[Inquiry] Re: Pure Symbols -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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PS.  Discussion Note 33

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AB = Auke van Breemen

Cf: PS-Mar.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-March/thread.html#2465
Cf: PS-Apr.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-April/thread.html#2517

AB: Regarding pure symbols I do have a question.

AB: On your interpretation of pure symbols,
    do you regard the Sheet of Assertion or
    the Phemic Sheet also as a pure symbol?
    Like and, or, etc.

Auke, Peirce List, Cybernetics List,

Generally speaking, I think that signs are typed as they are interpreted,
in particular, the iconic/indicial/symbolic typing of a sign is never an
absolute or essential category but a hermeneutic, interpretive, relative
category, dependent solely on the sort of sign relation that the sign is
regarded as occupying.  That is probably the chief reason why we have so
much dispute here, since there is really no fact of the matter about the
type of sign that rests in the sign alone, apart from any interpretation.

That said, there are any number of ways that we can establish particular
conventions, within the pale of which we can render the typing a logical
rather than a purely psychological matter, if not a wholly political one.

One way to achieve a sort of consensus is to reason like this:

   1.  The sign t has the type T in every sign relation L of the family F.

   2.  Sign relations of the family F currently give the best explanations
       of the data that are actually observed in the phenomenal domain Q.

On those grounds of discussion, Q, we will tend to say that sign t has type T.

When we don't have the guidance of an empirical domain to test models against,
as often happens in purely logical or non-applied mathematical investigations,
then we have to go on the basis of the mininal assumptions that can be formed.

That is the ballpark that we find ourselves in when we approach
the unmarked medium, asking about its necessary logical meaning.

Given just the choices between the Entitative or Existential interpretation,
we have the choice of calling the SA false or true.  Not only that, but the
unmarked medium has interpretations that range not simply over the spectrum
of logical constants {False, True}, but across a range of logical operators,
in this case {Or, And}.  In contemporary computer science this is generally
known as "polymorphism".  So it is very difficult to imagine how the SA can
be seen, prior to its interpretation one way or the other, as being an icon.

Jon Awbrey

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