Page 209 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

enologically conceived 'modes of being' of objects in relation to the mind. There is the mode of 'firstness,' the object as it is in itself as a virtuality; there is the mode of 'secondness' or the actually existing object as different from and opposed to the mind and to other objects; finally, there is the mode of 'thirdness' where the object is presented according to a law which makes it accessible to recognition. Semiosis is the process governed by thirdness.
The constitutive triad of the semiosis is the sign, the 'interpretant' or the coded relation, and the object. So, all signs are objects which function as instances of thirdness; they are liable to abstractive relevance, as Biihler would say.
The particularity of the sign in the semiosis depends on the sign-object relation inside the triadic relation. If this relation is based on 'similarity' between sign and object, i.e., expresses firstness, we have an 'iconic' sign. As the sign is part of a triadic structure, the similarity is not immediate, but coded as a specific similarity (spatial, oral, visual, olfactory, etc.). When the foundation of a sign-object relation is 'copres- ence,' the sign manifests 'secondness' and is called an 'indexicaF sign (a pointing finger, the smoke of a fire, an outcry caused by pain, etc.). Finally, a sign-object relation may be established according to 'convention' and thus express 'thirdness,' which produces a 'sym- bolic' sign (a linguistic sign, gestures of politeness, etc.). Being an instance of thirdness in the semiosis, which is thirdness as a process, the symbolic sign is the most complete sign of the three types of signs.
The symbolic sign is similar to the arbitrary sign in Saussure and is also bound to a collectively shared structure of understanding. But it can never be iso- lated in the semiosis from manifestations of the other types of sign. Any semiosis is a compound of iconic, indexical, and symbolic signs: the indexical sign aspects establish a relation to an object, the iconic sign aspects open for analogies which are essential to our everyday behavior when we imitate former experience, and the symbolic sign aspects produce coded knowl- edge on which we can agree or disagree and reach new knowledge. No sign aspects can be disposed of. So, Peirce's semiotics is close to the phenomenological insistance on the whole dialogical structure of semiosis.
In being object-related, Peirce's sign is also close to the expression in Husserl's theory. Like Husserl, Peirce introduces a differentiation of 'objects': first, the 'dynamical' object, which is the object outside the semiosis towards which this process is directed, posed by the semiosis as its goal, but neither formed nor determined by it. Second, the 'immediate' object which is the object as represented in the semiosis, e.g., as expressed in the semantic structure of a language. The demarcation line between the two dimensions of the object is the result of the semiosis and it is con- stantly replaced by the semiotic activity when knowl- edge is created.
The 'interpretant' is the cornerstone of Peirce's semiotics. It is the code or law through which sign and object are related so that an effect of the semiosis can occur. It is not an imitation of an immanent structure of the sign or of the object, and it is not an arbitrary structure imposed on the object from the outside. The interpretant is the law which is made necessary by the sign-object relation in order to give this relation a generally valid character. The interpretant is an 'effect' of the sign-object relation, determined by it and, in turn, specifying it. That the relation is generally valid means that it can be subsumed under a law which can be agreed upon and repeated. So, the mode of being of an interpretant will be the 'habits' according to which we actually deal with the object. These habits will be manifested as signs in other semioses and rein- terpreted and perhaps changed. The interpretant cre- ates new signs and thus a continuous semiosis.
The interpretant as an effect has three aspects: the 'immediate' interpretant is the presupposed organized character of the object which make the application of a law possible, what Boudon calls the object-system. The 'dynamical' interpretant is the delimited effect, a concrete physical or mental act performed by some- body or something as the result of the sign-object relation. The 'final' interpretant will be this act regarded as the general truth about the object, such as a law which is a universally valid guideline for a habitual act, i.e., a way of reasoning in mathematics, independently of any individual subject. The con- nection between semiosis and habits made Peirce call his semiotics 'pragmatism.'
The dynamical interpretant is of particular semiotic interest, because it is this effect which is the motor of the semiosis. If a driver is waiting in a lane in front of a traffic light, ready to continue when the light is green, the traffic light will be the sign and the traffic the dynamical object. The immediate object will be the representation of the traffic in the sign systems known by the driver (urban phenomenon, regulated by law, dangerous, etc.). The rules which regulate the traffic through the traffic light (stop, go, wait, etc.) will be the interpretant. The object has presumably a certain order which makes it reasonable to learn and to obey the traffic light. This preconception of the object as structurable will be the immediate interpretant. The final interpretant, i.e., the ideal and universal organ- ization of traffic is of mainly theoretical interest, but it is a working concept in functionalist urban plan- ning, for example.
From this perspective, the dynamical interpretant will be the act which incorporates the code: as soon as the light turns green, the driver manipulates his car and off he goes. This interpretant is manifested in the semiosis as a new sign, the moving car, which in turn may be interpreted in relation to the same object by the drivers further down the lane who cannot see the traffic light: they turn on their engines, ready to go. If
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