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, 04:24, 4 August 2011→4.1.2. The Pragmatic Framework : Sign-Theoretic Approaches: + text
====4.1.2. The Pragmatic Framework : Sign-Theoretic Approaches====
====4.1.2. The Pragmatic Framework : Sign-Theoretic Approaches====
I would like to introduce a pair of ideas from pragmatism that can help to address the issues of knowledge and inquiry in an integrated way.
The first idea is that knowledge is a product of inquiry. The impact of this idea is that one's interest in knowledge shifts to an interest in the process of inquiry that is capable of yielding knowledge as a result. In the pragmatic perspective, the theory of knowledge, or epistemology, is incorporated within a generative theory of inquiry. The result is a theory of inquiry that treats it as a general form of conduct, that is, as a dynamic process with a deliberate purpose.
The second idea is that all thought takes place in signs. This means that all thinking occurs within a general representational setting that is called a "sign relation". As a first approximation, a sign relation can be thought of as a triadic relation or a three place transaction that exists among the various domains of objects, signs, and ideas that are involved in a given situation. For example, suppose that there is a duck on the lake (this is an object); one refers to it by means of the word "duck" (this is a sign) and one has has an image of the duck in one's mind (this is an idea).
Since an inquiry is a special case of a thought process, an activity that operates on sign and ideas in respect of certain objects, this means that the theory of inquiry and the theory of sign relations are very tightly integrated within this point of view, and are almost indistinguishable. Putting the idea that knowledge is a product of inquiry together with the idea that inquiry takes place within a sign relation, one can even say that the inquiry itself, or the production of knowledge, is just the transformation of a sign relation.
Generally speaking, a transformation of a sign relation allows any numbers of objects, signs, and ideas that are involved in a given situation to be engaged in process of change. For example, adding a new word to one's vocabulary, such as the word "mallard" for that which one formerly called a "duck", is just one of many ways that a sign relation can be transformed.
Constant references to "transformations of sign relations", or else to "sign relational transformations", can eventually become a bit unwieldy, and so I assign them the briefer name of "pragmatic transformations". Considered in their full generality, the potential array of pragmatic transformations that one might find it necessary to consider can be very general indeed, exibiting an overwhelming degree of complexity. To deal with this level of complexity, one needs to find strategies for approaching it in stages. Two common tactics are: (1) to classify special types of pragmatic transformations in terms of which kinds of entities are changing the most, and (2) to focus on special cases of pragmatic transformations in which one class of entities is fixed.
If one intends to study processes of development that are every bit as general as "cultural transformations", in which all of the artifacts, symbols, and values are capable of being thrown into a state of flux, then I suggest that pragmatic transformations are a relatively generic but a reasonably well defined form of intermediate case, in other words, a suitable type of transitional object.
What I just gave was the popular version of the theory of signs. This much was already evident in Aristotle's work ''On Interpretation'' and was probably derived from Stoic sources. It is still the most natural and intuitive way to approach the idea of a sign relation. But within the frame of pragmatism proper, a number of changes need to be worked on the idea of a sign relation, in order to make it a more exact and more flexible instrument of thought.
From a pragmatic perspective, ideas are taken to be signs in the mind. In this role they come to serve as special cases of "interpretant signs", those that follow other signs in the ongoing process of interpretation. As far as their essential qualities go, signs and ideas can be classed together, though a sign and its interpretant can still be distinguished by their roles in relation to each other. At this point, the reader is probably itching to ask: Where is the interpreter in all of this? Ultimately, signs and ideas can be recognized as features that affect or indirectly characterize the state of the interpretive agent, and their specifications can even be sharpened up to point that one can say it is the states of the interpreter that are the real signs and interpretants in the process. This observation, that Peirce summed up by saying that the person is a sign, has consequences for bringing about a synthesis between the theory of sign relations and the theory of dynamic systems.
====4.1.3. The Dynamical Framework : System-Theoretic Approaches====
====4.1.3. The Dynamical Framework : System-Theoretic Approaches====
