Factorization And Reification

It is important to distinguish between the two functions of a word: 1st to denote something — to stand for something, and 2nd to mean something — or as Mr. Mill phrases it — to connote something.

What it denotes is called its Sphere. What it connotes is called its Content. Thus the sphere of the word man is for me every man I know; and for each of you it is every man you know. The content of man is all that we know of all men, as being two-legged, having souls, having language, &c., &c.

(Peirce 1866, Lowell Lecture 7, CE 1, 459).

The question is: What sort of thing is a connotation? Is it a sign? That is to say, is it yet another term? Or is it something like an abstract attribute, namely, a character, an intension, a property, or a quality? And while we're asking, does it really even matter?

"No" is one answer worth considering. But then: Why does it not matter? What reason might be given that would excuse the indifference?

This is a question that has exercised me since my earliest studies of Peirce. I can remember discussing it with my philosophy mentor at the time and I distinctly recall having arrived at some conclusion or other, but, alas, I haven't the foggiest notion what exactly my revelation amounted to. Perhaps that is all for the best, as the vagrancy of memory is frequently better than the vapidity of one's banalytic anamnesia.

These days, I usually try to finesse the trick under the trumped up rubric of a factorization. So let me excavate my last attempts to explain this business and see if I can improve on them.

Factoring Functions

I would like to introduce a concept that I find to be of use in discussing the problems of hypostatic abstraction, reification, the reality of universals, and the questions of choosing among nominalism, conceptualism, and realism, generally.

I will take this up first in the simplest possible setting, where it has to do with the special sorts of relations that are commonly called functions, and after the basic idea is made as clear as possible in this easiest case I will deal with the notion of factorization as it affects more generic types of relations.

Picture an arbitrary function from a source or domain to a target or codomain. Here is a picture of such function, \(f : X \to Y,\) as generic as it needs to be for our prsent purposes:

o---------------------------------------o
|                                       |
|   Source X  =  {1, 2, 3, 4,    5}     |
|          |      o  o  o  o     o      |
|      f   |       \ | /    \   /       |
|          |        \|/      \ /        |
|          v      o  o  o  o  o  o      |
|   Target Y  =  {A, B, C, D, E, F}     |
|                                       |
o---------------------------------------o

It is a fact that any old function that you might pick "factors" into a functional composition of two other functions, a surjective ("onto") function and an injective ("one-to-one") function, in the present example pictured below:

o---------------------------------------o
|                                       |
|   Source X  =  {1, 2, 3, 4,    5}     |
|          |      o  o  o  o     o      |
|      g   |       \ | /    \   /       |
|          v        \|/      \ /        |
|   Medium M  =  {   b   ,    e   }     |
|          |         |        |         |
|      h   |         |        |         |
|          v      o  o  o  o  o  o      |
|   Target Y  =  {A, B, C, D, E, F}     |
|                                       |
o---------------------------------------o

Writing functional compositions \(f = g \circ h\) "on the right", we have the following data about the situation:

   X  =  {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
   M  =  {b, e}
   Y  =  {A, B, C, D, E, F}

   f : X -> Y, arbitrary
   g : X -> M, surjective
   h : M -> Y, injective

   f = g o h

What does all of this have to do with reification and so on?

Well, suppose that the source domain \(X\!\) is a set of objects, that the target domain \(Y\!\) is a set of signs, and suppose that the function \(f : X \to Y\) indicates the effect of a classification, conceptualization, discrimination, perception, or some other type of sorting operation, distributing the elements of the set \(X\!\) of objects and into a set of sorting bins that are labeled with the elements of the set \(Y,\!\) regarded as a set of classifiers, concepts, descriptors, percepts, or just plain signs, whether these signs are regarded as being in the mind, as with concepts, or whether they happen to be inscribed more publicly in another medium.

In general, if we try to use the signs in the target codomain \(Y\!\) to reference the objects in the source domain \(X,\!\) then we will be invoking what used to be called — since the Middle Ages, I think — a manner of general reference or a mode of plural denotation, that is to say, one sign will, in general, denote each of many objects, in a way that would normally be called ambiguous or equivocal.

Notice what I did not say here, that one sign denotes a set of objects, because I am for the moment conducting myself as such a dyed-in-the-wool nominal thinker that I hesitate even to admit so much as the existence of this thing we call a set into the graces of my formal ontology, though, of course, my casual speech is rife with the use of the word set, and in a way that the nominal thinker, true-blue to the end, would probably be inclined or duty-bound to insist is a purely dispensable convenience.

In fact, the invocation of a new order of entities, whether you regard its typical enlistee as a class, a concept, a form, a general, an idea, an interpretant, a property, a set, a universal, or whatever you elect to call it, is tantamount exactly to taking this step that I just now called the factoring of the classification function into surjective and injective factors.

Observe, however, that this is where all the battles begin to break out, for not all factorizations are regarded with equal equanimity by folks who have divergent philosophical attitudes toward the creation of new entities, especially when they get around to asking: In what domain or estate shall the multiplicity of newborn entities be lodged or yet come to reside on a permanent basis? Some factorizations enfold new orders of entities within the Object domain of a fundamental ontology, and some factorizations invoke new orders of entities within the Sign domains of concepts, data, interpretants, language, meaning, percepts, and sense in general. Now, opting for the object choice of habitation would usually be taken as symptomatic of realist leanings, while opting out of the factorization altogether, or weakly conceding the purely expedient convenience of the sign choice for the status of the intermediate entities, would probably be taken as evidence of a nominalist persuasion.

Factoring Sign Relations

Let us now apply the concepts of factorization and reification, as they are developed above, to the analysis of sign relations.

Suppose we have a sign relation \(L \subseteq O \times S \times I,\) where \(O\!\) is the object domain, \(S\!\) is the sign domain, and \(I\!\) is the interpretant domain of the sign relation \(L.\!\)

Now suppose that the situation with respect to the denotative component of \(L,\!\) in other words, the projection of \(L\!\) on the subspace \(O \times S,\) can be pictured in the following manner, where equal signs written between ostensible nodes identify them into a single actual node.

o-----------------------------o
| Denotative Component of L   |
o--------------o--------------o
|   Objects    |    Signs     |
o--------------o--------------o
|                             |
|                   o         |
|                  /=         |
|                 / o   y     |
|                / /=         |
|               / / o         |
|              / / /          |
|             / / /           |
|            / / /            |
|           / / /             |
|          / / /              |
|  x_1    o-/-/-----o  y_1    |
|          / /                |
|         / /                 |
|  x_2   o-/--------o  y_2    |
|         /                   |
|        /                    |
|  x_3  o-----------o  y_3    |
|                             |
o-----------------------------o

The Figure depicts a situation where each of the three objects, \(x_1, x_2, x_3,\!\) has a proper name that denotes it alone, namely, the three proper names \(y_1, y_2, y_3,\!\) respectively. Over and above the objects denoted by their proper names, there is the general sign \(y,\!\) which denotes any and all of the objects \(x_1, x_2, x_3.\!\) This kind of sign is described as a general name or a plural term, and its relation to its objects is a general reference or a plural denotation.

Now, at this stage of the game, if you ask: Is the object of the sign \(y\!\) one or many?, the answer has to be: Not one, but many. That is, there is not one \(x\!\) that \(y\!\) denotes, but only the three \(x\!\)'s in the object space. Nominal thinkers would ask: Granted this, what need do we have really of more excess? The maxim of the nominal thinker is never read a general name as a name of a general, meaning that we should never jump from the accidental circumstance of a plural sign \(y\!\) to the abnominal fact that a unit \(x\!\) exists.

In actual practice this would be just one segment of a much larger sign relation, but let us continue to focus on just this one piece. The association of objects with signs is not in general a function, no matter which way, from \(O\!\) to \(S\!\) or from \(S\!\) to \(O,\!\) that we might try to read it, but very often one will choose to focus on a selection of links that do make up a function in one direction or the other.

In general, but in this context especially, it is convenient to have a name for the converse of the denotation relation, or for any selection from it. I have been toying with the idea of calling this annotation, or maybe ennotation.

For example, the assignment of the general term \(y\) to each of the objects \(x_1, x_2, x_3\!\) is one such functional patch, piece, segment, or selection. So this patch can be pictured according to the pattern that was previously observed, and thus transformed by means of a canonical factorization.

In our example of a sign relation, we had a functional subset of the following shape:

o---------------------------------------o
|                                       |
|   Source O  :>  x_1 x_2 x_3           |
|          |       o   o   o            |
|          |        \  |  /             |
|       f  |         \ | /              |
|          |          \|/               |
|          v       ... o ...            |
|   Target S  :>       y                |
|                                       |
o---------------------------------------o

The function \(f : O \to S\) factors into a composition \(g \circ h,\!\) where \(g : O \to M,\) and \(h : M \to S,\) as shown here:

o---------------------------------------o
|                                       |
|   Source O  :>  x_1 x_2 x_3           |
|          |       o   o   o            |
|       g  |        \  |  /             |
|          |         \ | /              |
|          v          \|/               |
|   Medium M  :>   ... x ...            |
|          |           |                |
|       h  |           |                |
|          |           |                |
|          v       ... o ...            |
|   Target S  :>       y                |
|                                       |
o---------------------------------------o

The factorization of an arbitrary function into a surjective ("onto") function followed by an injective ("one-one") function is such a deceptively trivial observation that I had guessed that you would all wonder what in the heck, if anything, could possibly come of it.

What it means is that, "without loss or gain of generality" (WOLOGOG),
we might as well assume that there is a domain of intermediate entities
under which the objects of a general denotation can be marshalled, just
as if they actually had something rather more essential and really more
substantial in common than the shared attachment to a coincidental name.
So the problematic status of a hypostatic entity like x is reduced from
a question of its nominal existence to a matter of its local habitation.
Is it very like a sign, or is it rather more like an object?  One wonders
why there has to be only these two categories, and why not just form up
another, but that does not seem like playing the game to propose it.
At any rate, I will defer for now one other obvious possibility --
obvious from the standpoint of the pragmatic theory of signs --
the option of assigning the new concept, or mental symbol,
to the role of an interpretant sign.

If we force the factored annotation function,
initially extracted from the sign relation L,
back into the frame from whence it once came,
we get the augmented sign relation L', shown
in the next vignette:

o-----------------------------o
| Denotative Component of L'  |
o--------------o--------------o
|   Objects    |    Signs     |
o--------------o--------------o
|                             |
|                   o         |
|                  /=         |
|   x   o=o-------/-o   y     |
|       ^^^      / /=         |
|       '''     / / o         |
|       '''    / / /          |
|       '''   / / /           |
|       '''  / / /            |
|       ''' / / /             |
|       '''/ / /              |
|  x_1  ''o-/-/-----o  y_1    |
|       '' / /                |
|       ''/ /                 |
|  x_2  'o-/--------o  y_2    |
|       ' /                   |
|       '/                    |
|  x_3  o-----------o  y_3    |
|                             |
o-----------------------------o

This amounts to the creation of a hypostatic object x,
which affords us a singular denotation for the sign y.

By way of terminology, it would be convenient to have
a general name for the transformation that converts
a bare "nominal" sign relation like L into a new,
improved "hypostatically augmented or extended"
sign relation like L'.

I call this kind of transformation
an "objective extension" (OE) or
an "outward extension" (OE) of
the underlying sign relation.

This naturally raises the question of
whether there is also an augmentation
of sign relations that might be called
an "interpretive extension" (IE) or
an "inward extension" (IE) of
the underlying sign relation,
and this is the topic that
I will take up next.

Nominalism and Realism

Let me now illustrate what I think that a lot of our controversies
about nominalism versus realism actually boil down to in practice.
From a semiotic or a sign-theoretic point of view, it all begins
with a case of "plural reference", which happens when a sign y
is quite literally taken to denote each object x_j in a whole
collection of objects {x_1, ..., x_k, ...}, a situation that
can be represented in a sign-relational table like this one:

o---------o---------o---------o
| Object  |  Sign   | Interp  |
o---------o---------o---------o
|   x_1   |    y    |   ...   |
|   x_2   |    y    |   ...   |
|   x_3   |    y    |   ...   |
|   ...   |    y    |   ...   |
|   x_k   |    y    |   ...   |
|   ...   |    y    |   ...   |
o---------o---------o---------o

For brevity, let us consider the sign relation L
whose relational database table is precisely this:

o-----------------------------o
|       Sign Relation L       |
o---------o---------o---------o
| Object  |  Sign   | Interp  |
o---------o---------o---------o
|   x_1   |    y    |   ...   |
|   x_2   |    y    |   ...   |
|   x_3   |    y    |   ...   |
o---------o---------o---------o

For the moment, it does not matter what the interpretants are.

I would like to diagram this somewhat after the following fashion,
here detailing just the denotative component of the sign relation,
that is, the 2-adic relation that is obtained by "projecting out"
the Object and the Sign columns of the table.

o-----------------------------o
| Denotative Component of L   |
o--------------o--------------o
|   Objects    |    Signs     |
o--------------o--------------o
|                             |
|  x_1  o------>              |
|               \             |
|                \            |
|  x_2  o------>--o  y        |
|                /            |
|               /             |
|  x_3  o------>              |
|                             |
o-----------------------------o

I would like to -- but my personal limitations in the
Art of ASCII Hieroglyphics do not permit me to maintain
this level of detail as the figures begin to ramify much
beyond this level of complexity.  Therefore, let me use
the following device to symbolize the same configuration:

o-----------------------------o
| Denotative Component of L   |
o--------------o--------------o
|   Objects    |    Signs     |
o--------------o--------------o
|                             |
| o   o   o >>>>>>>>>>>> y    |
|                             |
o-----------------------------o

Notice the subtle distinction between these two cases:

   1.  A sign denotes each object in a set of objects.

   2.  A sign denotes a set of objects.

The first option uses the notion of a set in a casual,
informal, or metalinguistic way, and does not really
commit us to the existence of sets in any formal way.
This is the more razoresque choice, much less risky,
ontologically speaking, and so we may adopt it as
our "nominal" starting position.

Now, in this "plural denotative" component of the sign relation,
we are looking at what may be seen as a functional relationship,
in the sense that we have a piece of some function f : O -> S,
such that f(x_1) = f(x_2) = f(x_3) = y, for example.  A function
always admits of being factored into an "onto" (surjective) map
followed by a "one-to-one" (injective) map, as discussed earlier.

But where do the intermediate entities go?  We could lodge them
in a brand new space all their own, but Ockham the Innkeeper is
right up there with Old Procrustes when it comes to the amenity
of his accommodations, and so we feel compelled to at least try
shoving them into one or another of the spaces already reserved.

In the rest of this discussion, let us assign the label "i" to
the intermediate entity between the objects x_j and the sign y.

Now, should you annex i to the object domain O you will have
instantly given yourself away as having "Realist" tendencies,
and you might as well go ahead and call it an "Intension" or
even an "Idea" of the grossly subtlest Platonic brand, since
you are about to booted from Ockham's Establishment, and you
might as well have the comforts of your Ideals in your exile.

o-----------------------------o
| Denotative Component of L'  |
o--------------o--------------o
|   Objects    |    Signs     |
o--------------o--------------o
|                             |
|     i                       |
|    /|\   *                  |
|   / | \       *             |
|  /  |  \           *        |
| o   o   o >>>>>>>>>>>> y    |
|                             |
o-----------------------------o

But if you assimilate i to the realm of signs S, you will
be showing your inclination to remain within the straight
and narrow of "Conceptualist" or even "Nominalist" dogmas,
and you may read this "i" as standing for an intelligible
concept, or an "idea" of the safely decapitalized, mental
impression variety.

o-----------------------------o
| Denotative Component of L'' |
o--------------o--------------o
|   Objects    |    Signs     |
o--------------o--------------o
|                             |
| o   o   o >>>>>>>>>>>> y    |
|    .  .  .             '    |
|         . . .          '    |
|              ...       '    |
|                   .    '    |
|                       "i"   |
|                             |
o-----------------------------o

But if you dare to be truly liberal, you might just find
that you can easily afford to accommmodate the illusions
of both of these types of intellectual inclinations, and
after a while you begin to wonder how all of that mental
or ontological downsizing got started in the first place.

o-----------------------------o
| Denotative Component of L'''|
o--------------o--------------o
|   Objects    |    Signs     |
o--------------o--------------o
|                             |
|     i                       |
|    /|\   *                  |
|   / | \       *             |
|  /  |  \           *        |
| o   o   o >>>>>>>>>>>> y    |
|    .  .  .             '    |
|         . . .          '    |
|              ...       '    |
|                   .    '    |
|                       "i"   |
|                             |
o-----------------------------o

To sum up, we have recognized the perfectly innocuous utility
of admitting the abstract intermediate object i, that may be
interpreted as an intension, a property, or a quality that
is held in common by all of the initial objects x_j that
are plurally denoted by the sign y.  Further, it appears
to be equally unexceptionable to allow the use of the
sign "i" to denote this shared intension i.  Finally,
all of this flexibility arises from a universally
available construction, a type of compositional
factorization, common to the functional parts
of the 2-adic components of any relation.

Work Area

The word "intension" has recently come to be stressed in our discussions.
As I first learned this word from my reading of Leibniz, I shall take it
to be nothing more than a synonym for "property" or "quality", and shall
probably always associate it with the primes factorization of integers,
the analogy between having a factor and having a property being one of
the most striking, at least to my neo-pythagorean compleated mystical
sensitivities, that Leibniz ever posed, and of which certain facets
of Peirce's work can be taken as a further polishing up, if one is
of a mind to do so.

As I dare not presume this to constitute the common acceptation
of the term "intension", not without checking it out, at least,
I will need to try and understand how others here understand
the term and all of its various derivatives, thereby hoping
to anticipate, that is to say, to evade or to intercept,
a few of the brands of late-breaking misunderstandings
that are so easy to find ourselves being surprised by,
if one shies away from asking silly questions at the
very first introduction of one of these parvenu words.
I have been advised that it will probably be fruitless
to ask direct questions of my informants in such a regard,
but I do not see how else to catalyze the process of exposing
the presumption that "it's just understood" when in fact it may
be far from being so, and thus to clear the way for whatever real
clarification might possibly be forthcoming, in the goodness of time.
Just to be open, and patent, and completely above the metonymous board,
I will lay out the paradigm that I myself bear in mind when I think about
how I might place the locus and the sense of this term "intension", because
I see the matter of where to lodge it in our logical logistic as being quite
analogous to the issue of where to place those other i-words, namely, "idea",
capitalized or not, "impresssion", "intelligible concept", and "interpretant".

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

Let me illustrate what I think that a lot of our controversies
about nominalism versus realism actually boil down to in practice.
From a semiotic or a sign-theoretic point of view, it all begins
with a case of "plural reference", which happens when a sign 's'
is quite literally taken to denote each object o<j> in a whole
collection of objects {o<1>, ..., o<k>, ...}, a situation that
I would normally represent in a sign-relational table like so:

      Object     Sign     Interp
    o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
        o1        's'       ...
        o2        's'       ...
        o3        's'       ...
    o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

For the moment, it does not matter what the interpretants are.

I would like to diagram this somewhat after the following fashion,
here detailing just the denotative component of the sign relation,
that is, the 2-adic relation that is obtained by "projecting out"
the Object and the Sign columns of the table.

    o1 ------>
              \
               \
    o2 ------>--@ 's'
               /
              /
    o3 ------>

I would like to -- but my personal limitations in the
Art of ASCII Hieroglyphics do not permit me to maintain
this level of detail as the figures begin to ramify much
beyond this level of complexity.  Therefore, let me use
the following device to symbolize the same configuration:

    o   o   o >>>>>>>>>>>>> 's'

Notice the subtle distinction between these two cases:

1.  A sign denotes each object in a set of objects.

2.  A sign denotes a set of objects.

The first option uses the notion of a set in a casual,
informal, or metalinguistic way, and does not really
commit us to the existence of sets in any formal way.
This is the more razoresque choice, much less risky,
ontologically speaking, and so we may adopt it as
our starting position.

Now, in this "plural denotative" component of the sign relation,
we are looking at what may be seen as a functional relationship,
in the sense that we ahve a piece of some function f : O -> S,
such that f(o1) = f(o2) = f(o3) = 's', for example.  Functions
always admit of factoring into an "onto" (no relation) map and
then a one-one map, as we discussed what seems like an age ago.

But where do the intermediate entities go?  We could lodge them
in a brand new space all their own, but Ockham the Innkeeper is
right up there with Old Procrustes when it comes to the amenity
of his accommodations, and so we feel compelled to at least try
shoving them into one or another of the spaces already reserved.

In the rest of this discussion, let us give the name "i" to the
intermediate entity between the objects o<j> and the sign 's'.

Now should you annex i to the object domain O, you will have
instantly given yourself away as having "Realist" tendencies,
and you might as well go ahead and call it an "intension" or
even an "Idea" of the grossly subtlest Platonic brand, since
you are about to booted from Ockham's Establishment, and you
may as well have the comforts of your Ideals in your exhile.

        i
       /|\   *
      / | \       *
     /  |  \           *
    o   o   o >>>>>>>>>>>> "s"

But if you assimilate i to the realm of signs S, you will
be showing your inclination to remain within the straight
and narrow of "Conceptualist" or even "Nominalist" dogmas,
and you may read this "i" as standing for an intelligible
concept, or an "idea" of the safely decapitalized, mental
impression variety.

    o   o   o >>>>>>>>>>>> "s"
        .  .  .             |
             . . .          |
                  ...       |
                       .    |
                           "i"

Discussion

JW = Jim Willgoose

Re: FAR 2.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-May/thread.html#2747
In: FAR.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-May/002748.html

JW: What does "middle m" do? It appears to simplify the object domain.
    But to what end?  You could be a hardcore reductionist and allow full
    reality to source and middle (providing middle m has a role).  Gaining
    clarity doesn't compromise realism, even realism about sets (so long as
    they can be identified).  One can even be a Platonic nominalist (demanding
    that abstract objects be identified and individuated) and preserve a sense
    of realism by arguing that the identity and individuating character of an
    abstract object is independant of you, me etc.  This could be extended to
    possible uses for middle m that have not been discovered.  There are a lot
    of ways to hang on to ONE THING, champion reduction, and preserve realism.

I am here making use of a simple theorem from mathematical category theory,
the fact that any function can be factored into a surjective part followed
by an injective part, to provide the grounds for a compromise between some
ancient philosophical combatants.  Of course, the more reductionist among
those parties would no more warm up to the reality of functions than they
take kindly to the existence of those abstract objects we call "sets",
but that is neither here nor there.

Another point of the exercise was to examine the waffle room that we often
find in regard to the "connotations" of signs, whether they are more like
interpretant signs or more like intensions considered as abstract objects.
I think that I have at least outlined a way that we can have our cake and
eat it too.

The rest of your statements are very puzzling to me.
I can only guess that you've never met any hardcore
reductionists, as they certainly don't tolerate the
existence of sets, considered as something over and
above their individual elements.  And I have no way
of conjuring up what a platonic nominalist might be.