BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Gary R - I'll continue to disagree. I don't think that Peircean
semiotics can be used to correlate these two types of refugees.
As far as destitution of both sets - that is open to question on
both sets - and I repeat my concern about the correlation of two
sets. Furthermore one set [the Holy Family] is defined as 'Holy';
are the war refugees also to be defined as 'Holy'?
And yet again - the question of compassion was never brought up! The
only question asked was whether semiotics could be used as a
constructive method to analyze two Sets!!!! And yet - for some
reason, suddenly the issue of compassion by an observer is inserted
into the discussion - when it has nothing to do with semiotics or the
original question!
Now - if the original question had been based around 'can one feel
compassion' for war-refugees? Can this compassion be similar to the
compassion one feels for the Holy Family? -...well, that's a
different debate. And frankly- I don't think such a comparison is a
very interesting analysis, for all one can answer is: Yes.
Edwina
On Thu 28/12/17 2:54 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, Gene, Peter, Jon S, Jon A, list,
Edwina wrote:
Where I would quibble with you, Gary, apart from the fact that such
an analysis has nothing to do with Peircean semiotics - is that one
has to, I think, be careful with analogies. One situation may be
similar to another situation only in part. The danger with an analogy
is that once one has made that first correlation of'
X-is-analogous-to-Y'- then, suddenly, one includes all the other
attributes that belong to ONLY Y.
I can't agree with you that such an analysis as Gene's "has nothing
to do with Peircean semiotics." First, as Gene remarked, it was
Peirce's view that "symbols grow," and the symbolic meaning of the
nativity has grown and can grow further--at least in some people's
minds (including mine).The Holy Family was, despite your seemingly
questioning it, if not quite "destitute," at least very poor, and no
doubt even more so having indeed traveled to "a foreign land."
And, further, while I might tend to agree with you that "one has to
be careful with analogies," I would hold that Gene's analysis most
certainly has its Peircean semeiotic facets, and moreover, that as
Jon A wrote (unfortunately, in another thread he created for no good
reason that I can see), there is in Peirce a very important "logic of
analogy," one which John Sowa has also done some significant work in.
See for example his "Analogical Reasoning."
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/analog.htm [1].
I see that Jon S has addressed this well, so I'll stop here.
Best,
Gary R
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690
On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 1:24 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Gary R, list -
Where I would quibble with you, Gary, apart from the fact that such
an analysis has nothing to do with Peircean semiotics - is that one
has to, I think, be careful with analogies. One situation may be
similar to another situation only in part. The danger with an analogy
is that once one has made that first correlation of'
X-is-analogous-to-Y'- then, suddenly, one includes all the other
attributes that belong to ONLY Y.
Edwina
On Thu 28/12/17 1:05 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com [3]
sent:
Eugene, Peter, list,
I very much like your analysis, Gene. You wrote:
The implication here is that the experience of the nativity scene,
with refugees representing today as echoing Jesus as a refugee,
imparts in the witness an ability to empathize with "the other."
However, I think that rather than 'imparting' "an ability to
empathize with 'the other' " (although it may do that in some,
perhaps few, individuals) that one needs already to possess that
'ability' to appreciate the analogy and respond to it. In the USA at
least it would appear that many Christians, esp. of the evangelical
fundamentalist stripe, have lost it (or at least suppress it).
Best,
Gary R
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690 [4]
On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 12:10 PM, Eugene Halton wrote:
Dear Peter, Peirce described the way in which symbols can grow
over time. And clearly one of the meanings of the symbol of the
nativity is the family. Feuerbach called attention to how the holy
family symbol is a representation of the earthly family. Marx took it
further by claiming that the holy family symbol of the earthly family
is also a projection of the bourgeois family in his time. A
year ago Pope Francis adapted the symbol to the refugee situation by
including a Maltese fishing boat in the nativity scene at the
Vatican, a reference to refugees arriving by boat. Perhaps George
Herbert Mead can have more to say on this than Peirce, in Mead's
description of what he termed "the significant symbol." In Mead's
significant symbol the other is included reflectively in the meaning
of the symbol: "it is through the ability to be the other at same
time that he is himself that the symbol becomes significant."
(From "A Behavioristic Account of the Significant Symbol").
The implication here is that the experience of the nativity
scene, with refugees representing today as echoing Jesus as a
refugee, imparts in the witness an ability to empathize with "the
other." Gene H
On Dec 28, 2017 9:34 AM, "Skagestad, Peter" wrote:
Listers,
I have a somewhat unusual question. My sister is writing an Art
History thesis on nativity scenes and their contemporary relevance.
An example is one at a street mission in Trondheim, Norway, depicting
the Holy Family as present-day refugees from the Middle East. Now the
question is what, if anything, might semiotics have to say about such
depiction? The answer may be obvious, but it escapes me, at least for
the moment. Any suggestions?
Cheers,
Peter
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