Jon,
That quotation from 1866 is very old. Many years later, he wrote or edited over 16,000 words as an associate editor of the Century Dictionary. He learned very well that nearly every word has a large number of word senses. The only words that have a single sense are words that were deliberately coined and standardized for some branch of science or engineering. And even in science, the word senses evolve as the theories develop.
It's more correct to say that a sign mark or sign object can have an open ended range of interpretants that are determined by the context of the text or conversation and the intentions of the speaker. And the sign interpreter may have a different interpretation of the context and different intentions in mind. Therefore, misunderstandings are frequent, and some discussion may be necessary to determine an interpretation that speaker and listener can agree to.
Lady Welby had a very strong influence on Peirce's late writings. She stated very clearly that words do not have a fixed meaning, and Peirce's correspondence with her is essential for interpreting his late writings (from 1904 to 1913).
John
From: "Jon Awbrey" <jawbrey@att.net>
Subject: [CG] Re: Interpreter and Interpretant
Interpreter and Interpretant • Selection 3
All,
The following selection from Peirce's “Lowell Lectures
on the Logic of Science” (1866) lays out in detail his
“metaphorical argument” for the relationship between
interpreters and interpretant signs.
❝I think we need to reflect upon the circumstance that every word
implies some proposition or, what is the same thing, every word,
concept, symbol has an equivalent term — or one which has become
identified with it, — in short, has an “interpretant”.
❝Consider, what a word or symbol is; it is a sort of representation.
Now a representation is something which stands for something. I will not
undertake to analyze, this evening, this conception of standing for something —
but, it is sufficiently plain that it involves the standing to something for
something. A thing cannot stand for something without standing to something
for that something. Now, what is this that a word stands to? Is it a person?
❝We usually say that the word “homme” stands to a Frenchman for “man”.
It would be a little more precise to say that it stands to the Frenchman's
mind — to his memory. It is still more accurate to say that it addresses
a particular remembrance or image in that memory. And what “image”, what
remembrance? Plainly, the one which is the mental equivalent of the word
“homme” — in short, its interpretant. Whatever a word addresses then or
stands to, is its interpretant or identified symbol. …
❝The interpretant of a term, then, and that which it stands to are identical.
Hence, since it is of the very essence of a symbol that it should stand to
something, every symbol — every word and every “conception” — must have an
interpretant — or what is the same thing, must have information or implication.❞
(Peirce 1866, Chronological Edition 1, pp. 466–467).
Reference —
Peirce, C.S. (1866), “The Logic of Science, or, Induction and Hypothesis”,
Lowell Lectures of 1866, pp. 357–504 in Writings of Charles S. Peirce :
A Chronological Edition, Volume 1, 1857–1866, Peirce Edition Project,
Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1982.
Resource —
Hypostatic Abstraction
Regards,
Jon