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

[Jon Awbrey]

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AIR.  Discussion Note 31

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GR = Gary Richmond
JA = Jon Awbrey
KM = Kirsti Määttänen

Re: AIR-DIS 29.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-May/002640.html
In: AIR-DIS.     http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-May/thread.html#2637

KM: In a similar vein that the mode of being of a symbol cannot be
    reduced to existent replicas of it, a habit cannot be reduced to
    the instances of reactions effected by e.g. replicas of a symbol.

JA: This is a true statement.  It amounts to the objection
    of a rational(ist) thinker to the imputed reductions
    of a nominal(ist) thinker.  As such, it should have
    been taken as well enough founded at the outset of
    our discussion, and is therefore just one more of
    the reasons why this whole topic of replicas was
    a sheer digression.

GR: I agree that Kirsti's statement "that the mode of being of a symbol
    cannot be reduced to existent replicas of it" is a true statement,
    but I  do not agree with Jon's that that statement ought imply
    that "this whole topic of replicas was a sheer digression",
    for as Peirce writes:

CP 4.50 ... no assertion can be constructed out of pure symbols alone.
   Indeed, the pure symbols are immutable, and it is not them that are
   joined together by the syntax of the sentence, but occurrences of them --
   replicas of them.

Gary,

The first time one of my teachers drew a chalk circle on the chalkboard
and then explained that this wasn't a real circle but only a crudely
approximate representation of one -- well, that time is lost in the
grateful oblivion of childhood -- but I do have conscious memories
of my later studies in math, a large portion of which concerned the
distinction between relatively abstract forms and their relatively
concrete representations, in about twenty different senses of the
words "concrete" and "representation", so you need not point out
this relatively trivial point to me again.  Is this trivial fact
about the relation between forms and representations what Peirce
is belaboring in his comment?  No, I don't think so.

We may have established that Peirce used the adjective "pure"
in at least a couple of different senses, but I do not think
that this would come as any shock to Merriam and/or Webster.
A "pure_1 symbol" is constrasted with those that incorporate
icons or indices, and includes the words "and", "or", "of",
etc.  A "pure_2 symbol" may refer to a distinction between
the law of the symbol and the symbol-in-law, but that case
remains to be sufficiently examined.  Whatever the case,
there is simply no plausibility to the interpretation
that confounds these two senses.

GR: But even more to the point:

    | A Symbol is a sign which refers to the Object that
    | it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association
    | of general ideas, which operates to cause the Symbol to
    | be interpreted as referring to that Object.  It is thus
    | itself a general type or law, that is, is a Legisign.
    | As such it acts through a Replica.  (CP 2.249)

Good example.  Peirce uses the word "symbol" in several different senses
just within this single paragraph.  If we substitute the supposed equals,
we get "a symbol is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by
virtue of a symbol".

GR: A symbol "acts through a Replica".  And certainly "or", "and", and "-<"
    are e-replicas of whatever "pure symbols" they might be representing in
    your or my mind.

No, whatever you are talking about is already a general form
and no sort of individual, or it simply would not exist in
any kind of distributed form that could be shared between
two interpreters or even extended over time in one mind.
Since it is a general form, we might as well just call
it a symbol, as most folks, including Peirce, always
do when they are not acting like nominal thinkers
and seeking some fantasy of ontological security
in absolutely individual existences.

GR: But even if after we've allowed these putative "pure symbols"
    yet see the necessity of "activating" (= "acts through a Replica")
    such operators as are our examples, still even if one were to grant
    that there are such "pure symbols" as these, most symbols are, shall
    we say, considerably richer than such signs as "-of-" "or" etc.  And,
    further, the use of even such symbols as "and" and "or"  invariably
    becomes meaningful only within some context employing richer symbols,
    in some actual semiosis with its activating replicas.  How else would
    a symbol live and grow as Peirce says they do and as we see them doing?
    Activation is no small matter in semiosis, and is exactly connects
    symbols to a real objective world of experience,

GR: So while:

CSP: | If the word "man" occurs hundreds of times in a book of which
     | myriads of copies are printed, all those millions of triplets
     | of patches of ink are embodiments of one and the same word.
     | I call each of those embodiments a replica of the symbol.
     | This shows that the word is not a thing.  What is its nature?
     | It consists in the really working general rule that three such
     | patches seen by a person who knows English will effect his conduct
     | and thoughts according to a rule.  (CP 2.227)

GR: it will be necessary that some "triplets of patches of ink" will
    have to spell out (or triplets of sound will have to speak out)
    "man."  The replica is needed, exactly because the symbol is
    admittedly "not a thing", and needs be activated in semiosis. 

GR: So, as in the example we've considered here several
    times, that of the line of identity, Peirce writes:

CSP: | But when we consider the
     |
     |  --is identical with--
     |
     | connexion of this portion with a next adjacent portion,
     | although the two together make up the same graph, yet the
     | identification of the something, to which the hook of the
     | one refers, with the something, to which the hook of the
     | other refers, is beyond the power of any graph to effect,
     | since a graph, as a symbol, is of the nature of a law,
     | and is therefore general, while here there must be an
     | identification of individuals.  This identification
     | is effected not by the pure symbol, but by its
     | replica which is a thing.

CSP: | This identification is effected not by the pure symbol,
     | but by its replica which is a thing.

The "thing" that Peirce is calling a replica is only relatively
more concrete than the symbol that it represents, but it remains
a general form, still not identical with that physical streak of
of graphite particles or CRT pixels that close examination would
reveal to be far from continuous and thus far from being adequate
to serve as a literal icon of the form of continuity supposedly
being "replicated" in it, an imagined form of continuity that
is actually projected onto it from the generality of either
an abstract symbol or the still abstract replica of such
a symbol.  So, if you imagine the replica continuous,
then the replica is not a "thing", either.  At this
point, the figure of speech that withholds their
thinginess from things becomes exposed for the
untenable figure that it is.

GR: Again, the semiosis is "effected not by the pure symbol, but
    by its replica" even in the case of "--is identical with--"

Semiosis is not effected by symbols or by their replicas.
They are not symbols or replicas until semiosis makes em.

GR: The consideration of the replica is hardly a "sheer digression".

It is just irrelevant to what Peirce
is saying about symbols that do not
incorporate either icons or indices.

Jon Awbrey

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