Scott Metzger

This paper addresses what in 1909 Charles Peirce calls the “greatest discrepancy” between his trichotomy of interpretants and Victoria Welby’s three orders of signification. That discrepancy concerns the difference between Peirce’s dynamical interpretant (as the actual effect a sign produces) and Welby’s notion of meaning (as involving the intention of the sign-user). After providing a close reading of the March 14, 1909 letter in which Peirce compares his triad with hers, I re-evaluate what scholars have made of the discrepancy and defend the view that it is a genuine one. I argue that, as Peirce understood it, the root of their disagreement stems from their different views about the aim of semiotics more generally. Welby limits her study of signs to language, whereas Peirce is interested in applying Semeiotic to the science of reasoning. I conclude by suggesting that Peirce and Welby ought to form an enterprise, as each seems to add what the other lacks: Peirce complements Welby’s theory by generalizing the sign, and Welby complements Peirce’s theory by further developing the speculative rhetoric of the sign.

Abstract:This article builds on Bellucci’s and Murphey’s accounts of Peirce’s early logic of signs by making a pair of contributions to the literature on Peirce’s reduction of illation to the sign relation. First, I reinvesti-gate the connection between the structure of inference and the representative relation, relying here on Peirce’s early accounts of sign inference from 1865 and 1866. Second, with the development of Peirce’s theory of inquiry in mind, I elucidate the implications of Peirce’s early view of sign inference. These contributions deepen our understanding of Fisch’s claim that the Illustrations series “is thought out within the framework of the doctrine of signs.”

Semiosis and the Crisis of Meaning addresses the difference between continuity and play in Charles Peirce’s and Jacques Derrida’s theory of signs. The main aim is to offer a reply to Derrida’s reading of Peirce in Of Grammatology—a reading which results in a crisis of meaning by redefining the process of semiosis as a limitlessness of play. To furnish a Peircean reply, I draw connections between Peirce’s semiotic and both his categories of being and method of scientific investigation. In doing so, I attempt to circumscribe Derrida’s play by restoring a direction to the movement from sign to sign. In the first chapter, I give an account of Peirce’s early theory of signs in order to set the stage for Derrida’s reading of Peirce. In the second chapter, I turn to Derrida’s work, give a general outline of his project in Of Grammatology, and provide a close reading of his brief encounter with Peirce. In the final chapter, I return to Peirce to show how there is a continuity to the process of semiosis that is missing in Derrida’s reading. This continuity provides us with the means to solve what is at stake in the crisis of meaning.

ABSTRACTA shallow reading of the 1905 correspondence between Victoria Welby and Bertrand Russell yields the impression that Welby has misunderstood Russell's “On Denoting.” I argue that a deeper reading reveals that Welby should be understood, not as misunderstanding Russell, but as bringing a pragmatic attitude to bear on Russell's theory of descriptions in order to expose the limits of his strictly logical analysis.RÉSUMÉUne lecture superficielle de la correspondance de 1905 entre Victoria Welby et Bertrand Russell donne l'impression que Welby a mal compris «On Denoting» de Russell. Je soutiens qu'une lecture plus approfondie révèle qu'il n'y a pas de mécompréhension de la part de Welby; plutôt, elle approche la théorie des descriptions de Russel avec une attitude pragmatique afin d'exposer les limites de son analyse strictement logique.