[Inquiry] Re: Pure Symbols -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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PS.  Discussion Note 7

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Re: PS 1.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/002465.html
In: PS.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/thread.html#2465

In part:

JA: The hedges of "formal existence" and "qua sign relations" were meant
    to rule out the consideration of concrete signs, physical embodiments,
    replicas, sign vehicles, and so on, the question here being the formal
    status of an analytic or ideal species.

Gary,

A helping of additional explanation on the concept of "formal existence".
I used that phrase partly to exclude at the concrete level and partly to
include at the abstract level Peirce's idea of "existence" as that which
"stands out" and "reacts against".  In the weakest sense, a thing exists
at the formal level if its existence is consistent with whatever axioms
and definitions are in place.  In this case, it would be the definition
of a sign relation, plus accessory definitions of triple correspondence
and formal determination.  And yet, anyone who spends much time living
on this level can tell you that it has its own forms of brutality, and
it is one of those brutal life lessons, very analogous to those that
we know and love/hate in the concrete sphere, to set aside what one
wishes were true in favor of what can "actually" be proved true.

What Peirce says about analytic schemes for signs is also helpful here:

| But the different essential external relations of representation
| can be distinguished very well, because all things do not stand
| in essential relation to any one representation.  It is true,
| that these relations are themselves representations and so
| involve each other.  But though they cannot be separated
| in the nature of things, they can in representation.
|
| C.S. Peirce, 'Chronological Edition', CE 1, 324

This business of characters that cannot be separated
in the nature of things but can be in representation
is the very business of classification in accordance
with ideal types.

Jon Awbrey

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