Paper presented at the 10th International Meeting on Pragmatism

THE PLACE OF PRAGMATISM IN THE ARBORESCENT DIAGRAM OF 66 CLASSES OF

SIGNS CALLED SIGNTREE.
Priscila M. Borges
primborges@gmail.com
Currently, doctoral student in Communication and Semiotic at
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, PUC/SP, BRAZIL,
advised by Prof. Lucia Santaella. Financed by FAPESP.

Abstract:
This paper shows how it is possible to see through reading the diagram SignTree the connection
between semiotic and pragmatism. The SignTree is a visual diagram that illustrates in detail Peirce`s 66
classes of signs. Its arborescent format represents the semiotic structure and a certain reading of it shows
how semiose is connected to Peirce`s philosophy. This reading will focus on the tip of the branches because
this is the precise location of the 3 trichotomies that are composed of final interpretant: the final interpretant
itself; the relation between final interpretant and sign; and the triadic relation among sign, dynamic object and
final interpretant. A special attention is given to these three trichotomies because they show the possibility of
the infinite growth of signs. According to Peirce, there are three kinds of final interpretant: gratific, practice
and pragmatic. It is not a coincidence that the word pragmatic is used to describe the final interpretant of
thirdness. The final interpretant introduces in the semiose the concept of being in future making possible
the continuity of signs. As the triadic relation of signs corresponds to thought and the final interpretant is
present in that relation, than thought might have the characteristic of being in future. So it is possible to
find out the purpose of thought and finally make the connection between semiotic and pragmatism. In the
last trichotomy Peirce describes three kinds of thought: instinct, experience and form. The diagram shows
that in 55 classes are found thought as an instinct, in 10 classes are found thought as an experience and in
one class is found formal thought. The objective of this paper is to understand the reasons why these three
types of thought are arranged in that way and so comprehend the connection between Peirce`s semiotic and
pragmatism. This paper proposes that the only one class of sign in which appears formal thought represents
the pragmatic maxim: concrete reasonableness, and that the other classes of signs represent the realization
of the pragmatic maxim. Those classes of signs in which thought appear as an experience are the ones
that represent an idea put in act. And the greater number of classes of signs in which thought appear as an
instinct represent the aim of the self-controlled thought: to construct habits of action.

Peirce conceived of his semeiotic as a logical discipline, an abstract and general

theory for the mapping, classification, and analysis of sign processes. His best known
classification of signs consists of ten main classes, but Peirce went further in his reflections
until he arrived at a system of sixty-six classes of signs. However, he did not elaborate
this system in a detailed manner, and it remained an unfinished project which became a
controversial topic in Peircean scholarship.
 The present paper proposes 3D diagram to represent Peirce’s system of sixty-six
classes of signs, which will be called “SignTree diagram.” The purpose is to provide
a detailed graphical representation and to contribute to a better understanding of this
system. The paper also aims at showing that graphical diagrams are most useful in the
making complex and abstract conceptual systems transparent.
This paper has two parts. The first presents Peirce’s phenomenological categories
and his sign trichotomies, which are fundamental and essential to the understanding
of diagrams. The second part discusses the relevance of this diagram in the contests of
semiotics and pragmatist philosophy.

The phenomenological categories

Peirce’s three phenomenological categories of firstness, secondness, and thirdness,
which he also called cenopythagorean categories, are the foundation of his semiotics
(CP 8.328, 1904). According to their definition, “the First is that which has its being or
peculiarity within itself. The Second is that which is what it is by force of something
else. The Third is that which is as it is owing to other things between which it mediates”
(W5: 229). The three categories are interrelated as follows: firstness is independent of any
other category; secondness depends on firstness; and thirdness depends on secondness
and firstness.
 The sign trichotomies
Among his many definitions of the sign is the following: “A REPRESENTAMEN
is a subject of a triadic relation TO a second, called its OBJECT, FOR a third, called
its INTERPRETANT, this triadic relation being such that the REPRESENTAMEN
determines its interpretant to stand in the same triadic relation to the same object for some
interpretant” (CP 1.541, 1903).
In his earlier classification of signs, Peirce considers only three trichotomies: the
sign in itself, the sign in relation to its dynamical object, and the sign in relation to its final
interpretant. Each of these trichotomies belongs to one of the three phenomenological
categories.
The first sketch in the elaboration of the 2D diagram for the ten classes of signs
was a tree diagram with upward branches. The growth of a tree indeed evinces an affinity
with sign processes, since each bifurcation of a branch results in a triadic structure. The
temporal order in the sequence of the antecedent to the subsequent evinces another affinity
between the growth of signs in semiosis and the growth of the branches of a tree. The
antecedent belongs to the past, which is already determined; the subsequent pertains to
the future, whose full of possibilities are still undetermined.
 Peirce derived his ten main classes of signs from the logic of his cenopythagorean
categories. Thus, if the first constituent of the trichotomy is of the nature of firstness, it
can only determine relations of this very category. If the first constituent of the trichotomy
is an existent, which is of the nature of secondness, then it can determine as its second
constituent a relation of mere possibility (firstness) or existence (secondness). Finally, if
the ground of the sign is a law (thirdness), the relation between sign and its dynamical
object can be one of a possibility (firstness), existence (secondness), or law (thirdness).
It is well known that Peirce expanded the system of sign relations first by introducing
the additional subdivision of the object into the immediate and dynamical object and
then by introducing the further subdivision of the interpretant into the immediate, the
dynamical and the final one.
The system of the sixty-six classes obeys the same logical rules which determine
the system of the ten classes of signs. When three trichotomies are considered, the structure
of each sign must be described in three stages; with ten trichotomies, each class must be
described in ten stages.
 Further Implications of the Diagram
What are the relations between Peirce’s philosophy and his semiotics that can be
elucidated by the diagram of his thought? These diagrams offer a detailed representation
of the logical structure of the sixty-six classes of signs. They show a complex and coherent
system without isolating any of its elements. However, only the 3D model is able to shed
light on the relation between semiotics and Peirce’s philosophy. Represented in the form
of a tree with a root and branches, the diagram of the system of signs has ecological
implications of growth.
Let us consider how the roots are formed. The dynamical object always goes back
in time in relation to the sign. The sign can represent it in many different ways, but always
only partially, never completely. Since it is impossible to have full access to the dynamical
object, one might say, it is withdrawing itself. Its movement of withdrawal is represented
in the axle z by the direction indicated by the negative sign. Since the dynamical object
is located in the central ring, we can imagine that its movement of withdrawal forms the
trunk and roots of the tree.
To see how the branches grow, it is necessary to consider the exterior rings.
The last three rings show the final interpretant, the relation between the sign and its
final interpretant, and the relation between the dynamical object, the sign, and its final
interpretant. Since the final interpretant is not an existent, but a possible representation
created by the sign, the end of this process of semiosis is unattainable; the goal of semiosis
is always in the future ad infinitum. The ring that represents the relation between the sign
and its final interpretant points to the description of the process of semiosis in its complete
way: the triadic relation between the object, the sign, and its interpretant.
Two processes are going on simultaneously in semiosis. On the one hand, the
dynamical object withdraws in the direction of the ground, forming the trunk and the roots.
This movement makes the object more complex and impedes the possibility of the full
representation of the sign. On the other hand, the triadic sign process involves a process
of mediation, which can also be understood as a way of thought. This process indicates
the growth of signs, represented by the branches in the diagram. The nature of these
two processes justify the assumption that the movement of withdrawal of the dynamical
object represents a link between semiotics and metaphysics, whereas the representation
of the growth of semiosis, evident from the insight that the final interpretant is in the
future, constitutes a link between semiotics and pragmatism.
 Semiotic and pragmatism
Considering that the triadic relation expressed in the last trichotomy is seen as the
description of the process of thought, one can inquire into what the function of thought is as
the main goal of pragmatism.
Therefore, the passage from
the Peircean theory of
signs to his pragmatism, or
pragmaticism, is represented
by thinnest and most remote
branches of this tree.
According to Peirce, the
ultimate purpose of thought
is the development of an idea,
rather than action itself.
What is found in the
last trichotomy, the one that describes the triadic relation between the sign, its dynamical
object and the final interpretant, are thoughts of three kinds: instinct, experience, and
form. Of the sixty-six classes of signs, fifty-five are expressed by thinking in the form of
instinct, ten by experience and one by formal thought. Let us begin by characterizing this
sole class of signs resulting in formal thought, for it seems that the possibility of attaining
the pragmatic ideal is contained in it: the concrete reasonableness, a name that seems to be
perfectly fit, since this class of
signs is entirely constituted
by relations of thirdness.
According to Santaella
(1992: 129), “the adjective
‘concrete’ adjoined to the
reasonableness indicates
that it can only become
more concrete through our
resolute endeavor to favor
its growth.”
 The ideal pragmatist
considers self-control for
the acquisition of new
habits. Therefore, it is not
strange that this ideal be
situated in the only class of
signs entirely composed of
relations of thirdness, which
will be essential in this
system. Reason does not lead
to complete determination,
to a final thought, nor does
it lead to any truth as conceived by common-sense. Reason is thought at the level of
thirdness and, since semiosis means the creation of ever new signs indefinitely, the final
interpretant will always be in the future. A thought of reason must be capable of giving
rise to other such thoughts equally capable of the same ad infinitum. Reason thus does not
point towards any certainty
or determined thought, but
to the possibility of the
creation of thoughts.
As sentiments,
pleasure, will, and desire are
not self-controlled, reason
is the only self-controlled
quality, the only that can be
freely developed by human
doings. But as an incipient
and becoming process, it
needs to materialize and embody something. In a process of evolution, ideals do not grow
by themselves; existents embody classes of ideals, so that their coming about transforms
the very ideals themselves. This means that reason has to congregate existent elements
which make it concrete so that it can be developed: “The whole point of that [pragmatic]
maxim was that the highest grade of clarity is achieved when a concept is translated into
concepts that relate sensible conditions to sensible effects” (Short 1996: 519).
 Thus, the other
classes of signs have to
represent these embodied
thoughts. As Santaella
explains (2005: 127):
“Reasonableness, for Peirce,
it not to be confounded
with exclusivist reason, but
with a kind of rationality
that incorporates elements
of action, sentiments, such
as the promiscuous blends
between reason, action and sentiment that are shown in commotion, affection, pleasure,
wanting, will, desire, and emotion.”
If the other classes of signs derive from the pragmatic ideals formulated in this
period, they deserve deeper reflection, especially insofar as the thesis of the predominance
of instinct in thought is concerned. One of the new insights at which Peirce arrived during
his revision of his sign theory, was that interpretants could also be feelings or actions.
Previously, interpretants were only conceived of as signs of thoughts, and semiotics had
remained restricted to the study of language and thought (cf. CP 8.332, 1904; Short 2004: 13).
It was from the development
of the new conception of the
index that Peirce’s semiotic
expanded its scope. The
index, as a causal sign, a
sign of action affecting
and being affected by
brute facts, does not allow
thought to be alienated from
reality. Instead, it assures
the necessary connection
between thought and reality.
As discussed above, Peirce proposed the second division of interpretants during
this period and began to realize that interpretants could be feelings and actions and not
only thought. On the one hand, the interpretant was no longer necessarily conceived of
as a thought sign. On the other hand, brute facts were shown to be active in semiosis
as one of the factors that determine the sign. As cognition is not a sign given by reason
alone, it can be the result of a perceptual experience of the object. Thus, having an object
does not mean that one cognition needs to be preceded by another. If thinking were
taken exclusively as being of the nature of formal thought, a cognition should always be
preceded by another of the same kind. In this case, only the sixty-sixth class of sign could
be appropriate, for it sets out from one collective object and ends up in a formal thought.
According to the diagram, this is the only class of signs exclusively given by relations of
thirdness, and the only one capable of generating habit. As previously discussed, it does
not seem to be an actually possible class of signs, for it expresses some ideal.
All other classes
of signs appear in the last
trichotomy in the form
of instinct or experience.
Since this trichotomy is
representative of the triadic
relation of the sign and that it
is also related to cognition, it
is apparent that the cognitive
process can follow several
other ways and not only
be a result of reasoning.
Thus, there is an expansion
in the concept of cognition
because of elements external
to it, such as running out of
control. Thus, instinct and
experience, in this context,
are different qualities of
thought and should be
viewed as essential parts of
the cognitive process.
 Peircean pragmaticism shows that the process of semiosis is guided by an ideal
peculiar to the process of interpretation, which is neither the creation of an interpretant
nor the possibility of fulfillment by the final interpretant. Instead, it is the possibility
of fulfillment of the process of semiosis in its interpretation. And I quote Short (1996:
527): “Now, it is the process of interpretation, I suggest, and not the interpretant per se,
that confers intentionality on the sign. It confers intentionality on both the sign and the
interpretant. And it does so, only because it is goal-directed. It is the ideological structure
of semeiosis that explain the intentionality of its parts.”
If the finality of semiosis derives from the intention of its interpretation, then it
can only be present in the tenth trichotomy representing the full triad, and it can only
appear in a rational form. Hence, the pragmatic ideal is connected with the processes of
semiosis described by the sixty-sixth class of signs, the only that presents formal thought,
which is also determined by the category of habit.

You can see the animation at:

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