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Directory:Jon Awbrey/Papers/Inquiry Driven Systems : Part 5 (view source)
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=====5.1.1.2. Analogical Recursion=====
=====5.1.1.2. Analogical Recursion=====
<pre>
With these preparations it is possible to return to the problems of analogical recursion, as ilustrated by the poem The Lady of Shalott. In the body of the poem, the italicized phrase "The Lady of Shalott" is triply ambiguous, being amenable to any one of the following readings:
1. It can be the title of a person, italicized for emphasis.
2. It can be the name of a vehicle, for instance, a boat or a ship that is named after a person.
3. It can be the title of a text, for instance, a poem named after its principal subject or a story named after its chief character.
The first two readings are available on a literal interpretation and can be distinguished if the difference of emphasis is detected by the reader. The third reading is subtler, requiring both a figurative interpretation and a reason to suspect that some sort of subtext is possibly in force. How is the reader supposed to deal with this three headed equivocation? Is it a deliberate ambiguity on the author's part, one whose design is plotted with the aim of conveying a meaning? Does this question really matter, or does the syntactic structure of text still betray a form of intention, whether or not a conscious one?
If it is frequently necessary to distinguish the equally likely readings of equivocal signs, and if the design of the language in use is a topic open to discussion, then it is possible to bring in a requisite array of typographical conventions and a suitable set of type marking devices to indicate more explicitly the types of objects that are being denoted or the senses of signs that are being intended. But this kind of strategy only puts off the day when a capacity for intelligent interpretation is called on to resolve the ambiguities and the uncertainties that remain to all orders of finite signs. Keeping the inevitability of this outcome in mind, it is probably a good idea to spend a reasonable proportion of the meantime thinking of ways to build a capacity for flexible interpretation into a language from its very conception, or at least to leave room for its growth, and thus to facilitate an aptitude for interpretation under conditions of uncertainty throughout the entire course of development of a sign using capacity.
An intentional ambiguity in the reference of a sign is a primitive way of suggesting that there is an aspect of analogy or equality among the objects denoted, in other words, that there is a respect in which they are similar or a feature they have in common. In short, equivocation is akin to equation, becoming more pertinent the more persistent it is, and ambiguities that are systematic enough can amount to valid abstractions.
In the present case, one can observe the possibility that the author is suggesting the following analogies:
1. One analogy says that authoring a text is like piloting a vehicle. This can be written in either one of two ways.
a. Poet / Poem = Pilot / Boat.
b. Poet / Pilot = Poem / Boat.
c. Pilot / Poet = Boat / Poem.
2. ...
The arrangements of SEC's, SEP's, SEQ's, and SER's have to do with the analogies that can be discovered and the equalities that can be created among signs, but a hint of the relevant similarities can be found in the "categorical analogies" (CAN's) or the "categorical equations" (CEQ's) that it is frequently possible to recognize among general terms, namely, the class names that apply to the corresponding categories of objects.
Tables 22 and 23 show two ways of expressing these general kinds of relationship, as they apply to the present example.
Table 22. A Categorical Analogy
Pilot / Poet
=
Boat / Poem
Table 23. A Categorical Equation
Pilot = Poet
<=>
Boat = Poem
Thus, a rough outline of the ARK that transports The Lady of Shalott from a PORT or a QORT to an ORT is provided by the following example of a "categorical equation" (CEQ).
Pilot = Poet <=> Boat = Poem.
This means that the reader can get a clue as to how the author relates to his text by reading, in a metaphorical way, the statements as to how the pilot or the passenger (the Lady of Shalott) relates to her vehicle (The Lady of Shalott). What one sees illustrated here is a particular form of literary device, one that I refer to as "analogical recursion". Given the intricacy of this form, it is probably useful to analyze its workings into several steps.
For the sake of shortening future references to the epitext at the top of the last subsection, the sequence of epigraphs that lace its prose discussion, let the acronym "TLOS" stand for "The Lady of Shalott", the unofficial title of a legendary person, and let the italicized acronym "TLOS" be taken in token for "The Lady of Shalott", the title of a poem.
Table 24. Semiotic Partition Implied by the ACE of L
Object SEC
The Lady of Shalott {"The Lady of Shalott", "TLOS"}
The Lady of Shalott {"The Lady of Shalott", "TLOS"}
Table 25. Bit of an ACE of a Bit of L
Object Sign Interpretant
TLOS "The Lady of Shalott" "TLOS"
TLOS "The Lady of Shalott" "TLOS"
</pre>
====5.1.2. Conscious Reflection====
====5.1.2. Conscious Reflection====