Re: Peirce List • Gary Fuhrman

Peirce’s existential graphs are a general calculus for expressing the same subject matter as his logic of relative terms and thus they serve to represent the structures of many-place relations.  Cast at that level of generality, there is nothing to prevent existential graphs from being used to express the special cases of relative terms that we need in a theory of triadic sign relations, for example, terms like “s stands to i for o” or “__ stands to __ for __” or any number of other forms, depending on the style one prefers.  People sometimes get wigged out about the fact that we have to use sign relations in order to mention sign relations but the fact is that we do that all the time whether we are using Peirce’s semiotics or not.  Peirce just makes the process a whole lot clearer than most others do.

References

• Awbrey, J.L., and Awbrey, S.M. (Autumn 1995), “Interpretation as Action : The Risk of Inquiry”, Inquiry : Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 15(1), pp. 40–52.  Archive.  Journal.  Online.
• Awbrey, S.M., and Awbrey, J.L. (September 1999), “Organizations of Learning or Learning Organizations : The Challenge of Creating Integrative Universities for the Next Century”, Second International Conference of the Journal ‘Organization’, Re-Organizing Knowledge, Trans-Forming Institutions : Knowing, Knowledge, and the University in the 21st Century, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.  Online.
• Awbrey, S.M., and Awbrey, J.L. (May 2001), “Conceptual Barriers to Creating Integrative Universities”, Organization : The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory, and Society 8(2), Sage Publications, London, UK, pp. 269–284.  Abstract.