SUO: Re: Sign Relations
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Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:
>
> Jon, I seem to remember that Peirce had a definition of "determination"
> which went like: to determine is to cause something to not be what it
> could have been otherwise.
Yes, I have referred to that characterization on many previous occasions --
the example of "the raindrop which determines a rock to be wet, but only
if the rock has not already been drenched by the prior rainstorm", or
words to that effect, has always been my favorite illustration, and
the one that returns eternally to mind, but I sought to plumb a bit
deeper this time around, and I believe that I have adduced enough
material to suggest rather strongly that what Peirce had in mind --
I have made use of late texts from CP so far, just for the sake
of their accessibility and familiarity, but there are even more
definitive and precocious texts from CE 1 that I am planning to
quote eventually -- was in fact an information-theoretic notion
and not in the first instance a causal relation, though they do,
of course, often go together. Now in this regard I am under the
distinct impression, though I will continue to check it, that you
have imported the notion of cause-effect, a dyadic relation, into
a context of triadic sign relations where Peirce was most generally,
as a practice and as a rule, very assiduous to sift out cause as an
accidental attribute of the kind of determination that he had in mind.
But an issue like that can only be decided by returning to the source,
and comparing what the source says with what we can discover to make
sense in objective practice, and not being too selective in the
emphasis of our reading and the boldness of our citing.
> In the case of the sign, object, and interpretant, you have
> to consider their respective forms. Choose the form of O
> and it will cause the form of S to not be what it could have
> been, had O not been what you chose it to be; idem with I.
> For instance a priman in O can only determine a priman in S;
> a secundan in O can only determine a secundan or 2 primans
> in S, etc.
Again you interject the word "cause", which worries me.
And why is it only the "form" that is material here?
And what is this "priman" and "secundan"?
And when will we ever get beyond this
one-tuple-at-a-time view of it all?
Jon Awbrey
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