Semiotics as an interdisciplinary methodology
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Priscila Borges
Priscila Borges (b. 1980) is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication at University of Brasília, Brazil. Her research interests include Peirce’s philosophy, semiotics, and visual language. Her publications include “A visual model of Peirce’s 66 classes of signs unravels his late proposal of enlarging semiotic theory” (2010), “Peirce’s system of 66 classes of signs” (2014), “Experience and cognition in Peirce’s semiotics” (2014), and“A system of 21 classes of signs as an instrument of inquiry”(2015).
A person browsing through the fields of research in science and social sciences will most likely find no mention of semiotics at all. On the other hand, Peircean semioticians will probably see semiotics everywhere. How is it possible that something like semiotics can be seen so differently? If we regard it as an interdisciplinary methodology, we may understand why, at first glance, it is not evident that semiotics is a field of research in itself, and why, when looking deeply, it is actually everywhere.
The interdisciplinarity of Peirce’s semiotics begins with his experiences with the different fields of science. He was a “mathematician, astronomer, chemist, geodesist, surveyor, cartographer, metrologist, spectroscopist, engineer, inventor; psychologist, philologist, lexicographer, historian of science, mathematical economist, lifelong student of medicine; book reviewer, dramatist, actor, short story writer; phenomenologist, semiotician, logician, rhetorician, and metaphysician” (Fisch, 2016). In the introduction to the first volume of Peirce’s Writings, Max Fisch says that Peirce “would prefer employment that gave him scope for diversity of researches over a period of years” (1982: W1: xxiii). This diversity of experiences would give him the basis to develop his logic further, including the logic of mathematics, science, and signs. The great range of scientific experiences Peirce had and his interest for so many fields probably influenced him to propose a general theory that could function as an inquiry method for the most diverse fields of science. This general theory is what he called semiotics. It is not a particular method for a specific science, but a general one, “the science of the necessary laws of thought” (Peirce c.1896: CP 1.444).
Epistemological questions motivated Peirce’s thought: What are we able to understand? What can we not understand? What are the limits of our knowledge? If we can understand something, how can we do that? The sense that the world contains an almost infinite number of things and that our knowledge grabs only small portions of it raises the question about how we can learn or know something. Semiotics is a discipline that may help us understand this process since it describes ways in which we can transform a huge and complex universe such as perceived by our senses into information and organized knowledge.
Working on a theory about sign mediation and production of meaning, Peirce built a method of investigation that aims to reveal truth, which is understood as “that belief to which sufficient inquiry would inevitably lead” (Peirce, c. 1907: Prag [R]. MS [R] 322). However, truth is never achieved by an individual mind, since “there is a residuum of error in every individual’s opinions” (Peirce, 1871: CP 8.12). In addition to sufficient inquiry, it is necessary that an agreement between a sufficiently large number of inquirers be formed. Consequently, the semiotic method does not yield a final truth, but gives the inquirer a path to get closer to it.
Peirce’s classes of signs may be seen as the path that guides inquiry. They do not concern particular signs, but a general process of sign mediation that grants us the power of thinking. In the text ‘Questions concerning certain faculties claimed for man’, Peirce asks,“whether we can think without signs” (Peirce, 1868: EP 1:23). He explains that we can only know thought by external facts and by observing external facts we can only find cases of thought in signs. It is evident, then, that for Peirce the study of signs is crucial for every inquirer in any field. All scientific research, no matter the field of expertise, must have a method to ensure the growth of thought.
But how do the classes of signs show the growth of thought? By showing the enchainment of signs. According to Peirce (1868: EP 1:24), no thought is found in an instant, it requires time. That means that “thought must be interpreted in another” as signs must determine other signs. The classes of signs show a logical sequence that guides the enchainment of signs in order to achieve truth, the goal of semiotics. Following this logical sequence is a way to guarantee that our thought is moving along the right path.
Being on the right path, however, does not guarantee the truth of a proposition in thought. For this, the knowledge of specific fields of research is necessary. By combining a general method to a specific one, an interdisciplinary methodology arises. The generality of Peirce’s semiotics is favorable to interdisciplinarity. While semiotics provides general principles to the more specific discipline, its applications in specific fields nourish the general theory with experience.
About the author
Priscila Borges (b. 1980) is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication at University of Brasília, Brazil. Her research interests include Peirce’s philosophy, semiotics, and visual language. Her publications include “A visual model of Peirce’s 66 classes of signs unravels his late proposal of enlarging semiotic theory” (2010), “Peirce’s system of 66 classes of signs” (2014), “Experience and cognition in Peirce’s semiotics” (2014), and“A system of 21 classes of signs as an instrument of inquiry”(2015).
© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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- Frontmatter
- Introduction to the Festschrift
- A semiotic way of being sixty
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- Introduction: semiotics is interdisciplinary: but how can you ensure interdisciplinarity is practiced?
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- The treasures of world semiotics
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- To what extent can it be argued that semiotics is an interdisciplinary methodology?
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- The interdisciplinary languages of semiotics
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
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- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- On the interdisciplinarity of semiotics
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- Semioticians reflecting on the interdisciplinary character of semiotics
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- Why life presupposes semiosis
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- How to encode and infer linguistic actions
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- The Bakhtinian revolution and the i-other relation
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- Communication-production and the right to non-functionality
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- Metaphors, semiotics, and future studies
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- The artist’s self-reflection: A pluralistic interpretation of the artist-characters in Eugene O’Neill’s plays
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to the Festschrift
- A semiotic way of being sixty
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- Introduction: semiotics is interdisciplinary: but how can you ensure interdisciplinarity is practiced?
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- The treasures of world semiotics
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- To what extent can it be argued that semiotics is an interdisciplinary methodology?
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- Westerners taste, arabs get drunk
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- The interdisciplinary languages of semiotics
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- Semiotics as an interdisciplinary methodology
- Essays by Officers of the IASS
- On the interdisciplinarity of semiotics
- Contributions
- Semioticians reflecting on the interdisciplinary character of semiotics
- Contributions
- Why life presupposes semiosis
- Contributions
- How to encode and infer linguistic actions
- Contributions
- The Bakhtinian revolution and the i-other relation
- Contributions
- Communication-production and the right to non-functionality
- Contributions
- Metaphors, semiotics, and future studies
- Contributions
- The artist’s self-reflection: A pluralistic interpretation of the artist-characters in Eugene O’Neill’s plays
- Contributions
- On anti-identity construction and anti-modeling
