Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
6.7 Peirce
'
s Theory of Signs
Peirce published a theory of signs (
) as early as in 1868-1869 (W2, 193-
272).
11
Peirce subsequently recognized serious problems with his early semiotic and
made significant revisions in 1885 and again in 1903.
12
At his death in 1914, Peirce
left a number of partially-completed manuscripts including further major revisions of
thetheoryofsigns.T.L.Short(
2007
) produced a version of Peirce
semiotic
'
'
stheoryofsigns
'
based on unpublished drafts, especially those written in 1907.
According to Short
s mature system, a motorist
stopping after noticing a red traffic signal would be described as
R interprets X as
a sign of O
—where R (the Interpretant) is the action of stopping, X (the Sign) is a
particular red, and O (the Object) is a prudential, customary, or legal obligation.
Short
s reconstruction of Peirce
'
'
s mature semiotic recognizes that semeiosis occurs
in a
context
, that context being one of
purposefulness
(Short
2007
, 158). According to
Short
s version of Peirce
'
'
s version of the later Peirce, whenever some feeling, thought, or action
(R) interprets a particular X as a
sign
of O (an object, broadly understood) that
interpretation must be made in the context of a
purpose
, P. A purpose (or habit) of
acting in prudent, customary, or legal ways must exist for stopping at a red light to
make sense.
In 1909, Peirce wrote:
'
A Sign is a Cognizable that, on the one hand, is determined (i.e., specialized,
bestimmt
)by
something
other than itself
, called an Object
...
, while, on the other hand, it determines
some actual or potential Mind, the determination whereof I term the Interpretant created by
the Sign,
that
the Interpreting Mind is therein determined mediately by the Object
(EP 2:492).
13
Notice that, in this passage, the Object
determines
the Sign, which, in turn
determines
the Interpretant. These determinations cannot be made by efficient
causality. Functioning of signs depends on a purposeful context: the several deter-
minations referred to in this passage must function through the finious causal mode
outlined above.
Short does not spell out the means by which the purposes effect the selection on
which finious determination depends, but examples can be seen in several types of
scientific investigation. In biological systems upper-level coherences (say, the
'
lekking
mating-rituals of
tropical bower-birds) establish constraints
that
'
11
'
W2
'
is Volume 2 of
The Writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, A Chronological Edition.
Peirce
Edition Project, eds. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1982-2000. In the publication
reproduced in W2, 193-272, Peirce vigorously attacked all types of modern philosophy that
descend from the work of Descartes, and claimed that we have no valid way of deciding what
qualifies as
an intuition.
'
12
However, as mentioned earlier, Jacques Derrida and others have continued to apply Peirce
'
s
'
early theories of signs under the designation
(Short
2007
, 45).
13
EP refers to
The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings.
Peirce Edition Project, eds.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992 and 1998.
semiotics
'
'
