The Study On C.S.Peirce’s Semeiotic Theory

Charles Sanders Peirce was one of the most original and influential American philosophers and logicians. His general theory of signs, to which Peirce had dedicated his whole life, is not only the key to comprehend the complete peircean philosophical system, but the compass to guide other sciences onto the way to scientific inquiry. Peirce’s semeiotic theory has played an important role in the construction and development of modern semeiotic theories. Therefore, Charles Sanders Peirce, together with Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, was credited the founder of modern semeiotic theories.Peirce’s semeiotic theory had not achieved as much popularity and respect as that of Saussure in a quite long period until 1970s, although both theories of signs were considered to be valuable and significant in the academic field. Peirce’s profound thoughts were beyond his era and known as’a gold mine for the followers’. Many creative ideas in his semeiotic theory have nourished a great number of philosophers and scientists of the twentieth century.Peirce’s semeiotic theory unified with his categories, carries a strong sense of pragmatism. It not only uncovers proofs of its existence from mathematics and phenomenology, but also finds explanations in normative sciences. All these set a solid foundation to support Peirce’s semeiotic theory to be a methodology for all sciences. Furthermore, its own sustainable development also proves the theory of evolutionary cosmology. It turns out that Peirce’s semeiotic theory is one indispensable methodology to discover the truth.Although Peirce’s semeiotic theory had a profound influence on various contemporary researches, yet he never published a book discussing semeiotic theory in his life. Even later scholars have mainly focused on the analysis of peircean signs’ concept, nature and classification etc. No one has tried to study Peirce’s general theory of signs comprehensively and systematically till now, which brings obstacles to the communication and application of Peircean semeiotic theory and thereafter stopped the progress of modern semeiotic theories. The purpose of this dissertation is to expose and restore the system of Peirce’s semeiotic theory by reviewing and studying the views of Charles Peirce on the subject of signs. It is designed to answer and illustrate these perplexing questions, such as "Where does Peirce’s semeiotic theory originate?", "What is the connotation and core values of this theory?", "How does the semeiosis work?", "what are the enlightenment and significance for other contemporary humanities?" and so on. Actually the analysis and study of the questions above is the basic framework of Peirce’s semeiotic theory, and therefore composes the main contents of six chapters of this dissertation.The introduction, as the first part, mainly talks about the value and significance of the dissertation, its research background, literature review, originalities and methodology. Among them, some of the influential research works are emphasized and criticized. Five chapters are followed.The first chapter explores how Charles Peirce started his semeiotic research and analyzes the reasons why Peirce, as a brilliant and prolific intellect, was denied by his era and left the world tragically in the end by sketching Peirce’s semeiotic life. It is universally acknowledged that Peirce’s growth and development of his philosophical thoughts are profoundly influenced by two eminent scholars, Benjamin Peirce and Kant. However, John Locke, in this dissertation, is seen as the true guider that plays an essential role in forming Peirce’s semeiotic thoughts from the perspective of signs only. By comparing their viewpoints on signs, Peirce, in some way, actually inherits and develops Locke’s idea innovatively.Following that, Chapter two makes a further discussion on the way how Peirce derives his theory of signs, which leads us into the world of Peirce’s general theory of signs.Chapter three and four are involved with the core of Peirce’s semeiotic theory, which mainly argues the concept of signs and semeiosis. The innovative attempt that semeiosis is treated as one special subject both helps people to grasp the characteristics of semeiosis in Peirce’s view and presents a clearer picture about the relationship between Peirce’s semeiotic theory and his other important philosophical ideas.In the third chapter, based on Peirce’s universal categories, the concepts and relations of representation, object and interpretant and their respective classification are examined in a static way, during which generality, openness and inclusiveness of Peirce’s general theory of signs have found evidences. In the argument, the author holds the opinion that Peirce’s illustration of interpretant is the main part of his theory of meaning, from which pragmatism is derivate. In addition, the normative explanation of the final interpretant connects signs with value, which sets a foundation for the subsequent discussion on the process of semeiosis.The theory of semeiosis, binding Peirce’s semeiotic theory and his philosophical ideas together, is mainly focused on in the fourth chapter. Compared with the view of "self-consciousness", the concept of community is treated as the formal condition of semeiosis and therefore semeiosis itself carries the property of community. Meanwhile, according to Peirce’s version on evolutionary cosmology, synechism and development are extracted to be another two properties of semeiosis which determine the only purpose of semeiosis, which is, pursuing truth. Community, synechism and truth inquiring constitute the essence of Peirce’s semeiosis and the prime content of his theory of inquiry, which together guarantee all semeiosis, especially scientific inquiries, take place in the process of "establishing belief---breaking belief---reestablishing belief", and the achievement of every new belief ensures that the distance between the scientific inquiry and truth, the ultimate objective, is shortened again. Peirce’s semeiotic theory tells us that all scientists even with different beliefs will eventually reach a final and agreeable opinion, which increases all scientists’ confidence that all scientific inquiries in the universe are able to find the final interpretant of signs---"Summum Bonum" in the end.After making a general introduction of Peirce’s theory, the author, in the fifth chapter, has attempted to comprehend the different values and significances of Peirce’s theory and Saussure’s theory by making a comparison between them.In the sixth chapter, the author mainly studies and illustrates Peircean aesthetics, in which the relationship between Peirce’s semeiotic theory and his aesthetic theory is discussed, and normative aesthetics and semeiotic aesthetics are considered to constitute his aesthetical theory. Normative aesthetics reflects the guiding function of aesthetics as a discipline for semeiotics and other subjects; semeiotic aesthetics on the other hand shows the general application of Peirce’s semeiotic theory to aesthetics.The author makes a brief summary for Peirce’s semeiotic theory in the conclusion, and restates and emphasizes the scientific value and academic influence of the theory aiming at attracting more people to study Peirce’s semeiotic theory.On the basis of inheriting relevant research findings of scholars at home and abroad critically, the author made attempts and innovation in the following four aspects:Firstly, there is no monograph on Peirce’s semeiotic theory in China at present and Peirce failed to make his theory systematic in his life with his semeiotic perspectives scattered and hidden in his immense and profound philosophical ideas. The author tries to draw the theory from his large amounts of manuscripts, letters, notebooks and collected works, thus to extract the true essence of the theory and reestablish the system of Pierce’s general theory of signs in Peirce’s philosophical viewpoints by making a general study in order to uncover its great significance and theoretical value. Besides, all reference materials and documents cited in this dissertation are first-hand information which possesses a relatively important research value.Secondly, the author makes his own viewpoints and analysis on those controversial points by critically studying abundant documents on Peirce in English. They are as follows:①The author holds the opinion, different from most scholars, that peircean pragmatism is actually a part of his theory of signs and formed in the process of Peirce thinking and developing the theory of signs; To put it another way, theory of signs is the foundation of pragmatism but not the contrary.② The author tries to analyze that emotional interpretant, energetic interpretant and logical interpretant are, in fact, the second classification of dynamic interpretant according to the relationship among three categorical elements, different from most scholars’ points that they are another names of immediate interpretant, dynamic interpretant and final interpretant.③The author innovatively puts forward the viewpoint that Peirce’s aesthetics consists of normative aesthetics and semeiotic aesthetics and expatiates on them respectively in Chapter VI.Thirdly, the author makes a separate discussion on semeiosis which is regarded as one essential part of Peirce’s semeiotic theory in Chapter IV. And three properties, community, synechism and truth pursuing, are summarized:which are not only the essence of semeiosis, but endow Peirce’s semeiotic theory with development and life. Moreover the author finds his viewpoints on truth, inquiry and cosmology in his theory of signs.Finally, with the multi-level and multi-dimensional perspectives, the dissertation makes the research by placing Peirce’s semeiotic theory into the historical process and American and social context horizontally and into the real complicated living environment and the collision of thoughts with contemporary scholars vertically, referring to the latest research findings at home and abroad and values the study of the fundamental semeiotic theory. By combining Peirce’s semeiotic theory and his philosophical ideas, the author studies signs in philosophical perspective and studies his philosophy from the angle of signs. In this way we can trace the historical origin of his important philosophical views such as pragmatism, truth, and inquiry etc with his theory of signs in order to restore Peirce’s original theory of signs fundamentally and then make a further study on the originality and true meaning of this theory.In a word, Peirce’s general theory of signs, like a "semeiotic encyclopedia", provides people with the methodology and confidence of knowing the world, reforming the world and search for truth, and the scientific instruction for the ever-lasting inquiry, in addition to giving people information on signs, helping grasp and comprehend daily-used signs, and improving and strengthening people’s ability to use signs.However we should realize that Peirce’s semeiotic theory is not a finished and static theoretical system, never stopping changing and developing. Peirce signed regretfully at the last moment of his life, "The doctrine of reasoning here outlined is the result of an inquiry conducted most carefully during more than 50 years of the author’s life. Like every other person who has made any considerable contribution to logic, the science of reasoning, I have found it practically impossible to convey a clean cut idea of my results without some modifications in the meaning of some of the received terminology on the subject."①Those words, like the ellipsis following Peirce’s semeiotic theory, not only leave an open space for the later generations’ research, but also motivate and drive us to devote our studies to Peirce’s semeiotic theory.