Habit in semiosis can be modeled both as a macro-level in a hierarchical multi-level system where it functions as boundary conditions for emergence of semiosis, and as a cognitive niche produced by an ecologically-inherited environment of cognitive artifacts. According to the first perspective, semiosis is modeled in terms of a multilayered system, with micro functional entities at the lower-level and with higher-level processes being mereologically composed of these lower-level entities. According to the second perspective, habits are embedded in ecologically-inherited environments (...) of signs that co-evolve with cognition. Both descriptions offer a novel approximation of Peirce’s semiotics and theoretical findings in other areas (hierarchy theory, evolutionary biology), suggesting new frameworks to approach the concept of habit integrated with its role in semiosis. (shrink)

Peirce's pragmatic notion of semiosis can be described in terms of a multi-level system of constraints involving chance, efficient, formal and final causation. According to the model proposed here, law-like regularities, which work as boundary conditions or organizational principles, have a downward effect on the spatiotemporal distribution of lower-level semiotic items. We treat this downward determinative influence as a propensity relation: if some lower-level entities a,b,c,-n are under the influence of a general organizational principle, W, they will show a tendency (...) to behave in certain specific ways, and, thus, to instantiate a set of specific processes. Our goal in this paper is to examine the role of downward determination in semiotic systems, conceived as multi-level hierarchical systems. (shrink)

Kelly’s work was formed and developed in the context of the American philosophical movement known as pragmatism. The major figures to which this tradition is attributed are Charles S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey. In Personal Construct Psychology, Dewey was acknowledged by Kelly and by subsequent writers as perhaps his most important influence. It has recently become increasingly apparent, however that Peirce was a much more pervasive and crucial influence on James and Dewey than has previously been recognized. Kelly (...) did not mention Peirce but a close reading of the two writers reveals a remarkable correspondence and relationship between their two bodies of work. To set these two thinkers side by side proves to be an interesting and productive exercise. In this paper, after introducing Peirce and examining the relationship between him and Dewey, Kelly’s basic philosophical assumptions, as outlined at the beginning of Volume 1 of the Psychology of Personal Constructs, are used as a framework for exploring their similarities and differences. The result is an enrichment of our understanding of Kelly’s philosophy which allows us to make links with many different subsequent thinkers’ ideas and provides a basis for exploring the psychological aspects of the two men’s work. The latter forms the subject of Part II of this series which is in preparation. (shrink)

It is being increasingly recognized that the Saussurean dictum of “the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign” is in conflict with the pervasiveness of the phenomenon commonly known as “sound symbolism”. After first presenting a historical overview of the debate, however, we conclude that both positions have been exaggerated, and that an adequate explanation of sound symbolism is still lacking. How can there, for example, be (perceived) similarity between expressionsand contents across different sensory modalities? We offer an answer, based on the (...) Peircian notion of iconic ground, and G. Sonesson’s distinction betweenprimary and secondary iconicity. Furthermore, we describe an experimental study, in a paradigm first pioneered by W. Kohler, and recently popularized by V.Ramachandran, in which we varied vowels and consonants in fictive word-forms, and conclude that both types of sounds play a role in perceiving an iconic ground between the word-forms and visual figures. The combination of historical conceptual analysis, semiotic explication and psychological experimentationpresented in this article is characteristic of the emerging paradigm of cognitive semiotics. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) made relevant contributions to deductive logic, but he was primarily interested in the logic of science, and more especially in what he called 'abduction' (as opposed to deduction and induction), which is the process whereby hypotheses are generated in order to explain the surprising facts. Indeed, Peirce considered abduction to be at the heart not only of scientific research, but of all ordinary human activities. Nevertheless, in spite of Peirce's work and writings in the field of (...) methodology of research, scarce attention has been paid to the logic of discovery over the last hundred years, despite an impressive development not only of scientific research but also of logic. -/- Having this in mind, the exposition is divided into five parts: 1) a brief presentation of Peirce, focusing on his work as a professional scientist; 2) an exposition of the classification of inferences by the young Peirce: deduction, induction and hypothesis; 3) a sketch of the notion of abduction in the mature Peirce; 4) an exposition of the logic of surprise; and finally, by way of conclusion, 5) a discussion of this peculiar ability of guessing understood as a rational instinct. -/- . (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 207 Seiten: 657-673.

This chapter presents a detailed explanation of Peirce’s early and late views on semiotic indeterminacy and then considers how those views might be applied within biosemiotics. Peirce distinguished two different forms of semiotic indeterminacy: generality and vagueness. He defined each in terms of the “right” that indeterminate signs extend, either to their interpreters in the case of generality or to their utterers in the case of vagueness, to further determine their meaning. On Peirce’s view, no sign is absolutely determinate, i.e., (...) every sign is indeterminate to at least some degree and so exhibits some degree of generality or vagueness. If Peirce was right about this, then no instance of biosemiosis is completely determinate—every biosign must be general or vague to some degree. I show that on Peirce’s view, whether a sign is general or vague depends on its immediate object, “the idea which the sign is built upon,” and I explain how Peirce would go about identifying the immediate object of a sign lacking both a minded utterer and a minded interpreter—an identification that must be possible if any biosign is indeterminate. (shrink)

In this paper we will show Peirce’s distinction between deduction, induction and abduction. The aim of the paper is to show how Peirce changed his views on the subject, from an understanding of deduction, induction and hypotheses as types of reasoning to understanding them as stages of inquiry very tightly connected. In order to get a better understanding of Peirce’s originality on this, we show Peirce’s distinctions between qualitative and quantitative induction and between theorematical and corollarial deduction, passing then to (...) the distinction between mathematics and logic. In the end, we propose a sketch of a comparison between Peirce and Whitehead concerning the two thinkers’ view of mathematics, hoping that this could point to further inquiries. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo geral apresentar alguns aspectos básicos da filosofia da matemática de Charles Sanders Peirce, com o intuito de suscitar discussão posterior. Especificamente, são ressaltados: o lugar da matemática na classificação das ciências do autor; a diferença entre matemática e filosofia como cenoscopia; a relação entre as categorias da fenomenologia e matemática; o conceito de experiência e sua formalização possível; a distinção geral entre lógica, como parte da investigação filosófica, e matemática.

Biosemiotics is a growing fi eld that investigates semiotic processes in the living realm in an attempt to combine the fi ndings of the biological sciences and semiotics. Semiotic processes are more or less what biologists have typically referred to as “ signals, ” “ codes, ”and “ information processing ”in biosystems, but these processes are here understood under the more general notion of semiosis, that is, the production, action, and interpretation of signs. Thus, biosemiotics can be seen as biology (...) interpreted as a study of living sign systems — which also means that semiosis or sign process can be seen as the very nature of life itself. In other words, biosemiotics is a field of research investigating semiotic processes (meaning, signification, communication, and habit formation in living systems) and the physicochemical preconditions for sign action and interpretation. -/- (...). (shrink)

In this work, we propose a computational approach to the triadic model of Peircean semiosis (meaning processes). We investigate theoretical constraints about the feasibility of simulated semiosis. These constraints, which are basic requirements for the simulation of semiosis, refer to the synthesis of irreducible triadic relations (Sign–Object–Interpretant). We examine the internal organization of the triad S–O–I, that is, the relative position of its elements and how they relate to each other. We also suggest a multi-level approach based on self-organization principles. (...) In this context, semiosis is described as an emergent process. Nevertheless, the term ‘emergence’ is often used in a very informal way in the so called ‘emergent’ computation, without clear explanations and/or definitions. In this paper, we discuss in some detail the meaning of the theoretical terms ‘emergence’ and ‘emergent’, showing how such an analysis can lead to improvements of the algorithm proposed. (shrink)

How to model meaning processes (semiosis) in artificial semiotic systems? Once all computer simulation becomes tantamount to theoretical simulation, involving epistemological metaphors of world versions, the selection and choice of models will dramatically compromise the nature of all work involving simulation. According to the pragmatic Peircean based approach, semiosis is an interpreter-dependent process that cannot be dissociated from the notion of a situated (and actively distributed) communicational agent. Our approach centers on the consideration of relevant properties and aspects of Peirce’s (...) pragmatic concept of semiotics. Upon developing this approach, we have no pretensions of our being able to present an exhaustive analysis of the differences between Peirce and other theoretical positions. Nevertheless, our contribution will serve to demonstrate how theorists contribute toward revealing certain fundamental ‘semiotic constraints’ that will be of interest and importance. (shrink)

Os signos e as classes dos signos estão entre os tópicos mais importantes do sistema filosófico de Charles S. Peirce. As 10, 28, e 66 classes de signos são classificações desenvolvidas especialmente a partir de 1903 e representam um grande refinamento da divisão fundamental de signos – ícone, índice, símbolo. Nossa abordagem aqui define uma estratégia de visualização das classificações dos signos, com especial atenção para as 10 e 66 classes de signos. O livro está dividido em duas partes: (i) (...) bases teóricas, (ii) diagramas para as classes de signos. Na Parte I (bases teóricas), são apresentadas introdutoriamente as noções fundamentais das categorias fenomenológicas, classes de signos, as tricotomias e diagramas, assim como implicações gerais de nossa abordagem, metodologia e aplicações. Na Parte II (diagramas para as classes de signos), são apresentados e discutidos os modelos das classes, propostos por Peirce e seus comentadores, incluindo uma introdução detalhadamente documental de nossos modelos, 10cubes e 3N3, diagramas dinâmicos para as classes de signos. (shrink)

Whereas Peirce’s logic drove him to postulate a primitive sentiency of physical matter, this essay argues that life exhibits behavior that is radically discontinuous from its preconditions; e.g., life manufactures chance by semiotic means. A sign being something that stands for another thing to a mind, signs are brought into existence only by acts of ‘reading.’ Peirce argued that this action is an element of physics, and thus the entire universe ‘lives.’ This essay postulates a degenerate form of Firstness that (...) is contingent upon ‘caused’ forms of apparent but not actual chance, and which consists of possibility sans sentiency. This argument limits the range of Peirce’s semiotics to biology; chance remains radical, though its roots now lie in the coextension of semiotics and life. As living things live only by incorporating extant phenomena, continuation depends on the ability to enter into successful semiotic relationships. This results in the ‘minding’ behavior that is both biological sentiency and genuine Firstness, and which expresses radically discontinuous behavior. Thus chance becomes something akin to truth: neither exists ‘metaphysically’ , both are quite distinct from being, and both happen only as a consequence of interpretation as it is generated by and re-generates sign-wielding beings as they seek what they need to go on living. While quite distinct from Peirce, this notion of chance may well result in a more productive use of his semiotics. (shrink)

We explore Peirce’s pragmatic conception of sign action, as a distributed and emergent view of cognition and exemplify with the emergence of classical ballet. In our approach, semiosis is a temporally distributed process in which a regular tendency towards certain future outcomes emerges out of a history of sign actions. Semiosis self-organizes in time, in a process that continuously entails the production of more signs. Emergence is a ubiquitous condition in this process: the translation of signs into signs cannot be (...) inferred from the properties of the components of a semiotic triad alone, but has to take into account a complex interaction between a micro-semiotic and macro-semiotic level of description. This interaction can be understood as an interplay of potentialities and tendencies, or upward constitutive determinative relations and downward selective determinative relations. According to this view, emergence is a central defining condition of processes of meaning. Ballet is a sign in action. The emergence of classical ballet is a self-regulatory process, in which a system of different kinds of cognitive artifacts (musical, bodily/motor, spatial/architectonic) and agents obtained a stable semiotic relation throughout many phases of development between the 16th and the 19th Century. One case is the development of the verticality of dance in classical ballet as a semiotic relation connecting proscenium arch stages, dancing bodies, and audiences. This development is micro-semiotically determined by the spatial constraints of the proscenium arch stage, and macro-semiotically determined by a historical construction of the dancing body as a sign within a network of semiotic chains, such as the intersemiotic regulation of body of the dancer by principles coming from painting. This is not only the emergence of actual meaning, but also the emergence of an open-ended field of potential and general meanings, an autonomous tendency of development. To say that ballet, as sign action, emerges, is to say that cognitive artifacts such as dancer’s bodies, stages and audience’s point of view, musical compositions, costumes, all sorts of supporting institutions, etc, constitute a niche for sign action, interacting according to tendencies of development that didn’t exist before. (shrink)

Against the view that symbol-based semiosis is a human cognitive uniqueness, we have argued that non-human primates such as African vervet monkeys possess symbolic competence, as formally defined by Charles S. Peirce. Here I develop this argument by showing that the equivocal role ascribed to symbols by “folk semiotics” stems from an incomplete application of the Peircean logical framework for the classification of signs, which describes three kinds of symbols: rheme, dicent and argument. In an attempt to advance in the (...) classifying semiotic processes, Peirce proposed several typologies, with different degrees of refinement. Around 1903, he developed a division into ten classes. According to this typology, symbols can be further analysed in three subclasses (rheme, dicent, argument). I proceed to demonstrate that vervet monkeys employ dicent symbols. There are remarkable implications of this argument since ‘symbolic species theory’ fails to explore the vast Peircean semiotic philosophy to frame questions regarding the emergence and evolution of symbolic processes. (shrink)

According to Peirce one of the most important philosophical problems is continuity. Consequently, he set forth an innovative and peculiar approach in order to elucidate at once its mathematical and metaphysical challenges through proper non-classical logical reasoning. I will restrain my argument to the definition of the different types of discrete collections according to Peirce, with a special regard to the phenomenon called ?premonition of continuity? (Peirce, 1976, Vol. 3, p. 87, c. 1897).

This paper considers the relation between the American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce and the German idealist G. W. F. Hegel . While Peirce engaged with Hegel’s thought quite extensively, his often critical comments on the latter have made it hard to see any genuine common ground between the two; recent ways of reading Hegel, however, suggest how this might be possible, where the connections between their respective metaphysical positions and views of the categories are explored here. Issues relating to their (...) epistemology and philosophies of languages are considered in a companion article. (shrink)

In this article, we try to trace the relationship between semiotics and theory of legal reasoning using Peirce’s idea that all reasoning must be necessarily in signs: every act of reasoning/argumentation is a sign process, leading to “the growth of knowledge. The broad scope and universal character of Peirce’s sign theory of reasoning allows us to look for new conciliatory paradigms, which must be presented in terms of possible synthesis between the traditional approaches to argumentation. These traditional approaches are strongly (...) affected by either the dialectical (logical) perspective or the rhetorical perspective on argumentation, while Peirce’s approach tends to reconcile the rhetorical and methodological aspects of reasoning. This reconcilation is best illustrated by Peircean analysis of argument’s logical and rhetorical structure; while the diagrammatic (iconic) analysis of arguments is performed in the system of Existential Graphs (which is Peirce’s major methodological system, designed for the expressions of propositions in point of their relational structure). Obviously, Peirce’s original division of argument parts offered only the characterisation of the sign activity (involved in the process of reasoning), and thus left much to be desired in terms of practical explication. (shrink)

Abstract.At the heart of the most radical proposals in Stuart Kauffman's Investigations is his attempt to show that we find in evolutionary biology some configuration spaces—the sets of possible developments for any given system—that (unlike those in traditional physics of Newtonian, relativistic, and quantum stripes) cannot be completely described in advance. We bring Charles Peirce's work on the philosophy of continuity to bear on the problem and discover, first, that Kauffman's arguments do not succeed; second, that Peirce's metaphysics provide new (...) and sounder arguments for the same propositions; third, that Peirce's rigorous but nonstandard treatment of mathematical continuity shows great promise for modeling the unpredictability and growth we find in evolutionary biology; fourth, that it also strengthens a development only hinted at by biologists thus far—the inevitable involvement of the observer's mind in constituting the objects of science. We close with a logical argument for the surprising relevance of metaphysical hypotheses in the natural sciences and with suggestions for future work that will connect these questions to what Kauffman terms the “narrative stance” in biology. (shrink)

Resumo: Este artigo procura caracterizar a vital importância da categoria da Primeiridade no interior da filosofia de Charles Peirce, refletindo sobre o papel da liberdade em um contexto de simetria da relação sujeito-objeto e, mais precisamente, considerando as idéias de consciência e mundo. Tenta-se mostrar, também, como a Primeiridade torna-se fundamental para a consideração de uma filosofia genética, tal qual esta pode ser encontrada no pensamento do autor.Palavras-chave: pragmatismo, Peirce, primeiridade, liberdade, filosofia genética.: This paper tries to show the vital (...) importance played by the category of Firstness within Charles Peirce's philosophy, reflecting on the role o freedom in a symmetric relationship between subject-object, and more precisely considering the ideas of consciousness and world. Furthermore, we try to show how Firstness becomes essential to the consideration of a genetic philosophy, as it can be found throughout the author's thought.Key-words: pragmatism, Peirce, Firstness, freedom, genetic Philosophy. (shrink)