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

[Jon Awbrey]

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QUIPS.  Discussion Note 14

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GR = Gary Richmond

GR: I suppose at this point I might as well quote the entire passage
    following this, for it's here that the snippet I posted earlier
    is to be found.  Stjernfelt comments on the above quotation:

    | This property clearly distinguishes it from pure indices and symbols:
    | If we imagine a pure, icon-less index (only possible as a limit case),
    | then it would have a character completely deprived of any quality, a
    | pure here-now of mere insistence, about which we would never be able
    | to learn anything further, except exactly by some kind of icon of it.
    |'And 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.'  (Stjernfelt, p. 359) [emphasis added].
    |
    |'Transactions of the C.S Peirce Society', 36.3 (Summer, 2000)

JA: Then again, at another remove of abstraction, the distinction
    between constants and variables is itself interpretive, or
    relative to interpretation.

GR: But to my way of thinking, this would tend to support
    Stjernfelt's thinking in the matter.  In any event,
    Stjernfelt's general discussion of the central status
    of the diagram in iconicity prepares for the quotation
    from "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (PAP)
    that Joe provided a day or so ago, the analysis of the
    implications of the PAP forming the rest and principal
    part of the essay.

Gary,

Okay, pending a better example of a pure symbol than the index 'x',
it is likely that I have a different sense of what a "context" is.
As I understand it, the most inclusive definition of "context" is
just the brand of context that we otherise call a "sign relation".
Consequently, I would have to take exception to any equation like:
"context, syntax, system, or the like" = "in some kind of iconical
relationship", since that would involve us in the idea that every
sign relation is iconic, which there is no good reason to believe.

Jon Awbrey

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