[-empyre-] C. S. Peirce and Code

[Bill Seaman <bseaman@risd.edu>]

The question is, in terms of Code and the potentials it brings about 
(as idea and code intermingle to provide the experience for the 
reader/participant) do we need to develop new language and approaches 
related to our understanding of digital Writing? Who best addresses 
this at this time?

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I asked Marcus off list to talk about his ideas on Pierce and how 
they might be applied to our current subject. I wonder if he might 
answer here in more detail (although he is busy with the list itself).

Giselle may also want to talk about this.

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Peirce defines Semiosis:

By Semiosis I mean an action, an influence, which is, or involves, a 
co-operation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object and its 
interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in anyway 
resolvable into actions between pairs. (Peirce, 1931, p.484)

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I will often return to Peirce's definition of the sign, because it is 
sufficiently open and all of my media-elements can be considered as 
signs in terms of this definition:

A sign [or representation] stands for something to the idea which it 
produces, or modifies. Or, it is a vehicle conveying into the mind 
something from without. That for which it stands is called its 
object; that which it conveys, its meaning; and the idea to which it 
gives rise, its interpretant. (Peirce, 1931, p.171)

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Peirce points toward part of the problem:

But an endless series of representations, each representing the one 
behind it, may be conceived to have an absolute object at its limit. 
The meaning of a representation can be nothing but a representation. 
In fact it is nothing but the representation itself conceived as 
stripped of irrelevant clothing. But this clothing never can be 
completely stripped off; it is only changed for some more diaphanous. 
So there is an infinite regression here. Finally, the interpretant is 
nothing but another representation to which the torch of truth is 
handed along; and as representation, it has its interpretant again. 
Lo, another infinite series. (Peirce, 1931, p.171)



PEIRCE, C. 1931. Collected Papers, Volume I-VIII. Cambridge: Harvard 
University Press.
See also
PEIRCE, C. 1966. Selected Writings. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.



b

--
Professor Bill Seaman, Ph.D.
Department  Head
Digital+ Media Department (Graduate Division)
Rhode Island School of Design
Two College St.
Providence, R.I. 02903-4956
401 277 4956
fax 401 277 4966
bseaman@risd.edu

http://billseaman.com
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