What is Peirce’s triadic understanding of the sign
WEEK 2 – THREE’S COMPANY
Changing Signs of Truth (Downing, 2012)
Chapter 7: A Place for the Coin
Chapter 8: Placing the Coin on Edge
Peirce’s (Sheriff, 1989) idea of a triadic sign was not a modification of Saussure’s structuralist approach but is simply a different understanding altogether of how a sign might be interpreted. It allows one to take account of the context that gives any sign–word, utterance, object, and so on–its meaning. This is something that the structuralist simply is unable to do. For the structuralist, words have meaning based upon a given set of possible significations. For Peirce (Sheriff, 1989), meaning is determinate but much more fluid because it takes more factors into account. In four to five paragraphs, respond to the following:
What is Peirce’s triadic understanding of the sign? Be sure to define terms like object, representamen, and interpretant.
Compare and contrast it with Saussure’s understanding of a sign.
What does a Peircean triadic sign allow you to do that a Saussurean dyadic does not? How might this understanding affect the interpretation of parables?
Support your statements with evidence from the Required Studies and your research.
This is the information presented to to help with resources and expectations in week two.
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
~ Isaac Asimov
One must deal cleanly with the Scriptures.
From the very beginning the word has come to us in various ways.
It is not enough simply to look and see whether this is God’s word, whether God has said it; rather we must look and see to whom it has been spoken, whether it fits us. That makes all the difference between night and day.
~ Martin Luther
INTRODUCTION
(Re)Signing God’s Signs
Parables can be helpfully understood as the signs of God. In fact, most anything can be taken up by God and used as a sign for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. This means that the study of signs is basic to any process of understanding what we might see, hear, or read. There are numerous theories of signs–typically called semiotics–and we will study a few of them here.
Structuralism, as a linguistic theory, traces its roots to a Swiss linguist named Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure (Downing, 2012) was concerned with training other linguists in how best to categorize and understand languages. He did so via what he called a language’s parole and langue where parole are specific instances of language use while the langue is the based structure of meaning that lies behind language. This enables one to be able to describe a language in terms of its structure (langue) and how that structure works its way into everyday language use (parole).
Structuralism as a model of describing how cultures create meaning is worthy of study in its own right. Through it, we begin a study of semiotics–the theory of signs–in order to discover how any sign can have meaning. Does a sign simply refer to a signifier on a one-to-one basis, after you sufficiently identify the signifier in question? Structuralists would say “yes,” and this model has dominated most of the 20th century’s semiotic investigations. This is even the case when you look at rhetorics of power such as those enshrined in Marxism or against which various movements (feminism, anti-colonialism, LGBT studies) argue. In these cases, the goal is to see how the currently dominant structure has twisted words into particular meanings in order to underwrite various agendas that serve the interests of specific (and generally quite narrow) constituencies. The goal then becomes to identify these linguistic power plays in order to shift the balance of power in favor of an under-served or oppressed group. This, too, is a structuralist move–just one that seeks to change the system into a new configuration of power.
Structuralism and the ideological approaches behind the rhetoric of power are both very important for understanding how we can influence culture. They give us tools for suggesting useful ways of construing our cultural heritage and make us aware of the power that language has over all aspects of our lives.
Another understanding of signs comes from a person who was, roughly speaking, a contemporary of Ferdinand de Saussure–the American, Charles Sanders Peirce. Unlike Saussure, Peirce (Downing, 2012) did not view the sign as a simple, binary relationship between a signifier and a signified, an instance of parole that points to a particular location with the langue. Rather, Peirce (Downing, 2012) noticed that the signs were much more complex than that. He noticed that a sign actually has three elements, not two: the object of the sign, the sign itself, and something he called the interpretant of the sign that had a function in creating the meaning of the sign. While this view is greatly superior to Saussure’s understanding of the sign, its complexity and contextually-based nature hindered it from wide acceptance until recently. Now, more and more theorists are coming to see the advantages of this triadic view of the sign over Saussure’s dyadic approach (Downing, 2012).
Peirce’s (Downing, 2012) different view of the sign is important because bipartite signs have many disadvantages. As Downing (2012) pointed out, deconstructionists like Jacques Derrida have had a field day in insinuating themselves into words and changing their meanings entirely based upon a possible or suggested change in the context of understanding. This is problematic when it is taken to an extreme such that all words have no set meanings; rather, in this view, words only demonstrate the eternal play of differance, as Derrida (Downing, 2012) put it, and it is this gap between signifier and signified that determines almost endless meanings from a single word. That is, words are so full of (nearly infinite) meaning that all meaning becomes devalued in a deconstructionist approach. Peirce’s triadic sign, on the other hand, is able to account for how signs mean in given contexts and avoids the endless regress of differance. Further, it helps to trace how meanings come to be–by long chains of interpretation that trace back through history. This means that if Peirce (Downing, 2012) is right, meaning is always contextual and situated in communities. It also opens the door to regard all signs (and therefore everything that can be known) as being signs of the Trinity in history.
It also means that interpretation of Scripture can be extremely tricky as evidenced by the competing quotations that begin this week’s lesson. Interpreted one way, the Bible is completely antithetical to good faith; interpreted another, it is the very Word of God. This means that God’s Word is not self-evident; rather, it needs interpretation. While some may look at this fact and consider it to be threatening, it is hardly surprising and even has biblical roots itself. Consider the story of Jesus meeting two of his disciples on the Road to Emmaus after his resurrection told in Luke 24. Here were two men who knew Jesus during his ministry and knew the scriptures. They had been present enough, or so it would seem, to at least get the gist of why Jesus was here and how he was the fulfillment of prophecy. But they did not. They did not understand who Jesus was and why he had to be crucified. While hearing reports of the resurrection, they had no idea what to do with them. Yet, again, they had known Jesus enough to be in the second tier of people who knew Jesus (not the 12 “Disciples” but still “disciples”) and so had to have had at least a chance of understanding him, of getting him right.
Of course, that is not what happened. Instead, Jesus upbraided them, saying: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). This implies that they should have known because they should have known what was written in Scripture, the Old Testament. Yet they did not. Instead, Jesus had to return to the writings they knew so well–even to the Torah, the first five books of Moses, which Jews revere the most–and explain them again, just as the apostle Luke reported when he wrote: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all Scripture the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Scripture needs interpretation, even after Christ has come.
The question, then, is not one of whether or not the Scriptures need interpretation but rather how to interpret them. In particular, how to interpret them in such a way that the world can hear them again, that they become renewing for all and not for the few who can perceive their meaning. This is what Downing (2012) called “(re)signing.” How do Christians (re)sign Christian teaching, (re)sign even the Bible, to the world in order to transform the world? Last week, we discussed this in terms of constructing a “second narrative,” which is another way of saying something similar to (re)signing. This process of (re)signing, of constructing a “second narrative” is of particular concern regarding the parables, as the parables are especially powerful instances of how Scripture can be interpreted helpfully as well as misinterpreted when placed next to a set of interpretants, alongside an improper narrative that gives them meaning.
Reference
Downing, C. L. (2012). Changing signs of truth: A Christian introduction to the semiotics of communication. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic Press.
WEEKLY OBJECTIVES
Through participation in the following activities, the candidate will:
Apply critical skills to reading texts sacred to religious communities.
Building/Tearing Down the Structure
Three’s Company
The Coke Bottle
Explain how to read material, which is deeply embedded in a narrative tradition.
Three’s Company
Explain how to work with the wide religious diversity, which is found among colleagues, students, and their families.
The Coke Bottle
HEADS UP
In Week 5, you will view the movie, The Mission (Joffé, 1986). Review the Required Studies in Week 5 for available sources from which to rent this movie online.
In Week 8, you will submit a 12-15 page research paper that delves into the strengths and weaknesses of the careful reading of parables as a mode of understanding how to read difficult texts–religious or non-religious, fiction or non-fiction–deeply and meaningfully. The goal is to identify theological themes that run through the work and analyze how the writer organizes these themes to communicate them to the reader or viewer. You may want to review that assignment now in order to be prepared for it by the end of Week 7.
REQUIRED STUDIES
The following materials are required studies for this week. Complete these studies at the beginning of the week and save these weekly materials for future use.
Changing Signs of Truth (Downing, 2012)
Preface: Preface to the Problem
Introduction: Introduction to the Solution
Chapter 4: Under Signs
Chapter 6: Signs of Deconstruction
Chapter 7: A Place for the Coin
Chapter 8: Placing the Coin on Edge
Chapter 10: Antiseptic Bakhtin
Chapter 11: Communication on the Edge
View
The Gods Must Be Crazy (Uys, 1984)
Find the film on YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, at your local library, etc., or use the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv1n9UEVrAs
Recommended Studies
These resources are provided to enhance your overall learning experience. For deeper understanding of the weekly concepts, review these optional resources.
Sheriff, J. (1989). The fate of meaning: Charles Peirce, structuralism, and literature. New Haven, CT: Princeton University Press.
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