[Inquiry] Re: Pure Symbols -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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PS.  Discussion Note 15

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BM = Bernard Morand

Re: PS-DIS 14.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/002485.html
In: PS-DIS.     http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/thread.html#2466

BM: I suggest answering Jon's question by means
    of an old procedure that Peirce often used:
    proof by contradiction.  I suppose a common
    agreement according to which arguments are
    existing signs the purpose of which is
    without importance here.

BM: Now, an argument can't be issued by means
    of an index that offers only an indication
    or as the lawyers say a presumption.  It can't
    neither be issued by means of an icon that only
    offers a hypothesis or suggestion.  Thus, if there
    are no pure symbols, there are no arguments.  QED.

BM: I remember Joe making the argument that if all A are B and all B are C
    then the fact that all A are C must not be necessary owing to the context
    in which the premisses are expressed.  But the conclusion fails to make an
    argument for lack of leading principle.  A leading principle is a pure symbol.

Bernard,

Actually, I would agree to the pertinence of the pragmatic maxim,
the consideration of effects and ends and so on, in any question
of meaning.  But I do not think that invoking the pragmatic maxim
will avail the contention against pure symbols, much the contrary.

A principal use of categories in Aristotle was to resolve equivocations,
designed to prepare ambiguous signs for the application of logical laws.
An equivocation is a variation in meaning, or a manifold of sign senses,
if you will, and so Peirce's claim that three categories are sufficient
amounts to an assertion that all manifolds of meaning can be unified in
just three steps.  I can hardly think of another way to approach such a
bold assertion, if not through the provision that 3-adic sign relations
are sufficient to cover every aspect of meaning.

I haven't really examined the claim that propositions and argumentations
are symbols that involve icons and indices as a necessary part of their
functions, simply taking it on faith for now, since the point has never
been whether such complex symbols exist, but whether any pure ones do.

One question:  I'm assuming by "leading principle"
you mean a rule of inference like 'modus ponens'?

Jon Awbrey

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