Changes

===6.38. Considering the Source===

===6.38. Considering the Source===

There are several ways to contemplate the supplementation of signs, the sorts of augmentation that are crucial to meaning in the case of indices.  Some approaches are analytic, in the sense that they regard signs as derivative compounds and try to break up the unitary concept of an individual sign into a congeries of seemingly more real, more actual, or more determinate sign instances.  Other approaches are synthetic, in the sense that they accept a given collection of signs at face value and try to reconstruct more objective realities through the formation of abstract categories on this basis.

There are several ways to contemplate the supplementation of signs, the sorts of augmentation that are crucial to meaning in the case of indices.  Some approaches are analytic, in the sense that they regard signs as derivative compounds and try to break up the unitary concept of an individual sign into a congeries of seemingly more real, more actual, or more determinate sign instances.  Other approaches are synthetic, in the sense that they accept a given collection of signs at face value and try to reconstruct more objective realities through the formation of abstract categories on this basis.

1. One analytic method takes it as a maxim for the logic of context that:  "Every sign or text is indexed by the context in which it occurs."  This means that all signs, including indices, are themselves indexed, though initially only tacitly, by the objective situation, the syntactic context, and the actual interpreter that makes use of them.

1. One analytic method takes it as a maxim for the logic of context that:  "Every sign or text is indexed by the context in which it occurs."  This means that all signs, including indices, are themselves indexed, though initially only tacitly, by the objective situation, the syntactic context, and the actual interpreter that makes use of them.