[Inquiry] Re: Logic Of The Sciences -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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LOTS.  Discussion Note 10

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Let's go back to look more carefully at the section of MS 113
where Peirce derives the three species of representation from
the lie of the ground or the locus of the prescindible common
character that provides the raison d'etre of a representation.

Re: LOTS 7.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/002420.html
Re: LOTS 8.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/002421.html
In: LOTS.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/thread.html#2413

| So the species of representation are three;  to wit,
|
| 1.  Representations whose object is determined by its subject;
|     that is to say whose Ground is a character of the Subject.
|     If this subject is plural, of course the character must be
|     common.  Thus, if two men 'agree' to have a certain sign
|     denote certain things, that sign is a representation
|     of this kind.  Accordingly, I call this species of
|     representation 'Sign'.  (CE 1, 328)

Recall that Peirce is using the word "subject" in this context
to mean the interpreter or the recipient of the representation.
To say that the rationale of the representation is a character
of the interpreter is another way of calling it arbitrary, but
the arbitrariness is bounded in a community of interpreters by
the common recognition of a convention.  This is tantamount to
the definition of an indexical representation.

| 2.  Representations whose subject and object depend immediately upon
|     the ground and not upon any character of either.  But the ground in
|     any case must be a character of the representation which connects it
|     with subject and object.  Hence such representations are those which
|     agree immediately with both subject and object in some characters.
|     It is this sort of representation which an individual is of itself;
|     and also which a sensation is.  For a sensation agrees immediately
|     with the thing in affecting the sense and with the mind in being
|     affected by the thing.  It is this sort of representation also
|     which a picture is.  Accordingly I call this species of
|     representation 'copy'.  (CE 1, 328)

There appear to be a number of hidden depths in this way of sketching
iconic representations, but if we interpret the "subject" as a medium
of the foreshadowed interpretant, then we can glean the familiar line
that the interpretant interprets the icon as a sign which shares some
of its properties with its object.

| 3.  Representations whose subject depends upon its object.  That is which
|     are intelligible to those who can comprehend a certain character of the
|     object -- if there are several objects, a common character.  It is this
|     sort of representation which a 'conception' is;  and which a word is,
|     after it has once been acquired as a 'sign'.  I call this species of
|     representation 'Symbol'.  (CE 1, 328)

Peirce is placing upon the symbol the onus of conveying
a bona fide character of the object, and in the case of
general reference or plural denotation a character in
which the manifold objects are united.  This is the
sort of representation that it takes to embody any
measure of objectivity, and this is why Peirce
takes symbols to be the specialty of logic.

Notice a curious paradox here:  Symbols share with indices a character
of arbitrariness, in that their significance is not tied down by their
intrinsic properties, but with symbols we have an arbitrariness in the
service of objectivity, the intrinsic freedom of these 'epea pteroenta'
giving them the power to pinpoint invariants in the objects themselves.

| Now it is to be observed that the Ground of either kind of representation is a
| common character and therefore may be prescinded.  And any common character not
| only may but does serve as the Ground of some representation.  Hence, Ground and
| Prescindible are co-extensive terms, and we may more concisely define as follows: --
|
|    Representations are either
|
|       1.  Signs;  whose prescindible is from the subject
|
|       2.  Copies;  whose prescindible is from Subject and Object
|
|       3.  Symbols;  whose prescindible is from the object.
|
| (CE 1, 328)

I stumbled over this passage on the first few readings, in as much as
the phrase "prescindible ... from" could mean abstractable, detachable,
or dissociable from, but comparison with the preceding derivation of the
species of representation tells us that the prescindible common character
in question is one that comes from or resides in the locations mentioned.

Jon Awbrey

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