Published on Commens (http://www.commens.org)

Home > Quote from "Letters to Lady Welby"

Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
‘Quasi-mind’ (pub. 14.04.13-11:09). Quote in M. Bergman & S. Paavola (Eds.), The Commens Dictionary: Peirce's Terms in His Own Words. New Edition. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letters-lady-welby-17.
Term: 
Quasi-mind
Quote: 

I almost despair of making clear what I mean by a “quasi-mind;” But I will try. A thought is not per se in any mind or quasi-mind. I mean this in the same sense as I might say that Right and Truth would remain what they are though they were not embodied, & though nothing were right or true. But a thought, to gain any active mode of being must be embodied in a Sign. A thought is a special variety of sign. All thinking is necessarily a sort of dialogue, an appeal from the momentary self to the better considered self of the immediate and of the general future. Now as every thinking requires a mind, so every sign even if external to all minds must be a determination of a quasi-mind. The quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign.

Source: 
Peirce, C. S. (nd). Letters to Lady Welby. MS [R] L463.
References: 
SS 195
Date of Quote: 
1906
URL: 

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letters-lady-welby-17