Abstract
The semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce is irreducibly triadic, positing that a sign mediates between the object that determines it and the interpretant that it determines. He eventually holds that each sign has two objects and three interpretants, standardizing quickly on immediate and dynamical (or real) for the objects but experimenting with a variety of names for the interpretants. The two most prominent terminologies are immediate/dynamical/final and emotional/energetic/logical, and scholars have long debated how they are related to each other. This paper seeks to shed new light on the matter by reviewing the numerous manuscript drafts where Peirce develops the latter nomenclature while attempting to introduce his pragmatism to a general audience. It then goes on to examine an additional set of interpretants, intentional/effectual/communicational, and shows that the three different trichotomies can be understood as complementary, rather than redundant or conflicting.
References
Bergman, Mats. 2004. Fields of signification: Explorations in Charles S. Peirce’s theory of signs. Helsinki: Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki. http://www.commens.org/sites/default/files/fields_of_signification.pdf (accessed 20 January 2022).Search in Google Scholar
Bergman, Mats. 2009. Peirce’s philosophy of communication: The rhetorical underpinnings of the theory of signs. London: Continuum.Search in Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, John J. 1966. Peirce’s theory of signs as foundation for pragmatism. The Hague: Mouton.Search in Google Scholar
Jappy, Tony. 2017. Peirce’s twenty-eight classes of signs and the philosophy of representation: Rhetoric, interpretation, and hexadic semiosis. London: Bloomsbury.10.5040/9781474264860Search in Google Scholar
Lalor, Brendan. 1997. The classification of Peirce’s interpretants. Semiotica 114(1/2). 31–40. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1997.114.1-2.31.Search in Google Scholar
Liszka, James Jakób. 1990. Peirce’s interpretant. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 26(1). 17–62.Search in Google Scholar
Liszka, James Jakób. 1996. A general introduction to the semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1931–1966. The collected papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols., C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss & A. W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Reference to Peirce’s papers will be designated CP followed by volume and paragraph number.]Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1967. Manuscripts in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, as identified by Richard Robin, Annotated catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. [Reference to Peirce’s manuscripts will be designated MS or L.]Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1976. The new elements of mathematics, 4 vols., C. Eisele (ed.). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. [Reference to Peirce’s New Elements will be designated NEM followed by volume and page number.]Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1992. Essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, vol. 1 (1867–1893), N. Houser & C. Kloesel (eds.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [Reference to vol. 1 of Essential Peirce will be designated EP 1.]Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1998. Essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, vol. 2 (1893–1913), Peirce Edition Project (eds.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [Reference to vol. 2 of Essential Peirce will be designated EP 2.]Search in Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles & Lady Victoria Welby. 1977. Semiotic and significs. Charles S. Hardwick (ed.). Bloomington: Indianapolis University Press. [Reference to this work will be designated SS followed by page number.]Search in Google Scholar
Savan, David. 1988. An introduction to C. S. Peirce’s full system of semeiotic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Search in Google Scholar
Schmidt, Jon Alan. 2020. Peirce’s maxim of pragmatism: 61 formulations. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 56(4). 580–599. https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.56.4.04.Search in Google Scholar
Short, Thomas L. 1981. Semiosis and intentionality. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 17(3). 197–223.Search in Google Scholar
Short, T. L. 1996. Interpreting Peirce’s interpretant: A response to Lalor, Liszka, and Meyers. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 32(4). 488–541.Search in Google Scholar
Short, T. L. 2007. Peirce’s theory of signs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511498350Search in Google Scholar
Zeman, Jay. 1977. The esthetic sign in Peirce’s semiotic. Semiotica 19(3/4). 241–258. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1977.19.3-4.241.Search in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston