Frances to Mike and others at some length...
My last post and many prior posts that have semiotic or pragmatist
statements in them are deliberately technical in character. None of this
of
course may matter to most members on this present list, but please allow
me
the liberty. Now to your message copied below; and my replies to it, if
your
comments are understood correctly by me.
On grammatics, under Peircean pragmatism grammar is a label that
identifies
the first of three grand divisions for all signs within the formal
theoretic
science of semiotics. It is a regrettable label because it is ambiguously
applied to both nonlingual signs that are not of linguistic languages, and
also to lingual signs that are of linguistic languages. For clarity, the
label quasi grammatics or informatics is thus often applied to only
nonlingual signs. At this initial grammatic stage of semiosis all signs
are
held to bear some information.
On interpretants, under Peircean pragmatism the interpretant is a label
that
identifies the informative terms and propositions and arguments that all
signs such as images and words can go on to bear; and under Morrisean
pragmatism they fall under what he called pragmatics as the third of three
main dimensions of the first grand division for semiotics and signs. The
representant vehicle and the referred object and the interpretant effect
are
all needed in semiotics for signs, which must be a tridential construct.
On determinations, under Peircean pragmatism a determination is not a
cause
or origin or source nor a will or ability, but is a relate and a ground
and
a limit. In acts of semiosis, the referred object determines the main kind
a
sign will be as an icon or index or symbol, while this moderating sign
vehicle then determines the main kind an interpretant will be as say a
term
or proposition or argument in verbal languages. (The interpretants in
nonverbal language systems and in nonlingual signage systems are called by
other names that need not be stated here.) The object and the sign
therefore
determine or limit the boundaries of relations. In art under pragmatism
the
empowered form of an ordinary object and not the form alone, where the
form
has the power to reflect worthy aesthetic values and to evoke intense
aesthetic responses, is found what determines the object to be an
extraordinary aesthetic object and a unique or original and genuine
artistic
work, so that the determined interpretant in effect is art. The
determining
ground or limit of art is hence found in the form, and not in say a
referent
or institute or industry or polity. (This raises an intriguing point as to
how an inanimate object like an artifact can "have" power in its form, or
can "have" the will to act, but that is perhaps the subject of another
topic.)
The situation here for semiotic analysis is assumed to be a nonverbal and
nonlingual sign event, in that the government has some private fear of
art,
and thus sets about publically with their police to intrude in art and to
interfere by restricting it through brute force. The fear motivates the
incursion, thus the incursion is a sign to percipients that refers to the
fear as the object of the sign, so that the fear as an object is a cause
that determines the incursion as a result and a sign. The determination in
being motivated by a cause is not however a source or origin, but rather
is
a ground and limit. The object or fear determines the contextual
boundaries
that the sign or incursion will lay within. The act of incursion as a
moderating sign then goes on to determine the interpretant effect the act
or
sign has on signers within the eventual situation. The causal object and
the
resultant sign are connectively joined together as poles in this ground,
but
it is the consequential interpretant effect of this relation that controls
their conformity with each other, so as to provide some assurance of
informative normality to percipients about the event. If the incursion
seems
informatively or "grammatically" wrong and excessive or abnormal, within
its
semiotic and semiosic venue, then the interpretant effect will show this
to
percipient signers.
It is like a lingual proposition as a grammatic interpretant effect
failing
for users because it has elements that are false, laying in say its terms
as
an antecedent or in its declarative sentences as an assertion or its
predication. The term hence has the grammatic purpose to act as an
immediate
interpretant effect and so statically and syntaxically control the
conformity of its letters and words to their composed sentences, by which
say nouns or verbs and questions or statements are the immediate object.
The
purposive act of a term is to ensure words conform to each other in
sentences by the rules of syntax. The grammatical effect of this act is to
give regulatory control to the term. The interpretant of the act is
adequate
and appropriate composition. The proposition hence has the grammatic
purpose
to act as an intermediate interpretant effect and so dynamically and
energetically control the conformity of its terms to their referred
intermediate objects. The proposition thus controls the related conformity
of at least the terms to the signs being mainly icons or indexes or
symbols
of the objects and their contents. The argument hence is the final mediate
interpretant or effect, in which propositions act under its control as
premises, to yield inferences and endure conclusions.
The event of polity mentioned above as it occurred is a nonlingual sign
situation, while any talk about it is a lingual sign situation, but both
situations of semiosis are acts that involve signs, making them both the
proper subject matter of semiotic address. All of this informative
grammatic
action furthermore is logically an objective semiotic construct. Using
this
semiotic process of analysis it is easy to see how national governments
can
be found justly wrong regarding their acts of incursion into the arena of
art, aside from any unwarranted fear that might motivate them.
Mike (MM) wrote to Frances (FK) recently with his interlined comments...
FK
The instrumental interpretant effects are thus a
reactive consequence such as relief that is determined by the moderating
vehicle. In monitoring the relation between the vehicular result and the
stimulating objects, the effects act to control the conformity between
them so as to assure signers of some normality.
MM
I am still struggling with your explanation of "interpretant" as the
"grammatical effect" of a term. Take the term "act" in the second sentence
above. Grammatically it is the verb, but what is its "grammatical effect"?
To give "monitoring" power to control conformity? If we set about to
interpret the term "act" above, what is the interpretant?
FK
The determination of art is found in the empowered form
of aesthetic works, and not in such peripheral factors as their content
or
meaning, or value or worth, or context or function or usage, or owner or
intent or effect. These factors are marginal to art, and at best are
extra
aesthetic.
MM
If "determination" is not used in the sense of overcoming adversity
through
perseverance, but the power to determine whether an object in the set of
things that are "art", then it seems as though you are proposing an
institutional form of art with the twist that the institution is not the
artworld but the political power structure. If that is what you mean, and
I
have not misunderstood, then perhaps we should be reading Foucault instead
of Ranciere.
