The life of signs

Proposal by Comenius (1640) for a perfected language:

The lexicon of the new language would reflect the composition of reality and in it every word should have a definite and univocal meaning, every content should be represented by one and only one expression, and the contents were not supposed to be the products of fancy, but should represent only every really existing thing, no more and no less.

— Eco (1995, 216)

Peirce made a much more pragmatically realistic proposal in his ‘Ethics of Terminology’: in the vocabulary of any branch of science, ‘each word should have a single exact meaning’ (EP2:264) – but this requirement should not be applied too rigidly, even within the sciences.

As to the ideal to be aimed at, it is, in the first place, desirable for any branch of science that it should have a vocabulary furnishing a family of cognate words for each scientific conception, and that each word should have a single exact meaning, unless its different meanings apply to objects of different categories that can never be mistaken for one another. To be sure, this requisite might be understood in a sense which would make it utterly impossible. For every symbol is a living thing, in a very strict sense that is no mere figure of speech. The body of the symbol changes slowly, but its meaning inevitably grows, incorporates new elements and throws off old ones. But the effort of all should be to keep the essence of every scientific term unchanged and exact; although absolute exactitude is not so much as conceivable. Every symbol is, in its origin, either an image of the idea signified, or a reminiscence of some individual occurrence, person or thing, connected with its meaning, or is a metaphor. Terms of the first and third origins will inevitably be applied to different conceptions; but if the conceptions are strictly analogous in their principal suggestions, this is rather helpful than otherwise, provided always that the different meanings are remote from one another, both in themselves and in the occasions of their occurrence. Science is continually gaining new conceptions; and every new scientific conception should receive a new word, or better, a new family of cognate words. The duty of supplying this word naturally falls upon the person who introduces the new conception; but it is a duty not to be undertaken without a thorough knowledge of the principles and a large acquaintance with the details and history of the special terminology in which it is to take a place, nor without a sufficient comprehension of the principles of word-formation of the national language, nor without a proper study of the laws of symbols in general. That there should be two different terms of identical scientific value may or may not be an inconvenience, according to circumstances. Different systems of expression are often of the greatest advantage.

We might say that ‘growth’ of meaning in a symbol system, like development of the brain, is a matter of progress toward optimal connectivity. Throwing off old elements is part of the growth of meaning, just as it is essential to ‘the plasticity of the child’s mental habits’ (recalling Chapter 1). For a symbol, as for a population of neurons, too many connections would be counterproductive.

In logical terms, a word or other symbol ‘grows’ when either its breadth increases (thus revealing previously unknown relations among subjects) or its logical depth increases (so that the symbol is more intimately connected with the rest of the guidance system). Iconic and indexical signs, as opposed to symbols, may not be alive in themselves, but they provide the freedom and the forcefulness (respectively) necessary for the life of symbols in which they are involved.

Peirce’s concept of the ‘perfect sign’ reflects the ‘living’ quality of symbols rather than the rigidity of a ‘perfect language’ as conceived by Comenius. ‘Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind. It is the sheet of assertion of Existential Graphs’ (EP2:545). A graph scribed on the sheet of assertion is a ‘Pheme,’ i.e. a proposition or Dicisign (CP 4.538). Stjernfelt (2014, 85) points out as a ‘central issue in Peircean logic that the reference of a Dicisign is taken to be relative to a selected universe of discourse—a model—consisting of a delimited set of objects and a delimited set of predicates, agreed upon by the reasoners or communicating parties, often only implicitly so.’ The plurality of universes is an aspect of polyversity, which avoids the ‘ineffability of truth’ which is entailed by treating logic as a single ‘universal language’:

In Peirce’s doctrine of Dicisigns, the plurality of representations is evident in the fact that the same objects may be addressed using different semiotic tools, highlighting different aspects of them. … If you accept only one language, the question of the relation of this language to its object cannot be posed outside of this language—and truth becomes ineffable. If several different, parallel approaches to the same object are possible, you can discuss the properties of one language in another, and you may use the results of one semiotic tool to criticize or complement those of another. Even taking logic itself as the object, Peirce famously did this, developing several different logic formalisms (most notably the Algebra of Logic and the Existential Graphs), unproblematically discussing the pros and cons of these different representation systems.

—Stjernfelt 2014, 85(fn)