Newsgroups: bit.listserv.qualrs-l
Date:         Sun, 30 Aug 1992 10:45:23 CDT
              <QUALRS-L@UGA.BITNET>
From:         "jean kantambu latting" <SOCW9V@UHUPVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      making sense out of making sense: theoretical

Now, to the theoretical.  Gary, Don, and Michael each provided us with
a  different triad:

Don  (reality, collective human experience, individual experience)
>I'm perfectly willing to trust the Newtonian account of the
>world I find myself walking around within.  But that reality
>is a product of the collective human and my individual experience
>of the limitless flux of energy that some choose to call reality.
>As I argured before, this triadic relationship is not reducible
>to components.

Michael in citing Peirce  (sign, that which the sign refers to, that which
interprets the sign):
>Peirce's triad.  Doesn't this triad imply that for meaning there must
>be an interaction between sign, that which the sign refers to, and
>that which interprets the sign--or did I misread (mis-construct)?

Gary (physical, semiotics, hermeneutics):
>The nominalist stance is to say that hermeneutucs by itself is
>enough -- the semiotic stance is to say that there is a hermen-
>eutic level of inquiry, but that it does not substitute for the
>semitic level, any more than the semiotic level substitutes for
>the physical level (which is also necessary,

Now, putting it all together--First, all three made reference to "reality"
(Don), "that which the sign refers to" (Peirce), and "physcial" (Gary).
Okay. So let's call this first thing the "physical reality."

All three made reference to a more or less similar second thing:
"individual experience" (Don), "that which interprets the sign" (Peirce--
in  describing the interpreter of the individual experience), and
"hermeutics"  (the method of interpreting individual experience by some
interpreter).   Let's call this second thing individual experience.

Okay, now at the third level, the analogous relationships between the
three triads break down, and this may be why Gary and Don said in
their  paper that they disagree on the nature of the third element in the
triad.   Now, I recognize that both Don and Peirce are saying the three
elements  are interactive.  I'm not trying to take away the interaction
among the  three things. I am just trying to figure out what is this third
thing.  So my  first three questions below are about the third thing.  The
other questions  are trying to understand semiotics vs. nominalism:

Question 1:  As I understand what they are saying, Don refers to the
third  element as the "collective human experience."  I interpret that to
mean  that we intersubjectively experience something.  Peirce has
named that  thing that we collectively experience "the sign."   Yet he is
also saying that  "the sign" has an existence independent of our
intersubjective experience  of it. My hunch is that Gary would agree
with Peirce--i.e. that Gary would  refer to that third thing as "the sign,"
not as "collective human experience"   In other words, Gary and Don seem to
differ about whether the third thing exists  independent of our
experience of it.  Don says no.  Peirce--and I think  Gary--say yes.
Michael personally (not speaking for Peirce) says no.  Am I  correct in
this?

Question 2.  Gary, if I am right above in what you are saying, then what
do you think is the difference betweeen the first and third thing?
between  physical reality and "the sign"?  I suspect you will refer to "the
sign" as the  "the greater pattern of intelligibility"  (see next question).
If not, then  please explain what you believe is this third thing.

 Question 3.  Gary, you referred to "the greater pattern of intelligibility"
and then apologized for sounding too much like Star Trek.  Please
explain  this "greater pattern of intelligibility" in Trekkie terms.  I
think I would  understand it better.  Now, don't sigh in despair, but I
still have not  gotten a satisfactory answer to my question of "meaning
to whom?"  or  "intelligible to whom or what"?  And the answer to that
lies in a more  precise definition of what the "third thing" is.  Try
explaining it as it  Trekkie, okay?

Question 4.  I gather that semioticians hold that all three things exist:
physical reality, individual experience, and this elusive third thing.
What  about nominalists?  I assume that they don't believe in a physcial
reality.   Is this correct?  But do nominalists believe that there is such
thing as a  "collective human experience"?  Anybody?

Question 5.  Gary, as you are using the terms, are you equating
nominalism with social constructionism with symbolic interactionism?

Jean

P.  S. I apologize for this being so long.  I gotta use words when I talk to
you.
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