Interpreter and Interpretant • Selection 7
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/01/15/interpreter-and-interpretant-selection-7-a/

Learning —

Rules in a knowledge base, as far as their effective content goes, can be obtained by any mode of inference. For example, consider a proposition of the following form.

• B ⇒ A, Just Before it rains, the Air is cool.

Such a proposition is usually induced from a consideration of many past events. The inductive inference may be observed to fit the following pattern.

• Case : C ⇒ B, In Certain events, it is just Before it rains.
• Fact : C ⇒ A, In Certain events, the Air is cool.
────────────────────────────────────
• Rule : B ⇒ A, Just Before it rains, the Air is cool.

However, the same proposition could also be abduced as an explanation of a singular occurrence or deduced as a conclusion of a prior theory.

References —

Awbrey, J.L., and Awbrey, S.M. (1995), “Interpretation as Action : The Risk of Inquiry”, Inquiry : Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 15(1), 40–52.
• https://www.pdcnet.org/inquiryct/content/inquiryct_1995_0015_0001_0040_0052
• https://www.academia.edu/57812482/Interpretation_as_Action_The_Risk_of_Inquiry

Dewey, J. (1910), How We Think, D.C. Heath, Boston, MA. Reprinted (1991), Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY.
• https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37423/37423-h/37423-h.htm

Resources —

Survey of Abduction, Deduction, Induction, Analogy, Inquiry
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/02/27/survey-of-abduction-deduction-induction-analogy-inquiry-4/

Survey of Semiotics, Semiosis, Sign Relations
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/26/survey-of-semiotics-semiosis-sign-relations-5/

#Peirce #Logic #Semiotics #SignRelations #TriadicRelations
#Interpretation #Interpreter #Interpretant #Hermeneutics
#JohnDewey #Inquiry #Abduction #Deduction #Induction
#Abstraction #HypostaticAbstraction #Reflection

Interpreter and Interpretant • Selection 6
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/01/13/interpreter-and-interpretant-selection-6-a/

Inquiry and Induction —

To understand the bearing of inductive reasoning on the closing phases of inquiry there are a couple of observations we should make.

• Smaller inquiries are typically woven into larger inquiries, whether the whole pattern of inquiry is carried on by a single agent or by a complex community.

• There are several ways particular instances of inquiry are related to ongoing inquiries at larger scales. Three modes of interaction between component inquiries and compound inquiries may be described under the headings of Learning, Transfer, and Testing of Rules.

#Peirce #Logic #Semiotics #SignRelations #TriadicRelations
#Interpretation #Interpreter #Interpretant #Hermeneutics
#JohnDewey #Inquiry #Abduction #Deduction #Induction
#Abstraction #HypostaticAbstraction #Reflection

Interpreter and Interpretant • Selection 5
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/01/11/interpreter-and-interpretant-selection-5-a/

Inquiry and Inference —

If we follow Dewey's “Sign of Rain” story far enough to consider the import of thought for action, we realize the subsequent conduct of the interpreter, progressing up through the natural conclusion of the episode — the quickening steps, the seeking of shelter in time to escape the rain — all those acts amount to a series of further interpretants for the initially recognized signs of rain and the first impressions of the actual case. Just as critical reflection develops the positive and negative signs which gather about an idea, pragmatic interpretation explores the consequential and contrasting actions which give effective and testable meaning to a person's belief in it.

#Peirce #Logic #Semiotics #SignRelations #TriadicRelations
#Interpretation #Interpreter #Interpretant #Hermeneutics
#JohnDewey #Inquiry #Abduction #Deduction #Induction
#Abstraction #HypostaticAbstraction #Reflection

Interpreter and Interpretant • Selection 4
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/01/09/interpreter-and-interpretant-selection-4-a/

Interpretation and Inquiry —

To illustrate the role of sign relations in inquiry we begin with Dewey's elegant and simple example of reflective thinking in everyday life.

❝A man is walking on a warm day. The sky was clear the last time he observed it; but presently he notes, while occupied primarily with other things, that the air is cooler. It occurs to him that it is probably going to rain; looking up, he sees a dark cloud between him and the sun, and he then quickens his steps. What, if anything, in such a situation can be called thought? Neither the act of walking nor the noting of the cold is a thought. Walking is one direction of activity; looking and noting are other modes of activity. The likelihood that it will rain is, however, something suggested. The pedestrian feels the cold; he thinks of clouds and a coming shower.❞ (John Dewey, How We Think, 6–7).

#Peirce #Logic #Semiotics #Semiosis #SignRelations #TriadicRelations
#Cybersemiotics #Interpreter #Interpretant #Hermeneutics #Hermenaut
#JohnDewey #HowWeThink #Inquiry #Abduction #Deduction #Induction
#Abstraction #HypostaticAbstraction #Reflection #Interpretation

Interpreter and Interpretant • Selection 3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/01/08/interpreter-and-interpretant-selection-3-a/

The following selection from Peirce's “Lowell Lectures on the Logic of Science” (1866) lays out in detail his “metaphorical argument” for the relationship between interpreters and interpretant signs.

#Peirce #Logic #Semiotics #Semiosis #SignRelations #TriadicRelations
#Cybersemiotics #Interpreter #Interpretant #Hermeneutics #Hermenaut
#Abstraction #HypostaticAbstraction #SopToCerberus #Interpretation

Interpreter and Interpretant • Selection 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/01/07/interpreter-and-interpretant-selection-2-a/

A idea of what Peirce means by an Interpretant and the part it plays in a triadic sign relation is given by the following passage.

❝It is clearly indispensable to start with an accurate and broad analysis of the nature of a Sign. I define a Sign as anything which is so determined by something else, called its Object, and so determines an effect upon a person, which effect I call its Interpretant, that the latter is thereby mediately determined by the former. My insertion of “upon a person” is a sop to Cerberus, because I despair of making my own broader conception understood.❞ (Peirce 1908, Selected Writings, p. 404).

According to his custom of clarifying ideas in terms of their effects, Peirce tells us what a sign is in terms of what it does, the effect it brings to bear on a “person”. That effect he calls the interpretant of the sign. And what of that person? Peirce finesses that question for the moment, resorting to a “Sop to Cerberus”, in other words, a rhetorical gambit used to side‑step a persistent difficulty of exposition. In doing so, Peirce invokes the hypostatic abstraction of a “person” who conducts the movement of signs and embodies the ongoing process of semiosis.

Reference —

Peirce, C.S. (1908), “Letters to Lady Welby”, Chapter 24, pp. 380–432 in Charles S. Peirce : Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance), Edited with Introduction and Notes by Philip P. Wiener, Dover Publications, New York, NY, 1966.

#Peirce #Logic #Semiotics #Semiosis #SignRelations #TriadicRelations
#Cybersemiotics #Interpreter #Interpretant #Hermeneutics #Hermenaut
#Abstraction #HypostaticAbstraction #Interpretation