From: Vinícius Romanini <viniroma <at> yahoo.com>
Subject: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)"
To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l <at> lyris.ttu.edu>
Date: Tuesday, May 3, 2011, 2:38 AM

Dear list members,   This is my first post for the Slow Read of Joe Ransdell´s "Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)," under revision. (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics): http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/ library/aboutcsp/ransdell/eds. htm I start by saying that this slow read might get slower than expected due to my not being an English native speaker. I hope you will be generous and won´t bother too much about eventual misspellings or grammatical mistakes.   A personal remark: I met Joe only once during the days he spent in São Paulo for a Workshop on Computational Intelligence and Semiotics in 2002. I introduced myself to him after one of the meeting to thank him for his kind work in the Arisbe website and Peirce-L. It followed that I had a hard time understanding him during that short talk because his southern accent was very intense, even for me that had lived some months in Texas back in 1985. I was already part of the Peirce-L in 2002 and probably more active than I am today. Joe had never exchanged a message with me in the list, but showed that he was very informed about everything I wrote. Basically, he disagreed with most of it, but encouraged me to keep working and sending messages because that was the only possible way to find out if there was any sense in what I was doing. I found that very Peircean and so I kept my work.   My reading of Joe´s paper is biased by my understanding of Peirce´s semeiotic. So I better start by saying right away what was Joe´s basic disagreement with my approach: he did not believe that a formalistic study of Peirce´s classification of signs would ever help us understand Peirce´s large system of sign as related to his general thought. (BTW, I have heard this same opinion from many others scholars, such as Tom Short and Mats Bergman). Joe always thought that one should study Peirce´s definition of sign and semeiosis by grasping the foundations of his philosophical building. That means a deep analysis of Peirce´s most important papers, most of all, the "New List". He was adamant about this and.   Keeping this in mind will help us understand (in my p.o.v.) some characteristics of Joe´s entry about Peirce published originally in 1986 in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics) and later published in the Arisbe website as a way to gather critical opinions and while waiting for the oportunity for a new edition of that volume. For instance, there are no triangles, tables of logical relations or any other diagrammatization of the sign trichotomies or/and semeiosis. Just plain text and, at most, some schematic distinctions of the three correlates presented in the Syllabus of 1903 (paragraph  52).   Since most of my work IS about diagrammatization, triangles and tables trying to grasp the logic under Peice´s semeiotic, some of you  could think that I should be the least person in this List to be indicated to a slow reading of Joe´s paper. But I think that things get much more interesting when opinions do not coincide completely. So I accepted this task quite happy.   So here we go...   An initial remark specifically about the paper we are about to read. It is clear for me that Joe was not altogether satisfied with what he was written. Joe writes in the version online:   This is an incompletely revised version of the original, which is being made available for purposes of critical feedback while the revision is still in process. It will in due time be submitted to the place of original publication as a revision to be substituted for the original whenever the occasion to update it arises. Paragraph numbers have been added to this version--bracketed, in the right margin--for purposes of scholarly reference to this version of it.   Another hint about Joe´s dissatisfaction: in paragraph 32 Joe left a bracketed remark probably put to himself: [Still not coherent: keep rewriting.]   It would be interesting if anyone in the List could offer the original version of the Dictionary so as to compare the versions while we do the slow reading. I do not have it.   In the next days, I will send a general appreciation about this text as see it. Later on I will go to some of the specific questions that the text arises, hoping that you will help me to understand what was Ransdell´s view of Peirce´s theory of signs.    Best,    Vinicius Romanini, Ph.D. Professor of Sciences of Communication School of Communications and Arts University of Sao Paulo, Brazil www.minutesemeiotic.org

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From: Gary Fuhrman <gnox <at> gnusystems.ca>
Subject: RE: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)"
To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l <at> lyris.ttu.edu>
Date: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 5:47 PM

Vinicius (and list),

 

In view of what Joe Ransdell says in the paper we'll be slow-reading next month –

http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/phenom.htm –

i think some of your questions may be a bit misdirected. In that paper, JR makes it clear that in his view, Peirce's “phenomenology” is simply another term for his “doctrine of categories”, and he explicitly denies any resemblance between Peircean and Husserlian “phenomenology”. (Rather surprisingly, he ignores the question of whether Peircean phenomenology resembles the Continental variety in its methods or its account of how phenomenology is done, as opposed to the doctrines it generates. But i'll save that discussion for next month.) When Joe writes “that Peircean semiotic (as a general theory) is phenomenologically based”, he is definitely using the term in what he takes to be the Peircean sense.

 

When you suggest that “Joe seems to be too much attached to a phenomenological view of Peirce´s semeiotic,” your usage of the term “phenomenological” seems to me neither Ransdellian nor Peircean. Consequently i don't find his definition of the sign in the present article to be either “phenomenological” (in your sense) or “idealist” (though it's not clear to me what you mean by that). Whatever he means by “objective content,” it's certainly not “a bow to Brentano´s and Husserl´s discussion of intentional object, phenomenon etc.” Having said that, i do find Joe’s definition here a bit strange, and i'm glad you've raised questions about it. I hope you and others will come up with better answers than i can offer at the moment.

 

One other comment: Your first message pointed to Joe's emphasis on the “unitary” (his word) nature of Peirce's philosophy, and i think this is evident in both his encyclopedia article and next month's paper on the question of phenomenology. Especially in the latter paper, he goes far beyond rejecting the idea that Peirce's later work corrects mistakes he made earlier: his view seems to be that Peirce's entire philosophy and semiotic are essentially complete in the 1867 “New List of Categories”, and the rest of his life's work was mostly a matter of filling in the details. His entire discussion of Peirce's phenomenology is based on his reading of the “New List” (which does not use the word “phenomenon” or its derivatives at all) and does not even glance at the substantial (though fragmentary) section on phenomenology in CP 1, which is mostly from post-1900 manuscripts. Joe’s “unitary” view also accounts for his deliberate choice in the encyclopedia article on Peirce to ignore “considerations pertaining to the chronological development of his thought.” (Why should his thought “develop” if it was essentially complete in 1867?)

 

My own take on Peirce's “development” is, i think, similar to yours: that we can see Peirce's late semiotic logic and philosophy as growing continuously from his early work, modifying and amplifying rather than rejecting or correcting it. I think you're quite right to set up Joe's position in opposition to writers like Goudge and Short who exaggerate the deficiencies of Peirce's early work. And like you, i tend to side with Joe on that issue -- but would rather take a developmental position between the two camps.

 

Anyway, i'm looking forward to hear what others make of Joe's rather peculiar definition of “sign” in the article we're looking at now. One last question: you wrote

[[ Joe believed, with all of the others, that the interpretant should be triadically divided in immediate, dynamical and final. But he disagreed that each of these could be further divided in emotional, energetic and logical (as Short and myself defend).]]

But is there not a third possibility, that these two divisions of the interpretant might be considered as alternate versions of (or alternate terms for) a single trichotomy rather than one being nested within the other?

 

          Gary F.

 

} It takes a long time to learn that life is short. [gnox] {

 

www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm

 

From: Vinícius Romanini [mailto:viniroma <at> yahoo.com]
Sent: May-04-11 10:34 AM
To: Peirce Discussion Forum
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)"

 

Dear list members,   My first question for discussion is about Ransdell´s general definition of sign and its range. He says (#6):   "(...) a sign (sometimes called "representamen") is anything whatsoever which is capable of manifesting anything whatsoever in any respect (directly or indirectly), that which is manifested being called its "object"; and the response to the sign as such (that is, what we might ordinarily call an "interpretation" of its meaning or significance by an "interpreter") is thought of primarily in respect to its objective content rather than as an act, this possible objective content--the technical name for which is "interpretant"--being the third term of the basic sign relation."   Joe also says that this definition is "applicable to all processes and products which exhibit intelligence to any degree. Considered apart from its application to this or that special subject-matter or problem, then, the theoretical conception of a sign--or, more exactly, the conception of the triadic (that is, three-term) sign relation--is a highly abstract explication of the formal structure of intelligence, which Peirce himself regarded as co-extensive with life."  (#4).   My question: 1) What is the semeiotic threshold assumed by Joe here? What is he assuming to be definitely semeiotic in nature and what still needs further confirmation ?   My guess is that Joe did not hold a "grand vision" like the one Deely defends, in which semeiosis is universal - that is, the pansemeiotic view. I am with Deely here. My opinion is that if we assume a strict logical definition of sign and semeiosis, then we will sooner or later have to admit that there is logic in all natural processes, and that our ability to guess the truth of the laws of nature comes from the atunnement between the human mind and the mentality that is semeiotically active in nature.   Joe seems to be too much attached to a phenomenological view of Peirce´s semeiotic, and not a strict logical one. He himself assumes that but quite late in the article (#54):   "Something which has been implicit throughout the foregoing account should be emphasized at this point, namely, that Peircean semiotic (as a general theory) is phenomenologically based, and the effective application of it will often--though not always--require the user to adopt the same basic point of view."   Maybe this is result of Joe´s idealist position which, by its turn, is more congenial with Peirce´s early writings.  So my second question:   2) How much of this phenomenological approach taken by Joe weakens Peirce´s "extreme realism" of his mature years?   Another question is about Joe´s insistence that the interpretant of the sign should be taken as the objective content of interpretation and not the act of interpretation itself. There are a number of times in which he repeats it. In paragraph #6 above but also:   #8) An interpreter's act of interpreting can be regarded as a special case of an interpretant (though as so regarded that act is implicitly thought of as being the objective content of another interpreting act);   #22) This essay (that is, what is being said here) is, then, a sign (S1) whose object is Peirce's semiotic, and your understanding of this essay--not your act of understanding but rather its objective content--is an interpretant of this sign (and is therefore itself a further sign of Peirce's semiotic).   # 53) This distinction is almost always discussed by Peirce in contexts in which it is clear that he is concerned with interpreters and their interpretations, considered as psychical acts or responses (as distinct from the objective content of such acts or responses).   I don´t recall Peirce ever using "objective content" to define the interpretant, so there must be something here that Joe wants to stress about HIS opinion of how the interpretant should be understood.  This might be directly related to Joe´s phenomenalistic view of semeiotic too. So:   3) Is this expression "objective content" a bow to Brentano´s and Husserl´s discussion of intentional object, phenomenon etc?   Maybe Joe is trying to explain Peirce´s semeiotic to a general public which he is taking to be more acquainted with this line of thought.   But I think there is something deeper here and might have to do with the scholar discussion about Peirce´s notion of interpretant which again contrasted Joe and "Fitzgerald (1964), Short (1981a), Buczynska-Garewicz (1981a), and Eco (1976a, l976b, and 1981)", as Joe himself puts in # 53.   Joe believed, with all of the others, that the interpretant should be triadically divided in immediate, dynamical and final. But he disagreed that each of these could be further divided in emotional, energetic and logical (as Short and myself defend).   # 53: "Peirce made what appears to be a second three-way distinction of the interpretant into the "emotional," "energetic," and "logical" during the same period in which he distinguished the immediate, dynamical, and final interpretant. (...) This distinction is almost always discussed by Peirce in contexts in which it is clear that he is concerned with interpreters and their interpretations, considered as psychical acts or responses (as distinct from the objective content of such acts or responses)."   So here we get an interesting answer: Joe first discriminates between 1) objective contents and 2) acts or responses. Then he says that only objective contents are really interpretants. So acts and responses are connected to a psychological interpretER and interpretation. Ergo, the division of emotional, energetic and logical has to do with a psychological analysis (Peirce´s sop to Cerberus) of semeiosis, and not a phenomenological (and genuine) one, as Joe´s expressing in his article.   I disagree with Joe here too. If we go to Peirce´s letters to Welby, it is clear that he is doing a logical analysis of the 10 respects of the sign in which every single one is divided triadically, including the immediate, the dynamic and the final interpretants. This bears important consequences in the general range of semeitic too.   One of them is including habit as a fundamental feature of Peirce´s mature semeiotic. In Joe´s text, habit is cited only once and marginally. I find this awkward due to the importance Peirce gives to this concept in his late years. But then, again, habit is not a key concept in the New List as it became in the mature years...   I will stop now and give the List sometime to comment what I have written so far.   All the best,   Vinicius Romanini, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Studies School of Communications and Arts University of Sao Paulo, Brazil www.minutesemeiotic.org www.semeiosis.com.br --- On Tue, 5/3/11, Vinícius Romanini <viniroma <at> yahoo.com> wrote: -

 

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Click on the following URL link for THE PEIRCE BLOG, the

central pointer and guide to Peirce resources on the web:

                  http://csp3.blogspot.com/

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