How transcendence is signified through metaphors: a contribution to the understanding of the emergence of religious meaning

5.1 The three semiotic categories

Peirce has developed a three-part sign model in the context of his triadic category theory. According to this category theory, a semiosis (that is, “[t]he process in which something functions as a sign”; Morris 1938: 3) always consists of firstness (properties, patterns), secondness (differences and relations), and thirdness (conventional rules; Bergman 2018: 107–127). While firstness is the category of presence, secondness is the category of representation, and thirdness is the category of presentation (or performance; Merrell 1997: 167). Peirce’s three-valued category theory conveys the paradox of the sign. The contradiction consists of the fact that a sign stands for itself (firstness) and at the same time for another sign (secondness). This paradox is mediated in thirdness.

The three categories do not exist independently of each other, but exclusively in mutual reference to each other. For example, the sentence “The red rose is a symbol for love” is composed of “redness” in firstness (and not “blueness,” “size,” etc.), “red rose” (and not “yellow rose,” “red car,” etc.) in secondness and “… is a symbol for love” (and not “… is a symbol for wealth,” etc.) in thirdness. In the dimension of firstness, the words “red,” “rose”, and “love” have a certain abstract property in common due to their combination. This property cannot be explicated further on its own, namely, if one refers only to the mentioned sentence. In order for this property to acquire meaning, a superordinate semiotic context (thirdness) is needed, which constitutes meaning (secondness) – for example, semantics shows that and how a red rose is associated with the feeling of love in conventional and culturally different ways (cf. Wierzbicka 2015). In the dimension of secondness, differences and relations come to light; for example, the words “red,” “rose,” and “love” are related, but they differ from each other as well as together from something else (for instance, regarding thirdness, from economic pragmatics: “The red rose is expensive.”) In the dimension of thirdness, the differences and properties that express or establish commonality are mediated with each other through conventional rules. Peirce’s three categories are an approach to the question of how sense relations in thirdness between properties in firstness and entities in secondness can be understood.

5.2 The three components of a semiosis: sign, object, and interpretant

Each of the three categories of Peirce’s logic corresponds to a component of a semiosis:

A Sign … is a First which stands in such a genuine triadic relation to a Second, called its Object, as to be capable of determining a Third, called its Interpretant, to assume the same triadic relation to its Object in which it stands itself to the same Object. The triadic relation is genuine, that is its three members are bound together by it in a way that does not consist in any complexus of dyadic relations. (CP 2.274)

It should be noted that “the terms interpretant, sign and object are a triad whose definitions are circular. Each of the three is defined in terms of the other two” (Savan 1988: 43). For a concrete semiosis, however, the sign is not relevant in all possible respects. The same is true for the object and the interpretant. A sign, an object, and an interpretant are always only significant for a concrete semiosis in specific aspects, i.e., in a particular respect. The relevant aspects mutually determine each other in triadic semiosis. In semiotic terms there are no fixed entities, but only relations and structures as an order of relations, which arrange elements in a certain way and thus constitute them. Likewise, the categories firstness, secondness, and thirdness refer to each other reciprocally, thus never existing independently. From this derives the inescapably triadic structure of the sign process. If – within a semiosis – one element functions as a sign, another as an object, and a third as an interpretant and is identified accordingly, it is always a snapshot of an oscillating process.

While a sign signifies an object in a certain respect and emphasizes one of its properties or a pattern of properties, the interpretant gives a certain pragmatic meaning to the relationship between sign and object. For example, the English word ‘house’ is a sign that refers to a respective physical arrangement as an object. The relation between sign and object is mediated by the concept HOUSE that functions as an interpretant – for instance, as ‘a building erected and used for a particular purpose’, such as a dwelling house, theater, administrative office, store, etc. A sign thus stands for an object in some respect which is determined by an interpretant.^[8] The interpretant determines which aspects become relevant in the relation between sign and object. Conversely, the relation between sign and object specifies those possible aspects of the interpretant that become significant in semiosis.

Regarding the object of semiosis, a distinction must be made between an immediate object and a dynamic object.^[9] The immediate object is part of the communicative attention with which a semiosis refers to itself, while the dynamic object is the item to which the semiosis refers.^[10] The object to which the semiosis refers is called ‘dynamic’ because it can transform itself as well as the reality of which it is a part, depending on the semiotic context, and may acquire different aspects.

For the understanding of the interpretant as the third component of semiosis, the following properties are to be considered:

1. Peirce coined the neologism ‘interpretant’ to avoid the misunderstanding that the meaning-giving interpretation of the relation between sign and object is effected by a sign-using and sign-external subject. Human individuals and their consciousnesses are and consist of signs, too, and interpretants can only be ‘human individuals’ qua socio-cultural addressing.^[11] That frame, which determines the meaning of a semiosis, is considered to be the interpretant.^[12] The interpretant encompasses the entire range of meaning of the sign and is at the same time a sign itself.^[13] Therefore, the interpretant belongs not only to mental thought, in which semiosis proceeds in a consciousness-like manner, but also to communication, in which semiosis is generated in a specific way to make sociality possible. The interpretant determines communication in pragmatic terms.

2. Furthermore, three types of interpretants are to be distinguished. While the immediate interpretant shows up in the sign itself, the dynamic interpretant is the possible or actual effect that the sign determines as a sign (cf. CP 4.536). The immediate interpretant constitutes the sign-internal sense correlation between sign and object, while the dynamic interpretant establishes reference that arises through the connection of a sign to a preceding one. In the further course of semiosis, however, external reference is integrated into internal sense to be transformed again into a context of reference by a dynamic interpretant. The oscillation between self-referential sense, which is produced by the immediate interpretant, and other-referential reference, which is constituted by the dynamic interpretant, is – in principle – infinite. However, semiosis is limited by the final interpretant. The final interpretant is the ‘habitual’ way in which meaning – as the unity of sense and reference – is given to the relation between sign and object.^[14]

5.3 Icon, index, and symbol

To approach the question of how to conceive of a metaphor as a process involving multiple signs, it is necessary to briefly consider the main types of signs that Peirce distinguishes. These are obtained by distinguishing the sign property (firstness), the object relation (secondness) and the interpretant relation (thirdness). This results in the following subdivisions (also called trichotomies by Peirce) with corresponding sign types:

To answer the question of how a metaphor is to be understood as a sign process, the sign types (Table 1) that are particularly relevant are those in the second column (i.e., signs with regard to their object relation). In this category of actualized differences and relations, the metaphorical process of mapping a semantic domain onto another takes place. The three types of signs are: icon (from firstness of secondness), the index (from secondness of secondness), and the symbol (from thirdness of secondness). These three types of signs are determined as follows:

1. The icon is a sign that signifies its object in such a way that it has at least one aspect in common with its object and highlights this aspect. It is thus the sign of a property of its object.^[15] The icon emphasizes the quality of the form, highlights a feature or pattern of features. It is provided with self-referential sense.

2. The index is a sign that points directly to or indicates its object and thus accentuates the difference and relationality between the sign and its object. It has a real, possibly also causal relation to its object. The object or event that the index designates is concrete and thus dependent on place and time. The index provides an object with other-referential semantic reference.

3. The symbol is a sign that emphasizes generalized convention and regularity in the attribution of meaning. It neither directly represents nor indicates its object. Rather it exists independently of the object and represents it qua socio-cultural regulation. “Symbols are therefore dependent not on the object, but on convention, custom, or the ‘natural disposition of the interpretant or interpretant field’” (Walther 1969: 5–6; my translation). It should be noted, however, that conventions are not established by sign users who are outside semiosis. Rather, conventions are established within sign processes themselves. In this sense, conventions are the solution to communication problems “that … need not involve explicit or implicit agreement” (Deacon 2018: 69, with reference to Lewis 2002 [1969]). The solution of communication problems is achieved in a semiotic way (Deacon 2018: 70). With regard to sign systems, the following also applies: “Relations among the elements within the system are mutually determining and therefore not arbitrary in the way we usually understand the word” (Keane 2003: 412). The symbol provides the relation between sign and object with pragmatic meaning. I understand the symbol as a pragmatic sign in the sense in which Morris understands Peirce’s category of thirdness as pragmatics. In contrast, namely, according to the understanding of linguistics (since Grice 1989 [1975]^[16]), pragmatics refers to the context in which a linguistic construct is used. It, however, does so by building on symbols. These two concepts of pragmatics are not identical, but they are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, both views can be seen as complementary to each other. In this sense, I use the term pragmatics to build a bridge between semiotics and linguistics: on the one hand, a symbol is a pragmatic sign, which on the other hand both triggers and constraints the interpretation of a symbol as the pragmatic context. In other words, a symbol is a sign with a pragmatic potential for semantic unfolding.

Strictly speaking, the metaphorical sign process cannot include iconic and indexical aspects, because the metaphor is linguistically composed, and insofar it belongs to thirdness. When I nevertheless speak of iconic and indexical parts of the metaphorical process in the following, this is meant in the sense of a linguistic and communication-theoretical semiotics according to Morris, who understands firstness as syntactics, secondness as semantics, and thirdness as pragmatics:^[17]

1. The icon, which emphasizes forms and properties, is situated at the level of syntax.

2. The index, which refers to its subject, is part of semantics.

3. The symbol, which is based on general convention and regularity in assigning meaning, belongs to pragmatics.

Furthermore, it should be considered that the relationships between the three sign types of icon, index, and symbol, are not per se given and static, but procedural. Thus, the sign types themselves are determined relationally to each other.^[18] Moreover, the three sign types of icon, index and symbol are not directly related to each other, but their connections are mediated by interpretant and object relations. This is due to the categorial distinction between firstness, secondness and thirdness. But even if there is no direct connection between the icon in firstness, the index in secondness, and the symbol in thirdness, they are nevertheless in a hierarchical dependence: A complete symbol always presupposes an indexical sign, just as a complete indexical sign is always based on an iconic sign (EP 2: 318). This hierarchical dependence, however, is not a simple compositional relation. Indexical signs are not ‘made of’ iconic signs and symbols are not ‘produced’ by indexical signs. The three types of signs are rather stages of the development and differentiation of more and more complex ways of referring (Deacon 2012: 13). Hierarchical dependence means that the symbol, which represents communicatively processed extracts of cognitive processes, depends on the antecedence of the index and the icon (CP 2.293); for a “Third is something which brings a First into relation to a Second” (CP 8.332). The index is primarily responsible for the semiotic representation of facts to which semiosis refers (physical objects; in the case of verbal language: semantics). In this, the index is dependent on the antecedence of the icon in firstness (syntactics), which, together with the symbol in thirdness (pragmatics), constitutes the self-referentiality of semiosis.

6.1 Identifying the icon in question

The question of what is to be taken as the starting point of the semiotic reconstruction depends – according to the definition of metaphor provided by CMT – on what counts as the unknown target domain determined by a known source domain (Figure 2).

Based on the information that precedes and follows the metaphor in question, namely, “dust settles on his shoes with every step he takes” and “Faris walks along this street every day” (Höhner 2020: § 2; my translation^[21]), one can conclude that further information processing concerns circumstances of a street. Thus, high-rise building as sign S1 (and not skeleton) stands for the unknown target domain. Consequently, an iconic property or pattern of properties of high-rise building is to be determined. The genitive as the syntactic position of “skeletons of high-rise buildings” becomes the nominative in the proposition “A possesses B”:^[22] “A high-rise building has a skeleton,” so that high-rise building is influenced by skeleton in the result of the metaphorical mapping (in accordance with BT, the reverse influence of high-rise building on skeleton as a result of the metaphorical mapping is also the case, as can be recognized in the further course of the reconstruction). In the arrangement to be seen in Figure 2, high-rise building becomes relevant in its iconic aspect, and skeleton as an index provides information about the iconic aspect.^[23] However, according to Peircean semiotics, a semiosis is not complete if the sign does not have object and interpretant relations; this is a prerequisite for the cognitive and communicative process of semiotic inference. Which possible property of high-rise building as S1 is relevant can only become clear when S1 (high-rise building) is related to the sign S2 (skeleton) via interpretant and object relations. Through these relations, S2 can provide S1 with a semantic reference.^[24]

Figure 2:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction I.

Figure 3:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction II.

Figure 4:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction III.

Figure 5:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction IV.

Figure 6:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction V.

Figure 7:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction VI.

Figure 8:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction VII.

Figure 9:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction VIII.

6.2 The index

Figure 3 vertebrate can easily be identified as an interpretant of skeleton.^[25] skeleton and vertebrate are in a meronymic relationship; among the six part-whole relations Winston et al. (1987: 421) list, this is a relation of component/integral object. However, the immediate interpretant of high-rise building – i.e., the question in which respect high-rise building is significant – is still unclear. The interpretant relation of high-rise building is only established when the common object (O1) of high-rise building and skeleton is determined.

6.3 The indexical reference to the icon

The common reference (the dynamic object O1) of high-rise building and skeleton can be determined with supporting structure (Figure 4). From a psychological and psycholinguistic perspective, this common reference is based on an image schema which is expressed in the linguistic metaphor.^[26] From the perspective of communication theory, it is the other way round: the linguistic metaphor evokes a corresponding image schema.^[27] The dynamic object supporting structure itself is not an image schema but, according to the partial list compiled by Evans and Green (2006: 190), a linguistic expression of the composite of object (as part of the experiential grounding existence), up–down (as part of the experiential grounding space), surface (as part of the experiential grounding containment), and force (as a type of experiential grounding). Whereas a skeleton is a kind of supporting structure of vertebrates, a high-rise building has a supporting structure. With the supporting structure as the dynamic object O1, the interpretant of high-rise building can be determined as a physical building – whatever else a high-rise building means or may mean in its iconic, but also in its possible indexical and symbolic aspects.^[28] high-rise building and physical building are in a relation of hyponymy; among the six part-whole relations Winston et al. (1987: 421) list, this is a relation of member/collection.

6.4 The immediate object

According to the sentence under discussion, skeletons of high-rise buildings “rise up into the sky” and thus can be seen (Figure 5). Therefore, the immediate object (O2), which is the object as it appears in the sign, can be determined as visible skeleton in SE3 (S2–I2–O2). In addition, a visible skeleton indicates that the vertebrate is not only destroyed but also dead. skeleton and dead therefore have a metonymic relationship. This fact will be important for the metaphorical relationship between skeleton and high-rise building, which will be reconstructed below.

In the case of SE4 (S1-I1-O2), the immediate object (O2), i.e., the object as it appears in the sign, can be determined as a house with a visible supporting structure. A house with a visible supporting structure is either unfinished or destroyed. A visible skeleton, however, suggests in any case a vertebrate, which is (either deliberately or by decomposition) destroyed. Therefore, high-rise building is a physically destroyed high-rise building. In being destroyed lies the iconic aspect of high-rise building relevant in the phrase “skeletons of high-rise buildings.” This, by the way, is also confirmed by the context: The sermon is about consequences of war. Thus, the iconic aspect of the sign high-rise building (S1) as being destroyed is determined by the result of the mapping within the metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” including the indexical aspect of the sign skeleton (S2) that is a visible skeleton in O2. The view that the result of the metaphorical mapping exposes the iconic aspect of “high-rise buildings” is supported both by semiotics, according to which the meaning of a sign is produced by a subsequent sign (CP 4.132), and by BT. Conversely, again as a result of the metaphorical mapping with the iconic aspect of high-rise building, the possibility is emphasized – in the sense of BT – that a skeleton can stand upright.

If we take into account the fact that the sentence “skeletons of high-rise buildings rise up into the sky to the right and left” is part of a sermon as a religious genre (Kucharska-Dreiß 2017), the dynamic object supporting structure as a linguistic expression of the combined image schemas object, upright as part of up–down, surface and force gives us a first indication that this sentence could be a metaphor in religious use. The skeleton helps not all, but many living vertebrates (such as humans) to straighten up and stand upright. However, if the skeleton is visible, this is an indication that the vertebrate is dead, and the skeleton is in a horizontal position. Yet by using skeletons as a source domain for high-rise buildings that “rise up into the sky” as part of the target domain, this metaphor may point to the religious topic of death and resurrection.^[29] The verticality schema and the implicit source-path-goal schema^[30] of this ‘ascension’ leads to the imagination that the buildings rise up into the sky and possibly metaphorically into heaven. Literally understood, a standing skeleton is a paradox (unless, for example, it is attached to a stand). However, such contradictions are part of the counterintuitive and counterfactual reality of religion (Atran and Norenzayan 2004). The hypothesis that the expression “skeletons of high-rise buildings” is meant and to be understood in a religious sense is to be tested in the course of further reconstruction of the metaphorical process.

Also as a result of the metaphorical mapping, both skeleton and high-rise building are an expression of the part-whole relationship feature–activity, which, according to Winston et al. (1987: 421), is one of six part–whole relationships. Within a feature–activity relationship “complex activities are structured by means of ‘scripts’ which assign locations to particular subactivities or features” (Winston et al. 1987: 426, with reference to Schank and Abelson 1977). In the case of skeleton and high-rise building, the feature–activity relation consists of rising–moving. However, as already noted, this is only possible as a result of the metaphorical mapping – in accordance with BT. Neither a mere skeleton can rise – unless it is connected to a musculature and is part of a living organism –nor can a high-rise building move upwards by itself – unless an external force is involved. Nevertheless, the metaphor of “skeletons of high-rise building” is easy to understand with everyday common sense. If the hypothesis is correct, according to which the metaphor of “skeletons of high-rise building” is used in a religious sense, rising is to be understood as resurrection and moving as a general transformation brought about by God or another transcendent power. To analytically explain how these results of the mapping can be understood, we need to look at the metaphorical mapping processes in detail.

6.5 The first metaphorical mapping (‘indexical icon’)

The next semiosis SE5 (S1–I2–O1) shows that between a high-rise building (S1) and a vertebrate (I2) besides the commonality to be destroyed, there are also differences – above all the one that a high-rise building is a purely physical object, while a vertebrate belongs to the physical as well as to the organic domain; thus, it can be alive or dead (Figure 6). As mentioned, if the skeleton of a vertebrate can be seen, the vertebrate not only has been destroyed (either deliberately or by decomposition), but it is also a dead vertebrate. In this respect, the semiosis SE5 (S1–I2–O1) represents a first metaphorical step (from firstness to thirdness) in which the correspondence of destroyed and dead is transferred to the high-rise building. With this metaphor, relevant data are selected from the other-referential environment and transferred into internal information; information understood as “a difference which makes a difference” (Bateson 1972 [1970]: 453): the iconic aspect of high-rise building is not only determined as destroyed and therefore potentially renewable, but also as revivable. Within semiosis SE5, S1 can also be defined as an ‘indexical icon,’ in that an iconic property is indexically referred to.^[31] The iconic aspect of the indexical icon encompasses resemblances between the sign and its other-referential interpretant that relates to the index (S2), while the indexical aspect encompasses the way in which the sign points to its other-referential interpretant. The indexical icon has its counterpart in an ‘iconic index’; more on this below.

6.6 The second metaphorical mapping (‘iconic index’)

The metaphorical process is continued in the next semiosis SE6 (S2–I1–O1), namely, from dynamic secondness to immediate firstness (Figure 7). Thus, the information coming from the source domain (vertebrate) of the metaphor (in the present case the property of being dead) is integrated into the target domain of the semiosis (namely, physical building). The indexical sign skeleton (S2) and the dynamic object supporting structure (O1) are equated in certain respects (as is the case with the icon). The index that functions metaphorically in semiosis SE6 (S2–I1–O1) thus becomes an icon with either meto-, mero- or hyponymic parts – in other words: an ‘iconic index’. As a result, the data (from Latin: datum, ‘given’) that S2 provides in its position within semiosis SE6 is transformed into a fact (from Latin: factum, ‘produced’), namely, that a physical building has a skeleton originating from the organic domain and, since the supporting structure is visible as a skeleton, is dead – just as, for example, a human body can be called well-built, a house can have a skeleton.^[32] However, the index (S2) can become an ‘iconic index’ only with the help of a symbol in thirdness, as we will see in the next steps.

6.7 The symbolic level

The next step in SE7 (I2–O2–S3) leads to the symbol in thirdness, which mediates both the connection between icon and index and the relation between sense relations in a single domain and metaphor (Figure 8). The semantic concretion of the symbol consists in the case of the metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in the analogy of destroyed and dead. In terms of the relationship between skeleton and high-rise building, this analogy means that destroyed high-rise buildings can be revived, and dead vertebrates can be rebuilt (= recreated). In this way, the bidirectionality as a result of the metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” is described – in accordance with BT.

6.8 Mediating between types of sense relation in one domain and metaphor

With the semiosis SE8 (S3–I1–O1) the metaphorical process closes. In semiosis SE7 (I2–O2–S3) the symbol S3 is a metonymy because destroyed and dead can be attributes of an vertebrate itself (Figure 9). In semiosis SE8 (S3–I1–O1) the symbol (S3) works as a metaphor (from thirdness to firstness) because the analogy of destroyed and dead is applied to a physical building (I1).

Against the background of the constitution of the symbol S3 in semiosis SE8 (S3–I1–O1), S2 in the semiosis SE6 (S2–I1–O1) is an ‘iconic index’ In general, iconic indices are ‘imprints’ left by objects and organisms in their environment – for example, a footprint in the sand that is both an iconic image of the shape of a physical foot and an index of the physical foot itself.^[33] The iconic index is the central semiotic concept to explain linguistic change (Anttila and Embleton 1989: 157) in general and the metaphorical process of producing innovative meaning in particular. Regarding the iconic index, a metaphor represents a combination of an iconic form and an indexical reference (Anttila and Embleton 1989: 163) – in the case of the metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” a combination of the form of a supporting structure, which gives an entity upright stability, and the reference of a skeleton to a vertebrate as a living being as well as to a physical building that in turn provides the high-rise building as an iconic sign (S1) with a certain meaning.

The semiotic process in which the index (S2) and the icon (S1) – and thus also the indexical icon (S1 in semiosis SE5) as well as the iconic index (S2 in semiosis SE6) – are folded into the symbol S3, is a Gestalt closure:

… since symbolic meaning is supposition, strong indexical ties to other and to the context are necessary for interpretation, that is, for semantic investiture. Because symbols are unutterable fictional rules, indexes have to replicate them …, and if agreement in interpretation constitutes symbolic meaning, agreement can only be enhanced withs maximal indexical mooring. These indexes provide the footholds for the iconic interpretation of the conceptual field in question … this is characteristically a gestalt tendency, a gestalt completion of all the relevant information at hand. (Anttila 1980: 267, with reference to Ransdell 1980; Posner 1980)^[34]

The unity of the self-referential part of the entire semiotic process, i.e., of that part which exclusively refers to its sign nature, consists of the combination of the two semioses SE8 (S3–I1–O1) and SE1 (S1–I1–O1). In this self-referential part, the metaphor, according to which the general physical building (I1) is dead, is applied to the concrete high-rise building as the icon S1. The symbol S3 in thirdness, which emerges from a metaphor, constitutes, once emerged, the icon in firstness ex post. The direction is one from the symbol, which is a conventional but still generic rule, to the icon, which by itself is absent, and embodies in it a certain property as a universal characteristic. Within this direction the metaphor is released:

Metaphor … is analyzable into a double sort of semantic relationship. First, using symbols in Peirce’s sense, directions are given for finding an object or situation. Thus, use of language is quite ordinary. Second, it is implied that any object or situation fitting the direction may serve as an icon of what one wishes to describe. The icon is never actually present; rather, through the rule, one understands what it must be and, through this understanding, what it signifies. (Henle 1981 [1958]: 88)

The creative process of releasing a metaphor via the direction from a symbol in thirdness to an icon in firstness and back corresponds to the semiotic generation scheme, which in turn follows Peirce’s insights: “… a sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its interpretant sign determined or created by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in which itself stands to C” (NEM 4: 20–21), and: “Thirdness is that whose being consists in its bringing about a secondness” (EP 2: 267); and it is secondness, where the central metaphorical mapping of two domains – by means of an iconic index – takes place. The semiotic generation scheme has the shape shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10:

The semiotic generation scheme. Following Walther (1979 [1974]: 118; my translation. Cf. Bense: Peirce understands creativity in connection with his fundamental categories firstness (1.), secondness (2.), and thirdness (3.), to which he assigned the modes ‘possibility,’ ‘reality,’ and ‘necessity’ to introduce a semiotic scheme of ‘realization,’ and to characterize realization procedures as semioses, respectively. His thesis is that firstness (a repertoire of ‘possible’ cases) must be given, so that secondness (the ‘real’ case) is selectable in the sense of singular, concrete, and innovative givenness in dependence on likewise given thirdness (determinant regularity or necessity). Creativity is thus understood as a principle of bound realization, as a procedure of selection of a repertoire under the condition of a determinant law (Bense 1973: 127).

The symbol destroyed ≙ dead (S3) generates the dead high-rise building as an icon (S1) via the metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” and simultaneously explicates it.^[35] The unity of symbol, iconic index and icon forms a ‘complete sign’ in Peirce’s sense, which is based on a process with several semioses.^[36] This process has its complementary counterpart in the semiotic insight that a third always involves a first – and thus potentially also a metaphor.^[37] However, only the metaphor, as one of the ways in which a symbol can emerge – next to imaging and reminiscing –is capable of generating entirely new meaning:

It should be noted that the first [imaging] and the second ways [reminiscing] in which a symbol may originate seem to indicate that new significance does not occur. The first, imaging, and the second, reminiscing, both signify on the basis of something antecedent. The third origin of symbols, metaphor, must be the only way to open the possibility that a symbol can grow and have new significance. (Hausman 1996: 197)

The novelty of a metaphor results through abduction, which is always a circular, degenerative, and retrospective process, namely, “the quality of ‘leading back from.’ So, ‘this thought process is abduction’ as a leading analogy (when its iconicity is emphasized) is to some extent self-explanatory, so far as the process itself is a reasoning from a conclusion to hypothetical premises” (Anderson 1984: 460–461).

With regard to the formation of a metaphor, abduction means: The symbol in thirdness is based on an icon in firstness as a hypothesis and generates the meaning of an icon as a confirmation of the hypothesis in the form of the conclusion as a symbol (analogous to information processing as initially iconic-potential and then realized as the reference to an indexical object). Therein lies the semiotic self-reference of the metaphor. The mediation between symbol and icon takes place via indexicality in secondness, in which two elements from different domains are related to each other (Figure 11).

Figure 11:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction IX.

The domain-mapping creates a new meaning, which, however, must remain vague and in this way offers numerous further semantic possibilities:

The new symbol must create its own referent, its own individual; therefore, its indexicality, though not fully fixed, is not lacking. It is in this non-fixed indexicality … that the inherent vagueness of a creative metaphor appears. The referent which a metaphor creates is not fully closed – it is an open individual … A metaphor, then, as an iconic index points us to an individual which is open to further development while at the same time restricted in certain directions. (Anderson 1984: 463)^[38]

Through the iconic index, the metaphorical process can oscillate between the emphasis on either iconicity (with strong reference to the world, which, however, remains vague in its possible determination) or symbolicity (with conventional determinacy).^[39] This results in an oscillation between vagueness and determination, and this oscillation is the reason why semantics (with the dynamic object O1) is and remains dynamic.^[40]

All in all, the metaphorical process is a mapping of a source domain onto a target domain so that new meaning emerges (Figure 12).

Figure 12:

The metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings” in semiotic reconstruction X.

In the mapping, the dynamic object is ‘sedated’ by equating and exchanging supporting structure with skeleton at the position of O1 and physical building with vertebrate at the position of I1 (Figure 12). Consequently, the metaphorical mapping in the linguistic expression “skeletons of high-rise buildings” is a folding of the semiosis into its self-reference, and this convolution can be fully unfolded by a semiotic analysis. In the communicatively processed immediate perception (O2 in the semioses SE9 [S3–I1–O2] and SE4 [S1–I1–O2]), the semiotic self-reference oscillates between the iconic (S1–I1–O1) and the symbolic aspect (S3–I1–O1) of the semiotic process. In this way, literacy emerges, and the iconic aspect of high-rise building now consists in being dead.

In the case of the linguistic metaphor “skeletons of high-rise buildings,” the conceptual metaphor is: high-rise buildings can live and die. The even more general conceptual metaphor is: intact existence is life (Lakoff et al. [1989] 1991: 71), and vice versa: destroyed existence is death. In the case of an already introduced (or even conventionally sedimented) analogy of intact and living or destroyed and dead, respectively, a ‘downward-causality’ takes place from the position of the symbol (S3) in thirdness, so that the other semioses involved in the metaphorical process are determined by the symbol, namely, by the analogy of destroyed and dead.^[41] In the case of the sermon, from which the discussed metaphor originates, there is thus the possibility to further elaborate the symbol death – and at the same time its opposite: life. The symbols death (which in the sermon stands for destruction and at the same time for the fact that a city is ‘extinct,’ but can also be ‘revived’) and life offer the potential to be both meto-, mero- or hyponymically unfolded and metaphorically folded in again. Since the Skeleton of dead vertebrates – metaphorically applied to high-rise buildings in the case under discussion – can stand upright, we have a hint of revival and resurrection. This will be elaborated in the following.