New subject: [PEIRCE-L] 10 Classes of Signs (Question on CP 8.376, 1908)

25 Jan 2024

Jon, Helmut, List,

I don't disagree with your analysis.  But what it shows is that abstract analysis
provides zero information about any particular case. 

Peirce revolutionized the field of logic, he made major contributions to methods of
reasoning, to methods of analysis and to methods of representation in lexicography,
phaneroscopy, semeiotic, and, scientific research (methodeutic).   His 10 classes of signs
are important, but beyond that, he could only give a few examples, and he never showed the
value of that abstract analysis with any concrete results for any kind of application.

Fortunately, Lady Welby had an enormous influence on Peirce.  She had zero interest in
those abstractions. In evaluating the importance of Peirce's late writings, it's
essential to read his letters to her.  She kept him focused on reality.

It's not an accident that Peirce dropped the word 'phenomenology' and replaced
it with 'phaneroscopy', which puts more emphasis on concrete examples, rather than
formal analysis.  In his last decade, his examples and methods of analysis show a strong
influence of Welby's interests and subject matter.   He kept working on EGs, but he
used them to represent subjects that are more concrete than abstract -- he kept that goal
of representing images, especially stereoscopic moving images.   

Although Welby did not understand EGs, I believe that she kept him focused on representing
imagery.    And I believe that the importance of imagery is the reason why he replaced the
trichotomy of word oriented rheme-dicisign-arguent with the more general trichotomy that
included imagery:  seme-pheme-delome.

John

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From: "Jon Alan Schmidt" &lt;jonalanschmidt(a)gmail.com&gt;

Helmut, List:

HR: it is the interpreter, who does the inference ...  it is the interpreter, who receives
the sign, and then forms the interpretant

As I have said before, this is true in the sense that the interpreter's mind is
another sign, which co-determines the dynamical interpretant along with the individual
sign being analyzed. That is why the same individual sign can have different dynamical
interpretants--different interpreters have different collateral experience and different
habits of interpretation. Any dynamical interpretant of an individual sign (the effect
that it actually does have) is a misinterpretation to the extent that it deviates from the
final interpretant of that sign (the effect that it ideally would have), which obviously
must be consistent with its immediate interpretant (the range of effects that it possibly
could have). The proper aim of inquiry in accordance with the normative science of logic
as semeiotic is conforming all our dynamical interpretants of signs to their final
interpretants, i.e., adopting only true beliefs such that the corresponding habits of
conduct would never be confounded by any possible future experience.

HR: The sign anyway is prescinded from the, in reality not reducible, sign triad. ...
Prescission might be seen as an error, so this is error propagation.

Again, in my view, each individual genuine triadic relation with its three individual
correlates is prescinded from the continuous process of semiosis. Prescission should not
be seen as an error--it "consists in supposing a state of things in which one element
is present without the other, the one being logically possible without the other" (EP
2:270, 1903). We can suppose an individual sign with its individual object and its
individual interpretant being present, apart from other signs with their own objects and
interpretants, because these are all entia rationis--"fictions recognized to be
fictions, and thus no longer fictions" (R 295, 1906). As an engineer, I routinely
employ prescission to create diagrams of buildings that include only their primary members
and connections, omitting everything else that is really present but incidental to their
structural behavior. Such a model is not erroneous as long as it adequately captures every
aspect that is significant for the analysis being performed
(https://www.structuremag.org/?p=10373).

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 9:13 AM Helmut Raulien &lt;H.Raulien(a)gmx.de&gt; wrote:
Jon, Cecile, List,

Jon, in your first paragraph you wrote about inference. I agree. Therefore I find it a bit
problematic to say, that the sign determines the interpretant, because the sign doesn´t
infere, it is the interpreter, who does the inference. But ok, I guess we might say, that
Peirce prescinds the semiosis from the interpreter, so, ok, the flow of determination goes
from the sign to the interpretant, because it is the interpreter, who receives the sign,
and then forms the interpretant, and, if you donot mention the interpreter, well, then you
just skip her/him/it. But I think, that this skipping is only justified, if the
interpretant is true, because then it (the interpretant) is a subset of the final
interpretant, and not a misinterpretation. But: Can we take that for granted?

Talking about precission: The sign anyway is prescinded from the, in reality not
reducible, sign triad. If we say, that something prescinded determines something else,
this determination too is prescinded. Prescission might be seen as an error, so this is
error propagation. That, i guess, is the reason, why this whole determination affair is
somehow confusing. It surely is, if we take "determination" too literally, I
mean, if we take it too muchly for real. Do you agree? You see, I have been trying very
hard to not contradict Peirce.

Best, Helmut

Re: [PEIRCE-L] 10 Classes of Signs (Question on CP 8.376, 1908)