[Inquiry] Re: Pure Symbols -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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PS.  Discussion Note 6

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JA = Jon Awbrey
JP = Jim Piat

Re: PS 2.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/002468.html
In: PS.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/thread.html#2465

In part:

JA: This is one of the most critical features of Peirce's theory of signs.
    Without the provision of pure symbols, a theory of signs, and with it
    the corresponding theory of inquiry, will quickly fall prey to all of
    the mistakes that 2-adic correspondence theories of truth are heir to.

JP replies:

JP: I would argue just the opposite.  To suppose that symbols only represent 
    objects as a matter of convention comes mighty close, in my view, to some 
    sort of dyadic pairing of the symbol and the object.  Sort of like Palovian 
    conditioning.  I have always thought that Peirce's genius lay in recognizing 
    that a triadic relations was inextricably and irreducibly comprised of both 
    the inconic and indicative (as well as the interpretive).   Not altogether 
    unlike Frege's account including as it does attention to both the sence 
    (iconic/connotative) and reference (indicative/denotative).

JP: Hmmmm -- as I'm sitting here thinking, I wonder if that quote from
    Gary wasn't mostly refering to the surface quality of embodied signs --
    whether the actually physical sign was ever purely symbolic.   In this
    case the answer would be (as Peirce says) very rarely -- perhaps only in
    the case of such words as prepositions.  In most cases the actual physical
    symbol itself has at least subtle if not conspicuously overt iconic and
    indicative (onomatopoeiatic) traces.  But as a process, as a relation --
    I still think Peirce veiwed all triads as including the monadic and
    the dyadic.  Though at this point, in the face of Gary's quote,
    I concede the burden of proof has shifted to me.  Which given
    my lack of scholarship and diligence does not bode well for
    my argument!  In any case, thanks again for your comments, 
    on -- always stimulating and informative.

Jim,

The questions are:

   1.  What is an adequate definition of sign relations?

   2.  What is an adequate definition of purely symbolic sign relations?

   3.  Does a definition of sign relations in question
       admit a class of purely symbolic sign relations?

In Peirce's world, we have to use the word "convention" very carefully.
In one sense it means an agreement among a community of interpreters,
and is thus a compromise notion that mediates between the ostensibly
singular arbitrariness of single arbiters and the commonly assumed
to be moderated arbitrariness of multiple arbiters.  This form of
convention was associated by Peirce with inductive inference and
indexical signs.  But the form of agreement that symbols permit
is an agreement with the invariant properties of their objects,
and this is one of their critical features.  I do not see any
way that this "comes mighty close ... to some sort of dyadic
pairing of the symbol and the object", especially in so far
as ever truer concepts of objective realities are the very
things that have to be constructed, developed, and evolved
over time.

Speaking of overtime:

Michigan State -- 94
Kentucky       -- 88

In double overtime!!

Jon Awbrey

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inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
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