[Inquiry] Re: Sign Relations -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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SR.  Discussion Note 24

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AB = Auke van Breemen
JA = Jon Awbrey

Auke,

On subsequent readings I 'think' I get a couple more of the
questions that you may be asking, so I will answer those now.

AB: As I understand Peirce a pure icon only offers the possibility
    to partake in a sign relation.  The sign relation is established
    through the contribution of a symbolic element.  In which case the
    relation you have to look for may be of a symbolic, iconic nature,
    but not purely iconic.

As a general tactic, the modality of possibility is taken care
of in these sorts of formal considerations by the fact that we
are contemplating "all possible structures" that satisfy given
specifications.  In a way, we deal with possible happenings by
treating them as actual happenings in a possible configuration.

I still don't get your second sentence -- though I think things
like that are precisely what we may hope to clafify in carrying
out this exercise.  The third sentence is also vague to me, but
maybe it will help to explain that we are looking for any brand
of sign relation that has at least one icon somewhere within it.

AB: Next, a question.  What do you mean by smallest possible?
    Is it according to the quantum of information it conveys or
    to the amount of possible different kinds of interpretants
    involved as for instance when only an idea is raised but
    no response asked for?  Or still something else?

The scale of rank was explained last time.
If you are using the notion of information
in a sense that is compatible with Peirce's,
that's an interesting question on independent
grounds, but cannot be addressed until we say
how exactly to measure it.  I'm not quite sure
of the last bit, but if you intend a notion of
"sign relations that have missing interpretants",
those are generalizations of sign relations that
actually come up in practical applications, being
dubbed (by me) "sign relational complexes", taking
the word "complex" from analogous uses in geometry.
But I think this is something to save for much later.

Jon Awbrey

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