Dear Etwina, Gary, List
It has been a long time since I last wrote to the List, however, I still
receive the corresponding information and from time to time I find
precise indications on the possibility of deepening in some Peircean
concept in my extensive library on Peirce.
Coming from architecture and design disciplines in general, I am
interested in being able to use the Peircean approach to better
understand the design project (as a semiotic process) and to be able to
take practical design decisions... and the same with respect to
qualitative market research... another discipline with a necessary
practical scope.
However, in both cases it is a matter of developing to the maximum the
aspects of the /enabling Firstness/: the /design/ and the understanding
of the problem... a difficult subject if there are any... or… our world
would be a little better than what we have.
I consider Peirce's /ethics/ (2ness) to be directly related to his
training in chemistry where every element in Mendeleev's table must
necessarily be precisely nominated: H=1 cannot be confused with Pb=207.
This is not the case with other matters such as color where there may be
a subtle variation, unnameable with precision, in a [blue] or a [red].
However, this /ethical concern/ (Peirce?) entails a serious
contradiction with respect to the Peircean triadic semiotics proposal
where the main task should not be the positive essence but the
inter-relational construction of a semiotic concept or process (Lizska
wrote something about this).
I believe that the exegesis of Peirce's work is still necessary given
the vastness and the difficult access to his writings. However,
semiotics, as a discipline with pretensions of /scientific methodology/
(Magariños de Morentin) does not deal with any exegesis, but with
cognitive-semiotic processes that are important in order to understand
something about any subject and to be able to make decisions of
different kinds, for example:
1. /to make possible/ the formal description of the logic of a
theoretical concept in order to improve it, change it or discard it
(1ness);
2. to analyze a concrete product or behavior to /determine/ its relative
economic validity (2ness); and
3. to allow the analysis of any socio-cultural-political value in order
to make a /decision/ (Althusser) coherent with the /needs/ (Peirce) of a
given time and context (3ness).
On the other hand, while the proposal to take the classification to 128
or hundreds of thousands of different sign-subsigns is absolutely
logical, I wonder if there is a single person in the world who has
developed that immense semiotic process applied to any object, problem
or concrete case. Probably AI programs will be able to do it... but will
anyone really be able to understand and review it for practical purposes?
This is why I have developed the /Semiotic Nonagon/ as a practical tool
for qualitative analysis in sufficient and recursive logical
sub-aspects: 3, 9, 27 or 81. Although, as Liszka says the SN “is not
strictly Peircean”, 40 years of its use in academia with doctoral theses
and professional practice as a qualitative market researcher have long
demonstrated its efficacy. Thanks to Gary Richmond I found out yesterday
that there is a long list of articles on this topic both in English and
Spanish: https://uba.academia.edu/CGuerri
<https://uba.academia.edu/CGuerri>This allows me not to go into further
details about this ‘strictly’ semiotic tool. Because, it seems to me (as
far as I know) worth noting that Peirce NEVER performed any semiotic
analysis using his own proposed classification of signs, except for his
unhappy decision to repeatedly name only the weather vane as an index.
And since, as Saussure explains, verbal language develops in a
sequential line (which prevents us from saying more than one stupid
thing at a time), every object, behavior, or concept is always a
complete triadic and always a complex SIGN... of which we may name one
aspect anyway, as basic rhetoric teaches us.
All the best
CL
*Dr. Arch. Claudio F. Guerri*
Consultant Professor
Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo
Universidad de Buenos Aires
Home address: Gral. Lemos 270 (1427) Buenos Aires – Argentina
Telefax: (0054-11) 4553-7976
Cell phone: (0054-9-11) 6289-8123
E-mail: claudiogue...@gmail.com
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