pretend to solve
    the problems posed by the Kantian thing-in-itself by the citing the
    fact we do invent signs to represent it.  Geez, no problem there.
    And, I think when Peirce said objects are signs he had in mind more
    the way a diagram, such as our modern scientific view of the solar
    system, can come to take the place of the object itself.  If the
    guy in the example were abstracting the elements and relationships
    of this sign and interpretant from a fully developed scientific
    conception of weather, it elements and interactions, that had
    stood the inductive tests of time such that he would take that
    diagram for the object itself, then we might say that is the
    sign-object in the above diagram.  But that would be a different,
    more sophisticated example;  one that Peirce got to in the omitted
    part of 2.227, but one I don't think we should jump to too quickly.

Yes, at least, so far as I think I understand
some of what you are saying here.  Our hero's
observations are figured in relief against
the ground of his prior expectations.

Jon Awbrey

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o