Communications on a National Project
Dick,
Several points:
First, your description of Peirce's
views is actually a description of Frege's -- who I believe is second only to
Bertrand Russell in contributing more confusion than light to the discussions
of semantics:
> If you start with
Peirce, you start by assuming that
> semantics' main purpose
is to align syntax with logical form.
Peirce never said anything like that, and he would protest that it is far too narrow a view of semeiotic (his term). Peirce was analyzing all possible relationships among signs of any kind, ranging from the lowest-level signals in plants and animals. (He would have been delighted at the discovery of DNA, which confirms his basic thesis that signs are all-pervasive at every level of life -- and, in fact, that the ability to use signs is the defining characteristic of life.)
Second, I also believe that Saussure
made very important contributions to the development of what he called
semiologie. His structural approach is consistent with what Peirce called
"universal grammar", which is one of the three parts of semeiotic. In fact, the linguist Roman Jakobson and
the anthropologist Levi-Strauss (who collaborated at the New School in NYC
after leaving Europe during WW II) explicitly cited both Peirce and Saussure as
their inspirations.
I agree with the following point,
and so would some of my philosophical heroes, Peirce, Whitehead, and
Wittgenstein:
> My assumptions run more to the structuralist semantics
of
> de Saussure. These do
not presume that semantics are resolved
> or resolvable without
distinguishing also the semantic differences
> in "subject understanding".
Medical coding, retail coding, and
> all the rest are quite
precise in distinguishing "subject content",
> because there are great
economic and legal costs for getting the
> grammar right, but the
subject wrong.
I also agree with the following
point -- but up to a point:
> "Language
successfully communicates agreements between
> individuals both of
whom have already a shared
> understanding of the
concept description -- semantic meaning
> match ups. Language
does not create these match ups, which
> are completely
dependent upon shared levels of education and
> successful mutual
assumptions of purpose and intent, things
> nowhere guaranteed by
any linguistic source document taken alone."
The point where I disagree is the implication
that communication is not possible unless people already have "a shared
understanding of the concept description." That is true of the artificial languages of logic,
programming languages, databases, knowledge bases, expert systems, etc. But it is definitely not true of
natural languages.
The primary difference that characterizes NLs from current artificial languages is the ability to negotiate meanings in the absence of a previous agreement. That ability is essential for all analysis, planning, design, development, innovation, etc. Without that ability, all growth, change, and compromise is impossible
Of the three kinds of reasoning in
Peirce's classification, only deduction requires a previous agreement on
definition. The other two, induction
and abduction (especially abduction), are methods for discovering and
establishing new meanings as required.
For further discussion of these
issues, I recommend two papers. The first is a philosophical analysis of the
weaknesses of 20th century analytic philosophy and a proposed reconstruction on
the basis of three logicians who understood the limits of logic, Peirce,
Whitehead, and Wittgenstein:
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signproc.htm
Signs, Processes, and
Language Games
The second is an analysis of analogical reasoning along the lines of Peirce's classification and a discussion of an implementation that has great potential for addressing the limitations of current artificial languages:
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/analog.htm
Analogical Reasoning
John