[KB] "Deacon"-structing Burke Part Whatever
Edward C Appel
edwardcappel at frontier.com
Tue Oct 28 10:34:29 EDT 2014
An addendum to my "sermon" for today:
None of us Burkean cognoscente should wax too smug at the perfectionistic excess we see all around us, much of which is destroying this planet's resources and ecosystems. We are all afflicted. No "theological motive of perfection": No drama. Yes, no distinctly human being. We are all "moralized by the negative" in ways that tempt toward "empire" of one kind or another. The most we can hope for is to comedically channel that urge into more constructive, less destructive paths of endeavor, and to temper its incentives via the "comic corrective." There are "stars" in the fields of communication and literature, etc., on this list. They did not attain that pinnacle by getting up each morning and obssessing on how they could tamp down the urge toward professional distinction. It's just that the "scholars' dollars" don't impact air, earth, fire, and water like those of the captains of industry.
Ed
--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 10/28/14, Edward C Appel <edwardcappel at frontier.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [KB] "Deacon"-structing Burke Part Whatever
To: "Gregory Desilet" <info at gregorydesilet.com>
Cc: kb at kbjournal.org
Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2014, 9:55 AM
Greg,
Thanks for the link. I'll give the interview a listen
and get back.
Two things:
First, Deacon is not one of the plagiarizers of Burke's
thought. He has told me he knows nothing about Burke,
and I believe him. Deacon is, after all, in two fields
not noted for Burkean connections, anthropology and
neuroscience. I've been forwarding to Deacon my kb
posts. After the most recent one, he got back to me
with near assurance he wants to start reading Burke.
It's actually more confirming, I believe, that these
similaries in theory, philosophy, and conclusions from
research appear independently---especially from a
significant source in a hard science.
Second, as I read it, the connection Burke makes between
Hitler's fascistic rants and religion in "Hitler's 'Battle'"
is offered to the detriment of Hitler, not religion.
Burke calls what Hitler has done a "bastardization" of
religious rhetoric, meaning, in Burke's typically elliptical
way, an illigitimate use of the motive of perfection, a
taking-to-the-end-of-the-line his depiction of this
arbitrary and quite earth-bound, untranscendent scapegoat,
whose demise will supposedly '' +"cure" the ills of the
German people.
This harks back to what Burke says in ATH about "heroic,"
tragic-frame rhetoric approaching "coxcombry" when employed
for nonreligious reasons. God and the devil are
"perfected" conceptions, or can be so idealized.
Now, this does not mean given expressions of religion, like
Islam today in various formulations---in terms of its
fanatical quest to make its earthly environment confirm
exactly to its extreme, and one can say I think, socially
and historically backward standards---are not
facistic. Nor is it to say that fundamentalist
religion of any kind, even when thoroughly
transcendentalized, isn't to be "discounted" for language as
a source of conceptual excess. "Perfection" of
whatever variety, when grimly pursued in respect to the
here-and-now or the graat beyond, is to be taken with
salt and viewed with suspicion, Burke surely hints at, if
not in each case clearly proclaims.
Religion in general is not the customary "enemy" in Burke's
writings. More frequently, it's the immanent
expressions of that "theological" motive in the "quest for
empire" in this world that earns Burke's strongest disdain.
That's my sermon for today. As the Stage Manager isn
Our Town said, "Twan't much."
Ed
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 10/27/14, Gregory Desilet <info at gregorydesilet.com>
wrote:
Subject: Re: [KB] "Deacon"-structing Burke Part Whatever
To: "Ed Appel" <edwardcappel at frontier.com>
Cc: kb at kbjournal.org
Date: Monday, October 27, 2014, 3:08 PM
You make a good case, Ed, for
Deacon’s debt to Burke. Hopefully he will eventually
have
something more to say about that.
Speaking of unacknowledged “debt” to Burke, I came
across a YouTube video recently in which Hamed Abdel Samad
is interviewed. It seems he wrote a controversial book on
what he calls “Islamism.” In the interview he explains
the connection he makes between religion and fascism—a
connection Burke also makes in his 1938 review of
Hitler’s
Mein Kampf. Exploring this connection is indeed
controversial but Samad makes an interesting case of it.
And, Ed, in doing so, he seems to follow certain aspects
of
our line of argument about conflict management in our
Rhetoric of the Enemy article. Here is a link to the
video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCfp48c31u0
Greg
On Oct 21, 2014, at 3:36 PM, Edward C Appel <edwardcappel at frontier.com>
wrote:
> Burkophiles,
>
> I want to summarize what I see as
fifteen or so points of intersection between Burke’s
dramatism/logology and Terrence W. Deacon’s semiotic
theory. I do so in no particular order. I’m
basing my assessments on Deacon’s most recent book,
Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, and three
of his academic articles or book chapters: “The Symbol
Concept,” “The Emergent Process of Thinking as
Reflected
in Language Processing,” and “Beyond the Symbolic
Species.” Seven times so far, I’ve posted here on
Deacon at some length. I’ll make reference to the
dates of those postings, or a few of them, where you might
find further treatment, when appropriate.
>
> 1. Deacon’s notion of an
“absential feature” in human symbolic action, as
> well as in whatever we want to call the nonsymbolic
activity of the “lower animals,” echoes Burke’s
primary emphasis on the “negative” as author and
motivator of the human drama. This “absential
feature,” as extant in the “Creatura,” but not in
the
“Pleroma” (Deacon here borrows language from the
ancient
Gnostics by way of his mentor Gregory Bateson), is the
elephant in the living room scientistic theorists
recurrently ignore in their efforts to reduce anthropology
to biology, biology to chemistry, chemistry to physics.
8/7/14.
>
> 2. From this absential feature at the
core of the “entelechy” that
> characterizes beings in the Creatura (yes, Deacon
references Aristotle and the Four Causes), a list of
ancillary features built around “purpose” and
reflective
of Burke’s pentad emerges. See Deacon’s analogous
idea of “teleodynamics.” 8/7/14, 8/9/14.
>
> 3. Deacon, like Burke,
claims that action, so to speak, cannot be reduced
> to motion, phrasing the concept somewhat differently
from Burke. For Deacon, it’s the absential feature
itself that eludes the scientistic rationale. “There
are no components to what is absent,” he emphasizes.
8/7/14.
>
> 4. Deacon’s definition of what a
symbol is and is not appears to mirror
> well enough Burke’s conception. I say seems to
mirror “well enough” because Burke does not as
carefully
exclude, or even much refer to, mathematical, signal- or
code-like, computational-type “symbols.” Deacon
argues convincingly that math-type “symbols” do not
possess the airy abstractiveness, web-like relatedness to
and embeddedness in, a whole lexicon of terms none of
which
can be “mapped” in relation to objects in the real
world, a “system-internal web of relationships”
requiring “an associated indexical operation . . .
in order to point outside this system.” Neither
Melia’s book chapter “Scientism and Dramatism: Some
Quasi-Mathematical Motifs in the Work of Kenneth Burke”
(The Legacy of Kenneth Burke), nor Burke’s references to
the “statistical” in PLF, seem to undercut this claim.
>
> To put the matter simply: In the
lingo of dramatism, numerals in themselves do not exude
“drama” (make exception for the indirect, the
derivative), whereas the words, phrases, and sentences of
the world’s conventional, arbitrary languages do.
That’s the implicit lesson Deacon’s semiotics would
tend
to highlight. 9/16/14.
>
> 5. Deacon’s conception of the
origins of language sounds a lot like Burke’s
> speculations in those QJS articles (1952/1953),
reprinted in LASA (pp. 419-79). Deacon speaks of “an
undifferentiated starting condition.” “We must
ask: What’s the form of a thought”---or “the idea
that
a sentence conveys”---“before it is put into words,”
the “’mental images’ not quite formed or desires and
intentions to achieve some imagined goal only vaguely
formulated?” These “embryos of a speech act”
would be “focused on aiming for and achieving expressive
goals.
> ”
> For Burke, those “expressive
goals”---“connotative,” “suggestive,”
“loaded,” “fraught . . . with significance”; I’m
deep into Roget’s here---might stem from a
“’pre-negative’ . . . tonal gesture,” “calling
attention-to “ “danger” with “sound[s] . . .
hav[ing] a deterrent or pejorative meaning” (LASA, pp.
423-24). Deacon’s “lexicality,” a pre-linguistic
“pointing to” would serve as basis for this transition
into morally-tinged negation of the kind that
“dramatically” invests the danger or opportunity in
question with quasi-theological import. The negative
as “engine of intentionality” with its now-infinite
vistas (indeed, now “rotten with perfection”), would
begin to indict as well as beckon, accuse as well as
highlight, come upon its denizens with an aura of
spiritual
hazard, as well as material consequence. 9/16/14.
>
> Deacon does refine his description
of this likely lengthy transition with: “I see this
particular near universal [the “oral-vocal”] to be a
relatively late emerging biological adaptation for
symbolic
communication.” The “gestural embodiment”
probably came first, since our primate ancestors were not
good at vocality. The vocal came to predominate
because of its greater potential for myriad “sign
vehicles.”
>
> 6. Which brings us to Burke’s
hexadic acknowledgement of “attititude” as
> an ingredient in the symbolic mix, language primarily
expressing an attitude, creating an orientation toward
certain pathways of action, giving cues to action and a
command to follow those cues. For Deacon, that
attitudinal, “expressive” dimension is denominated a
“mood.” In respect to symbolic origins, “Within
this frame of social communicative arousal,” he
maintains,
“what might be described as the ‘mood’ of the speech
or interpretive act is differentiated.” “This
‘mood’ needs to be maintained.” It’s “a
focused readiness and expectation with respect to social
interaction.”
>
> 7. Burke famously defines
humans as the “symbol-using animal.”
> Deacon’s “symbolic species” functions as a
virtual synonym. “In my work,” Deacon says, “I
use the phrase symbolic species, quite literally, to argue
that symbols have literally changed the kind of biological
organism we are.”
>
> “Indeed, there is ample evidence
to suggest that language is both well-integrated into
almost
every aspect of our cognitive and social lives, that it
utilizes a significant fraction of the forebrain, and is
acquired robustly under even quite difficult social
circumstances and neurological impairment. It is far
from fragile.”
>
> “So rather than merely intelligent
or wise (sapient) creatures, we are creatures whose social
and mental capacities have been quite literally shaped by
the special demands of communicating with symbols. And
this doesn’t just mean that we are adapted for language
use, but also for all the many ancillary mental biases
that
support reliable access and use of this social
resource.”
>
> This defining human trait or
attribute gets locked in globally via “the near
universal
regularities of human language.”
>
> 8. “Drama”---or, to put it more
logologically, “theological drama”---as
> master “screen,” through which even the
“positives of nature are seen through the eyes of moral
negativity”? Howabout Deacon’s approximation:
“We are ‘symbolic savants,’ unable to suppress the
many predispositions evolved to aid in symbol acquisition,
use, and transmission . . . . We almost certainly have
evolved a predisposition to see things as symbols, whether
they are or not.” E.g., “the make-believe of
children,” “find[ing] meaning in coincidental
events,” seeing “faces in the clouds,” “run[ning]
our lives with respect to dictates presumed to originate
from an invisible spiritual world.” “Our special
adaptation is the lens through which we see the world.
With it comes an irrepressible predisposition to seek for
a
cryptic meaning hiding beneath the surface of
appearances.”
>
> An approximation? Sounds more
like a paraphrase. Always take note of “our special
adaptation” and factor it into our interpretations of
“reality.”
>
> More later, I hope, by way of
additional intersections between Burke and Deacon.
>
>
> Ed
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Thu, 10/9/14, Edward C Appel <edwardcappel at frontier.com>
wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [KB] "Deacon"-structing Burke Part
Whatever
> To: kb at kbjournal.org
> Date: Thursday, October 9, 2014, 5:05 PM
>
> Burkophiles,
>
> Let me reiterate, clarify,
emphasize:
> It’s the dyadic grammatical pairing of subject and
> predicate that Deacon says is not “innate” in the
human
> mind and human discourse, as in Chomsky’s universal
> generative conception, not the “symbolic” faculty
> itself. No evolutionary, genomic, or
neurological
> evidence exists for Chomsky’s view. It’s
mostly
> implicit in these shorter works by Deacon, but
strongly
> implicit, that symbolization itself does come
naturally
to
> the Symbolic Species. That is, you’ll recall,
the
> title of his earlier book.
>
> You may wonder, too, at the
claim that
> children pick up on their own a facility for
indexical
and
> combinatorial modes of symbolic reference, rather
than
learn
> that culminative syntax from the structures of the
> conventional language into which they’re
socialized.
> The fact is, Deacon asserts, “The infant already
> ‘knows’ the logic of these ‘rules’ of
> indexicality,” which bring noun subject and verbal
> predicate together. Those necessary regularities
are
> well absorbed the first year and a half by way of
experience
> itself.
>
> Also, as he or she reads him, a
Burkean
> might be taken aback by Deacon’s occasional
reference
to
> the “predicate frame” (the “comment” on the
> “subject” or “topic” that requires the
careful
> “indexing”) as the “symbolic” part of a
> “complete” sentence or iteration. This does
not
> mean, for Deacon, that the noun subject and object,
or
> referential parts, of the fully-formed utterance
hasn’t
> been symbolically transformed by the symbolizing
> species. Even proper names, which, unlike common
> nouns, can be indexically “mapped” a la Saussure,
are
> still embedded a culturally conventional,
artifactualized
> linguistic system. What Deacon seems to be
suggesting
> here is that distinctive symbolization “emerges”
from
> nonsymbolic indexicality—the “pointing”
gestures
and
> vocalizations of lower animals that indicate some
recognized
> “icon” that poses danger, potentially satisfies
> appetite, requires territorial markings or
> signals of aggression or subservience,
etc.---distinctive
> symbolization emerges especially via an
“expressive,”
> “mood”-generating, “sense”-making,
meaningful,
> ultimately abstractive vocalization that
characterizes
how
> to conceive of, proceed toward, exploit, or retreat
from the
> object or being so referenced. As Burke has
said,
> “The true locus of assertion is not in the DISEASE,
but in
> the STRUCTURAL POWERS by which the poet encompasses
it”
> (PLF, p. 18, emphasis not added), a redemptive
> “act”-centered predication.
>
> So, there seems to be an
underlay of the
> presymbolic in the indexical not so present in the
> nonindexical.
>
> Constraining indexicality
Deacon
> anatomizes into four aspects, only one of which
I’ll
> mention here, the most basic, what he calls
“semiotic
> constraints.” These manifest themselves in
> “predication constraints (symbols must be bound in
order
> to refer)”; “transitivity and embedding
constraints
> (indexicality depends on immediate correlation and
> contiguity across the transitive)”; and
“quantification
> (symbolized indices need re-specification).
> ”
> In elaboration, Deacon says,
“To state
> this hypothesis in semiotic terms: a symbol must be
> contiguous with the index that grounds its reference
(either
> to the world or to the immediate agreeing textual
context,
> which is otherwise grounded), or else its reference
> fails. Contiguity thus has a doubly indexical
role to
> play. Its contiguity (textually or pragmatically)
with
> the symbolizing sign vehicle [see paragraph 3 above]
points
> to this symbol, and their contiguity in turn points
to
> something else. This is an expression of one
further
> feature of indexicality: transitivity of
reference.”
> Or, more “simply stated, a pointer pointing to
another
> pointer pointing to some object effectively enables
the
> first pointer to also point to that object.”
>
> Ultimate grounding in the real
world
> seems vital to Deacon for complete and satisfying
> predication.
>
> Being the neuroscientist that
he is,
> Deacon asks, by way of “transitivity” as he calls
it,
> “How does this interaction between phases of
sentence
> differentiation produce anything? What sort of
signals
> are being sent in each direction” from one area of
the
> human brain to another? To simplify, what’s
> happening is “counter-current information
processing”
> that generally proceeds from “lower” to
“higher”
> structures of the brain, and from back to
front---from
> limbic, peri-limbic, and peripheral, to
“specialized”
> cortical regions; from “posterior
(attention-sensory)
> cortical systems” to “anterior (intention-action)
> cortical systems”; i.e., from reptilian brain
structures
> like the thalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala, to the
> advanced cerebral components of mammalian, primate,
and
> early hominid ancestry. And, of equal importance,
back
> again, from “higher” to “lower,” etc., as
> well. These “counter-current”
> electro-chemical operations afford a kind of
monitoring,
> provide checks and balances, generate
“equilibrium.”
>
> Whether we’re neurologically
examining
> sensory, or motor, or cognitive, or linguistic
operations,
> they all look pretty much the same, I interpret.
They
> each exhibit similarly “emergent”
characteristics,
in
> terms of evolutionary origins and current sequential
> functioning.
>
> What remains to be dealt with
is a
> summary of the complementary intersections between
Burke’s
> dramatism/logology and Deacon’s semiotics, and also
the
> challenge Deacon possibly poses to Burke’s
action/motion
> dichotomy.
>
> At a later date.
>
> And a P.S. If you object
to my use
> of the singular form of the verb “to be” in the
“what
> remains” sentence, do read the Fowler-Nicholson
> “Dictionary of American-English Usage,” pp.
> 374-75. Fowler and Nicholson don’t explain it
well,
> but they do get it right, unlike billions of
publications
> I’ve read, including the New York Times. I’m
still
> a grammarian of a kind at heart, even after the
> Deacon-struction.
>
>
> Ed
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Mon, 10/6/14, Edward C Appel <edwardcappel at frontier.com>
> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [KB] "Deacon"-structing Burke Part
Whatever
> To: kb at kbjournal.org
> Date: Monday, October 6, 2014, 3:34 PM
>
> Burkophiles,
>
> I’ve already said
> that Terrence W. Deacon’s semiotic theory
partly
> supports,
> partly enhances, and partly challenges Burke’s
> dramatism/logology, in my view. Burke
surely, we would
> maintain, enhances Deacon, as well. Before
I get to the
> “challenge”---as the song goes, “Don’t
know where,
> don’t know when”---let me add to the themes
of support
> and enhancement. Here I’ll be
referencing, in
> particular, two of Deacon’s shorter works, the
journal
> article, “The Emergent Process of Thinking as
Reflected
> in
> Language Processing,” and Deacon’s book
chapter,
> “Beyond the Symbolic Species,” The Symbolic
Species
> being the title of the
anthropologist/neuroscientist’s
> tome that preceded Incomplete Nature: How Mind
Emerged
> from
> Matter, about which I previously bloviated.
>
>
> I would judge Deacon’s
explanatory
> “god-term”/”rome-term” to be
“emergent,” as
> per
> the title of the here-featured treatise.
The word
> “emerge” plays a similar role, I think, in
“Beyond
> the
> Symbolic Species.” All roads seem to lead
from
> “emerge”/”emergent” to the two sets of
dialectical
> opposites subsumed below:
>
> The primary polar matchup term
> “emergent” is pitted against, is
“innate,” as in
> the
> pre-processed, genetically-programmed and
“engineered”
> universal generative grammar of Noam Chomsky and
his
> epigoni. No evidence of such a special
facility can be
> found in the human genome or in the structures of
the
> human
> brain, which actually look not that much
different from
> those found in a mouse, let alone a
chimpanzee. (I’m
> referencing Incomplete Nature as well as
> “Emergent.”)
> We have here a “process of coming out,” a
“rising .
> .
> . out of a surrounding medium,” even “an
effect
> produced
> by a combination of causes but unable to be seen
as the
> sum
> of their individual effects” (The Shorter OED),
except
> through careful, detailed scrutiny of the natural
history
> and evolution of living organisms, pathways of
> electro-chemical discharge in the brain, the
very
> neurology
> of sensory, motor, thinking, and linguistic
development
> and
> outcomes,
> animal communication generally,
> even the listening and reading, as well as the
speaking
> and
> writing, of symbolizers like us---all these
operations
> recapitulating the same sequential steps.
(It’s
> appropriate here to note what Susan Greenfield
and
> Christof
> Koch, both neuroscientists, said in an exchange
in
> Psychology Today: Electrochemical discharges in
the brain
> can occur within time frames of 1/14th of a
second.)
>
> From this dialectical
> emphasis on “emergent” rather than
“innate,” there
> is derived the contrasting concepts of
> “subject/predicate.” They assume more
independent
> “roles,” if not do “battle” with each
other,
> seemingly asymmetrically, in a way that Chomsky
would not
> likely entertain. “Subject/predicate”;
“noun
> phrase/verb phrase”; “”topic/comment”;
> “indexical
> support/predicate frame”;
“’pointing’”/desired
> or
> undesired result; “orientation component”/act
to
> accomplish in respect to that “orientation”;
> “function,” as in
functionary/”argument”;
> “reference/sense”; “indexical
operation/symbolic
> operation”; “slots” for “pointing,” or
> “addresses”/”operation”; “(embedded)
bound
> indexes/symbolic operation”;
“disambiguating” the
> “indexical”/successful “symbolic” action
toward a
> desired end---these serve as various expressions
of the
> “process” of
> “emergence,” left to
> right, in communication, part of which, the
> “indexical”-founded-on-the-“iconic”
preliminaries
> I’ve already spoken of, homo loquax/dialecticus
shares
> with other living creatures.
>
> The major point Deacon makes is,
there
> is no built-in genetic-neurological template by
which the
> symbolic species gets from subject to
predicate. That
> aptitude, that enabling juxtaposition, resides
not in our
> biology, nor in our cultural conditioning.
It is a
> faculty
> humans learn in early childhood via the bound and
required
> “logic” of successful symbolization.
> “Disambiguating” indexicality---i.e.,
“:pointing”
> via gestures or indexical words to what it is we
are
> symbolically talking about---is a requirement
for
> successful
> human communication. We must put those two
communicative
> elements together somehow to get what we’re
after, or
> tell
> others more or less accurately what we want them
to
> know.
> Nonsymbolic animals have no such indexical
problem,
> because
> their communication doesn’t get beyond the
“iconic,”
> the “:arousal” to “attention” a
significant
> “form” will evoke for them---and the
“indexical,”
> the gestural or
> vocal “pointing” to
> that feared or desired object.
“Symbolization” via
> predication complicates, potentially, actually
> practically,
> interrupts, erects barriers in succession to
making clear,
> what we are talking about, who or what we have in
mind,
> what
> we want others to “do” in order for our
interests to
> be
> satisfied.
>
> How human thinking, sensory and
motor
> skills, and language production get to happen
involve
> similar, if not identical, neural continuities.
>
> And how all this
> dovetails so nicely with Burke’s dramatistic
philosophy,
> yet broaches an issue Burke may not have
adequately dealt
> with, remains.
>
> Next
> time.
>
>
> Ed
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Tue, 9/16/14, Edward C Appel <edwardcappel at frontier.com>
> wrote:
>
> Subject: [KB] "The
> Symbol Concept"
> To: kb at kbjournal.org
> Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2014,
1:08 PM
>
> Burkophiles,
>
> Thanks, Bob, for your
> response on Burke,
> rhetoric, and
> “repetition.” I hope to get back on
>
> that one later.
>
> I
> posted a few weeks ago on Terrence W.
>
> Deacon’s book Incomplete Nature: How Mind
Emerged from
> Matter. I said, in effect, and
sought to
> briefly
> summarize how, Deacon’s
> philosophy of language part
> supports, part
> enhances, and part challenges Burke’s
>
> dramatism/logology. Ronald Soetaert of
Ghent U.
> seconded that take on Deacon’s
relevance to
> our
> enterprise.
>
> Since then, I’ve been
in further
> dialogue with Professor Deacon.
He sent me
> three of
> his published articles, then
> later, a fourth, later still an
> essay now
> in press. Two of these pieces have to do
>
> with his mentor, Gregory Bateson, whose work I
referred
> to
> in at least one of my posts as being
a
> clear precursor of
> Deacon’s semiotics.
> The other of those first three,
> an
> encyclopedia chapter entitled “The Symbol
Concept,”
> I’d like to summarize in this post
and maybe
> one or two
> more. The chapter appears in
> The Oxford Handbook of
> Language Evolution
> (Oxford University Press, 2011). If
>
> you’re interested, please read on.
>
> (And as you read, do
keep in mind
> that
> Incomplete Nature has made a profound
> impact, judging from
> multiple reviews
> easily accessed on the internet.)
>
> First, Deacon’s
confirmation of
> Burke,
> formerly unbeknownst to Deacon, as I
> noted: Deacon’s in
> anthropology and
> neuroscience, not communication and
>
> literature, the prime sources of Burkean interest
and
> scholarship. From the
perspective of
> Incomplete
> Nature, I pointed out how
> Deacon’s critique of the
> commonplace
> “scientific lens,” maybe epitomized by
>
> behaviorism’s notion of the human mind, any
“mind,”
> as
> a “black box” we ought to
prescind
> from our motivational
> calculations, is
> faulty and inadequate. Input and
> output,
> neural stimulus and response, reduction of mind
to
> biology, then to chemistry, then to
physics,
> are the
> requisite foci for useful data and
> explanation, so much of
> hard science, at
> least, seems to suggest. Deacon says
> no,
> we have to factor in, indeed highlight, a
necessary
> “absential feature”(similar to
Burke’s
> negative) that
> becomes the basis for human
> purpose, trial and error---we
> can genuinely
> label it all the
> aspects of “action,”
> expressive of a chosen
> “preference,”
> that cuts across “spontaneous” causes
>
> in nature and orients persons toward “work”
that
> limits,
> organizes, directs life
> outcomes.
>
> “The
> Symbol Concept” further
> underscores the
> dramatistic relevance of Deacon’s
>
> thought. Deacon once again takes issue with
regnant
> scientific/technological terminologies
that
> confuse what a
> “symbol” actually is.
> A symbol is not, Deacon
> claims, mere
> “code,” “sign,” “icon,” or number,
> that is, symbols are not mere pointers
,
> markers, gauges, or
> portraits of the kind
> so often denominated
> “symbols.”
> Actual “symbols” refer, abstractly
> and
> generally, “irrespective of any natural
>
> affinities.” In other words, as per
Burke, symbols
> synthesize, synthetically, disparate
beings,
> entities, or
> events for seemingly
> pragmatic, culturally-conditioned
> purposes
> that transcend mere appearance of similarity.
> Contra Saussure (with the exception of
proper
> nouns),
> symbolic reference cannot be
> “mapped.” To the
> extent that a common
> word or symbol “maps” anything, it
>
> “maps” a position in a given lexicon in
relation to
> other
> terminologies in that
> symbol system.
>
> The
> airy, diaphanous character of
> Burke’s
> equivalent notion of symbolic action/reference
> finds peak expression in his chapter,
“What
> Are the Signs
> of What?---A Theory of
> Entitlement.” in LASA. There
> Burke
> maintains what he said in the Grammar about how
common
> symbols refer to “nothing” in the
real
> world, only here
> he follows up with how
> “reference” is reversed, in terms
> of
> customary suppositions: “Things are the signs
of
> words,” rather than vice
versa. In so
> “latching
> on” to the symbol’s
> concept, so to speak, tangible
> entities and
> “objects” “materialize” the
>
> “spirit” of the symbol, participate in its
> “pageantry” (pp. 361, 379).
>
> But---and
> here’s where Deacon gets into
> semiotic
> and semiological issues foreign to Burke’s
> dramatism, i.e., the “enhancement”
I
> mentioned---“sign”-age,
> “signal”-ing,
> “code”deciphering,
> the whole gamut of concepts related
> to
> computer algorithms and “encryption,” come to
bear in
> undergirding the higher-order
cognitive
> process we call
> human symbolic
> communication. Like love and marriage
>
> (for the traditionally minded, anyway), you
can’t have
> one
> without the other. The symbols
of
> human language are
> fashioned out of sounds
> and written or printed characters
> the roots
> of which are presymbolic, and prehuman, for that
> matter. Such “iconic” and
> “indexical” sources
> of communication
> are evident in the activites of nonsymbolic
>
> animals, as well as in the “symbolic actions”
of you
> and
> me. Thus, add “iconism” and
> “indexicality” to
> Deacon’s
> “absential feature” and Bateson’s
>
> “difference that makes a
> difference”
> (that results from some pre-ethical sense of
> negation, and occasions a form of
“trial and
> error” in
> the service of a kind of
> “preference,” a capacity for
> which all
> living things show signs of possessing and
>
> utilizing).
>
> In
> explaining this “hierarchy” of
> notions
> he uses in explaining how human symbolic action
> works, Deacon borrows from the
philosophy of
> Charles Sanders
> Peirce. Peirce coined the
> term “legisign” to refer
> to iconic,
> indexical, and symbolic signs in general.
>
> The locution “sinsign” refers to a specific
instance
> of
> an iconic or lexical sign (there can
be
> no such thing,
> actually, as a “symbolic
> sinsign,” as will become clear,
> I hope.
> “Natural affinities” characterize
>
> sinsigns; not so, anything that attains the level
of
> “symbolic,” based on, as Burke and
Deacon
> say,
> arbitrary, conventional, culturally
> reflective origins of
> reference.) A stick
> figure drawing on a restroom door
> is an
> iconic legisign. It “portrays” in
>
> general. A picture of a famous person is an
iconic
> sinsign. It portrays in
particular. A
> smoke
> alarm sound is an indexical legisign,
> as is the position of
> a needle on a
> pressure gauge. They “point” or
>
> orient
> toward an action in the large. A
> particular smell of
> smoke is an indexical
> sinsign. Spoken or written
> words, in a
> syntactical context or not, are symbolic
>
> legisigns. The reference is to “a general
concept or
> type of object.”
>
> Proper names might seem
to be a bit
> like
> symbolic sinsigns, but they are not.
> Their reference
> can be mapped, one-to-one
> Saussure-like, but “the
> sign-vehicle is a
> conventional form.” Therefore
> Peirce
> would call them “indexical legisigns.”
> “Dolphin signature whistles are
indexical
> sinsigns”
> (Deacon, e-mail message,
> 9/9/14). Symbolic signs of
> the most
> abstract or merely potential kind of reference
> Peirce calls “qualisigns.”
>
> Symbolic reference,
> then, functions like
> this: “A written
> word [for instance] is first recognized
> as
> an iconic sinsign (an instance of a familiar
form), then
> an indexical legisign (a type of sign
vehicle
> contiguous
> with other related types), and
> then as a symbolic legisign
> (a conventional
> type of sign referring to a conventional
>
> type of reference).
>
>
> Deacon employs the text message
“smiley
> face” and Aristotle’s take on how
a
> “signet ring”
> functions in
> communication as examples of this hierarchal
> progression in the production of
meaning for
> symbol-users,
> one of Deacon’s most
> salient points being: This
> “dependency of
> symbolic reference on indexical reference
>
> [and iconic reference]” mirrors the dependency
of human
> symbolic action/communication on the
> “genetic,” even
> “phylogenetic,”
> capacities for iconic and indexical
>
> communication of a sort in “living organisms”
in
> general, a theme of Deacon’s (and
> Bateson’s) I
> emphasized in my previous
> posts on Incomplete Nature.
>
> So, for further review
and/or
> comment:
>
> What do
> Deacon’s semiotic distinctions,
> and
> especially unifications, mean for Burke’s
signature
> “(Nonsymbolic) Motion/(Symbolic)
Action”
> dichotomy
> (1978/2003)? Is some sort of
> modification in order
> along the lines of
> Jim Chesebro’s complaint that Burke did
>
> not pay enough attention to nonsymbolic motive s
(Burke
> panel at the ECA Convention, 1992)?
>
> Does Deacon’s
> critique of Chomsky’s
> Universal
> Generative Grammar as the innate
“constraint”
> on syntactical linguistic
relationships in
> human
> communication, in favor instead of
> “indexical”
> constraints, tend to
> support Burke’s notion of the
> negative as
> “the engine of intentionality” and the very
> dawn of human symbolism
(1952/1953/1966)?
>
> Maybe something on
> those issues later.
>
>
> Ed
>
> ”
>
>
>
>
>
>
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