10thpragmatism Borges

Paper presented at the 10th International Meeting on Pragmatism

THE PLACE OF PRAGMATISM IN THE ARBORESCENT DIAGRAM OF 66 CLASSES OF SIGNS CALLED SIGNTREE. Priscila M. Borges [email protected] Currently, doctoral student in Communication and Semiotic at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, PUC/SP, BRAZIL, advised by Prof. Lucia Santaella. Financed by FAPESP.

Abstract: This paper shows how it is possible to see through reading the diagram SignTree the connection between semiotic and pragmatism. The SignTree is a visual diagram that illustrates in detail Peirce`s 66 classes of signs. Its arborescent format represents the semiotic structure and a certain reading of it shows how semiose is connected to Peirce`s philosophy. This reading will focus on the tip of the branches because this is the precise location of the 3 trichotomies that are composed of final interpretant: the final interpretant itself; the relation between final interpretant and sign; and the triadic relation among sign, dynamic object and final interpretant. A special attention is given to these three trichotomies because they show the possibility of the infinite growth of signs. According to Peirce, there are three kinds of final interpretant: gratific, practice and pragmatic. It is not a coincidence that the word pragmatic is used to describe the final interpretant of thirdness. The final interpretant introduces in the semiose the concept of being in future making possible the continuity of signs. As the triadic relation of signs corresponds to thought and the final interpretant is present in that relation, than thought might have the characteristic of being in future. So it is possible to find out the purpose of thought and finally make the connection between semiotic and pragmatism. In the last trichotomy Peirce describes three kinds of thought: instinct, experience and form. The diagram shows that in 55 classes are found thought as an instinct, in 10 classes are found thought as an experience and in one class is found formal thought. The objective of this paper is to understand the reasons why these three types of thought are arranged in that way and so comprehend the connection between Peirce`s semiotic and pragmatism. This paper proposes that the only one class of sign in which appears formal thought represents the pragmatic maxim: concrete reasonableness, and that the other classes of signs represent the realization of the pragmatic maxim. Those classes of signs in which thought appear as an experience are the ones that represent an idea put in act. And the greater number of classes of signs in which thought appear as an instinct represent the aim of the self-controlled thought: to construct habits of action.

Peirce conceived of his semeiotic as a logical discipline, an abstract and general theory for the mapping, classification, and analysis of sign processes. His best known classification of signs consists of ten main classes, but Peirce went further in his reflections until he arrived at a system of sixty-six classes of signs. However, he did not elaborate this system in a detailed manner, and it remained an unfinished project which became a controversial topic in Peircean scholarship.

The present paper proposes 3D diagram to represent Peirce’s system of sixty-six classes of signs, which will be called “SignTree diagram.” The purpose is to provide a detailed graphical representation and to contribute to a better understanding of this system. The paper also aims at showing that graphical diagrams are most useful in the making complex and abstract conceptual systems transparent. This paper has two parts. The first presents Peirce’s phenomenological categories and his sign trichotomies, which are fundamental and essential to the understanding of diagrams. The second part discusses the relevance of this diagram in the contests of semiotics and pragmatist philosophy. The phenomenological categories Peirce’s three phenomenological categories of firstness, secondness, and thirdness, which he also called cenopythagorean categories, are the foundation of his semiotics (CP 8.328, 1904). According to their definition, “the First is that which has its being or peculiarity within itself. The Second is that which is what it is by force of something else. The Third is that which is as it is owing to other things between which it mediates” (W5: 229). The three categories are interrelated as follows: firstness is independent of any other category; secondness depends on firstness; and thirdness depends on secondness and firstness.

The sign trichotomies Among his many definitions of the sign is the following: “A REPRESENTAMEN is a subject of a triadic relation TO a second, called its OBJECT, FOR a third, called its INTERPRETANT, this triadic relation being such that the REPRESENTAMEN determines its interpretant to stand in the same triadic relation to the same object for some interpretant” (CP 1.541, 1903). In his earlier classification of signs, Peirce considers only three trichotomies: the sign in itself, the sign in relation to its dynamical object, and the sign in relation to its final interpretant. Each of these trichotomies belongs to one of the three phenomenological categories. The first sketch in the elaboration of the 2D diagram for the ten classes of signs was a tree diagram with upward branches. The growth of a tree indeed evinces an affinity with sign processes, since each bifurcation of a branch results in a triadic structure. The temporal order in the sequence of the antecedent to the subsequent evinces another affinity between the growth of signs in semiosis and the growth of the branches of a tree. The antecedent belongs to the past, which is already determined; the subsequent pertains to the future, whose full of possibilities are still undetermined.

Peirce derived his ten main classes of signs from the logic of his cenopythagorean categories. Thus, if the first constituent of the trichotomy is of the nature of firstness, it can only determine relations of this very category. If the first constituent of the trichotomy is an existent, which is of the nature of secondness, then it can determine as its second constituent a relation of mere possibility (firstness) or existence (secondness). Finally, if the ground of the sign is a law (thirdness), the relation between sign and its dynamical object can be one of a possibility (firstness), existence (secondness), or law (thirdness). It is well known that Peirce expanded the system of sign relations first by introducing the additional subdivision of the object into the immediate and dynamical object and then by introducing the further subdivision of the interpretant into the immediate, the dynamical and the final one. The system of the sixty-six classes obeys the same logical rules which determine the system of the ten classes of signs. When three trichotomies are considered, the structure of each sign must be described in three stages; with ten trichotomies, each class must be described in ten stages.

Further Implications of the Diagram What are the relations between Peirce’s philosophy and his semiotics that can be elucidated by the diagram of his thought? These diagrams offer a detailed representation of the logical structure of the sixty-six classes of signs. They show a complex and coherent system without isolating any of its elements. However, only the 3D model is able to shed light on the relation between semiotics and Peirce’s philosophy. Represented in the form of a tree with a root and branches, the diagram of the system of signs has ecological implications of growth. Let us consider how the roots are formed. The dynamical object always goes back in time in relation to the sign. The sign can represent it in many different ways, but always only partially, never completely. Since it is impossible to have full access to the dynamical object, one might say, it is withdrawing itself. Its movement of withdrawal is represented in the axle z by the direction indicated by the negative sign. Since the dynamical object is located in the central ring, we can imagine that its movement of withdrawal forms the trunk and roots of the tree. To see how the branches grow, it is necessary to consider the exterior rings. The last three rings show the final interpretant, the relation between the sign and its final interpretant, and the relation between the dynamical object, the sign, and its final interpretant. Since the final interpretant is not an existent, but a possible representation created by the sign, the end of this process of semiosis is unattainable; the goal of semiosis is always in the future ad infinitum. The ring that represents the relation between the sign and its final interpretant points to the description of the process of semiosis in its complete way: the triadic relation between the object, the sign, and its interpretant. Two processes are going on simultaneously in semiosis. On the one hand, the dynamical object withdraws in the direction of the ground, forming the trunk and the roots. This movement makes the object more complex and impedes the possibility of the full representation of the sign. On the other hand, the triadic sign process involves a process of mediation, which can also be understood as a way of thought. This process indicates the growth of signs, represented by the branches in the diagram. The nature of these two processes justify the assumption that the movement of withdrawal of the dynamical object represents a link between semiotics and metaphysics, whereas the representation of the growth of semiosis, evident from the insight that the final interpretant is in the future, constitutes a link between semiotics and pragmatism.

Semiotic and pragmatism Considering that the triadic relation expressed in the last trichotomy is seen as the description of the process of thought, one can inquire into what the function of thought is as the main goal of pragmatism. Therefore, the passage from the Peircean theory of signs to his pragmatism, or pragmaticism, is represented by thinnest and most remote branches of this tree. According to Peirce, the ultimate purpose of thought is the development of an idea, rather than action itself. What is found in the last trichotomy, the one that describes the triadic relation between the sign, its dynamical object and the final interpretant, are thoughts of three kinds: instinct, experience, and form. Of the sixty-six classes of signs, fifty-five are expressed by thinking in the form of instinct, ten by experience and one by formal thought. Let us begin by characterizing this sole class of signs resulting in formal thought, for it seems that the possibility of attaining the pragmatic ideal is contained in it: the concrete reasonableness, a name that seems to be perfectly fit, since this class of signs is entirely constituted by relations of thirdness. According to Santaella (1992: 129), “the adjective ‘concrete’ adjoined to the reasonableness indicates that it can only become more concrete through our resolute endeavor to favor its growth.”

The ideal pragmatist considers self-control for the acquisition of new habits. Therefore, it is not strange that this ideal be situated in the only class of signs entirely composed of relations of thirdness, which will be essential in this system. Reason does not lead to complete determination, to a final thought, nor does it lead to any truth as conceived by common-sense. Reason is thought at the level of thirdness and, since semiosis means the creation of ever new signs indefinitely, the final interpretant will always be in the future. A thought of reason must be capable of giving rise to other such thoughts equally capable of the same ad infinitum. Reason thus does not point towards any certainty or determined thought, but to the possibility of the creation of thoughts. As sentiments, pleasure, will, and desire are not self-controlled, reason is the only self-controlled quality, the only that can be freely developed by human doings. But as an incipient and becoming process, it needs to materialize and embody something. In a process of evolution, ideals do not grow by themselves; existents embody classes of ideals, so that their coming about transforms the very ideals themselves. This means that reason has to congregate existent elements which make it concrete so that it can be developed: “The whole point of that [pragmatic] maxim was that the highest grade of clarity is achieved when a concept is translated into concepts that relate sensible conditions to sensible effects” (Short 1996: 519).

Thus, the other classes of signs have to represent these embodied thoughts. As Santaella explains (2005: 127): “Reasonableness, for Peirce, it not to be confounded with exclusivist reason, but with a kind of rationality that incorporates elements of action, sentiments, such as the promiscuous blends between reason, action and sentiment that are shown in commotion, affection, pleasure, wanting, will, desire, and emotion.” If the other classes of signs derive from the pragmatic ideals formulated in this period, they deserve deeper reflection, especially insofar as the thesis of the predominance of instinct in thought is concerned. One of the new insights at which Peirce arrived during his revision of his sign theory, was that interpretants could also be feelings or actions. Previously, interpretants were only conceived of as signs of thoughts, and semiotics had remained restricted to the study of language and thought (cf. CP 8.332, 1904; Short 2004: 13). It was from the development of the new conception of the index that Peirce’s semiotic expanded its scope. The index, as a causal sign, a sign of action affecting and being affected by brute facts, does not allow thought to be alienated from reality. Instead, it assures the necessary connection between thought and reality. As discussed above, Peirce proposed the second division of interpretants during this period and began to realize that interpretants could be feelings and actions and not

only thought. On the one hand, the interpretant was no longer necessarily conceived of as a thought sign. On the other hand, brute facts were shown to be active in semiosis as one of the factors that determine the sign. As cognition is not a sign given by reason alone, it can be the result of a perceptual experience of the object. Thus, having an object does not mean that one cognition needs to be preceded by another. If thinking were taken exclusively as being of the nature of formal thought, a cognition should always be preceded by another of the same kind. In this case, only the sixty-sixth class of sign could be appropriate, for it sets out from one collective object and ends up in a formal thought. According to the diagram, this is the only class of signs exclusively given by relations of thirdness, and the only one capable of generating habit. As previously discussed, it does not seem to be an actually possible class of signs, for it expresses some ideal. All other classes of signs appear in the last trichotomy in the form of instinct or experience. Since this trichotomy is representative of the triadic relation of the sign and that it is also related to cognition, it is apparent that the cognitive process can follow several other ways and not only be a result of reasoning. Thus, there is an expansion in the concept of cognition because of elements external to it, such as running out of control. Thus, instinct and experience, in this context, are different qualities of thought and should be viewed as essential parts of the cognitive process.

Peircean pragmaticism shows that the process of semiosis is guided by an ideal peculiar to the process of interpretation, which is neither the creation of an interpretant nor the possibility of fulfillment by the final interpretant. Instead, it is the possibility of fulfillment of the process of semiosis in its interpretation. And I quote Short (1996: 527): “Now, it is the process of interpretation, I suggest, and not the interpretant per se, that confers intentionality on the sign. It confers intentionality on both the sign and the interpretant. And it does so, only because it is goal-directed. It is the ideological structure of semeiosis that explain the intentionality of its parts.” If the finality of semiosis derives from the intention of its interpretation, then it can only be present in the tenth trichotomy representing the full triad, and it can only appear in a rational form. Hence, the pragmatic ideal is connected with the processes of semiosis described by the sixty-sixth class of signs, the only that presents formal thought, which is also determined by the category of habit. You can see the animation at: http://www.youtube.com/user/priscilamborges If you want a better resolution, you can download the file at: http://rapidshare.com/fi les/28777825/pri-diag-anim-mr-960x720.avi.html And follow the next steaps: 1. Scroll down and click on FREE at the botton of the page. 2. Enter the code that is given in the blank space and click on download. 3. After that the fi le will be on your computer and you just have to open it. References HOUSER, Nathan. 1991. A Peircean classification of models. In: M. ANDERSON, F. MERRELL (eds.). On Semiotic Modeling. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 431-439. HILPINEN Risto. 2005. On Peirce’s philosophical logic: Propositions and their objects. In: Transactions of the Charles S.Peirce Society 28: 467-488. IBRI, Ivo Assad. 1992. Kósmos noetos: A arquitetura metafísica de Charles S. Peirce. São Paulo: Perspectiva. KETNER, Kenneth Laine (ed.). 1992. Reasoning and the Logic of Things. The Cambridge Conferences Lectures of 1898. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. LISZKA, James Jakób. 1996. A General Introduction to the Semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. MERKLE, Luiz Ernesto. 2001. Disciplinary and Semiotic Relations across Human-Computer Interaction. London, Ontario. Ph.D. Thesis - Graduate Program in Computer Science. University of Western Ontario. MERRELL, Floyd (ed.). 1991. On semiotic modeling. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

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