Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
So, it is evident that the definition of a sign, S, must include, in addition to O, a third
element that Peirce referred to as
interpretant
, I, which is well characterized in the
following paragraph quoted in (Houser et al. 1998):
A
sign
is a thing which serves to convey knowledge of some other thing, which it is said
to
stand for
or
represent
. This thing is called the
object
of the sign; the idea in the mind
that the sign excites, which is a mental sign of the same object, is called an
interpretant
of
the sign. (6.20)
Thus, the interpretant is the effect that S has on the mind of its interpreter or as the
mechanisms or processes by which the interpreter or the processor of S is made to
connect O and S. That is, in order for a sign process to occur successfully, there must
be interactions among three elements, S, O, and I, within the sign processor. It was
Peirce who first recognized the necessity of invoking these three elements in the
definition of a sign and their actions (which he called “semiosis”). In other words, a
sign, according to Peirce, is an irreducible triad of S, O, and I, which idea is often
referred to as the “irreducibility of the sign triad” or the “triadicity of a sign.” It is
important to note that, in this definition of a sign, the term “sign” has dual roles - as a
component
of the sign triad and as the
sign triad itself
. To distinguish between these
two roles, Peirce coined the term “representamen” to refer to the narrower sense of
the term sign (Buchler 1955, p. 121). Thus, we may represent the Peircean definition
of a sign diagrammatically as follows:
S
¼
sign, R
¼
representamen (also often called a
sign or a sign vehicle
), O
¼
object, and I
interpretant. Unless pointed out otherwise, sign usually means R,
a component of the irreducible sign triad. Also, it is important to note that the
interpreter of R or the material system that process R, thereby implementing
semiosis, is not explicitly discussed in semiotics literature but is assumed to be
present. We may use the triangle itself to represent this interpreter, thus graphically
distinguishing between
interpretant
(one of the three apexes or nodes) and
inter-
preter
(the triangle itself). It is important to note that the bracket symbolizes the
inrreducibility
of Peircean sign triad, that is, none of the three elements can be
replaced by any other.
Although the study of signs can be traced back to the beginning of the human
history as already pointed out, the investigation of signs as a fundamental science
did not begin until the Portuguese monk John Poinsot (1589-1644) and C. S. Peirce
(apparently independently of Poinsot) undertook their comprehensive and system-
atic studies of signs (Deely 2001).
The definition of signs that Peirce formulated can be extended to molecular
biology, although Peirce probably did not know that such a possibility existed
because he died about four decades before Watson and Crick discovered the
DNA double helix that ushered in the era of molecular biology. Genes encoded in
DNA fit the definition of the Peircean sign because they encode and stand for their
complementary transcripts, RNA molecules and their functions, which are evi-
dently distinct from the molecular structure of DNA. One plausible candidate for
the
interpretant
for DNA viewed as a molecular sign is the
state of the cell
, since
whether a given gene encoded in DNA is transcribed to RNA or not depends on the
¼
