[Inquiry] Re: Attribute, Impute, Represent -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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AIR.  Discussion Note 3

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JP = Jim Piat

JP: I have not been following this discussion as
    closely as it requires so just ignore this
    if I've missed the point under discussion.

JP: I think of a symbol as incorporating both iconicity and indexicality
    in that an interpretant has both a connotative and denotative component.
    After all, what the symbol stands for is some qualitative or iconic aspect
    of an an object which (by virtue of being an object as opposed to some 
    disembodied mere potential) is necessarily indexed in time and space.

JP: In addition, however arbitrary we might imagine our choice
    of an object to serve or function as a symbol (be it a sound,
    scribble, gesture, or whatever), my guess is that there is some
    trace (however remote or subliminal) of inconicity and indexically
    in the object selected.  Well I'll go further -- seems to me the mere
    fact that symbols exist requires or creates a world in which everything
    can be interpreted -- which in turn requires that everything actually is
    or can become connected or continuous.

JP: Reminds me of a favorite Sartre comment from the closing pages of his 
    autobiography, 'Words'.  Summing up himself he says something like --
    So in the end what am I?  A man like all men.  Good as any, better
    than none.

JP: Such is the continuity of all symbols.

Jim,

I will just say how I personally view this from my present perspective,
detaching from the bedevilment of what Peirce knew and when he knew it.

In order to say anything definite about signs and their typology, we have to
establish, in effect, explicitly or implicitly, as the context of discussion,
a particular sign relation, that is, a particular set of triples of the form
<object, sign, interpretant>.  Although it's possible in principle to speak
of a "universal sign relation", one that contains all triples of the form
<o, s, i> in which something (o) is meant by some sign (s) with respect
to some interpretant (i), it is more common in actual practice to speak
of an "isolated sign relation", just the way they do in physics with
the idealization of an isolated physical system instead of the more
grandiose idealization commonly known as the "physical universe".

If we do not bound things this way, then about all we can say
is that "anything might mean anything to anybody, in any way
that anybody might imagine".  But if we bound discussion to
a particular sign relation, one whose triples can be given
by enumeration or by formulation, then we fix the answers
to our questions about the kinds of sign that each sign
might be to the question of how it actually serves in
the sign relation in question.

If we adopt the "physical symbol system hypothesis",
a newer name in for some older ideas of Peirce, then
no concrete physical thing that happens to serve as
a sign will be a pure type, in particular, an icon,
an index, or a symbol.  But this displays a lack of
appreciation for the use of classificatory ideals.
The ideal types of icons, indices, symbols may be
compounded with each other in each concrete sign,
but the axes of classification will be useless
if they are always confounded with each other
in the space of ideal coordinates.

I will have more to say about your other points,
but it's getting close to dinner time right now.

Jon Awbrey

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