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

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)
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Received on Thu Oct 25 09:43 PDT 2007