From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!malgudi.oar.net!yfn.ysu.edu!ysub!psuvm!cunyvm!ndsuvm1!moriarty Tue Nov 19 11:09:34 EST 1991
Article 1258 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network
Date: Saturday, 9 Nov 1991 22:50:35 CST
>From: <MORIARTY@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Message-ID: <91313.225035MORIARTY@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Is semiotics an "informal logic"?
References: <rreiner.689479216@yorku.ca> <Veo4aB1w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
 <rreiner.689651023@yorku.ca>

I regret my part in generating the confrontational metadiscussion
on Eco's reliability.  It appears to be generating more heat than
light.

I think that the referential and extensional fallacies come into
play here.  Eco's point is that a semiotic chain should not be
tied to t-values.  The original question, if I understood it
correctly, involved discovering the pathway or code that explains
the interconnectedness of two otherwise disparate signifying chains.

This is a question that interests me too, Atlanta, but for classroom
reasons rather than clinical ones.  How, for example, does one explain
the segmentation of semantic fields in English contrasted with Spanish?
"Ser" and "estar" are both postulated as lexical equivalents of "to be"
on the [x=y] formula.  In terms of the cultural units denotated, "ser'
has to do with the metaphysical quality of stability while "estar" has
to do with the metaphysical quality of instability.  Thus...an auxiliary
verb that functions merely as a linker in a semantic chain in English
moves into a contrastive cultural unit in Spanish where it carries
contextual denotations about metaphysics.

Concerning Eco's reliability as a scientist, there is no doubt in my
mind that he was writing fiction.  This is a serious breakthrough in
fiction, to my way of thinking.  Fiction, according to Aristotle,
is a mimesis of reality.  In "Theory of Semiotics," Eco gives us a
pseudo-scientific paradigm that simultaneously mimes reality and
enters the sphere of science merely because scientists do not always
recognize the literary use of the scientific paradigm.  In postmodern
critical terms, we may speak of it as pastiche, parody, multilayered
textuality, or perhaps best, as a Minnipean satire.

To mistake fictional discourse for authoritarian discourse is
unfortunate, but readily understandable.  It demonstrates the power
of Eco's literary style that "Theory of Semiotics" is read as a poor
example of science rather than as a poweful work of fiction.  For
internal evidence to support my interpretation, refer to his Latin
dictamens cited in the work.  You will find that they are nearly all
insulting to the reader, if understood.  I take this to be a non-
scientific fissure in the work which signals its fictive dimension.

Michael/email:MORIARTY@NDSUVM1  "de te fablua narratur" :-)



