semiotic idealism jeremiah e. mccarthy

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Semiotic Idealism Author(s): Jeremiah E. McCarthy Source: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Fall, 1984), pp. 395-433Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40320063Accessed: 01-06-2015 04:11 UTC

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Semiotic Idealism

Jeremiah E. McCarthy

1.1 Passages like the following are characteristic - or are thought to be - of Peirce's doctrine about truth, reality, and the final opinion.

(1) If [an object's] characters are independent of what

you or I or any number of men think about it it is a reality. The object of that final settled opinion to which it is supposed that an investigation will lead, if carried far enough, satisfies this definition of reality. (MS 372, p. 11; e. 1873)1

(2) . . . reality is only the object of the final opinion to which sufficient investigation would lead. (2.693; 1878)2

(3) The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. (4.507; 1878)

Such remarks appear to make reality the object of the final or ultimate

opinion, what the definitively established opinion is about. In that final opinion the real object is represented as it really is.

There are a number of passages very different from those just quoted. As they describe the relation between truth, reality, and an ultimate

opinion, reality is not what a true representation is about. What is real is that very representation.

(4) The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in. (5.311; 1868)


396 Jeremiah E. McCarthy

(5) To make a distinction between the true conception of a thing and the thing itself is, [the realist] will say, only to regard one and the same thing from two different points of view; for the immediate object of

thought in a true judgment is the reality. (8.16; 1871)

(6) ... the real is that which any man would believe in, and be ready to act upon, if his investigations were to be pushed sufficiently far. (8.41; 1885)

(7) ... the real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down. (6.610; 1893)

(8) The only object to which inquiry seeks to make our

opinion conform is itself something of the nature of

thought; namely it is independent of what you, I, or

any number of men may persist, for however long, in thinking, yet which remains thought, after all.

(8.103; 1900)

(9) ... the very reality ... is nothing else than the way in which facts must ultimately come to be understood. (6.173, 1902)

(10) If we can find out the right method of thinking and can follow it out . . . then truth can be nothing more nor less than the last result to which the following out of this method would ultimately carry us. In that case, that to which the [true] representation should conform is itself in the nature of a representation, or sign. (5.553; 1906)

The passages in the second group are idealistic, for idealism "supposes the real to be of the nature of thought" (MS 393, p. 1). The passages in the first group might be considered idealistic too. They describe


Semiotic Idealism 397

what is real by reference to representations. But they do not so evidently make the real representational and if these passages are idealistic they seem to express a very moderate sort of idealism.

1.2 It might be argued that two of the passages in the second group are classified wrong. Quotation 1.1(5) of 1871 identifies reality with a true conception of it, but it also says that what is real is the immediate object of a true judgment. It is, perhaps, not so clear what an immediate object is, but it seems to be different from the judgment of which it is the immediate object. So the passage may reinstate the distinction on which moderate idealism depends. The quotation 1.1(6) of 1885 uses the locution "believe in." What is believed in is char- acteristically an individual, something that the referential apparatus of a representation picks out, not a representation. Here too we may have the distinction which moderate idealism needs.

The appeal to the distinction between immediate object and true judgment will not work. We need a reading of "immediate object" and we can get one nearly contemporary with 1.1(5) from the 1868 paper "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" (5. 213-263).

(1) Every cognition involves something represented, or that of which we are conscious, and some action or

passion of the self whereby it becomes represented. The former shall be termed the objective, the latter the subjective, element of the cognition. The cognition itself is an intuition of its objective element, which may therefore be called, also, the immediate object. (5.238)

I am not certain what Peirce's notion of judgment was at this time. His usual idea is that a judgment is a kind of assertion to oneself or self-notification of belief. I see no reason to suppose he thought otherwise when he wrote the passage. A judgment as assertion to oneself is an action of the self whereby something becomes represented. And what is it that we represent to ourselves in a judgment? It is something that can be asserted or something belief in which can be recognized:



a proposition, a possibly true conception of something. So much for the loophole provided by the distinction between immediate object and true judgment.

The idea that the locution "believed in" signals that the object of belief is an individual and not a proposition is, I suspect, untenable. We need not go into that question here. It is sufficient to note that one of the nouns that may follow "believe in" is "proposition." In the last paragraph, for example, I wrote about recognizing one's belief in a proposition. Belief in a proposition is obviously what Peirce is thinking of in the context in which he used the phrase. What is believed in is also what one is ready to act on, to take as a guide to action - a proposition, not an individual.

1.3 The initial problem is to say what the relation between the two sorts of passages is and on this point the opinions of the commentators differ. Greenlee thought that "when Peirce . . . says that the immediate object of the ultimate, true belief destined by indefinitely con- tinued inquiry is 'the very reality itself,' it is wrong to think he means . . . that the opinion is the physical reality, as if the physical reality were being reduced to actual and possible mental contents. "^ Green- lee still admitted that Peirce was not always consistent about making the distinction between an ultimate opinion and the reality.5 But more than this concession is needed to make Peirce a moderate idealist.

It is possible that Peirce did not hold consistent opinions about idealism. Altshuler advocates this view, but in a form that mitigates the inconsistency. For there may be some intelligible principle of change operative if there is a movement from a less to a more extreme idealism in Peirce's early work, as Altshuler believes.6 But he cannot maintain his interpretation for the work of the late 1860's and early 1870's because the chronological sequence of moderate and extreme passages does not agree with it. However, there seems to be a change in the direction of extreme idealism over a longer period, so a generalization of Altshuler's idea may be tenable.

That there was a shift in Peirce's beliefs depends on the assumption that apparent inconsistencies should be taken at face value. But why accept this? The manuscripts of the early 1870's which Altshuler uses



are full of expressions of extreme idealism and contain little evidence of its opposite. Statements of moderate idealism are not very easy to find in these manuscripts or elsewhere. A very natural interpretation is to assume that although Peirce may have changed his mind both about the detail and the substance of his doctrine over many years, yet all the passages l.l(l)-l.l(10) represent a single form of idealism, the extreme form, which Peirce always held. The different expressions of idealism are easily reconciled. The putative moderate statements make a distinction between final opinions and their objects, which latter are real. But an opinion is nothing but a belief. An object of belief is a

proposition. What is real is the representation that is an object of belief in an ultimate opinion. Once the confusion about objects of belief is resolved we can see that the two sets of quotations represent the same view.

According to what I have argued another commentator, Ransdall, is right in taking Peirce to be an extreme idealist. Ransdell gives the

following argument for Peirce's idealism. (1) The immediate object of a sign, he maintains, is the beliefs about the real object of the sign which we bring to the interpretation of it from previous semiosis.7

(2) We have no access to the real object of a sign except through our

opinions about it.8 I supppose this means that a real object is nothing for us aside from our opinions about it, except to the extent that those

opinions may be corrected. Consequently, (3) the real object is "that which is present to us in the immediate object" when the latter is com-

plete and free from error.9 Such an immediate object answers to the idea of an ultimate opinion, the true belief which would be the product of sufficient experience and reasoning. Therefore, (5) the real object is what is present to us in an ultimate interpretation,10 i.e., in an ultimate belief. I assume that the locution "is present to" signals that we have to do with an object of belief. Accordingly, a real object is a

proposition. I do not agree with the way Ransdell has argued this. Let us consider

what the argument is supposed to do. If it is intended to show that

according to Peirce's semiotic, reality is a proposition, it does not suc- ceed. There are too many unresolved doubts which will occur to the

interpreter about the steps by which the real and immediate objects



and ultimate interpretant are identified. In any case, that reality is propositional for Peirce is sufficiently documented by l.l(l)-l.l(10). If the argument is intended to explain why Peirce held his idealistic conclusion, the same objections apply as before. Still less does the argument give any adequate reason for the truth of the conclusion. It is too flimsy and its conclusion too preposterous. "The world's a great big proposition? Just what some philosopher would think!" The only way to get at Peirce's semiotic idealism is to give an adequate account of the part of semiotic that leads to the conclusion in question. The semiotic theory will provide whatever reasoned basis the conclusion has and will show not only why Peirce held it, but at least part of what is to be said in favor of it as a true idea unless Peirce's reasoning is quite unsound. The question of the rational basis for Peirce's doctrine is what I wish to address.11

2.1 The material which I think gives the best insight into the controlling principles of Peirce's idealism is to be found in a paper called "Kcur OTOixfa."12 But before we take up idealism some peculiar- ities of the concept of sign in this manuscript need to be dealt with.

2.2 Peirce unsettles and perplexes his reader with the reiterated assertion that signs are not real.

(1) A sign is not a real thing. It is of such a nature as to exist in replicas. Look down a printed page, and every the you see is the same word, every e the same letter. A real thing does not so exist in replica. The being of a sign is merely being represented. Now really being and being represented are very different.13

(2) That which is merely represented, however legitimately, cannot be said really to be.1^

(3) No sign, however, is a real thing. It has no real being, but only being represented. . . . [A] symbol, a word, certainly exists only in replica, contrary to the nature of area! thing. 1^



(4) It is, of course, quite possible for a symbol to represent itself, at least in the only sense in which a thing that has no real being but only being represented, and which exists in replica, can be said to be identical with a real and therefore individual object. A map may be a map of itself; that is to say one replica of it may be the object mapped. *"

The passages seem not to express Peirce 's usual idea about really being and being represented. The topic also comes up in the "Lectures on

Pragmatism." There Peirce says that "that which is of the nature of a

representation is not ipso facto real" (5.96), which is far from saying that a representation is not real. The position of the "Lectures" is that, although "[it] is one thing really to be and another to be represented" (5.97), yet some representations are real. The representations in question are those which state laws. When one of these will sustain predictions that is proof that the proposition "is, or if you like it better, corresponds to, a reality" (5.96). Peirce likes "is" better. And that a true proposition is a reality is the doctrine of "Kau> otolxcl when the word "real" bears its usual sense with Perice. It is customarily defined in some such way as the following: "That is real which is what it is, whatever our thoughts may be concerning that particular thing" (7.339). But the word "real" in "Kair OTOixela" will often bear a construction that is, to say the least, highly unusual. The last passage quoted makes the meaning clear enough. Whatever is real is individual. If a sign is not an individual, then a sign is not real. This has no bear-

ing on the reality of signs in the usual sense and it is easy to see that Peirce regards some signs as real17 just as in the "Lectures on Prag- matism."

Another possibility is suggested by the fact that the word "real" is not consistently used for "individual," but seems to have its customary meaning in a number of cases.18 It may be that quotation 2.2(4) is the

only genuine aberration. In a series of manuscripts that are evidently associated with "Kair OTOixia"^ Peirce says, "A sign is not a real

thing" but the sort of thing that is embodied in replicas (MS 9, p. 1). Another manuscript clarifies the denial.



(5) That the sign itself is not a definite real object has been

pointed out. ... It is only represented. Now either it must be that it is one thing to really be and another to be represented, or else it must be that there is no such

thing [as] falsity. This involves no denial that every real thing may be a representation, or sign, but merely that, if so, there must be something more in reality than mere representation. Since a sufficiently complete sign may be false, and also since it is not any replica or collection of replicas, it is not real. (MS 7, p. 3)

When Peirce says that a sign is not real he means that it is not, by the

very fact that it is a sign, real. An individual, by the very fact that it is an individual, is real and that is the contrast Peirce has in mind. This is the same as the position in the "Lectures on Pragmatism." Which- ever interpretation is chosen, there is no special problem about the

unreality of signs in "Kaira owixeia ." 2.3 The discussion of the reality of signs brings out another pecu-

liarity of the text, that it makes all signs non-individual. In this it dif- fers from later work in which Peirce recognizes a class of signs called

"sinsigns" or "tokens" which are individuals (2.245, 2.255-257, 4.537, 4.544). The text explicitly makes replicas appertain to all signs.20 Since replicas do not themselves exist in replica, a replica is not a sign in the theory of "Kair oroixia" According to a later classification a replica is a sinsign (e.g., 2.246), but we should be careful not to treat them as signs here. Peirce has occasion to say that indices have replicas21 but he talks about indices and icons as if they were significant through being in reaction with an object and through possession of a quality in common with an object, respectively.22 This cannot be strictly true if icons and indices are not individuals. Only individuals react or embody qualities. At one point Peirce seems to deny that an index is not an individual.23 However, it is easy to be careless in observing the distinction between a sign and its replica and this, perhaps combined with an incipient change in doctrine, can account for the ambiguities. I do not see any evidence of serious confusion.24

3.1 The discussion of signs in"Kacr OTOixeia" is mostly, though not



entirely, confined to signs of a propositional nature. The example of a sign with which Peirce begins is a proposition.

(1) A sign is connected with the Truth,' i.e. the entire Uni- verse of being, or, as some say, The Absolute, in three distinct ways. . . . The sentence 'Roxana was the queen of Alexander' is a sign of Roxana and of Alexander . . . and the real persons Roxana and Alexander are real objects of the sign. Every sign that is sufficiently com-

plete refers to sundry real objects. All these objects, even if we are talking of Hamlet's madness, are parts of one and the same Universe of being, the 'Truth.' But so far as the 'Truth' is merely the object of a sign, it is

merely the Aristotelian Matter of it that is so. In ad- dition however to denoting objects every sign sufficiently complete signifies characters > or qualities. . . . All these characters are elements of the 'Truth.' Every sign signifies the 'Truth.' But it is only the Aristotelian Form of the universe that it signifies. . . . But, in the third

place, every sign is intended to determine a sign of the same object with the same signification or meaning. Any sign, 2?, which a sign, A, is fitted so to determine, without violation of its, v4's, purpose, that is, in accordance with the 'Truth,' even though it, 23, denotes but a part of the objects of the sign, A, and signifies but a

part of its, A's, characters, I call an interpretant of A. What we call a "fact" is something having the structure of a proposition, but supposed to be an element of the very universe itself. The purpose of every sign is to express "fact," and by being joined with other signs, to approach as nearly as possible to determining an in-

terpretant which would be the perfect Truth, the absolute Truth, and as such (at least, we may use this language) would be the very Universe. . . . We may adopt the word [entelechy] to mean the very fact, that is, the ideal sign which should be quite perfect, and so



identical, - in such identity as a sign may have, - with the very matter denoted united with the very form signified by it. The entelechy of the Universe of being, then, the Universe qua fact, will be that Universe in its aspect as a sign, the Truth' of being. The Truth,' the fact that is not abstracted but complete, is the ultimate interpretant of every sign.25

3.2 Form in this passage is Peirce's category of firstness. Forms are qualities or characters, things that are such as they are in themselves, which may be embodied, but have no need of being embodied in order to be. They are possibilities, ways that something might be. Matter is Peirce's category of secondness. Whatever is material is an individual thing which reacts with other things in its environment. Con- sequently, matter is such as it is in relation to a second thing. Which- ever of the pair is more affected by being in the relation is said to be "second," the other correlate is said to be "first." In the relation of killing, for example, the victim is second, the killer first. In such cases there is an approach to a state of things in which something that is as it is in itself, a first, comes into an accidental relation to a second - accidental because the being of the first in no way depends on its relation to the second. This extreme case is the relation of a quality or form to the matter that embodies it.26

Entelechy v "is that which brings things together. It is the element which is prominent in such ideas as Plan, Cause, and Law."27 There are two sorts of connection which do not involve entelechy, the embodiment of form by matter and the reaction of matter with matter. As an example of the first, consider the regularity with which crows have been black. If the regularity should be accidental, then there will be no connection between being a crow and being black except that every actual crow has embodied the form. As an example of the second, consider a stone ornament that falls from a building and strikes a man beneath. The man is second, the ornament first insofar as the relation is concerned, but the ornament is not a form. The relation is a reaction of matter with matter. Since the ornament happens to fall when a man is in a position to be struck, there is no connection between the react-



ing elements of the event other than their being the elements in that

very event. In the first case - supposing that the regularity is accidental - there

is nothing which brings together form and matter. The matter happens to embody certain forms; that is all. Let us add a third element and give it the office of bringing together the other two. This would have to be something connected with both matter and form, so it is as it is with regard to matter and form, while matter is as it is with regard to form and form is as it is in itself. The third element, entelechy, is Peirce's category of thirdness. Since matter is nothing without form, the third element must bring together form with matter that already embodies some form or other, however it may come to do so. The third element will have its being in relation to cases in which form is not yet embodied

by matter. It can hardly bring together what are together already. Accordingly, it will be related to possible cases in which a certain form is embodied and in those cases it will connect some other form with the matter. This is the description of a law. If there is a law to the effect that all crows are black, then the regularity with which crows have been black is not accidental. In every logically possible case in which an element is added to the series, the new element will not break the regularity.

In the second case - the reaction of matter with matter - the third element that brings the individuals together is as it is in producing the relation between them. The same considerations hold as before. The third element has its being in relation to cases in which the reaction has not yet occurred. It cannot produce a reaction that has already taken place. Accordingly, it will be related to possible cases in which a man is in a position to be struck by the ornament. Here we see the operation of a final cause: the ornament would fall if it were to strike a man beneath. But this is not fundamentally different from the other case. Both involve laws. The production of an end-state is merely more obvious in the second case than in the first. 2^

3.3 Such are the analytical concepts in the passage at 3.1(1). Now we can proceed to comment on it. Every sign is connected with an object, which is matter, and characters, which are forms. A proposition, the kind of sign we are concerned with, is a sign which separately indi-



cates its object.**0 The proposition "Roxana was the queen of Alex- ander" incorporates a pair of signs, "Roxana" and "Alexander," which

pick out the objects of the proposition. According to the classification in "Kair OTOix^icL" the two names are symbols,-*1 but they perform an indexical function in the proposition because each denotes an individual. The predicate of the proposition, "was queen of" signifies the characters which it attributes to Roxana and Alexander. I ignore the temporal index which makes an inessential complication. Characters are not individuals - not things that react - so the predicate does not have an indexical function. It calls to mind an icon of the characters which it signifies.

3.3.1 The denoting function of a sign brings its interpreter "the experience of the very object denoted."32 In the present case Roxana and Alexander must be objects known to the interpreter. The names do not denote unless the interpreter is acquainted with their objects and the names cannot supply the acquaintance themselves. How do we become acquainted with the object of a name so that the name denotes?

(1) It is requisite ... in order to show what we are talking or writing about, to put the hearer's or reader's mind into real, active connection with the concatenation of experience . . . with which we are dealing, and, further, to draw his attention to, and identify, a certain number of particular points in such concatenation. (3.419)

As prior acquaintance is the all-important part of the denotation of names, our problem is really about this. I will write about one of the elements in the situation as a "complex of fact" rather than as a "concatenation of experience" because the first is, perhaps, more general and less problematical. Later I will have more to say about the sub- stitution. The problem of the denotative function of names, then, is (1) how to put the interpreter's mind into an active connection with a complex of fact and (2) how to identify and draw attention to certain points within the complex. For simplicity let us consider only how the name "Alexander" denotes an object for an interpreter.



The complex of fact we have to deal with involves a certain area, viz., Greece (including Macedonia), Egypt, Asia Minor, and a part of western Asia roughly between Armenia and the Euphrates River and extending eastward between the southern shore of the Caspian Sea on the north and the Persian Gulf and the shore of the Indian Ocean on the south, somewhat beyond the Indus River. If the name "Alex- ander" denotes for an interpreter, then he will need to have some idea of at least a part of the area that Alexander lived in and conquered. That involves being able to denote the area or part of it by the use of indices so that the interpreter becomes acquainted with his own relation to the space in question and with the relations of the parts of that space. The indices are part of a system of existential relations. An existential relation is a relation between two things which is nullified if either of its correlates should cease to exist (4.514). The relation between an efficient cause and its effect and reactive relations in general are existential relations. The relation of a law to a state of things which it governs is not affected by the non-existence of that state of

things, so the relation is not existential. To simplify matters let us provide the interpreter with a map of the

area and assume that there are no problems about the law of projection. In order to make use of the map he will need to know the direction and distance from himself of two points in the complex. If he can identify these with two points on the map, then he will know the relations of the parts of the area mapped to one another and to himself. Suppose the utterer supplies the interpreter with the information about direction and distance. The distances will be along lines in a certain direction from something, say a reference line between the interpreter and the north pole. To establish the reference line the interpreter needs to orient himself by means of an index of the north pole such as Polaris. Then the interpreter can establish two direction lines at a certain number of angular units from his reference line. The points mapped will be a certain number of units of distance away along their respective direction lines. The interpeter is assumed to be familiar with the angular units and units of distance. The relation of point mapped to reference line is an existential relation. It is neither at a certain angle nor at a certain distance from the reference line if either should cease to exist.



Here we have a relation of the interpreter to a pair of points mapped whereby he becomes familiar with them through being able to connect them with things with which he is already familiar.

Let us suppose that the name "Athens" is introduced to the interpreter as the name of the city in which one of his direction lines terminates and "Persepolis" as the name of the city in which the other terminates. He has been given a way of identifying Athens and Per- sepolis independently of the use of their names. The definite descriptions fix the denotation of the names. In order for the definite descriptions to be interpreted, the interpreter must be able to connect them with indices of their objects. In fact he has a method at his dis- posal for interpreting certain definite descriptions. The correctness of the procedure is independent of the mere fact that the interpreted description picks out the right object. The proper functioning of the method guarantees the interpreter acquaintance with the object denoted, if the utterer was able to denote it.

To complete his acquaintance with the complex of fact insofar as it is spatial the interpreter needs to identify the objects with which he has become acquainted with objects on the map. If the map is of some ordinary variety, then the names of the familiar objects will be replicated near certain parts of the map marked off from their sur- roundings. According to the conventions of map-reading, which I assume the interpreter is familiar with, the parts marked off correspond to the cities of Athens and Persepolis, objects with which he is familiar and whose names he can already use. When the objects are identified on the map, then every point on the map will be interpretable as an index of a point mapped. The interpreter will know the relation of the area to himself and of its parts to one another. The map itself is in a cause and effect relation with the area it maps. The latter, through the map, produces a special kind of effect on the interpreter which I will dis- cuss shortly: it puts the interpreter into an active relation with itself.

The complex of fact has a temporal as well as a spatial character. To locate the complex in time the interpreter makes use of a length of time with which he is acquainted, which is the unit of a time scale. The interpreter knows his relation to the origin of the time scale and so the scale allows him to locate events in the past relative to himself



and to one another. Some signs of time such as the period between full moons or the passage of the earth once around, the sun measured in relation to the fixed stars, are indices. Dates depend on the use of such indices, but in the context of "Kcur OTOixa" dates are not themselves indices. They are symbols which have the peculiarity that their replicas are produced as effects of their objects through a com-

parison of the event dated with the origin of the time scale by means of the unit. Thus the dating of an event or the interpretation of a date is an effect of the event, much as if the date were an index. As with spatial location, the interpreter will possess a method of interpreting definite descriptions which fix the denotation of dates. Dated events that are part of the complex allow it to be located in time and inform the interpreter of the temporal relations of its parts.

The first step in introducing the name "Alexander" for an interpreter is complete when he is acquainted with his spatio-temporal relations to the complex and with the spatio-temporal relations of some of its

parts. The relation of interpreter to complex which I have described is active and this is an important point to appreciate. Anybody who is shown a map of something real or who is given a list of dates of real events is thereby put into an existential relation with the objects of the signs, but nothing need get denoted. Denotation is a purposive activity. The signs will not serve the purpose of their utterer in denoting something for an interpreter if the interpreter cannot put them to any denotational use. His relation to the objects will then be passive. He cannot locate them with respect to one another or to himself in space or time. The interpreter comes into an active relation to the complex only through his ability to use indices to acquaint himself with the complex. Definite descriptions and names, like dates, are symbols. They are significant merely because they will be interpreted to denote their objects. But unlike general terms, the capacity of them to be

interpreted depends on the ability of the interpreter to connect the

symbols with indices of the objects they denote. General terms depend on common knowledge of objects like the object with which a general term is connected in a proposition by an utterer. But they do not

depend for their significance on the interpreter's prior acquaintance with any particular object that a term may be connected with in a proposition (cf. 2.261).



The second step in introducing the name "Alexander" for an inter-

preter is "to draw his attention to, and identify, a certain number of

particular points" in the complex of fact. This is just what happens in the course of a narrative such as would acquaint one with a previously unknown historical personage. A narrative about Alexander will contain numerous descriptions which are virtual definite descriptions of Alex- ander, descriptions such as "was proclaimed King of Macedonia by the army after the death of Philip," which are evidently intended to apply to exactly one object. To take another example where the indexical character is a little more obvious, let the description be "commanded the troops that defeated the Persians in the battle on the banks of the River Granicus in 334 B.C." Indices of space and time pick out a certain part of the complex of fact which contains exactly one event that answers to the description. If the utterer can denote the event, but the part of the complex he picks out contains no such event or more than one, then he has made a mistake in the method of giving the spatio- temporal location of the event. But if the utterer has conformed to the right method of denoting, then his utterance will preserve denotation for an interpreter who can follow the method. In the narrative about Alexander his name will be attached to this and other descriptions to suggest to the interpreter that Alexander is a specially indicated part of the event. By means of virtual definite descriptions an interepreter will become acquainted with Alexander, whom he will be able to denote without the use of his name. Two requisites for the denotation of the name are that the object named should be material so that it can be a correlate in the existential relations that make denoting possible, and that the interpreter should conjecture that one and the same matter is named by each use of the name.

In my discussion I substituted "complex of fact" for Peirce's "concatenation of experience" at 3.419 as being a less problematic phrase. However, the origianl expression seems better since Peirce says that the denoting function of a sign brings its interpreter "the experience of the very object denoted."34 The concatenation of experience is experience of the historical world of Alexander, so the interpreter's mind must be in an active relation to this. Once he is further acquainted with some parts that have to do with Alexander he will be able to relate Alex-



ander to other parts of his historial world and the indices that the denotation of "Alexander" ultimately depends on perform their denoting function for the interpreter. That gives the interpreter experience of the very object denoted in the only sense in which anybody can have

experience of an unobservable entity. The relation of interpreter to object will permit him to produce or discover observable effects of Alexander, not by accident, which implies a passive relation, but pur- posively. But an interpreter will not usually go through the trouble of unfolding the elaborate denotational apparatus of a text to assure himself that he can locate the object in space and time, much less make predictions on the basis of that acquaintance. Instead he will be content with the impression that the name denotes a familiar object.

The name "Alexander," as a symbol, is a kind of law, viz., the law that an interpreter will associate a replica of a certain description with Alexander through various indices of the latter. An utterer takes ad-

vantage of his knowledge of the law so that he produces a replica of the name if it is likely that the interpreter will associate the replica with Alexander. The symbol, acting on an utterer as final cause, must be able to get replicas of some sort produced and so the utterer needs to know the probable effect of a certain description of replica on the

interpreter. The replicas of a name need not agree in appearance but

only in the character that any would be taken by some interpreter as an occasion for making the association. Of course a replica must have some other characters which suggest to the interpreter the symbol that the replica belongs to. Otherwise no association will take place. "We may call these things embodying the same sign replicas of it. They need not be alike as things. Man, homo, &>0pco7ro


certain prescinded characters which are the characters signified by the

predicate. The predicate is a law which takes an interpreter from a

replica to the characters signified via an association between the replica and an icon with respect to those characters. An utterer takes advantage of his knowledge of the law so that he produces a replica of the predicate if it is likely that the interpreter will associate it with the characters of being female and spouse of something that is a monarch. For a predicate to convey anything to an interpreter it must represent something that the interpreter can be acquainted with, but without being acquainted with the object to which the predicate is referred by an utterer, in the respect in which the predicate is referred to it. It is requisite for

signification, then, that a predicate should relate an interpreter to forms which may be embodied by an object. The predicate will bring the

interpreter face to face with the signified characters if he cares to follow out the connections with his experience that the replica will suggest. But the interpreter will usually be content with the impression that the predicate signifies some familiar characters.

3.3.3 The third way in which a sign is connected with the universe has to do with its relation to its interpretant. With denotation and

signification the correlates of the sign were brought under a category in order to explain those sign functions. If we keep the parallel which denotation and signification suggest, then the connection of a sign with an interpretant should be explained by the category of entelechy. The purpose of a proposition is the expression of truth, so truth, as the entelechy of signs, should provide the relation of sign to interpretant. A sign determines an interpretant for the sake of truth. In other words, one sign is an interpretant of another if the relation between them will contribute to the expression of truth. Assertion is a kind of replication that produces assent by an interpreter to the asserted proposition. Assertion, then, communicates a proposition. An interpreter will have had experience of assertions and will have formed an association between assertion and the truth of the proposition asserted. Once the association is established the interpreter will not assent to an asserted proposition regardless of its assumed truth, but he will assent to it in the absence of any reason not to. An utterer who asserts a proposition takes advantage of the interpreter's assocaition to communicate truth. That is, the utterer asserts a proposition if his assertion will tend to



communicate truth. For his part, the interpreter assents to the proposition if his assent will tend to communicate truth. The transmission of the sign occurs through the operation of an end - the communication of truth - which is shared by utterer and interpreter. I do not mean to imply, by the way, that the end is entirely voluntary for the

interpreter. It is much more so for the utterer.37 The shared purpose, then, we may equate with the purpose of bringing truth to expression. The sign transmitted satisfies the requirement that signs are related as sign to interpretant if the relation contributes to truth. The sign and its interpretant are so related here that they contribute to the

expression of truth, so the interpreter's sign is the interpretant of the utterer's sign although the signs happen to be identical, the same proposition. This represents, perhaps, the simplest and most common sort of communication having truth as its final cause.

In a more complicated case, suppose the utterer says, "Alexander had three wives." If the interpreter did not know this, then something is communicated to him. Suppose he had a vague notion that Alex- ander was not married. On hearing the utterer he thinks, "Then he was married." This is an interpretant of the sign. To connect it with the sign the interpreter assumes a common purpose with the utterer, to express truth, and he takes the interpretant to be such as being so related to the sign that it is true if the sign is. The purpose of relating one sign to another as interpretant is to express truth or communicate it from the interpreter's self that assents to the premiss to the inter-

preter's self that assents to the conclusion. Without the common purpose of utterer and interpreter the latter would have no way of connect-

ing an interpretant with a sign. The activity of interpretation would lack a final cause and the interpreter would have no criterion for decid-

ing when one sign is so related to another as to contribute to the ex-

pression of truth. In a case where sign and interpretant are different we can see that assent to the interpretant is much more a voluntary matter than in the previous case.

The example of interpretation I just gave is deductive and the inter-

pretant is true. But that the interpretant should be true is not required by the model of interpretation that emerges from "KaivoTOixeia." A sign need only determine an interpretant without violation of the



sign's purpose.38 Suppose that someone interprets a sign in order to determine a true interpretant. If the method of interpretation really contributes to the expression of truth in the way the interpreter thinks, then there is no violation of the purpose of sign interpretation. The

procedure which non-deductive inference follows is not guaranteed to make the conclusion of every sound inference true. The method does assure the interpreter that a true interpretant will be found eventually (e.g., 2.780-781, 5.167-173). Accordingly, there is no difficulty in re- garding the conclusion of non-deductive inferences as interpretants. The purpose of every sound inference is the expression of truth and every sound inference contributes to that purpose whether or not its conclusion is true.

So far I have discussed signs that are obviously purposive, signs that are replicated by an utterer in order to convey some truth to an inter-

preter. In his account of the relation of sign to interpretant in "Kaira OTOixeia" Peifce must have had intentionally replicated signs uppermost in his mind. But not all signs are like this. A weathercock is made and set up on purpose, but it does not indicate the direction of the wind on purpose. The cock faces the direction of the wind whether or not anybody is likely to interpret it as a sign. Smoke is a sign of fire, but the fire does not produce smoke according to the law that if the smoke is likely to be taken as a replica of an index of fire, then the fire produces smoke. A great many signs are of this nature. In every case, although the replication of the sign is not purposive, yet the interpretation of the sign will be found to be purposive.

Consider how smoke is a sign of fire. In "Kair OTOixeia" all signs are general. To say that smoke is a sign of fire is to say that the complex of characters which the word "smoke" signifies is a sign of fire. The complex is an index because nothing can instantiate it, i.e., be a replica of it, without being in a cause and effect relation to a fire which is in the vicinity of the replica. An interpreter will be able to do nothing with a replica of the index unless he knows how a replica of it is related to the objects of the index. He needs to know that the index requires that every instance of itself should be an effect of a fire nearby. Given this knowledge, the interpreter can conclude that there is a fire near the smoke. The conclusion is an interpretant of the index. The



replica was not produced intentionally, but the determination of the interpretant is purposive. The interpreter will assure himself that a certain proposition is an interpretant of the index by establishing that the interpretant is so related to the index that it contributes to the expression of truth (cf. 5.473). Conformity to this rule in the determination of the interpretant is conformity to truth as the final cause of sign interpretation.

3.4 Now let us consider how the replica of a symbolic proposition is related to it. A symbol, like an index, is general. But it is significant merely because its replica presents an occasion for it to be interpreted. A symbolic proposition is an association and an association is a law. If one element of the association occurs, then so does the other. A symbolic proposition is an association of signs. However its predicate, being general, is not more especially associated with its own subject than with many others. To associate signs depends on being able to associate replicas which, as singulars, can be put together.39 For a symbolic proposition to be anything at all it has to be a tendency for an utterer to associate a replica of its predicate with a replica of its subject. The proposition "Alexander was married" is a law according to which the utterer replicates the predicate "was married" as a sign that applies to what the subject denotes, if he replicates the name "Alexander."

Of course the law of association does not limit the utterer to saying nothing about Alexander except that he was married. In the model of sign interpretation the conduct of utterer and interpreter is governed by a common end, the expression of truth. The end is a condition on the activity of the utterer which is assumed always to be satisfied. It follows that the utterer will conduct himself in accordance with whatever symbol will contribute to the truth. Therefore, if replicating according to the symbol "Alexander was married" will communicate truth, then the utterer replicates the symbol. But it will not always be to the point to replicate it even though it is true. If the utterer replicates that symbol, or any symbol, when it will not contribute to truth, then he violates the assumption on which the model operates. Accord- ingly, the model does not permit an utterer to talk at random or require him to say everything he knows as fast as he can. The operation of

symbols is not autonomous, but governed by truth as final cause.



So far we have considered the replication of symbols from the utterer's side. Now let us look at it from the interpreter's. This perspective suggests a question that we have not yet considered, How does the

interpreter tell what the utterer means to do with a symbolic proposition? The syntax of the replica provides the clue and the question of the syntax of a proposition shows that according to the theory of "Kcu- va OTOixeicL" it is quite hopeless to treat propositional symbols as if they incorporated descriptions of their replicas. The commonest replicas that an interpreter has to deal with are probably assertions of symbols. The symbol must associate its subject and predicate somehow if it is to be a proposition and can only do so by being a rule for connecting replicas of its subject and predicate. The connection of the parts of the replica is taken by an interpreter to be an index, or rather a replica of an index, of a connection between the subject and a predicate that belongs to it. The form of the replica incorporates, or is understood to

incorporate, an icon of the connection which it denotes. The syntactic form of an assertion is a propositional index having as its object a union of form and matter and incorporating into itself an icon of that unioni0

If the topic of replication could be left here it would be reasonably simple. The symbolic proposition would operate to produce replicas of a certain syntactic form which provides the interpreter with the clue he needs to interpret the predicate replicated as belonging to the replicated subject. But the topic of syntax and of the identity of symbolic propositions is not so straightforward.

(1) I grant that the normal use of a proposition is to affirm it; and its chief logical properties relate to what would result in reference to its affirmation. It is, therefore, convenient in logic to express propositions in most cases in the indicative mood. But the proposition in the sentence, 'Socrates est sapiens,' strictly expressed, is 'Socratem sapientem esse.' The defense of this position is that in this way we distinguish between a proposition and the assertion of it; and without such distinction it is impossible to get a distinct notion of the nature of the proposition. One and the same propositon may be af-


Semio tic Idealism 417

firmed, denied, judged, doubted, inwardly inquired into, put as a question, wished, asked for, effectively commanded, taught, or merely expressed, and it does not

thereby become a different proposition. *

The cases that concern our model may be understood as affirmation, including denial (affirmation of the negative), judgment (affirmation to oneself), and inward inquiry (feigned judgment for the sake of dis-

covering interpretants). These do not present much of a problem for our account of the proposition except for the last case, Here the symbol will be mentioned and preceded by a sign like "suppose that." How can this be a replica of the symbolic proposition? The "that" clause seems to be an index incorporating an icon of a replica of the proposition. The prefixed sign is a sign that the symbol referred to is to be taken to have a suppositious connection between subject and predicate. The whole replica - but not the incorporated icon of the symbol - is a replica of the symbolic proposition because it was produced for the sake of interpretation according to a law which governs the production of replicas. A symbol having a suppositious relation between subject and

predicate is a law according to which a replica is formed which contains a sign of that relation.

Doubting a symbol may be understood to work on the same plan as feigned judgment, with a special sign employed to qualify the relation of subject to predicate in a symbol otherwise referred to. Other cases employ syntactic or other variations to the same end. "Is Socrates wise?" (symbol put as a question), "Would that Socrates were wise"

(wished for), "Socrates is wise, isn't he?" (asked for), "Be wise, Socra- tes!" (effectively commanded), "Socrates' being wise" (merely ex-

pressed). To teach a symbol the denotative function of it must be made effective for an interpreter so that he can gain an active relation to the

object which he can use to verify that the forms are united with the ob-

ject which the symbol represents to be united. In this case the symbol will be elaborated into a maxim of conduct.

The notion of symbolic proposition that emerges from all this is very highly generalized. An association between a subject and a predicate makes a proposition and nothing more is needed. To

understand the Peircean symbolic proposition as it appears in



"YjOLivoTOixia" we need to generalize the notion of an association between subject and predicate so that the law of association can take various forms without changing the identity of the symbol. This is analogous to generalizing the idea of replica so that various sorts of replicas can be replicas of the same symbol. For a symbolic proposition we need only some law of association which operates to produce replicas if these are likely to produce interpretants. The syntax of the replica either by itself or together with some other sign represents to the interpreter what kind of sign or action it is the purpose of the symbol to produce. Hereafter, for reasons that will become obvious, I will con- fine my attention to assertory symbolic propositions.42

According to Peirce's generalized idea of symbol, P and 'VP should be different forms of the same symbolic proposition. In what follows I will treat a proposition and its negation as different symbols. Peirce does not seem to adhere to his own idea in the text and the usual view is less cumbersome to express. I do not see that it makes any substantive difference for our purposes whether we regard the symbols as distinct or only as distinct forms of one symbol.

4.1 We are not yet finished with problems about symbolic propositions, for there is some evidence in "juvoTOVxia>" that Peirce thought there were no false symbols. "The formula, if a symbol at all, is a symbol of its object. Its truth, therefore, consists in the formula being a symbol."43 But then Peirce writes the phrase "sufficiently complete and true symbol" almost with the next stroke of the pen, as if the word "true" were not superfluous. A symbol sufficiently complete ought to be true if there are no false symbols. The definition of "symbol" does not rule out false symbols, either. "A symbol is defined as a sign which is fit to serve as such simply because it will be so interpreted."44 Then are there or are there not any false symbols?

The definition of "symbol" has to be the controlling factor in de- ciding the question which, therefore, amounts to asking whether a false symbol answers to the definition. It is perfectly evident that a false symbol such as "The Titanic is unsinkable" can get an interpretant of itself produced since the latter was quite successful in that direction. If it were not so, nobody would have false beliefs. Nor can we say that the proposition is not a symbol because, having been found to be false,



it will not produce an interpretant. As much might be said of a true

symbol which is not presently believed or is believed to be false. It is most natural to hold that a formula's being a symbol consists, not in its truth, but in the fact that it behaves in the way that the definition of "symbol" would lead us to expect. Whatever acts like a symbol under conditions that might be realized, consistent with the proposed model of interpretation, is a symbol.

Although falsehood does not prevent a sign from being a symbol, the conditions governing the "will" in the definition of "symbol" are of two different kinds. It would be a mistake to overlook the distinction. The model of interpretation is normative. It describes the process of interpretation on the assumption that the aim of the process is truth and that the interpretation is carried out in such a way as to contribute to the end. In the context of the model the conditions on the "will" have to do with the purpose of interpretation. The condition on any symbol is that it will determine an interpretant that has some relevance to the end. That end is incompletely or imperfectly realized while there is truth that remains uncognized. In the course of the working out of the purpose of sign interpretation a more and more comprehensive cognition will be produced. If a symbol is false, the achievement of the purpose requires that it should be found to be false. When it is found to be false it will not be interpreted. Some conditions under which a

symbol will determine an interpretant - conditions under which it contributes to the end - are transitory. If a symbol is true, the achievement of the purpose of interpretation requires that it should be found to be true. A symbol that will be found to be true will not be deprived of its capacity to determine an interpretant. So there are conditions which are not transitory, but permanent, under which a symbol will determine an interpretant. Such a symbol contributes to the end by being a part of it, an element of "the perfect Truth." "the ideal sign which should be quite perfect," the "entelechy of the Universe of

being."45 4.2 In order not to get ahead of ourselves let us consider how Peirce

defines "law." A law is "a formula to which real events truly conform.

By 'conform,' I mean that, taking the formula as a general principle, if experience shows that the formula applies to a given event, then the



result will be confirmed by experience."46 The formula is evidently a conditional. The word " formula" is a neutral or perhaps somewhat nominalistic way of referring to a law since a formula is evidently a representation of some sort. In fact it is an assertory symbolic proposition.^7 As always, the question is whether the formula is a mere representation or not. To advance on this front Peirce gives a very exact definition of what conformity to a symbolic proposition is.

The conception of cause in general is defined in three clauses. A cause and a causatum are both facts. A cause is

(1) a fact which could, within the range of possibility, have its being without the being of the causatum ; but, secondly, it could not be a real fact while a third complementary fact, expressed or understood, was realized, without the being of the causatum; and thirdly, although the actually realized causatum might perhaps be realized by other causes or by accident, yet the existence of the entire possible causatum could not be realized without the cause in question.48

The mode of possibility is logical possibility. The "entire possible causatum" is the total of logically possible cases which realize the causatum.

The idea of cause is used to define four kinds of causes. An internal cause is one that is a part of the causatum so that the causatum cannot be without it. (This requires some emendation of the definition of "cause" which, as it stands, does not hold for internal causes. But Peirce says "the scope of the word will be somewhat widened in the sequel"49 and I suppose he had this generalization, at least, in mind.) An external cause is not internal. An individuating or physical cause is an individual thing or fact while the other factor mentioned in the definition is a general principle. A defining or psychical cause is a general principle, while the other factor mentioned in the definition is an individual.50 With this apparatus we can obtain definitions of the four Aristotelian causes. The material cause is an internal indi-



viduating cause. The efficient cause is an external individuating cause. The formal cause is an internal defining cause. The final cause is an external defining caused1 I suspect that the fundamental distinction for Peirce is between individuating and defining causes (see 1.211-212).

As an example of a law Peirce uses "Every stone on earth has a real downward component of acceleration." This formula, which is also an assertory symbolical proposition, is a final cause. (1) It is possible for the formula to be true without the being of the causatum. It might be that any stone on earth would have a real downward component of acceleration though there were no stones on earth. (2) If another factor is present - in this case a stone on earth - the causatum will be realized. Nothing is a stone on earth consistently with the truth of the formula and the non-occurrence of the causatum. (3) Although an

existing stone on earth might have a downward component of acceleration through some other cause or by accident, yet the possession of such a component in every logically possible case of a stone on earth involves the truth of the formula.52 In other words the symbolic proposition is not an accidental regularity but an entelechy. It is the final cause of the events that conform to it, so as a representation it hardly merits the qualification "mere."

4.3 I have articulated the idea of symbolic proposition on the basis of evidence and hints from"Kaiv OTOixeia" and elsewhere. If my ela- boration is right, then the symbol (in the form it takes when asserted) as law of association of signs in the model is the very same symbol that is the final cause of events external to the model. I will assume that anyone who is skeptical about the theory of cognition this im-

plies will admit at least that a symbol is an active general principle, not an individual inscription or something of that nature. But the

skeptic who is not so very nominalistic might still say, "If it makes

you happy to call the law of gravitation as applied to stones on earth a Symbol,' then do so. However, you originally defined a symbol as a sign which is a sign merely because it will be so interpreted. In the case of symbolic propositions you developed the idea and made out that a symbolic proposiiton is a law for associating replicas, if the association will tend to get the symbol interpreted. Now what does the law of gravitation have to do with replicating symbols to produce interpretante? Do not deceive yourself by using the word 'symbol' for a law that governs



the facts as well as for a law that governs the discourse about the facts. What could be more different from a law that works the planets in their orbits than a law that works a mere association of ideas?"

The objection is well taken. Peirce's argument about symbols shows that they have some kind of objective status, but it is not clear how or whether the argument applies to the association of signs. We know that once a symbolic proposition is cognized a law of association begins to operate in the field of the model that had not operated there before. If the symbol is the law of the facts, then the law of association is nothing but the law of the facts, cognized. The law of the facts will be a final cause of representational phenomena as a principle according to which utterers replicate symbols. And as a cognition it will operate to prevent discrepancies between representations and the facts represented.

If the symbol "Every stone on earth has a real downward component of acceleration" is the very law of the facts, then (1) it may be operative in the model without the occurrence of the association. If the initial condition is not cognized by the utterer, then he will not go on to replicate the consequent of the conditional. So the law will not produce a replication of a false proposition. (2) If a third factor is given - the cognition of the antecedent - then the utterer will replicate the consequent if that contributes to the truth. So if the utterer represents the facts according to the law, he replicates a true proposition. (3) Some of the representational effects must be able to occur through the operation of some other law or by accident. Stones might accelerate toward certain objects only, say diamonds as big as the Ritz, one of which happens to be located at the center of the earth. Or there might be no such law but through some coincidence a stone might have a real downward component of acceleration. The descriptions of the stones could not be false in these cases, but they would not be effects of the law. If they were counted as such, the law would be nothing more than a common character of a class of events, a "uniformity" which would not support predictions. But the occurrence of the representational effect - the replication of a proposition representing a positive instance of the law - in every case in which it is logically possible to replicate according to the law, within the constraints of the model, involves a


Setnio tic Idealism 4 23

perfect agreement between the utterer's representations and the facts represented. Therefore, as there is no logically possible discrepancy between the semiotic activity governed by the law and the facts represented, the law, which is a final cause of semiosis, must be counted as a cognition. The law of the facts is the law of association of signs when it operates in the context of the model.

Universally quantified conditionals represent laws. But every symbolic proposition is an entelechy and a law in some way, so it remains to show how singular and particular propositions can represent perfections of being. I have interpreted singular propositions as rules for replicating subjects with predicates that belong to them, but this is the law in a somewhat disguised form. When an utterer states that Alexander was married he expresses a certain entelechy. In replicating the symbol the utterer conforms to a law which makes every character of a married man a character of Alexander. The utterer attributes a type, M, to the

object, which is understood to signify a complex of characters Fj, . . . , Fn each of which applies to whatever the type applies to. The type can be analyzed according to the apparatus for defining causes as the formal cause of the possession of the characters of marriage by Alex- ander. The only important difference in the analysis is in the third clause. The cause is a formal cause, so the causatum could not logically be without the cause. The law is of a definitional nature. The causatum is the possession by Alexander of all the characters of a married man, so we may infer from the causatum that Alexander is married. The cause, which is a type, is a complex of forms to which objects may be

expected to approximate with regard to their embodied forms. For that reason a type is not an accidental conjunction of characters, but an active general principle, just as a law is. The realization of the entire

possible causatum of marriage would mean that in every logically possible case in which certain social and legal relations of dependence exist between a man and a woman, the couple will attempt to found and maintain a family. That is the definition of marriage. The reality of this

type is evidently somewhat attenuated. Particular propositions are to be treated in essentially the same way

as singular propositions. The fact that the subject is in designate or

vague makes no difference in the embodiment of an entelechy by an

object of the proposition.



4.4 Peirce defines a fact as "such abstracted element of an event as is expressible in a proposition."53 This is misleading though in the context Peirce could hardly have said anything else. A more accurate state- ment would strike out the words "expressible in." Every fact is a symbol and the event from which the fact is abstracted, "the universe in its totality, "54 may also be regarded as a fact, "the fact that is not abstracted but complete."55 and, presumably, a symbol. A true symbol is an objective or external sign. Here we need to introduce the objective/subjective distinction which Peirce says he never uses, but which turns up very early as the external/internal distinction.57 Peirce uses the terms "objective" and "subjective" at least once to formulate the question of nominalism and realism and it seems that he always should have done so to distinguish realism from conceptualism (see 1.27). Whatever is objective or external is as it is independently of what any particular person or group thinks about it or about anything else. What is subjective is not objective. What is subjective is real if it is as it is

independently of what any particular person or group thinks about it. Otherwise it is fictitious. Something may be real and not subjective.

To illustrate, consider the proposition that Don Giovanni seduced a thousand and three women in Spain. The proposition represents him as a seducer of women and of a certain number thereof because that is how Da Ponte represented him in the libretto of the opera. The object of the proposition, Don Giovanni, is not independent of how Da Ponte represented him. Therefore, the Don is a fiction. The fictive representation is real because it is independent of what Da Ponte or any other particular person or group thinks about it. However, it is subjective. It is not independent of how Da Ponte represented the Don. But once Da Ponte has so represented his character, the fact that he has done so is objective. It is independent of what he thinks about his representing and also of what he thinks about the object of his representation. That he now represents the object in a different way does not change how it was represented previously.58

Let us apply these distinctions to an understanding of truth, reality, and the final opinion. If a symbol such as "Alexander was married" or "Every stone on earth has a real downward component of acceleration" is a cognition then, of course, it is the object of a final opinion.



The analysis of symbolic propositions shows what any object of a final

opinion must be. According to the set of distinctions just presented every object of a final opinion is an objective or external reality. It is

independent of what any particular utterer or intepreter thinks about it or about anything else. But - an important point - what utterers and

interpreters think who think in accordance with the model is not in-

dependent of the objective reality which is seen to be the final cause of semiotic activity. The object of the ideally complete opinion at which semiosis in accordance with the model aims, is the truth. "The 'Truth,' the fact that is not abstracted but complete, is the ultimate interpretant of every sign. "59

The ideally complete sign is also "the very Universe."60 "The ideal

sign," says Peirce, "[would] be quite perfect and so identical, -in such

identity as a sign may have, - with the very matter denoted united with the form signified by it."61 In other words an ideal sign would be

purged of subjective elements that would make it false. The objective sign would be identical or, according to the qualification, a replica of an objective sign would get produced, which replicated sign would be identical with the matter it denotes united with the form it signifies. Since we have to do with a sign, the union of matter and form is governed by entelechy. It is worth noting that the perfection of cognition is a state of things that can be approached but not realized without contradiction (6.173). For if it were attained the purpose of semiosis would be complete and that which was cognized in the cognition would not be a symbol. The being of a symbol consists in the fact that it will determine an interpretant. With the purpose of interpretation realized no sign could determine an interpretant in accordance with the model. The object of the supposed cognition would not be a symbol or any other sign. Accordingly, every cognitive representation that is licit in the model - every cognition to which a right can be established - is a cognition of a state of things which is governed by entelechy and which is imperfectly realized, i.e., one in which the operation of entelechy is not exhausted. If every licit cognition involves the objective employ- ment of the concept of entelechy, then anyone who agrees with the model will have no objection to the metaphysical validity of the cate-

gory. And if every licit cognition, however complete, represents a



state of things in which entelechy is imperfectly realized, then we may consider the universe in general under the governance of entelechy: something the being of which consists in its governance of events, but which requires for its complete being that more events should come to pass than ever can have come to pass. This most general application of the category of entelechy, viewed as the factor which produces real regularity from disorder, is what Peirce calls "Reason" (1.615).

In view of our results about final opinions I would maintain, contra Greenlee, that "the [final] opinion is the physical reality."62 If the word "physical" is not taken too narrowly, I can see no reason to deny that every objective symbol is part of the "physical reality" and that the latter is nothing but an objective symbol. But perhaps the defender of Greenlee will say that physical reality is the dynamic aspect of things which falls under the category of matter. What reacts is objective, but certainly it is not a symbol. A reply might begin by pointing out that every sufficiently complete symbol incorporates a dynamic aspect, its object, which falls under the category of matter. I suppose it will not be maintained that the matter is unqualified by form or not under the governance of entelechy. If so, then the symbol is the physical reality. If the defender of Greenlee wishes to maintain that matter alone is the physical reality, this is foreclosed as an intelligible position by our discussion of the categories. All matter embodies form. The idea that any objective reality should be deprived of the governance of entelechy is foreclosed by the model of sign interpretation. For no matter how surd a fact we have to deal with, it must be cognizable. That is, it must be subject to the law that if an interpreter gains an active relation to the object, then he can verify that the form represented to be embodied by the object is embodied by it. Any alleged objective reality to whose representation a right can be established within the model, will be found on analysis to involve an entelechy and will be a symbol. An idealism which makes the world to be a symbol is an idealism which admits that elements not of the nature of entelechy are essential to the semiotic character of the world just because they are essential con- stituents of any symbolic proposition.

4.5 Among the unfinished tasks of Peirce scholarship in semiotic which are listed by Max Fisch is the problem concerning Peirce 's gen-



eralized conception of sign which he said that he despaired of making understood.63 To one correspondent Peirce writes, "My idea of a sign has been so generalized that I have at length despaired of making anybody comprehend it."64 Then he gives the standard definition of "sign" from his late semiotic theory and says that the interpretant of a sign is an effect of the object, mediated by the sign, on the mind of an in-

terpreter. He writes to Lady Welby at about the same time, giving a similar definition. The interpretant is a mediately determined effect of an object on a person. "My insertion of 'upon a person' is a sop to Cerberus, because I despair of making my own broader conception understood."65 The "sop to Cerberus" allows the realist to pass by the growling nominalist unmolested. Peirce distracts the nominalist with an ambiguous definition which allows him to evade the question of the objective status of certain interpretants. The interpretant is an effect on the mind of an interpreter and the "an" has the force of "some." If the "some" ranges over actual interpreters or over inter-

preters that will be actual, then we have a nominalistic interpretation of symbolic interpretants. The symbolic proposition is a subjective phenomenon because it is not independent of what some particular person or group thinks about its object. If the "some" ranges over possible interpreters, then the interpretant is an effect that would be produced and has quite a different status from an effect that actually is. The interpretant becomes a final cause which would govern the representational activity of an interpreter and is independent of any actual representations of actual interpreters. In other words it is an

objective representation, Peirce's "broader conception," which I have tried to explicate in this paper. All this is glossed over and hidden in an indefinite article in the definitions.

4.6 There is an important query about the method I have pursued in this paper and it deserves an answer. In order to understand the relation between truth, reality, and the final opinion I picked the text which seemed to shed the most light on the subject and I explicated the relevant parts of it using material that I judged nearly contemporary with the text. The latter is relatively late, c. 1900-1 901. The passages that represent the phenomenon to be explained cover the period from 1868 to 1906, and are mostly earlier than "Kaivoroixh." The ques-



tion is, Why suppose that the late text gives insight into passages which were written much earlier than it? This amounts to asking whether the passages represent a single phenomenon.

The following considerations give the query additional weight. In one of the manuscripts from the "Logic of 1873" series Peirce writes:

(1) It would be very preposterous to try to see any resem- blance whatever between an island or any other outward object, and the process of thinking. (MS 367, p. 20)

Again,

(2) I do not say that any thinking process is the reality; but I say that that thought to which we struggle to have our thoughts coincide, is the reality. (MS 367, p. 22)

In these passages the words "thought" and "thinking" are used in such a way that thought may be either objective or subjective. The objective in thought in MS 367 and related manuscripts is the object of belief in a final opinion, not a thought process. And this and other manuscripts in the series make it clear that Peirce was having difficulties with a commitment to final causes that he did not want. He rejects the idea under the name of "fate" at 7.335 (from MS 367) and cannot decide whether the action of external realities to produce an ultimate opinion ought to be assimilated to other cases of (presumably efficient) causa- tion or not. In MS 370 the cases are merged. In MS 367 the discussion wanders around without ever coming to a clear conclusion. In MS 393 Peirce swallows the bolus and says that the ultimate opinion is a final cause.66 These writings hardly give a picture of a man committed to the idealism of "Katr OTOixeh" which involves the objective reality of inferential processes since every final cause is a law or type and a symbol. Therefore, the earlier passages represent a different idealism from that of "Katr aroila."

To the question I reply that, in the sense in which the matter is of greatest interest to a commentator, Peirce held the same idealism in



all the passages. I believe that commitment to an objective sign as ob-

ject of an ultimate opinion involves the idea that final causes operate to produce it. This is what gave Peirce so much trouble in 1873. Es- pecially, the objective symbol brings with it the idea that the symbol is a final cause of external things which must themselves be thought of as signs. This is a step into objective logic from which the "sop" diverts attention. The effects of symbols as final causes are facts which

they bring about in order to realize themselves. This granted, the cognition of some of these facts for the sake of realizing the sign as gov- ernor of semiosis in the model is only a special case of the operation of the symbol. The satisfaction of the symbol is the maintenance or attainment of an end state. The symbol requires for its satisfaction that phenomena should be brought into conformity with it and so re-

quires that representational activities of utterers and interpreters that violate it, be brought into line. This generalized concept of sign needs no reference to a particular interpreter and is implicit in a reference to a possible interpreter. I do not say that Peirce held this objective logic in the context of the early passages at l.l(l)-l.l(10). But I do say that "Kair OTOixela" fairly represents the entelechy of the thought in these passages.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

NOTES

1. Manuscript numbers refer to items listed in Richard S. Robin, An- notated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce (n.p.: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1967).

2. Except for numbers referring to sections of the paper, decimal numbers stand for volume and paragraph numbers in Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 vols., ed. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and Arthur W. Burks (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965-67).

3. Passages representing the same idea may be found at 1.515, 3.161, 5.430, 5.432, 8.145, and in Charles S. Peirce, The New Elements of Mathematics, ed. Carolyn Eisele (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1976; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1976), IV, 162, 343-344.

4. Douglas Greenlee, "Peirce's Concept of Sign: Further Reflections,"



Transaction of the Charles S. Peirce Society, XII (1976), 140-141. 5. Greenlee, "Peirce's Concept," p. 141. 6. Bruce Altshuler, "Peirce's Theory of Truth and His Early Idealism,"

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, XVI (1980), 125-128. 7. Joseph Ransdell, "Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic," Semi-

otica, XIX (1977), 169. 8. Ransdell, "Leading Ideas," p. 169. 9. Ransdell, "Leading Ideas," p. 169. 10. Ransdell, "Leading Ideas," pp. 169-70. 11. Only two commentators besides Ransdell have touched on the ques-

tion of the propositional nature of reality with some real appreciation of the issue. Rollin Workman, "Pragmatism and Realism," Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, second series, ed. Edward C. Moore and Richard S. Robin (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1964), pp. 242-253, identifies the law expressed by a true proposition with the proposition, though not quite in these words. The same idea is just beneath the surface in Richard Smyth, "The Pragmatic Maxim in 1878," Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, XIII (1977), 93-111. Workman

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