Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Actualism and Thisness', 'Letters to Jourdain' and 'Logic as Semiotic: Theory of Signs'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
Icons resemble their subject, an index is a natural sign, and symbols are conventional [Peirce, by Maund]
     Full Idea: For Peirce there are three different kinds of sign, which are different kinds of representation, built on different relationships: an 'icon' represents what it resembles, an 'index' is a natural sign, and a 'symbol' is a conventional sign.
     From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (Logic as Semiotic: Theory of Signs [1897]) by Barry Maund - Perception Ch.4
     A reaction: Maund makes use of natural signs (like footprints) to explain representative perception. Peirce's distinctions seem useful in philosophy of mind generally, if the brain somehow represents what it experiences. How subjective are signs?
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / a. Sense and reference
Senses can't be subjective, because propositions would be private, and disagreement impossible [Frege]
     Full Idea: If the sense of a name was subjective, then the proposition and the thought would be subjective; the thought one man connects with this proposition would be different from that of another man. One man could not then contradict another.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Letters to Jourdain [1910], p.44)
     A reaction: This is an implicit argument for the identity of 'proposition' and 'thought'. This argument resembles Plato's argument for universals (Idea 223). See also Kant on existence as a predicate (Idea 4475). But people do misunderstand one another.