COMMUNICATING THE FORM IN CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE

 

In the last writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, a new element is incorporated into the tripartite semiotic scheme of sign, object and interpretant, which is form. This modification adds this significant element and functions as an opening to new fields of inquiry, especially to elucidate the action of form in the processes of semiosis.

I will refer preferably to two of Peirce's late works: Manuscript 793 and Letters to Miss Welby.  In these works, semiotics shifts from the treatment of the sign as representation to the sign as communication. It is a prioritization of the communicative fact rather than an erasure of representation. (Peirce, The essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, Volume 2, 1893-1913, 1998)

In Peirce's later writings he focused on the notion of communication as an essential feature of all semiosis, not only the sign as a medium of communication between two minds, but also the sign as a medium within the sign relation, which communicates a form from the object to the Interpretant. (Alrøe, 2025, pág. 8)

Communication does not exhaust the field of action of signs, although it is now considered as the central axis of semiosis. It is in this context that Peirce places the notion of form as part of the communicative process and the exchanges of information.

The general function of signs is to communicate ideas; this is equally true of thoughts, imaginary signs that convey ideas from the self of the past to the self of the future, as it is of the signs used in external exchanges of information... However, this does not mean that semiosis would be exhausted by communication as it is ordinarily understood. (Bergman, Fields of signification, 2004, pág. 247)

Studies tend to focus on this transformation of semiotics and the question of form is treated in a very marginal way. This remains a term of automatic understanding without further elucidation, as if it were evident that what is communicated is the form. In this sense, we do not enter into the debates of semiotics but concentrate on the role that form plays in the communicative process of the sign and on the consequences for a full understanding of the notion of form, which allows its use beyond the sphere of semiotics.

Before entering fully into the texts that refer to form, it is convenient to keep in mind what dynamic objectives and dynamic interpretants are, since they are integrated into the processes of communication, where form appears. The immediate object, part of the triad of sign, object and interpretant, is subsumed in the dynamic object and is now understood as a partial, incomplete moment of that dynamic object, which is found when the communication is already given or concluded.

The dynamic object fulfills two essential functions for semiosis: it establishes a sequence of signs and intertwines them in such a way that none of them are isolated, that is, it builds a chain of signs; and, once this has been given, it is integrated into a system of signs; only when these two movements are complete does the object attain its full significance.

The dynamic object is, in some senses, the object that generates a chain of signs. The aim of a sign chain is to arrive at a full understanding of an object and so assimilate that object into the system of signs. Using slightly more simplistic terms, Ransdell (1977, 169) describes the dynamic object as the "object as it really is", and Hookway (1985, 139) describes it as "the object as it is known to be [at the end of inquiry]".  (Atkin, Peirce’s theory of signs, 2023, pág. 9)

In turn, the dynamic interpretant follows the movement of the dynamic object. Once we have the dynamic object, then a level of understanding is reached; for this reason, it is affirmed that this interpretant corresponds to the interpretation that we have effectively arrived at in each communicative situation.

The dynamic interpretant, then, is the understanding we reach, or which the sign determines, at any particular semiotic stage. To continue with linguistic examples, we know that the dynamic interpretant is the actual interpretation we make, or understanding we reach, in the first instance of interpretation.  (Atkin, Peirce’s theory of signs, 2023, pág. 11)

Let us now see how the form is located in this brief context that has been outlined. In Manuscript 793, in Note 22, Peirce introduces the term form as part of the semiotic process of communication: "For the purposes of this inquiry a Sign may be defined as a Medium for the communication of a Form."  (Peirce, The essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, Volume 2, 1893-1913, 1998, pág. p. 544 n. 22)And in the letters to Welby: "I use the word 'Sign' in the widest sense for any medium for the communication or extension of a Form (or feature)."  (Peirce & Welby, Semiotic and significs: The correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby, 1977, pág. 196)The terms with which it is necessary to deal clearly appear: sign, medium, communication and form. The fundamental premise is also enunciated: what is communicated is the form; or in its variants: a form of the object is communicated; a formed object is communicated.

The need for the presence of the form that completes the triad and that makes all communication possible originates in those quasi-minds that present themselves as forms capable of indexing, concretizing or expressing themselves in a diversity of manifestations. The type of form that communicates is manifested through various tokens. The shape would be a type that is indexed in its tokens.

It is not logically necessary that anything possessing consciousness, that is, feeling of the peculiar common quality of all our feeling, should be concerned. But it is necessary that there should be two, if not three, quasi-minds, meaning things capable of varied determination as to forms of the kind communicated. (Peirce, The essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, Volume 2, 1893-1913, 1998, pág. p. 544 n. 22)

The sign is the carrier that carries the form from the object to the interpretant; that is, from the dynamic object to the dynamic interpretant in such a way that it closes the circle of communication. In this sense, form is the content of communication. To put it more rigorously, the content that goes from the object to the interpretant is always the form of the content; or a content formed in a certain way, through which it maintains its unity and makes possible a varied indexing.

That which is communicated from the Object through the Sign to the Interpretant is a Form... The Form that is communicated does not necessarily cease to be in one thing when it comes to be in a different thing, because its being is a being of the predicate. (Peirce, The essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, Volume 2, 1893-1913, 1998, pág. p. 544 n. 22)

The fact that the form is embodied representatively means that it produces the specific communicative effect, producing the closure of the communicative act, allowing it to be effective and for the dynamic interpretant to understand not only the immediate meaning but the complete meaning of what is being communicated.

In the Sign the Form may or may not be embodied entitatively, but it must be embodied representatively, that is, in respect to the Form communicated, the sign produces upon the Interpretant an effect similar to that which the Object itself would under favorable circumstances. (Peirce, The essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, Volume 2, 1893-1913, 1998, pág. p. 544 n. 22)

The two aspects of semiosis, representation and communication, are fully realized in the communication of form. Behind the communication process there is necessarily the sign as representation that, in this new approach, is subsumed to the dynamics of communication. Perhaps because of this crucial role given to form, Peirce associates it with the truth of the proposition.

The Being of a Form consists in the truth of a conditional proposition. Under given circumstances, something would be true... The Form is in the Object, entitatively we may say, meaning that that conditional relation, or following of consequent upon reason, which constitutes the Form, is literally true of the Object. (Peirce, The essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, Volume 2, 1893-1913, 1998, pág. p. 544 n. 22)

Peirce probably goes too far with this statement, which, moreover, is not expanded or substantiated. Rather, it would be preferable to say that the communication of form opens up to the veritative sphere of the proposition, which can be true or false. As Umberto Eco says, all semiotics has to be able to explain both truth and lies: "In that sense, semiotics is, in principle, the discipline that studies everything that can be used to lie." (Eco, 1976, pág. 22)

The form is the result of the duality of the sign, which represents the object and, at the same time, continues to refer to the sign in its function of representation as such. This means that there is  representational content, but there is also the form, which refers to the sign as soon as it connects it with the object.

Indeed in what we may, from one point of view, regard as the principal kind of signs, there is one distinct part appropriated to representing the object, and another to representing how this very sign itself represents that object. The class of signs I refer to are the dicisigns.(Peirce & Welby, Semiotic and significs: The correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby, 1977, págs. 196-197)

In the example given by Peirce, the object is clearly distinguished as meaning and the relationship established between them, "he is in love with", as the form that the relationship between John and Helen takes. In this way, the form immersed in the process of semiosis is the one that gives a concrete content to the object of the sign, uniting representation and communication in a single step, making the dynamic interpretant apprehend the dynamic object.

In 'John is in love with Helen' the object signified is the pair, John and Helen. But the 'is in love with' signifies the form, this sign represents itself to represent John-and-Helen's Form to be.(Peirce & Welby, Semiotic and significs: The correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby, 1977, págs. 196-197)

Although the form, coming from reality or fiction, is independent of communication, it cannot do without the sign in case it wants to communicate, which includes its representation. When the sign catches the form, the form becomes the object of the sign. Semiosis makes the form, which is independent of communication, the object of the sign, precisely in order to be able to communicate it. Only when form enters the semiotic process does communication take place, which necessarily becomes communication of form.

The Form (and the Form is the Object of the Sign), as it really determines the former Subject, is quite independent of the sign; yet we may and indeed must say that the object of a sign can be nothing but what that sign represents it to be. (Peirce & Welby, Semiotic and significs: The correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby, 1977, pág. 197)

Upon entering the semiotic field, forms acquire this status of signifying forms and for this reason, they can be communicated by the sign to an interpretant: "On the other hand, Peirce also suggests that the object is similar to an utterer in that it functions as a "repository of ideas or significant forms".  In addition, the social or collective dimension is introduced, because these signifying forms have a common substrate, which implies that the production of both forms and meanings occurs within the framework of common experience.(Bergman, Fields of signification, 2004, pág. 251)

Furthermore, in the same passage Peirce introduces the peculiar (and rare) concept of commens, which may be characterised as the common ground requisite in order that any communication can take place. It seems to be a different way of saying that the sign interpretation requires collateral experience, the stress being laid on a common or shared acquaintance with the object. (Bergman, Fields of signification, 2004, pág. 413)

 

Bibliography

Alrøe, H. (2025). The six types of sign action. Semiotics. DOI:10.1515/SEM-2024-0112

Atkin, A. (2023). Peirce's theory of signs. (E. Zalta, & U. Nodelman, Editors) Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/

Bergman, M. (2004). Fields of signification. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.

Eco, U. (1976). Treatise on General Semiotics. Barcelona: Lumen.

Peirce, C. (1998). The essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, Volume 2, 1893-1913 (Vol. 2). (Peirce Edition Project, Ed.) Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Peirce, C., & Welby, V. (1977). Semiotic and significs: The correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby. (C. Hardwick, & J. Cook, Eds.) Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Reyes Cárdenas, P. (2018). Scholastic realism: A key to understanding Peirce's philosophy. Peter Lang. doi:10.3726/b11107

 

 

FORM AND ESSENCE IN PLATO

 

The path to a definition of the notion of form necessarily passes through Plato, who places this theme from the beginning of his works and will progressively give it a central role in his philosophical system. Reflections on form inevitably return to this matrix, so it is necessary to take a position on its conceptions. The approach made in this work does not intend to reconstruct the endless debates around Plato, an impossible question given its breadth. For this reason, it focuses exclusively on establishing, in a synthetic way, the nucleus of Plato's theory of form, which serves as an input for its contemporary elucidation.

I take as a reference two current reflections that I consider to shed light on a correct way of understanding the Platonic form: the relationship between form and essence, as proposed by Vasilis Politis; and the transformations that form undergoes in Plato's last dialogues, especially in the Parmenides and in The Sophist, analyzed by Cordero.  In order to contextualize these visions of Plato, one can consult the work of Larsen and Politis. (Politis, Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms, 2021) (Cordero, 2016)(Larsen & Politis, 2025)

The first sentence of Politis's text enunciates the central thesis of his work, around which his interpretation of Plato will revolve: form and essence are the same; that is, essence is form. This argument is based on the understanding that the essence asks about the ti esti, what is it? and does not attempt anything other than to answer this question.

The topic of the present study is Plato's theory of Forms, as it used to be called. The thesis of the study is that Plato's Forms simply are essences and that Plato's theory of Forms is a theory of essence – essences, in the sense of what we are committed to by the supposition that the ti esti ('What is it?') question can be posed and, all going well, answered. This thesis says that the characteristics that, as is generally recognised, Plato attributes to Forms, he attributes to them because he thinks that it can be shown that essences, on the original and minimal sense of essence, must be so characterized. (Politis, Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms, 2021, pág. 1)

Although this thesis is clearly based on this correct sense of essence, which inquires about what a thing is, or what makes a thing what it is, it leaves its relationship with form unanswered. Why does the fact of asking about the essence mean introducing the question of the form? The conclusion that follows from this reasoning is that the question of essence is equivalent to the question of form. In other words, answering the what a thing is means recognizing the form behind it as its essence. Everything that exists is formed in some way.

This relationship between form and essence can be clarified by clarifying that essence gives itself in beings as form; thus, discovering its essence is the same as recognizing the form that makes it what it is; that is, the essence has this formative function. It is assumed that, insofar as entities have an essence, they simultaneously possess a form. Moreover, the conclusion resulting from this reasoning leads to the expression that, if everything has an essence, then everything has a form. The formless, just as non-being, as will be seen later, exists in a relational way; that is, this reality is formless with respect to this other reality; but, in itself, it is not.

This question of the identity between form and essence is evident when looking at any object in daily life, in which answering the question of what it is is generally simple; However, when it comes to questions such as goodness, truth, beauty, and justice, the question becomes very difficult. In these cases, we are required to make extensive and in-depth considerations to answer the question, and the answers given are always disputed. Thus, the form of justice requires a careful investigation to know what its essence is.

If there is one thing that Socrates, as Plato represents him, is convinced of, it is that the ti esti question, especially when asked of certain things or qualities, such as beauty, equality, unity, justice, is a most important and profoundly difficult one, the answering of which is a major undertaking and requires demanding enquiry. (Politis, Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms, 2021, pág. 2)

Once this first consideration has been given, which intersects essence, form and the question "What is it?", Plato demands that the answer to this question be unitary and explanatory. These two necessary requirements refer to a much more complicated problem, which arises from the existence of the multiple, in respect of which the essence is unity; that is, entities that share the same essence and that, for this reason, are the same, similar or belong to the same field of phenomena without necessarily being identical.

If we observe that one reality p has the essence r, and that another reality q has the essence r, and so on with a series of objects, we must admit that several realities may have the same essence; but this essence does not arise by means of inductive procedures, but goes beyond the concrete fact; and, therefore,  The answer through the exemplar to the question what is it becomes insufficient; in the same way, the question "What is color?" is not solved by saying that this object is red or green. The essence of color covers the set of all colors.

In addition to their unitary character, essences must have an explanatory character. The essences that make a thing what it is are enough to make it possible for that thing to be what it is. The essence gives the entity the attributes and characteristics that make it what it is: "Plato associates further substantive requirements with the This is you question; in particular, the answer to the question must be unitary, and it must be explanatory". (Politis, Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms, 2021, pág. 2)

The next step that tends to be taken almost automatically is to interpret Plato following Aristotle's elaborations; the essence is quickly linked to the substance; but we must remain in the direct definition of essence, as a form that makes a thing what it is, without presupposing or conferring existence on that of which it is essence: "For it follows from this that, against a common understanding of Plato's Forms, we have no reason at all to suppose that Forms are substances that have essences; all we have reason to suppose is that they simply are essences. I shall conclude the present study with this result and add that this shows that Plato's Forms are not self(Aristóteles, 1994)-predicative, or self-predicative in the way they would be if they were substances having essences and distinct from their essence." . For example, a unicorn can be said to have the properties x,y,z, without this implying its effective existence; it is possible to elaborate in detail what justice is, even if the world is fundamentally unjust. (Politis, Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms, 2021, pág. 11)

As Politis points out, the discussion at stake here lies in sustaining the possibility of a theory of essence that does not include a definition of substance and that presupposes the existence of a first principle, from which everything else originates; therefore, it is necessary to rescue the possibility of a different path from the Aristotelian one: "To assume this is to assume that there can be no theory of essence except in combination with a theory of primary being and the view that the primary beings are substances: a monumental assumption.". (Politis, Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms, 2021, pág. 12)

For a configuration of the sense of essence and form, this aspect will be crucial, especially because it allows the use of the notion of essence by removing the substantialist burden that is placed on it; even more, affirming the need for the correct use of the term essence, as we can see in authors such as Marx in the analysis of the form-value as foundation and essence, and in Spivak with his strategic use of the term essence. Therefore, the full validity of a non-substantialist essence, which allows the understanding of the same or similar phenomena, can be sustained; otherwise, reality would dissolve into the difference. Essence as form explains both sameness and difference. (Marx, 1975) (Spivak, 2012)

The question of forms, as essences that they are, is conceived in Plato in a differentiated way depending on the type of things that are being dealt with. Four spheres are distinguished: those things like unity and plurality, and justice, goodness, and goodness, which are independent of sensible perception, and which, in fact, cannot be grasped by the senses, but only by reasoning. We cannot observe the good, the truth, or the justice, because they are not a quality of sensible things; We can establish that a fact is just or unjust, but there is no justice as a universal. And the other two, which are certain attributes such as water or fire, and what are later called accidents, which are attached to things and cannot be separated from them.

In putting this question to Socrates – the question of whether, in regard of certain things, there are separate Forms of those things – Parmenides distinguishes between four sorts of things in regard of which this question can raised: i. Things such as likeness and unlikeness, unity and plurality: Are there separate Forms of those things, that is, separate from sense-perceptible things that are like or unlike each other, or that are unitary or not unitary? ii. Things such as justice, goodness, and beauty: Are there separate Forms of those things, that is, separate from sense-perceptible things that are just or good or beautiful? iii. Things such as water, fire or human beings: Are there separate Forms of those things, that is, separate from sense-perceptible fire, water and human beings? Finally, iv. Things such as mud, hair, and dirt: Are there separate Forms of those things, that is, separate from sense-perceptible mud, dirt, and hair?(Politis, Plato on Essences and Forms, 2025, pág. 489)

Of course, Plato does not arrive at the conception of forms that produce forms, although he has to admit that concrete things have forms and that these can be pointed out to answer the question What is it? This aspect of form theory will come much later, especially from the hand of George Spencer Brown.  Rather, it is recorded the variety of essences and the diversity of their relationships depending on the type of entities with which we are dealing, including those ideal principles such as goodness, truth and justice. (Spencer Brown, 1972)

The theory of the Platonic form, thus formulated, still poses challenges for its understanding and, above all, for its contemporary use. Politis points out the main characteristics of the form:

Forms are changeless, uniform, not perceptible by the senses, knowable only by reasoning, the basis of causation and explanation, distinct from sense-perceptible things, necessary for thought and speech, separate from physical things. (Politis, Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms, 2021, pág. 1)

At this point, it is interesting to deal with the first characteristic, because taking it as it is formulated, it leads to an unacceptable metaphysics, because it transforms the essence into something fixed and separate from reality, and could lead to it being interpreted as a substance: Forms are changeless. I return to the approaches of Néstor Luis Cordero, in order to analyze the changes that the theory of form undergoes in Plato, in the Parmenides and, especially, in the Sophist, which provide a distinct image of the form and introduce into it the possibility of movement and change. (Cordero, 2016) (Platón, Parménides, 1992) (Platón, Sofista, 1992)

The problems arise in Plato at the moment in which he tries to explain those aspects that are not compatible with the monistic vision derived from Parmenides, because the contrast between being is and non-being is not seems insurmountable: sameness and difference, unity and multiplicity, truth and falsehood, reason and sensibility, among others. In the final analysis, how can we explain that there are things that are, how can we say of something that is not, that it is?

Plato enters fully into the development of an ontology, maintaining the fundamental finding of essence as form, and its non-substantialist character. The passage from what is to what exists and how it exists, implies radical transformations in its conception of form. In this context, Plato explicitly formulates the relationship between form and being, because he discovers the form of being; or, in other words, that being is a form.

Ext. — The former, slipping into the darkness of non-being, actsin combinationwith it, and it is difficult to distinguish it because of the darkness of the place, is it not?

Teet. - It seems so.

Ext. -The philosopher, on the other hand, always relating himself to the form of being by means of reasoning, alsopoco is fáIt is easy to perceive, this time because of the luminosity of the region.ón. The eyes of the soul of most people, in fact, are incapable of striving to look at the divine. (254a) (Platón, Sofista, 1992, pág. 435)

 

In Cordero's terms, "the philosopher is an 'ontologist', an expert in the Form of Being, to the point of being 'clinging' to it", and this will be a crucial finding, because it allows, at the same time, to resolve the difficulties of a fixed form and confer movement on it, and, on the other hand, being as a form, to participate fully in its characteristics. Plato thus arrives at an ontology of form. (Cordero, 2016, pág. 175)

 

Being as a form has the capacity to communicate; In fact, communication is the way in which being gives existence to that which only had essence. The communicability of forms breaks his isolation and prepares him to fully explain the reality before him, such as the existence of movement and rest, or of unity and multiplicity. 

 

Ext. —Since it has been admitted that some genders agree to communicate with each other and others do not, that some do so with a few and others with many... (254b) (Platón, Sofista, 1992, pág. 435)

Conferring being is, above all, a movement of communication between forms; moreover, in the beautiful words of Cordero, communicates existence: "The Form of Being, as was the case with the Form of the Good, is functional, it does not have a precise essence (such as beauty, justA little girlñez): it is purely dynamic, it communicates existence". (Cordero, 2016, pág. 175)

Participation, which is another fundamental characteristic of forms, makes possible the relationship between elements that, otherwise, appear to be totally isolated and without the capacity to interrelate. In this way, the crucial question of the relationship between the intelligible and the sensible would remain unresolved. The ability to communicate includes participation; that is, the two planes participate in the form of being and, through it, manage to communicate.

Either Form participates, or it does not exist. And since the capacity to communicate (to act or to be affected) concerns everything, on pain of not existing, there is no longer any distinction – as we have seen – between the sensible and the intelligible. Through participation and presence, the sensible and the intelligible participate in many ways.tumente; thanks to communicationóNot recíproca the Forms communicate with each otherí (selectively, lólogically) and, without the need to justify it, since PlatóI didn't always admit itó, the sensible communicates with the sensible. (Cordero, 2016, pág. 176)

Plato is finally confronted with the problem of non-being, since he has admitted that non-being exists in some way. If being is sameness and non-being, what is different, what does non-being consist of? It insists on maintaining Parmenides' thesis that non-being is not; but a nuance is introduced that alters Parmenidean monism and opens it to the understanding of negativity.

Ext. — We must admit, then, and without getting angry, that change is the same and not the same. When we say that he is the same and not the same, we do not speak in the same sense, but we affirm that he is the same when we refer to his participation with the same in himself, and when we say that he is not-the-same, we allude to his communication with the different, thanks to which he separates himself from the same and becomes not the former.  but in something different. In this way, it is also correct to affirm that it is not-the-same. (256ab) (Platón, Sofista, 1992, pág. 443)

If it is maintained that non-being is not, what is it that is named as the non-same, that is, the non-being, the different. Plato introduces the relational variant of non-being: there is no such thing as non-being in general, but there are things that are not. In order that this may not lead to a contradiction, it is interpreted as one thing that is not in relation to another, although it, by itself, has its own essence. Thus, the non-white only exists in relation to the white, and could not be sustained in isolation.

The main consequence of the Foreigner's comment on the carácter “relative” of the Different (for nothing is Different in itselfí; A t is neededéThe term of comparison) will be the confirmation of the only predicative value of the non-being that will be reached... As Bluck (1975: 148) observed: "Cases of Difference are necessarily relative [relational] and, consequently, the Different in itself, qua paradigmatic norm [standard], is necessarily relative [relational]" (Cordero, 2016, pág. 185)

The turn incorporated by Plato allows, at the same time, to save Parmenides' premise, being is and non-being is not, and, on the other hand, to establish the mode of existence of things that are not. From a certain perspective, something can be said to be not, but only in relation to something that is. Negativity arises in opposition to a positivity that, as such, is already given. Thus, falsehood is the denial of a truth; but, if it were completely isolated, it would be meaningless.

The implications for the debates on nothingness, as a metaphysical resource that is repeated throughout the history of philosophy, reveal the absolute impossibility of nothingness; and that any discourse around it should be considered as the negation of everything that exists. Nothingness by itself is meaningless and nothing can be stated or predicated about it; on the other hand, it is possible to have a discourse or to endow it with a function if it is opposed to the given, effectively existing reality. This is the value of nihilism; and the marking of the limits of the apophatic pathways.

Synthetically, the findings of Plato's theory of form are:

The essence answers the question : what is it? And this is the core of its definition.

Essence is a form. Form and essence are the same.

The use of the term essence does not imply a substantialist conception of reality.

On the ontological plane, being is form: a way of being.

The main characteristics of the way of being are communicability and participation, which resolve the question of being and non-being; and, therefore, of movement and rest, unity and plurality, sensible and intelligible.

The essence answers the question : what is it? And this is the core of its definition.

Non-being is not; but there are things that are not. This non-being of things occurs only in relational terms. Non-being as such does not exist; something is not with respect to something that is, as its negation.

 

These elements must be taken into account, debated and transformed, in order to be integrated into a general theory of form, which is contemporary and which accounts for the current demands of this theory; For example, how can these Platonic considerations of essence and form be incorporated and redefined if form is claimed to be the introduction of a distinction? Can it be maintained that essence is that which introduces a distinction?

 

Bibliography

Aristóteles. (1994). Metafísica. (T. Calvo Martínez, Trans.) Madrid: Gredos.

Cordero, N. (2016). Platón contra Platón: La autocrítica del Parménides y la ontología del Sofista. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos.

Larsen, P., & Politis, V. (Eds.). (2025). The Platonic Mind. London; New York: Routledge.

Marx, K. (1975). El Capital (Vol. Tomo I/Vol.I). (P. Scaron, Trans.) México: Siglo XXI.

Platón. (1992). Parménides. In Platón, Diálogos (Vol. V, pp. 7-136). Madrid: Gredos.

Platón. (1992). Sofista. In Platón, Diálogos (Vol. V, pp. 319-482). Madrid: Gredos.

Politis, V. (2021). Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Politis, V. (2025). Plato on Essences and Forms. In P. Larsen, & V. Politis (Eds.), The Platonic Mind. London; New York: Routledge.

Spencer Brown, G. (1972). Laws of form. New York: Julian Press Inc.

Spivak, G. C. (2012). An aesthetic education in the era of globalization. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.

 

 

 

FORM FROM GEORGE SPENCER BROWN'S LAWS OF FORM

 

Link: https://drive.proton.me/urls/FEGY7CSS90#mcORQXpDic8F

Summary.

Philosophical reading of George Spencer Brown's Laws of Form, but it is insisted that this system is originally logical-mathematical and that it cannot be transferred without mediation to the philosophical or social field. The goal is to use Spencer Brown as a starting point for elaborating a philosophical notion of form. The core of reflection is in the triad of distinction – indication – form. The central thesis is that form should not be understood as something secondary or derivative but as that which emerges when a distinction is introduced. That is why "the form of the distinction" is equivalent to "the form." The distinction not only separates, but produces a field: it creates a space marked with its own states, contents, and relationships. Hence, the text defends the preeminence of distinction over difference: difference would only be a derived aspect, while distinction explains at the same time the production of equalities, similarities, and exclusions.

The active and operational nature of the distinction is underlined. Distinguishing is not only describing something already given but executing an operation. From there, describing a phenomenon is equivalent to asking what distinctions constitute it. This line is deepened with re-entry, understood not only as systemic self-reference but as the ability of a form to reintroduce its own distinction in its field. In addition, the imaginary state names situations in which the boundary between marked and unmarked field does not function as an absolute limit, but as a zone of indistinctness, where a temporal dimension also emerges. The observer, on the other hand, is not the ontological origin of every distinction but another marked form: he too is the product of a distinction.

Keywords:
 form; distinction; indication; George Spencer Brown; marked field; unmarked field; difference; re-entry; imaginary state; observer; ontology; philosophy of form; temporality; areas of indistinction; Principle of formation.