A NEW APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF THE ORDER OF THE TEN TRICHOTOMIES AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF SIXTY-SIX TYPES OF SIGNS IN PEIRCE’S LATE SPECULATIVE GRAMMAR

Abstract

This article deals with one of the most pressing issues of Peirce's late attempt at a classification of signs, namely, the order in which the ten trichotomies should be arrayed with the intention of deriving sixty-six signs. The first part of the article tracks the proposals made by Peirce and other scholars about the order of the ten trichotomies. They have proposed several different ways to array the ten trichotomies, but there is still no consensus about the correct order, and besides Peirce, no one has tried to derive types of signs from those orders. In the second part, we discuss other criteria for arraying the trichotomies, such as comparing groups of trichotomies in order to see which trichotomy is prior and which is posterior, and classifying logical inferences according to the types of signs derived from those trichotomies. The result is a linear order of trichotomies according to the principle of determination. With that order, we undertake the task of deriving some kinds of signs (although not the sixtysix possible ones) through the principle of degeneracy in order to establish that there are no contradictions or incongruencies.