Inquiry Into Inquiry

Re: Peirce List • Mike Bergman • Valentine Daniel

The “triskelion” figure in the previous post shows the bare essentials of an elementary sign relation or individual triple   There’s a less skeletal figure Susan Awbrey and I used in an earlier paper, where our aim was to articulate the commonalities Peirce’s concept of a sign relation shares with its archetype in Aristotle.

Here is the corresponding passage from “On Interpretation”.

Words spoken are symbols or signs (symbola) of affections or impressions (pathemata) of the soul (psyche);  written words are the signs of words spoken.  As writing, so also is speech not the same for all races of men.  But the mental affections themselves, of which these words are primarily signs (semeia), are the same for the whole of mankind, as are also the objects (pragmata) of which those affections are representations or likenesses, images, copies (homoiomata).  (De Interp. i. 16^a4).

References

• Awbrey, J.L., and Awbrey, S.M. (1995), “Interpretation as Action : The Risk of Inquiry”, Inquiry : Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 15(1), 40–52.  Archive.  Journal.  Online (doc) (pdf).
• Awbrey, S.M., and Awbrey, J.L. (2001), “Conceptual Barriers to Creating Integrative Universities”, Organization : The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory, and Society 8(2), Sage Publications, London, UK, 269–284.  Abstract.  Online.
• Awbrey, S.M., and Awbrey, J.L. (September 1999), “Organizations of Learning or Learning Organizations : The Challenge of Creating Integrative Universities for the Next Century”, Second International Conference of the Journal ‘Organization’, Re‑Organizing Knowledge, Trans‑Forming Institutions : Knowing, Knowledge, and the University in the 21st Century, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.  Online.

cc: Conceptual Graphs • Cybernetics • Structural Modeling • Systems Science
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Re: Peirce List • Mike Bergman • Valentine Daniel

Let’s start as simply as possible.  The following Figure is typical of many I have used to illustrate sign relations from the time I first began studying Peirce’s theory of signs.

The above variant comes from a paper Susan Awbrey and I presented at a conference in 1999, a revised version of which was published in 2001.

As the drafter of that drawing I can speak with authority about the artist’s intentions in drawing it and also about the conventions of interpretation forming the matrix of its conception and delivery.

Just by way of refreshing my own memory, here is how we set it up —

Figure 2 represents an “elementary sign relation”.  It is a single transaction taking place among three entities, the object the sign and the interpretant sign the association of which is typically represented by means of the ordered triple

One of the interpretive conventions implied in that setup is hallowed by long tradition, going back to the earliest styles of presentation in mathematics.  In it one draws a figure intended as “representative” of many figures.  Regarded as a concrete drawing the figure is naturally imperfect, individual, peculiar, and special but it’s meant to be taken purely as a representative of its class — generic, ideal, and typical.  That is the main convention of interpretation which goes into giving diagrams and figures their significant power.

References

• Awbrey, S.M., and Awbrey, J.L. (2001), “Conceptual Barriers to Creating Integrative Universities”, Organization : The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory, and Society 8(2), Sage Publications, London, UK, 269–284.  Abstract.  Online.
• Awbrey, S.M., and Awbrey, J.L. (September 1999), “Organizations of Learning or Learning Organizations : The Challenge of Creating Integrative Universities for the Next Century”, Second International Conference of the Journal ‘Organization’, Re‑Organizing Knowledge, Trans‑Forming Institutions : Knowing, Knowledge, and the University in the 21st Century, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.  Online.

cc: Conceptual Graphs • Cybernetics • Structural Modeling • Systems Science
cc: FB | Semeiotics • Mathstodon • Laws of Form • Academia.edu

Re: Peirce List • Mike Bergman • Valentine Daniel

Questions have arisen about the different styles of diagrams and figures used to represent triadic sign relations in Peircean semiotics.  What do they mean?  Which style is best?  Among the most popular pictures some use geometric triangles while others use the three‑pronged graphs Peirce used in his logical graphs to represent triadic relations.

Diagrams and figures, like any signs, can serve to communicate the intended interpretants and thus to coordinate the conduct of interpreters toward the intended objects — but only in communities of interpretation where the conventions of interpretation are understood.  Conventions of interpretation are by comparison far more difficult to communicate.

That brings us to the first question we have to ask about the possibility of communication in this area, namely, what conventions of interpretation are needed to make sense of these diagrams, figures, and graphs?

cc: Conceptual Graphs • Cybernetics • Structural Modeling • Systems Science
cc: FB | Semeiotics • Mathstodon • Laws of Form • Academia.edu