ONT Re: Signs Of Pragmata -- Discussion
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SOP. Discussion Note 1
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HT = Hugh Trenchard
Re: Signs Of Pragmata 1. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05410.html
NB. I "think" I finally got all of the typos out of this latest copy.
Hugh,
I like your way of asking "all" the questions that come to mind,
and so I will take some care and some time in trying answer them.
I need to say at the outset, though, that I will answer from my
own peculiar point of view, and I really have no idea what may
be considered the "received view" on Peirce as of this moment.
Different readers of Peirce seem to favor different "definitions"
or "characterizations" of the sign relation. Robert Marty, et al.
have collected 76 + 12 of them at his site in Perpignan, and these
are also available at Joe Ransdell's "Arisbe" website:
http://www.univ-perp.fr/see/rch/lts/marty/
http://www.univ-perp.fr/see/rch/lts/marty/76defeng.htm
http://members.door.net/arisbe/
http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/rsources/76defs/76defs.htm
My personal favorite definition would probably be Number 14 from the above lists.
The current definition is Number 15, and I will confess that I find some aspects
of it confusing to me, still, but I like it especially because of the "sunflower"
illustration, which was critical to piquing my interest in the subject many years
ago, partly because it made a connection in my mind to the way that I used to view
group theory in those days.
To represent a 3-tuple <x, y, z> such that xy = z in a group G,
I used to draw a picture of something like the following shape:
x y
\ //
\ //
\//
|||
|||
|||
z
Then I would chain these together in trees and cycles to represent the
more complex constructions that I had to think about in a given setting.
When I used this tactic to represent the elementary sign relations among
the sunflowers and the sun, I ended up with pictures something like this:
s_1 s_2
o o o o
| \ / |
s_8 o--o o o--o s_3
o \ | / o
\ o o o /
o--o O o--o
/ o o o \
o / | \ o
s_7 o--o o o--o s_4
| / \ |
o o o o
s_6 s_5
Of course, it could be any multitude of sunflowers, not just eight.
When it comes to the placemattes |, ||, ||, however, what assignment
makes the most sense? Does it really matter all that much if we place
the Sun, the object O, in first or second of third place, so long as we
dub it the object, isn't that enough? Well, that depends. Some people
will read this story as Peirce saying something significant about the
relationship between the three sign roles and his three "Categories",
which he often gave the maximally abstract names First, Second, Third.
And here you will find a lot of fights break out. Where have all the
flowers gone? And so it goes. I personally do not choose to take it
that way, mostly because it is apparently possible to rationalize so
many different correspondences that none of them wins out as unique.
Let 10^3 flowers bloom. Or maybe it's just 3! -- yes, 3 factorial.
I obviously need more coffee before going on ...
Jon Awbrey
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http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
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