The Relevance of Peirce's Semiotic for Contemporary Issues

 in Cognitive Science

 

published in Acta Philosophica Fennica, vol.58, 1995,

« Mind and Cognition : Philosophical Perspectives on Cognitive science and Artificial intelligence », edited by Leila Haaparanta and Sara Heinämaa, p. 37-74.

---------------------

Claudine Tiercelin. University of Paris

(Pantheon-Sorbonne)

 

C. S. Peirce was, among other things, a philosopher, a psychologist, a logician, a mathematician — to say nothing of his other professional activities as a chemist, a land surveyor at the American Geodesic Coast Survey or of his talents as a connoisseur in  medieval rare incunables and French Bordeaux wines.  Hence, one should not be surprised to find in the writings of a man endowed with so many capacities more than interesting remarks on several issues that are important today for cognitive science. Yet, to talk of the relevance of Peirce's semiotic for cognitive science may be misleading, at least if by semiotic is meant some autonomous academic field. Indeed, we shall start this paper by showing  that Peirce's  semiotic  was but another name for logic, but a logic which was in close connection with mathematics as well as psychology and ontology. Now, it is precisely because of such a  wide-ranging definition that Peirce considered he had the right tools to conduct a 'logical analysis of the products of thought', especially  a thought-sign theory which could be extended to other kinds of intelligence than human  intelligence, (namely logical machines), a sound account of intentionality and of  the various kinds of signs involved in reasoning. In presenting some of his reflexions on such topics, we hope to show that Peirce was indeed on the tracks of a new  formal model of the mind, which might turn out fruitful for contemporary discussions.

 

 

37


 

I. Why there is no 'Peircian semiotic'

Nothing is more mistaking and seducing than what is often called 'Peircean semiotic', with its innumerable and complex classifications and neologisms. Yet, it is surprising that those who take it legitimate to speak of a Peircean semiotic should not be troubled by the following puzzling fact, i.e. the absence of two conditions that seem minimal if one is to establish the principles of a rigorous semiotic : first, a clearcut definition of the concept of sign, or at least, some determination of what is  and what is not  a sign, and perhaps even more, a delimitation of the domain of semiotic  which would enable one to distinguish it from other types of knowledge, and especially  from any traditional reflexion on the classical problems dealing with meaning, language and truth - such problems being finally common to a whole tradition (Russell-Frege-Wittgenstein) -  and which would define it as a specific branch with its own rules, codes and norms, playing a foundational role for a more comprehensive theory of culture and society.

No doubt, many assertions from Peirce's huge amount of material  on semiotic (more than 90% according to some),  go along this line, like the following commentary, written late in his life, to Lady Welby:

 

'Know that from the day when at the age of 12 or 13 I took up, in my elder brother's room a copy of Whately 's Logic and asked him what Logic was, and getting some simple answer, flung myself on the floor and buried myself in it, it has never been in my power to study anything, — mathematics, ethics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economic, the history of science, whist, men, and women, wine, metrology, except as a study of semiotic...' ( Semiotics and Significs, Indiana U. P. , 1977, p. 85-6).

 

But such declarations may be interpreted either in a strong sense, which would amount to defining semiotic as a sufficiently established branch so as to serve as the framework for the study of the other quoted fields of investigation, or in a weak or 'soft' sense, according to which semiotic and the concept of sign would have a vague enough extension to cover a whole range of domains.This last impression can be reinforced in two ways: first by the fact that in order to give a meaning to the concept of sign, one must be capable of distinguishing between what is and what

 

 

 

38


 is not a sign. Now, such is not the case with Peirce since, strictly speaking, our power of knowledge places us directly at the phenomenal level (the Ding an sich  is impossible). As claimed in the 1868 articles published in the  Journal of Speculative Philosophy, to be is to be cognizable (5.257). Hence, any thing, viewed in its phenomenality, is a sign. In that respect, the universe may be taken as a 'vast representamen ': the world is not composed of signs and non-signs: 'the entire universe… is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs' (5.448n1). Second, there are difficulties with Peirce's concept of sign itself, not because of any fuzzy boundaries of the concept (on the contrary it is historically and philosophically clearly situated); but the question is rather: taken out of such a context, are Peirce's concepts of sign and semiotic still meaningful? A first source of possible confusion lies in the fact that, for a long time, Peirce seems to equate signs with symbols or even mere representations[1].It is but around 1880 that he also stresses the importance of icons and indices.  After1894, Peirce holds that in any reasoning, we must use a 'mixture' of icons, indices and symbols, and 'cannot dispense with any of them' ( Ms 404), and seems to consider, next to a logic of symbols, a logic of indices and icons (4.9; 1906). Hence it is only by that time (1902-5) that signs really acquire a specificity different from the concept of representation and that, in parallel, the 'Symbolistic' trivium becomes the ' Semeiotic' trivium , logic being  then defined as Semiotic, formal logic in its narrow sense being restricted to 'Critic' (NEM IV, p. 20)

But this is paradoxical indeed: for the more signs become specified, the less semiotic appears as an autonomous science, since it is the whole of logic (hence of logic in its most formal part too) which is then defined as semeiotic[2].With some hesitations first, admitting he is a bit ambiguous in his use of the term of logic 'at once the name of a more general science and a general branch of that science' ( Ms 751), Peirce ends up identifying logic with Semeiotic. Of course, although logic is now semiotic through and through, it does not constitute the whole of Semeiotic. It is only what is called by Peirce cenoscopic (Ms 499), formal (NEM IV, p. 20), general (1.444), normative (2.111), speculative (Ms 693), or the

 

39


'General Semeiotic: the  a priori  theory of signs' (Ms 634), 'the quasi-necessary, or formal doctrine of signs' (2.227), 'the pure theory of signs, in general' ( Ms L 107). And this is why, besides cenoscopic semeiotic, there are, or more exactly, may be  idioscopic studies  as various as the idioscopic sciences themselves: physics, biology, geology, anthropology, psychology, medical science, music, politics, etc. .  Peirce clearly says he hopes for such a thing in 1909:

 

'A great  desideratum  is a general theory of all possible kinds of signs, their modes of signification, of denotation, and of information; and their whole behaviour and properties, so far as they are not accidental' (Ms 634).

 

It is surely tempting to rely on such claims and also on the Peircean requirements as far as inquiry is concerned: 'never block inquiry' (1.135) to view Peirce as the father of contemporary semiotic. Did'nt he say himself:

 

'…I am, as far as I know, a pionner, or rather a backwoodsman, in the work of clearing and opening up what I call  semeiotic, that is, the doctrine of the essential nature and fundamental varieties of possible semiosis; and I find the field too vast, the labor too great, for a first-comer' (5.488).

 

Yet, before taking such enthusiastic claims too seriously, and before pondering upon what can really be the relevance of Peirce 's semiotic for cognitive science, one should pay attention to the following points:

1) The semiotic which is established in 1867 has logic as its starting-point and is considered from the point of view of logic.

2) When semiotic is developed in the 1868 papers, into a semantical theory of knowledge, in virtue of which not only thought is a sign, but man itself is a sign (5.313), it surely means already, some extension of semiotic to other domains, the framing of some possible new model of the mind, as I shall show later, but such a theory first aims at demonstrating that, without it, the validity of the laws of logic  would be 'inexplicable' . 

3) When Peirce declares he wishes to develop a semeiotic study of other branches than logic, he also reminds that the reasonings involved there must be capable of being submitted to  logical study. Such is the case of psychology:

 

40


 

 

'Of course psychologists ought to make, as in point of fact they are making, their own invaluable studies of the sign-making and sign-using functions— invaluable, I call them, in spite of the fact that they cannot possibly come to their final conclusions until other more elementary studies have come to their first harvest.' (Ms 675).

 

4) Although the apparently elastic frontier between the various fields of knowledge seems to allow for a general theory  of signs conducted by other researchers than logicians, one may wonder whether  — and to what extent— Peirce really considered the question , since it is so obvious to him  that everything that has been achieved until then in that direction was done by logicians (Whately, Mill, Boole, Ockham)  that it seems natural to view them as the best group of researchers to pursue the task. Thus, even if 'a piece of concerted music is a sign, and so is a word or signal of command', and if 'logic has no positive concern with either of these kinds of signs', 'it is not likely that in our time there will be anybody to study the general physiology of the non-logical signs except the logician' (Ms 499).

5) Finally, is it not strange that the so-called father of such a generalized semiotic , who was not particularly stingy about grand projects, should have only taken as one of his major works —which he hoped to be as successful in the 21th century as Mill's  System of Logic ) — a 'System of Logic considered as Semeiotic' (Ms 640, NEM .III, p. 875), i.e. a book dealing, not with the whole field of semeiotic, but with the only logic or cenoscopic semeiotic?

As a consequence, one can hardly speak of a 'Peircean Semiotic', thereby meaning a branch of which Peirce would have explicitly delimited the range of application or forgiven in advance any kind of extrapolation. The open-mindedness of that great man, 'saturated through and through with the spirit of the physical sciences' (1.3) could make the difference between what he called the 'laboratory philosophy' and those who 'want philosophy ladled out to them'. Those can 'go elsewhere; there are philosophical soup shops at every corner, Thank God' (1.11). On the contrary, it is quite clear that Semiotic was always viewed by Peirce  in relation with logic (which is Peirce's one point of departure from Saus-

 

 

41


sure) . But what does this exactly mean? And, especially should  this constitute (as some, like J. Kristeva, think) a reduction  of semiotic? To get clearer about this, we must now turn to Peirce's conception of logic itself.

 

2. Peirce's conception of logic and its relations with mathematics, psychology and ontology.

To grasp Peirce's  views about formal logic, one has to view it in terms of its relations with mathematics, psychology and ontology.

Indeed, the first mistake would be to think that  there is a wide and a narrow sense of logic,  for Peirce , the narrow one, being constituted by the deductive part of logic, whereas the wide sense would be covered by the theory of logic as semiotic, i.e. the general theory of signs, or the study of anything whose function is to represent something [3]. Such is not at all the case (4.373). The basic distinction is rather between logic and mathematics (e.g. Peirce held the calculus of classes as a formal deductive system to be a piece of mathematics, not of logic and said that 'formal logic is nothing but mathematics applied to logic'(4.263; 3.615)).  Thus, from the start, and as a follower of Aristotle and Kant, Peirce finds there is something more to mathematical logic than mathematics, namely, logic, which is always viewed from a  theoretical or philosophical perspective. Hence an opposition between logic and mathematics which is grounded not on a distinction between two specific domains (since mathematics itself is not defined by its objects, space or quantity, but widely, as the science of necessary reasoning), but rather between the theoretical or observational part of inference, on the one hand, and its practical or operational part on the other [4]. As a consequence, logic and mathematics have different aims and methods: from the mathematician's point of view, the instrumental value of the calculus is decisive, because he is mainly interested in finding the simplest and shortest way to get to the result (4.239). Logical constructions are thus superfluous (3.222). But the logician's standpoint is 'simply and solely the investigation of the theory of logic' (4.373). This is why 'the system devised for the investigation of

 

42


 logic should be as analytical as possible, breaking up inferences into the greatest possible number of steps and exhibiting them under the most general categories possible; while a calculus would imply, on the contrary, to reduce the number of processes as much as possible, and to specialize the symbols so as to adapt them to special kinds of inference' (4.373) [5]. As logicians are not first interested in reaching conclusions but in  theories  about their relations to premisses (4.239; 4.370; 4.481; 4.533), their natural aim is to 'analyze reasoning and see what it consists in…' (2.532). Viewed as 'an analysis and theory of reasoning', logic thus considers not only deductive but inductive and abductive (or hypothetical) reasonings and extends to a theory of logical and scientific inquiry.  It  makes it a normative science (1.577), even a branch of ethics (1.611; 1.573; 1.575; 5.35; 5.130), for every reasoning is the product of a deliberate and self-controlled thought (1.606; 5.130), 'with a view to making it conform to a purpose or ideal' (1.573). Logical criticism should indeed apply to that kind of reasonings alone, which is a consequence too of the principles of pragmaticism, according to which all thinking is a kind of conduct (5.534), making reasoning a deliberate conduct for which a man may be held responsible: the normativity of reasoning is decisive to understand the principles of Peirce's theory of assertion and those governing the methods of scientific inquiry (1.615). Again, such a definition of logic as a science of reasoning implies some appeal to psychology. Peirce's standpoint is here extremely subtile and original: although he is very much opposed to psychologism in logic, such as may be found in the German introspective tradition against which he fights over and over, he insists on taking account of certains  facts  of psychology in logic (such as doubts, beliefs, etc.), which is for him the only way to remember that logic is a positive science (contrary to mathematics, which is a science of pure hypotheses and abstractions) . Indeed, ' formal logic must not be too purely formal; it must represent a fact of psychology, or else it is in danger of degenerating into a mathematical recreation' (2.710). If such observations are indeed psychological, they must no be interpreted as observations, to be made oby by empirical or experimental psychology : for

 

43

 


 they 'come within the range of every man's normal experience, and for the most part in every waking hour of life'(1.241), and are such that they constitute  'the universal data of experience that we cannot suppose a man not to know and yet to be making inquiries' (4.116). Among those, the fact that every reasoning is governed by an aim, holds out some expectation, proceeds by iconic concstructions, and assumes certains belief-habits which operate like leading principles or rules of inference. otherwise, logic would not be confined to a grammar limited not only to abnormal but to non-scientific or irrational men (5.438-463; 502-537). Thus, when Peirce claims the possibility and the duty for logic to account for such psychological facts, it is because 'under an appeal to psychology, is not meant every appeal to any fact relating to the mind' (2.210).

Now, can  Peirce's conception of formal logic both as a theory of reasoning and as a theory of arguments may rightly be considered on the same footing as his general theory of signs: for one might object that, strictly speaking, Peirce's theory of arguments is only one branch of logic, what he calls his Critic (1.559; 2.229), whereas Semiotic, as a general theory of the interpretation of signs is not limited to arguments but extends to concepts, terms and propositions as well (2.229; 1.559). Indeed, it is  precisely at this point that Semiotic gets into the picture, for the aim of  analysis  as opposed to calculus is not simplicity but complexity , in order to reach the most basic and irreducible elements: hence, through the various functions exhibited by different kinds of signs, Semiotic will help clarifying the nature of arguments (1.575; 4.425). Thus, while Peirce holds to a triple division a logic into Critic, Speculative Grammar and Methodeutic, this indicates not so much a difference in nature between all three domains as a different ordering of the various tasks to be achieved, whether signs are being considered according to their nature (Speculative Grammar) or to their classifications (Critic), or to the methods to be followed to come to the truth (Methodeutic) (1.191). At all events, the critical part of logic is not limited to Critic, for formal characters are present in the two other branches as well. This explains why 'logic, in its general sense, is…only another name for

 

44

 


Semeiotic, the quasi-necessary or formal doctrine of signs'(2.227).

Still, how can  the formal character of such an undertaking be warranted? In the first place,  because of the task to be achieved by Speculative Grammar itself. First viewed in a general — both Kantian and Scotistic — way (2.83) as a theory of knowledge and meaning (2.206), Speculative Grammar is more and more restricted to the establishment of 'what must be true of the representamen  used by every scientific intelligence  in order that they may embody any meaning' ( 2.229). Thus Grammar's first function  is not to study every sign (symbols, icons, indices), but 'to treat of the formal conditions of symbols having meaning'(1.559). This is why Semiotic as a whole will finally concentrate on the study of symbols alone (4.9), for propositional symbols are required for inference. Now, inference is the main concern of a Scientific Intelligence, that is, an intelligence which is incapable of intuition and has no other means than to follow the rules of inference (deductive but inductive and abductive as well) applied to experience, and which has accepted certain purposes and methods, i.e. , and among other things, that an assertion can have no meaning unless it deliberately aims at knowledge and truth. Hence 'the illative relation is the primary and paramount semiotic relation'(2.444n1). And since a sign or symbol can have no meaning except as a part of a propositional or even assertive context in which it is involved (4.583; 4.56; 4.551), a theory of meaning will necessarily be a propositional theory of meaning (cf. Frege) providing a formal analysis of the rational act of assertion (3.430) and capable of determining the conditions to be met by the symbols used by a scientific  intelligence. Which does not imply that Peirce wishes to reduce meaning to truth nor that a theory of meaning should amount to a theory of truth. This is why Grammar must take into consideration not only a general theory of truth and of knowledge, but also an analysis of propositions, assertions, of the conditions of communication, of the norms governing communication and a theory of belief [6].

But parallel to Grammar growing more and more formal, Critic itself undergoes radical changes. Peirce's adoption of the semiotic perspective in logic has many consequences; it reveals, for example, that the common

 

45

 


distinctions made by formal logic, and especially by syllogistic, between terms, propositions and arguments, are secondary or mainly founded on grammatical misconceptions (3.430). A logical analysis of their structure as signs will reveal, for example, that terms are implicit propositions (2.341; 4.48; 4.56; 2.356; 4.583; 8.183), that a proposition in turn is a rudimentary argument deprived of its force or power of assertion (2.344; 2.346). We are then entitled to say that the essence of logic is indeed Critic, that is, the study of arguments (2.203; 2.710; 4.9; 5.159; 5.175), since propositions and concepts are merely degenerate forms of arguments. Critic assumes, morevover, that every asserted proposition is either true or false and studies propositions as constituents of arguments or inferences (2.205). Thus, to a certain extent, questions of truth are reducible to questions of logical validity (5.142, 2.444n, 3.440). On the other hand, arguments are just one category of signs among others. Thus, to give a logical analysis of their structure we not only have to appeal to the wider conception of logic as Semiotic, but actually to introduce Semiotic into Logic. In that respect, any analysis of a logical argument will imply the study of 'the general conditions to which…signs of any kind must conform in order to assert anything'(2.206), and particularly the investigation of the respective roles played by symbols, indices and icons in logical inference.

 The second heading to be taken care of, when one wishes to get clearer about Peirce's conception of logic, and of logic viewed as semiotic, is the ontological background from which it is inseparable. Without entering too much into details, a few important things are here to be reminded. In the first place, to say that Peirce's conception of logic is at the outset, and according to the classical tradition inherited from Kant and Aristotle, grounded in ontology  means, that , in so far as Peirce's ontology is a realistic one, it is more accurate to talk of Peirce's logical or semiotic realism than of Peirce's logic or semiotic. It is very important to bear this in mind,  to understand not only the various concepts that are introduced by him  in 1867 through his categorial analysis, but also the way such concepts and classifications should be understood, namely, never as such,

 

46


 but in relation to  the other concepts, and to  the sign-relation itself, which arises out of the method used within the categorial deduction, i.e. the medieval or Occamistic procedure of  suppositio .

Indeed, to understand Peirce's concept of sign, one has to tie it to two main sources, its mathematical (i.e. Boolean) source, and its medieval (both Ockhamistic and Scotistic) inspiration[7]. In Peirce's use of signs, there is, first, the mathematician's reflex,  the reflex of someone who, like Boole, started by 'thinking by algebraic symbols' (NEM.III,I, p.191), realizing that to think is not necessarily 'to talk to oneself'(ibid.). It is such a habit of mathematician which will lead him to think in diagrams, with one regret only: not to be able, because of the 'great cost of the apparatus' that would be needed, to think 'in stereoscopic moving pictures' (ibid.).Thus, from the outset, Peirce's use of signs is linked with something more than practical convenience: it is the idea that one can raise such a usage into a method ; this is why he will write that 'by pragmatism is meant a philosophy which should regard thinking as manipulating signs so as to consider questions' (NEM.III.I.p.191).

It is not doubt something similar which explains why he felt so enthusiastic about the reading of the scholastics, and above all,of Ockham, who had the habit of thinking about thought under the form of signs:

 

'As Scotus's mind is always running on forms, so Ockham's is on logical terms…Ockham always thinks of a mental conception as a logical term, which, instead of existing on paper, or in the voice, is in the mind, but is of the same general nature, namely a  sign . The conception and the word siffer in two respects: first, a word is arbitrarily imposed, while a conception is a natural sign; second a word signifies whatever it signifies only indirectly, through the conception which signifies the same thing directly.'(8.20).

 

Again, it is not surprising that Peirce should find in Ockham the means he is looking for to proceed to a logical analysis of the products of thought, since in using signs, one can center the analysis not so much on what they are, (sounds, marks, states of the mind…) but on the  use  which is being  made of them, in forming statements about things which they are not. As Ockham puts it: 'Spoken words are used to signify the very things that are signified by concepts of the mind, so that a concept primarily

 

47


and naturally signifies something and a spoken word signifies the same thing secondarily' (Summa Logicae, I.1). Peirce reproduces such a definition almost completely in his  New List of Categories :

 

'The objects of the understanding, considered as representations, are symbols, that is, signs, which are, at least potentially, general. But the laws of logic hold good of any symbols, of those which are written or spoken, as well as those which are thought.'(1.559).

 

Hence a definition of logic or semiotic as 'the observation of thoughts in their expression' (3.490) and as 'treating of second intentions as applied to firts' (1.559), together with the claim that 'whenever we think, we have present to the consciousness some feeling, image, conception, or other representation, which serves as a sign' (5.283).

But, very interestingly, things are a little more complicated. For, while Peirce explains why he prefers Ockham and follows him in the deduction of his own categories, in his analysis of relative terms, he also notes that what he has in mind is a Speculative Grammar (later called Formal), and it is in fact Duns Scotus whom he follows in  his interpretation of the argument as a  consequentia simplex de inesse , and in his identification for example of categorical propositions with hypothetical propositions. Why is that so? Precisely because Peirce perceives very quickly that there are some defects in Occam's undertaking. Although it is 'simple and lucid', thanks to its logical turn, Duns Scotus' s Speculative Grammar, despite or precisely because of its complexity enables also to account for 'all the facts', in other words, to set out a real 'Philosophy of Grammar', which, while avoiding the traps of mental psychologism ( a defect which Occam's stress on the primacy of mental language finally commits him to, as Peirce rightly notices), really develops a theory of meaning[8].

Such waverings between Ockham and Duns Scotus do in fact reveal the nature and aim of Peirce's metaphysical project and the role he wants to ascribe to semiotic. What is the ambition? To build a philosophy of grammar that would be formal enough  but also wide enough to account for all the relations between language, mind and reality. Formal enough? The models will be Ockham and Boole. Wide enough? Then Kant and

 

48


Scotus will rather be the inspirers. Should one follow Ockham? Indeed: he is one of the best protections against psychologism, but by being too close to him, one runs into the risk of some form or other of nominalistic reductionism. Such is Peirce's tendency, as can be seen from the 1868 texts, in which Peirce goes so far as to write, not only that all thought is in signs, but that man himself is a sign which develops according to the laws of valid inference . Yet, at the same time, the texts also denounce all possible manifestation of nominalistic reductionism. Should one follow Duns Scotus? Indeed. Because Peirce has in mind something like a formal Grammar, he prefers to call it Formal rather than Speculative, but the spirit is the same.It means that it is indeed possible to analyze the structure of the  modi significandi  independently of the  modi essendi , such as is required by the Pseudo-Scotus 's piece of advice, at the beginning of his work, but it means also that it is impossible to  reduce  the  modi essendi  to the  modi signifcandi , in other words, that one should distinguish between the logical and the metaphysical universals. This is why if logic can become a generalized Semiotic on the model of a Formal Grammar, it is indeed because it has as its objects not only arguments but 'signs of any kind' (2.206). But it is also why such a formal grammar which 'treats of the formal conditions of symbols which have a meaning' (1.559), such a pure grammar which will have for task 'to ascertain what must be true of the  representamen  used by every scientific intelligence in order that they may embody any  meaning ' (2.229), will be compared with Kant's  Transcendentale Elementarlehre , to an  Erkenntnistheorie  or even to Epistemology (2.206), under the condition that it has nothing more to do with a psychological theory of knowledge than logic is itself concerned with the psychological processes of thought. But simultaneously, Peirce's sources of inspiration, the definition he gives of logic and the aim which is devoted to it both impose and allow for its extension. If its main part is that of some logical analysis of the products of thought, one of its functions will be the establishment of the rules of some 'art of judging'. In that sense, while Peirce's obsession is to get rid of the ambiguities of Kant's psychology of faculties, and mostly of the psychology of introspec-

 

49

 


tion and association, he clearly believes that  some psychology, in its experimental but also Kantian sense , as a possible science of the forms of thought in general, is a part of logic, hence of the metaphysical project as a whole, since the metaphysical categories are merely the mirror of the categories of formal logic (2.84)[9]. 

 

3. The thought-sign theory: towards a new model of the mind.

The first interesting realization of such a conception of semiotic is to provide a new model of the mind, obeying the logical but also the psychological and ontological requirements of a 'logical analysis of the products of thought'.

1. Why thought is a sign. As early as 1868, and as a consequence of his denial of any first knowledge  - be it a priori, by intuition, or based on sense-data -  which would claim to be prior to language or that thought should precede any sign (5.250)), Peirce asserted that 'We have no power of thinking without signs', or that  'all thought is in signs'(5.251) and concluded that  not only is language indispensable to thought, but thought is always achieved within some kind of sign-process. (5.289; 2.26; 1.349) .Hence 'the woof and warp of all thought and all research is symbols, and the life of thought and science is the life inherent in symbols; so that it is wrong to say that a good language is  important  to good thought, merely; for it is of the essence of it'(2.220; cf. 4.6). From the scholastics, Peirce has retained the idea that to assert thought is a sign, is simply to remind that it is 'of the same general nature" as a sign (8.20) and that it is always possible to think of it as 'a mental conception, a logical term, which, instead of existing on paper, or in the voice, is in the mind' (8.20). Hence one should treat thought as a second intention. But what then? Peirce soon realized all that could be done with Ockham's  efforts towards a general semanticization of the mind [10].  Suppositio  will be here of great help. Indeed, it allows, while leaving aside the  significatio  of the term, to treat the sign as being capable of standing for something in virtue of its combination with another sign of language in a sentence or a proposition

 

50


(Summa logicae,1,63), which means that, by analyzing signs in respect to their supposition, (one of the most useful terms of the Middle Ages - 5.320n1), Peirce wants to stress, independently of the semantical properties of supposition, the more formal traits of the sign, since one of Ockham's 'terministic' inspiration —despite the ambiguities linked with  his theory of natural signification and mental language — was to try and analyze the formal structure of language instead of hypostazing such structure into a science of reality or of the mind[11]. The categorial deduction is achieved through a complete reformulation by the sign-relation of the traditional propositional relation between subject and predicate. The subject, Peirce claims, is a sign of the predicate. Hence, there is no longer a relation of causality but a term to term relation; second, that relation is not a relation between absolute terms but connotative terms, namely such as they 'signify one thing primarily and another thing secondarily' ( Summa Logicae, 1.10) and have a 'nominal definition '. As a consequence, such terms do not refer directly but indirectly or obliquely to individual objects. As such, they signify primarily a signification and secondarily the individual objects on the ground of that signification. Thus, when Peirce writes in the  New List  that the same thing is said by 'the stove is black' and 'there is blackness in the stove' (1.551), black refers to the stove on the ground that it embodies blackness. Black refers primarily to its signification, blackness, and secondarily to the stove on the ground of that signification. Subject and predicate are not strictly speaking concepts, but hypotheses. Being means something when taken with the predicate because they represent a way in which some manifold can be made more determinate (1.548). Hence, as soon as we form a proposition, we do not merely 'read' what is in front of us, we engage into some theoretical activity: we interpret (Ms 403).  A sign never refers to its object, directly or dyadically: it only refers to its object through another sign - which will not necessarily be a subject - which interprets it as so doing. 

Therefore, to claim that thought is a sign, means that it is capable of being understood as standing for ( in suppositio) something else: it does not receive it meaning from a subject or a mind, but from the relation of

 

51


signification which is then taking place. Hence, thought is a sign which refers not to an object but to a thought which is its interpretant, this latter referring in its turn to another thought-sign which interprets it in an endless process:

 

'Let us suppose, for example, that Toussaint is thought of, and first thought as a  negro , but not distinctly as a man. if this distinctness is afterwards added, it is through the thought that a  negro  is a  man ; that it to say, the subsequent thought  man  refers to the outward thing by being predicated of that previous thought,  negro, which has been had opf that thing. If we afterwards think of Toussaint  as a general, then we think that this negro, this man, was a general. And so, in every case, the subsequent thought denotes what was thought in the previous thought' (5.285).

 

The semiotic process is a three-term relation : the sign is a thing related on a certain ground to a second sign, its object, so that it puts into relation a third thing, namely, its interpretant, with this same object, and so on,  ad infinitum . As early as 1867, the triadic pattern arises from the categorial analysis itself, which, in the course of various phenomenological and logical refiNEMents, will underline the existence of three distinct and irreducible -though always related in experience- categories:  Firstness,  or the qualitative and idiosyncratic dimension of the relation,  Secondness, or the reactive and existential element,  Thirdness, (intelligence, rules, habits, thought, meaning), and most of all, the leading role of the third category.[12]

2. Why the sign relation should  have an irreducibly intelligible  (or triadic structure. But just as thought is revealed by the semiotic process,it also goes the other way round; what is revealed by the semiotic process itself, is its fundamentally triadic (namely intelligible or intentional) structure. Thus as a first consequence of Peirce's semiotic realism and categorical analysis, we find the idea of Thirdness associated with the sign, and together with this, the idea that every sign involves meaning (1.348; 8. 331), or again, 'executes an intention' (1.538), and that, in all cases, we are dealing with never-ending meanings (1.343), because of the irreducible character of the third category.

Second, the notion of Thirdness does not define what a sign is: rather, it defines a  sign-relation : '…I confine the word  representation  to

 

52

 


 the operation of a sign' (1.540). 'The sign itself is a link' (Ms 517). [13] This is why, finally, the central concept of Peirce's semiotic is not the concept of representation, nor that of representamen, nor even the concept of sign, but rather that of  sign in action  . It is less a general theory of representation  than a theory of the production and reproduction of signs and of their interpretation , i.e. of the possible translation of signs into other signs: 'The meaning of a sign is the sign it has to be translated into' (4.132). 'The ‘meaning’ is… in its primary acceptance  the translation of a sign into another system of signs'(4.127)[14]

In that respect, the now classical division between the syntactical, semantical and pragmatical aspects of the sign cannot be adapted to Peirce's project. Peirce's semiotic is pragmatistic through and through. It is only in relation to semiosis that the distinctions get any meaning at all. It is for example the case with the  -most important according to Peirce - division between icon, index and symbol: it is less a division between different signs than a division between different functions of the sign (the iconical, indexical and symbolical functions), (2.304). Which amounts to say that it is ill-placed to consider indices, icons and symbols as the three Peircean classes of signs[15], but also that the analytical definition of the three constitutive elements of a sign, whatever it may be, is never absolute. The index, the icon and the symbol have their respective real and irreducible characteristics. In that respect, there is no prevalence of the symbols over the others.  Even if the symbol appears as the only 'genuine' sign (3.359-63; 5.73), since the interpretability of icons and indices (degenerate signs) does not always require a triadic relation: yet, each plays a role in the sign-relation, in relation with the object and to the interpretant. One can, at every level, consider some aspect of the sign, without it being exclusive of the other aspects,. This is why a sinsign presupposes a qualisign, the index an icon, the dicisign a rheme, just as the icon and index are constitutive elements of the symbol. (2.279, 293). It remains that just as the categorical analysis has stressed the reality of each category, and the fact that they are really linked and subordinated to thirdness, the semiotical analysis will also remind that, as soon as one

 

53


 

deals with a meaningful system, there are no pure indices (2.306), and no pure icons (2.276; 2.279). Indeed, in so far as their meanings will only be acquired in a further semiosis, (4.447; 2.304), all signs remain, to a certain extent, symbolical, the basic aim of semiosis being that  it should exemplify a Thirdness or a triadic relation (1.537), i.e. a relation which, contrary to a rude dyadic relation such as is proper to the phenomena of automatic regulation (5.473), involves some meaning (1.343; 8.331),  intentionality , or final causation[16].(1.538), thus showing the inexhaustible character of meaning (1.343). In any phenomenon, a structure of intelligibility can be discovered, that is, a thirdness, which is a synonym for representability (5.66; 5. 105). Thus it is the category of Thirdness, an ontological (not psychological) category, which provides the best approach to the sign, appearing  either as one the figures of Thirdness, or being simply identified with it:

 

'In its genuine form, Thirdness is the triadic relation existing between a sign, its object, and the interpreting thought, itself a sign, considered as constituting the mode of being of a sign.' ( 8.332)

 

The advantage of such a substitution is that it shows the structure of intelligibility not to be limited to  human  thought (as the example of the sunflower testifies, which is a purely generic manifestation of nature itself).

 

'Mind has its universal mode of action, namely, by final causation. The microscopist looks to see whether the motions of a little creature show any purpose. if so, there is mind there' (1.269).

 

Hence, there is mind, where there is thirdness. To claim that the semiotic relation is irreducibly triadic is to deny that the meaning conveyed by any sign should be a dyadic unmediated relation between a sign and what it signifies. Hence the 'signified result of a sign' ( which Peirce calls the interpretant) will not be like some automatic regulation :

 

'.If the thermometer is dynamically connected with the heating and cooling appartus, so as to check either effect, we do not, in ordinary parlance, speak of there being any  semeiosy, or action of a sign, but on the contrary, say that there is an 'automatic regulation', an idea opposed, on our minds, to that of semeiosy'.(5.472-3).

54


 

 Such an importance given to the idea of Thirdness can be seen three basic levels in the semiotic process (which is defined as a three term relation  between a sign,  an object (or more) and an interpretant (or more): in Peirce's treatment of the object as a sign itself , in the prevalence given to the interpretant  which must not be confused with an interpreter —in the sign relation, and finally in the irreducibly open character or basically indeterminate character of the whole semiotic process [17].

 

4. Towards a new model of the mind: logical machines, icons and intentionality

It should be easier to realize what the relevance of Peirce's semiotic for contemporary issues in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science might consist in.  To make things even clearer, in what follows, I shall particularly focus on three aspects that seem to me mostly fruitful, ie. Peirce's  views on logical machines, on the role of icons in deduction, and on intentionality.

 1) As I have shown elsewhere[18], Peirce' s interest in logical machines is highly significant in many respects:  first, because Peirce very  early saw  not only what practical lessons[19]   but what  philosophical  and methodological lessons could be learned from a comparison between not so much the thinking as the reasoning process of the machine  and that of man. Second, because, as a result of his thought-sign theory, he quickly avoided some of the traditional criticisms that were still to be addressed to the machines, many decades later, namely; that thinking could not be assigned to machines, because of their lack of consciousness, originality[20], or subjectivity (2.56). Third, and despite the behaviouristic flavor of some of his remarks, he clearly pointed out the real differences that exist between not so much man's reasoning and machine's reasoning, as between mechanical and genuine forms of reasoning. Indeed, if one considers reasoning as just another name for  'grinding syllogisms', then, there is no reason why machines should not be gratified with such a capacity. (NEM.III.1, p. 629; 2.59). As a matter of fact, we may  even view

 

55


almost 'every machine as a reasoning machine; a piece of apparatus for performing a physical experiment is also a reasoning machine with this difference that it does not depend on the laws of the human mind, but on the objective reason embodied in the laws of nature' so that 'accordingly, it is no figure of speech to say that the alembics and cucurbits of the chemist are instruments of thought or logical machines'.

 

For the calculating machines only execute variations upon I + I = 2, while there are machines which may, with as much justice, be said to resolve problems before which generations of able mathematicians have fallen back, repulsed. Such for example, are the solids of different shapes which yacht-designers drag through water, and thereby come to the knowledge of arcana of hydrodynamics. Blocks of wood should seem then, on my principles to be better reasoners than the brains of Gauss and Stokes. And why stop here? Any apparatus whatever used for experimentation would be, on the same principle, a logical machine. A steam-engine would be working out, at every revolution, its problem in thermo-dynamics; a simple match, scratched on a box, a question that we are unequal to so much as the formulating of. (2.58).

 

 At any rate,  if we allow that thinking has nothing to do with the life of reasoning (at least if we mean by thinking the necessary reference to  a consciousness or to a self. As early as 1868 in the three famous articles published in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Peirce strongly denied the possibility as well as the epistemological necessity of any intuitive faculty or consciousness to account for mental activity), and that 'how we think is utterly irrelevant to logical inquiry'(2.55), in so far as 'the whole logical inquiry relates to the truth' and 'what the process of thinking may have'been has nothing to do with the question' (2.55), nothing prevents to draw analogies between the reasoning of man and the reasoning of the machine, and the analogy can be drawn in both ways. Peirce went so far in this direction as to give the impression that his position could be equated with rank behaviorism. :

 

 Certain obvious features of the phenomena of self-control (and especially of habit) can be expressed compactly and without any hypothetical addition except what we distinctly rate as imagery, by saying that we have an occult nature of which and of its contents we can only judge by the conduct that it determines, and by phenomena of that conduct' (5.440) (our emphasis).

 

As an illustration of this Peirce happened to use the traditional example of the governor on a steam-engine (very likely derived from Clerk

56

 


 Maxwell's pioneering paper on the subject and found in nearly every book on cybernetics today). Peirce's application of it to the phenomenon of human self-control is worth quoting:

 

Assuming that all of each man's actions are those of a machine, as is indubitably, at least approximately the case, he is a machine with an automatic governor, like any artificial motor; and moreover, somewhat, though not quite, as the governor of an engine, while it automatically begins to turn off steam as soon as the machinery begins to move too fast, is itself automatically controlled for the sake of avoiding another fault, that of too sudden a change of speed, so, and more than so, man's machinery is provided with an automatic governor upon every governor to regulate it by a consideration not otherwise provided for. For while an automatic governor may be attached to any governor to prevent any given kind of excess in an action, each such attachment complicates the machine . . . (But) in the human machine - or at least, in the context of the brain, or in whatever part it be whose action determines of what sort the man's conduct shall be - there seems, as far as we can see no limit to the self government that can and will be brought to bear upon each such determining action, except the lack of time before the conduct which has to be determined must come into actual play.[21]

 

And yet, it is just as true that his descriptions cannot be translated, straightforwardly into the concepts of cybernetics for reasons that should now be clearer: first machines are unable to take into account the observational and iconic part of the reasoning process : and this, (as we shall see)  is indeed going to play a more and more fundamental role in Peirce's conception of deduction, which 'involves discovery as does the experimentaiton of the chemist' (NEM.IV,p.355).:

 

'For example, logical machines have actually been constructed which will grind out relatively complicated syllogistic reasonings, and even dilemmas though they stand one grade higher. But it is easily shown that no machine not endowed with the power of arbitrary choice could possibly work out the conclusion from the simplest single premise of the relative sort; because in every such case an endless series of different conclusions are deducible from the same premise . . . So that we produce a very simple inference that the logical machine cannot grind out. True they will give the conclusion (because it is logically necessary; whence the phenomenon is only in embrio), but they cannot show its relation to the premiss. (NEM.IV, p. 354).

 

Now this last operation  is decisive, precisely  because it is in the relation to the premiss that observation is necessary, for we then have 'considerable range of choice' (NEM.IV, p. 10) so that the determination of that range must be performed 'by the consideration of the purpose that the reasoner has in view, which puts a machine at defiance' (ibid.).

 

57


 

Second, even if we can admit that machines have some power of self-control and self-correctiveness, their self control is neither deliberate, nor endless nor purposive.To deny the power of deliberation to machines , is to deny to them the capacity of having beliefs, i.e, 'deliberate or self-controlled habits' (5.480) namely habits which are not mere dispositions or 'a readiness to act in a certain way under given circumstances and when actuated by a given motive (5 .480). Thus not only do machines lack beliefs, in so far as they are incapable of deliberate behaviour, but they  even lack habits, in so far as, for Peirce, the production of habits requires not merely muscular or mechanical action but also all the efforts of imagination (5.479).

Again, even if the review process which is essential to the operation of self-control is 'an approximation toward the kind of fixed character which would be marked by entire absence of self-reproach upon subsequent reflexion' (5.418) and may be compared in that respect to the corrective feedback 'which tends as the action is considered and repeated, to reduce the oscillations—one's violent wayward inpulses—and to bring the action closer to the ideal', (so that, as Norbert Wiener puts it 'the stable state of a living organism is to be dead',)[22] what is characteristic of human self-control is precisely its endlessness: 'Control may itself be controlled, criticism itself subjected to criticism; and ideally there is no obvious definite limit to the sequence' (5.442). What this means is that 'in genuine reasoning, we are not wedded to our method. We deliberately approve it, but we stand ever ready and disposed to re-examine it and improve upon it, and to criticize our criticism of it, without cessation' (Ms. 831, pp. 10-12). In short, even if mental action proceeds according to habits, it is always possible that something spontaneous should interfere with that habit 'without which (mental action) would be dead' (6.418). Briefly, 'the uncertainty of the mental law is no mere defect of it, but is on the contrary of its essence' (6.148-9). And it is on that very point, that Peirce sees a difference between the mentality of a Scientific intelligence, i.e 'an intelligence which is capable of learning by experience'(1.227), and other forms of intelligent processes.

58


 

In a similar way, Peirce views the efforts made by psychologists to reduce the analysis of the mind in terms of the brain as proceeding along the same fallacious reductive ways  Let me just quote what he writes concerning the psychologists' attempt to reduce mental states to purely neurological states:

 

A psychologist cuts out a lobe of my brain (nihil animale me alienum puto) and then, when I find I cannot express myself, he says, "You see your faculty of language was localized in that lobe". No doubt it was; and so, if he had filched my inkstand, I should not have been able to continue my discussion until I had got another. Yea, the very thoughts would not come to me. So my faculty of discussion is equally localized in my inkstand. It is localization in a sense in which a thing may be in two places at once. On the theory that the distinction between psychical and physical phenomenon is the distinction between final and efficient causation, it is plain enough that the inkstand and the brainlobe have the same general relation to the functions of the mind. I suppose that if I were to ask a modern psychologist whether he holds that the mind 'resides' in the brain, he would pronounce that to be a crude expression; and yet he holds that the protoplasmal content of a brain-cell feels, I suppose: there is evidence that it does so. This feeling, however, is consciousness. Consciousness, per se, is nothing else: and consciousness, he maintains, is Mind. So that he really does hold that Mind resides in, or is a property of, the brain-matter. (7.366) (our emphasis)

 

Thus if it is true that psychologists have become clearer about mind's 'substratum', they 'have not yet made clear what Mind is' nor 'even made it clear what a psychical phenomenon is' (7.364). Their fundamental error is to reduce mental to cerebral states by essentially forgetting to take final causation and intentionality into account, thus believing that the connexion between brain and mind is essential whereas it is just 'accidental' (7.366).

And finally, this is the reason why Peirce holds that we may very well draw analogies between the reasoning of the machine and the reasoning that takes place 'in the context' of the brain ', but in so doing, we should be clear that such an analogy does not necessarily obtain in the context of mind. On the contrary if we wish to analyse mental phenomena, as we already saw, the best way to do it is to look without more than within (be it a self or a brain), namely into signs and semiotic activity (7.364; cf. 7.583; 5.283; 5.314; 6.344).

At any rate, by his insistence on the superfluous character of a self or of a consciousness(5.462; 7.572; 8.225; 5.237; 1.673),  in the understand-

 

59


ing of reasoning or thinking processes in general Peirce very early ruled out what Haugeland calls the 'consciousness objection'[23]  which tended to be raised against the possibility of any artificial intelligence. In that respect it is true that we may consider Peirce as a forerunner of what is recognized as the key to cybernetics, ( also embodied in the Turing-Machine model, and then in functionalism) namely the necessity to abandon the natural/artificial distinction on such a basis. As  Esposito outlined, 'Peirce's view that logical relations reflect metaphysical relations is in line both with the cybernetic use of logical models such as the McCulloch logical nets, to characterize certain physical processes, and with the general mathematization of knowledge in information theory. In fact a synechistic monism enhances the cyberneticist's distinction between software or paper machines and hardware by giving a reality to Turing Machines and information theory which Common Sense with its current materialistic inclinations would not want to give'[24].   

Now this is also because Peirce took the natural/artificial distinction to be  just as inadequate as the mind/matter distinction. Indeed, 'what we call matter is not completely dead but is merely hidebound with habits' (6.158).Thus there is no need to see a basic difference between a machine that works upon a logical design and an instrument of experimentation such as a cucurbit: both are the same in so far as they are instruments of thought—that is to say as soon as we consider what they are intended for. Hence there is no difference in nature but only in degree between simple instruments that may be held as mere continuations of organic activity and such perfectionate mechanisms, which we are perhaps too quick in judging revolutionary or raising fundamentally new problems concerning the mental.  In that respect not only is the evolutionary process a manifestation of mind but the Universe is 'a great poem' a 'vast representamen' (5.119) just as we may find expressions of mentality in certain lower animals, some element of self-criticism (manifested in changes of behaviour) and a 'certain unity of quasi-purpose' (7.381. n. 19).

Thus, Peirce would have certainely agreed with such functionalist

 

60

 


 positions as Putnam's or Fodor's. Without necessarily espousing either a dualist, spiritualist or materialsit ontology, one should be able to caracterize some states of things as mental states: this is but a way of identifying, not indeed their inert structure but rather their causal or functional role within the overall activity of a certain system such as an organism or a machine, such a caracterization being independant from the physical nature of the system at hand, since many very different systems, physically speaking, can, in principle, achieve equivalent functions and thus be described within the mentalist vocabulary.

 Yet, if it is true that mind is no exclusive property of man, and that it is very hard to draw the frontier between mind and matter, an important distinction remains to be made, not so much at the level of the mental as at the level of the rational. Here again we can only stress the prevalence which is given by Peirce to the reasoning  process over that given to the thinking process. This is all the more interesting since the traditional objections raised against Al or cognitive science are often based on their supposed inability to account for other kinds of mental processes than those exclusively involved in truth-seeking, in which they are generally acknowledged to be successful. Now Peirce's analysis shows that even if we stick to the description of the way a rational system should function, we are obliged to take some factors into account. Paradoxically enough, it is precisely man's being  the most rational being that serves as the only good reason for distinguishing  him from other mental manifestations,this rationality being dependent on certain characteristics of self-control (Ms 330).

2) Another field in which Peirce's semiotic analyses reveal fruitful is no doubt what he says about the necessary intervention of images in the reasoning process. Peirce's central idea about necessary deductive resoning is that it proceeds by construction of diagrams which are a species of icons. This applied to logical as well as mathematical reasoning, which is, in Peirce's view, the paradigm of deduction.  An icon is a sign which 'refers to the Object

 

61


 that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses just the same, whether any such Object  actually exists or not' (2.247). The essential feature of the icon is its being able to represent the  formal  sides of things, so that it has less a function of resemblance to its object  thant a function of exemplification or exhibition of that object. Peirce also insists that icons are formal and not mere empirical images, and require some efforts of abstraction in order for such 'skeletons' to be represesented(3.434). Such a mechanism, which Peirce defines as 'hypostatic abstraction' helps us to feel the difference between the thing and its copy.

 Why are icons so useful in deductive reasoning? first because it is a direct consequence of the fundamental pragmatist principle according to which all thought is in signs, but is constituted by signs; second, because Peirce is convinced of the inability of mere symbols to convey any information unless they be accompanied by indices and icons. (4.127; 2.278). Moreover, one of the distinctive traits of icons is their capacity to show a necessiyt, a  would-be  (4.532). Hence their decisive role in the conviction we get of the necessary character of our inferencs (NEM.IV, p. 318) Such an iconic capacity is reflected by diagrams as well as by algebraic formulas which we are more prone to consider as mere conventional compounded signs (2.279). On the contrary, Peirce argues, though it be true that such icons have been rendered such through  the rules of commutation, association, and attribution of symbols, and that their likeness is aided by conventional rules, the symbolic character is in them secondary compared with the iconic one (3.363). This is mainly because of one remarkable property of the icon: namely, that 'by the direct observation of it, other truths  concerning its object can be discovered than those which suffice to determine its construction' (2.279; cf. 3.363). An important thesis follows from this: it is unnecessary to draw any distinction, under such heading at least, between the exact sciences and the physical sciences: as in any science, in logic and mathematics, one makes observations, experiments, confirms hypotheses. The only difference, is that observations do not arise from external opbjects but from models or diagrams constructed by our imagination (Ms 165). The iconic experimentation warrants a sort of accord between the model and the original. Just

 

62


as in the chemist's case, we consider that the model does not  allow us to grasp the object itself (which is always general, since the chemist is not interested in the sample, but in the molecula structure), the icon gives us a hold on realtiy. Mathematical reasoning thus exhibits some  form of a relation (4.530). What finally justifies the interpretation of mathematical reasoning is, Peirce argues, such an iconic character, which shows the form of a relation achieving a sort of isomorphism between the theory and the reality to which it applies. As Peirce stresses, "the icon does not stand unequivocally for this or that existing thing;Its Object may be a pure fiction, as to its existence. much less is its Object necesarily a thing of a sort habitually met with. But ther is one assurance that the icon does afford in the highest degree. Namely that which is displayed befor the mind's gaze —the Form of the Icon, which is also its object — must be  logically possible'. Accordingly 'icons are specially requisite for reasoning', since  it 'has to make its conclusion manifest'(4.531).

How does such ideal experimentation work in deductive reasoning? Peirce thinks he has made on this point an improtant discovery, ie. that "all mathematical reasoning is diagrammatic ans that all necessary reasoning is mathematical reasoning'(NEM.IV,p.47-8). A reasoning is diagrammatic, when it 'cponstructs a diagram according to a precept expressed in geenral terms, performs experiments upon the diagram, notes their results, and expresses them in general terms' (ibid.) How then does the procedure work? First the mathematician has to 'state his hypothesis in general terms; second to construct a diagram, whether an array of letters and symbols with which conventional 'rules' or permissions to transform, are associated, or a geometrical figure, which not only secures him against any confusion of  all  and  some,  but puts before him an icon by the observation of which he detects relations between the parts of the diagram other than those which were used in its construction. This observation is the third step. The fourth step is to assure himself that the relation would be found in every iconic representation of the hypothesis. The fifth and final step, is to state the matter in general terms.'(Ms 1147; NEM.III,II,p.749).  As can be seen, reasoning  combines  symbolic and

63


iconic procedures. But Peirce does not only underline the observational and experimental character of the procedure: he also notes that the diagram is not limited to a construction from data already inscribed in the premisses and that it would suffice to idealize. He considers that properly speaking, there is no demonstration, unless one  modifies or  addds  something to the initial diagram (this iw why  he finally judges that a machine is unable to go so far as a demonstration).

From this, Peirce draws a new distinction, between two possible forms of deduction (corollarial and theorematic, his first real discovery, as he calls it (NEM.IV, p.49)[25] . Corollarial deduction is such that 'it is only necessary to imagine any case in which the premisses are true in order to percevie that the conclusion holds in that case' (NEM.IV,p.38) The corollary is 'deduced directly from propositions already established woithout the use of any other construction than one necessarily suggested in apprehending thge enunciation of the proposition'(NEM.IV, p.288). Theorematic reasoning on the contrary, yields surprises, 'it is necessary to experiment in imagination upoon the image of the premiss in order from the result of such experiment to make corollarial deductions to the truth of the conclusion'(NEM.IV,p.38). Thus a theorem can only be demonstrated  from previously established propositions if 'we imagine something more than what the condition (indicated in the premisses) supposes to exist'(NEM. IV, p. 288).

Yet, and even if the aim of the distinction is to stress that the real inventive kind of mathematical reasoning is performed by theorematic deduction, in so far as it obviously calls for imagination, for invention in experimenting upon the icon, and for widening the context of our hypotheses by supposing more than is strictly required, the basic lesson to be learned from this is that even in the simplest corollarial deduction (even the simplest syllogism) , something like an iconic representation is required (rather than a strict distinction between three kinds of deduction (syllogism, corollarial deduction), we only have a hierarchy of degrees in iconicity.  By insisting on the structural (and not  only psychological) necessity of icons in reasoning, Peirce has shown a fundamental aspect of

64


deductive reasoning, which has often been omitted by cognitivistic models inspired by a Fregean-Russellian view of logic; namely, that our reasonings are structurally governed by semantical rules, and that it is thanks to such rules that people build what Ph. Johnson-Laird[26] —who, as far as he is concerned, limits his inquiry to the 'figural effect' of such models in the only syllogisms— calls 'mental models' of the premisses, and look for models of the conclusion. Without such mental models, which are like abstract representations of situations, whose properties are closer to diagrams, maps or images than to  the purely formal rules of some logical language, one would not understand how the inferential performances of the subjects apparently vary according to their capacity to form more or less easily such 'models'.

Now Peirce's concern with iconic procedures in reasoning is also related to his effort to think of formal logic within a semiotic which remains sensitive to the semantic aspects (symbolic and iconic) of logic. Once again, what is interesting here is not so much  his entertaining the possibility of an iconic logic, as Hintikka has shown[27], than of having stressed  the necessity of associating symbolic and iconic procedures, as can be seen through Peirce's efforts towards a graphical or algebraical presentation of formal logic. In that respect one can find in his works some analyses that are perfectly in keeping with connexionist analyses of cognition - e.g. his account of the formal structures of perception, of icons, of the importance of slow thinking— and on the other hand some others which seem to give more credit to a rather classical cognitivist approach - his criticism of associationism, of images conceived as pictures, his account of representation within the framework of a mental language, etc. Thus, Peirce would seem to be aware of one of the major concerns in cognitive science today : how to find a third way,  mid-way between a classical symbolic account and a connexionist view, finally too close from associationism, which, while bringing a remedy to their respective defects, would be able to reconcile those two approaches[28]

3) Finally, it seems  that many developments made by Peirce in terms of his semiotic analysis  and his insistence on the necessarily endless,

 

65


purposive and indeterminate features of any intelligent and rational processes could be put into parallel with  many descriptions that are being made today, and especially,  whith the account D.Dennett offers of an intentional system[29] For example,  the fact that Dennett intends to speak of intentionality only in terms of linguistic properties is very near Peirce's central notion of semeiosis as a model for all mental and intelligent action.  That Dennett should extend the domain of the intentional to all kinds of processes, that are of the exclusive domain of the first person point of view sounds close to Peirce's own way of handling the problem of intentionality. If Peirce's frog 'almost reasons', Dennett's frog too 'can see' (1983,  p 107). And indeed, Dennett's view, as he presents it, (p. 112) is that 'belief and desire are like froggy belief and desire all the way up'. But Dennett also insists ont he  abstractness of his model, whoich he opposes to the naturalistic attitude of a Fodor (p.53). This again, in spite of the intervention of evolutionary considerations in his analyses is very close to Peirce's ambition. As we say, Peirce's favourite guide for explaining the functioning of rationality in general is the Scientific Intelligence, an intelligence which would be  abstract enough not to refer to any man in particular (NEM.IV, p.IX-X). Again, the necessity, in order for a particular thing to be an intentional system, that it be so 'only in relation to the strategies of someone who is trying to explain and predict its behaviour' sounds very much like Peirce's definition of habit-change in terms of possible future and general predictions. Third Dennett's assumption of rationality is of course very akin to Peirce's description of human mental activity as oriented towards truth, although rationality must not be reduced, neither in Peirce nor in Dennett, to deductive closure nor perfect logcial consistency (1983, p. 95) so true it is that the concept of rationality remains a 'slippery concept' (p . 97), although it does not forbid to "use 'rational" as a general-purpose term of cognitive approval — which requires maintaining only conditional and revisable allegiances between rationality, so considered, and the proposed (or even universally claimed) methods of getting ahead, cognitively, in the world'(p.97). Finally the importance  Dennett ascribes to the possibility of

67

 


 pragmatic testing of beliefs and desires has much in common with Peirce's method of fixing belief.

 

Conclusion

The relevance of Peirce's semiotic for the issues that are being under discussion today in philosophy of mind and cognitive science may perhaps best be seen through the paradoxical and puzzling assertion , according to which, not only thought is said to be a sign, but man himself is a sign. For in spite of its idealistic or fanciful outlook, such an assertion is revealing of the major difficulties we are facing in such domains, for example, the tendency we have to suppose that mind, and especially personal identity,  must be accounted for in terms of some  psychological (consciousness) or physiological unity, (7.584-5), or some first person point of view[30] : for Peirce, such a view is totally misconceived and even reductionist (7.591), in so far as it tends to sink into some substantialist account of man and of the mental: now, 'the phenomenal manifestation of substance is substance' (5.313). Hence we would be much closer to the truth if we stopped denying that man might exist in other possible worlds under such and such counterparts (5.266). To say that man is a sign means that  it is more likely to understand what his unity consists in, starting from a third person point of view, , namely, from the unity of thought,  which is nothing else thatn a unity of symbolization (7.592-594). By thus associating man, thinling and sign through the semiotic function, Peirce insists that  man's real unity lies in a unity of symbolization: what first defines him - and this again is very much in line with the semiotic realism- is not his individuality, his identity, but the fact he is 'a special determination of the generic soul of the family, the class, the nation, the race to which he belongs…'(7.592), namely his being public and not private:

 

'When I, that is my thoughts, enter into another man, I do not necessarily carry my whole self, but what I carry is the seed of [the] part that I do not carry — and I carry the seed of my whole essence, then of my whole self actual and potential. I may write upon paper and thus impress a part of my being there; that part of my being may involve what I have in common with all men and then I should have

 

67

 


 carried the soul of the race, but no my individual soul into the word there written'(7.592).

 

In terms very close to Derek Parfit [31], Peirce thus considers that what is important is not so much identity than survival: what warrants the semotic unity of man is indeed, (for Peirce as for Parfit), some formal (and very Kantian) though not impersonal -since feeling and attention are essential elements of the symbol'- unity, which explains that, because of his complexity (5.313), man should indeed be 'the most perfect of symbols' (4.448). Such an account shows the traps to avoid in the explanation of such phenomena, in which it is so easy , as Peirce wrote in 1878, owing to the 'gramamtical vagueness surrounding such notions,' to mistake a mere difference in the grammatical construction of two words for a distinction between the ideas they express (5.399) and to mistake the sensation produced by our own unclearness of thought for a character of the object we are thinking' (5.398).

On the contrary, as soon as one realizes that ''thought and expression are all one' (1.349), and that 'the meaning of a term is the conception it conveys', meaning will no longer flee into any mysterious thought whatsoever: it will have to be expresses through tangible effects (5.255; 5.310): such is Peirce 's basic pragmatistic lesson, one of conceptual clarification . And finally the theory of thought-signs which is at the core of Peirce's semiotic is indeed there to remind us  that we should never to forget, when approaching such risky notions as those encountered in cognitive science ( the possibility for machines to think, to have beliefs, desires, emotions, the necessity to give an account of consciousness or intentionality in terms of a first person or third person point of view, the choice to take between a cognitivistic (or symbolic) approach or a connexionistic (more associationistic) standpoint, etc.), that much of the issues are, as Putnam noted  'of an entirely linguistic and logical nature'[32] . In the light of the frequent misconceptions and fallacies that are still being committed in that area, we cannot help thinking that Peirce's major achievement,  as far as his semiotic undertaking is concerned,  lies in his suggestion that one of the best ways, in order to avoid obscurity and

 

68


confusion, is to try and build some formal and semiotic model of the mind:

 

'So that it appears that every species of actual cognition is of the nature of a sign. It will be found highly advantageous to consider the subject  from this point of view, because many general properties of signs can be discovered by a set of words and the like which are free from the intricacies which perplex us in the direct study of thought.' (7.356).

------------------

 


Bibliography

 

1. References to the Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce  (1931-1958), Ch. Hartshorne, P. Weiss, & A. Burks, eds., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., (8 vols.) are given in the text and footnotes as a decimal number, referring to volume and paragraph.,e.g. '2.56' refers to Volume 2, paragraph 56.

References preceded by NEM  are to Peirce's New Elements of Mathematics ( C. Eisele, ed., Mouton, The Hague, 1976), and give volume, tome and page number; e.g. NEM. III. I, p. 625' refers to Volume Ill, Tome I, page 625.

References preceded by 'Ms.' are to Peirce's unpublished manuscripts collected in Harvard University Library, as catalogued in R. Robin ,  The Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of CS Peirce, Amherst, Mass., 1967.

 

 

73


 

 

Brock, J., 1975, 'Peirce's conception of Semiotic',  Semiotica, 14:2, p. 124-141.

Dennett, D., 1978, Brainstorms, Brighton: Harvester Press.

                   1983, The Intentional Stance,The MIT Press.

Esposito, J., 1973, 'Synechism, Socialism and Cybernetics',  Transactions of the CS Peirce Society,  IX,2.

Fisch, M., 1986,  Peirce, Semeiotic ans Pragmatism: Essays by Max Fisch, K. Ketner & C. Kloesel eds., Bloomington, Indiana.

Gardenfors, P., 1988, Knowledge in Flux, The MIT Press.

Haugeland, J., 1981,  Mind Design: Philosophy, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, J. Haugeland ed. Bradford Books.

Heidegger, M., 1970,  Traité de la signification et des catégories chez Duns Scot, Paris, Gallimard.

Hintikka, J. 1980, 'Peirce's "First Real Discovery" and its contemporary significance ',  The Monist, juil. p. 304-315.

Holmes,L., 1966, 'Peirce on Self-Control',  Transactions of the CSPeirce Society, II,2.

Johnson-Laird, Ph., 1983,  Mental Models, Cambridge: Mass., Harvard University Press.

K.L. Ketner, "Peirce and Turing: Comparisons and Conjectures",  Semiotica, 68-1/2, 1988, p. 33-61).

McGinn, Colin, 1982,  The Character of Mind, Oxford University Press.

Moody, E. , 1953, Truth and Consequence in Medieval Logic, Amsterdam.

Nagel, Th., 1979,  Mortal Questions, Cambridge Uviversity Press.

Ockham, W., 1974,  Ockham's theory of terms: Summa Logicae, Part I, trad. M. Loux,  University of Notre Dame Press.  

Panaccio, C., 1992,  les mots, les concepts et les choses: la sémantique de Guillaume d'Occam et le nominalisme aujourd'hui, Paris, Vrin-Bellarmin.

Parfit, D., 1984, Reasons and Persons,  Oxford University Press.

Putnam, H. , 1975; Philosophical Papers, (3 vols.), Cambridge University Press.

Short, Th., 1981a, 'Semeiosis and Intentionality',  Transactions of the

.S.Peirce Society, n°3.

                 1981b, 'Peirce's concept of Final Causation',  Transactions of the C.S.Peirce Society, n°4.

Tiercelin (or Engel-Tiercelin), C., 1984, 'Peirce on Machines, Self-control and Intentionality', in  The Mind and the Machine: Philosophical Aspects of Artificial Intelligence, (S. Torrance, ed.), Chichester, Sussex.

        1991, 'Peirce's semiotic version of the semantic tradition in formal logic', in New inquiries into Meaning and Truth,  (P. Engel & N. Cooper eds.), Harvester Press, p. 181-213.

        1993a,  la Pensée-Signe: études sur Peirce, éditions Jacqueline Chambon, Nîmes, collection "Rayon Philo".

        1993b, C.S.Peirce et le pragmatisme,  Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, collection "Philosophies".

Wiener, N. , 1965,  Cybernetics, the MIT Press.

74


 



[1](for more details about this, see C. Tiercelin, 1991b)It is indeed the concept of representation  which in the early texts (1865-7) serves as a technical term for signs in general: Semiotics (or rather Semeiotic) is nothing else, really, than a very general theory of representation (hence, Peirce's reservations towards Locke's project of identifying Logic with Semiotics in the last chapter of the Essay). Rather than some identification of logic with semeiotic Peirce thus seems to favor a definition of logic as one of the three branches of semeiotic “the general science of representation”, and keeps using that term in the general sense of “sign”. True, representation  seems less prominent than sign  in the positive theory of signs developed in the 1868 papers, in which Peirce sets his thought-sign theory, as a consequence of his denial of our having any power of intuition and introspection , hence “no power of thinking without signs” (5.265). But it is mostly  because the problem here is to show that  the rejection of Cartesian rationalism together with British empiricism implies a totally new theory of representation which should be anti-psychological and framed on the model of a theory of knowledge  by signs,  lying itself on a three terms or triadic relation: “When we think, then, we, ourselves, as we are at that moment, appear as a sign” (5.383). “The word, or sign which man uses  is  the man himself” (5.314). But even then, signs are still standing for representations or “second intentions” (5.289). It is merely around 1880 that Peirce becomes aware of the importance of icons and indices and that the concept of sign becomes distinct from that of representation.

[2]. cf. M. Fisch, (1986), p. 338-9.

[3]. I have developed that point in more details in  C. Tiercelin (1991).

[4].Mathematicians  practice  deduction (2.532; 4.239; 4.124; 4.242), reason deductively, whereas logicians  study  deductive arguments and reasonings. Mathematics is “the science which draws necessary conclusions” (a “dictum” of his father Benjamin Peirce, 3.558; 4.229); Logic is “the science of drawing necessary conclusions”. Incidentally, that makes mathematics a “pre-logical” science, which is in no need of logic, for a theory of the validity of its arguments: those are acritical and evident, “more evident than any such (logical) theory could be” ( 2.120).

[5].Hence Peirces' criticisms of logicians such as Boole or Schröder who are on his view too mathematical , trying to draw metaphysical conclusions from logical calculi which, although important, are only tools of reasonings (3.322; 3.364; 4.424; 4.553), unable by themselves to reveal the semantic structure of arguments and propositions ( and among other things to reveal the possible plurality of symbolic systems applied to deduction itself, and above all, the superiority of  logical graphs  to an algebra of logic (4.617)).

 

[6].  cf. J. Brock, 1975.

[7]. cf. for more details, C. Engel-Tiercelin, 1993a, chap.1. From Boole'sLaws of Thought, Peirce has retained, not the anthropomorphic part of the project, i.e “ to investigate the fundamental laws of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is performed”(ch.1§1), and finally “to collect from the various elements of truth brought in view in the course of these inquiries some probable intimations concerning the nature and constitution of the human mind”, but Boole's attempt — an attempt which should please someone who wishes to “examine the products of thought, words, propositions, arguments, directly” (Ms 351), to give to those laws by which the operation of the mind are performed  “expression…in the logical language of a Calculus” (ch.1 §1). Thus, Boole's greatness does not lie so much in the practical merits conveyed by all symbolisms as in the theoretical insights afforded by such a calculus which enables one to consider the fundamental laws of reasoning, without wondering whether such a notation is or is not the refelction of some mental faculties (conception, attention or imagination), but by using signs, not as forms of particular expressions, but such as they are defined and understodd according to their representative function, by giving them a “fixed interpretation” enabling to define a universe of discourse.

 

[8] For it is true that  despite his efforts to disentangle the questions related to signs from psychology, ontology and theology, Ockham does not succed in his attempt: in the end, signs still refer to the mental language which plays a more and more prominent role in Ockham's writings. On the other hand, it is true, from the modists's part, as Heidegger has shown, that for the Pseudo-Scotus, “the meaning of introducing the  modi significandi  is to be understood from their syntaxical value, that of the  modi intelligendi, from their truth value, so that the theory of meaning is in close connection with logic: it is even nothing else than a part of it ”M. Heidegger,  1953, p. 18.

 

[9]. Which means that Peirce's anti-psychologism will never go so far as Frege's or Wittgenstein's: it is not equated by him with the rejection of theory of knowledge, because of its links with psychology. Indeed, the problem of the foundations of knowledge is given up, but the problem of its justification never is: how are synthetical judgments in general possible? What are the grounds of validity of the laws of logic? Conversely, if formal logic is supposed to proceed to the analysis of the relation between the mental subjective acts and their objective correlates, meaning, thought, etc., it is not because for him, as for Husserl, the constitution of some philosophy of logic would involve such analysis: for if Formal Grammar's aim is to study what must be true of all the representamen  in order for them to have any meaning at all, it is first because the representamen  do not concern the mind, in its subjectivity, but thought in general. Now apart from the individualistic anti-nominalism which such a thing supposes, it also means that Peirce does not intend to limit the field of thought to that of  human  thought; this is why for example he will take very seriously the hypothesis and elaboration of thinking or logical machines.

[10]. For more details about Ockham's undertaking, see C. Panaccio, 1993, and C. Tiercelin, 1993a.p.46-55 et 188sq.

[11]. Cf. E. Moody,1953, p. 18.

[12].On the idea that Peirce's semiotics is inseparable from his ontological realism, see C. Tiercelin, 1993b, chap.2.

[13].This has two effects. The importance of Peirce's realism does not primarily lie in the study of classes of signs, nor in the more general analysis of what it is for an object to be a sign. Of course, classifications are needed, if one wishes to set out a “quasi-formal” or “quasi-necessary” study of signs. But this is not the essential thing. You can always define, divide the signe, through its qualities, or in relying on conventional definitions. What is important, is to find  real  functions and classifications of the sign, just as the zoologist tries to find some, in order to make species get into such and such natural kinds. In that respect, semiotics is very little different from natural science.“If the question was what we  do  mean by a sign, it might soon be resolved. But that is not the point. We are in the situation of a zoologist who wants to know what ought to be in the meaning of “fish” in order to make fishes one of the great classes of vertebrates.” (8.332).This is why, finally, what one intends to say, with the ordinary use of “sign” is not that important. One can start from such use, just as the zoologist starts from the definitions he has. To a certain extent, a technical definition itself, although benefiting from the ethics of terminology is not decisive. What counts is to start from the semiotical analysis, from the categorial classifications, and to see then, by observing the phenomena, how and whether one must retain or revise the traditional classifications and definitions, always reminding that our conclusions are “fallible” and at any time capable of being revised.

For all these reasons, Peirce's project cannot be read , contrary to what has sometimes been suggested, as some general analysis of what it is for an object to be a sign, which would place him close to something like Husserl's undertaking. Such passages as the one just quoted on the zoologist make it difficult to hold that, like Husserl, Peirce would oppose a “phenomenological science” bearing on objectification as such and a “natural science”. Neither does it seem to reveal any tension between some transcendantalist and naturalist tendencies in Peirce. On the contrary, the semiotic aim is perfectly in keeping with the ontological project: what do the logical classifications correspond to? Do they correspond to something in reality? Can we read in the real that intelligible structure which our classifications present to us?

[14].cf. M. Fisch, 1986, p. 329.

 

[15] As regards the three trichotomies established by Peirce, the sign can indeed be viewed in relation with itself, or to its object, or to its interpretant. Again, each of these divisions can be decomposed: the first trichotomy comprising, respectively, the  qualisign, (sign embodied in a quality, having nothing to do with its character as a sign), the  sinsign, (or singular existing element, which is a sign), the  legisign, (or law), which is a sign.

As a second, i.e. in relation to its object, the sign or existent, can be again decomposed, according as it is a first ( an  icon  referring to its object in virtue of its own characters, whether the object is existing or not), as a second (or  index, referring to the object by which it is dynamically affected), as a third (or  symbol, referring to the object in virtue of a law).

As a third, i.e. in relation to its interpretant, the sign can express its generality either as a first (  rheme ) or qualitative possibility, a second (dicisign ), or sign of real existence, or finally as a third (argument ) or a sign which is a sign for its interpretant. After 1906, Peirce will multiply the trichotomic analyses and will no longer admit three but six trichotomies, that is, to 729 possible classes, (of which, according to him, only 28 will be valid) (8.344; cf. Letter to Lady Welby, dated 23 december 1908). Coming back to these classifications over and over, Peirce will finally retain the first three of his first system, as he writes it to Lady Welby ( December 24th), insisting on the exploratory character of his analysis of the other trichotomies (8.345).

Whatever theoretical interest may be found here, which proves that Peirce was always working towards improving his results, and confronting them with experience, without losing tack of the categorical analysis, it remains that those classifications of signs are only classifications in so far as they link the analysis of signs to their  meaning.

[16]. More generally Peirce maintains that any description of an intelligent phenomenon has to be so characterized, that is to say in Peirce's terms, that any intelligent action is not only dyadic but irreducibly triadic.  By 'dyadic', Peirce means th efollowing: 'An event, A, may , by brute force, produce an event, B; and then, the event B, may in its turn produce a third event, C. The fact that the event, C, is about to be produced by B has no influence at all upon the production of B by A…Such is dyadic action, which is called so, because each step of it concerns a pair of objects'(5.472). On the other hand, in triadic action, the production of one thing is always intended as a  means  to another: '…when a microscopist is in doubt whether a motion of an animalcule is guided by intelligence, of however low an order, the test he always used to apply… is to ascertain whether an event A produces a second event B,  as a means  to the production of a third event, C, or not. That is, he asks whether B will be produced if it will produce or is likely to produce C in its turn, but will not be produced if it will not produce C in its turn nor is likely to do so'.  Now triadic action is best  exemplified in the semiotic process: :

' . If the thermometer is dynamically connected with the heating and cooling apparatus, so as to check either effect, we do not. in ordinary parlance, speak of there being any semeiosy, or action of a sign, but on the contrary, say that there is an 'automatic regulation', an idea opposed, in our minds, to that of semeiosy.' For Peirce, the differnce between dyadic and triadic actions is also the difference between efficient  anf final  causation: 'Efficient causation . . . is a compulsion acting to make the situation begin to change in a perfectly determinate way: and what the general character of that result may be in no way concerns efficient causation. (I .21 2).Now this is decisive in so far as Peirce considers that 'efficient causation without final causation . . . is mere chaos. and chaos is not so much as chaos, without final causation; it is blank nothing' (1.220). In other words, if we are unable to show any final causation in the operations performed we are forbidden to talk of any kind of intelligent action whatsoever. In that respect, final causation  and mind in general are no human priviledges. See T; Short, 1981b, and the excellent account he gives of the importance of that concept in relation to semeiotic intentionality, in Short, 1981a.

 

[17]. We cannot develop all these points here. cf. C. Tiercelin, 1993a, p.200 sq.

[18].  for a detailed analysis, see cf. C. Tiercelin, 1984. For an excellent account of Peirce's sources as far as logical machines are concerned, and a comparison between Peirce and Turing, see K. L. Ketner, 1988. According to the editors of the Collected Papers, Peirce seems to have considered the construction of a logical machine (2.56n).

 

[19] .'Precisely how much of the business of thinking a machine could possibly be made to perform, and what part of it must be left for the living mind, is a question not without conceivable practical importance' (N.E.M. Il. I, p.625).

 

 

[20].  NEM. III. 1, p. 630. For example, Peirce argues, 'the difficulty with the balloon is that it has too much initiative, that it is not mechanical enough. We no more want an original machine, than a house-builder would want an original journeyman, or an American board of college trustees would hire an original professor'.

 

[21]. Peirce, 1910, quoted by L. Holmes, 1966.

[22]. N. Wiener, 1965, p. 58.

[23]. J. Haugelland, 1981, p. 32.

[24]. J. Esposito, 1973, p. 76. cf. 6. 268.

.

[25]. cf. C. Tiercelin, 1991,. p. 200sq..

[26]. Ph. Johnson-Laird, 1983.

[27]. J. Hintikka, 1980.

[28]cf P. Gardenfors, 1988 may be considered as one of the most intersting attempt that are being made to day in that area, and which is in many respects close to many Peircian insignhts

[29]D. Dennett, 1978 and 1983.

[30]. for such views, see Colin McGinn, 'The Self', 1982, or Th. Nagel, 'The Subjective or Objective',  1979.

[31]. D. Parfit, 1984.

[32]. H. Putnam, 1975.