[Inquiry] Re: Questions Involving Pure Symbols -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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QUIPS.  Discussion Note 13

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GR = Gary Richmond

Gary,

A query about the passage you quoted.

| "[If] we imagine a purely symbolic sign (limit case),
| say e.g. the variable x, we could not learn anything
| about it except when placing it in some context,
| syntax, system, or the like, that is in some
| kind of iconical relationship." (359)

That's Stjernfelt, right?  Does he give a parallel citation from Peirce?
It's very important to keep track of the dates on these citations, given
the variable way that Peirce classifies variables over time.  In general,
although there are abstract contexts in which variables might be forced
into a symbolic mode of interpretation, they are more commonly regarded
as indices, and so I would not pick them first and foremost as examples
of pure symbols in the current sense.  Then again, at another remove of
abstraction, the distinction between constants and variables is itself
interpretive, or relative to interpretation.

Jon Awbrey

GR: Having reread Stjernfelt's paper yesterday (I last read it when it was
    published in 2000), I would agree with you that it does not support the
    notion of a pure symbol as Jon Awbrey  is presenting it.  Since the paper
    seems to me exceedingly important--I studied it intensely when it was first
    published, making extensive notes and the like, finding it a real stimulant
    and aid to my work towards developing a diagrammatic trichotomic -- I would
    of course be pleased to have you extract and/or paraphrase material from it,
    and not only  for the purposes of refuting Jon's conception of the pure symbol.
    But for that purpose and for starters, how about this brief snippet?

| "[If] we imagine a purely symbolic sign (limit case),
| say e.g. the variable x, we could not learn anything
| about it except when placing it in some context,
| syntax, system, or the like, that is in some
| kind of iconical relationship." (359)

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