[Inquiry] Re: Peaceful Easy Feelin

[Jon Awbrey]

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PEF.  Note 5

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| Many of our customers are searching
| for urns that naturally fit in with
| their existing decor and surroundings.
|
| http://www.plan4ever.com/urns/cat.phtml?cat=11

Necessity is the mother of natural fitness but
natural fitness is not of necessity the mother.

JA = Jon Awbrey
JR = Joe Ransdell

JA:  Now, an explanation of sign action and sign meaning
     in terms of informational principles will probably not
     satisfy those who are looking for an explanation in terms
     of causal forces and iconic images, just as an explanation
     of molecular bonding in terms of electrical charges and
     force fields will probably not satisfy those who are
     looking for an explanation in terms of little hooks,
     but there is very little that I can do about that.

JR:  What, then, do you make of a statement like this by Peirce,
     which seems on the face of it to be an unequivocal statement
     of the dependence of the symbol on the auxiliary functions of
     icons and indices to do what it does as a symbol?

| A symbol is a sign naturally fit to declare that the set of objects which is
| denoted by whatever set of indices may be in certain ways attached to it is
| represented by an icon associated with it.  To show what this complicated
| definition means, let us take as an example of a symbol the word "loveth".
| Associated with this word is an idea, which is the mental icon of one person
| loving another.  Now we are to understand that "loveth" occurs in a sentence;
| for what it may mean by itself, if it means anything, is not the question.
| Let the sentence, then, be "Ezekiel loveth Huldah".  Ezekiel and Huldah
| must, then, be or contain indices;  for without indices it is impossible
| to designate what one is talking about.  Any mere description would
| leave it uncertain whether they were not mere characters in a ballad;
| but whether they be so or not, indices can designate them.  Now the
| effect of the word "loveth" is that the pair of objects denoted by
| the pair of indices Ezekiel and Huldah is represented by the icon,
| or the image we have in our minds of a lover and his beloved.
|
| C.S. Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 2.295, "The Short Logic" (c. 1893)

JR: Do you think of this as a sop thrown to hoi polloi,
    his real view being reserved for those capable of
    working with formal logic (or however you would
    characterize the relevant expertise)?

Joe,

Really, now.  We can well say that human beings are naturally fit for life
in the temperate zones of the planet Earth, but that hardly means that all
of them live in the middle latitudes, or none can go to the moon and stars.

Make it so ...

Jon Awbrey

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