Literature/1975/Eco


 * Original: Trattato di Semiotica Generale

Excerpts
The semiotic study of content is often complicated by recourse to an over-simplified diagram which has rigidified the problem in an unfortunate way. The diagram in question is the well-known triangle, diffused in its most common form by Ogden and Richards (1923): (1)

The triangle apparently translate Peirce's: (2)

and is often considered to be equivalent to Frege's (1892): (3)

The first point to be made absolutely clear is that such triangles can indeed be useful in discussing a theory of sign production and particularly a theory of 'mentioning' (see 3.3), but they become something of an embarrassment when studying the problem of codes. As a matter of fact a model of a sign-function (such as the Saussurean dichotomy signiicant-signifie and the Hjelmslevian model outlined in 2.2) only concerns the left side of triangles (1) and (2), and can be of relevance to the whole of triangle (3) if and only if the notion of Bedeutung is not taken as strictly extensional.

The semiotics of Saussure and Peirce is a theory of the conventional (or at any rate strictly semiosical) relation between symbol and reference (or meaning) and between a sign and the series of its interpretants (see 2.7). Objects are not considered within Saussure's linguistics and are considered within Peirce's theoretical framework only when discussing particular types of signs such as icons and indices (for the elimination of the object within the framework of a theory of codes, even in such cases see 2.6. and 3.5.). Objects can be considered in the light of a 'narrow' Fregian reading only when the Bedeutung is understood as the real and actual object to which the sign can refer: inasmuch as the Bedeutung is regarded as a 'class' of actual and possible objects, not a 'token' but a 'type' object, it becomes very akin to the content in the sense that will be outlined in 2.6. From this intensional point of veiw the Bedeutung becomes something to be studied by a theory of interpretants (see 2.7)

It must be absolutely clear that the following argument has nothing to do with a theory of the t-values of an expression, that is, with an extensional semantics; within this framework, even if the meaning of an expression is independent of the actual presence of the objects it refers to, the verification of the actual presence of these objects (or states of the world) is necessary in order to satisfy the t-value of the given expression and thus to consider it within the framework of propositional calculus. .... (p. 60)

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 * Umberto Eco