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

[Jon Awbrey]

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AIR.  Discussion Note 10

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AB = Auke van Breemen
BM = Bernard Morand

Auke, Bernard,

Very nice discussion, which I take the liberty of
recording a couple of other places for future ref.

Jon Awbrey

BM: This is why I don't think that the classification in 10 classes
    of signs is a "natural" one (but I suspect that it is the case
    for the late classification from Welby letters).

AB: I share your diagnosis.  Maybe with the exception of
    the tag 'natural', that depends on the interpretation
    of the term.  This question concerning the meaning of
    'natural' occasioned my mail.

AB: It is possible to discuss signs simple in terms of sign, object, and interpretant.
    Adding the aspects that make up the ten sign types adds detail to such a discussion.
    Adding the different kinds of interpretants enables to add besides detail also some
    dynamism by taking the response into account.  As I see it the Welby classification
    adds still more detail.  Probably we can say, if we take the succesive models as a
    succesion of signs, that each next sign gives a more informed representation of the
    dynamical object.

AB: But in that case it is not according to naturalness
    that they differ, but according to detail afforded.

BM: I had in mind the world "natural" used by CSP in order to
    fix his view on classes and classifications.  This is for
    me much more a problem than a solution because in fact
    I can't see how his view can apply to the 10 classes
    of signs (that are themselves the direct consequence
    of the 3 categories). See for example:

| I may be asked what I mean by the objects of [a] class deriving their existence from
| an idea.  Do I mean that the idea calls new matter into existence?  Certainly not.
| That would be pure intellectualism, which denies  that blind force is an element
| of experience distinct from rationality, or logical force.  I believe that to be
| a great error;  but I need not stop to disprove it now, for those who entertain
| it will be on my side in regard to classification.  But it will be urged that
| if that is not my meaning, then the idea merely confers upon the members of
| the class its character;  and since every class has a defining character,
| any one class is as "natural" or "real" as another, if that term be taken
| in the sense I give to it.  I cannot, however, quite admit that.  Whether
| or not every class is or is not more or less a natural class is a question
| which may be worth consideration;  but I do not think that the relation of
| the idea to the members of the natural class is simply that it is applicable
| to them as a predicate, as it is to every class equally.  What I mean by the
| idea's conferring existence upon the individual members of the class is that
| it confers upon them the power of working out results in this world, that it 
| confers upon them, that is to say, organic existence, or, in one word, life.
|
| C.S. Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 1.220, from the "Minute Logic" (1902)

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