[Inquiry] Re: Sign Relations -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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SR.  Discussion Note 10

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Strictly speaking, Peirce advises a non-psychological approach
to logic, which he defines as formal semiotic, using "formal"
to mean "quasi-necessary", which is the moral equivalent of
"normative" to us.  I have mentioned before that the prefix,
"non" frequently serves as a generalizing functor in math,
as in the study of non-associative algebras, which includes
those algebras that do satisfy the associative axiom along
with those that do not.  It is just as if "non" was really
an acronym for "not of necessity".  I have also argued that
semiotics in general has room for a descriptive semiotics,
under which would fall many applications to the descriptive,
or non-therapeutic, side of psychology, in which Peirce was
evidently rather interested, of course.

But there is nothing about cardinality, causality, cognition, or continuity
in the barest unpsychological definitions of sign relations, and so if we
find those considerations coming into our discussions of sign relations,
it is either because we have explicitly added some additional axioms and
definitions, or else because we are treading on unexpressed assumptions,
which being non-conscious, are likely to vary widely from participant to
participant in the discussion.  Of course, much diversion lies that way.

Jon Awbrey

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