This article aims to present an epistemological approach
to perception, especially in terms of the relationship
between nature, humanity and culture. When dealing with
these matters, I have become increasingly aware that C. S.
Peirce's semiotic theory clarifies certain questions about
perception and the way we organize these perceptions into
knowledge. One of the particularly interesting questions is
how Peirce's nine sign types correspond to nature, man and
culture. In this study, I will therefore discuss the sign
types, dividing the three trichotomies such that Qualisign,
Sinsign and Legisign correspond to nature; Icon, Index and
Symbol correspond to humankind; and Rheme, Dicent sign and
Argument correspond to culture. In my opinion, these nine
sign types are ideal signs. This means that the signs, as
perceived, do not exist in the world as pure signs; they
will contain elements and features from all sign types. In
that way, we will not be able to interpret a Qualisign as a
pure Qualisign being a monad. Instead, we will interpret it
as a Rheme containing a Qualisign and an Icon.
As a consequence, Peirce combines the nine sign types
into ten signs. They do not exist prior to perception but
rather as a post perceptive experience. So, in order to
understand the sign relationship between nature, man and
culture we must first focus on the nine sign types. It is
important to stress that, in my view, the sign of nature is
monadic and corresponds to Firstness, man is dyadic, i.e.
man interacts with nature in dyadic ways, and culture is
triadic. It is culture that determines how we interpret
nature. One could say that culture is what Peirce calls the
final interpretant but, naturally the culture is not as
strong a habit as gravity. Nevertheless, it is a stabilizing
factor. Without culture we would not be, what we are.
In most books about Peircian semiotics I have noticed
that researchers mainly concentrate their research on the
Firstness and Secondness trichotomies leaving the third
trichotomy out. In my opinion, this is wrong. How can we
understand the relation between nature and man, while
disregarding our culture. It is impossible. Furthermore, the
sign exists only as a dyad when leaving the third trichotomy
out, and a dyad is not a genuine sign. According to Peirce,
a sign is a triad relation that is non-reducible.
Let us focus on the sign trichotomies and see what
knowledge they bring us. Peirce writes:
"Signs are divisible by three
trichotomies; first, according as the sign in itself is a
mere quality, is an actual existent, or is a general law;
secondly, according as the relation of the sign to its
object consists in the sign's having some character in
itself, or in some existential relation to that object,
or in its relation to an interpretant; thirdly, according
as its Interpretant represents it as a sign of
possibility or as a sign of fact or a sign of reason."
(CP 2.243) (2)
The first division of the three trichotomies is identical
with Firstness and the representamen, and it consists of
Qualisign, Sinsign and Legisign. It is worth noticing that
the first trichotomy consists of (non)sign, i.e. signs which
do not relate to anything; they are monadic and exist sui
generis. But still, they form the basis for the creation of
meaning.
The Qualisign is defined as being a quality of a sign.
Before the manifestation of the sign, another sign must
carry it. Since a quality is - what it is - positive and
within itself, a quality can only describe an object due to
some kind of resemblance or a shared element. In other words
a Qualisign necessarily has to be an Icon, and when a
quality is a logical possibility, the Qualisign can only be
interpreted as a sign of being, i.e. as a Rheme. An example
is the experience of the color red. The color red will, of
course, be carried by some thing or event.
The Sinsign is an actual thing or event as a sign. The
Sinsign exists only through its qualities; therefore it
contains or carries several Qualisigns. A red cloth is an
example of a Sinsign, the cloth carries the quality of red
and can be interpreted.
Peirce defines the Legisign as a law, which is a sign.
The lawfulness is defined and determined by the users. That
is why the Legisign is a conventionalized sign. Each
conventionalized sign is a Legisign but not necessarily the
other way round. Peirce states that the Legisign is a
general type and not a single particular object which one
has to agree on as being a carrier of meaning. We are still
within Firstness, or the Representamen part of the triadic
sign. It is important to stress that the Legisign can also
be a natural sign. The development of the natural sign is
determined by law and exists only by virtue of the
lawfulness. I will return to the Legisign as a natural sign
later in the article. The concept of fugue can be imagined
as a Legisign but the moment the Legisign is imagined or
written (as I did when I mentioned fugue above) the word
exists only as a replica of the Legisign.
The replica written in bold letters is a Sinsign. The
Sinsign is a sign of an actual thing or event. In this case,
it expresses the Legisign through the replica. In this way,
the Legisign can be understood as an underlying lawfulness,
which governs a perceptual habit, and, when the Legisign is
made explicit as in the above example it changes it sign
character. So, the relationship between the Qualisign, the
Sinsign and the Legisign is that these signs exist within
themselves, monadically and as non-signs. Naturally, it can
be rather confusing that I refer to non-sign as signs, but
Peirce is aware of the problem of explaining something which
by nature is unexplainable.
[ASSA No. 10, p. 538]
The other well-known and most applied trichotomy consists
of the Representamen-Object relations, or how Secondness is
expressed in the sign: Icon, Index and Symbol. It is
important to notice that this trichotomy describes the
dyadic relation between representamen and object. When
someone analyses the image of a person and says: this is an
Icon, or smoke is an Index of fire, or the man on the toilet
door is a Symbol, it is only partly correct in a peircian
sense. The dyad is a relation between representamen and
object without any interpretation. If we interpret the
person in the picture as an Iconic relation, a dyadic
relation no longer exists, it becomes a triadic relation.
This means that the relation between the figure in the
picture and the figure in reality is dyadic. However, this
is not how we interpret it. In these dyadic cases, it would
be more correct to say that the picture, the smoke or the
man on the toilet door contains iconical, indexical and
symbolic features. In my opinion, this is the reason why
Peirce later combines the three trichotomies in 10 sign
classes. I will return to this.
The Icon is a sign, which shares a resemblance with the
Object it represents. Common examples of Iconic signs are
photographs since they resemble the Object (i.e. the
model) they depict. Peirce states that the Icon does not
have a dynamical relation to the object it represents. The
qualities of the Icon resemble the qualities of the object
and through that resemblance a similar sense of feelings is
evoked in the mind who sees the relation as a
resemblance.
Index means reference (to something). This class is
constituted of signs which have a causal relation to the
objects they describe. The Index refers to the Object, which
it describes by virtue of a relationship, in cases where the
sign is caused by the Object, like smoke is an Index of
fire. An Index sign is thus a sign which represents its
Object by virtue of a direct reference to the Object,
i.e. footsteps pointing to the person who walked
by. The result of a thermometer measuring the temperature is
an index of the air temperature. It is important to stress
that the Index is physically connected to the object. In a
way, the pair of them make up an organic pair, but the
interpreter has no influence on the relation between the
Index and its object more than merely noticing the relation
after it has been established.
Peirce writes that a Symbol is a sign that refers to its
Object, which it denotes by virtue of a law. Peirce
clarifies this by stating that the law is an association of
common ideas. It means that the Symbol will be interpreted
as pointing to the Object. Thus, the Symbol is a sign which
bears meaning solely by virtue of rules and conventions. A
sign being conventionalized means that there is an agreement
among users on the meaning of the sign. Letters, words and
numbers are such examples of symbolic signs. Peirce writes
about the Symbol:
"Any ordinary word, as "give," "bird," "marriage," is an
example of a symbol. It is applicable to whatever may be
found to realize the idea connected with the word; it does
not, in itself, identify those things. It does not show us a
bird, nor enact before our eyes a giving or a marriage, but
supposes that we are able to imagine those things, and have
associated the word with them." (CP 2.298)
If we take a closer look at the Symbol, we will find out
that it contains iconic and indexical features. Peirce uses
the concept "to love" as an example:
"A Symbol is a sign naturally fit to declare that the set of
objects which is denoted by whatever set of indices may be
in certain ways attached to it is represented by an icon
associated with it. To show what this complicated definition
means, let us take as an example of a symbol the word
"loveth." Associated with this word is an idea, which is the
mental icon of one person loving another. Now we are to
understand that "loveth" occurs in a sentence; for what it
may mean by itself, if it means anything, is not the
question. Let the sentence, then, be "Ezekiel loveth
Huldah." Ezekiel and Huldah must, then, be or contain
indices; for without indices it is impossible to designate
what one is talking about. Any mere description would leave
it uncertain whether they were not mere characters in a
ballad; but whether they be so or not, indices can designate
them. Now the effect of the word "loveth" is that the pair
of objects denoted by the pair of indices Ezekiel and Huldah
is represented by the icon, or the image we have in our
minds of a lover and his beloved." (CP 2.295)
The Symbol emanated from the Icon and the Index. And the
interaction between the Symbol, Index and Icon root the idea
in the Symbol.
[ASSA No. 10, p. 539]
The third sign trichotomy consists of Rheme, Dicent sign
and Argument, and describes the relation between the sign
and the Interpretant/Thirdness. This trichotomy is the least
used, I find that this is an misunderstanding as in fact it
is the third trichotomy which makes it possible for us to
understand the relation between Firstness and Secondness. As
we shall see, we would not be able to perceive the world and
make sense of it without the third trichotomy. And further,
we will discover that there is a great amount of knowledge
buried in the third trichotomy. But before I start the
discussions, let us take a look at the signs in the third
trichotomy.
Rhemes refer to possible objects. As examples of Rhemes
one can mention nouns as they clearly refer to possible
Objects. In Umberto Eco's words, signs are the prerequisite
for lying since the Object does not have to be present at
the same moment as the Representamen. So, the Objects
referred to are only possible. The Rheme represents possible
existence.
Dicent Signs are signs of actual existence. For
that reason, the Dicent Sign cannot be an Icon. The
Icon does not provide an opportunity of interpretation. In
order to describe the case, to which it is interpreted as a
reference, Dicent Signs must necessarily contain a Rheme. An
example of Dicent Signs could be whole sentences. The Dicent
sign represents actual existence.
The Argument is a Lawsign. The Argument represents its
Object in its capacity as a sign. This means that something
is being stated about the sign. An example of an Argument
could be whole passages of text, i.e. meaningful
links of Dicent Signs. I emphasize this
interpretation and state that Arguments could very well be
knowledge domains, cultures, societies etc. The Argument is
a sum of knowledge structured through Rhemes and Dicent
signs. In the discussion to follow, I interpret the Argument
as a sign of culture which mediates between nature and
man.
Figure 1
[Illustrations to follow shortly]
The figure displays a kind of metasign. Every part of the
sign is in itself a sign, but is constructed by different
kinds of signs with different natures. Let us take a closer
look at each trichotomy.
The first part (the representamen) is the Firstness
trichotomy. We know that the Qualisign in the trichotomy is
the sign which is the most firstnesslike. It is the
representamen. The object which is the sign that carries the
Qualisign is the Sinsign. We know from the definition of the
Sinsign that it is an actual thing or event, and we know
that in order to be manifested the Qualisign has to be
embodied in the Sinsign. The Legisign is what makes the
connection between Qualisign and Sinsign possible. When the
Qualisign is manifested in the Sinsign through the Legisign,
some kind of lawfulness occur. Peirce calls it "force of
habit". But in this case, the semiosis is monadic; there is
no intelligent interpretation behind semiosis. I call it the
semiosis of natural signs.
The Second part (the object) is the Secondness
trichotomy. A dyadic relationship exists between the
Firstness and the Secondness trichotomy. The Secondness
trichotomy is the result of the evolution taking place in
Firstness. But the evolution within the Secondness category
takes place at a different time and place in evolutions
proportional to Firstness, because the evolution in the
Firstness category triggers the evolution in the Secondness
category. The dyad is created between Firstness and
Secondness, and because of this relation Icon, Index and
Symbol all contain elements from the Firstness trichotomy.
As an example of a dyad relation imagine taking a step, the
resistance which occurs when taking the step. It may be
caused by air resistance, gravity, inertia, etc. and, as a
movement the step is forced forward by a body. The
constraints on humans caused by nature are dyadic. In this
way, I see the laws of nature as Legisigns.
The third part (the interpretant) of figure 1 is the
Thirdness trichotomy. These signs are pure triads, i.e.
genuine signs. These signs all express lawfulness. Peirce
has primarily worked with this trichotomy when developing
his logic. That is why the relation between the Rheme, the
Dicent sign and the Argument is the same in an inference.
Here, the Rheme is the predicate, the Dicent sign the
premise and the Argument the conclusion. In this way, the
conclusion mediates between the predicate and the premise
and during this process a sign occurs. This is interesting
because the interpretant forms the equivalent or a more
developed sign in semiosis. Peirce stresses that we, as a
consequence of the logic within the interpretant, must
necessarily reason on the background of the same logic,
i.e., our ability to make judgements (logically) and to draw
conclusions based on a innate logic. But what kind of logic
is it? Is it a logic based on the same logic within the
natural sciences, or classical empirism or is it a symbolic
logic, a logic which occurs out of evolution? In my
interpretation, it is definitely the latter. The logic which
connects Firstness with Secondness expresses lawfulness, not
only conventions created by man but habit formation and
lawfulness created by the way we reason, and the world we
reason about.
[ASSA No. 10, p. 540]
There is, however, another way of looking at the sign
trichotomies in figure 1. So far, I have been interested in
the signs as signs trichotomies existing in themselves but
now, I will take a closer look at the trichotomies
developing within Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness across
the trichotomies.
Figure 2
If we take a closer look at the first trichotomy, all the
signs refer to Firstness. The basic sign is the Qualisign
and both the Icon and the Rheme are constructed on the basis
of the Qualisign. Peirce writes that: "Since a quality is
whatever it is positively in itself, a quality can only
denote an object by virtue of some common ingredient or
similarity." (CP 2.254)
The similarity means that a Qualisign when manifested
must be an Icon, and when a quality only exists as a pure
logical possibility, the Qualisign can only be interpreted
as a sign of being i.e. as a Rheme. The Rheme mediates
between the Qualisign and the Icon. It has to be the logical
possibility that determines whether we can identify the
resemblance in a picture. The movement from the Qualisign to
the Icon through the Rheme constitutes the lawfulness within
Firstness.
The second trichotomy consists of Secondness signs which
all denote signs of actual existence. They all act as
objects and therefore they all carry qualities from
Firstness. Within the Dicent sign is the Rheme, and in the
Sinsign there is one or many Qualisigns, and in the Index is
the Icon. As we saw, the Sinsign and the Dicent sign are
signs of actual existence. The index also has to denote
actual existence since it expresses a causal relation
between Firstness and Secondness which determines the actual
existence.
The third trichotomy consists of Thirdness signs denoting
lawfulness and conventionality. The Legisign expresses a
conventionalized sign but most important, it is also a sign
which denotes lawfulness in nature. The Symbol is also a
conventionalized sign and denotes lawfulness as a dyadic
relation between nature and man. This relation is not yet
interpreted as, in that case, it would have been triadic.
The connection between the Legisign and the Symbol is
created by the Argument. The Argument is the most
Thirdnesslike sign. So, within the Argument, we have the
Legisign consisting of Qualisign and Sinsign and we have the
Symbol consisting of Qualisign, Sinsign, Legisign, Icon and
Index. Within the Argument we also have the Rheme and the
Dicent sign. So the Argument is the most degenerate sign in
the sense that it the sign farthest away from Firstness, and
yet it is always in danger of becoming Firstness again. I
will return to this later.
If we look at figures 1 and 2 and combine them, we get
the following figure:
Figure 3
The figure shows how the signs relate to Firstness,
Secondness and Thirdness. Each leg in the triangle
corresponds to the parts in the sign relation:
Representamen, Object and Interpretant. The graph is thus
made with Firstness closest to the center, Secondness in the
middle and Thirdness farthest away from the center. (the
figure is adopted from Thellefsen, Brier, Thellefsen 2000).
It is important to understand that these types are ideal,
basic analytical classifications that we seldom see purely
represented in reality. Let us take a closer look at the ten
sign types Peirce creates on the basis of the nine types of
signs.
Peirce creates ten classes of signs from the above
trichotomies The ten classes are a consequence of classes
logically excluding each other. A Qualisign will always be a
Rhematic Iconical Sign, and a Symbol will always be a
Legisign, and an Argument will always be a Symbolic Legisign
etc. The way Peirce's ten basic classes of sign types are
organized in figure 4 illustrates that two classes, which
border on each other with a thin line, share similarities in
two ways. For example, Indexical Sinsign (3, 4) or (1, 5)
are both Iconic and Rhematic. But, where the thick black
line divides the classes between 2 and 6, 6 and 9, 3 and 7,
this is not the case. Neither can classes share similarities
if they do not share borders. The classes have been given
the shortest possible names that distinguish them from each
other. The names of the classes are in bold letters.
In this way, Peirce manages to conceptualize ten basic
different categories of sign types.
Figure 4: Peirce's ten basic classes of sign types (CP:
2.264)
[ASSA No. 10, p. 541]
In the following discussion, I will take a closer look at
the three sign trichotomies and then discuss the ten sign
types.
As mentioned, I am dividing signs into natural signs
(Firstness), human signs (Secondness) and culture signs
(Thirdness). However, it is important to stress that the
division does not mean that the Firstness trichotomy does
not exist in the intellectual signs, i.e., the culture
signs. Firstness does indeed exist in intellectual signs but
as a displacement. As we have seen, we get ten types of
signs from the nine ideal signs. The first of the ten signs
is the Qualisign. But in order to exist in relation to
something, the Qualisign must be embodied in an Icon and it
can only be understood as a Rheme. This means that the
Qualisign, which I regard as a natural sign when it only
exists in itself as a monad, has been displaced. How else
could it become a Rheme?. The same applies for the Sinsign
and the Legisign. The Firstness trichotomy exists on both
sides of human perception. The Qualisign as we saw exists as
a pre-perceptive, positive possibility but post-perceptively
it exists as a Rheme. The pre- perceptive Sinsign exists
only as a possibility that in fact exists but is
non-comprehensive but post- perceptive the Sinsign becomes a
Dicent sign. The pre-perceptive Legisign exists as a natural
sign on which the natural laws build, but post-perceptively
it exists as a lawfulness which determines our perception.
It becomes an Argument.
In figure 5, we see each trichotomy and we see how they
correspond to nature, man and culture.
Figure 5
The figure shows that the Firstness trichotomy, i.e the
trichotomy of nature, in human perception is being
displaced. When we act in the world, what we perceive is in
fact not the actual world but the world as a sign
displacement. The world exists in our head as a symbolic
representation determined by our culture.
Humans have evolved through the natural signs and
therefore the nature is a First. Man is part of nature thus
the human is also a First or what? In my interpretation,
humans cannot be a First, humans are Second. The intellect
with which man is equipped has symbolically displaced us
from the world. Man is a symbolic species (3). This is
important because when intellect appeared in the minds of
man during the course of evolution, we lost the ability to
exist within Firstness. So what we understand as the world
can only be a representation of the world. These
representations have formed our culture. So the culture can
only be a Third. But it is through the culture that we
understand the world. But how does that harmonize with
Peirce's ten sign types? See figure 4.
The signs are 1) Rhematic Iconic Qualisign 2) Rhematic
Iconic Sinsign 3) Rhematic Indexical Sinsign and 4) Dicent
Indexical Sinsign 5) Rhematic Iconic Legisigns 6) Rhematic
Indexical Legisigns 7) Dicent Indexical Legisigns 8)
Rhematic Symbol Legisigns 9) Argument Symbolic Legisign and
finally 10) Dicent Symbolic Legisign. It is interesting that
all these signs refer to the Thirdness trichotomy. They are
all rooted in our culture. It provides my interpretation
with a solid basis because all these signs are signs that
are displaced from Firstness. And furthermore it gives the
third trichotomy an important role in understanding Peirce's
semiotics. Let me stress the importance of the Argument as a
sign of culture by stating that the movement from the
Legisign to the Argument is a displacement of Thirdness and
that displacement is the representamen's (nature's) way to
the object (man) mediated through the interpretant (the
culture). Peirce stresses that Thirdness is a category of
habits and habits tend to become subconscious. So, the
evolutionary way of Thirdness is that semiosis through
Thirdness forms a habit. This habit gradually becomes more
and more subconscious, and Thirdness begins its regress to
Firstness. Not the monadic Firstness in nature but the
Firstness of Thirdness — the Rheme.
So the way we understand the world goes through the
category of Thirdness and forms our culture. But the culture
forms the way we act in the world, so we shape our culture
through our interactions in the world, and the culture
shapes our way of interacting in the world. This interaction
of Firstness and Thirdness creates and shapes our ability to
cognize, and the process of cognition creates the mental
space, which I call the perceptionsphere which arise as a
result of the sign displacements. The perceptionsphere
designates the room for human cognition (Thellefsen 2000).
So the basic epistemological thoughts of perception are in
fact the displacements of Firstness and Thirdness. And in
these displacements lies the evolutionary processes which
force the representamens towards the objects through the
interpretant. The "force of nature" of the sign is what
determines the evolution of both the natural signs, the
human signs and the cultural signs. This has come clear to
me after researching into the Peircian sign world.
Notes
1. This article is part of my Ph.D. thesis where I research
the consequences of the sign division in depth. With
particular interest in the peircian view on evolution.
2. See Terrence Deacon 1997.
Literature Cited
Brier, Søren (2000). "Biosemiotics as a Possible
Bridge Between Embodiment in Cognitive Semantics and the
Motivation Concept of Animal Cognition in Ethology". In
Cybernetics and Human Knowing. Vol. 7, no. 1.
Deacon, Terrence W (1997). "The Symbolic Species: The
co-evolution of Language and the Brain". New York:
Norton.
Peirce Charles S (1931-1966). "Collected Papers of Charles
Sanders Peirce", 8 vols., ed. by Charles Hartshorne, Paul
Weiss, and A. W. Burks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Thellefsen, Torkild (2001). "Signifikans-effekt og
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Thellefsen, Torkild (2001). "Perceptionssfæren _
rummet for betydningsdannelse". In Betydningsdannelse: tema
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Thellefsen, Torkild (2000). "Semiogenesis _ the origin and
evolution of the sign". In Impact. (in press).
Thellefsen, Torkild, Brier, Søren, Thellefsen,
Martin, (2001). "Problems concerning the process of subject
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