[Arisbe] Re: Comment On Semiotics
Jon Awbrey
arisbe@stderr.org
Thu, 09 Aug 2001 22:44:01 -0400
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Edwina Taborsky wrote (ET):
ET: I think that a key problem in the debate between Howard and Jon ...
Gosh, I wish you had not told me we were having a debate --
up until now I was enjoying the conversation ...
ET: ... is that Howard is viewing semiotics, in a nominalist way,
as a 'system of representation' while Peirce's semiotics is
instead not a system but a process of relations. That's also
why Peirce calls his semiotics non-psychological, because it
is not representational -- which requires an egential mind
to house those re-presentations.
I do not see the connection between nominal thinking and representational thinking.
And I think that signs are very much representations of their objects. But Peirce
does not say that semiotics is non-psychological -- he says only that logic, which
is the formal and normative branch of semiotics, is non-psychological. By the way,
if one reads that note on "Logic As Semiotics" (CP 2.227) carefully, one sees that
the addition of "normative" is otiose, given the fact that Peirce defines "formal"
as "quasi-necessary", in such a way that the "ought to do" is incorporated within
the "must be" and the "would be". At any rate, it seems that there is still room
for logy of descriptive semiotics, within which we may psychologize to our hearts'
contents. That is just my current guess, anyway.
ET: Howard, I think, is seeing an Object that is 're-presented' by
a semiotic system as an Interpretant. That's a straight linear
motion, mediated by the Semiotic System. The Semiotic System is
Howard's formal process. It acts as a stable model for effectively
translating this Object to its Interpretant. It's a Saussurian method.
It's the trap that the scholastics (no, not the Duns Scotus etc type) fell
into. It sets up the Dynamic Interpretant as the formal model, acting as
a reified set of symbols, against which reality is measured/compared.
Nothing wrong with such a semantics. We have to have it. That's why
we have dictionaries and codified laws. As Mishtu says -- this enables
us to count. But, this set of formally articulated rules is a limited
semiosis -- very real, very functional -- anancastically operative.
But it's not the full genuine operation of semiosis.
Well, I am not sure that we are using the words "semantics" and "semiosis"
the same way. And I am told that Peirce did not use the term "semantics".
I personally use "semantics" for the denotative or the referential aspect
and "semiotic" for a broadly conceived connotative and transitional aspect
of the underlying 3-adic sign relation:
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/inquiry/fall95/awbrey.html
http://www.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/inquiry.htm
http://www.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/integrat.htm
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/Details/issue/abstract/ab017772.html
But I guess that I think there is something very "wrong" (= distorted, skew, twisted)
about the degenerative process, lately observed over the course of the 20th Century,
by which the referential (sign to object) dimension gradully becomes so habitually
projected onto the semiotic (sign to interpretant) plane and compressed onto the
syntactic (sign to sign) line that people begin to de-function like Flatlanders
and Linelanders, with no sense of an object reality outside the realm of signs.
I call this decline or devolution the "Coriolis Farce".
Here is a record of my last, rather desperate attempt
to warn folks against its dangers:
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Subj: Coriolis Farce
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 15:40:07 -0400
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
To: John F. Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net>,
SUO List <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>,
Cognitive Graphs List <cg@cs.uah.edu>,
CC: [Peirce Subgroup]
Having some spare time and some peace of mind this afternoon,
the likes of which near and dear conjunction I never know when
I might see again, I thought that I might try to deal with an
accumulating residual issue that raises its ominous head in
association with the points below. I hope that I am not
being too precipitous in bringing it up here and now,
but the cloud has already been seeded and cannot seem
to keep itself from proceeding according to its nature.
The Context:
Jon Awbrey wrote:
>
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>
> John,
>
> I would like to go through these issues with a degree of care,
> but first I will need to establish some initial understanding.
>
> I will start out in something like a questionnaire form,
> just by way asking what senses you especially favor for
> various words and phrases, and I will invite other people
> to weigh in with their own favorite meanings and associations.
>
> 1. The biggest molecule in this mass is the word "semantics".
> I gather from reading your Peirce-flavored webpages that
> you are one of those people who go along with taking this
> to indicate the "denotative" or the "referential" side of
> sign use, so it would help me to understand you from this
> point on if you could confirm, deny, correct, or refine
> this impression of mine. I realize that this question
> has become a little bit clouded in recent times by the
> appearance of a self-decribed "denotational semantics",
> but let's not be distracted by that -- what I mean by
> "denotation" is the sign-to-object face of a triadic
> sign relation.
>
> 2. On a related note, and here I will have to waffle a bit --
> though I return to my reading of Frege every decade or so,
> and started up again just the summer before last, my memory
> of a few details is not quite sharpened up to snuff yet --
> it was my impression that the reason Frege called truth
> a semantic issue is that he thought, or theorized, that
> truth values are formal objects that can be denoted by
> signs of the type sentence.
>
> So, modulo whatever clarification or obviation Chris Menzel and
> others might be able to bring to this issue, I just need to ask
> people how they feel about this notion. Just to declare myself,
> I am sympathetic to it, but with a host of reservations and other
> stipulations that arise from my own standpoint within the general
> framework of an overall Peirce-spective.
>
> Well, I had more questions, but then I thought that maybe I should
> quit with these two. If we could reach any order of resolution on
> these first points then I think that we might be getting somewhere.
>
> Many Regards,
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
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>
> John F. Sowa wrote:
> >
> > One of the fundamental issues that has not been satisfactorily addressed
> > is the distinction between reality (what exists independently of how we
> > may think of it) and the linguistic categories that human beings use
> > in talking and thinking about what exists.
> >
> > In several notes to SUO list, Nicola Guarino has discussed the question
> > of how to distinguish an object from its underlying matter. Are a vase
> > and a mass of baked clay two distinct "individuals" or a single something
> > (Whitehead called it an "actual occasion") that happens to be characterized
> > in two different ways by people who think and talk about it?
> >
> > My own view, which is largely based on the philosophies of Peirce
> > and Whitehead, is to distinguish the _ontological categories_ of
> > physical reality from the _phenomenological categories_ of how
> > people experience what exists, think about it, talk about it, and
> > act upon it.
> >
> > Following is a book review, which I recently wrote and which will
> > appear in the March 2001 issue of _Computational Linguistics_. The book,
> > _Construing Experience through Meaning: A Language-Based Approach to Cognition_
> > by Halliday and Matthiessen, includes a detailed analysis of the categories expressed in
> > language, which for most purposes of the SUO, are the major ones that need to be represented.
> >
> > John Sowa
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Construing Experience through Meaning:
> > A language-based approach to cognition
> >
> > by M. A. K. Halliday and Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen
> >
> > London and New York: Cassell, 1999
> > xiii+657 pp; paperback, ISBN 0-304-70490-3, $102.00
> >
> > reviewed by John F. Sowa
> >
> > Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday has been actively analyzing and
> > documenting the interactions between syntax and semantics for over forty
> > years, and his systemic-functional theory has been a foundation for
> > important work in computational linguistics for at least thirty years.
> > The first major application of systemic theory was the SHRDLU system
> > by Winograd (1972). The largest ongoing series of applications has
> > been developed at the USC Information Sciences Institute: language
> > generation (Mann 1982; Hovy 1988); discourse analysis and rhetorical
> > structure (Mann & Thompson 1992); and the interface between the lexicon
> > and world knowledge (Bateman et al. 1990; Matthiessen 1995).
> >
> > In this book, Halliday and Matthiessen present a comprehensive survey
> > of semantics and its relationships to syntax and cognition. Although
> > they present their subject from a systemic-functional point of view,
> > they show how their approach is related to a wide range of work in both
> > computational and theoretical linguistics. One notable omission from
> > their 23-page bibliography is Noam Chomsky, whose period of active
> > research almost exactly coincides with Halliday's. They do, however,
> > give a fair summary of semantic theories based on Chomsky's approach,
> > ranging from the early work of Katz and Fodor to the more recent work
> > by Jackendoff.
> >
> > The book consists of fifteen chapters organized in five parts.
> > In Part I, the authors contrast the systemic approach with a view
> > of knowledge representation as a "piecemeal accumulation" of concepts
> > with "no overall organization." Instead of treating language "as a
> > kind of code in which pre-existing conceptual structures are more or
> > less distortedly expressed," they view language as a semiotic system
> > that serves "as the foundation of human experience." The goal of
> > systemic theory is to present a comprehensive view of how humans
> > construe experience through language. Unlike Chomsky, they do
> > not consider grammar as "autonomous" but as an integral part
> > of the _lexicogrammar_, which _realizes_ meaning in words,
> > phrases, sentences, and paragraphs.
> >
> > Part II, comprising chapters 2 through 7, presents the _meaning base_, which corresponds to
> > what many authors would call an ontology. The meaning base, however, represents categories
> > of experience with a topmost node called _phenomenon_ instead of categories of existence
> > with a topmost node called _entity_. The first subdivision of phenomena is a three-way
> > partitioning according to levels of complexity:
> >
> > 1. Elementary ideas or _elements_ are realized by the lexicogrammar
> > as words or short groups of words, such as _rain_, _from the west_,
> > or _8 hard-boiled eggs_. Computationally, elements may be represented
> > by slots in a frame, nodes in a graph, or typed variables in logic.
> >
> > 2. Configurations of elements or _figures_ are realized by phrases
> > or clauses, such as _rain ending from the west_ or _chop finely_.
> > Computationally, a figure may be represented by various data
> > structures, such as a frame, list, or graph.
> >
> > 3. Complexes of figures or _sequences_ are realized by complex
> > sentences or paragraphs, such as _Take 8 hard-boiled eggs, chop
> > finely, mash with 3 tablespoons of soft butter, and add salt and
> > pepper_. Computationally, a sequence could be represented by
> > a network of frames, a list of lists, a graph of graphs, or
> > structures of objects in an object-oriented language.
> >
> > Each of these categories is further divided and subdivided by various
> > distinctions, some dyadic and some triadic. Element is classified as
> > participant, circumstance, or process. Figure is classified by another
> > triad of relational (being or having), material (doing or happening),
> > and mental (sensing or saying). These categories are further elaborated
> > and illustrated with numerous examples. To demonstrate the generality
> > of the approach, Chapter 7 shows how the semantic categories realized
> > in English can also be realized in Chinese and other languages.
> >
> > Part III consists of two chapters that show how the theory can be
> > implemented in a computational system for language generation, with
> > examples of weather reports and cooking recipes. Part IV consists of
> > three chapters that compare the theoretical and descriptive techniques
> > of systemic-functional theory to other approaches. The concluding Part
> > V consists of three chapters that apply systemic theory to an analysis
> > of how humans construe experience through language. Chapter 14 has an
> > intriguing analysis of the evolution of linguistic expressions from folk
> > theories to scientific theories. Instead of drawing a sharp dichotomy
> > between commonsense and scientific ways of thinking, the authors show
> > how the basic linguistic mechanisms of abstraction and metaphor are
> > used to systematize and formalize scientific language. Metaphor is
> > fundamental to both science and poetry. The primary difference is
> > that poets constantly strive to create novel metaphors, while
> > scientists recycle, revise, and elaborate the most successful
> > of their colleagues' metaphors.
> >
> > In summary, this book makes a strong case for the systemic approach as a fruitful
> > alternative to Chomsky's view of autonomous syntax. The authors demonstrate that
> > semantics has important structures that are cross-linguistic and formalizable.
> > Although they present their data with the terminology, notation, and viewpoint
> > of the systemic-functional approach, their analyses, distinctions, and categories
> > can be adapted to semantic theories based on other approaches.
> >
> > The authors criticize the logic-based, model-theoretic approaches for
> > their limited ontologies and neglect of important aspects of language,
> > such as metaphor. Yet logicians recognize the need for richer ontologies,
> > and many, if not most would agree that semantics is the proper starting point
> > for a study of natural language. The authors try to draw a sharp distinction
> > between the deductive methods of logic and the method of inheritance used in
> > frame-based systems. A logician, however, would reply that inheritance is
> > the oldest of all rules of inference; it was introduced by Aristotle for
> > syllogisms, and it is a derived rule in every modern system of logic.
> > The methods of unification used in many logic-based systems implement
> > inheritance in ways that are equivalent to or more general than frame
> > systems. Rather than being a competitor, the systemic approach can be
> > a valuable complement to the logic-based approaches.
> >
> > The authors consider language as a semiotic system, but they only mention
> > the dyadic view of semiotics developed by Saussure and linguists influenced
> > by Saussure, such as Hjelmslev and Firth. Peirce analyzed the sign relation
> > in greater depth than Saussure and emphasized its irreducible triadic nature.
> > Although Halliday and Mattheissen never mention Peirce, they have rediscovered
> > many of Peirce's triads in their systemic analysis. Their choice of 'phenomenon'
> > as the most general category is an unconscious endorsement of Peirce's point that
> > his categories were primarily phenomenological rather than ontological. The systemic
> > triad of being-having, doing-happening, and sensing-saying corresponds to Peirce's
> > fundamental triad of Quality, Reaction, and Representation. Most of the other triads
> > in the systemic meaning base also have a strong Peircean flavor, and a more conscious
> > application of Peirce's version of semiotics might help clarify and refine many of the
> > triadic distinctions in the systemic approach.
> >
> > Perhaps the least attractive feature of the book is its formatting. The authors used
> > a conventional word processor to print camera-ready copy on A4 paper, which the publisher
> > reproduced without change. The result is a heavy, unwieldy tome with a great deal of wasted
> > paper, a generally unfinished appearance, but a price tag of $102. With that price and format,
> > the book is destined to sell very few copies, the authors will get little or nothing in royalties,
> > the publisher's high price will seem to be justified, and a potentially important book will never
> > be read by students who might profit from it. The book would get better distribution if the
> > authors had simply put the electronic version on their web site; better yet, professional
> > societies such as the ACL should put books such as this on their web sites.
> >
> > Bibliography
> >
> > Bateman, J. A., R. Kasper, J. Moore, and R. Whitney. 1990.
> > _A general organization of knowledge for natural language processing:
> > The Penman upper model_. Research report. Information Sciences Institute,
> > University of Southern California, Santa Monica.
> >
> > Hovy, E. 1988. _Generating natural language under pragmatic constraints_.
> > Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
> >
> > Mann, W. C. 1982. _An overview of the Penman text generation system_.
> > Research report 83-114. Information Sciences Institute,
> > University of Southern California, Santa Monica.
> >
> > Mann, W. C., and S. A. Thompson, eds. 1992. _Discourse Description:
> > Diverse Linguistic Analysis of a Fund-Raising Text_. Benjamins, Amsterdam.
> >
> > Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. 1995. _Lexicogrammatical Cartography: English Systems_.
> > International Language Sciences Publishers, Tokyo.
> >
> > Peirce, C. S. 1991-1998. _The Essential Peirce_, vols. 1 and 2,
> > ed. by N. Houser and C. Kloesel, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
> >
> > Winograd, T. 1972. _Understanding Natural Language_.
> > Academic Press, New York.
>
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The Comment:
There is a phenomenon that persistently occurs in the use of signs --
I have long thought of it under the heading of a "Coriolis Force",
in analogy with the apparent or virtual force that is named after
the French civil engineer Gaspard Coriolis ("a deflecting force
acting on a body in motion (as an air mass, airplane, projectile)
due to the earth's rotation" (Webster's)), since it acts to deflect,
to side-swipe, or to way-lay the aim of a semantic (sign-to-object)
intention within the triadic sphere of a sign relation and to shift
its momentum into a flow of semiosis that is almost nearly orthogonal
to its initial direction toward objects and apparently independent of
its intended orientation toward the world. It is as if the air masses
that are originally impelled for the purpose of conveying their charge
of signs from the equatorial regions of signs and ideas to the polar
regions of objects in the world were to become diverted almost nearly
perpetually into the prevailing winds of our perennial philosophies,
never quite achieving the aim they had so strongly at the outset.
Gasp'ard indeed!
Well, that's the basic image that I have in mind --
I will need to catch my breath for the gesis.exe --
Jon Awbrey
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Have to break here,
Best Wishes,
Jon Awbrey
ET: If someone doesn't know Peirce very well, then they will view semiotics as just that
representational nominalist process, and see the Sign as a set of formal rules that
governs the interpretation (re-naming) of the external object. This will naturally
require an agential interpretor; and it requires that the set of formal rules be
kept reasonably pure and uncorrupted by the object (separation of church and state).
Again -- there is nothing invalid about this linear semantic movement; it's part of
our functional activities, but it is a 'lesser' semiotics, and as Mishtu points out --
the key thing that it cannot do -- is evolve those general rules.
ET: So, my suggestion is that the argument will have to show that there are different types
of 'semiotic 'actions. The representational action merely re-names the Dynamic Object
to an Immediate Interpretant, using the Dynamic Interpretant as a set of formal rules
by which this re-naming is achieved. Obviously a limited, i.e., degenerate semiotics --
but -- we do use it. It's works rapidly ... I would even compare it with Brook's
'connectionist' type of robotic AI. But -- it cannot evolve its rules for it lacks
Thirdness. It's essentially operating completely in Secondness. Using this formal
model, we can define the behaviour of X as Y. We need such a semantics. But this
process is quite different from a genuine evolutionary semiotics, as Mishtu has said.
ET: The relational action sets up the sign as a predicate rather than nominal process.
Secondness is kept to a part of the process and not the whole thing. What the sign
as predicate process does, is to generate an interpretive instance (within the Immediate
and Dynamic Interpreations) that relates to the Dynamic Object (which is itself a triadic
sign-action) in a similar predicate-relation as that Sign itself. Remember, there are
different types of relations. What are the possible types of relations? Well, there's
Firstness-as-Firstness (1-1), Secondness-as-Firstness (2-1) ... and 2-2. Within 2-2,
there is iconic/indexical/symbolic. BUT -- there is yet another relation ... bringing
in the Final Interpretant. This vital relation is Thirdness. Both 3-1 and 3-2.
[We won't get into 3-3 at the moment]. This is the zone/phase of the general laws,
which must act as an evolutionary set of relations. Howard doesn't have Thirdness.
He doesn't have his 'habits' which govern the rest of the relations (those using
Firstness and Secondness) as evolving Formal Laws ... but as articulated, if general,
stable, non-evolving Laws. Operating, obviously, as Dynamic Interpretants in pure
Secondness.
ET: But, with different types of relations, we will have different types of signs (consider,
just the ten different types that Peirce outlines, never mind the 66 and so on. Just the
ten quite basic types). None of these types is 'wrong' or dysfunctional, for our cosmos
requires their diversity. But I feel that what Howard is aiming for, is a representational
semantics that really operates only within one type of sign-process. It obviously can't do
anything other than re-present one entity as another entity, albeit clothed in a different
costume. That's not generative semiosis but, as Jon points out, it's a dyadic denotation.
ET: I think you are going to have to clarify 'representation' and 'relation'. This is
very difficult for someone who hasn't read Peirce. It's also difficult because
of the filiation of Firstness/Secondness with Thirdness ... and if someone
views Thirdness in a nominalist manner rather than as a predicate process --
well, that's a big problem. That's Plato versus Aristotle!
ET: By the way, Mishtu, with reference to Popper.
He states that he thinks very highly of Peirce,
but I feel that most of Popper's ideas come
straight from Peirce -- unacknowledged.
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