[Inquiry] Re: Futures Of Logical Graphs -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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FOLG.  Discussion Note 9

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JA = Jon Awbrey
JR = Joe Ransdell

Re: FOLG-DIS 8.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-October/003145.html
In: FOLG-DIS.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-October/thread.html#3135

Joe, Peirce List,

JR: Then, because you seem to be using this notion of the more
    abstract formalism to elucidate the notion of the pure symbol
    as something not contaminated by any essential relationship to
    a contaminating iconicity or indexicality, I pointed out that
    you are again, as in our earlier discussion, characterizing --
    or, as I would say, mischaracterizing -- the question at issue
    as regards the "pure symbol" and its relation to icons and indices
    as being a matter of the structural relation of a whole to its parts,
    as distinct from being the claim that the function of the symbol --
    that which it does as such -- essentially involves the functioning
    of icons (and in the case of "complete" symbols the functioning of
    indices as well).  That is, I suppose that this is what you are
    doing in talking about the "genuine symbol" as not involving
    icons and indices as parts of it.

Speaking of mischaracterization, you continue to exploit the rhetorical
insinuations of words like "contamination" in a way that is really quite
ludicrous, and that I have already spoken to numerous times.  Once again,
and I hope for the last time, this does not involve some kind of fetish or
taboo about "Purity Of Essence" a la Dr. Strangelove, and I have yet to put
in question either the evidence for or Peirce's testimony for the existence,
utility, and admitted virtues of symbols that do involve icons and indices,
since I can't yet imagine how I would doubt it.  The question is simply one
of whether there exist symbols that do not involve icons and indices.  Here,
we have Peirce's testimony in one place that he thinks there are such things,
and what he thinks a likely sample of them are, and in other places we have
him seeming to say something different.  The easiest way to reconcile that
anomaly has always seemed to me to be the very same tactic that I would
adopt for any apparent contradiction in a writer who generally knows
what he or she is talking about, namely, to take into due account
the differential approximation, enthusiasm, or stress of the
various and sundry discursive moments in question.

As far as the difference between function and structure goes,
this may be culture difference, as the myriad of math-minded
minions like myself will consider that all one, at least, if
viewed at the proper level of abstraction, since "functions"
or "operations" are mathematical objects that have structure
in their own right, possibly according to multiple different
paradigms of analysis.

JR: Then, finally, I remarked on the questionable character of the logical 
    principle you cited in your argumentation for the above, namely, that
    "What goes for the medium must go for all the signs that it mediates",
    saying that I saw no reason for accepting it.

The sense of this heuristic slogan is something that I tried to clarify here:

FOLG-DIS 4.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-October/003138.html

JR: In sum, since what you have been doing, at your usual highly protracted pace,
    seems to me to be going nowhere, but which I cannot rule out as impertinent
    here, I was trying to bring it back to a discussion of philosophical issues
    that might be of interest to a substantial number of people on the list
    instead of passively allowing you to continue in what seems by now to
    be pure monologue, possibly of interest to nobody on the list, or
    at least to be so esoteric as to be inappropriate to a list with
    a general purpose such as the present one.

The bird of pragma that Peirce pursued is a great and gangly bird indeed,
and it's understandable that a given individual would be happy to chew on
a drumstick or a wing, if only our would-be-feter can cacciatore the beast.
I hope that some of the pertinence to persons perusing Peirce is now plainer.

Jon Awbrey

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