Re: "infra-semiotic" Re: [xmca] On Roth's "On Mediation"

From: Tony Whitson <twhitson who-is-at UDel.Edu>
Date: Thu Oct 25 2007 - 09:39:57 PDT

Another way of putting this:
Meaning is not what signs convey;
Meaning is what signs do.
What signs do is that they mean, and what it is for signs to mean is that
they signify through unending cascades of interpretants potentiated by
the triadic relations constituting them as signs.

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Tony Whitson wrote:

> Jay,
> I would just want to briefly take issue with the idea of "semiotic" that is
> presupposed in your gloss on "infra-semiotic."
>
> From a Peircean perspective, I would argue that meaning is not something that
> signs convey. Meaning is what signs potentiate. Sign is triadic relation,
> potentiating interpretants in which the "object" of interpretation is
> interpreted through the mediation of representamena (including
> intermediate/intermediating interpretants). Meaning is the
> signification-thru-mediated-activity* potentiated by the triadic sign
> relation, rather than a positive (or structurally relative, as in Saussure)
> semantic content that may be contained and conveyed in or by "signs" as
> containers or conveyors of "meaning."
>
> In this view, operations qualify as fully semiotic (vs. infra-semiotic)
> sign-elements insofar as they participate in such triadically mediative
> activity.* The difference that you point to in terms of "meaningfulness"
> might be considered in terms of differences in how Thirdness is realized, as
> between actions and operations, but this would not be a differences of
> semiosis vs. non- (or infra-) semiosis.
> _______
> *"activity" here is not meant in the sense of differentiation from actions &
> operations.
>
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Jay Lemke wrote:
>>
>> I have always thought of operations as "normally infra-semiotic" , i.e.
>> under most conditions they do not have or convey meaning in themselves.
>> (Anything can be made meaningful by some special framing, of course).
>>
>> Jay Lemke
>> Professor
>> University of Michigan
>> School of Education
>> 610 East University
>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>>
>> Tel. 734-763-9276
>> Email. JayLemke@UMich.edu
>> Website. <http://www.umich.edu/~jaylemke%A0>www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
> Tony Whitson
> UD School of Education
> NEWARK DE 19716
>
> twhitson@udel.edu
> _______________________________
>
> "those who fail to reread
> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
>

Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK DE 19716

twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________

"those who fail to reread
  are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
                   -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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Received on Thu Oct 25 09:49 PDT 2007

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