‘It Really Represents…’

This paper compares the manner in which C. S. Peirce's late semiotic theory deals with the problems posed by the dynamic object and the interpretation of signs with that of the earlier, better-known system of 1903. It shows how non-specialist interpreters of signs are often led to suggest that there is more to, for example, a painting than the summation of the lines, forms and colours to be found on the canvas, in other words, to suggest that the sign's dynamic object may be quite different from its representation as the sign's immediate object. Now the 1903 ten-class system is composed of the sign and two relational criteria, the first of which being the sign's mode of representation, which is no other than the relation holding between the sign and what, at the time, was defined simply as its object. This means that the object itself is not a relevant feature of the system, and therefore this latter, even when the mode of representation is associated with Peirce's hypoicons, is unable to account for discrepancies between what observers interpret as the sign's object and the way the sign represents it. One explanation for this discrepancy can be found in Peirce's late, hexadic conception of semiosis, which, in 1908, explicitly integrated immediate and dynamic objects and a typology of which the criteria were not the earlier categories but three universes of experience by means of which Peirce was able to expand considerably the inventory of the sorts of entities qualifying as a sign's dynamic object. The paper draws on these advances to show how immediate and dynamic objects can diverge, and how different interpreters come to widely differing conclusions concerning the objects of signs and how they are interpreted

Linguistics · Mathematical analysis · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy, Science, and History · Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education