Interpreter and Interpretant • Discussion 2
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https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/02/03/interpreter-and-interpretant-disc…
Re: Interpreter and Interpretant • Selection 1
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https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/27/interpreter-and-interpretant-sele…
Figure 1. The Sign Relation in Aristotle
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https://inquiryintoinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/awbrey-awbrey-1995-e…
Re: Laws of Form • Lyle Anderson
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https://groups.io/g/lawsofform/message/2868
LA: You can not find “ground” in Aristotle.
If the past three years have shown us
anything it is that his assertion:
❝But the mental affections themselves, of which these words
are primarily signs (semeia), are the same for the whole of
mankind, as are also the objects (pragmata) of which those
affections are representations or likenesses, images, copies
(homoiomata).❞
LA: Is just plain wrong. The whole of mankind does not have the
same “mental affectations”, some are sane and some are insane.
Lyle,
What prompted the present review of basic issues in semiotics was
a couple of recent instances where one of the most nagging questions
in the whole field reared its shaggy head again. As I posed it this
time around —
❝In a theory of three‑place relations among objects, signs,
and interpretant signs, where indeed is there any place
for the interpretive agent?❞
It's best to take the Selections I gathered not as Scripture but
as case studies in the conduct of inquiry where the inquirers in
question managed to capture significant features of the way triadic
sign relations structure the phenomena of cognition, communication,
and computation. No one in science gets everything right all the
time, much less at first, but first approximations taken for what
they're worth prime the pump of stepwise refinement in semiotics
as in computer science.
In that spirit, Susan Awbrey and I summed up our estimation of
Aristotle's Approximation to the Sign Relation in the following way.
<QUOTE Awbrey & Awbrey:>
Aristotle's description contains two claims of constancy, that ideas and
objects are the same for all interpreters. This view does not allow for
the plurality and mutability of interpreters, two features that we must
be concerned with in hermeneutics and education. John Dewey expresses
this point well:
<QUOTE Dewey:> ❝Thinking is specific, in that different things suggest their
own appropriate meanings, tell their own unique stories, and in that they do
this in very different ways with different persons.❞ (Dewey 1910/1991, 39).
</QUOTE>
However, this account of Aristotle's may be considered in part a reasonable
approximation and in part a suggestive metaphor, suitable as a first approach
to a complex subject. (Awbrey and Awbrey, 1992/1995).
</QUOTE>
References —
Aristotle, “On Interpretation” (De Interp.), Harold P. Cooke (trans.),
pp. 111–179 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William
Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
Awbrey, J.L., and Awbrey, S.M. (1995), “Interpretation as Action : The Risk
of Inquiry”, Inquiry : Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 15(1), 40–52.
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https://web.archive.org/web/20001210162300/http://chss.montclair.edu/inquir…
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https://www.pdcnet.org/inquiryct/content/inquiryct_1995_0015_0001_0040_0052
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https://www.academia.edu/1266493/Interpretation_as_Action_The_Risk_of_Inqui…
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https://www.academia.edu/57812482/Interpretation_as_Action_The_Risk_of_Inqu…
Regards,
Jon