Peirce Pragmaticist Semiotics

Peirces Rhetorical Turn. Conceptualizing education as semiosis

by torill strand

Keywords:
Peirce;semeiosis;semiotics;phenomenology;pragmatism;learning;philosophy of education
more Keywords:
Peirce;semeiosis;semiotics;phenomenology;pragmatism;learning;philosophy of education

Abstract
The later works of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1913) offer an extended metaphor of mind and a rich conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning. After a ‘rhetorical turn’ Peirce develops his early ‘semiotics’ into a more general theory of sign and sign use, while integrating his pragmatism, phenomenology, and semiotics. Therefore, in this article I bring Peirce's notion of semiosis—the sign's action—to the forefront. In doing so, I hope to disclose how Peirce's rhetorical turn not only opens up towards a richer conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning, but also invites a shift of perspective from the psychological processes of learning to the semeiotic processes that characterizes the very dynamics of knowledge production.

On Diagrams for Peirces 10, 28, and 66 Classes of Signs

by Priscila Farias

What Achilles Did and the Tortoise Wouldnt

by Cathy Legg

a short 2000 word piece now accepted at the Open Sessions (Stirling, UK, July 2012). It draws from previous papers: "What is a Logical Diagram?" and "The Hardness of the Iconic Must..."

This paper offers an expressivist account of logical form, arguing that in order to fully understand it one must... more This paper offers an expressivist account of logical form, arguing that in order to fully understand it one must examine what valid arguments make us do (or: what Achilles does and the Tortoise doesn’t, in Carroll’s famed fable). It introduces Charles Peirce’s distinction between symbols, indices and icons as three different kinds of signification whereby the sign picks out its object by learned convention, by unmediated indication, and by resemblance respectively. It is then argued that logical form is represented by the third, iconic, kind of sign. It is noted that icons uniquely enjoy partial identity between sign and object, and argued that this holds the key to Carroll’s puzzle. Finally, from this examination of sign-types metaphysical morals are drawn: that the traditional foes metaphysical realism and conventionalism constitute a false dichotomy, and that reality contains intriguingly inference-binding structures.

Micro-écologie de la résistance. Les appuis sensibles de la parole citoyenne

by Mathieu Berger

"Micro-écologie de la résistance. Les appuis sensibles de la parole citoyenne", in BERGER, M., CEFAÏ D., GAYET-VIAUD, C. (dir.), Du civil au politique. Ethnographies du vivre-ensemble, Bruxelles., P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2011, p. 101-130.

Perception grounds communication

by Vinicius Romanini

During his mature studies, made after 1905, Peirce was searching for an architectonic design for his philosophical... more During his mature studies, made after 1905, Peirce was searching for an architectonic design for his philosophical system in which Metaphysics, Phenomenology, Philosophy of Mind and Semeiotic would converge harmonically. The sign is then described by Peirce as a medium for the communication of a form – or information. We claim in this article that this form is the outcome of what Peirce calls collateral experience and directly linked to perception. The sign does not create ab novo the information communicated to its interpretant. On the contrary, such information must be previously shared by the minds (or quasi-minds) involved in semeiosis. Co-minds, or commens, are real and active in the same measure they share information about the world, in a way that there is no sharp line dividing and isolating individuals that participate in a community of interpretants. Better than that, a certain degree of mentality is pervasive in the Universe, in the same measure that signs are so. As Peirce says, we are in signs, and not the opposite. We will show that such form of the sign, basis of every logical predication, is born during perceptual judgements. This form is a measure of the familiarity with the dynamic object of the sign and, for this reason, is linked to the memory of the minds involved in semeiosis. Besides that, such form has the nature of a future conditional, or “would be”. We claim that such semeiosic processes are ubiquitous in nature and become more intense in living systems, producing what we call ontological diagram: a semeiotically active structure, at the same time always general and conditional that allows mind and world to modelize each other reciprocally in a kind of causation that embodies teleological purposes.

Linguistic Stratification and the tri-unity Matter—Substance—Form: A Functional Discourse Pragmatics perspective (in memory of Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (1911-2010))

by Ole Nedergaard Thomsen

Updated version 11.01.2012. Work in progress. Comments are utterly welcome!

Parallels with Peircean Semiotics, von Uexküllian cognitive-semiotic/bio-cybernetic biology (behaviorism/ethology), and Brier's (2008) Cybersemiotics.

An orig. English version 2010 of a 'functional footnote' from 1998: "Stratifikation og "treenigheden" Materie--Substans--Form. Et Funktionelt Pragmatisk perspektiv". Published in 'DFG -- Funktionelle Fodnoter: Sprogligt indhold: substans og struktur. Funktionelle Fodnoter' 1998. 56-58.

This paper will investigate linguistic stratification – the crucial conception that language and speech, rather than... more This paper will investigate linguistic stratification – the crucial conception that language and speech, rather than being monolithic, are organized on different ‘representational levels’.

Linguistic Stratification is originally a European structuralist notion, proposed (i.a.) by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1916) to deal with the fact that a language and its performance in speech occur on two different hierarchical levels of representation, viz. one of arbitrary ‘form’ and one of manifestational ‘substance’ (alias ‘matter’), both on the plane of Content (meaning) and on the plane of Expression (confusingly, “form” in the American tradition, however presumably going back to the Gr. morphé, not eidos). The claim is that language is (primarily) ‘form’ (structure, system), irrespective of its material manifestation. Form and substance, of course, originate in Aristotelian philosophy, where, however, the distinction was triadic rather than dyadic – the tri-unity ‘form’, ‘substance’, and ‘matter’ – and did not pertain to language-internal distinctions in the first place but to ontology in general – and thus did not mean levels of linguistic representation, but rather levels of reality. The Danish hard core, pseudo-algebraic linguist Louis Hjelmslev (1943, 1975), confusingly, wavers between the dyadic and the triadic conceptions (strangely calling ‘matter’ purport, Dan. mening ‘meaning’), but most often, it seems, he uses the dichotomy ‘form’ vs. ‘substance’ (Dahl 1998), however, in a rather Platonic conception, where linguistic ‘form’ exists in a “third” world, in casu of ideal Language, relegating phenomenal language to a subsidiary “shadowy” world of the “real” speaker-listeners and their speech communities. That is, in former formal European structuralism (like Hjelmslevian Glossematics) the essence of language was seen as ‘form’ (viz. “pure” ‘form’) presupposed by, but not presupposing a manifesting ‘substance’ (of sensibilia and intelligibilia). In functional European structuralism (e.g., esp. Jakobson and the Prague school), in Coseriu’s Integral Linguistics (a post-structuralist functionalism), as well as in present-day Danish Functional Linguistics, including Functional Discourse Pragmatics (developed by the present author), ‘form’ is “substantial”. This means that the distinction between vocal and sign language are different (medial-modal) ‘forms’, ruling out the possibility of postulating an underlying “pure” form uniting e.g. Danish vocal and sign languages – they are simply two different (historical) functional languages (competences). Likewise, the distinction between spoken and written language is a distinction in terms of (medial-modal) “substantial” ‘forms’: spoken and written Danish, e.g., are two different historical (medial-modal) forms, not united by any common underlying “pure” (‘empty’) form – the written language is a partial “translation” of the spoken language, the degree to which being determined by the kind of writing system developed (alphabetical, in the case of Danish, to be sure, so roughly it is only the sound shape of the language that is being translated). The concept of stratification is continued in different schools and trends of non-generative (functionalist) linguistics, like i.a. Lamb’s Stratificational Linguistics (cf. Lamb 1999), Pike's Tagmemics, Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Linguistics (Halliday 1961; Halliday and Matthiessen 1999), and Henning Andersen’s comprehensive structural-functional (semiotics-based) linguistics (1974, 1984), but also in Chomskyan generative (formal) linguistics, with its distinction, within the language faculty, between the conceptual-intentional (pragmatics) and articulatory-auditory (phonetics) peripheral input-output systems (performance systems) and the central logical-form (semantics) and phonetic-form (phonology) systems (plus, maybe, a lexico-grammatical-syntactic form) (computational competence system).
This paper will argue for the triadic conception within a Functional Discourse Pragmatics theory of language and speech (i.a., Nedergaard Thomsen 2006, 2009) – (proposed as) the linguistic part of Cybersemiotics (i.a., Brier 2008). In effect, the triadic stratification of language is integrated into the triadic ontological stratification. Seeing language and speech, in their foundation, as mental phenomena of individual speaker-listeners, these semiotic phenomena of signs (Expression) and their interpretations (Content) belong to the ontological Form level. The signs (Expression) are manifested at the level of ontological Substance, as output of articulation and as input to perception (Sinsigns), and in themselves they may be part of our sound surroundings without being perceived as functioning signs (Matter, Qualisigns). The interpretations (Content) – via the signs (Expression) – are “referenced” in the immediate referential sphere (Substance), our Umwelt, but the “same” objective world may exist objectively outside the grasp (domain) of our language and speech (Matter). This picture is complicated by the fact that language and speech, i.e. ontological Form, is internally stratified: here the level of internal Form consists of systematic invariants, manifested as norm-sanctioned variants (internal Substance) and projected as stylistic-situational usage variants (internal Matter). The Content side of the language (interpretations) form a linguistic ‘mentality’, whereby we (the speaker-listeners of different languages) come to live our (linguistic) lives in different “language worlds” (language-based Umwelts, or Cultural Signification Spheres, Brier 2008) – just as we as a biological species live in our species-specific Umwelt (von Uexküll) – e.g. we don’t hear the same sounds or smell the same scents as our dogs. The degree to which the linguistic interpretations (Content) influence the sensations and interpretations in perception – i.e., the degree to which linguistic semantics “construes” our experience (Halliday and Matthiessen 1999), we may speak of linguistic (“Whorfian”) relativity. On a higher level of socio-cultural behavior, cultural relativity is operative (language mirroring culture). The degree to which thinking (due to sensations and interpretations) is uninfluenced by (a historical) language (or other communication system, like e.g. music) and culture, i.e. is universal, we may speak of a ‘mentalese’ (Language of Thought). With respect to the processual mode of being of language as speech, or “languaging”, Slobin (1987) discovered that the obligatory, grammatical categories, influence our ‘thinking’ operative for/in (while) speaking, and communicating in general.

I dedicate this paper to the memory of the great Danish phonetician, Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (1911-2010), who, besides being a brilliant scientist, was a brave freedom fighter (during WWII), and a fine artist – and, relevant to this paper, a astute critique of Hjelmslev’s concept of ‘form’ and ‘substance’.

Digital Editing and Montage: The Vanishing Celluloid and Beyond

by Martin Lefebvre

The Art of Pointing. On Peirce, Indexicality, and Photographic Images

by Martin Lefebvre

Published in Photography Theory (The Art Seminar, II), James Elkins (Ed.), New York: Routledge, 2007.

This piece appeared in one of James Elkins' Art Seminar series as a commentary on the seminar devoted to photography. This piece appeared in one of James Elkins' Art Seminar series as a commentary on the seminar devoted to photography.

INTEGRATIVE EVOLUTIONARY COMMUNICATION: TOWARDS A CYBERSEMIOTIC FOUNDATION OF FUNCTIONAL DISCOURSE GRAMMAR AND PRAGMATICS

by Ole Nedergaard Thomsen

Co-authored with Søren Brier, Department of International Culture and Communication Studies

In this paper we shall outline a Cybersemiotic foundation for pragmatics-based linguistics, more precisely Functional... more In this paper we shall outline a Cybersemiotic foundation for pragmatics-based linguistics, more precisely Functional Discourse Grammar and Pragmatics. Language is viewed as communication, and communication is viewed as ‘total communication’, that is, integrative evolutionary communication, being an integration of three stages: 1. biological reflexive languaging (social coordination), 2. instinctual-motivational-emotional sign games (ethology), and 3. premeditated, intentional language games (human unitary thinking-speaking-gesturing). Language games subsume the other stages, and thus human evolutionary communication is primarily a symbolic praxis. It is intertwined with the praxis of living, i.e. with different life forms. Together they form a coherent socio-behavioral “package”.

Can science tell us what's objectively true?

by Brian Earp

Earp, B. D. (2011). Can science tell us what’s objectively true? The New Collection, Vol. 6., No. 1, 1-9. Featured article in the graduate journal of New College, Oxford.

Can science tell us what’s objectively true? Or is it merely a clever way to cure doubt – to give us something to... more Can science tell us what’s objectively true? Or is it merely a clever way to cure doubt – to give us something to believe in, whether it’s true or not? In this essay, I look at the pragmatist account of science expounded by Charles Sanders Peirce in his 1877 essay, ‘The Fixation of Belief’. Against Peirce, I argue that science does not come naturally to our species, nor does the doubting open-mindedness upon which its practice relies. To the extent that science is successful in ‘curing’ doubt, it’s because it tracks the real state of the world; and I argue that Peirce himself – his pragmatist narrative notwithstanding – is implicitly committed to this view as well.

The Fundamental Sign

by Torkild Thellefsen

Knowledge Profiling: The Basis for Knowledge Organization

by Torkild Thellefsen

Semiotic Knowledge Organization: Theory and Method Development

by Torkild Thellefsen

Published in Semiotica 142 (2002)

What Relations Are: A Case Study on Conceptual Relations, Displacement of Meaning and Knowledge Profiling

by Torkild Thellefsen

Torkild Thellefsen & Christian Jantzen. Published in Sign System Studies. 2003

The focus of this article is on how to make realistic representations of knowledge organizations. We define the... more The focus of this article is on how to make realistic representations of knowledge organizations. We define the knowledge profile as a tool developed within C. S. Peirce’s pragmaticistic maxime. The article points out that in order to make realistic representations of knowledge organizations, we need a basic understanding of how relations emerge, develop and become related terms. In order to strengthen the theoretical points and to show the usability of the knowledge profile, we unfold it upon the knowledge domain MARKK.

Keywords: Pragmatism, Knowledge profiling, displacement of meaning, semiotics, MARKK

A semiotic note on branding

by Torkild Thellefsen

Co-authored with Bent Sørensen and Marcel Danesi. Published in Semiotica

The Fundamental Sign

by Torkild Thellefsen

Published in Semiotica

The Biological Substrate of Icons, Indexes and Symbols In Animal Communication: a Neurosemiotic Analysis of Vervet Monkey Alarm-Calls

by Joao Queiroz

Co-authored with Sidarta Ribeiro

The Problem
What is the origin of the symbolic processes that underlie human vocal communication? Since animal... more The Problem
What is the origin of the symbolic processes that underlie human vocal communication? Since animal communication is ultimately a product of neurobiological processes (see Lieberman 1984, 1998; Pinker and Bloom 1990; Bloom 1999), and all biological phenomena are presumed to be the product of gradual evolution (Darwin 1859), the solution to this problem cannot avoid a comparative study of meaning processes and their underlying neurobiological basis in non-human primates (Hauser 1996; Deacon 1997; Tomaselo and Call 1997; Lieberman 1998). Whether these categories (icons, indexes, and symbols) apply to non-human animal communication is a matter of theoretical debate and controversy (Janik and Slater 2000), and no experimental evidence exists either against or in favor of such a scheme. There is, however, a great deal of descriptive knowledge about vocal communication in nonhuman primate species, the case of vervet monkeys being perhaps the best studied.

Peirce, Meaning and the Semantic Web

by Cathy Legg

This paper has now been accepted by Semiotica

This paper seeks an explanation for the challenges faced by Semantic Web developers in achieving their vision,... more This paper seeks an explanation for the challenges faced by Semantic Web developers in achieving their vision, compared to the staggering near-instantaneous success of the World Wide Web. To this end it contrasts two broad philosophical understandings of meaning, and argues that the choice between them carries real consequences for how developers attempt to engineer the Semantic Web. The first is Rene Descartes’ ‘private’, static account of meaning (arguably dominant for the last 400 years in Western thought) which understands the meanings of signs as whatever their producers intend them to mean. The second is Charles Peirce’s still relatively unknown ‘public’, evolutionary account of meaning, according to which the meaning of signs just is the way they are interpreted and used to produce further signs. It is argued that only the latter approach can avoid the unmanageable attempts to ‘preprocess’ interpretation of signs on the Web which have dogged the project from DAML to RDF Schema to OWL, and thereby do justice to the scale, rapid changeability and exciting possibilities of online information today.

Icons and abduction

by Joao Queiroz

Co-authored with Floyd Merrell. Signs - International Journal of Semiotics, vol. 3: pp.162 -178, 2010.

In our effort to relate abductive process to iconic semiosis, we argue that meaning begins the process of its... more
In our effort to relate abductive process to iconic semiosis, we argue that meaning begins the process of its development as an icon, and logic of abduction is the logic responsible for this iconic process. Our aim here is to explore the relationship  between Peirce’s notion of abductive inference and iconic semiosis.  In order properly to develop our argument, it behooves us to offer a brief introduction that includes:  (i) the basic characteristics of abduction, (ii) Peirce’s concept of semiosis, (iii) Peirce’s categories of mind, and signs processes, and (iv) the nature of the iconic sign. KEYWORDS: abductive inference, semiosis, icon, meaning, C. S. Peirc

Healing by Talking, A, B, C.

by Jamie Wood

This paper will look at the processes of discourse within psychotherapeutic praxis (Berger, 2002), and propose that... more This paper will look at the processes of discourse within psychotherapeutic praxis (Berger, 2002), and propose that the discursive can, in and of itself, be efficacious or indeed figure within aetiology as deleterious. It is oft cited that ‘speech, [and] language, [are] the medium without which psychoanalysis does not exist’ (Rabaté, 2003, p.7) emphasising the discursive nature of psychotherapy (Avdi and Georgaca, 2009) over empirical psychological behavioural and psychoanalytical observation, analysis and inference. The writer herein proposes that the dialogic is more than a mere medium; it is the very process of speech/talk mediated through language as a ‘normative activity’ (Heaton, 2010, p.46) which in a psychotherapeutic context is restorative.