Models as signs of the imaginary: Peirce, Pierce, Langer, and the non-discursive sign
-
Joel West
Abstract
It is common for us to see models as exemplars of things that exist. Models, instead, are merely Peircean indexes, in that they only point to their objects, objects which may in themselves not exist. This is to say that these examples may only exist as thoughts that point to other thoughts or even ideas that point to objects that may not exist because they are paradoxical.
References
Atkin, Albert. 2013. Peirce’s theory of signs. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, summer ed. https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=peirce-semiotics (accessed 15 July 2017).Suche in Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Synctatic structures. The Hague: Mouton.10.1515/9783112316009Suche in Google Scholar
Clark, Andy. 2008. Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333213.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Danesi, Marcel. 2017. The concept of model in Thomas A. Sebeok’s semiotics. In Kristian Bankov (ed.), New semiotics: Between tradition and innovation, 1495–1506. Sofia: NBU Press.10.24308/iass-2014-163Suche in Google Scholar
Descartes, Rene. 1637. Discours sur la méthode. http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/Descartes/discours_methode/discours_methode.html (accessed 2 February 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto. 1976. A theory of semiotics. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.10.1007/978-1-349-15849-2Suche in Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto. 1981. The theory of signs and the role of the reader. The Bulletin of the Midwest Modern Language Association 14(1). 34–45. https://doi.org/10.2307/1314865.Suche in Google Scholar
Evans, Vyvyan & Melody Green. 2006. Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Frigg, Roman. 2010. Models and fictions. Synthese 172(2). 251–268. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9505-0.Suche in Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1975. Why does language matter to philosophy? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511627873Suche in Google Scholar
Harre, Rom. 1970. The principles of scientific thinking. London: University of Chicago Press.10.1007/978-1-349-81592-0Suche in Google Scholar
Holland, James, Edwin Hutchins & David Kirsch. 2000. Distributed cognition: Toward a new foundation for human-computer interaction research. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 7(2). 174–196. https://doi.org/10.1145/353485.353487.Suche in Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 2012. Explaining embodied cognition. Topics in Cognitive Science 4(4). 773–785. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01222.x.Suche in Google Scholar
Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald. 2008. Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331967.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Langer, Susan K. 1957. Philosophy in a new key: A study in the symbolism of reason, rite and art, 3rd edn. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Lao Tzu. 1989. The complete Tao Te Ching, Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English (trans.). New York & London: Vintage.Suche in Google Scholar
McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding media: The extensions of man. New York & London: MIT Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Nöth, Winfried. 2018. The semiotics of models. Sign Systems Studies 46(1). 7–43.10.12697/SSS.2018.46.1.01Suche in Google Scholar
Pierce, Charles 1931 – 1966. The collected papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols., C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss & A. W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Reference to Peirce’s papers will be designated CP followed by volume and paragraph number.]Suche in Google Scholar
Pierce, John R. 1980. An introduction to information theory: Symbols, signal, and noise. Illinois: Dover.Suche in Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1959. A course in general linguistics, Wade Baskin (trans.). New York: Philosophical Library.Suche in Google Scholar
Shapiro, Lawrence. 2011. Embodied cognition: New problems of philosophy. London & New York: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Snow, Charles P. 1959. Two cultures and the scientific revolution: The Rede lectures. New York: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Varela, Francisco J., Evan Thomspon & Eleanor Rosch. 1993. The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Boston: MIT Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Weiner, Norbert. 2013. Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and in the machine, 2nd edn. Boston: Martino.Suche in Google Scholar
Welsh, Paul. 1953. Hypothesis, plausibility, and fictions. Philosophical Review 62(1). 102–107. https://doi.org/10.2307/2182725.Suche in Google Scholar
West, Joel. 2019. Say nothing, do nothing get things done: A short exposition of Taoist epistemology in the light of Abrahamic teleology and ontology. Language and Semiotic Studies 5(2). 53–75.Suche in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Gesture, a tool for synthetic reasoning
- From matter to form: the evolution of the genetic code as semio-poiesis
- Models as signs of the imaginary: Peirce, Pierce, Langer, and the non-discursive sign
- Speaking one’s mind: the sign as subject of interpretation in the manuscripts of Charles S. Peirce, between the theories of rhetoric and communication
- Sense, reference, and contemporary “predicativism”
- Languaging dynamics of classroom interactivity: a distributed view of the pedagogic recontextualization in L2 tertiary settings
- A Lotmanian semiotic interpretation of cultural memory in ritual
- The “empirical vocation” of the semiotics of Umberto Eco in his works on the media and mass communication
- Quand l’éventail du désaccord laisse parler au-delà des paroles: Etude historico-sémiotique de la légende du Coup de l’Eventail
- Listening to Beethoven’s Ninth as communicational production
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Gesture, a tool for synthetic reasoning
- From matter to form: the evolution of the genetic code as semio-poiesis
- Models as signs of the imaginary: Peirce, Pierce, Langer, and the non-discursive sign
- Speaking one’s mind: the sign as subject of interpretation in the manuscripts of Charles S. Peirce, between the theories of rhetoric and communication
- Sense, reference, and contemporary “predicativism”
- Languaging dynamics of classroom interactivity: a distributed view of the pedagogic recontextualization in L2 tertiary settings
- A Lotmanian semiotic interpretation of cultural memory in ritual
- The “empirical vocation” of the semiotics of Umberto Eco in his works on the media and mass communication
- Quand l’éventail du désaccord laisse parler au-delà des paroles: Etude historico-sémiotique de la légende du Coup de l’Eventail
- Listening to Beethoven’s Ninth as communicational production
