Introduction 1-13

p.4-5 the present selection is aimed at filling the need for a one-volume collection to make Peirce's writings on semiotic accessible to students and to scholars in disciplines other than philosophy.

p.7 The difference between an "idea" and a "sign" is at the heart of Peirce's semiotic. An idea may supposedly occur, in Descartes terminology, "clearly and distinctly" in the mind. Because the idea is perceived introspectively in the mind, its meaning is intuited, or immediately known. A "sign," as Peirce employed the term, is also a thought, but it differs from an "idea" in that its meaning is not self-evident. A sign receives its meaning by being interpreted by a subsequent thought or action... Peirce held that... every thought is a sign without meaning until interpreted by a subsequent thought, an interpretant. Thus the meaning of every thought is established by a triadic relation, an interpretation of the thought as a sign of a determining object.

p.8 "all thought, therefore, must necessarily be in signs". Thought is not immediate perception or undeniable experience of ideas within a self. Thought is in signs that attain meaning through the triadic relation: OBJECT SIGN INTERPRETANT

p.12 Peirce pointed out that many interpretants predicate real relations between signs and their objects. He called such signs indices, and one of his favorite examples was the interpretation of a weathercock as accurately signifying the direction of the wind because of its having a real relation with the wind.

p.12 once thought is understood as a process of sign interpretation, a great range of social phenomena too large to be comprehended within any individual mind may nevertheless be best understood as the result of a process of intelligence.

A Treatise on Metaphysics 16-22

p.16 Peirce preferred to base philosophy on a frank acknowledgement that knowledge always contains an element of faith, an undemonstrable but necessary belief that "the normal representations of truth within us are really correct," as he says in the following extract

p.17 All cognition of objects is relative, that is we know things only in their relations to us.

Questions concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man p.34-53

p.49 All thought, therefore, must necessarily be in signs.

p.53 cognition arises by a process of beginning, as any other change comes to pass.

Some Consequences of Four Incapacities 54-84

p.80 There can be no question that anything is a sign of whatever is associated with it by resemblance, by contiguity, or by causality: nor can there be any doubt that any sign recalls the thing signified.

Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic: Further Consequences of Four Incapacities 85-115

p.86 every judgment results from inference

p.91 It is a very ancient notion that no proof can be of any value, because it rests on premises which themselves equally require proof, which again must rest on other premises, and so back to infinity. This really does show that nothing can be proved beyond the possibility of a doubt; that no argument could be legitimately used against an absolute sceptic; and that inference is only a transition from one cognition to another, and not the creation of a cognition.

On the Nature of Signs 141-143

p.141 A sign is an object which stands for another to some mind. [JLJ - I would add, as part of a scheme to "go on", from within a certain predicament]

p.142 it is necessary for a sign to be a sign that it should be regarded as a sign for it is only a sign to that mind which so considers and if it is not a sign to any mind it is not a sign at all... the sign... produces a certain idea in the mind which is the idea that it is a sign of the thing it signifies and an idea is itself a sign, for an idea is an object and it represents an object. [JLJ - note carefully the text "the sign... produces a certain idea in the mind". For a machine playing a strategic game, this is exactly what we are looking for. The programmer's definition of the "sign" and action-based interpretation of this "sign" will tell the machine how to "go on" - perhaps to explore one path continuation rather than another, or to spend X amount of time looking at a certain continuation sequence, rather than Y. The programmer defines the signs and symbols, and the actions to be taken when they are "found". The machine is commanded to look for the signs as defined, to interpret them as directed, and to take action as specified. We could even construct a diagnostic test of the adaptive capacity to mobilize coercion, using a variation and selection method similar to that of evolution. However effective, this method could be used to "select" moves and therefore to "play" a strategic game.] The idea itself has its material quality which is the feeling which there is in thinking.

The Fixation of Belief 144-159

p.144 Few persons care to study logic, because everybody conceives himself to be proficient enough in the art of reasoning already. [JLJ - This is the opinion of a logic professor who has no one sign up for his classes.]

p.146 Darwin, while unable to say what the operation of variation and natural selection in any individual case will be, demonstrates that in the long run they will adapt animals to their circumstances.

p.147 The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know.

p.149 Our beliefs guide our desires and shape our actions.

p.150 Doubt... stimulates us to action until it is destroyed... The irritation of doubt is the only immediate motive for the struggle to attain belief. It is certainly best for us that our beliefs should be such as may truly guide our actions so as to satisfy our desires; and this reflection will make us reject any belief which does not seem to have been so formed as to insure this result.

p.150 With the doubt, therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it ends. Hence, the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion.

p.150 The most that can be maintained is, that we seek for a belief that we shall think to be true.

p.151 in point of fact, an inquiry, to have that completely satisfactory result called demonstration, has only to start with propositions perfectly free from all actual doubt. If the premises are not in fact doubted at all, they cannot be more satisfactory than they are.

p.151 When doubt ceases, mental action on the subject comes to an end; and, if it did go on, it would be without a purpose.

How to Make Our Ideas Clear 160-179

p.168 the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action... what a thing means is simply what habits it involves.

p.169 I only desire to point out how impossible it is that we should have an idea in our minds which relates to anything but conceived sensible effects of things. Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects... Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.

p.177 reality is independent... of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it... though the object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks.

p.179 The is no royal road to logic

p.179 our ideas... they may be ever so clear without being true. How to make them so... How to give birth to those vital and provocative ideas which multiply into a thousand forms and diffuse themselves everywhere, advancing civilization and making the dignity of man, is an art not yet reduced to rules [JLJ - rats.]

Minute Logic 231-238

p.231 Peirce considered semiotic and logic, in the broad sense, to be synonymous terms

p.233 A logical machine differs from any other machine merely in working upon an excessively simple principle which is applied in a manifold and complex way... The result which the logical machine turns out has a relation to the data with which it was fed... That is all there is in the facts of the case; and whether it is called reasoning or not I do not care.

p.234 Logic is obliged to suppose (it need not assert) that there is knowledge embodied in some form, and that there is inference, in the sense that one embodiment of knowledge affects another.

p.234 All our thoughts are signs, and I here consider how they are so, and show that it is in their character as signs that logic is applicable to them. Further, logic is applicable to all signs whether they are directly mental or not

p.237 What are the modes of being? ...We know already how we must proceed in order to determine what the meaning of the question is. Our sole guide must be the consideration of the use to which the answer is to be put

Sign [Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology] 239-240

p.239 A sign is either an icon, an index, or a symbol.

An icon is a sign which would possess the character which renders it significant, even though its object had no existence; such as a lead-pencil streak as representing a geometrical line.

An index is a sign which would, at once, lose the character which makes it a sign if its object were removed, but would not lose that character if there were no interpretant. Such, for instance, is a piece of mould with a bullet-hole in it as sign of a shot; for without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole there, whether anybody has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not.

A symbol is a sign which would lose the character which renders it a sign it there were no interpretant. Such is any utterance of speech which signifies what it does only by virtue of its being understood to have that signification.

Lectures on Pragmatism 241-245

p.242 But how can I know what is going to happen? ...the general proposition that all solid bodies fall in the absence of any upward forces or pressure, this formula I say, is of the nature of a representation.

p.244-245 General principles are really operative in nature. That is the doctrine of scholastic realism... it is proper to say that a general principle that is operative in the real world is of the essential nature of a Representation and of a Symbol because its modus operandi is the same as that by which words produce physical effects.

"Pragmatism" Defined 246-248

p.246 With masterful succinctness Peirce explains that pragmatism is not a philosophy of practical results but a method in logic. [JLJ - ok, so this suggests that a machine playing a game of strategy should generate scenarios to explore possible lines of action, and develop ideas related to the potential of stances or postures vs. an opponent, using a logic of pragmatism.]

p.246-247 pragmatism was invented to express a certain maxim of logic... the maxim is intended to furnish a method for the analysis of concepts... The method prescribed in the maxim is to trace out in the imagination the conceivable practical consequences, - that is, the consequences for deliberate, self-controlled conduct, - of the affirmation or denial of the concept; and the assertion of the maxim is that herein lies the whole of the purport of the word, the entire concept. This maxim is put forth... as a far-reaching theorem solidly grounded upon an elaborate study of the nature of signs.

p.247-248 Every thought, or cognitive representation, is of the nature of a sign... The whole purpose of a sign is that it shall be interpreted in another sign; and its whole purport lies in the special character which it imparts to that interpretation. When a sign determines an interpretation of itself in another sign, it produces an effect external to itself, a physical effect... Now we all do regard, and cannot help regarding, signs as affecting their interpretant signs. It is by a patient examination of the various modes... of interpretations of signs, and of the connections between these (an exploration in which one ought, if possible, to provide himself with a guide...) that the pragmatist has at length... emerged from the disheartening labyrinth with this simple maxim in his hand... This maxim once accepted... speedily sweeps all metaphysical rubbish out of one's house. Each abstraction is either pronounced to be gibberish or is provided with a plain, practical definition... The general leaning of the results is... toward common sense... Thus... the real becomes that which is such as it is... The external becomes that element which is such as it is

Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism 249-252 [JLJ - prolegomena: preliminary discussions]

p.250 "...the advantage of diagrams in general... one can make exact experiments upon uniform diagrams; and when one does so, one must keep a bright lookout for unintended and unexpected changes thereby brought about in the relations of different significant parts of the diagram to one another. Such operations upon diagrams, whether external or imaginary, take the place of experiments upon real things that one performs in chemical and physical research... experiments upon diagrams are questions put to the Nature of the relations concerned."

p.250-251 "...experiments upon diagrams... what is there the Object of Investigation? It is the form of a relation. Now this Form of Relation is the very form of the relation between the two corresponding parts of the diagram..."

p.252 Icons are specially requisite for reasoning. A Diagram is mainly an Icon, and an Icon of intelligible relations.

p.252 Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world... Not only is there thought in the organic world, but it develops there... there cannot be thought without Signs.

The Basis of Pragmaticism 253-259

p.253 Mr. Ferdinand C.S. Schiller informs us that he and [William] James have made up their minds that the true is simply the satisfactory. [JLJ - No, the true is whatever is put in front of us by an authority as truth. In that way, the true can be - and often is - false.]

A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God 260-278

p.263 If one who had determined to make trial of Musement as a favorite recreation were to ask me for advice, I should reply as follows... Musement... It begins passively enough with drinking in the impression... impression soon passes into attentive observation, observation into musing, musing into a lively give-and-take of communion between self and self. If one's observations and reflections are allowed to specialise themselves too much, the Play will be converted into scientific study... I should add: adhere to the one ordinance of Play, the law of liberty.

p.264 those problems that at first blush appear utterly insoluble receive... their smoothly-fitting keys. This particularly adapts them to the Play of Musement... There is no kind of reasoning that I should wish to discourage in Musement... I should say, "Enter your skiff of Musement, push off into the lake of thought, and leave the breath of heaven to swell your sail. With your eyes wide open, awake to what is about or within you, and open conversation with yourself; for such is all meditation." It is, however, not a conversation in words alone, but is illustrated, like a lecture, with diagrams and with experiments.

p.266-267 in the Pure Play of Musement the idea of God's Reality will be sure sooner or later to be found an attractive fancy, which the Muser will develop in various ways.

p.270 a diagram; that is, an "Icon," or Sign that represents its Object in resembling it.

"Indices," or Signs that represent their Objects by being actually connect with them.

"Symbols," or Signs that represent their Objects essentially because they will be so interpreted.