The world correlate chapter 3

The Horizonts of symbols: Interpretant and Structure

in Postmodern Cultural Theory

©By Abdel Hernandez San Juan

         Written in English and translated to English

by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

    In the questions already discussed I stablished on the way of language theory some differences between Saussure and Peirce defining it as one between structuralism and symbolism, but at the same time, I examined the consequences derived from train to set in relation such an structuralism and specific form of symbolism by proposing and discussing the concept of world correlate

   The world correlate, as discussed, pertain and belong to the order of the relations between the text and worlds both worlds of reality and of fiction as well as the relation of those worlds as correlates of the text as something that work without a subject who interpret although we will seen it is relative, in a first instance, an interpretant is only nothing else than another sign, a word, for example, which function as an interpretant meaning a translator of the meanings of another word, a sign is translated by another one beyond and independently of the relation of that sign with an object denotably or referentially, to this point nothing as a subject who interpret is included, supposed or evolved, the concept of the interpretant given that suppose similarities with the word interpretation may in fact give the impression of an activity of interpreting by a subject as such, but in a first level it is yet as conceived by Peirce just a function of the signs, a sign is defined as an interpretant because it provide all we need to access or comply the meanings of another sign thanks to another former one

   Let then go in deep about this translation function of the interpretant and later figure out how something formally conceived without presupposing a subject might include an operational subject in methodological terms as well as to discuss the differences and points of contact between such a presupposed subject and the one that we have in the activity of interpretation both in term of hermeneutic as in term of exegesis discussed in the first chapter of this book.

   An interpretant is the result of a system of inference which have in its basis a cognitive tie up between representation and its objects it have from its basis a distinction between the qualities of things and the synthesis of it at language level, it resulted from a procedure of distinctions included the ground. The ground is a part of the sing defined as that which it indicates, address or toward the object something seems to be similar or the same with another name of the later called referent, referentiality or denotation, the grounds however have an interesting specificity different to referent and denotation, it seems to maintain a certain relation of belonging to the object it indicates, it evolve to a certain point a basis or a support by which the sign and the object arises from a similar source.

  This specificity of the ground is almost undiscussed in the criticism about Peirce, the ground is certainly almost the referent, almost denotation, but with a subtly difference, the fact that sometimes the relation between the sign and the object of the sign is not always one of indicating or denoting it, but also of a certain mutual source, for example, in visual signs or even to go more in deep, in natural signs which are majors to understand Under Peirce semiotic, sometimes the sign and the object are related by inferences, clues and several kinds of implications, nothing better to illustrate this than when the sing is defined by the object itself, when it is the object itself the one supposed to be detonated the one which become the sign so to speak, so that as much as the ground is almost or the same of the later so-called referent and denotation, as much as its is complex and rich than that, it evolved several forms by which sign and objects arises and source in their mutual relations

   But the system in question basis the interpretant includes also the representatement which is a reflective concept by which there is also at the sign level and surface something about the object reflected by it, finally, we can’t understand the main basis of the concept of interpretant without understanding how this two levels of a sign form a correlate since it is precisely the correlate the level which establish the kind of independence of the sign in respect to the object while at the same time basis the avenue from which through grounds and representatements the interpretants born, start and grow from correlates

    But the relation between ground, representatement and correlate is not yet one of meaning, to start the meaning it is necessary another sign which will translate the former one, this another sign is the interpretant and start the interpretants successive process stablish meanings, as discussed above, the interpretant is the result of the relation ground, representatement, correlate, but it start the process of meaning as a semiosis which replace the objects by the meanings

    Now, we must pay attention at this point, the pass by from the ground, the representatement and the correlate to the interpretants is at the same time the starting of an infinity semiosis through which reality –by now a reality of objects and objectual one so to speak-- which was grounded, seize at the representatement and correlated entrance weaved to the interpretant or more precisely thanks to the interpretant in a process of meaning, from this moment, the replacement of the object by the sign at the microscopic micro level is increased and enlarged in a form similar to what Derrida defined as texere, a weave of both correlates –the final form of ground and representatement—and of meaning, the endless process of translation the interpretant start to never stop within successive interpretants or the so called infinity semiosis, here reality is weaved as meaningfulness while replaced as the object by language

   The world correlate source then from this level. We might in fact made abstraction of this principle to recognize that both level the one detonated according to a first relation sign-object and the one weaved in the replacement of objects by meanings are equally reality in different grades or stratus’s

    While the concept of texere discussed by Derrida is more phenomenological as well as overall formal, it is of the same kind but not without pointing out the major differences discussed in the previous chapter on endless of form and aesthetic within text ---Derrida, and endless forms of meaning and culture—Peirce.

    Must we try to relates this two differentiated levels?. Well, I think we must as we should explore relations between structural principles and symbolist ones, but not in any form.

   The first issue to be out pointed here is about the subject. How to understand the position of the subject regarding interpretants and its possible operational level of work?

    We might understand that working with the interpretant is not the same as interpreting, moreover, the hermeneutic activity of elucidation and the exegesis of texts are activities of interpretation between a reader subject and a world or a text to be elucidated or read, instead of that, in working with interpretants we are working with something itself which function as an interpretant of another thing, we set out and aside the relation between things independents to us as we made interpretants one in respect to the others.

     From this point we might work with things as interpretants of another’s, books of an author as interpretants of another books, languages as interpretants of another languages, forms of the text as interpretants of another’s forms of the texts, structures as interpretants of another structures, cultures as interpretants of another cultures.

    We must then at this point add to the previous chapters deliberations on the differences between the relation between hermeneutic and ontology on the one side and exegesis and the text on the other, a thirst level of method well differentiated to the two previously discussed, the work with interpretants which consist not about elucidating as ontological activity not about reading texts as exegesis activity, but about relating things in between we choice as interpretants one in respect to the others, while we should be attentive on the fact that, as discussed in my chapter the world correlate the levels of working with interpretants as evolving translations and meanings is simultaneously if we follow Peirce distinctions, with correlates and as such with my concept of world correlate.

    So that we are here in front of a methodological differentiation, it is not the same to interpret or read that to put in relation things that might be one interpretants of the others. In this sense the concept of interpretant conserve and preserve a certain deontic exteriority from the more simple level, the signs, to the more complex levels, books, structures, languages, forms of text, cultures and as such we are here dealing with what in semiotic is being defined as “languages objects”.

    We know that we are moving here beyond Peirce in many senses while based in his legacy we explore an enlarge and increase possibility to the interpretants, to interpret with interpretants is so no interpreting a text directly neither elucidating things as ontologically given but interpreting a text with another text, in both forms considering the texts as already given as well as set aside and building relations of texts that we have made such a for example when we textualize the non-textual, working with pre-texts or with form to construct the textual by textualization procedures, the interpretant is the activity that allow us to make inferences in between, to translate and to work with meanings and semiosis

    The Peirce concept of unlimited or endless semiosis is here of a pivotal and major regard, this is the concept that evolving the chain of successive interpretants toward as to culture it leads us to work with the interpretant in the level of cultural theory, while we must at the same time made a major distinction between the chain of interpretants defined by translations and meanings and two other chains already discussed in this book, that of the significants and that which transform hermeneutic in hermeneusis.

   Hermeneusis is nothing else than culture itself as we discussed it above but under it we are diluted or disseminated at the ontological level of culture, significant chain toward us to a formalist and at the end textualist level, from significants within syntactic formal chains we may enlarge and increase the textual dimension while there is a point when increased enough or enlarged enough the text pass to be a texere or a weave, in spanish we have a best word which mean the same, tejido, when this happen hermeneusis overflows the textual and the chain of signifiers disappear in hermeneusis as culture.

   Semiosis as a chain toward us to a major differentiation in respect to the former, it is not a purely ontological not a purely formal surface, but a deontic succession of translations process with cognitive unities, the interpretants are in fact as discussed above cognitive unities defined by ground, representatements and correlates and as such there is yet or ever a certain exteriorization, such an exteriorization is at the end enclosing reality in language, the reason because the chain is considered semiotical, the enclosing however is nothing else than the replacements of the objects by meanings and as such is a symbolist chain.

   This is the reason because to some critics of Peirce the concept of semiosis have pragmatic implications as well is considered related with grammatology and rhetoric while we should not forget that Peirce conceived it also as a cosmology a cosmology of signs so to speak.

   In this sense we must take note of the issue of interiority and exteriority of language as discussed in the previous chapter and to know to recognize when are we needed to work with hermeneusis, when with textual form chains and when with deontic semiosis.

    While semiosis is deontic it is not however superposed and or juxtaposed to culture in as exogenous form, it is itself also culture even we must said also ontologically speaking but here culture is perceived from the side of the semiological groundings of meanings and as such the interpretants as unities are deontics, we interpret one text with another text or according to another, the reason because the Peirce semiosis was major not only to semiotic theory but also to semantique.

    In this sense we may complex and enrich the interpretants by recognizing the cuts of the according to the interpretants that the interpretants itself suppose in term of conducting our research and the towards of it.

   Thus, we have arrived here to a major theoretical problems which need to go in deep.

   As we will seen forth the field of the symbolic or of what we understand as symbolism take shape from the shoots of the interpretants in respect to the objects as replacements toward meanings and the replacement of reality by the symbolism of meaningfulness or reality as symbolically enclosed in the semiosis of meaning as culture, such a sense was in fact recognized by pierce who decided to take distance from the sensible multiplicity or palpable sensoriality, but symbols are less indexical and less deixticals than signs, at the symbolic level the object is far than from the sign as we should not forget that to Peirce even thought and thinking are forms of the sign and of the symbolic, the process of synthesis operated by inferences and replacement of the sensorial datas is evolved in symbolism, the symbols are less reflective and indicatives non-referential than the signs so that from the measure of symbols we perceive that symbols are in another sense and respect also forms and as such also structures or to put it in reverse and paradoxically more clear that structures are symbols

   As soon as we understand that structures are symbols we are taking distance from the traditional dilemma of structuralism between operational and ontological structuralism, under the first we consider structures as formal models to work with or according to, at the ontological we suppose to be working with structure as it exists in society, culture and language, but from the moment we perceive that retheorizing the concept of structure symbolically move us out of both poles of the structuralist dilemma, we understand that structures as symbols are nothing else than sinegdoques and metonyms by the mean of which an structure might be an interpretants of another one like a text of another text according to our cuts, structures itself in fact are nothing else that forms of the cutts.

    We have said that structures are symbols, but nothing yet about how and in what form

     If I cut the relation langue/speech in a synchronic level here and now in the triple present I obtain an structure, this structure take shape from the fact that I recognized that langue as the same always with little variations while speech is the space of that language in a practical mode as reading and writing are but without modification of langue following its rules and gramatics, as soon as obtaining this relatibly static structure I may go to that language an analyze it

   The structure we have obtained is both, on the one side, we obtained it thanks to the cut but if instead of that we avoid to separate and distinguish langue from speech in the synchronic cut of the here and now, we lost the structure, as soon as avoiding we will not find an structure neither a way to analyses as such

   The cut allow us to be in contact with an objective reality of language, the question is, should we suppose that language itself consist in such an objective reality as an stable structure?, the answer to this question is that as soon as we cut language and the relation between language and culture in another form we will immediately lost an structural sense of language, that language may be symbolized as an structure it is undiscussable as the cut showed it to us, that such an structure lead us to travel or move among language forms structurally it is undiscussable and that according to our cut we might seize infinity of phenomena’s both objectives and subjective it is also out of discussion, but that if we change the cut language might appear in a completely different form arriving even to forms of understanding language in which the idea of structure is diluted, disseminated and even destroyed it is out of discussion too.

   We only have to place ourself for example understanding language among the more general culture, or according to how a language is interpreted by a a receptor a reader or an interpret, the same elements allows us to see structures under the former cut as relatibly subtracted from time and space in a synchronic static form, are returned now to be perceived under disseminated and dispersed links when nothing might be fixed, if we for example pay attention not to what each sign is but to what it is not we arrive to the principle of differences so to empty spaces of non-presence or absents from which the relation mark, unmark, empty space, non-sign, difference disseminate the structure to the point of destroying it as derrida demonstrated and eco discussed at the absent structure, from another perspective we may arrive to how language is diluted among thought and being

  Thus if we arrive to an structure it was only thanks to out cut and from such a cut the structure is nothing else that symbolization of language endowed by our cut, it is nothing else than a symbol

   This symbol, of course, might be comprehended in several aspects with subtly well deferiented senses in respect to our more usual meaning of symbols, an structure is not a metaphor, but an structure is yes a sinegdoque as well as a metonym from the moment its logic presuppose to set in relation two geometrical and arithmetic ideas of surface and space and from the moment we are putting in relation the part of a whole out of it in relation to another whole.

   The time of an structure is usually detained and the space transformed in surfaces, lines and dots creating a juxtaposition and superposition between the formal logic of the structure --not matter if we extracted it from a former model or abstracted it from things itself, in any case if I isolate or set aside an structure I am doing a cut putting in relation two planes one is an abstract plane one another one is a concrete one plane, the abstract one will be related with the concrete, empirical one as a model to saw it or as a model to reflect it, one will be in front of the other but never quite unify or united, the relation will always be one of repetition and superposition, a plane stay always relatibly in front of the other.

   In general we must attempt to probe that the formal plane will be more near to our gaze, meaning to the subject of knowledge the other one plane will be a kind of adjacent one, the abstract one function as a formal model will be the near one and the concrete, empirical one will be the adjacent, superposed or repited, I am doing nothing that putting in relation two surfaces which lines and axis stay continually in a relation of equidistance but working together and at the same time, I will move from the concrete plane to the abstracting formal model one and from the formal abstracted one I will return to the concrete one retuning to the abstract again so as looking for between one and the other meaningfulness relations

   The sinegdoque work is a very similar mode, a plane corresponding to an space is free from the whole it arise and its relation with the next plane of another space will symbolize under the new whole the space of the former whole from which the sinegdoque arise and source even, also metonyms, a metonym is always a relation between two planes, one is the abstract symbolic one the other one seem to be a part of the whole from which it is separated and to which it belong

   When we made abstraction of an structure which is not in correspondence by mimesis to that supposed to be the structure of a thing or an object, the figural abstract plane considered as formal model will never might be quite represented, it might be evoqued through drawings and graphics. We will of course try to separe it from the mere drawing or graphic in which the pure structure is abstracted from the real empirical and concrete things and objects it itself, but it will never be quite represented because it is an abstraction and maintain with the object a relation always adjacent, but forth the drawings of those planes, the formal abstract which is not a mere mimesis of the supposed to be structure of the things and the other one supposed to be reflected have will have to be superposed and set in a relation through which moving from a plane to another is a process of unveil, revel, find or discover paradigmatic senses, we create a signedgoques with abstracted aspects of an space adjacent to another space, the related parts of one wholes with another whole

     Structure is thus in itself symbolic in the same mode of tropes and the only way to get it is through cutts

    The former is no a way to meaning that there are never structures, there are structures without doubt in thought, in language and in culture, but the structure as a trope is a centaur, a half a man and half an animal as in the Grieg mythology figure, meaning, a half referent to the object itself and a half to representation and in a great measure everything belongs to the cutts pertinent to the relations between representations and its objects

   We can’t define structure as a sign because an structure is not a dyadic symbol composed only by reflect, reference and object but it is an abstract symbol as for example perspective is an abstract symbol of the same kind, a perspective is also at the same time representation and object, representation and reality, one time it goes through a pure plane of representational perception without reference to the plane of the objects reality and the world, but another time and at the same time it goes quite as perspective in and of the objects itself

   Both are concepts, perspective and structure related with mimetical principles more or less subordinated dependent or independent to representation in respect to the represented and as representation is never identical to the represented both are symbols located in an intermedia place of disjunction working according to logical syllogisms

    Realized out the tie up or clear away that structures are symbols we are then in conditions to discuss how to relate such forms of retirements to the symbolic in respect to the world of sensible impressions, interpretants and structure

  The, interpretants, take shape from triadic and diadic principles,

   triadic: sign-representatment-ground-object

    dyadic: sign, correlate, interpretants

    We should then finish with a precision about which that it is different in terms of cultural theory, sociology, anthropology and ethnography the former discussed from the simple traditional idea of the relation between the culture of an author and another culture about which it is an interpretation or representation, far to entrance in an external culture to another, the one of the author and another one, the work with the interpretants avoid it and stablishes a separation between the subjectivity of the author and the interpretation of cultures, what we relates in between are things in itself so that what we have is a work of unveiling, a quest of search, a research around how an structure may be interpretants of another, how a text, how a book, how a culture

Bibliography

Eco Umberto, estructura y estructuralismo, Pp, 343-, la estructura ausente, Lumen

Eco Umberto, realidad ontológica o sistema operativo?, Pp, 344-357, la estructura ausente, Lumen

Eco Umberto, pensamiento serial y pensamiento estructural,pp,358-369, la estructura ausente, Lumen

Eco Umberto, la estructura y la ausencia:pp, 370-39, la estructura ausente, Lumen

Eco Umberto, el universo del sentido, Pp, 62-136, la estructura ausente, Lumen

Eco Umberto, Los Fundamentos Semióticos de la cooperación textual, Pp 41-72, Lector in Fabula, Lumen

Habermas Jünger, Theory of communicative action, beacon press, 1981

Habermas Jünger, teoría de la acción comunicativa, Taurus

Habermas Jünger, teoría de la acción comunicativa, iuesapar libruary

Hernandez Sam Juan Abdel, Rethinking Urban Anthropology, Complete works, Tome VII

Hernandez Sam Juan Abdel, Anthropology of Archaeology: A Perspective from Ethnomethodology and Cultural Anthropology, Selected Essays, Book

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, The Intramundane Horizont, Complete Works, Tome VI, Book, 2017

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, Self and Acerbo: The self and the social Between writing, research and culture, complete works, tome VIII

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, The Presentational Linguistic, Complete works, tome III, Book, 2005

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, Being and Monad, Complete works, tome IV, Book, 2006

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, The Given and the Ungiven, Complete works, tome V, book, 2007

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, phenomenological Anthropology, selected Essays

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, the indeterminist true, selected essays

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, the constellation of common Sense, sociology of common sense and Anthropology Research Theory, selected essays

Sini Carlos, Peirce, Pp, 13-81, filosofía y semiótica, Hachete

Tyler Stephen, on the markets in India, A Point of Order, Rice University studies