In a message dated 12/7/09 3:50:01 PM, [email protected] writes:
> I agree that ideally when I reject, say, the suppressed assumption that > something called "signs" ever act, or ever "have" something called a > "referent", I should reprint the entire argument lying behind my > rejection. > But that > would be tedious beyond acceptance. > > > Similarly, however, I think you have every right to reject my warning as > inadequately supported. > > "Here mimetic idealism and the apparatus of patronism are both > part of the interpretant. Icon is construed here as a visual sign, a > portrait > as a sign that denotes by resemblance. Since the possible state the > portrait sign denotes and resembles is the prior act of portrayal, its > relation to > what it denotes and resembles is indexical as well as iconic. The > assumption > here is that the portrait's claims to iconicity and indexicality are > fictitious." > > "the prior act of portrayal" seems to be the only overt act and it means the plying of the brush to make th thing. You may claim that denote is a verb and consequently the sign is acting,or that resemble is a verb and th portrait is acting but if the sign has an effect on its observers then the state of the sign having the effect has to be described somehow. This use has the virtue of being short and in the case of resemble reasonably clear. I don't know what denote means when it is at home,a lot of these words were reused from other disciplines, but it too seems reasonably clear from usage. "Referent" is not a word I would use either,there is undoubtedly a more common word which can be used to mean the thing that the sign is resembling. I suppose using words like referent confers a separation from normal conversation. As for sign,it has a broad meaning and has been used to mean words, odd occurences,signals etc and I think this is a fair use. Also you are not differing with Berger but with Peirce and it is not surprising that he and his followers should work up their own vocabulary. I too thought at first that this was another attempt at solving problems which were not there but the book has excellent pictures so I got it anyway. On further acquaintance even the prose proved useful. Kate Sullivan
