Preface

This book is a somewhat belated outgrowth of Semiotic Foundations: Steps toward an Epistemology of Written Texts (Indiana University Press, 1982). The title of that book might at the outset strike some as either embarrassing or a misnomer. I would suggest, however, that it escapes both charges, even though by the skin of its teeth. Actually, the term foundations hardly appears in that text. The underlying thrust of my argument was that semiotics should allow of no “foundations,” as traditionally conceived, that is. If “foundations” there must be, they should set the stage for an evolutionary view, and if so, then they must also be subject to the same evolutionary pressures they propagate.

At the heart of Peirce’s philosophy lies the notion that inquiry must be an evolutionary, self-corrective process. The terms evolution and self-correction refer to Peirce’s concept of community. For Peirce the will to know is gauged not by the individual but by the entire collection of individuals seeking knowledge by negotiating that tortuous evolutionary road to truth. There are no guarantees, however, for each community, like the members of which it is composed, cannot but remain fallible to the end. Peirce believed that there are no truths so true that they could never become, at some other time and place, false. But solace is to be had given that the community of individuals, if sincere seekers, are by and large self-corrective, and hence generally more right than wrong. And since, Peirce maintained, one must begin somewhere, with instincts, beliefs, common sense, or conjectures, invariably there is at the outset some presuppositional base—manifested as expectations in terms of individual and community practices—unruffled by doubt. So according to Peirce, if “foundations” there be, they are grounded not in propositions so true they can never become false but, rather, in propositions that for the time being are not subject to doubt. Indeed, Peirce was one of the first to enter the battlefield against foundational knowledge in the sense of an atemporal, ahistorical perspective arrived at from the depths of the privileged Cartesian cognizing intellect (Aune 1971; but for a counterargument see Almeder 1980).¹

With this in mind, in this volume I highlight Peirce’s themes of process, evolution, and signs generating signs (i.e., semiosis) throughout. In so doing I draw from a wide spectrum of disciplines. Such a radically transdisciplinary posture, I must admit, often induces averted gazes, shuffling of feet, nervous coughing, or flat-out knee-jerk reactions. After all, why should an apparently nice fellow find himself floundering about in this unruly sea of ambiguity without a sextant to mark out a clear direction? What can I say in response? I entered the academic rat race because I thought it would afford me the time to follow my curiosity. And it did so, taking me in the process far from my home base, wherever that was. I have no regrets. If anything, I believe my circuitous mental meanderings will serve to heighten the impact this volume may have on its readers—whoever they may be—for better or for worse. At any rate, I hope to have been able to leave the reader the map of a roughly charted territory. Whether I successfully fulfill this objective remains to be seen.

Briefly, I begin chapter 1 with the image of what Peirce terms an imaginary blank “book of assertions,” the field of “nothingness” in a state of readiness for a succession of “cuts” (propositions) bringing a semiotic universe into existence. If generated over a sufficient period of time and with appropriate tenacity, a given series of “cuts” would in the theoretical long run culminate in the Ultimate or Logical Interpretant. This “theoretical long run” being infinite in extension, the arduous chore must remain indefinitely incomplete. If what is “real” is thereby rendered inaccessible, any “reality” to be had, I argue, can be no more than “semiotically real.” Peirce offers a note of consolation, however, insofar as the “real” can be approximated asymptotically. One of Zeno’s notorious paradoxes is thus ushered in—an infinitely converging series—with which Peirce maintained a certain infatuation to the end, and to which I refer repeatedly in the ensuing chapters.

The ubiquitous tension between the “actually real” and the “semiotically real”—which patterns that between our incorrigible ideals and our real capacities—is the likely culprit lurking behind a set of complementarities, not mere dichotomies, which will also surface and resurface throughout this inquiry: symmetry-asymmetry, timelessness-temporality, reversibility-irreversibility, continuity-discontinuity, infinite-finite, one-many. In this light, I initiate discussion of a pair of Peirce’s key concepts, vagueness and generality, which, I suggest, are highlighted by the contemporary impasse brought about by the antagonizing conflict between relativity and quantum theory. The props are now set up for the drama to be unfolded.

In chapter 2 I introduce Charles Hartshorne’s critique of Peirce’s continuity thesis from the viewpoint of Copenhagen quantum mechanics. The long-term reason for my so doing is to demonstrate that Peirce is at least partly vindicated by recent interpretations of the quantum universe, especially those of David Bohm and John Archibald Wheeler, and from a macroscopic perspective, by Ilya Prigogine’s nonlinear, irreversible universe of becoming through “dissipative structures.” Peirce’s notion of continuity is mathematical through and through, as is Bohm’s interconnected wholeness of the universe. Moreover, as I shall argue in succeeding chapters, Wheeler’s “participatory universe” is patterned by way of Peirce’s subject-sign, or better, interpreter-interpretant, conjunction. And Prigogine’s ongoing creative universe, the very laws of which are subject to evolutionary tendencies, is in important respects commensurate with Peirce’s cosmological principles. In bringing these affinities to light, Peirce’s relatedness between mind and nature, and ultimately his enigmatic and controversial “man ≈ sign” equation, enter full force to constitute a theme which will gain momentum in the remaining chapters.

Chapter 3 provides a brief interlude, during which Peirce’s concept of sign growth and evolution will be given a preliminary contextualization within the complex twentieth-century intellectual milieu. Then, passing discussion of the recent development of the “physics of chaos” in chapters 4 and 5 serves as a stepping stone to an integration of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s dense, diffuse, and recondite but always provocative thought, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s radical and semiotically grounded theory of living entities, and Prigogine’s universe. Regarding the latter, order evolves from disorder, as disorder gives rise to entirely new forms of order. The one cannot exist without the other; there is no being without becoming, and no becoming without being.

Cognizance of this important point ultimately demands holistic rather than reductionistic thinking, which I use in chapter 6 in an attempt to institute a critique of some of the Grand Dichotomies of Western thought, which are perhaps to a certain extent necessary, though they are severely restrictive. The watchword becomes, over the long haul, complementarity, which implies mediation by way of Peirce’s Thirdness, and, above all, semiosis. Peirce’s cosmology is thus a long shot from the classical paradigm—though in certain respects the semiotic backwoodsman remained a child of his times. His unorthodox fusion of objectivism and idealism, monism and pluralism, continuity and discontinuity, infinity and finitude, places him squarely within much contemporary discourse, especially the view of an evolving, self-organizing universe.

With this in mind, chapter 7 pairs the Peircean doctrine of signs with speculation by many twentieth-century scientists, including Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Arthur Eddington, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger. Two distinct perspectives or modes of knowing enter the scene, intimate (intuitive) knowledge and representational (symbolic) knowledge, which bear on the centrality of language for the human semiotic animal and reveal the trend, especially in the West, toward rampant abstraction and alienation from the “real.” This is, I contend, germane to Peirce’s dialogic self-other interaction, as it is to a paradox stemming from the existence of self-consciousness effectively outlined by Schrodinger in Matter and Mind (1967). Indeed, the very Peircean idea of the universe as mind entails a paradox of cosmological self-reference rendering the universe inconceivable in terms of traditional logic, yet it is the natural product of the “logic of vagueness” Peirce occasionally promised but never delivered in discursive form—perhaps because it is well-nigh impossible to dress it in discursive form. At any rate, regarding Peirce’s cosmology, vagueness-generality, a leitmotif threading its way throughout this entire disquisition, is commensurate, I argue, with the havoc wrought by Godel and others with any and all claims to consistent and complete knowledge.

My story then culminates, in the final chapter, in an attempt ever so slightly to take a peek behind Firstness, to that lowermost point, “nothingness,” preceding the initial “cut” in the “book of assertions,” before essence and existence, indeed, even before truth and falsity have made their entry. The circle is thus closed: the end becomes the beginning and vice versa. The book in this fashion falls victim to the same paradox inherent in that to which it is addressed. In a sense it should self-destruct. But it does not, I would suggest. Rather, it patterns our perfusive universe of semiosis, which, also hopelessly self-contained and self-referential, escapes its own self-destruction by the fact that, somehow, it paradoxically flows on.

If I may be so fortunate as to see my expectations reach fruition, this volume will soon flow into yet another companion piece, tentatively entitled “Self-Excited Signs: Semiosis in the Postmodern Age” (1990), the draft of which is complete and to which I refer occasionally in the pages that follow. (I really must apologize for referencing a manuscript in progress. But the two inquiries are so tightly intermeshed that I found myself falling victim to the temptation. At any rate, I fully expect to send the later piece off within a year of having completed this manuscript.)

Before proceeding, I wish to thank Myrdene Anderson and Virgil Lokke for their having graciously worked their way through this manuscript to uncover inexcusable errors and omissions. I wish also to acknowledge my appreciation to Tom Sebeok for his continuing support of my efforts. Permission for the many citations from the Collected Papers is gratefully acknowledged to Harvard University Press. A note of thanks must be extended to Purdue University for granting me a sabbatical during which time the first draft of this book was written. Above all, I would like to express my esteem for Araceli, without whose support, through the thick and thin of things, this volume would never have seen the light of day.