Narrative modeling and cultural literacy in the storyworld: a quest for meaning

1 Introduction: story as a model for thought

What is the function of a story in life? Why do we make stories and tell them for ourselves and for others? From a pragmatic point of view, a story can be understood as a methodology of speculative rhetoric for communication, specifically for interpersonal communication. In this sense, a story as an art form provides for us to build a castle for an inner world. But the inner world reflects who we are in the way in which we treat it whether selfishly or interactively. Those who show self-interest look for something gravitating to their own selfish desire on the surface through building a castle for themselves in which they are confined. As a result, the inner world as phantasy is meaningless, not being connected to the real world because they merely dream of a castle in the air. In contrast, those who build a castle by way of interaction through narrative imagination connect the inner world of a story with the real world based on cognitive process of inquiry on the meaning of the story. Eventually they build a castle on the ground by modeling the castle in the air. In this way, phantasy as a possible world influences the actual world.

How does a story work when the reader becomes interactive with the story? Further, what is the story like? And what kind of nature does the story have? Why do we design a story as a form to communicate with others and ourselves? There are many narrative researchers who show a close connection between a story and life in terms of psychological and mental effect on human mind and action. Among them, Jerome Bruner remarks that there are two essential and distinctive ways of making good stories. “One is the landscape of action, where the constituents are the arguments of action: agent, intention or goal, situation, instrument, something corresponding to a ‘story grammar’. The other is the landscape of consciousness: what those involved in the action know, think, or feel, or do not know, think, or feel”; both are constructed simultaneously (Bruner 1986: 14).

Bruner’s remarks on two simultaneous landscapes of action and consciousness are in parallelism with Peirce’s idea of habit-change and habit-taking through degenerate forms of symbolic action, namely indexical and iconic. For Peirce, a habit is a Third as the ultimate logical interpretant which operates in conduct of life as “pragmatic interpretant” which is “a condition for meaningfulness” (Alston 1956: 87), so culture as a symbolic system for convention works habitually in feeling, action, and thought. However, habit-change is derived from imagination which is incorporated with logical process (Andacht 2016: 662). In this regard, the value of the degenerate forms of a symbol, that is, abstract symbol and singular symbol in iconic and indexical forms, respectively, serves to cause habit-change by way of narrative imagination and habit-taking by way of narrative modeling. In relation to this, Peirce implies the importance of scientific imagination in which analogical reasoning is emphasized in a form of diagram. For this reason, Peirce argues for castle building in the air with elaboration and then on the ground, copying it strenuously as a model for thought. The following quote shows Peirce’s ideas of habit-taking and habit-change in correlation (cited from Andacht 2016: 662):

People who build castles in the air do not, for the most part, accomplish much, it is true; but every man who does accomplish great things is given to building elaborate castles in the air and then painfully copying them on solid ground. Indeed, the whole business of ratiocination, and all that makes us intellectual beings, is performed in imagination. Vigorous men are wont to hold mere imagination in contempt; and in that they would be quite right if there were such a thing. (…) Mere imagination would indeed be mere trifling; only no imagination is mere. “More than all that is in thy custody, watch over thy phantasy,” said Solomon, “For out of it are the issues of life.” (CP 6. 286, c. 1893—emphasis in the original).

This paper aims to reveal a story as qualia in narrative modeling through a model for thought or object of thought from Peirce’s semiotic perspective on the concept of a model as representamen and semiotic process. Especially, pragmatic inquiry on object of thought through analogical reasoning as cognitive process in the form of parable is geared to generating the meaning of a story, resulting in sharing the meaning and value of the story with others. In this sense, the form of a story carries a teleological aspect of meaning for narrative modeling to attain pragmatic meaning in life.

Turrisi said, “Peirce does not use the contemporary term, model. But his notion of a ‘representamen’ and his study of diagrammatic thought display the concept of modeling in the contemporary sense” (Turrisi 1997: 53). She goes on to say, “In its most perfect form, a model expresses both the fixed elements in its source and the relations and development of these elements” (Turrisi 1997: 53). So a model, like a story, “embodies both what is observable at some fixed moment by its modeler (creator) and what may be observed even if the modeler has neglected to do so”. From this statement on Peirce’s concept of model which has two aspects of the known and the knowable, the process of thought is revealed by virtue of narrative modeling as an embodiment of a story. Thus, a story is a narrative model for thought and narrative modeling is a process of categorical analysis of elements of thought. I thus consider the process of narrative modeling in the primary, the secondary, and the tertiary based on Peirce’s categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness (See Lee 2023). In other words, the narrative modeling in three categories is connected by way of degenerate forms of Thirdness, which are indexical and iconic. In this regard, narrative modeling for elements of thought as cognitive process is displayed in the three layers of narrative: a “story” as quality of feeling of empathy, “narrative” in context for sympathy, and “narration” for recounting for sharing a feeling of an idea as a person with others.

Based on this background of the term model and the cognitive process of modeling from Peirce’s semiotic perspective, the term model for thought as an abstract mental image is not static, since a thought is a form of event and thus embodied in the act of modeling (See Yu 2021). From this perspective, narrative modeling in which a story as qualia is embodied in action by storytelling agent reveals how the meaning of a story is developed into a feeling of an idea through analogical reasoning based on structural similarity between a possible world and an actual world. Thus, a story as narrative model plays a crucial role in nudging a modeler into narrative modeling while the modeler is being modeled by narrative.

In this paper I will explore the esthetic value of a story as qualia by way of narrative experience in narrative modeling involving making and telling stories for cultural literacy from the Peircean semiotic perspective. Thus, based on the hypothesis that a story is qualia (qualisign) and a prefiguration of the world, I will look into how it develops into meaning-making activity through storytelling by a semiotic agent. As a result, a story becomes a cultural form for moral creativity through which one can recognize an impossible possibility, resulting in being connected with other mind. In this way we can observe that the esthetic value of a story as possibility develops into an existential value in the actual world.

In the following sections, I will start with a theological parable on God’s Kingdom, which is an object of thought told by Jesus, functioning as speculative rhetoric for a methodology to discover a pragmatic meaning of the story. Applying this parable on God’s Kingdom to a story as a model for thought by which the world is prefigured, I will discuss categorial analysis of narrative modeling focusing on three elements: first, a story itself as qualia in which the poetic self of quale-consciousness and object of thought, that is, meaning as esthetic value, is embedded; second, a storytelling agent who is capable of re-cognition of an esthetic value of a story and thus of transmission by way of habit-taking in feeling, attention, and thought; third, a storyworld as a possible world for a cultural form to which we conform, allowing us to create a new value by virtue of “seeing as-if” through an empathetic feeling and “being as-if” through inward and intellectual sympathy in the course of narrative imagination and modeling, thus resulting in moral creativity which is understood as creative power or expression for the impossible possibility.

2 Parable and analogical reasoning: story, meaning, and value

I illustrate how a story as a model for thought can be enacted in narrative modeling for the process of thought through categoricl analysis. In other words, I observe and analyze a parable through analogical reasoning as to how a story is diagrammatized so as to reveal the structure of relations in generalizing feelings, using the form of theological parable as an example.

Let us look at a parable on God’s Kingdom taught by Jesus in the New Testament:

God’s Kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic— what a find! — and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field. Or, God’s Kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it. Or, God’s Kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish. When it is full, it is hauled onto the beach. The good fish are picked out and put in a tub; those unfit to eat are thrown away. (Matthew 13: 44–48, cited in Peterson 2003: 1756–1757, italics added)

As a meta-commentary, Jesus told his disciples that if they are trained well in God’s Kingdom, they will be like “the owner of a general store who can put his hand on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it” (Matthew 13: 52, cited in Peterson 2003: 1757).

A story told by Jesus functions as a teaching tool for people to make them understand an abstract idea. The story is a form of parable, parabole in Greek, a thing thrown beside another for comparison, to be understood as a narrative allegory, which is an extension of a metaphor. Therefore, in order to interpret this parable, we can consider various aspects of the story, such as meaning, value, motivation, desire, purpose, and cultural context. This means that we are already able to compare one thing with another or one relation with the other cognitively based on various aspects. We will consider value and meaning of a story which are associated with interpretant theoretically and pragmatically in terms of habit-change and habit-taking in feeling and thought.

Value is a slippery term, and so is meaning, but when we consider meaning in terms of “relations between relations”, layers of meaning can be revealed in semiotic process by the act of semiotic agent. The idea on relations between relations by Kockelman (2020) is applied to the parable told by Jesus to illustrate my argument on story as qualia for analogical reasoning based on Peirce’s categories of esthetic experience. So, the parable consisting in three stories enables us to see relations between relations. That is, the relation between treasure (the thing found) and the finder reveals relations between the finders, namely, trespasser, hunter, and fisherman (assumed in the story) in context.

Meaning in a triadic relation of sign-object-interpretant as semiotic process is incorporated with semiotic agent as in making and telling stories. In this regard, the value of the story “lies at the intersection of meaning and motivation” and “stands at the interface of significance and selection” (Kockelman 2020: 3). Put differently, meaning as givenness for treasure in semiotic process is discovered by a semiotic agent with motivation and desire through a purpose-driven action based on an esthetic value. A meaning of a story is like a hidden treasure inherent in an esthetic value for somebody who can find it by sense-making which encompasses sense-meaning. With a desire to learn, perceiving a quality in a story is a condition for production of a pragmatic meaning of the story as significance in life.

Thus, we will look at three layers of meaning in story, narrative, and narration, focusing on an esthetic value of a story with narrative imagination, a storytelling agent who constructs narrative configuration by way of narrative modeling, and storyworld as a possible world through refiguration towards a pragmatic meaning of the story to share with others. Accordingly, each of the three stages will be described in sequence within dialogic semiosis through the framework of categorial analysis of narrative modeling as cognitive process.

3 Story as qualia for hidden treasure in a field

A story is a representation of the world through series of imagined events not only representing the world but also re-presenting it (Cobley 2014: 199). A story is orally spoken or set down in writing. In view of meaning, a story concerns not knowledge-truth but meaning-truth, which means that it contains an abstract idea that is narrated in a mythic way of thinking. Therefore, a story is qualisign, that is, the signified object can be perceived and interpreted by someone who has a sense of recognizing by way of quale-consciousness (CP 6. 222–237).

Quale-consciousness is understood as a quality of feeling. The sense-meaning of a story is associated with the semiotic agent’s motivation and desire to perceive. For Peirce, motives are understood in two ways: first, motives are classified “in reference to the degree to which an impulse of dependence enters into them”, ranging from express obedience to the pursuit of pleasure in which “the element of otherness is reduced to a minimum” (Peirce 1940: 307); second, motives are classified “according to the degree in which immediate qualities of feeling appear in them”, ranging from unrestrained desire to direct obedience in which “the elements of self-feeling are reduced to a minimum” (Peirce 1940: 307). But more importantly, Peirce noted that a variety of human motives from inside ranged over the whole field of ethics. Then Peirce remarks that “The only ethically sound motive is the most general one” (Peirce 1940: 308), adding that the motive which actually inspires the man of science is very much nearer to that motive. In this way, for Peirce, an ethical motive appears in a desire to strive for scientific knowledge which entails the external world that we directly observe. In this line of thought, Peirce remarks that sense-impression is not in our logical data because of its exclusiveness to the external world (Peirce 1940: 308). He goes on to say that percepts are our logically initial data, which are purely psychical with the nature of thought in “their qualities of feeling, their reaction against my will and their generalizing and associating element” (Peirce 1940: 308).

Perceiving a story is not solely subjective or objective; it is out in the open for inference in semiotic process. The self as a storytelling agent perceives a story through “as-if”, feeling into qualities of object in a story, which is described as empathetic feeling. Put differently, interpretation of a story tends to be subjective in view of sensation and emotion which are related to instinct from which reason develops through problem-solving in environment (de Waal 2013: 54). Then how can we ensure that interpretation of a story is objective in search for meaning of object? This issue brings out a matter of truth and reality regarding a meaning of a story. In this respect, the interpretative process of a story is concerned with epistemological and moral aspects (Bruner 1990: 51).

Analogous to the parable where the hidden treasure in a field is found by a trespasser, a meaning of a story is found by the hearer/reader. Like the finder with ecstatic feeling, putting his action into practice by selling all his property to buy the field, the hearer/reader with joy proceeds to enter a storyworld to attain the hidden meaning of a story. A first story of the things found is explained by comparison with the second story of the finder, the jewel merchant. The first story manifests qualities such as immediacy, contingency, observation present, pleasure, individual, and unknown object, while the second story, focusing on the finder and his attitude or status, reveals the reaction of the finder, striving for an excellent pearl for transaction. Unlike the finder in the first story, who shows human passivity with empathy, the finder in the second story shows human agency, implying the transactional self with inclusivity of otherness and transmission by virtue of intellectual sympathy, “a sense that here is a feeling that one can comprehend, a reasonable feeling” (EP 2: 190).

What is the meaning of the two stories in comparison? That is to say, what are relations between relations? The two stories in a similar form with different content which were told by Jesus can be understood as analogy of sign. That is, the two stories involve the relation between the signified object and the interpreting subject of living experience by exchange of value in analogous relations. In this regard, we are dealing with esthetics, the science of value, following Peirce (Kevelson 1994: 225), which belongs to the first category of Peirce’s phenomenology, being characterized by possibility (EP 2: 199–201, 260). Accordingly, inquiry on what a story is presupposes esthetic experience of a story as qualia by means of semiotic process of abductive reasoning.

As mentioned above, a semiotic agent as interpreter mediates sign with object. The agent can function as subject on experiencing a sign in action, being responsive to the signified object in the sign, and also the agent is endowed with significate effect as the end result of sign action. Thus, the meaning of a story is given subjectively by way of impression on the semiotic agent and yet the sense data are explained by abductive reasoning. For example, a sense of beauty or sense-impression is an initial feeling, encountering object, that is, things of beauty. Therefore, the external element in sense-impression is the subject of inquiry in narrative semiosis or narrative modeling.

Following Peirce on consciousness in categories, primisense, which is consciousness in its first state (CP 7. 551), as possibility generates a feeling of joy when things of beauty which have inherent value are found. What is found with a new value brings joy. As Kevelson noted, “What is unique is his [Peirce] grasp of how value-bearing signs are discovered, come into existence, and retain those aspects of indeterminacy and freedom of which they are partially structured” (Kevelson 1994: 225, italics added). This is a focal point in that we need to see a story as qualisign in connection with other signs, thus being embodied in sinsign which, in turn, encompasses legisign as a symbolic form.

For this reason, qualisign has a twofold aspect in possibility and individuality, resulting in generality of the indeterminacy. For example, the stories on God’s Kingdom above have a two-fold aspect: one is a story of subject as individuality, that is, trespasser, jewel merchant, fisherman (fishing net), and the other is a story of object as the actual and the possible, that is, God’s Kingdom, which is implied in the process of finding with value and joy in the present. Thus, it is a relation between dynamic object and deliberate subject; subject is narrating while object is narrated. Or subject perceives object for narration and also receives a new meaning through narration. In this way a meaning of a story as treasure hidden for years is discovered by means of a semiotic agent with a new meaning, re-presenting the world with a new value. This process of narrative modeling at a stage in a story will provide a condition for habit-change.

4 Storytelling agent and narrative experience for habit-taking

In the second story, on the finder of a pearl, we assume that the jewel merchant was already familiar with pearls and so he strives to find an excellent one based on his previous knowledge and experience, unlike the trespasser who accidentally found the treasure in a field. The merchant is a hunter who is determined to obtain a targeted concrete object. Likewise, a storyteller is semiotic human agency for retelling and transmitting knowledge in a form of story with a certain purpose in cultural contexts. A meaning of a story can be found from serendipity which is accompanied with external elements, or it can be attained by a deliberate effort of striving through semiotic process. In both cases the esthetic value of a story is inherent in meaning and motivation which direct one’s desire to discover, which is the most general motive inspiring scientific spirit. In CP 6. 428 Peirce defined the science as scientific spirit, which is a living and growing body of truth, not as systematized knowledge. Peirce’s idea of science accords with Dewey’s, saying that “… science itself is a value (since it is the expression and the fulfilment of a special human desire and interest) but it is the supreme means of the valid determination of all valuations in all respects of human and social life” (Dewey 2008: 250, emphasis in the original).

How do we then discern a good story from a bad one? I believe that a good story should bring you a feeling of joy, an esthetic feeling, which is playing a role of a signpost to proceed. According to Peirce, every emotion has a subject, so when one is in a state of joy, the person says “this is delicious”, and a feeling of joy arises “in the case of certain indescribable and peculiarly complex sensations” (EP 1: 43). The quality of feeling does not come from individual and internal elements, but is derived from the external source, leading into knowing activity. In this regard, a meaning of a story involves truth and reality to be discovered by abductive reasoning. As a result, an esthetic value of a story to be meaningful with a form of verisimilitude affects life.

There is a variety of narrative practices for human knowing activity. Among them are making and telling stories. Making stories concerns the external element with social impulse for sense-making, whereas telling stories concerns mediation between a tellee and a story for meaning-making, resulting in transmission of knowledge and wisdom. As a whole, these narrational activities are geared to meaning-making for cultural practices for growth.

Rosenblatt noted that teachers of literature often think that literature and science are separate, and even that they are opposite (Rosenblatt 1995: 127); however, they both should be related to life with different functions. Literature and art concern a possible world with narrative imagination in order to understand other mind, so that literature focuses on formal and final cause rather than material and efficient cause, which are relevant to science, producing practical results. In this sense, storytelling is considered to be esthetic behavior which has non-use value, tending toward quality and purpose. But paradoxically, the behavior turns out to produce practical results in life by way of habit-taking in feeling, attention, and thought, thus leading to cultural change. Rosenblatt remarks that literature builds emotional habits while it deals with social and spiritual concepts which are associated with a moral norm (Rosenblatt 1995: 139–140). Apparently, a story emphasizes a process in the series of events in which the reader participates as semiotic agency for storytelling, which then becomes a purpose in itself. The storytelling as re-telling for knowing activity is regarded as making new meaning and new value, which is enabled by taking a new habit of feeling (Cannizzaro and Anderson 2016: 495).

To illustrate the process of esthetic experience having practical value, another version of a treasure story, from Aesop’s fables, shows the point well: a farmer told about a hidden treasure on his farm to his sons before he died, and the sons were digging and plowing the farm to find the treasure, but they could not find it. However, later they realized the process of digging and plowing itself was treasure after all because the process produces end-results of harvesting on the farm.

With regard to scientific attitude or spirit in the reader, literature embeds social concepts in creative artwork as cultural artifacts. “Comprehension of the author’s theme must be based on the general or typical emotions or situations that are present in the work he is creating” (Rosenblatt 1995: 130). For Peirce, a “scientific” intelligence is characterized by the capacity of learning by experience (CP 2. 227). What do we learn and how do we learn from a story and literature of a possible world? The relation of art and science is analogous with that of religion and science in view of distinction of generality and individuality. To some degree, art and religion are of general character from coenoscopic observation, while science as physical science deals with an individual part of matter through idioscopic observation (CP 1. 241–242). For this reason, the difference between art/religion and science lies in the different methods of observation, coenoscopic and idioscopic, but art itself as sign of possibility is seen as diagrammatic image by iconoscopic observation, so it can be understood by way of metaphor or allegory which requires analogical reasoning through esthetic experience.

The role of storytelling agent is, in fact, re-telling stories by means of interpretation based on esthetic experience. The agent is a mediator between a story and the receiver by meaning-making through transvaluation or, in Peirce’s sense, synchronic translation of the story for transmission (Liszka 1989: 117). Like the reader of a parable from etymology by which two stories are placed in a synchronic relationship for collateral observation, the reader of the stories also makes his/her own story through narrative experience of inward sympathy with characters to develop a reasonable feeling to comprehend an idea for revaluation. In this way the story is continued through generations, revealing that we are living by a story for knowing the world. Especially in a story with two aspects, the synchronic in the present and the diachronic from the past, the former enables a storytelling agent to revalue while the latter allows the storytelling agent to transmit.

5 Storyworld and moral creativity as meaning-making

We have looked at a story as qualia and a storytelling agent who has a capacity of transmitting the story. Continuation of narrative is operative with a model (qualisign), semiosis (narrative process of subject-object), and modeling (re-presenting the world). The essence of narrative modeling lies in the role of a fishing net with which the storytelling agent as a fisherman strives to catch good stories in the series of imagined events in a storyworld. The good stories with an esthetic value nudge the storytelling agent to proceed with experience of qualities of story in cultural context and thus to interpret or transvaluate by means of refiguration. Accordingly, the narrated story will attain a new value, being attributed to habit-change and habit-taking in that, for Peirce, values are habits (Raposa 1989: 110).

There are some connections between practical life and the source of religious belief with reference to “living belief” which depends upon instinct, common sense, and sentiment (Hookway 2002: 224; see also Raposa 1989: 98). Particularly, instinctive belief has an adaptive function for survival in environment and with fellow human beings. The belief as a Third “involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, or, say, for short, a habit” (EP 1: 129).

Altruistic logical sentiments of faith along with hope and charity form an instinctive basis for human knowledge (Hookway 2002: 224), focusing on living experience depending on heart rather than brain. In this context, the scientific community is modeled by the Christian Church for discovery of God’s truth (Raposa 1989: 99). Peirce’s belief-doubt theory for inquiry on knowing activity develops into practical and vitally important topics of practical wisdom, dealing with belief from a religious context, which is operative in conjunction with two other sentiments of charity (interest in other) and hope (continuity). Peirce stated that logical sentiment was analogous with the trio of sentiments, charity, love, and hope, in the Christian Church (EP 1: 150). From this context, instinctive belief as a prepared action for humanity in its biological environment is related to religious belief, worshiping God, that is admirable in itself with a self-effacing act. This religious belief is important to humans with a capacity for inclusion of others, being modeled by ideals and a final cause, enabling moral creativity based on freedom. For Peirce, esthetics is a normative science for value, which is connected with axiology (de Waal 2013: 53), belonging to Firstness.

The jewel merchant’s act of exchanging all his property for the excellent pearl derives from his instinctive belief in recognizing the value of the pearl. The merchant as an individual who experiences esthetic value becomes a part of a possible world with the capacity of creation and freedom, being attentive to an ideal, for knowing activity of the fine pearl. Analogous to this parable, the storyteller as a transmitter of knowledge participates in a storyworld to understand morality based on moral tension. Storyworld as a possible world provides us with freedom and openness to new creation for a moral norm by abductive inference, resulting in knowing of the other mind.

Storyworld where we are participating as storymaker or storyteller with vitally important topics in life directs us to moral creativity based on the poetic self which is represented by moral tragedy from symbolism of evil (Wall 2005: 30–34). According to John Wall, “moral creativity faces the ultimate fact that selves are other both to themselves and to one another” (Wall 2005: 11). This echoes Peirce’s theory of the self. For Peirce, there is no myself as an isolated individual concept; “I am altogether myself, and not at all you” is described as the metaphysics of wickedness and “the selfhood you like to attribute to yourself is … the vulgarest delusion of vanity” (CP 7. 571). The notion of moral creativity in storyworld is based on “impossible possibility”, which is resonant with the human condition of being finite in existence and at the same time a creature in God’s image as quality, in its capacity for creation with a new meaning of a story. The story is not closed but open for the receivers to continue on to their own life stories and beyond by narration of quality.

Quality of feeling belongs to a possible world in the poetic self, while feeling of quality belongs to an actual world in the existential self. The relationship of storyworld as possibility and the real world as actuality is regarded as comprising relations between relations in analogy of sign. That is, art and life are characterized by an analogous relation, which allows us to understand coinfluence between art and life by inference, and more importantly to recognize the relation of self and other as selves in cultural community to be connected because “no man is an island”, as English poet John Donne (1572–1631) rightly describes. Just as instinctive belief develops to reason by reasoning or a feeling of quality develops to feeling of an idea in a storyworld, a storyworld and the actual mind are in mutual relation to develop together through moral creativity with a gentle force of love.

6 Concluding remarks: trained in a storyworld for cultural literacy

A storyworld is a model for reality prefigured. The essence of a story is quality or ideas which are narrated in a storyworld through a series of imagined events. This is seemingly somewhat irrelevant to the actual world in terms of practical use value. However, when it comes to vitally important topics such as practical life ranging from living belief through living experience to living mind, which are described as being creative, spontaneous, fortuitous, and free, a storyworld as possibility is considered to be a model for knowing activity in epistemological and moral reasoning. According to Peirce, while instinctive belief directs desires and actions, habits of feeling, action, and thought come to form a practical belief and a theoretical belief; the latter guides hypothesis adoption and the former guides action (Atkins 2016: 9 n. 2). In so doing, being scaffolded by instinctive belief, a storyworld with practical and theoretical belief leads us to semiotic engagement with abductive and metaphoric reasoning in search for meaning of a story.

Like a cultural norm, a moral norm is attained by habit-taking activity, being trained in a storyworld which is presupposed in analogical reasoning, leading to making a new meaning of a story in context. In this regard, culture is characterized by meaning-making for cultural literacy to connect people with one another based on conservative sentiments (Atkins 2016; Hookway 2002; Liszka 2021; Peirce 1992; Sheriff 1994). Peirce’s conservative sentimentalism is a vital concept in human life, dealing with the subject-matter of outward “clash”. Especially, culture as dialectic is embedded with a clash between opposite values, desires, and motivations, which cannot be solved by a scientific method. Therefore, cultural transformation requires a different method, appealing to the heart, that is, sentiment. Accordingly, sensitivity to other minds and things by way of semiotic mediation of narrative modeling will enhance sentiment for cultural development from which an individual will develop. These social sentiments have functions adaptive to cultural development for human knowledge in that the sentiments play a role in the process of inquiry into object using logical methods with inclusiveness of altruism. As Peirce remarks, the sentiments are: “interest in an indefinite community, recognition of the possibility of this interest being made supreme, and hope in the unlimited continuance of intellectual activity, as indispensable requirements of logic” (Peirce 1940: 163). For Peirce, logic is rooted in social principle and the social sentiments are presupposed in reasoning (Peirce 1940: 162–163) insofar as all human affairs are characterized as probability. Among the three, Peirce places emphasis on interest in the whole community, such as the social impulse which inspires the scientific man, directing one’s desire to learn. Both belief in the possibility of the supremacy of the indefinite community and hope in the unlimited continuance of intellectual activity are supportive to that interest in the indefinite community.

We are connected in cultural community as cultural selves, the past idea with the present idea, and individual being with social being. It is through a storyworld that we can learn this fact by analogical reasoning and, thus being trained in a storyworld, we can possess the meaning-truth and reality for esthetic value. Cultural literacy with the capability of being related and connected based on that value is the central theme in esthetics from Peirce’s normative science in order to learn a moral norm by habits of feeling, action, and thought, so that we can attain a sound judgment of the cultural artifacts of a story in general.