Edwina,

I strongly agree with you that Peirce's analyses of those subjects are extremely valuable. I also believe that his analyses are at the forefront of 21st C cognitive science in those areas. That is a conclusion of my recent article, of which I recently sent the completed Section 7 to these lists.

But in his important analyses of those subjects, I have not seen him show how his theory of interpretants aided him in the discovery and formulation of his commentary.

Can you (or any other reader of P-List) find any important (or just useful) example of an insight in which Peirce's theory of interpretants helped discover that insight?

John

From: "Edwina Taborsky" <edwina.taborsky@gmail.com>
Sent: 2/2/24 5:01 PM
To: John F Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net>
Cc: Peirce List <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>, CG <cg@lists.iccs-conference.org>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Interpretants

John, list

I wouldn’t say that the Interpretants are a muddled uselessness.I think they play a vital role. I think, however, that attempting to find exact and singular meanings of terms is not very functional.

I use Peirce primarily for analysis of both biological and societal systems -

I find him extremely perceptive, above all, with his analysis of the Categories- The reality of ‘modes of Being’ is extremely difficult to find in other scientific or philosophical outlines - ie - Most analyses of ‘matter’ view it as almost inert ‘stuff’ and focuses more on mechanical interactions or puzzles over quantum ‘weirdness’. But - to outline concepts of ‘feeling’ [ and even protoplasm feels]; the concept of reaction - and - the concept of habit formation - all three categories found as universal - I personally find this very functional in explaining both biological systems and societal systems. .

Then - I find his focus on the multiple nodal sites of the semiotic process to be useful; and I view semiotic processes as operative in all of matter, both physical and biological and in societal systems. That is, I full yagree with Peirce’s view that the whole universe is composed of signs [plural]; and indeed, is a vast semiosic process.

So- I find the hexadic semiosic process very useful: that is, the interactional information functionality of an external relation of the sign vehicle to its environment [ which relation becomes the Dynamic Object]. And then, the internal nature of the dats from this DO - which is commonly quite different from the ‘full nature’ of the DO - ie, the Immediate Object. Then, the Representamen as mediation. Accepting the input data and analyzing it.

And then- the three Interpretants - with the Internal Interpretant as the individual’s local subjective reaction; the external - or Dynamic Interpretent as the Individual’s more objective reaction…and finally - the acknowledgment by Peirce that there could be a commonly developed interpretation of these stimuli. That is - the role of the individual within the community.

And of course, all of these ’nodes’ can also function within the three categories, which increases the complexity of the semiosic function.

- I DO see a very vital role for the Interpretants. ..in enabling deviation from the data of the Dynamic Object - and enabling adaptation of the sign vehicle and the development of new Habits [held within the representamen of the sign-vehicle. ]. That is - the fact that there are three interepetants, moving from the immediate local perception of the input data , to an external objective result [ does the effect of the input data as expressed...have any functional result? ..and then..on to the larger collective result - does this function to CHANGE THE HABITS OF THE REPRESENTAMEN?

Edwina

On Feb 2, 2024, at 4:30 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net> wrote:

Edwina, Jon AS, Jon A, Helmut, List,

Peirce made immense contributions to 21st century research in all the branches of cognitive science. But he never found any informative or useful applications of his writings on interpretants. He was struggling with the ideas up to the end.

Peirce scholars never built any extensions to his writings on interpretants because Peirce himself was unable to produce a useful system. He couldn't convince anybody, not even himself. See the end of this note for the citation and quotations from the Stanford article. Conclusion: Neither Peirce nor anybody else ever developed the theory to make useful predictions about anything.

In short, I wouldn't say that Peirce's writings on interpretants are wrong -- just that they are so vague that nobody has been able to use them to do or say anything useful.

Recommendation: Let his writings on interpretants rest in peace (RIP), and focus on the great body of work that is at the forefront of the latest developments in cognitive science.

John

From: "Edwina Taborsky" <edwina.taborsky@gmail.com>

John, list

Regardless of the terminology, which I acknowledge obscures the analysis, I think that one can conclude that Peirce’s view is that there are three Interpretants. One is Individual Internal; the next is Individual External, and the last one is Collective External. And- each of these three ’nodes’ can be in any one of the three modal categories.

That’s how I see it.

Edwina

On Jan 31, 2024, at 6:37 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net> wrote:

I rarely comment on discussions of interpretants, because nobody, not even Peirce, had a complete, coherent, and decisive theory of interpretants. Perhaps some Peirce scholars have developed theories that go beyond what Peirce wrote. That is possible, but nobody can claim that their theories are what Peirce himself had intended.

On these issues, I recommend the article by Albert Atkin in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, first version in 2006 and major update in 2022: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/

Atkin has a thorough list of references for anybody who intends to study this topic. See below for some quotations from the end of the article that show how incomplete, indefinite, and uncertain Peirce's own writings happen to be.

I don't want to discourage anybody from discussing interpretants. But since Peirce himself was uncertain and indecisive, nobody can claim that their interpretation is what Peirce had intended.

John
_______________

As is common with all of Peirce’s work in philosophy, various changes in terminology and subtleties with accompanying neologisms occur from one piece of work to the next. His work on interpretants is no different. At various points in his final accounts of signs, Peirce describes the division of interpretants as being: immediate, dynamic and final; or as emotional, energetic, and logical; or as naïve, rogate and normal; or as intentional, effective and communicational; or even destinate, effective and explicit. As Liszka (1990, 20) notes, “the received view in Peirce scholarship suggests that the divisions of interpretant into immediate, dynamic, and final are archetypal, all other divisions being relatively synonymous with these categories.” There are, however, some dissenters from this view.
In discussing the interpretant, Peirce describes one of the trichotomies above as follows:
In all cases [the Interpretant] includes feelings; for there must, at least, be a sense of comprehending the meaning of the sign. If it includes more than mere feeling, it must evoke some kind of effort. It may include something besides, which, for the present, may be vaguely called “thought”. I term these three kinds of interpretant the “emotional”, the “energetic”, and the “logical” interpretants. (EP2. 409)
. . .

Peirce describes the dynamic interpretant as deriving its character from action (CP8 .315 1904), but later says, “action cannot be a logical interpretant” (CP5 .491 1906). This seems to make the two inconsistent. (See Liszka (1990, 21) for more on the problems with Fitzgerald’s claim). Moreover, this inconsistency seems to suggest a problem for Short’s view since his account also suggests that the dynamic interpretant should include the logical interpretant as a subdivision (Short 1981, 213). Short, however, claims textual support for his own view from instances where Peirce mentions the emotional/energetic/logical trichotomy alongside the apparently separate claim that signs have three interpretants. (Short sites (CP8 .333 1904) and (CP4 .536 1906). Short takes this as suggesting that the two should be treated as different and distinct trichotomies. (Short 2004, 235).
How far the textual evidence on the matter will prove decisive is unclear, especially given the fragmentary nature of Peirce’s final work on signs. However, one or two things militate in favor of the “received view”. First, Peirce is notorious for experimenting with terminology, especially when trying to pin down his own ideas, or describe the same phenomenon from different angles. Second, it is unclear why trichotomies like the intentional/effectual/communicational should count as terminological experiments whilst the emotional/energetic/logical counts as a distinct division. And finally, there is little provision in Peirce’s projected sixty-six classes of signs for the kind of additional classifications imposed by further subdivisions of the interpretant. (For more on this discussion see, Liszka 1990 and 1996; Fitzgerald 1966; Lalor 1997; Short 1981, 1996, and 2004).