Re: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

Re: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

RE: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

Re: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

Re: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

Re: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

RE: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

RE: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

RE: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

Hi gnox (Gary F.), all,

In reply to gnox's 2/27 response to my 2/26 message:

> Robert, the significance of your worry about "ad hockery" in Joe's   
> argument is much clearer to me now, and i see why my previous post   
> does nothing to eliminate the problem. I agree that a given   
> distinction, if it is valid in the first place, should not be barred  
>  from participation in any argument; and i think Joe would also  
> agree  on that logical point. But on my reading of Joe, we could say  
> that  the DO/IO distinction is NOT valid in the first place IF it is  
> made  "with an axe", as Peirce would say -- that is, if it denies  
> the  continuity of semiosis, or more specifically, the real  
> connection  between DO and IO. (This is what i had in mind in my  
> earlier  message, when i referred parenthetically to "comparing the  
> discrete  DO with a discrete IO".)

I think that one of the most important aspects of the 1868-69  
cognition series is its implication that a given cognizing mind and  
the world that it cognizes are continuous with one another. As I read  
those articles, Peirce is maintaining that there is no determinate or  
fixed boundary between the mental and the non-mental, between the  
internal and the external. And so far as I can tell, this synechistic  
view of the connection between mind and non-mind continues into the  
1900s. So I completely agree with you when you say:

> it would also violate synechism to make the  distinction between the  
> inner and outer "with an axe" -- valid and  useful as that  
> distinction is.

(And although I am unfamiliar with the work of Humberto Maturana,  
which you and Søren Brier mentioned in subsequent messages, from your  
description it does seem very non-Peircean and anti-synechistic.)

I am not yet sure, though, how this application of synechism  
interfaces with Peirce's eventual IO/DO distinction. Returning to my  
earlier example... If I think that my car is missing a windshield  
wiper, the IO of that thought-sign is an earlier thought-sign about my  
car (an internal event), and its DO is the car itself (an external  
thing). But in the causal chain leading from my car to my thought that  
it's missing a wiper, there are a number of events intermediate  
between the car and my thought about it. Some of those events are  
neurological (brain events, and thus external in Peirce's sense);  
others are mental (internal) but not one and the same thing as the  
IO--they are psychological states or events that precede and  
contribute to the formation of the IO. So while I agree that, on  
Peirce's view, there is no determinate boundary between the external  
and the internal, no sharp metaphysical border between neurological  
events and mental events, I do still think that Peirce could have  
maintained that, within a given instance of semeiosis, a sign's DO and  
IO are distinct from one another. While the causal process leading  
from my car to my thoughts about my car is a continuous one, there is  
still a real difference between my car and my thoughts about it,  
including a thought that serves as an IO relative to some later thought.

In putting the point this way, I am probably "injecting causality"  
into the IO/DO distinction in a way that Clark will find  
objectionable. But this is the most plausible understanding of that  
distinction that I've been able to come up with so far. Clark wrote on  
Feb. 25: "But for Peirce while we can say an object determines an  
interpretant I don't think we ought say an object causes an  
interpretant." But Peirce seems to have held that causation is one way  
in which an object can determine an interpretant by way of a sign: "a  
sign is a something which is on the one hand caused or otherwise  
determined by something else ... but on the other hand it determines  
some thing to be through it determined as it is by the object of the  
sign.” (R 499:39-41, 1906). And anyway, any thoughts I have about my  
car are causally determined by my earlier interactions with car (but  
not by those interactions alone, of course). So it would count as a  
mark against Peirce's semiotics if it didn't make room for such causal  
determination of thoughts about the external world.

> On another matter i seem to disagree with you more strongly. I   
> mentioned Peirce's argument (in the Cognition series) against our   
> ability "rightly to judge whether [a] cognition has been determined   
> by a previous cognition or whether it refers immediately to its   
> object" (W2:193). Your reply comments that
> [[ The question Peirce is posing in that passage is whether we can,   
> BY INTUITION, "judge whether [a] cognition has been determined by a   
> previous cognition or whether it refers immediately to its object." ]]
> I don't think so. Peirce isn't talking about whether the JUDGMENT is  
>  "by intuition" or not -- rather an intuition, as he defines it, IS  
> a  cognition not determined by a previous cognition.

You are right about how Peirce defines "intuition" in the cognition  
series: "Throughout this paper, the term intuition will be taken as  
signifying a cognition not determined by a previous cognition of the  
same object, and therefore so determined by something out of the  
consciousness." (5.213, W 2:193) But I still maintain that in the  
relevant passage, the first question Peirce poses in "Questions  
Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed For Man," he is asking whether we  
can distinguish intuitions from non-intuitions by way of intuition  
itself. In fact, I think it's pretty straightforward that that's the  
question he's asking:

**************
QUESTION 1. Whether by the simple contemplation of a cognition,  
independently of any previous knowledge and without reasoning from  
signs, we are enabled rightly to judge whether that cognition has been  
determined by a previous cognition or whether it refers immediately to  
its object.
...
Now, it is plainly one thing to have an intuition and another to know  
intuitively that it is an intuition, and the question is whether these  
two things, distinguishable in thought, are, in fact, invariably  
connected, so that we can always INTUITIVELY distinguish between an  
intuition and a cognition determined by another. (5.213-14, W  
2:193-94, emphasis added)
**************

What he's arguing here at the beginning of "Questions" is that we  
cannot tell the difference between intuitions and other, non-intuitive  
cognitions by using intuition. That conclusion leaves open the  
possibility that we do in fact have a faculty of intuition. (Of  
course, by the end of "Questions," he has argued that we don't have a  
faculty of intuition at all, and that every thought-sign of X is  
preceded by an earlier thought-sign of X.)

So rather than say, as you do, that

> his claim is  that we have NO way detecting that a given cognition  
> is in fact  intuitive, i.e. that no previous cognition has entered  
> into it

I would state his claim as follows: we have no INTUITIVE way of  
detecting that a given cognition is intuitive. We do have a way of  
"detecting" (in a loose sense) that all cognitions are in fact  
non-intuitive... we "detect" this by way of abductive reasoning from  
what we know about the external world and what that knowledge suggests  
about the way the mind works. As he says early in "Some Consequences  
of Four Incapacities" (the second paper in the 1868-69 cognition  
series), "We can admit no statement concerning what passes within us  
except as a hypothesis necessary to explain what takes place in what  
we commonly call the external world." (5.266, W 2:213)

Best regards,
Bob

-- 
Robert Lane, Ph.D.
Secretary-Treasurer, Charles S. Peirce Society
Associate Professor and Director of Philosophy
Department of English and Philosophy
University of West Georgia
Carrollton, GA 30118

678 839 4745
rlane <at> westga.edu
http://www.westga.edu/~rlane

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Re: Slow Read: "The Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical Object Distinction"

Gary, all

In response to Gary (Richmond)'s 3/1 response to my message of 2/26  
(and with a couple of asides to acknowledge gnox's message of 3/3):

1. On the subject of whether a sign's IO is ever one and the same  
thing as its DO.

Gary, your asked me to further elaborate on my reading of CP 4.536...

"I have already noted that a Sign has an Object … But it remains to  
point out that there are usually two Objects …. Namely, we have to  
distinguish the Immediate Object, which is the Object as the Sign  
itself represents it, and whose Being is thus dependent upon the  
Representation of it in the Sign, from the Dynamical Object, which is  
the Reality which by some means contrives
to determine the Sign to its Representation." (CP 4.536, 1906;  
“Prolegomena to an Apology For Pragmatism”)

On my reading, "The IO of a sign is ontologically dependent on the  
sign itself; no sign, no IO. This is very different from the DO of a  
sign. The being of a DO does not depend on whether a given sign  
represents it."

You wrote:

> [GR] While it is certainly true that "the being of a DO [is] not dependent
> on whether a given [emphasis added] sign represents it," yet it seems to
> me that my/our collateral knowledge of the DO is built up from various
> IOs in consideration of it. So, "the  Dynamical Object. . . is the
> Reality which by some means contrives to determine the Sign to its
> Representation." CP 4.536 (see Ben's recent post for more of this
> passage) and that "means. . . to determine the Sign" is, as I see it,
> our various IOs of the Reality (DO) determining signs of it. Thus, no DO
> no IO, no IO no Sign.
>
> [GR] As I recall, Peirce's the order of semiosis is:
> some portion of Reality == Direct Object -> Indirect Object -> Sign ->
> Interpretant Sign. For example, I am intrigued by a particular piece of
> Greek sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I view it from
> various angles and see features which suggest to me that it is dated too
> early; later, at home I do further research and find that, indeed, the
> Classical date has recently been put into question with a later
> Hellenistic dated being proposed; I return to the museum and find that
> my present visual experience confirms that Hellenic date; some years
> later I find that the MMA now gives the later date. So, the DO (the
> sculpture) determined my IOs (which included visual signs, thought
> signs, etc.), that is, which determined those internal Signs which with
> other Signs (e.g., my research) lead me to that Interpretant Sign having
> the meaning of the 'correct' date of the piece.
>
> [GR] So, yes, in a genuine triadic relationship such as those involved in
> semiosis, all three aspects are necessary and none may be omitted in
> consideration of an actual semiosis. But your "no sign, no IO" seems to
> me to reverse the semiosic process--that the object determines the sign
> for its interpretant. Or, perhaps, if one suggests that the IO is
> dependent on a sign or signs, those signs would be involved in earlier
> collateral experience as signs of that Reality. Then, that complex Sign
> may truly represent  aspects of a DO (upon which it is dependent, which
> is what I was trying to stress in my gloss of your first Peirce
> quotation, I think). However, I may be missing your point here.

Gary, you and I seem to be in agreement that the being of a given DO  
does not depend on its being represented by any specific sign. Given  
Peirce's view that anything that is real is capable of being cognized  
and therefore represented, anything real has the potential of serving  
as a DO relative to a sign. But no given Real MUST be cognized or  
represented. If a Real (e.g., a stone at the bottom of the ocean that  
no one ever discovers or, more importantly, even thinks about) is  
never represented, then it never serves as a DO; but it is nonetheless  
real. Its reality doesn't depend on its being a DO.

[An aside... gnox wrote on 3/3: "i wouldn't go quite so far as to say  
that the IO is ontologically dependent on the sign and the DO isn't. I  
would say that the DO qua Object is dependent on the sign in the sense  
that without the Sign there would be no Object at all, there would be  
only the phaneron. The reality of the Dynamic Object, its being what  
it really is, does not depend on the Sign in any way, but its being an  
Object does." I agree with most of this, gnox. That a Real, X,  
functions as the DO of a sign does depend on there being that sign.  
But that X is real does not at all depend on whether it is actually  
represented. However, I don't think I would follow you so far as to  
say that "without the Sign there would be no Object at all, there  
would be only the phaneron." Actually, I'm not sure why you say  
this... Could you elaborate?]

Where we seem to differ is on the question whether a given IO depends,  
for its being, on its being represented by any specific sign. If I am  
right, then any IO, even the IO of a true thought-sign (e.g., my  
thought that my car is missing a wiper), is an idea in the mind of the  
person whose thought-sign is in question (in this example, that would  
be me). Now I'm not terribly confident about this, but as I wrote  
earlier, it's the interpretation that, to my mind, makes the best  
sense of Peirce's 1909 description of the IO as "the Object as  
cognized in the Sign and therefore an Idea". Given that IOs are always  
internal (mental), how best can we make sense of Peirce's description  
of the IO as "the Object as the Sign itself represents it, and whose  
Being is thus dependent upon the Representation of it in the Sign"?  
And how can we do this without implying that a thought-sign determines  
(causally or otherwise) its own IO?

One way of answering the question is to say that a thought that is an  
IO relative to some later sign does not depend on that later sign for  
its being qua thought, but only for its being qua IO. In other words,  
whether a given thought serves as an IO for a later thought depends on  
whether that later thought occurs. Of course, whether the earlier  
thought occurs does not depend on whether the later thought occurs (no  
backwards causation here). But whether it serves as an IO for that  
later thought certainly does depend on whether that later thought  
happens. (I suspect that this is too simple to be an accurate  
explanation of Peirce's views. And I fear that a more accurate  
explanation would take us into the role of teleology in Peirce's later  
semiotics, and I don't have any confidence that I understand that yet.)

2. On Objective Idealism.

> [GR] Finally, concerning the matter of objective idealism in Peirce, you
> wrote:
>
> [RL] As I read it, Peirce's objective idealism is not directly relevant
> to these questions about IOs and DOs. As I understand it, Peirce's
> objective idealism ("matter is effete mind") is a form of monism,
> according to which mind and matter are not two radically different kinds
> of substance.
>
> You comment that Peirce's form of objective idealism is a monism
> concerned especially with the relationship "between different types of
> lawfulness" is, I think, right on target. However, as I see it, the IO
> is related to Peirce' position of objective idealism insofar as we
> stand in a very peculiar relation to all this mind/matter/lawfulness
> because, to some extent, we can and do come to know (scientifically and
> otherwise) at least aspects of this objective reality because we are
> evolutionarily equipped to do so. It is because we can reflect on those
> signs representing the real characters of the cosmos that our
> interpretations of the world can have generalizable (not just personal)
> meaning. Or better, since we can share our ideas, even have some of them
> scientifically confirmed by others, they can come to us to approach
> truths of an objective Reality,  and precisely because we have found a
> method to arrive at this quasi-consensus as we approach the resolution
> of some question as a community of scientific interest. So, as I see it,
> the definition of objective idealism is a mere starting point: a
> critical method (involving the rhetoric of Pragmaticism) is needed. It
> methodologically pulls into it DO (involving, typically, shared
> collateral experience of some reality) -> IOs -> Ss -> Is -> tending
> towards a Final Interpretant which is not mine nor yours but ours.

Gary, you may need to say more about this before I understand it. The  
question at hand is whether IOs are always internal or mental. On my  
reading, objective idealism implies that the difference between matter  
(which is external) and mind (which is internal) is one of degree:  
matter behaves more regularly (deterministically) than mind (but is  
not completely deterministic). If a thought-sign is a sign of a  
physical object (e.g., my thought that my car is missing a wiper),  
then its DO is material and thus subject to greater regularity than  
its IO, which is (on my current understanding) an earlier thought of  
the car. But this analysis assumes that the IO is internal, mental.  
That assumption is consistent with objective idealism. But it's also  
consistent with objective idealism to identify the DO and IO of a true  
thought-sign and thus to imply that (at least some) IOs are external.  
So I still don't see the relevance of objective idealism to the  
present question.

3. IOs, Thoughts and Ideas

> [GR] Finally, you wrote:
>
> [RL] I'm not sure how this interfaces with the question whether IOs are
> always ideas, i.e., items that are mental and thus always internal to
> some or other mind (and, to reiterate something I wrote in my earlier
> response to gnox, it's that sense of "idea" that I think Peirce has in
> mind in that Feb 26 1909 letter to James from which I  quoted in my
> first post).
>
> [GR] It is true that while "[t]he Sign may have any Modality of Being, i.e.,
> may belong to any one of the three Universes; its Immediate Object must
> be in some sense, in which the Sign need not be, Internal," as Ben
> quoted Peirce in a letter to Lady Welby. But are shared ideas--as
> connected to individuals' IOs--"always internal to some or other mind"
> in some ultimate sense? As IOs, clearly the answer is yes. But, even if
> they were originally internal to some mind, yet they can be shared,
> transmitted, so to speak.
>
> [GR] They are, after all, nothing more nor less than
> our conscious experience of things which we typically use language and
> other human signs and symbols to express to ourselves and to others
> (they are not, that is, impenetrably locked up in any ones head). I
> offer you, say, my fresh abduction, and now it is also yours; that is,
> we share it, might both devise tests of it, etc. It is the same sign,
> Peirce would say (no doubt with different interpretants being
> generated). Indeed, it seems to me that communication presupposes that I
> intend to share my inner life in some way, to some extent, to some
> purpose, and in the doing of that--when there is shared meaning--that
> thought goes "out into the world," is, again, no longer only my thought.

Ah, yes. Peirce sometimes reserved the word "thought" to talk about this...

"[T]he question between nominalists and realists relates to thoughts,  
that is, to the objects which thinking enables us to know." (1.27, 1909)

"One selfsame thought may be carried upon the vehicle of English,  
German, Greek, or Gaelic; in diagrams, or in equations, or in graphs:  
all these are but so many skins of the onion, its inessential  
accidents." (4.6, 1898)

In this sense, a thought is not a person-specific mental item or event  
but something "public" that can be shared across such items or events.  
So perhaps, in his 1909 description of the IO as "the Object as  
cognized in the Sign and therefore an Idea", he had in mind by "Idea"  
what in the above passages he called "thoughts." But even in that  
case, when the DO of a sign is an external, physical object (like my  
car), its IO would still be something other than that DO; it would be  
a publicly accessible thought of my car that you can I can share. So  
it would still be the case that the DO and IO of a given thought-sign  
are distinct, even if that thought-sign is true. (Right?) This is  
consistent, I think, with what gnox wrote on 3/3:

[gnox]: "I would say it's no longer internal to your individual mind,  
but it's still internal to the commens consisting of all who share the  
thought. And the DO is still external to that commens while the IO is  
internal to it."

Best regards,
Bob

-- 
Robert Lane, Ph.D.
Secretary-Treasurer, Charles S. Peirce Society
Associate Professor and Director of Philosophy
Department of English and Philosophy
University of West Georgia
Carrollton, GA 30118

678 839 4745
rlane <at> westga.edu
http://www.westga.edu/~rlane

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** the central pointer and guide for Peirce resources on the web: 
**            http://csp3.blogspot.com/ 
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** If you want to cancel your subscription to PEIRCE-L  
** send a message to the list manager at:   
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