I think your summaries are correct. My interest in Harris is centered on his idea about the creation of signs (regardless of Peirce's tokens, signs, symbols). His ideas may be similar to Peirce except he says Peirce sees tokens,
etc., as preexisitng their uses. I think Harris' Integrationism is perfectly suited to the way artworks function, both for artists and for beholders. Artists make "empty signs" or meaningless things within the context of culturally defined artworld and beholders -- including the artist -- project associations, names, images, coded forms, narratives to those things. In my view beholding artworks requires a visual-verbal process because it's impossible for a normal human brain to experience anything without constructing one or many identities for it, real or imaginary. There is no such thing as pure abstraction, non-objective form, utterly self-referential stuff. Integrationism is the linguistic version of this idea. There can't be a sign that preexists a referent and there are no referents that preexist their signs. That is the same condition as a painting as an empty sign or as meaningless until it is experienced in some subjective context. Interestingly, neuroscience has discovered "mirror neurons" that cause us to unconsciously imitate the feelings and actions of others, to have empathy. An artwork is a culturally contrived object that functions as a mirror to our own mirror neurons. We construct ourselves when we behold artworks by subconsciously imagining ourselves metaphorically "as if" the artwork. This is analogous to constructing communication in Harris' Integrationism. He could have enlisted the support of neurology by mentioning how mirror neurons enable people to construct their communications with "empathy" helping to assure mutual understanding. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The next step in art theory, art philosophy, aesthetics, will need to utilize the cross disciplinary advances in both the humanities and the sciences. Neurology, a basic awareness of how the brain functions is essential to any serious inquiry. Old fashioned philosophical guesswork is obsolete. Linguistics is essential, per Harris or someone else, because language is central to all human inquiry; it mediates all experience, right brain feelings and intuition and abstract visuality and left brain analysis, lexicality, verbalization. Of course, History, philosophy, literature, as an amalgam of cultural studies, is crucial. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Frances Kelly <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, March 15, 2011 7:30:34 PM Subject: RE: Signs of Signs of Signs: Integrationist Principles [List 1] Integrationist Principles This partial list of integrationist principles has been culled by me mainly from the first chapter of the Harris book on signs and languages and communications. There is seemingly some slight repetition as my slow reading proceeded. It is clear that these principles are not fully consistent with most theories of the linguistic sciences now current, nor with much of realism. The list will likely continue. The principles are presented here for now without any personal comment or critical analysis, although any corrections to my guesses are certainly welcome. ---FCK 01. Communications are varied and are not restricted to only humans or their languages. 02. Communications with signs are restricted to only humans and their languages. 03. Communications and signs and languages need a community of linguists to exist. 04. Individual humans alone cannot be linguists nor communicate with language signs. 05. Intentions play a necessary role in communications. 06. Signs do not exist prior to communications. 07. Signs are created in the process of communications. 08. Signs do not exist independent of communications. 09. Communications will determine the very existent being of signs. 10. Communications will determine the main kind a sign will be in acts of sign usage. 11. Languages are best accounted for by integrationist linguistics. 12. Explications of integrationism are unclear as to the very remedy it offers. 13. Systems of languages not integrated are flawed because they depend on an independent sign as a surrogate. 14. Signs do not come first as prepackaged merchandise taken from a shelf and passed to others. 15. Signs are created only in the communicative processes by both expediters and receivers. 16. Categories as a system of biomechanicals and macrosocials and circumstantials provide some predicted stability in the making of signs. 17. Biomechanical categories account for what humans can do within their natural limits. 18. Macrosocial categories account for what already exists as habits and customs. 19. Circumstantial categories account for what a particular situation of context calls for. 20. Categories will combine together and mediate for linguists to some extent. 21. Languages attain meaning only when used in contexts by linguists. 22. Languages cannot arbitrarily on their own mean anything outside the intents of linguists in communal acts of communications. 23. Signs are only of normal humans and only of their verbal languages. 24. Languages are only verbal, but then can be oral or literal, with writing as the dominant sign system. 25. Signs are made by humans only in social acts of communication with each other. 26. Integrationism and integrational linguistics denies signs to nonhuman organisms of life and nonorganic mechanisms of matter. 27. Languages can be orally spoken or literally gested and written. 28. Languages cannot be nonverbal, such as being virtual or variable languages. 30. Communications with lingual signs must occur for signs to exist. 31. Communications must entail verbal contact and exchange and accord between at least a pair of humans. 32. Humans as linguists must be individually competent in the performance of verbal languages before any communal communications with lingual signs can occur. 33. Humans must be normal and mature within a social group of able linguists. 34. In the evolution of human linguists, both individually and communally, it is at least grammatic experience and linguistic intelligence that must have come before the presence of signs and languages and their communications. (...to be continued in due course...)
