Re: [xmca] Body expression as sign.

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Thanks for that, Larry, these different theories of semiotics/semiology 
are very confusing. Personally, I am going to stick to Peirce's 
categories and use Gadamers's with a health warning.

One powerful characteristic of Peirce's approach is the following:

Larry Purss wrote:
> For Gadamer a sign is a tool. Conceived *as* a sign [tool] a word is 
> an instrument that the SUBJECT employs for its OWN ends.Gadamer asks, 
> is it sufficient to think of language *just* or *merely* as a MEANS of 
> communication?

For Peirce a sign is not a means of communication at all. The sign is 
part of a triad along with interpretant and object, and there is no 
subject there. For French semiology the sign is a message sent by the 
subject to the object, and this is the source of the idealism Gadamer 
complains of. Peirce's standpoint opens up natural processes and 
aesthetic processes for objective analysis and gives an objective basis 
for communication as well.
Andy

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