Hi Adrian and everybody, list, I'm glad you were able to make sense of that confusing jumble of opinions!
Taking a glance at your cinema book I would agree our approaches seem to be similar. We are coming from an education perspective and because of this perspective we are certainly adopting the Peircean categories as a pragmatic metaphor to aid in reconceptualizing learning/interpretative processes. Although I try my best to engage as honestly as possible with Peirce's original ideas --- to avoid the astrological approach to Peirce's categories suggested my Jon (and I would completely agree with this statement) --- in order for our theories to have (one would hope) impact upon learning and teaching this re-conceptualization process is necessary. take care, Cary ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerry Rhee" <[email protected]> To: "Adrian Ivakhiv" <[email protected]> Cc: "Peirce-L" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected] Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2016 2:37:50 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: How do Peirce's categories best fit the study of the arts? Hi Adrian, list, I believe you are simply going through the process of defending your triad but ‘experience’ is a particularly complicated label for beginners. For example, “…*only three, Quality, Reaction, Mediation. Having obtained this list of three kinds of elements of experience…"* http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-01.htm This illustrates a hierarchical nature to understanding experience. If your triad is correct and has unity, then we should be able to talk about it as if it were a real thing. So, I would equate your labels with: Experience = Mediation 3rd Materiality = Quality 1st Representation = Reaction 2nd This gives EMR = 3,1,2; MER = 1,3,2 But I always said it ought to be 1,2,3, that is, MRE; Quality, Reaction, Mediation. Stated in these abstract terms, Gary’s system would be most helpful for mediation. For art students, it might be better to start by emphasizing how necessary the situated subject is for understanding semiosis (c.f. link above). There’s also another often neglected presupposition, which is that inquiry has a beginning and end, and is designed to speak about a community of inquirers trying to transform doubt. It is not designed specifically for individuals (that would be too complicated). So, as applied to art, his theory deals mainly with the early part of an inquiry. “*But the time is coming when there shall be no more poetry, for that which was poetically divined shall be scientifically known*.” Best, J On Sat, Feb 13, 2016 at 9:48 AM, Adrian Ivakhiv <[email protected]> wrote: > I should mention that if anyone on the list is interested in a digital > copy of the book I've been referring to (many reviews excerpted and linked > to here <http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Catalog/ivakhiv.shtml>), I'd be happy > to share it on an individual basis. Please write me off list (and allow for > a little time to respond). Thanks. -Adrian > > > > On 2/13/16, 8:21 AM, Adrian Ivakhiv wrote: > > Dear all: > > Many thanks for the rich, insightful, and helpful replies to my question. > I received about 16 responses all told (not all shared on the list), have > read all of them now (though not all the supplementary material that was > shared along with them), and have some preliminary thoughts I'd like to > share in response. To keep the thread from continuing indefinitely, and to > make it easier for those not interested in the conversation to ignore it, > I'm responding in this single message to all of them. I'll mention names to > make it easier to trace the conversations backwards. Off-list comments by > Kelly Parker and Cary Campbell will be added to the list of on-list > comments by Halton, Chandler, Taborsky, Van Breemen, Rhee (1&2), Fuhrman > (i.e. Gary F. 1&2), Awbrey (1&2), Raulien (1&2), Guerri, and Leri (did I > miss anyone?). > > By far the most frequent comment has concerned the way in which my > question seemed to ignore the basic principle by which Peirce's > phaneroscopic categories mutually imply each other and are therefore > inseparable (Halton, Taborsky, Campbell, Rhee). It appeared to several of > you that I was attempting to separate firstness from secondness from > thirdness, and to assign each to one of my three terms: experience, > materiality, and representation. While it's quite true that I was seeking > to assign the categories each to one of my three terms, or at least to ask > whether it's possible and useful to do that, I was not intending to > separate the categories from each other. Just as thirds imply seconds and > firsts (and the other ways around), so does representation (in my account) > imply materiality and experience, and vice versa (vices versae?). > Materiality is never something in and of itself; it is experienced and > represented (or conceived), and its identification as "materiality" is > itself an idea. And so on. That said, I'd say that the general tenor of the > responses was close to a consensus that "no," the three categories cannot > be easily assigned (individually) to materiality, experience, and > representation, and that in fact each of my terms could be examined with > reference to each of Peirce's categories (Campbell, Raulien, Parker). > > I agree with the criticism that my EMR/MER triads are not semiosic or > "genuine" triads (Taborsky, Guerri). They are intended as heuristic > organizing devices--pragmatic metaphors, if you will--informed by Peirce's > categories. To Edwina's question "Since you are not analyzing the > art-experience as a semiosic-experience, then why use them?," I would reply > as follows: (1) because I find Peircian/triadic thinking to be useful in > and of itself and I believe that a triad such as this (EMR/MER) can be > helpful to teach that kind of thinking; and (2) because I have found that > teaching about the environmental arts (loosely speaking) requires taking > each of these three dimensions--materiality, experience, and > representation--seriously, in a way that *resembles* the "irreducibility" > of the Peircean categories. In much writing about environmental literature, > for instance, representation is overemphasized; experience and especially > materiality are underemphasized. When one shifts to eco-art, eco-theatre, > ecomusic, or ecocinema, the other two (experience and materiality) become > more prominent. Seeing them as equal in significance is, for me, a useful > step to take. I find myself unable to reduce any of them (experience, > materiality, representation) to the others; and my hunch was that this > makes them similar to Peirce's categories. So I tried to connect the two > triads. That's where I am now. > > I should note that the framework developed in my book on cinema, Ecologies > of the Moving Image, is rather different and more complex from what I > presented in my question to the list. My use of Peirce there is both more > conservative (elucidating his notions of signs, categories, normative > sciences, and more) and more liberal (in its efforts to find > correspondences with Whiteheadian metaphysics and Guattari's "three > ecologies," and in my revision of previous applications of Peirce to cinema > studies, for instance by Deleuze, Cubitt, and others). To Jon, who advises > starting "with the three normative sciences of aesthetics, ethics, and > logic" (Awbrey 1), I can report that I indeed "start with" the normative > sciences there when I approach the matter of film viewership: i.e., how we > as viewers can cultivate habits of viewership consistent with a Peircian > understanding of cinema. (I refer to that as an "eco-ethico-aesthetics" of > film viewership, taking logic to be more or less coterminous with > "eco-logic," since my object of study was ecological thinking and > representation; cf. pp. 294-299 in the book. This also seems to resonate > with Leri's comments.) I summarized that approach (along with another) in > the paper I presented at the Peirce Centennial Congress a couple of summers > ago ("Peirce and the Film Viewer: Toward a Logio-Ethico-Aesthetics of the > Cinema Event"), which I'd be happy to share with anyone interested > off-list. > > I find all of the suggestions for pursuing triadic interpretation of the > arts helpful and insightful, and by and large confirming of some of what > I've tried to do in my work thus far. Campbell's suggestion to "proceed > backwards" from thirdness to the "physical corporeality of secondness" and > the "sensory *terminus a quo* of firstness" feels to me very close to the > way I've interpreted films in my cinema book. I find Helmut Raulien's > articulation of three triads particularly helpful: > > "From the point of view of the picture, better: Regarding the picture > as a thing, I would say, that firstness is the possibility of application, > that is the fact, that the thing may be experienced as a picture. > Secondness is the form, the shapes of colours, that is a result of > representation. Thirdness is the structure of the thing, that is > materaility: Pigments, binder, canvas, frame. So, from the picture as a > thing it is: ERM. > > "Now, from the artist’s perspective it is: Firstness is a > representation of something the artist has in her/his mind, secondness is > the material he/she is using to depict it, and thirdness is the experience > of a result: A successful work accomplished. This is RME. > > "From the perspective of the viewer it is the material picture working > as a representamen (first), the viewers experience connecting it with an > object (second), and seeing it represent some thoughts and feelings > (thirdness), so it is MER. If one does not agree with these proposals, at > least it may be possible to agree with that easy assignment of ontological > elements to categories or sign elements is not possible." > > Rather similarly, Kelly Parker wrote to me that each of my three > categories (materiality, experience, and representation) can be treated in > terms of firstness, secondness, and thirdness (e.g., materiality as "mere > unencountered... stuff," secondness "as physically present stuff," and > thirdness as "the physical sign vehicle", etc.). All of this makes perfect > sense to me and, in one way or another I think, is related to some way in > which I've tried to think the "fullness" of cinema--as object and material > product, as world encountered by viewer and emotional/intellectual > experience, as set of discourses, etc. That said, there is much more work I > could have done, even sticking to the very core semiotic triad of object, > representamen, and interpretant. (Parker's article on "Normative Judgment > in Jazz" is a particularly lucid and helpful example of the application of > that triad to a single piece of music, which I would now recommend to > students as a wonderful starting point in this "field.") > > A few commenters (esp. Fuhrman) note that firstness is more a matter of > quality than of experience, with experience being closer to Peircian > secondness, since it is dyadic (a matter of "outward clash"). A few others > (e.g., Campbell, Guerri) seemed to lean closer to my "EMR" triad, where > materiality is directly related to "a concrete actualization of an > artwork," while experience is ambiguous at worst and closer to firstness > (the "sensory *terminus a quo*") at best. I am still trying to > understanding Raulien's "supplementary" suggestion of an "ERM" triad--which > is a good thing, as the "inversion" has gotten me thinking! Taken together, > the comments might appear to suggests that any of "my" triads (EMR, MER, > REM, et al.) could be usefully correlated with Peirce's categories. If I > was looking for a clear winner between the two I proposed--EMR and MER--I > am left with no such prize. > > Finally, with respect to Jon's observation that "the discussion of > Peirce's categories... has undergone such debasement that it now borders on > a style of philosophical astrology," I suspect that, at least with this > effort to align the categories with my independently-derived triad of > experience-materiality-representation, I must plead guilty as charged. ;-) > > Thanks again for all your insightful comments, as well as the > supplementary readings. I've benefited from all of them (and welcome any > further thoughts, either on the list or off). > > Best, > Adrian > > > > ______________________________________________________________________________ > Adrian J. Ivakhiv > Professor of Environmental Studies/Environmental Thought & Culture > Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources > University of Vermont, Burlington VT 05405 U.S.A. > Tel 802.656.0180 Fax 802.656.8015 Email: [email protected] > http://vermont.academia.edu/AdrianIvakhiv > http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhivhttp://www.uvm.edu/~aivakhiv > > > -- > > ______________________________________________________________________________ > Adrian J. Ivakhiv > Professor of Environmental Studies/Environmental Thought & Culture > Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources > University of Vermont, Burlington VT 05405 U.S.A. > Tel 802.656.0180 Fax 802.656.8015 Email: [email protected] > http://vermont.academia.edu/AdrianIvakhiv > http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhivhttp://www.uvm.edu/~aivakhiv > > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > [email protected] . 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