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64-399: Significs, intended to be a theory of signs , was developed by Lady Welby in quite close connection with the work of Charles Sanders Peirce , her correspondent. There is no scholarly consensus on its precise placing as an influence on later developments: on the ground now occupied by semantics , semiotics and semiology , it is closer to semiology than to the two others. While significs is

128-503: A Quasi-utterer and a Quasi-interpreter ; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct. In the Sign they are, so to say, welded . Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of human Psychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every logical evolution of thought should be dialogic. According to Nattiez, writing with Jean Molino , the tripartite definition of sign, object and interpretant

192-416: A sign is anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the interpreter of the sign. The meaning can be intentional, as when a word is uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, as when a symptom is taken as a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses , visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or taste. Two major theories describe

256-617: A l'évolution de la parole humaine, voila ce qui mérite d'être mis en lumière, voila ce qui j'ai essayé de faire en ce volume." In the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology Semantics is defined as "the doctrine of historical word-meanings; the systematic discussion of the history and development of changes in the meanings of words." It may thus be regarded as a reform and extension of the etymological method, which applies to contemporary as well as to traditional or historical derivation. As human interests grow in constantly specialized directions,

320-501: A label, legend, or other index attached to it, a "hypoicon", and divided the hypoicon into three classes: (a) the image , which depends on a simple quality; (b) the diagram , whose internal relations, mainly dyadic or so taken, represent by analogy the relations in something; and (c) the metaphor , which represents the representative character of a sign by representing a parallelism in something else. A diagram can be geometric, or can consist in an array of algebraic expressions, or even in

384-428: A mind and insofar as the sign is a determination of a mind or at least a quasi-mind , that functions as if it were a mind, for example in crystals and the work of bees —the focus here is on sign action in general, not on psychology, linguistics, or social studies (fields Peirce also pursued). A sign depends on an object in a way that enables (and, in a sense, determines) an interpretation, an interpretant , to depend on

448-399: A particular language. Peirce covered both semantic and syntactical issues in his theoretical grammar, as he sometimes called it. He regarded formal semiotic, as logic, as furthermore encompassing study of arguments ( hypothetical , deductive and inductive ) and inquiry's methods including pragmatism ; and as allied to but distinct from logic's pure mathematics. Peirce sometimes referred to

512-441: A possible precursor of later semiology, it is still a matter of debate what the extent of that connection amounts to. At a personal level Lady Welby did have some effect, particularly on C. K. Ogden . A mediating figure, she has not until quite recently been given great attention. The following sections are taken directly from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article written by Lady Welby. The term "Significs" may be defined as

576-414: A potential sign. Secondness is reaction or resistance, a category associated with moving from possibility to determinate actuality. Here, through experience outside of and collateral to the given sign or sign system, one recalls or discovers the object the sign refers to, for example when a sign consists in a chance semblance of an absent but remembered object. It is through one's collateral experience that

640-407: A sign by a second , as its object. The object determines the sign to determine a third as an interpretant. Firstness itself is one of Peirce's three categories of all phenomena, and is quality of feeling. Firstness is associated with a vague state of mind as feeling and a sense of the possibilities, with neither compulsion nor reflection. In semiosis the mind discerns an appearance or phenomenon,

704-424: A sign on how it will be interpreted, regardless of resemblance or factual connection to its object; but the symbol's individual embodiment is an index to your experience of the object. A symbol is instanced by a specialized indexical sinsign. A symbol such as a sentence in a language prescribes qualities of appearance for its instances, and is itself a replica of a symbol such as a proposition apart from expression in

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768-430: A symptom), and symbols are those that signify through a law or arbitrary social convention. According to Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), a sign is composed of the signifier ( signifiant ), and the signified ( signifié ). These cannot be conceptualized as separate entities but rather as a mapping from significant differences in sound to potential (correct) differential denotation. The Saussurean sign exists only at

832-413: Is addressed, more interpretants, themselves signs, emerge. It can involve a mind's reading of nature, people, mathematics, anything. Peirce generalized the communicational idea of utterance and interpretation of a sign, to cover all signs: Admitting that connected Signs must have a Quasi-mind, it may further be declared that there can be no isolated sign. Moreover, signs require at least two Quasi-minds;

896-431: Is allocated. More often, the receiver's desire for closure (see Gestalt psychology ) leads to simple meanings being attributed out of prejudices and without reference to the sender's intentions. In critical theory , the notion of sign is used variously. As Daniel Chandler has said: Many postmodernist theorists postulate a complete disconnection of the signifier and the signified. An 'empty' or ' floating signifier '

960-409: Is based on the " trace " or neutral level , Saussure's "sound-image" (or "signified", thus Peirce's "representamen"). Thus, "a symbolic form...is not some 'intermediary' in a process of 'communication' that transmits the meaning intended by the author to the audience; it is instead the result of a complex process of creation (the poietic process) that has to do with the form as well as the content of

1024-407: Is based upon convention or habit, even apart from their expression in particular languages. He held that "all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs". The setting of Peirce's study of signs is philosophical logic, which he defined as formal semiotic, and characterized as a normative field following esthetics and ethics, as more basic than metaphysics, and as

1088-437: Is need to insist on the rectification of mental attitude and increase of interpretative power which must follow on the adoption of the significal view-point and method, throughout all stages and forms of mental training, and in the demands and contingencies of life. In so far as it deals with linguistic forms, Significs includes " Semantics ," a branch of study which was formally introduced and expounded in 1897 by Michel Breal ,

1152-403: Is surely needless. The most urgent reference and the most promising field for Significs lie in the direction of education. The normal child, with his inborn exploring, significating and comparing tendencies is so far the natural Significian. At once to enrich and simplify language would for him be a fascinating endeavour. Even his crudeness would often be suggestive. It is for his elders to supply

1216-479: Is variously defined as a signifier with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or non-existent signified. Such signifiers mean different things to different people: they may stand for many or even any signifieds; they may mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean. In the semiotic theory of Félix Guattari , semiotic black holes are the " a-temporal " destruction of signs . David van Dantzig David van Dantzig (September 23, 1900 – July 22, 1959)

1280-728: The North Sea flood of 1953 , the Dutch Government established the Delta Committee, and asked Van Dantzig to develop a mathematical approach to formulate and solve the economic cost-benefit decision model concerning optimal dike height problems in connection with the Delta Works . The work of the Delta Committee, including the work by van Dantzig, finally resulted in statutory minimal safety standards. A comprehensive report on this work, spanning several hundred pages,

1344-853: The Royal Statistical Society . His memberships extended to the International Statistical Institute , and he was a prominent figure in the Dutch Statistical Association ( Vereniging voor Statistiek ). Additionally, van Dantzig held the position of Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1951 and spent time working at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. In response to

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1408-404: The cognitive process is the same). The first stage in understanding the message is therefore, to suspend or defer judgement until more information becomes available. At some point, the individual receiver decides which of all possible meanings represents the best possible fit. Sometimes, uncertainty may not be resolved, so meaning is indefinitely deferred, or a provisional or approximate meaning

1472-433: The ground of a sign. The ground is the pure abstraction of a quality. A sign's ground is the respect in which the sign represents its object, e.g. as in literal and figurative language . For example, an icon presents a characteristic or quality attributed to an object, while a symbol imputes to an object a quality either presented by an icon or symbolized so as to evoke a mental icon. Peirce called an icon apart from

1536-515: The 'Mathematical Centre' in Amsterdam. This institution, funded by both government and industry, was designed to amalgamate all facets of pure and applied mathematics under a single entity. As the head of the Department of Mathematical Statistics, van Dantzig was instrumental in enhancing research and fostering consultancy, gaining widespread recognition both nationally and internationally. He

1600-518: The Inner or Internal as alternative to the spatial - reducing the spatial to the External. The very note of the value to the philosopher of the "Inner" as opposed to the "Outer" experience is that a certain example or analogue of enclosed space - a specified inside - is thus not measurable. That obscures. Such a usage, in fact, implies that, within enclosing limits, space sometimes ceases to exist. Comment

1664-506: The Saussurian distinction between signifier and signified, and look for meaning not in the individual signs, but in their context and the framework of potential meanings that could be applied. Such theories assert that language is a collective memory or cultural history of all the different ways in which meaning has been communicated, and may to that extent, constitute all life's experiences (see Louis Hjelmslev ). Hjelmslev did not consider

1728-634: The applicability to statistical hypothesis testing . Van Dantzig's contributions to mathematics and statistics were acknowledged through numerous appointments and memberships. In 1949 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen ). He was a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics , the American Statistical Association , and

1792-407: The art of devising methods of research. He argued that, since all thought takes time, all thought is in signs, that all thought has the form of inference (even when not conscious and deliberate), and that, as inference, "logic is rooted in the social principle", since inference depends on a standpoint that, in a sense, is unlimited. The result is a theory not of language in particular, but rather of

1856-415: The common form "All __ is ___" which is subjectable, like any diagram, to logical or mathematical transformations. Peirce held that mathematics is done by diagrammatic thinking—observation of, and experimentation on, diagrams. Peirce developed for deductive logic a system of visual existential graphs , which continue to be researched today. It is now agreed that the effectiveness of the acts that may convert

1920-421: The concentration of intellectual activities on that which is implicitly assumed to constitute the primary and ultimate value of every form of study, i.e. what is at present indifferently called its meaning or sense, its import or significance.... Significs as a science would centralise and co-ordinate, interpret, inter-relate and concentrate the efforts to bring out meanings in every form, and in so doing to classify

1984-434: The concept of sign to embrace many other forms. He considered "word" to be only one particular kind of sign, and characterized sign as any mediational means to understanding . He covered not only artificial, linguistic and symbolic signs, but also all semblances (such as kindred sensible qualities), and all indicators (such as mechanical reactions). He counted as symbols all terms, propositions and arguments whose interpretation

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2048-462: The distinguished French philologist, in his Essai de semantique. In 1900 this book was translated into English by Emmeline Cust , the daughter of Lady Welby, with a preface by Professor Postgate . M. Breal gives no more precise definition than the following: "Extraire de la linguistique ce qui en ressort comme aliment pour la réflexion et - je ne crains pas de l'ajouter - comme règle pour notre propre langage, puisque chacun de nous collabore pour sa part

2112-512: The expressive value not only of sound and script but also of all fact or occurrence which demands and may arouse profitable attention. The first duty of the Significian is, therefore, to deprecate the demand for mere linguistic reform, which is indispensable on its own proper ground, but cannot be considered as the satisfaction of a radical need such as that now suggested. To be content with mere reform of articulate expression would be fatal to

2176-436: The first is mainly verbal (or rather sensual), of the second volitional, and of the third moral (e.g. we speak of some event ' the significance of which cannot be overrated, and it would be impossible in such a case to substitute the ' sense ' or the ' meaning ' of such event, without serious loss). Significs treats of the relation of the sign in the widest sense to each of these. 2. A proposed method of mental training aiming at

2240-405: The instinct to scrutinise and appraise the value of all that exists or happens within our ken, actual or possible, and fittingly to express this. The Dutch significs thinkers, besides van Eeden and Brouwer, included David van Dantzig , Herman Gorter , Jacob Israël de Haan , Henri Borel , Gerrit Mannoury and Evert W. Beth , a group with varied professional affiliations. The Signifische Kring

2304-492: The lacking criticism out of the storehouse of racial experience, acquired knowledge and ordered economy of means; and to educate him also by showing the dangers and drawbacks of uncontrolled linguistic, as other, adventure. Now the evidence that this last has virtually been hitherto left undone and even reversed, is found on careful examination to be overwhelming.' Unhappily what we have so far called education has, anyhow for centuries past, ignored - indeed in most cases even balked -

2368-526: The level of the synchronic system, in which signs are defined by their relative and hierarchical privileges of co-occurrence. It is thus a common misreading of Saussure to take signifiers to be anything one could speak, and signifieds as things in the world. In fact, the relationship of language to parole (or speech-in-context) is and always has been a theoretical problem for linguistics (cf. Roman Jakobson's famous essay "Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics" et al.). A famous thesis by Saussure states that

2432-400: The message into text (including speaking, writing, drawing, music and physical movements) depends upon the knowledge of the sender . If the sender is not familiar with the current language, its codes and its culture, then he or she will not be able to say anything at all, whether as a visitor in a different language area or because of a medical condition such as aphasia . Modern theories deny

2496-450: The object as the sign depends on the object . The interpretant, then, is a further sign of the object, and thus enables and determines still further interpretations, further interpretant signs. The process, called semiosis , is irreducibly triadic, Peirce held, and is logically structured to perpetuate itself. It is what defines sign, object and interpretant in general. As Jean-Jacques Nattiez put it, "the process of referring effected by

2560-432: The object determines the sign to determine an interpretant. Thirdness is representation or mediation, the category associated with signs, generality, rule, continuity, habit-taking and purpose. Here one forms an interpretant expressing a meaning or ramification of the sign about the object. When a second sign is considered, the initial interpretant may be confirmed, or new possible meanings may be identified. As each new sign

2624-520: The only significal terms in common use, though perhaps sense and significance are on the whole the most consistently employed. We have also signification, purport, import, bearing, reference, indication, application, implication, denotation and connotation, the weight, the drift, the tenour, the lie, the trend, the range, the tendency, of given statements. We say that this fact suggests, that one portends, another carries, involves or entails certain consequences, or justifies given inferences. And finally we have

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2688-409: The paper of Kürschak ..., where the definition of an abstract field with a valuation is clearly set forth. The foundation was completed in the thesis of van Dantzig ...; topological groups, rings, fields, and linear spaces are there defined, and their basic properties are established. Van Dantzig, in collaboration with Professors J.G. Van der Corput and J.F. Koksma, played a pivotal role in establishing

2752-440: The possibilities of signification of a signifier are constrained by the compositionality of elements in the linguistic system (cf. Émile Benveniste 's paper on the arbitrariness of the sign in the first volume of his papers on general linguistics). In other words, a word is only available to acquire a new meaning if it is identifiably different from all the other words in the language and it has no existing meaning. Structuralism

2816-410: The production of meaning, and it rejects the idea of a static relationship between a sign and what it represents: its object . Peirce believed that signs are meaningful through recursive relationships that arise in sets of three. Even when a sign represents by a resemblance or factual connection independent of interpretation, the sign is a sign only insofar as it is at least potentially interpretable by

2880-439: The prospect of a significantly adequate language; one characterized by a development only to be compared to that of the life and mind of which it is or should be naturally the delicate, flexible, fitting, creative, as also controlling and ordering, Expression. The classified use of the terms of expression-value suggests three main levels or classes of that value - those of Sense, Meaning and Significance. These are not, of course,

2944-548: The real world often has a chaotic blur of language and signal exchange. Nevertheless, the implication that triadic relations are structured to perpetuate themselves leads to a level of complexity not usually experienced in the routine of message creation and interpretation. Hence, different ways of expressing the idea have developed. By 1903, Peirce came to classify signs by three universal trichotomies dependent on his three categories (quality, fact, habit). He classified any sign: Because of those classificatory interdependences,

3008-487: The relationship between a sign and the real-world thing it denotes is an arbitrary one. There is not a natural relationship between a word and the object it refers to, nor is there a causal relationship between the inherent properties of the object and the nature of the sign used to denote it. For example, there is nothing about the physical quality of paper that requires denotation by the phonological sequence 'paper'. There is, however, what Saussure called 'relative motivation':

3072-415: The science of meaning or the study of significance, provided sufficient recognition is given to its practical aspect as a method of mind, one which is involved in all forms of mental activity, including that of logic. In Baldwin 's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology (1901–1905) the following definition is given: 1. Significs implies a careful distinction between It will be seen that the reference of

3136-469: The senders. But, why might this happen? Neither the sender nor the receiver of a text has a perfect grasp of all language. Each individual's relatively small stock of knowledge is the product of personal experience and their attitude to learning. When the audience receives the message, there will always be an excess of connotations available to be applied to the particular signs in their context (no matter how relatively complete or incomplete their knowledge,

3200-441: The sign as understood by an interpreter). According to Peirce, signs can be divided by the type of relation that holds the sign relation together as either icons , indices or symbols . Icons are those signs that signify by means of similarity between sign vehicle and sign object (e.g. a portrait or map), indices are those that signify by means of a direct relation of contiguity or causality between sign vehicle and sign object (e.g.

3264-420: The sign is infinite ." (Peirce used the word "determine" in the sense not of strict determinism, but of effectiveness that can vary like an influence. ) Peirce further characterized the three semiotic elements as follows: Peirce explained that signs mediate between their objects and their interpretants in semiosis, the triadic process of determination. In semiosis a first is determined or influenced to be

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3328-417: The sign to be the smallest semiotic unit, as he believed it possible to decompose it further; instead, he considered the "internal structure of language" to be a system of figurae , a concept somewhat related to that of figure of speech , which he considered to be the ultimate semiotic unit. This position implies that speaking is simply one more form of behaviour and changes the focus of attention from

3392-443: The study of linguistic signs. The other major semiotic theory , developed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), defines the sign as a triadic relation as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity". This means that a sign is a relation between the sign vehicle (the specific physical form of the sign), a sign object (the aspect of the world that the sign carries meaning about) and an interpretant (the meaning of

3456-458: The text as language, to the text as a representation of purpose, a functional version of authorial intent . But, once the message has been transmitted, the text exists independently. Hence, although the writers who co-operated to produce this page exist, they can only be represented by the signs actually selected and presented here. The interpretation process in the receiver's mind may attribute meanings completely different from those intended by

3520-437: The three trichotomies intersect to form ten (rather than 27) classes of signs. There are also various kinds of meaningful combination. Signs can be attached to one another. A photograph is an index with a meaningfully attached icon. Arguments are composed of dicisigns, and dicisigns are composed of rhemes. In order to be embodied, legisigns (types) need sinsigns (tokens) as their individual replicas or instances. A symbol depends as

3584-855: The value of all forms of expression; that which makes worthwhile any assertion or proposition, concept, doctrine or theory; the definition of scientific fact, the use of symbolic method, the construction of mathematical formulae, the playing of an actor's part, or even art itself, like literature in all its forms. The distinctive instead of haphazard use, then, of these and like terms would soon, both as clearing and enriching it, tell for good on our thinking. If we considered that any one of them were senseless, unmeaning, insignificant, we should at once in ordinary usage and in education disavow and disallow it. As it is, accepted idiom may unconsciously either illuminate or contradict experience. We speak, for instance, of going through trouble or trial; we never speak of going through well-being. That illuminates. But also we speak of

3648-439: The various applications of the signifying property clearly and distinctly." Since this dictionary was published, however, the subject has undergone further consideration and some development, which necessitate modifications in the definition given. It is clear that stress needs to be laid upon the application of the principles and method involved, not merely, though notably, to language, but to all other types of human function. There

3712-472: The vocabulary thus enriched is unthinkingly borrowed and reborrowed on many sides, at first in definite quotation, but soon in unconscious or deliberate adoption. Semantics may thus, for present purposes, be described as the application of Significs within strictly philological limits; but it does not include the study and classification of the "Meaning" terms themselves, nor the attainment of a clear recognition of their radical importance as rendering, well or ill,

3776-565: The way signs acquire the ability to transfer information. Both theories understand the defining property of the sign as a relation between a number of elements. In semiology, the tradition of semiotics developed by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), the sign relation is dyadic, consisting only of a form of the sign (the signifier) and its meaning (the signified). Saussure saw this relation as being essentially arbitrary (the principle of semiotic arbitrariness ), motivated only by social convention . Saussure's theory has been particularly influential in

3840-485: The work; it is also the point of departure for a complex process of reception (the esthesic process that reconstructs a 'message'"). Molino's and Nattiez's diagram: Peirce's theory of the sign therefore offered a powerful analysis of the signification system, its codes, and its processes of inference and learning—because the focus was often on natural or cultural context rather than linguistics, which only analyses usage in slow time whereas human semiotic interaction in

3904-656: Was a Dutch mathematician , well known for the construction in topology of the solenoid . He was a member of the Significs Group . Born to a Jewish family in Amsterdam in 1900, van Dantzig started to study Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam in 1917, where Gerrit Mannoury lectured. He received his PhD at the University of Groningen in 1931 with a thesis entitled " Studien over topologische algebra " under supervision of Bartel Leendert van der Waerden . Topological algebra made its first appearance in

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3968-677: Was appointed professor at the Delft University of Technology in 1938, and at the University of Amsterdam in 1946. Among his doctoral students were Jan Hemelrijk (1950), Johan Kemperman (1950), David Johannes Stoker (1955), and Constance van Eeden (1958). In Amsterdam he was one of the founders of the Mathematisch Centrum . At the University of Amsterdam he was succeeded by Jan Hemelrijk . Originally working on topics in differential geometry and topology , after World War II he focused on probability , emphasizing

4032-594: Was founded in 1922 by Brouwer, Mannoury, van Eeden and Jacques van Ginneken . Its later Dutch institutional history included the advent of biologists Hermann Jacques Jordan and Christiaan Pieter Raven . Internationally there were set up the International Group for the Study of Significs , followed by the International Society for Significs . Sign (semiotics) In semiotics ,

4096-403: Was later based on this idea that it is only within a given system that one can define the distinction between the levels of system and use, or the semantic "value" of a sign. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) proposed a different theory. Unlike Saussure who approached the conceptual question from a study of linguistics and phonology , Peirce, considered the father of Pragmaticism , extended

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