He notes sagely that the value of the idea of mediation lies not
simply in the presence of a mediating third element, but in the
ways in which that third, here the tool or sign, transforms the
nature of the other partners in the ensemble, so that Subject-
with-tool and Object-through-tool (not to mention Tool-as-
deployed by Subject-(and)oriented-to-Object) are all
reconstituted by their mutual relations in a dynamic way which
may lead to indefinite progressions (no Progress implied!) of
successively transformed Subjects and Objects (and tools). One
must not loose the mediational dialectic here at all costs.
But the problem, I think, is not so much with the materiality of
tools as with our inadequate cultural models of matter, which
project them as static in substance and in relations. More
interactional models of materiality, in which substance, like
relations and relata, is constituted by its participation in
material interactions, restores, after the mode of self-
organization of material systems, a dialectical dynamicism to
notions like --Tool--, where I put the reminder signs of the
affordances of the Tool (towards Subject and towards Object) to
reflect this. There is no such thing as a tool apart from the use
of an object _as_ a tool, by some Subject, in an activity
oriented to some further object. Just as there is likewise, in a
Peircean or any dialectical-interactionist semiotics, no Sign
without participation by a signifier/representamen in a semiosis
which also has at least a three-part structure essentially
functionally homologous with what I've been sketching here.
In the case of abstract notions of signs, as purely relational
arguments, or values (an idealist view), it is easy (relatively)
to see how the sign-value is subject to a continuous re-valuation
through its relations to other signs, or to subjects and objects.
Since its meaning is defined by its place in the ensemble, change
any part of the ensemble and it changes too, and _vice versa_ (if
one can use this for triads).
But we need to see that sign processes are material, and that the
dialectic is also, that what we call Tool or Subject of Object is
not a viable theoretical entity, but must be redefined as some
aspect or projection of a larger system or process whose dynamics
determine what will count as these entities, and in relation to
which they are themselves essentially contingent and fluid, not
stable. The notion of stable substance is not itself tenable in
these cases (or perhaps in any cases). Unfortunately, while
modern science finds it more or less necessary to work with such
notions of material phenomena, our cultural traditions tend to
make people very uncomfortable without some fixed material ground
under their feet. Nevertheless, _panta rhei_. JAY.
PS. A long delayed footnote response, the semiotics conference at
which I am talking about these questions of "Matter and Meaning"
is being convened in Denmark by an institute at Odense
University, under the title: Codes and Intentionalities in the
Emergence of Sign Processes, October 26-28. Contact Svend Erik
Larsen, sel who-is-at litcul.ou.dk.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU