[Inquiry] Re: Peaceful Easy Feelin

[Jon Awbrey]

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PEF.  Note 7

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BB = Bill Bailey

Re: PEF 5.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-April/002582.html
In: PEF.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-April/thread.html#2578

BB: I ought to leave this alone since I don't know what I'm talking about.
    Before I joined this list, I thought I at least understood Peirce's
    definitions of symbols, indexes, and icons.  Oh, for the bliss of
    ignorance!  Now that I'm becoming knowledgeable, I'm battling the
    Aunt Polly spoon-counting syndrome in 'Huckleberry Finn'.  I want
    to throw the whole damn drawer across the room and never count 
    them again.  But Aunt Polly was probably wiser than I am.

BB: If I accept that a symbol is only arbitrarily linked to its
    signification by convention, how can I at the same time accept
    that it is "naturally fit to declare" something?  "Naturally fit"
    doesn't sound like anything arbitrary or purely conventional to me.
    Further, if I accept that its signification functions rest upon
    inherent indexical and iconic properties, how in the world can
    I possible maintain that its definitive characteristics depend
    upon its arbitrary, conventional usages?  I read the passage
    and I think I understand it.  What I don't understand is how
    to reconcile that passage with what I -- and I assume some 
    others -- understood as Peirce's definition of symbol.

Bill,

In these early accounts, Peirce speaks of symbols being born as indices,
in which the conventional nature is very marked, but still nowhere near
as idiosyntactic as some imagine, since a convention by its etymology
means that many impressions and/or many interpreters are required to
come together and concur on the conferral of the title in question.
So natural fitness is apparently an acquired nature, a maturing
recognizance of the applicable laws of the symbol in question.
Now "arbitrary" means "relating to an arbiter" and "arbiter"
is just another name for an interpreter, judge, or mediator.
The catch is:  It is just a peculiarity of human nature
that judgments always seem more capricious when it's
someone else doing the judging.

And so it goes ...

Jon Awbrey

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