O paradoxo semiótico da improbabilidade da comunicação

The paper interprets Niklas Luhmann’s theorem of the “improbability of communication” as an argument against the ideal of a perfect congruence between communicating minds, whose more moderate precursors are: (1) Thomas Hobbes theory of deceitful communication, (2) implications of exclusion in the etymology of the word communication, (3) J. Lotman’s code theoretical objections against the idea of communication on the basis of a common code, (4) cognitive theories concerning impediments in communication based on the assumption that minds are black boxes, (5) Charles S. Peirce’s communication theory, and (6) poststructuralist and deconstructivist views concerning the impossibility of congruence in communication (Foucault, Derrida).O artigo interpreta o teorema da “improbabilidade da comunicação” de Niklas Luhmann como um argumento contra o ideal de uma congruência perfeita entre as mentes comunicantes, cujos precursores mais moderados são: (1) a teoria de Thomas Hobbes da comunicação enganosa, (2) as implicações da exclusão na etimologia da palavra comunicação, (3) as objeções da teoria do código de J. Lotman contra a ideia de comunicação com base em um código comum, (4) teorias cognitivas sobre os impedimentos à comunicação baseadas na suposição de que as mentes são caixas-pretas, (5) a teoria da comunicação de C. S. Peirce e (6) as visões pós-estruturalistas e desconstrutivistas sobre a impossibilidade de congruência na comunicação (Foucault, Derrida)

The semiotics of models

The paper sheds light on the concept of model in ordinary language and in scientific discourse from the perspective of C. S. Peirce’s semiotics. It proposes a general Peircean framework for the definition of models of all kinds, including mental models. A survey of definitions of scientific models that have been influential in the philosophy of science and of the typologies proposed in this context is given. The author criticizes the heterogeneity of the criteria applied in these typologies and the lack of a semiotic foundation in typological distinctions between formal, symbolic, theoretical, metaphorical, and iconic models, among others. The paper argues that the application of Peirce’s subdivision of signs into the trichotomies of the sign itself, its object, and its interpretant can offer a deeper understanding of the nature of models. Semiotic topics in the focus of the paper are (1) the distinction between models as signs and (mental) models as the interpretants of signs; (2) models considered as a type (or legisign) and models considered as tokens (or replicas) of a type; (3) the iconicity of models, including diagrammatic and metaphorical icons; (4) the contribution of indices and symbols to the informativity of models; and (5) the rhetorical qualities of models in scientific discourse. The paper argues in conclusion that informative models are hybrid signs in which a diagram incorporates indices and symbols in a rhetorically efficient way

Trajectory: A model of the sign and of semiosis

This paper examines how far the model of the trajectory as a path that a moving object follows from a source to a goal is an adequate model of the sign and of semiotic processes. Just like intentions, meanings, and messages, also signs have sources and goals. A study of the terms by which the Ancient Greeks referred to signs (sêma, semeîon, and tekmérion) reveals that the idea of goal-directedness is inherent in several respects in this early semiotic vocabulary. The paper studies Charles S. Peirce’s model of the sign as a trajectory by which Peirce describes the “agency of the sign”. Peirce’s semiotic trajectories are without beginnings and ends. Guided by final causality towards a semiotic goal, the sign can reach its goal only by asymptotic approximation. The final section of the paper presents brief notes on the trajectories characteristic of sign processes in semiotic models outlined by Algirdas Greimas and Juri Lotman. Greimas distinguishes a plurality of semiotic trajectories, such as the generative, the thematic, and the figurative one, but the prototype of all trajectories is the narrative one. Bifurcations resulting from conflicting tensions interrupt the unilinearity of the goal-directed trajectories. Besides disjunctions, the model foresees conjunctions in which trajectories merge. The dynamic forces that propel the agents (subjects and objects, agents and patients, senders and receivers, heroes and villains) along such trajectories are polar tensions and conflicts as well as phases of desire and fulfilment. Lotman proposes a dynamic model of human culture as a semiotic space where sign pro - cesses occur like “rushing torrents” or even take the form of “explosions”, suggesting trajectories whose characteristics are nonlinearity, bifurcation, sudden interruption, and unpredictable reorientation. Concomitant with such trajectories are the bidirectional trajectories that describe the dynamic relations between the centre and the periphery of a cultural semiosphere.    &nbsp

Word and Image: Intermedial Aspects

The concepts of ‘word’ and ‘image’ are not synonymous with ‘verbal’ and ‘visual communication’ although they are often restricted to these modalities of sign use. Words and images are cross-medially related, and here are many overlaps. By ‘words’ I mean language, verbal texts or discourse, more generally: verbal communication. By ‘images’ I mean pictures and more generally visual communication, not mental images nor verbal images.The concepts of ‘word’ and ‘image’ are not synonymous with ‘verbal’ and ‘visual communication’ although they are often restricted to these modalities of sign use. Words and images are cross-medially related, and here are many overlaps. By ‘words’ I mean language, verbal texts or discourse, more generally: verbal communication. By ‘images’ I mean pictures and more generally visual communication, not mental images nor verbal images

Comunicação: os paradigmas da simetria, antissimetria e assimetria

O trabalho examina como o processo da comunicação é representado (a) na etimologia da palavra comunicação, (b) nas metáforas cotidianas da comunicação e (c) nas teorias e nos modelos da comunicação do século XX. Estes refletem este paradoxo em três paradigmas da comunicação: os da simetria, antisimetria e assimetria. O beco sem saída da teoria da comunicação conforme o último cenário é confrontado com algumas soluções oferecidas na teoria da comunicação de Charles S. Peirce

Fundamentos semióticos do estudo das imagens

As imagens são signos? É evidente que as imagens são signos no caso daquelas que “representam”, mas “representação” não é sinônimo de “signo”? E, se assim for, podem as pinturas não representacionais ser consideradas signos? Alguns semioticistas declararam que tais imagens não podem ser signos, pois elas não têm qualquer referente, e, na fenomenologia, a opinião que prevalece é a de que não são signos, mas sim são fenômenos sui generis. O presente enfoque segue a semiótica de Charles Sanders Peirce: imagens representacionais, não representacionais e, inclusive, imagens mentais são signos. O como e o porquê imagens sem um referente podem, não obstante, ser definidas como signos, são examinados com base em exemplos de pinturas monocromáticas e mapas históricos de territórios imaginários ou inexistentes. O foco de atenção está no seu objeto semiótico e, no caso de pinturas não representacionais, na sua interpretação como ícones puros, não no sentido de signos que representam outros objetos, mas como signos que não representam mais que a si próprios, ou seja, signos autorreferenciais

Peirce on the Continuity between Human and Nonhuman Minds

No abstract available