Edwina, List,
As a logician and mathematician, Peirce understood the methods of precise reasoning in lengthy deductions. But as a linguist and engineer, he also understood the issues of continuity or synechism.
In ordinary language, every word has a broad range of meanings. The senses listed in a dictionary are a small finite set of the the continuum. Peirce understood that very well in his work for the Century dictionary and Baldwin's dictionary.
I have quoted and cited professional lexicographers, who admit "I don't believe in word senses." Lady Welby said something very similar, and Peirce agreed.
You don't need to know or apply any linguistic theory to realize that the issues are so complex that trying to build a theory on top of Peirce's three words is extremely difficult. As Short said, Peirce was "groping".
I'm not saying that Peirce's writings on the subject are wrong. But I am claiming that if Peirce himself couldn't develop a solid coherent theory, I don't trust anybody else's attempts.
Question: Can anybody find a practical version of interpretant theory that is written for anybody other than Peirce scholars? In short, can it be used for any practical purpose? What kind of applications would be possible?
I mean USEFUL applications that do something practical that could not be done as well or better without a theory of interpretants. I have written a lot about applications of Peirce's theories in computer science, computational linguistics, and artificial intelligence. But I have never found a use for interpretants. Many other authors have found important applications of Peirce's ideas and theories and cited them in their publications. But I have never seen anybody who mentioned interpretants. Can anybody find any published examples? By anybody for any practical purpose?
That reminds me of the parody: "This theory is so perfectly general that no practical application is possible".
John
,From: "Edwina Taborsky" <edwina.taborsky@gmail.com>
John
I don't see what linguistic understanding of words has to do with the interpretants.
The utterer’s Object [his words] can only carry his reality [phaneron] within the words he knows. - and as Peirce said - [can’t recall the reference] if the Object is unknown, then, the words used to describe it are open to interpretation; and if the utterer doesn’t have the words to describe the phaneron…this is a problem. AND the context for the meaning of the words is held within the knowledge base [ the Represenamen]. This is also a problem - what if the utterer has no context for this phaneron???In a constructive intreating - presumably, the listener shares some of this contextual knowledge base and so, can to a certain extent, understand the Utterer. If he doesn’t share this knowledge base - then- the resultant interpretation is quite different from the utterer’s intended meaning.
We all know how such an interaction is open to misunderstanding. And to my knowledge, no scholar has ever been able to reduce the capacity for misunderstanding these verbal interactions. That’s because of so many issues: the different knowledge bases held within the representamens; the multiple meanings of words and the reliance on linguistic context, word order, intonation …
I don’t see what these issues have to do with the three interpretants.
My view of the interpretants refers to a situation where data/information is moved from the Object via the Representamen’s knowledge base ---and the Interpretant's function is to clarify the nature of the input data…from its first internal reaction…moving on to a reaction to that input…and maybe, sometime…if these interactions are operative within a community - to the development of a habit-of-dealing with this input. So, an animal will develop a thick coat of fur to deal with long term cooling temperatures and this behaviour will be common to all members of the local species.
As for linguistics - I’m not a follower of that discipline- and so, can only refer to Bakhtin’s ‘dialogic’ emphasis on context enabling linguistic changes.
Edwina