Changes

At last, even with the needed frameworks only partly shored up, I can finally ravel up and tighten one thread of this rambling investigation.  All this time, steadily rising to answer the challenge about the identity of the interpreter, ''Who's there?'', and the role of the interpretant, ''Stand and unfold yourself'', has been the ready and abiding state of a certain system of interpretation, developing its character and gradually evolving its meaning through a series of imputations and extensions.  Namely, the MOI (the SOI experienced as an object) can answer for the interpreter, to whatever extent that conduct can be formalized, and the IM (the SOI experienced in action, in statu nascendi) can serve as a proxy for the momentary thrust of interpretive dynamics, to whatever degree that process can be explicated.

At last, even with the needed frameworks only partly shored up, I can finally ravel up and tighten one thread of this rambling investigation.  All this time, steadily rising to answer the challenge about the identity of the interpreter, ''Who's there?'', and the role of the interpretant, ''Stand and unfold yourself'', has been the ready and abiding state of a certain system of interpretation, developing its character and gradually evolving its meaning through a series of imputations and extensions.  Namely, the MOI (the SOI experienced as an object) can answer for the interpreter, to whatever extent that conduct can be formalized, and the IM (the SOI experienced in action, in statu nascendi) can serve as a proxy for the momentary thrust of interpretive dynamics, to whatever degree that process can be explicated.

To put a finer point on this result I can do no better at this stage of discussion than to recount the ''metaphorical argument'' that Peirce often used to illustrate the same conclusion.

To put a finer point on this result I can do no better at this stage of discussion than to recount the "metaphorical argument" that Peirce often used to illustrate the same conclusion.

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<p>I think we need to reflect upon the circumstance that every word implies some proposition or, what is the same thing, every word, concept, symbol has an equivalent term — or one which has become identified with it, — in short, has an interpretant.

<p>I think we need to reflect upon the circumstance that every word implies some proposition or, what is the same thing, every word, concept, symbol has an equivalent term — or one which has become identified with it, — in short, has an ''interpretant''.</p>

Consider, what a word or symbol is;  it is a sort of representation.  Now a representation is something which stands for something.  …  A thing cannot stand for something without standing to something for that something.  Now, what is this that a word stands to?  Is it a person?</p>

<p>We usually say that the word homme stands to a Frenchman for man.  It would be a little more precise to say that it stands to the Frenchman's mind — to his memory.  It is still more accurate to say that it addresses a particular remembrance or image in that memory.  And what image, what remembrance?  Plainly, the one which is the mental equivalent of the word homme - in short, its interpretant.  Whatever a word addresses then or stands to, is its interpretant or identified symbol. …</p>

<p>Consider, what a word or symbol is;  it is a sort of representation.  Now a representation is something which stands for something.  …  A thing cannot stand for something without standing ''to'' something ''for'' that something.  Now, what is this that a word stands ''to''&nbsp;? Is it a person?</p>

<p>The interpretant of a term, then, and that which it stands to are identical.  Hence, since it is of the very essence of a symbol that it should stand to something, every symbol — every word and every conception — must have an interpretant — or what is the same thing, must have information or implication.  (Peirce, CE 1, 466-467).</p>

 

<p>The interpretant of a term, then, and that which it stands to are identical.  Hence, since it is of the very essence of a symbol that it should stand to something, every symbol — every word and every ''conception'' — must have an interpretant — or what is the same thing, must have information or implication.  (Peirce, CE 1, 466-467).</p>

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