Re: Deja Vu All Over Again • A Question About Peirce's Categories

Gary, List,

Only have time for a few stray thoughts as I mull over the discussion of the past week or so ...

If we are going to make any progress in this area -- signs and time -- there are some things I think 
we need to do.  Saying it somewhat paradoxically, we are going to have to get more abstract and more 
concrete at the same time.  To put it more plainly, we need to disentangle the many different levels 
of abstraction in the complex subject matter of sign relations and we need to develop a stock supply 
of well-studied examples to ground the tendency toward a-priori bubble blowing.  All the sciences we 
know and love, even mathematics, have had to do this at the appropriate stage of their development.

Sign relations, if we take Peirce at his best definitions, are very abstract, more geometrical than 
temporal.  We can add a consideration of time and arrive at a concept of sign processes or semioses. 
  We can add a consideration of value, for example, different degrees of clarity, information, 
truth, or any other measure of goodness that a sign might have in respect of its object, and that 
leads us to a concept of inquiry, a sign process leading to signs of higher value under the measure 
in view.

Regards,

Jon

Gary Richmond wrote:
 > Jon, list,
 >
 > Thanks for this, Jon. I see that my present position is pretty much
 > identical to what it was then (2012, and even earlier, as Ben had just
 > recovered my first post on the topic). I would, perhaps, add only a short
 > quote I recently found to help clarify at least one aspect of my position.
 >
 > CP 7.422 A part of this instinctive science, as we may call it, is that
 > events succeed one another in time, that the past, when not too remote, is
 > remembered, that the future, when not too remote, can be with some
 > probability conjectured or anticipated, and that a single moment between
 > the past and the future, (that is, some facts belonging to that moment), is
 > directly before the mind.
 >
 >
 > One can see this succession as the overlapping tripartite moments Peirce
 > analyzes elsewhere (where the middle of one moment becomes the beginning of
 > another, etc.). Again, I would suggest doing this simple *thought
 > experiment*: as you speak a fresh sentence all of this can be seen in
 > approaching the middle of your sentence--that is that:you, in effect,
 > recall the first part and, in effect, anticipate the conclusion. (When
 > you're done you will of course be able to repeat the sentence to yourself
 > exactly since now all of it is past and freshly remembered.)
 >
 > Well, perhaps that's too psychological an example for our semiotic
 > purposes. But I believe that this view of at least conscious/lived time
 > (which, again, is not the abstract 'instant' but the tripartite overlapping
 > of moments) will pass strict scrutiny.
 >
 > As for the rest of the 'time' debate, I certainly would only be repeating
 > myself thrice (or more!) to add anything else. As to how the present
 > quotation/example/experiment might (or might not) have implications for
 > biosemiotics, I'll let others more knowledgeable than I sound in on that.
 >
 > Best,
 >
 > Gary
 >
 >
 >
 > *Gary Richmond*
 > *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
 > *Communication Studies*
 > *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
 >
 >
 > On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Jon Awbrey <[email protected]> wrote:
 >
 >> Peircers,
 >>
 >> I exhumed a few archive links from the discussion last year.
 >> It looks like the original query posted to the list is here:
 >>
 >> Sympa: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2012-03/msg00107.html
 >> Gmane: http://web.archive.org/web/20131214180752/http://
 >> permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/7973
 >>
 >> After which much discussion followed:
 >>
 >> Sympa: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2012-03/thrd5.html
 >> Gmane: http://web.archive.org/web/20131214180813/http://
 >> comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/7973
 >> Gmane: http://web.archive.org/web/20131214193400/http://
 >> comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/7983
 >>
 >> Ending about here:
 >>
 >> Sympa: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2012-03/msg00203.html
 >> Gmane: http://web.archive.org/web/20131214191000/http://
 >> permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8069
 >>
 >> Regards,
 >>
 >> Jon

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