Peircian Semiotics
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Origins
Peircian Semiotics refers to the theoretical construction of semiotics by Charles Sanders Peirce. He started writing on this theory somewhere in the 1860's, while he was also writing on his system of thee categories. Peirce referred to semiotics as commonly used in language, but he also used the word semeiotics. Some scientists use the word semeiotics as a specific reference for Peirce's theory on semiotics.
Signs & Thoughts
Peirce was always looking for ways to philosophically analyze thought processes and with emphasis on the scientific world views. This fundamental nature of inquiries is what shaped Peirce's theory on semiotics in a broad context. The sole goal for that wide theoretical approach was to answer the question: How does science work? Semiotics according to Pierce are defined in a triadic sign relation that constitutes action or relation. This triadic relation consists out of three subjects, the sign, the object, and the interpretant. So in essence this triadic combination is never an action of duality and therefor always consists of these three resolvable factors (Peirce C.S. 1882). However Peirce had a different view on signs within thought:
"To say, therefore, that thought cannot happen in an instant, but requires a time, is but another way of saying that every thought must be interpreted in another, or that all thought is in signs" (Peirce C.S. 1868).
So in Peirce's perception all thoughts occur as signs, forming interpretations, in which the sign is a word that broadens the conceivable reality, which is not the given reality per say. Signs can be attributed to all scientific fields, so the emphasis is put on the action of the sign itself rather than a scientific field, f.e. geography, history, psychology. The theoretical approach within semeiotics is constructed in a threefold level system. Inquiry theory within semeiosis is a distinct way of thinking, following a sign process.
- Level 1: Conditions for meaningfulness. Study of significatory elements and combinations, their grammar.
- Level 2: Validity, conditions for true representation. Critique of arguments in their various separate modes.
- Level 3: Conditions for determining interpretations. Methodology of inquiry in its mutually interacting modes.
- (Peirce, C. S. 1867).
To illustrate this theoretical inquiry framework Peirce uses common practical examples, but he also defines and slightly critiques such things as philosophical assertion, interpretation and defining. In one of his long forgotten unpublished manuscripts Peirce said:
"On the Definition of Logic. Logic is formal semiotic. A sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its interpretant sign, determined or created by it, into the same sort of correspondence (or a lower implied sort) with something, C, its object, as that in which itself stands to C. This definition no more involves any reference to human thought than does the definition of a line as the place within which a particle lies during a lapse of time. It is from this definition that I deduce the principles of logic by mathematical reasoning, and by mathematical reasoning that, I aver, will support criticism of Weierstrassian severity, and that is perfectly evident. The word "formal" in the definition is also defined". - (Peirce, C.S. 1976)
Peirce had a dynamic, if not fluid or non-pre-defined theory on thought, which he expressively showed in the article, Prolegomena To an Apology For Pragmaticism (1906):
Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world; and one can no more deny that it is really there, than that the colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there. Consistently adhere to that unwarrantable denial, and you will be driven to some form of idealistic nominalism akin to Fichte's. Not only is thought in the organic world, but it develops there. But as there cannot be a General without Instances embodying it, so there cannot be thought without Signs. We must here give "Sign" a very wide sense, no doubt, but not too wide a sense to come within our definition. Admitting that connected Signs must have a Quasi-mind, it may further be declared that there can be no isolated sign. Moreover, signs require at least two Quasi-minds; a Quasi-utterer and a Quasi-interpreter; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct. In the Sign they are, so to say, welded. Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of human Psychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every logical evolution of thought should be dialogic. - (Peirce, C.S. 1906)
So in short, Peirce defined thought as signs, because all thought takes time. The attribution of a sign to an object can therefore never be timeless.
Sign, Object & Interpretant
A representamen or a signs can be broadly defined as a represent that is to be interpreted as something saying about something. So in essence there is no fundamental definition that indicates what a sign is, it can be anything, for it exists in thoughts.
The semeiotic object or simply put, object, is a subject for a sign and interpretant. Anything can be a semeiotic object - a discussion, movie, music piece, comic book, toothbrush - and is always unique. So an argument about the movie Ben Hur (1959), doesn't necessarily state something about movies in general, but merely is a part of the 'big picture'.
An interpretant sign, or interpretant, is the clarified meaning of a sign. It can be interpreted as an distinction between signs. So you can point out that sign (A) is not sign (Z), and sign (A) is not even sign (a), there is a difference. This shows that Peirce's theory on signs constitutes a broad sense of interpretation. Taking another step you can even say that a sign can be a interpretation of a sign, hence the term interpreted sign. But in essence the sign's origin is the same, namely the same object.
Sign Relations
Through the sign relation, all is comprehensible as a sign. Three key roles are a part of the sign relation, namely: 1. the sign, 2. the subject matter related to the sign (object), 3. meaning of the sign or ramification, which is designated as an effect called the interpretant of the sign. Peirce states that these three key points are in an irreducible triadic relation. Peirce says that the sign of an object leads to mono or multiple interpretants, and furthermore through “raw” signs interpretants are formed.
Sign relation usually conveys two traditional approaches, called extension (a sign’s objects, or denotation) and intension (the objects’ aspects or comprehension). Peirce also uses a third approach, that of information, including change of information, to integrate the other two approaches into a unified whole.
So if an amount of information stays the same, out of it intension says more about other objects, and thus less objects are applicable for combination with the sign.
Objects are intertwined with signs, because the object enables the interpretation, the perceiving of the sign. It is the object that causes the interaction, and through the interaction the sign is formed. Both object and sign depend on one-another. This is also named as a collateral experience.
When Peirce talks about determination he doesn’t mean a strict and defined sense, but a scala of specialities related to, for example the influence of signs. In his words it is something bestimmt.
The object determines the sign to determine another sign — the interpretant — to be related to the object as the sign is related to the object, hence the interpretant, fulfilling its function as sign of the object, determines a further interpretant sign. The process is logically structured to perpetuate itself, and is definitive of sign, object, and interpretant in general.
References
- Peirce, C.S. (1867). On a New List of Categories. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 7 (1868), 287–298. Presented, 14 May 1867.
- Peirce, C.S. (1868). Questions concerning certain Faculties claimed for Man. Journal of Speculative Philosophy v. 2, n. 2, pp. 103-14.
- Peirce, C.S. (1882). Introductory Lecture on the Study of Logic delivered September 1882. Johns Hopkins University Circulars, v. 2, n. 19. pp. 11–12.
- Peirce, C.S. (1894). What Is a Sign?. Published in part in CP 2.281, 285, and 297-302.
- Peirce, C.S. (1906). Prolegomena To an Apology For Pragmaticism. pp. 492–546, The Monist, vol. XVI, no. 4
- Peirce, C.S. (1976). "Carnegie Application", The New Elements of Mathematics v. 4, p. 54.
Contributors
- Published by Sander Linssen (4115597)
