James Jakób Liszka - A General Introduction to the Semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce

1996 by James Jakb Liszka

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Liszka, James Jakb, date
A general introduction to the semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-253-33047-5 (alk. paper)
1. Peirce, Charles S. (Charles Sanders), 1839-1914Contributions in semiotics. 2. Semiotics.
P85.P38L57 1996
121'.68dc20
95-25162

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There is a blue in the glacier
That on sun swept days
Colors her eyes
And whose crystalline core
Reflects her person
Just as well as it refracts the light:
Insistent, changing the landscape,
She bends the world to her will.

However we may want to conceive semeiotic, the goal here is to see it as Charles Sanders Peirce did. Of course this goal cannot be fully realized. Reconstructing the intentions and meanings of the author is not an innocent enterprise. When an author thinks, the products often acquire a life and a sense of their own and make suggestions and connections possibly not anticipated by the author; when the interpreter reads, there is constantly the backdrop of her own horizon. Peirce might be the first to admit thisafter all, "thought thinks in us rather than we in it" (CP 5.289n1). But still my idea is to present Peirce's vision of semeiotic as a discipline and to give, as far as possible, a coherent presentation of his theory of signs.

Let's be frank. Peirce's writing is terse and convoluted, without much wit or grace. "I am not naturally a writer," he says, "but as far from being so as any man."1 "One of the most extreme and lamentable of my incapacities is my incapacity for linguistic expression'' (MS 632: 207209). At times his analyses are so complex and detailed that they seem to make the phenomenon disappear. His examples are obscure and exotic, and so they confuse rather than help. He has a tendency toward digression. As a result I don't quote Peirce as much as I should, although I reference the relevant passages profusely. Where Peirce's own examples are enlightening, I use them; otherwise I devise ones I believe convey the same illustration. Peirce also has an annoying habit of neologizing, which is compounded by the fact that he often gives several names for the same concept. I have tried to include all the alternate usages early on where possible, employing afterward only a single term to represent the idea involved. This makes the initial introduction of terms somewhat cumbersome, but I feel it's important to cross-reference all related terminology.

My goal here is to present Peirce's theory as favorably as possible; the book does not pretend to be a critique of Peirce's general theory. This is not to suggest that it is beyond reproachcertainly there are many flaws

and gaps in his accountrather, that the goal is simply to present it sympathetically and in the best light possible. With that accomplished, criticism can be done fairly. I do pay attention to criticisms and scholarly disputes on these matters; however, I have indicated in the endnotes where scholarly controversies exist and have kept the outcome or the best resolution of that controversy in the main text.

I have written the text in the historical present. My choice in doing so is to create a feeling as if Peirce is present and involved in the conversation of the interpretation of his own material. I believe it represents the contemporary influence which Peirce has on modern thinking about signs.

The references to Peirce's work are abbreviated as follows: