What's a Word Worth? - Cleaning Up the Logic (Piercian Semiotics #3)

[justira]

What's a Word Worth is a new column by justira about the mechanics of writing. In this column, I examine the actual writing of every single book I read, focusing on how it conveys meaning and whether the writing works for me as an editor, reader, and fellow writer. My analysis will be based on the Peircian semiotic framework, explained in the first few posts of the column.

Welcome to the third post in my introductory series for this column! The first four posts will introduce readers to Peircian semiotics, which is the framework I use to analyze writing. If you're new to this column, please check the first and second posts in this series. If you're following along live and are returning after a week away, you might benefit from taking a look at the review section of the previous post.

Inference and the Logical Order of Determination in the Sign

Up to this point we have talked vaguely about "a sign denoting its object", or a sign's capacity to stand for an object (like the clipart light bulb from the previous post has the capacity to stand for any light bulb). Having assembled the basic Peircian semiotic, we are poised on the brink of turning our discussion to metaphors and how they work and why I think icons are important and Saussure was a tool for dismissing them.

But first! We must pause and be more clear about the role of inference and the logical order of determination in the sign-relation. This will be a much shorter post, but also a denser one, if the header up there wasn't a clue. I'll try to break this down as best as I can. This post leans heavily on the philosophical side of Peirce, which is a bit of a change from the focus we've had so far.

Anyway!

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