Virtual habit as episode-builder in the inferencing process
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Donna E. West
Donna E. West is Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the State University of New York at Cortland. For more than twenty-five years, she has been presenting and publishing internationally in semiotic studies using Peirce’s sign system, comparing it to semiotic properties in the works of Karl Bühler, Lev Vygotsky, and Jean Piaget. She is the first investigator to apply a developmental psycholinguistic perspective (supplying fresh data) to Peirce’s ten-fold division of signs; as such, her work offers empirical answers to phenomenological questions. Her 2013 book,
Deictic Imaginings: Semiosis at Work and at Play , published by Springer-Verlag, investigates the role of Index in the acquisition of demonstratives and personal pronouns. The impetus for the publication of her 2016 anthology,Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness , derives from her longstanding fascination with how Peirce’s concept of habit relies chiefly upon index’s influence in event processing.
Abstract
C. S. Peirce’s concept of virtual habit, especially articulated in his later manuscripts, renovates his earlier notion of how explanatory rationality operates to form sound inferences, reinforcing his commitment to a genuinely pragmaticistic worldview. Virtual habit represents Peirce’s clearest directive of how to guess right. Pictures in the mind (unbidden/constructed) promote new modes of consciousness that, in turn, impel the kind of inferences which surface in recommendations for courses of action – Peirce’s most influential kind of abduction (1909: MS 637). Virtual habits transcend subjective perspectives about which factors contribute to outcomes as well as incorporate which who, where, and when controls the ultimate consequence. Virtual habits serve as windows illustrating how imaged events preempt the adoption of new belief structures/action plans that afford the more plausible recourses to resolve anomalous consequences. Virtual habits propose imminent action plans (Stjernfelt 2016, Dicisigns and habits: Implicit propositions and habit-taking in Peirce's pragmatism. In D. West & M. Anderson (eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s concept of habit: Before and beyond consciousness, 241–264. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; Bergman 2016, Habit-change as ultimate interpretant. In D. West & M. Anderson (eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s concept of habit: Before and beyond consciousness, 171–197. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; West 2016c, Reflections on complexions of habit. In D. West & M. Anderson (eds.), Consensus of Peirce’s concept of habit: Before and beyond consciousness, 421–432. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag; under review, The abductive character of Peirce’s virtual habit. In J. Pelkey & S. Walsh-Matthews (eds.), Semiotics 2016.). As such, they determine new courses of conduct for states of affairs requiring remediation. Their character as imminent habit compels enactment of improved behavior packages to resolve real-world consequences. As such, the episodic and vivid nature of virtual habits (as closely-held event sequences) impel implementation of the image-plan itself.
About the author
Donna E. West is Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the State University of New York at Cortland. For more than twenty-five years, she has been presenting and publishing internationally in semiotic studies using Peirce’s sign system, comparing it to semiotic properties in the works of Karl Bühler, Lev Vygotsky, and Jean Piaget. She is the first investigator to apply a developmental psycholinguistic perspective (supplying fresh data) to Peirce’s ten-fold division of signs; as such, her work offers empirical answers to phenomenological questions. Her 2013 book, Deictic Imaginings: Semiosis at Work and at Play, published by Springer-Verlag, investigates the role of Index in the acquisition of demonstratives and personal pronouns. The impetus for the publication of her 2016 anthology, Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness, derives from her longstanding fascination with how Peirce’s concept of habit relies chiefly upon index’s influence in event processing.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Vico, Peirce, and the issue of complexity in human sciences
- Biology, learning, and evolution of vocality: Biosemiotics of birdsong
- Patrick Colm Hogan: Beauty and Sublimity: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Literature and the Arts
- Reply
- Virtual habit as episode-builder in the inferencing process
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Vico, Peirce, and the issue of complexity in human sciences
- Biology, learning, and evolution of vocality: Biosemiotics of birdsong
- Patrick Colm Hogan: Beauty and Sublimity: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Literature and the Arts
- Reply
- Virtual habit as episode-builder in the inferencing process
