| (Peirce (1839-1914) was a highly intelligent and sensitive person as
we can understand from his formidable, extensive works, which even today
are not entirely published. These works treat of the most varied arguments:
from chemistry and astrology to mathematics and philosophy, from psychology
to theology, the connecting underlying idea being the creation of a comprehensive
system of signs, a semiology. Being a difficult and original person he
ended, even coming from the top echelon of the US society, as a lonely
and poor man, his works practically forgotten till after the second world
war. Recently however a real peirce-cult has risen, as the dedicated many
web sites can testify. This is astonishing in a way because reading Peirce
can be a tedious task, especially his elaboration of formal logic. He understood
early, what is common knowledge today, namely that no truthful description
of reality can be made outside the limits of human perception and therefore
should start with the analysis, the classification and interpretation of
the sign systems implicated in the acquisition, elaboration and transmission
of these perceptions. This is perhaps one of the reasons for his actual
popularity, our society being ever more characterized and determined by
multi-medial informatics.
Peirce was well prepared for the classification business having as a
student to sort out fossil brachiopods for his professor Agassiz, author
of an essay on classification. Moreover he had read, as Fisch
reports, WhatelyÌs ‘Elements of Logic’ (as he was eleven years old!)
and KantÌs ‘Critic of the Pure Reason’. In 1867 he publishes his
‘New List of Categories’ that later evolved to a full-fledged pan semiotic
System, as Eco calls it,
of basically ten different species
of Signs assorted in three main categories or types:
 |
the first and most immediately perceivable group (4 species) is iconically
highlighted |
 |
the second group (3 species) determined by inductive relations is indexically
highlighted |
 |
the third (3 species) entering the reach of metaphysics is symbolically
determined |
Icon, Index and Symbol are just some of the names with which Peirce labeled
his categories, others, still more difficult to understand, signify the
single sign species in further detail .
Floyd Merrell is a good guide
for those that want to enter in the quite complex peircian Theory of Signs.
In this page I refer mainly to his ‘Semiosis in the Postmodern Age’, Perdue
University Press, Indiana, 1995. He gives on p.95 the following list of
the ten fundamental peircian ‘classes of signs’ (as he calls them)
together with some most elementary examples:
| 1 |
Qualisign |
A Sensation of "Blue" |
| 2 |
Iconic Sinsign |
A Self-contained Diagram |
| 3 |
Rhematic Indexical Sinsign |
A Spontanious Cry |
| 4 |
Dicent Sinsign |
A Weathervane |
| 5 |
Iconic Legisign |
A Diagram, Apart from its Self-containment |
| 6 |
Rhematic Indexical Legisign |
A Demonstrative Pronoun |
| 7 |
Dicent Indexical Legisign |
A Commonplace Evocation or Expression |
| 8 |
Rhematic Symbol |
A Term |
| 9 |
Dicent Symbol |
A Proposition |
| 10 |
Argument |
A Syllogism |
It is a speculation why Peirce, who admitted the existence of an infinite
number of sign species, opted for ten categories: Aristotle's, that indefatigable
classifier, choose also ten but they were of a totally different nature
as Peirce himself
affermed. Kant choose twelve and they have some relation to the peircian
categories, Hegel contented himself with nothing less than 60 !
As Roman Jakobson
observes, Peirce was interested in the medieval obsession with language
theory, universal grammar and the relative classification of signs, and
the names of many illustriousmedieval
philosophers occur in his writings.
I am not informed if Raimondo
Lullo (1235-1315), another famous philosopher of that age, is mentioned
by Peirce; this spanish thinker said that the simple elements that are
at the foundation of all reality such that science and logic are identical
and that they are a ‘book from which we can learn to understand God’. He
classifies ten universal categories, both logical and ontological, in his
‘Ars Brevis’ by means of characters and other symbols organized in concentric
circles and other geometrical figures.
 |
from a XVI. Cent. edition of
‘Ars Brevis’ by R.Lullo |
The use of diagrams to present the relations between categories or objects
has been popular in all times so that we can even speculate if these figures
are not really antecedent to the formulation of ideas in general. It is
a visual means of classifying, just as Peirce intended: "I do not think
I ever reflect in words: I employ visual diagrams, firstly because this
way of thinking is my natural language of self-communion, and secondly,
because I am convinced that it is the best system for the purpose" (MS
620:8). We can also mention his fascination with the number 3: he affirms
that any classification can in extremis be reduced to three categories.
Furthermore he converted, though not always an active communicant (1)
to the trinitarian theology of the Episcopalian church and as we can read
in his Lowell Lectures he does not hesitate to recognize the implications
for his Theory of Signs:
| "Here, therefore, we have a divine trinity of the object, interpretant,
and ground. . . . In many respects, this trinity agrees with the Christian
trinity; indeed I am not aware that there are any points of disagreement.
The interpretant is evidently the Divine Logos or word; and if our former
guess that a Reference to an interpretant is Paternity be right, this would
be also the Son of God. The ground, being that partaking of which is requisite
to any communication with the Symbol, corresponds in its function to the
Holy Spirit."
"a Divine Eternal Trinity of Father, Mother and Only Son; the 'Mother'
being veiled throughout the Scriptures under the terms 'The Spirit,' 'Wisdom,'
'The Holy Ghost,' 'The Comforter,' and 'The Woman clothed with the sun
and crowned with the stars and with the moon under her feet'."
"A Sign mediates between its Object and its Meaning. . . Object the
father, sign the mother of meaning." That is, he might have added, of their
son, the Interpretant. |
These remarks are tantamount to a confession of the existence of a geometric
and numerical relation between Peirce’s classification of signs and his
metaphysics and probably to the influence of medieval thought as well.
If we take the fact that he mentioned ‘wisdom’ ,which corresponds to ‘chockmah’,
a category in cabalistic sign system as we will see later, something keeps
telling me that Peirce was interested in the medieval cabbala and probably
used it as a guideline for his classification of signs. Floyd Merrell did
not mention this, as far as I know, but he came very near to it when he
analyses the configuration of the ten terms of the Peircian sign system,
especially talking about the genesis or semiosis
or generacy of signs.
Let us take a look at the cabbala as it is known among jewish as well
as christian thinkers, in the middle ages and later. The cabbalah belongs,
as Gershom Scholem
says, to an impressive complex of writings and orally transmitted traditions
of Hebraic mysticism, especially dedicated to the exegesis of the most
important of them: the Torah or Pentateuch (the first five books of the
Bible). The Torah is considered a cryptic revelation, by means of the mystical
signification of its characters, of the meaning of all being: to the initiated
a hidden and living God is manifest in the combinatory of its letters and
their numerical meaning.
This is in other words a medieval version of the classification of
signs that represent reality and through realty, divinity. These signs
are classified in categories called sephiroth, ten of them (Such is the
revelation by Avraham Abulafi, Joseph Gikatulla, Moseh De Leòn,
and other theosophs of the XII.th. cent.). God manifests himself through
these attributes or areas of emanation, fundamental archetypal powers of
al being. The ten sephiroth moreover are divided in four ‘worlds’, ‘emanation’,
creation’, ‘formation’ and ‘production’.
At the same time a graphical representation of the ten sephiroth as
parts of a ‘tree of life’ became popular. We can read about this tree in
the first book about the cabbala ‘Bahir’ from the Languedoc in southern
France by an anonymous author (1180)
Colin's Hermetic Kabbalah Page informs us as follows:
The Tree is composed of 10 states or sephiroth
(sephiroth plural, sephira singular) and 22 interconnecting paths.
The age of this diagram is unknown: there is enough information
in the 13th. century "Sepher ha Zohar" to construct this
diagram, and the doctrine of the sephiroth has been attributed
to Isaac the Blind in the 12th. century, but we
have no certain knowledge of its origin. It probably
originated sometime in the interval between the 6th.
and 13th. centuries AD. The origin of the word "sephira" is
unclear - it is almost certainly derived from the Hebrew word for "number"
(SPhR), but it has also been attributed to the Greek word for "sphere"
and even to the Hebrew word for a sapphire (SPhIR). With a
characteristic aptitude for discovering hidden meanings everywhere, Kabbalists
find all three derivations useful, so take your pick.
Colin Low's site provides also a list of links on the Kabbala.
We read on the tree of life in the
site of Auriel Kabbalah as follows:
* The primary glyph of Kabbalism, the Tree of Life or Otz Chiim,
is the key to mastering the symbolism and the secrets of Kabbalah. All
qualities, ideas and objects can be attributed a place on the tree and
the tree serves as a mnemonic device for the Kabbalist.A symbolic guidebook
to other realms, a theology treatise and a practical meditation manual
are all contained in symbolic form in the spheres and paths of the Tree
of Life.*
 |
a sephiroth tree from
a XV.th.cent. transcription of
the ‘Zohar’ (the book of radiance), from 1280
look at the famous Tree
of Life by Kircher |
The ten Sephiroth are described in a highly recommendable book on the cabbala
by Daniel C. Matt
as follows:
|
1*
|
The first sephirah is more commonly called Keter or Ayin,
the
crown. It is the crown on the head of Adam Qadmon, Primordial Adam.
According to the opening chapter of Genesis, the human being is created
in the image of God. The sephirot constitute the divine archetype of that
image, the mythical paragon of the human being, our original nature. Another
depiction of the sephirot is that of a cosmic tree growing downward from
its roots above, from Keter, "the root of roots." |
| 2 |
Out of the depths of Nothingness shines the primordial point of Hokhmah,
Wisdom, the second sephirah |
| 3 |
This point expands into a circle, the sephirah of Binah, Understanding.
Binah is the womb, the Divine Mother. Receiving the seed, the point of
Hokhmah, she conceives the seven lower sephirot. created being, too, has
its source in her; she is "the totality of all individuation."
These three highest sephirot (Keter, Hokhmah, and Binah) represent the
head of the divine body and are considered more hidden than the offspring
of Binah. |
| 4
5 |
She gives birth first to Hesed (Love) and Gevurah (Power),
also known as Din (Judgment). Hesed and Gevurah are the right and
left arms of God, two poles of the divine personality: free flowing love
and strict judgment, grace and limitation. For the world to function properly,
both are essential. |
| 6 |
Ideally a balance is achieved, symbolized by the central sephirah,
Tifíeret
(Beauty),
also called Rahamim (Compassion). Il judgment is not softened by
love, it lashes out and threatens to destroy life. Here lies the origin
of evil, called Sitra Ahra, the other Side. From a more radical
perspective, evil originates in divine thought, which eliminates waste
before emanating goodness. The demonic is rooted in the divine.
Tif'eret is the trunk of the sephirotic body. He is called Heaven, Sun,
King, and the Holy one, blessed be he, the standard rabbinic name for God.
He is the son of Hokhmah and Binah. |
| 7
8
|
The next two sephirot are Netsah(Eternity) and Hod (Splendor).
They form the right and left legs of the body and are the source of prophecy. |
| 9 |
Yesod (Foundation) is the ninth sephirah and represents the
phallus, the procreative life force of the universe. He is also called
Tsaddiq
(Righteous one), and Proverbs 10:25 is interpreted as applying to him:
"The righteous one is the foundation of the world." Yesod is the axis mundi,
the cosmic pillar. |
| 10 |
The light and power of the preceding sephirot are channeled through
him to the last sephirah, Malkhut. Malkhut (Kingdom) is also known
as Shekhinah (Presence). In earlier jewish literature, Shekhinah
appears frequently as the immanence of God but is not overtly feminine.
In Cabbala, Shekhinah becomes a full-fledged She: daughter of Binah, bride
of Tif'eret, the feminine half of God, Shekhinah is "the secret of the
possible," receiving the emanation from above and engendering the varieties
of life below. The union of Shekhinah and Tif'eret constitutes the focus
of religious life. Human righteous action stimulates Yesod the Righteous
one, and brings about the union of the divine couple. Human marriage symbolizes
and actualizes divine marriage. Sabbath eve is the weekly celebration of
the cosmic wedding, and the ideal time for human lovers to unite. |
* the roman numeration is mine; the color
code referrs to the sephiroth tree below (AvO)
The ancient Cabbalah has recently attracted many as numerous sites in
the internet testify; however not all of them are interesting in my view
as I am allergic against mystification. But if we do find, as perhaps Peirce
was, significant indications in the direction of a better understanding
of semiotics, they are worth investigating. Even Umberto Eco was apparently
attracted by the cabbalah as those that did read his ‘Foucaultís
Pendulum’ can acknowledge: the names of the different chapters correspond
to the sephiroth.
It struck me that Peirce has organized his ten species in a manner analog
to the sephiroth in three categories, (taking the fourth inside the third).
Has he read the ‘Heptaplus’, or the ‘900 theses from the ‘Conclusiones
philosophica, cabalisticae et theologicae’ both referring to the interpretative
techniques of the Cabbalah, by Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) or ‘De
arte cabbalistica’ by his contemporary John Reuchlin (1455-1522); or the
‘Corpus Hermeticum’ by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499)
For Peirce our perceptions are ineluctably signs and these signs are
emanations of the divine creation, objects of our rational analysis. Even
our concepts and words are signs and signs of signs. We can illustrate
these correspondences between the peircian species and categories of signs
and those of the Sephiroth tree (the numeration in this tree follows Peirce’s
list inverting the traditional cabbalah order).
|
SHEVIRAH
the 'shattering of the shells' or
DE-GENERACY of SIGNS
|
TIQQUN
the 'mending of the shells' or
GENERACY of SIGNS |
|
The sign categories of Peirce and the cabalistic
sephiroth tree
On the background one of the famous Angels
by Paul Klee.
Click to have a look at this marvellous painting
|
symbolicity
highlighted |
|
indexicality
highlighted |
 |
iconicity
highlighted |
 |
click this image if you want to have a look at the new
sephiroth tree with the mention of the peircean categories |
A special mention deserves the fifth sephiroth, Tipharet (Tifíaret,
the sixth in cabbalah numeration), it is the central sign in the system
connecting al signs with exception of the Shekhinah (which is actually
a non sign presenting all matter indifferently to our perception as a Qualisign
in the peircian system). It will be of interest to those that are fascinated
by the I Ching and the Ho-tíu spiral mentioned by Merrell (11)
that these systems of 10 categories! also pivot around the fifth sign.
The evolution of signs from their most elementary form as a Qualisign
into ever more significant forms and intricate meanings towards the Iconic
Legisign (that represents a general concept, e.g. its representation in
the form of a diagram), and ultimately to the ‘argument’, or a self contained
universe of final interpretation of reality as perceived, (a belief in
the definition of Peirce), is called semiosis. Just as signs can move in
that direction they can proceed in the opposite direction stripping the
sign of its meanings, banalizing it. This process of de-generation of signs
is the unavoidable course of our post-modern multimedial society as Jean
Baudrillard gloomily asserts. It can be compared to ‘the shattering
of the vases’ or Shevirah in the cosmogony of the cabbala. For the
cabbalist, the divine light is to strong to be contained in the material
world or ‘vases’ so that they shatter and this world is just left with
the fragments and some sparks of light. It is the human task to repair
or mend the pieces in a process, called Tiqqun, of restoring meaning,
in other words semiosis.
As I said in the beginning, these connections between the Sephiroth
and the peircian categories are merely an intuition (Peirce would have
called it an ‘abduction’) and parallels with other philosophers leading
to homogeneities in different metaphysical sign theories could be indicated.
My option for the cabbalistic way is purely instrumental, one way to stimulate
reflection. My ultimate goal is to clarify the ways of industrial design
in the form of a design theory based on the (shaky) premise that also design
has a proper language. In the next page I
will pursue in that direction attacking it from a totally different though
convergent angle: the Ur-sign.
1. Max H.Fisch, ‘The Peirce Edition Project’,
Introduction
to Volume 1.
2. Umberto Eco, 'Il Segno, ISEDI, Milan, 1973,
p.94
3. I use the term ‘species’ for the collection of
single distinguishable items contained in a ‘category’
4. Some of the medieval thinkers
Peirce mentioned are:
-
Berengario (1008-1088) bishop of Canterbury,.who said that he believes
only in what he can perceive with his senses;
-
Anselmo d’Aosta (1033-1109), who anticipates the theory of suppositions
that Peirce 800 years later recognized as Abduction ;
-
Roscellino (1050-1120), who claims the diversity of the single components
of the Holy Trinity and
-
his pupil the unruly Peter Abelardo (1079-1142), emasculated because loving
a non and against the official church proclaiming the idea of ‘universality’
a purely mental operation;
-
John of Salisbury (1110-1180) asserting in his ‘Metalogon’ the validity
of logical reasoning;
-
Duns Scoto (1265-1308), who opts for a compromise between franciscan nominalism
of Roscellini and Abelardo and the universalism of the dominicans;
-
the famous William of Occam (1280-1349) who advocates to prefer in all
occasions simplicity over complicated explanations, especially in absence
of proof by actual experience.
5. Lullo knew Arabic and Hebraic texts, like the Talmud,
but wisely he did not divulge this knowledge as one can understand: during
his lifetime these books were vehemently discussed and in France even condemned
as heretical, 24 carloads of them were burned in Paris 29. September 1242
(and other 14 later); in 1309 and 1319 other talmudic texts went to the
stake. Anyway the cabbalah had large diffusion in the XII. cent. in southern
France. cfr. Günter Stemberger, ‘Der Talmud, Einführung, Texte,
Erläuterungen’, Beck, München, 1982, it.tr.; 1989, p.410 ff.
6. Roman Jakobson, ‘Glosses on the
Medieval Insight into the Science of Language’, 1974, it.tr. ‘ Lo
sviluppo della semiotica’, Milan, 1978, p.71
7. Floyd Merrell,‘Semiosis in the Postmodern Age’,
Perdue University Press, Indiana, 1995, p.138 ff.
8. Gerschom Scholem, ‘Zur Kabbala
und ihrer Symbolik’, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1995 p.50 ff., (1973)
9. Daniel C.Matt, ‘The essential Cabbala,
the hart of Jewish Mysticism’, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1996, p.8ff
10. Gerschom Scholem, ‘Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik’,
Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1995, p.121., (1973).
11. Floyd Merrell, ‘Signs Grow: Semiosis and Life
Processes’, Toronto, 1996, p.7
12. Jean Baudrillard, ‘The extasy of Communication’ , Sylvere Lotringer,
1988
some sites about Cabbala:
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