Frances to Claudio and listers... Forgive me because this reply is a little late and a little long. It deals mainly with color as a sign and this being a good example of semiotics in application to the field of visible design.
The attempt here is to explore the use of diagrams as a good means to partially show the triadic structure of signs, and to address the failure of any tetradic or polyadic valency for the phenomenal categories that might be incorporated into any model of signs, and to probe the collateral experience as being in synechastic representamens but preexistent to semiosic signs, and then as being embedded in semiotic representamens as semiosic trichotomies. The first thing that sighted persons see with their eyes is likely the color of the object scanned. Since the object "has" color in its form, it is reasonable to conclude that color is also a sign of the object. The study of color as a sign is hence held here to be an application of Peircean semiotics to the field of visible art, to include the graphic art of pictures and the plastic art of sculptures and the design of tectonic art as architecture crafted in the built environment of humans. The term "visible" is deliberately used to imply artifacts that are seen by the eyes of sighted persons in the optical and ocular sense. The term "visual" on the other hand is avoided, because it implies that even the congenitally blind person can experience colors visually as a mental vision, so that color for them would not be tethered by any sense modality, and this may complicate or frustrate the present theory of color signs. This discussion is a critical review and analytical judgement of the semiotic nonagon, which is an attempt to formalize the study of architecture as a sign, including the tectural property of color. The nonagon is an iconic diagram of a hypothetical color theory. This icon is a transformed abstraction of the theory as an object, whose features must be pertinent, so as to be immediately observed by sense and directly suspected as true. The diagram is likely necessary to reason about the theory. Its content and meaning however may be an objective material construct, or a subjective mental construct. The discussion here also explores whether color as a sign can be posited in a complex diagram like a tetradic model of quadrants, to include the collateral recognizant or agnoscent as a final entity. The basis of approaching color semiosis tetradically is thus found in the semiotic nonagon. The older nonagon box of nine slots, which is a triadic matrix, would then be replaced if it happened with a newer polygon box of sixteen slots, which is a tetradic matrix. This new approach is assumed an attempt to correct the existing trichotomic structure of semiotics, which is derived from the phenomenal categories of realist pragmatism. This tern would initially be replaced with a broader polyadic structure using a pair of dichotomies with poles, but connected as a tetrad of four quadrants. If the tetradic matrix itself however is further built as a tetrichotomy the result would yield a complex of fourteen classes, as opposed to the ten classes emerging from a trichotomy. This would yield a complex structure of signs for color or any other form, and likely an unwieldy disordered one. The initial guess here is that this is not a viable or necessary alternative, because the trichotomic categories are already firmly established in the whole philosophic system as built by pragmatists, and because the collateral experience of signers can be accounted for synechastically, or neatly incorporated into semiosis semiotically without expanding the categoric structure of signs. In fact, every attempted argument used to warrant a fourth category or valency for signs, in order to permit the collateral experience, could easily be explained and justified by tridential categorics and semiotics. In any event, no valency greater than a tern is allowed in semiotics. The structures used for explaining the existence of potential forms in semiosis, like colors and shapes in action as signs, is currently presented under several theories in diagrammatic models, such as monadic wholes and dyadic poles and triadic points and tetradic quadrants, including that of matrixes and tables. One familiar analytical model of this kind in particular is the semiotic nonagon. It is structured tridentially, making it consistent with the phenomenal categories of realist pragmatism. The current nonagon is an attempt to apply semiotics as an operative tool for planners in the actual practice of architectural design. The suggested task here is to probe whether the map of color as a sign can be better structured as a new tetradic table by adding a fourth category in the diagram, rather than by keeping the usual triadic table. The new slot would embrace the experiential recognition of color within semiosis, which had been previously held as collateral to semiosis. It should however be pointed out that if an empty class holder as a genus umbrella is admitted in semiosis, then the category of zeroness in effect becomes the fourth category. For example, under the genus of "signs" would fall the member species of first "icons" and second "indexes" and third "symbols" and then even further subclasses of other subordinate signs. The fundamental structure of any complete trichotomic category in fact would have ten classes filled with members. In other words, under the class of sign there is one kind of icon, but two kinds of index, yet three kinds of symbol. Viewed from another perspective, the four classes of a full trident with its empty class holder included could be held as a set of isolated dyads, in that with "0:1+2=3" the firsts and seconds are always correlated and thus conform, but the zeros and thirds are always marginal and thus collateral to the core, and even to one another. This approach however tends to push the phenomenal categorization of classes to a narrow and unusual extreme. Viewed from yet another biosemiotic perspective, a fourth factor or class might be obtained by connecting a pair of linear triadic terns together at their extreme points, thereby forming a fourth member between the pair as a set, but this approach could become confused when the set attempts to accommodate further sets and interpretants. In effect, it would simply make a multiple polyadic plurality of triadic sets meandering randomly along. The semiotic square has also been recruited as a candidate in an attempt to prove tetradicity. The four quadrants of a tetrad however must form sets of dyads, either horizontally or vertically, unless the quadrants are also allowed to relate diagonally, thereby in essence forming pseudo tridents of a quasi or proto kind. The problem in applying the semiotic square to pragmatist signs, where the four points of the square are signs and objects and interpretants and recognizants, is in determining what sets of poles are contradictory and contrary and complimentary. If as semiotics insists, the object determines the sign and the sign determines the interpretant, then the interpretant must determine the recognizant, thus semiosis actually disallows to the square any diagonal contrariety, and thus any triadicity. Furthermore, the square seemingly allows all points to determine by contradiction or contrariety or compliment the recognizant, which semiotics would clearly disallow. In any event, a monadic or unilateral model of signs would be categorically unacceptable, but a dyadic or tetradic model would best serve the structuralist thrusts of francoeuropean semiologics, while only a triadic or trichotomic model would best serve the pragmatist thrusts of angloamerican semiotics. This fuss is also mainly over the forming and framing and fusing of form alone, which furthermore takes little into account on the finding of factual content that will go to filling the models, with the final goal of their attaining some force in purposive action. When color is treated as the sole object of some interest in the world of pragmatist semiosis, as it very well can be but as more than only form, then color alone is considered trichotomically from the perspective of semiotics with its grand Peircean divisions of roughly grammatics and critics and rhetorics, and each of these with their main dimensions of firsts and seconds and thirds, which dimensional labels are roughly those of Morrisean syntactics and semantics and pragmatics. The falling of color entities into such a tridential sign model and filling its slots seems almost natural, as opposed to an arbitrary tetradic fitting. In regard to the grammatic subclass called syntax or syntaxics, it is understood to be a species of grammatic semantics or immediate objects, and would fall within legisigns therein aligned with types and codes and raw semes. It would go to the rules of say combinatory composition. The key point is that syntaxics is not a mere synonym for or part of syntactics. The treatment of color in the semiotic nonagon holds color to be a utility in the service of design. Color was posited in this diagram mainly for collegiate purposes of academic analysis, because it was felt by the scholarly builders of the nonagon that the issue of color in theorice and practice at the time was confused. The holding of color as a sign and showing it in a graph seemed to partially resolve this concern for them. The least use that the graph might be put to was envisioned as a tool, to be used by artists in the right search for the best paths to their good goals. The initial sets of criteria that tend to organize color in the graph were reportedly culled from various international schools of design, notably the Bauhaus successor at Ulm in West Germany. These criteria were eventually correlated in a systemic manner that reflected the semiotic structure of signs as posited by several of its semioticians and theorists. The operation of combining the list of criteria resulted in a table of features grouped as properties and processes and products, and then as purposes and places and prices. The graph was subsequently fated to predicate and predict and prescribe the work of art in design and action. Needless to say that the initial attempts at labelling the slots of any given table emerged as inadequate and inappropriate, at least in regard to pragmatist semiotics. The nonagon in general is hence seemingly a tentative project in continuous progress. Indeed, it may be the case that several nonagon diagrams in the form of poles and quadrants and charts and maps and graphs and matrixes and tables and models may eventually be required. The assumption here is that the optimum solution would be to posit a master diagram as a mold showing the global labels as applicable to all of semiotics at large, with at least three slave diagrams showing the global labels applicable to specific divisions or subordinate dimensions of semiotics. This diagrammatic approach is reminiscent of the work posited by the American anthropologist Edward Hall some fifty years ago. His matrix of cultural identifiers was crafted for example as the silent language and the hidden dimensions of nonlingual signs in societies. His identifiers he called "primary message systems" of which he posited ten kinds in three main sets of tridents, and then aligned them as a matrix yielding one hundred slotted boxes. The systems in rough terms include time and space as their base, then school and play and defense, with group and sex and work, then usage and sign. The component parts of each message he called isolates and sets and patterns, which in linguistic grammar are like sounds and words and sentences. The levels of each message he called informal and technical and formal. This structure of systems and parts and levels is mainly tridential, although it is unknown by me whether he attributed this to any Peircean influence. He also wrote about the "fourth" dimension of architecture in regard to the built environment impacting on the behavior of humans in their cultures. The three spatial or territorial dimensions of proxemic length are width and height and depth. The one temporal dimension of chronemic breadth is time. The point here is that it takes time to even visibly scan an edifice, let alone enter and utilize it. This approach seems to be a tetradic structure that also includes a recognizant of sorts. In any event, the drafted term "nonagon" exposes an engineered bias, which perhaps is in keeping with the practical and utile aspects of the table, as opposed to the rational and logical aspects of semiotics as an eventual probability for signs. In semiotics, it is indeed held that all necessary reasoning is diagrammatic, which however only implies that all intellectual thought is so, to the possible exclusion of all practical thought. It is also not clear whether reasoning whether necessary of not can be nondiscursive. The nonagon diagram however is perhaps more of a procedural matrix than a model. The current variations of nonagons as matrix tables all have the core labels of "form" and "existence" and "value" attached to their dual terns. The advancing variations of nonagons that treat color with these labels then deal first with (1) the basic form elements, and next with (2) the necessity of color for humans in the performance of design, and last with (3) the elaborated criteria of color that amplifies its treatment. Any attempt by schools of art and design to model the whole of semiotics as some version of representamens and objects and interpretants will fail, because these terms or labels convey only the first grammatic part of semiotics. It may however be possible that the whole of signs could fall under this limited sort of tern for purposes of identity and orientation, but only if critics and rhetorics as the second and third parts of semiotics are deemed to bear or yield interpretants of varying kinds. To justify this condensed approach to the holistic diagramming of signs, it would seem that all three parts or divisions of semiotics do have some features in common. They all have tridential layers for example in the form of say syntactics and semantics and pragmatics, and each of these dimensions of the divisions is seemingly a further tern of immediate and dynamic and final stages. The overall semiotic levels and core labels of the main nonagon matrix might better be called informative grammatical forms, and evaluative critical facts, and evocative rhetorical forces. Each of these divisions as grammatic forms and critic facts and rhetoric forces could then be correlated with the dimensions of syntactic figures, and semantic frames with grounds, and pragmatic fields. In making a descriptive diagrammatic nonagon that might be truly reflective of signs, it might therefore be best to start with the terms of categorics and semiotics as the external basis, and then take the terms of design and color as fillers of the internal slots. The more appropriate classes and labels for the nonagon matrix at the antecedent or elementary level of color might be culled from pragmatist grammatics, and called fundamental vehicles of syntactic representation, and referential contents of semantic referention, and instrumental effects of pragmatic interpretation. This level would likely go to the essences attributed by nature to tones of color. The classes and labels at the subsequent or factual and existential level might be culled from pragmatist critics, and called syntactic values, and semantic meanings like contents and subjects, and pragmatic worths like inferred judgements. The class of value for example and as an interpretant that satisfies semiosic drives would then be an initial syntactic species of critical fact, where it is held immediately that an object has value relative to a material or technical need, aside from any ethical concerns of just morals and right deeds. In other words, the value ought to be pertinent to the semiotic need, regardless of whether the need is bad or good. This level would likely go to the existent substances manifested to sense by tokens of color. The classes and labels at the consequent or humanal and communal and cultural level of color, to include the social and institutional level, might be culled from pragmatist rhetorics, and called the syntactic means of communication, and the semantic modes of signification like contexts and functions, and the pragmatic methods of signation like intents and purposes and responses. This level would likely go to the presences of signs as exemplified in mind by types of color. In regard to any discrete criteria likely needed for treating color in a diagrammatic form, the many sign classes of semiotics across all its divisions and dimensions might be used profitably for analytical purposes. To be categorically consistent as a phenomenal trichotomy, such a nonagon box however must fill only six of its internal slots, rather than all nine slots. In some boxes the filling at the top of the matrix will start horizontally and progress to the right, while in others it will start at the left vertically and progress down to the bottom. There is an irony here in that the most filled rows and columns of the matrix will be its firsts and thirds. With the grammatic division for example, immediacy is a first but with three left dimensional slots filled, yet finality is a third but with only one right and last dimensional slot filled. In some instances of categorical diagramming, where the semiotic square is used either dyadically or tetradically, the effects of the diagonal might dominate. If for example the upper poles are formal and instrumental or even emotional and intellectual, and the lower poles are aesthetical and logical, then vertically the formal and aesthetical are complementary, while diagonally the formal and logical are contrary but not contradictory, although in some rational venues they are often preferred as compliments. What must be avoided in the building of the criteria however is any kind of subjective psychologism in the global sense, as well as any undue influence from the arenas of say art or religion or tech or history, because the basis of semiotic color after all is as an objective independent sign acting out of phenomenal representation. Under semiotics for example, a dark dull red color representing a figure framed in say the ground of a pictural depiction will seem close and heavy and warm to the signer, yet not out of any perceptual scan of the color, but rather because the form of that color to any sense will seem close and heavy and warm by mere iconic similarity of its resemblant appearance. The depth and weight and therm of the color will of course be sensed, but the color in being signed and assigned or reassigned is what matters semiotically. The main reason for design to study color as a sign in the field of semiotics, as opposed to color as some other thing in another field, is that the contents and effects of its forms are representative icons. The present application of the nonagon as currently set by its builders is to mainly solve the problems of industrial product design as they surface, and to yield a satisfactory resolution or closure. One key issue to address here initially however turns on exactly what the information might be that any color as a sign can bear or yield, and the conceivable consequences of these acts. The nonagon after all is expected to facilitate adopted choices made by designers engaged in the act of art. The fact of color can be found in such acts as art and tech and science. The treatment of color as an object of science would be considered from stances that are formal and natural and social. While the semiotic theory of signs is fundamentally a formal science of general philosophy, the theory is used variously to define objects in nature and to apply signs in culture. These positions could be used profitably to construct any diagrammatic polygon, regardless of its complexity or intensity or simplicity, and then to compose and correlate its component elements, which can be culled from numerous sources. These sources of criteria might include philosophy and all the sciences, not to forget linguistics and semiotics or logics. Once a list of criteria is compiled, then the task remains to edit it. The most advanced nonagon that incorporates such a list is a tridential matrix of three vertical columns with nine horizontal rows, which yields 27 slots of criteria. This is good as far as it goes, but it fails to go far enough to satisfy the categoric needs of semiotics, which must also be trichotomic, and not simply triadic. The semiotic world of nonagon color is seemingly a holistic system of holistic systems or classified criteria, where each systemic class when selected by a designer advances and expands and progresses by overlapping with other systemic classes that precede and succeed it. This heterogeneous growth is the result of dynamic and energetic actions, caused by adeptive chances and adaptive changes and adoptive choices in the design process. The selection made from the diagram is a presupposed hypothesis based mainly on good experiential guesses. The criteria and classes and systems however do not operate independently or homogeneously in isolation of each other, but rather tend to form a combinatory whole. How good the outcome will be depends partly on the pertinent contents of the criteria. If it is rich, say synchronically and diachronically and geochronically for example, then the final holistic system selected may be a candidate for implementation. If on the other hand the criteria are somewhat arbitrary and not fully pertinent, then the final holistic system they yield may fail to satisfy the needs of design. With the current amplified nonagon in particular, the broad systemic criteria are roughly classed coordinately as syntactic form and semantic existence and pragmatic value, and subordinately as iconic theory and indexic reality and symbolic potentiality. The specific members falling within each categoric class however often seem inadequate or inappropriate. This nonagon is not reflective of semiosis or semiotics at their categorical fullest and broadest. At best, it is a display of intermediate dynamic objects as core signs, which lay in their semantic dimension alone, and then in only one grammatical division of semiotics. They are then forced to fit other criteria into themselves, which too often are without relevance or pertinence. In the absence of any critical or rhetorical criteria, this limited system of classes and members must fail. In its defense, it is a welcome step on the best path in the right direction leading toward a good end goal. The energy already exerted in this effort is certainly warranted and justified. The rhetorical consequence is simply the empowered force that signs are eventually endowed with by say syntactic communication and semantic signification and pragmatic signation in their attempt to attain some end goal. Without the rhetorical evocation the sign may yield, the grammatical information the sign may bear, and even the critical evaluation the sign may endure, will remain within semiosis but only in a crude static state. The sign as such a limited systemic class would be homogeneous, and thus stagnant. In tridential semiotics, the referred object determines the main kind a represented sign will be in each situation of semiosis, as an icon or index or symbol. The sign then determines the interpretant effect. If an experiential recognizant or agnoscent is to be held present in such acts of semiosis, then it would be collateral to the act; but it is not clear whether it would be preparatory to it, or contributory to it, or consummatory of it. It is nonetheless clear that the combined tridential tern of semiosis does not determine the collateral experience, nor would it be a consequence of the sign act. It might however be defined sequentially as a further interpretant effect of the act. If on the other hand the preexistent and preparatory collateral experience were held to determine the tern, likely starting with the kind an object will be, and perhaps to even determine the act of semiosis itself, then it would be part of synechastics, and not part of semiotics. Under rhetorics, and after its communicative means are settled, the sign is empowered further with force by its significative modes, which dyadically entails its locus or location and then its focus or function and mission. These modes are then contributory to its signative methods by which responses are determined. If the recognizant or agnoscent is to be held here rhetorically, and it must be held only here if it is to be part of semiosis, then it would likely be as a methodic reaction and a collateral one drifting beyond rhetorics and semiotics and the formal arena of the world into the natural and cultural arenas of the world. As a part of rhetorics it is isolated from grammatics, and thus not equated with representative signs or referential objects or interpretive effects. Unlimited sequential semiosis may of course constitute the recognizant as a further interpretant, but whether nonhuman animals have recognizants for say purposes of survival is unknown to me. A similar query could be offered in regard to color as a sign, as to whether it must be considered when designers deal with both human and nonhuman users of buildings. It is not clear how vast an application the semiotic nonagon ought to be put to, in the sense of whether its objects should embrace the signs of nonhuman organisms, and indeed if color and design should include the whole biotic world. If the nonagon and design admits for example insects and animals into its arena, then architecture or the built environment could not be held the exclusive domain of only humans. If an edifice furthermore is designed and built as a zoo to house animals, it is not clear if color should be designed into the artifactual habitat for the benefit of its main primordial occupants. Even if the nonagon and design were extended only to humans, the issue remains whether say a found cave cleaned out and used as a habitat for example might be deemed the product of design and be architecture; and aside from whether the object is aesthetic and of art or nonart. The semiotic nonagon is seemingly an attempt to represent a global class of object called architecture, into which might fall all the token members that have some tonal properties in common. If this lofty goal is so, the further issue is whether that normal class holder is an objective material construct that exists in some ontic arena of the world independent of life and sense and mind; or whether it is a subjective mental construct that exists only as a notion in the nominal mind of normal humans. If the typical class in waiting were found empty of token members, the further musement is whether the type would still exist as a global object at all. Color Signs Semiotic Applications to Visible Designs The attempt here is to explore the use of diagrams as a good means to partially show the triadic structure of signs, and to address the failure of any tetradic or polyadic valency for the phenomenal categories that might be incorporated into any model of signs, and to probe the collateral experience as being in synechastic representamens but preexistent to semiosic signs, and then as being embedded in semiotic representamens as semiosic trichotomies. The first thing that sighted persons see with their eyes is likely the color of the object scanned. Since the object "has" color in its form, it is reasonable to conclude that color is also a sign of the object. The study of color as a sign is hence held here to be an application of Peircean semiotics to the field of visible art, to include the graphic art of pictures and the plastic art of sculptures and the design of tectonic art as architecture crafted in the built environment of humans. The term "visible" is deliberately used to imply artifacts that are seen by the eyes of sighted persons in the optical and ocular sense. The term "visual" on the other hand is avoided, because it implies that even the congenitally blind person can experience colors visually as a mental vision, so that color for them would not be tethered by any sense modality, and this may complicate or frustrate the present theory of color signs. This discussion is a critical review and analytical judgement of the semiotic nonagon, which is an attempt to formalize the study of architecture as a sign, including the tectural property of color. The nonagon is an iconic diagram of a hypothetical color theory. This icon is a transformed abstraction of the theory as an object, whose features must be pertinent, so as to be immediately observed by sense and directly suspected as true. The diagram is likely necessary to reason about the theory. Its content and meaning however may be an objective material construct, or a subjective mental construct. The discussion here also explores whether color as a sign can be posited in a complex diagram like a tetradic model of quadrants, to include the collateral recognizant or agnoscent as a final entity. The basis of approaching color semiosis tetradically is thus found in the semiotic nonagon. The older nonagon box of nine slots, which is a triadic matrix, would then be replaced if it happened with a newer polygon box of sixteen slots, which is a tetradic matrix. This new approach is assumed an attempt to correct the existing trichotomic structure of semiotics, which is derived from the phenomenal categories of realist pragmatism. This tern would initially be replaced with a broader polyadic structure using a pair of dichotomies with poles, but connected as a tetrad of four quadrants. If the tetradic matrix itself however is further built as a tetrichotomy the result would yield a complex of fourteen classes, as opposed to the ten classes emerging from a trichotomy. This would yield a complex structure of signs for color or any other form, and likely an unwieldy disordered one. The initial guess here is that this is not a viable or necessary alternative, because the trichotomic categories are already firmly established in the whole philosophic system as built by pragmatists, and because the collateral experience of signers can be accounted for synechastically, or neatly incorporated into semiosis semiotically without expanding the categoric structure of signs. In fact, every attempted argument used to warrant a fourth category or valency for signs, in order to permit the collateral experience, could easily be explained and justified by tridential categorics and semiotics. In any event, no valency greater than a tern is allowed in semiotics. The structures used for explaining the existence of potential forms in semiosis, like colors and shapes in action as signs, is currently presented under several theories in diagrammatic models, such as monadic wholes and dyadic poles and triadic points and tetradic quadrants, including that of matrixes and tables. One familiar analytical model of this kind in particular is the semiotic nonagon. It is structured tridentially, making it consistent with the phenomenal categories of realist pragmatism. The current nonagon is an attempt to apply semiotics as an operative tool for planners in the actual practice of architectural design. The suggested task here is to probe whether the map of color as a sign can be better structured as a new tetradic table by adding a fourth category in the diagram, rather than by keeping the usual triadic table. The new slot would embrace the experiential recognition of color within semiosis, which had been previously held as collateral to semiosis. It should however be pointed out that if an empty class holder as a genus umbrella is admitted in semiosis, then the category of zeroness in effect becomes the fourth category. For example, under the genus of "signs" would fall the member species of first "icons" and second "indexes" and third "symbols" and then even further subclasses of other subordinate signs. The fundamental structure of any complete trichotomic category in fact would have ten classes filled with members. In other words, under the class of sign there is one kind of icon, but two kinds of index, yet three kinds of symbol. Viewed from another perspective, the four classes of a full trident with its empty class holder included could be held as a set of isolated dyads, in that with "0:1+2=3" the firsts and seconds are always correlated and thus conform, but the zeros and thirds are always marginal and thus collateral to the core, and even to one another. This approach however tends to push the phenomenal categorization of classes to a narrow and unusual extreme. Viewed from yet another biosemiotic perspective, a fourth factor or class might be obtained by connecting a pair of linear triadic terns together at their extreme points, thereby forming a fourth member between the pair as a set, but this approach could become confused when the set attempts to accommodate further sets and interpretants. In effect, it would simply make a multiple polyadic plurality of triadic sets meandering randomly along. The semiotic square has also been recruited as a candidate in an attempt to prove tetradicity. The four quadrants of a tetrad however must form sets of dyads, either horizontally or vertically, unless the quadrants are also allowed to relate diagonally, thereby in essence forming pseudo tridents of a quasi or proto kind. The problem in applying the semiotic square to pragmatist signs, where the four points of the square are signs and objects and interpretants and recognizants, is in determining what sets of poles are contradictory and contrary and complimentary. If as semiotics insists, the object determines the sign and the sign determines the interpretant, then the interpretant must determine the recognizant, thus semiosis actually disallows to the square any diagonal contrariety, and thus any triadicity. Furthermore, the square seemingly allows all points to determine by contradiction or contrariety or compliment the recognizant, which semiotics would clearly disallow. In any event, a monadic or unilateral model of signs would be categorically unacceptable, but a dyadic or tetradic model would best serve the structuralist thrusts of francoeuropean semiologics, while only a triadic or trichotomic model would best serve the pragmatist thrusts of angloamerican semiotics. This fuss is also mainly over the forming and framing and fusing of form alone, which furthermore takes little into account on the finding of factual content that will go to filling the models, with the final goal of their attaining some force in purposive action. When color is treated as the sole object of some interest in the world of pragmatist semiosis, as it very well can be but as more than only form, then color alone is considered trichotomically from the perspective of semiotics with its grand Peircean divisions of roughly grammatics and critics and rhetorics, and each of these with their main dimensions of firsts and seconds and thirds, which dimensional labels are roughly those of Morrisean syntactics and semantics and pragmatics. The falling of color entities into such a tridential sign model and filling its slots seems almost natural, as opposed to an arbitrary tetradic fitting. In regard to the grammatic subclass called syntax or syntaxics, it is understood to be a species of grammatic semantics or immediate objects, and would fall within legisigns therein aligned with types and codes and raw semes. It would go to the rules of say combinatory composition. The key point is that syntaxics is not a mere synonym for or part of syntactics. The treatment of color in the semiotic nonagon holds color to be a utility in the service of design. Color was posited in this diagram mainly for collegiate purposes of academic analysis, because it was felt by the scholarly builders of the nonagon that the issue of color in theorice and practice at the time was confused. The holding of color as a sign and showing it in a graph seemed to partially resolve this concern for them. The least use that the graph might be put to was envisioned as a tool, to be used by artists in the right search for the best paths to their good goals. The initial sets of criteria that tend to organize color in the graph were reportedly culled from various international schools of design, notably the Bauhaus successor at Ulm in West Germany. These criteria were eventually correlated in a systemic manner that reflected the semiotic structure of signs as posited by several of its semioticians and theorists. The operation of combining the list of criteria resulted in a table of features grouped as properties and processes and products, and then as purposes and places and prices. The graph was subsequently fated to predicate and predict and prescribe the work of art in design and action. Needless to say that the initial attempts at labelling the slots of any given table emerged as inadequate and inappropriate, at least in regard to pragmatist semiotics. The nonagon in general is hence seemingly a tentative project in continuous progress. Indeed, it may be the case that several nonagon diagrams in the form of poles and quadrants and charts and maps and graphs and matrixes and tables and models may eventually be required. The assumption here is that the optimum solution would be to posit a master diagram as a mold showing the global labels as applicable to all of semiotics at large, with at least three slave diagrams showing the global labels applicable to specific divisions or subordinate dimensions of semiotics. This diagrammatic approach is reminiscent of the work posited by the American anthropologist Edward Hall some fifty years ago. His matrix of cultural identifiers was crafted for example as the silent language and the hidden dimensions of nonlingual signs in societies. His identifiers he called "primary message systems" of which he posited ten kinds in three main sets of tridents, and then aligned them as a matrix yielding one hundred slotted boxes. The systems in rough terms include time and space as their base, then school and play and defense, with group and sex and work, then usage and sign. The component parts of each message he called isolates and sets and patterns, which in linguistic grammar are like sounds and words and sentences. The levels of each message he called informal and technical and formal. This structure of systems and parts and levels is mainly tridential, although it is unknown by me whether he attributed this to any Peircean influence. He also wrote about the "fourth" dimension of architecture in regard to the built environment impacting on the behavior of humans in their cultures. The three spatial or territorial dimensions of proxemic length are width and height and depth. The one temporal dimension of chronemic breadth is time. The point here is that it takes time to even visibly scan an edifice, let alone enter and utilize it. This approach seems to be a tetradic structure that also includes a recognizant of sorts. In any event, the drafted term "nonagon" exposes an engineered bias, which perhaps is in keeping with the practical and utile aspects of the table, as opposed to the rational and logical aspects of semiotics as an eventual probability for signs. In semiotics, it is indeed held that all necessary reasoning is diagrammatic, which however only implies that all intellectual thought is so, to the possible exclusion of all practical thought. It is also not clear whether reasoning whether necessary of not can be nondiscursive. The nonagon diagram however is perhaps more of a procedural matrix than a model. The current variations of nonagons as matrix tables all have the core labels of "form" and "existence" and "value" attached to their dual terns. The advancing variations of nonagons that treat color with these labels then deal first with (1) the basic form elements, and next with (2) the necessity of color for humans in the performance of design, and last with (3) the elaborated criteria of color that amplifies its treatment. Any attempt by schools of art and design to model the whole of semiotics as some version of representamens and objects and interpretants will fail, because these terms or labels convey only the first grammatic part of semiotics. It may however be possible that the whole of signs could fall under this limited sort of tern for purposes of identity and orientation, but only if critics and rhetorics as the second and third parts of semiotics are deemed to bear or yield interpretants of varying kinds. To justify this condensed approach to the holistic diagramming of signs, it would seem that all three parts or divisions of semiotics do have some features in common. They all have tridential layers for example in the form of say syntactics and semantics and pragmatics, and each of these dimensions of the divisions is seemingly a further tern of immediate and dynamic and final stages. The overall semiotic levels and core labels of the main nonagon matrix might better be called informative grammatical forms, and evaluative critical facts, and evocative rhetorical forces. Each of these divisions as grammatic forms and critic facts and rhetoric forces could then be correlated with the dimensions of syntactic figures, and semantic frames with grounds, and pragmatic fields. In making a descriptive diagrammatic nonagon that might be truly reflective of signs, it might therefore be best to start with the terms of categorics and semiotics as the external basis, and then take the terms of design and color as fillers of the internal slots. The more appropriate classes and labels for the nonagon matrix at the antecedent or elementary level of color might be culled from pragmatist grammatics, and called fundamental vehicles of syntactic representation, and referential contents of semantic referention, and instrumental effects of pragmatic interpretation. This level would likely go to the essences attributed by nature to tones of color. The classes and labels at the subsequent or factual and existential level might be culled from pragmatist critics, and called syntactic values, and semantic meanings like contents and subjects, and pragmatic worths like inferred judgements. The class of value for example and as an interpretant that satisfies semiosic drives would then be an initial syntactic species of critical fact, where it is held immediately that an object has value relative to a material or technical need, aside from any ethical concerns of just morals and right deeds. In other words, the value ought to be pertinent to the semiotic need, regardless of whether the need is bad or good. This level would likely go to the existent substances manifested to sense by tokens of color. The classes and labels at the consequent or humanal and communal and cultural level of color, to include the social and institutional level, might be culled from pragmatist rhetorics, and called the syntactic means of communication, and the semantic modes of signification like contexts and functions, and the pragmatic methods of signation like intents and purposes and responses. This level would likely go to the presences of signs as exemplified in mind by types of color. In regard to any discrete criteria likely needed for treating color in a diagrammatic form, the many sign classes of semiotics across all its divisions and dimensions might be used profitably for analytical purposes. To be categorically consistent as a phenomenal trichotomy, such a nonagon box however must fill only six of its internal slots, rather than all nine slots. In some boxes the filling at the top of the matrix will start horizontally and progress to the right, while in others it will start at the left vertically and progress down to the bottom. There is an irony here in that the most filled rows and columns of the matrix will be its firsts and thirds. With the grammatic division for example, immediacy is a first but with three left dimensional slots filled, yet finality is a third but with only one right and last dimensional slot filled. In some instances of categorical diagramming, where the semiotic square is used either dyadically or tetradically, the effects of the diagonal might dominate. If for example the upper poles are formal and instrumental or even emotional and intellectual, and the lower poles are aesthetical and logical, then vertically the formal and aesthetical are complementary, while diagonally the formal and logical are contrary but not contradictory, although in some rational venues they are often preferred as compliments. What must be avoided in the building of the criteria however is any kind of subjective psychologism in the global sense, as well as any undue influence from the arenas of say art or religion or tech or history, because the basis of semiotic color after all is as an objective independent sign acting out of phenomenal representation. Under semiotics for example, a dark dull red color representing a figure framed in say the ground of a pictural depiction will seem close and heavy and warm to the signer, yet not out of any perceptual scan of the color, but rather because the form of that color to any sense will seem close and heavy and warm by mere iconic similarity of its resemblant appearance. The depth and weight and therm of the color will of course be sensed, but the color in being signed and assigned or reassigned is what matters semiotically. The main reason for design to study color as a sign in the field of semiotics, as opposed to color as some other thing in another field, is that the contents and effects of its forms are representative icons. The present application of the nonagon as currently set by its builders is to mainly solve the problems of industrial product design as they surface, and to yield a satisfactory resolution or closure. One key issue to address here initially however turns on exactly what the information might be that any color as a sign can bear or yield, and the conceivable consequences of these acts. The nonagon after all is expected to facilitate adopted choices made by designers engaged in the act of art. The fact of color can be found in such acts as art and tech and science. The treatment of color as an object of science would be considered from stances that are formal and natural and social. While the semiotic theory of signs is fundamentally a formal science of general philosophy, the theory is used variously to define objects in nature and to apply signs in culture. These positions could be used profitably to construct any diagrammatic polygon, regardless of its complexity or intensity or simplicity, and then to compose and correlate its component elements, which can be culled from numerous sources. These sources of criteria might include philosophy and all the sciences, not to forget linguistics and semiotics or logics. Once a list of criteria is compiled, then the task remains to edit it. The most advanced nonagon that incorporates such a list is a tridential matrix of three vertical columns with nine horizontal rows, which yields 27 slots of criteria. This is good as far as it goes, but it fails to go far enough to satisfy the categoric needs of semiotics, which must also be trichotomic, and not simply triadic. The semiotic world of nonagon color is seemingly a holistic system of holistic systems or classified criteria, where each systemic class when selected by a designer advances and expands and progresses by overlapping with other systemic classes that precede and succeed it. This heterogeneous growth is the result of dynamic and energetic actions, caused by adeptive chances and adaptive changes and adoptive choices in the design process. The selection made from the diagram is a presupposed hypothesis based mainly on good experiential guesses. The criteria and classes and systems however do not operate independently or homogeneously in isolation of each other, but rather tend to form a combinatory whole. How good the outcome will be depends partly on the pertinent contents of the criteria. If it is rich, say synchronically and diachronically and geochronically for example, then the final holistic system selected may be a candidate for implementation. If on the other hand the criteria are somewhat arbitrary and not fully pertinent, then the final holistic system they yield may fail to satisfy the needs of design. With the current amplified nonagon in particular, the broad systemic criteria are roughly classed coordinately as syntactic form and semantic existence and pragmatic value, and subordinately as iconic theory and indexic reality and symbolic potentiality. The specific members falling within each categoric class however often seem inadequate or inappropriate. This nonagon is not reflective of semiosis or semiotics at their categorical fullest and broadest. At best, it is a display of intermediate dynamic objects as core signs, which lay in their semantic dimension alone, and then in only one grammatical division of semiotics. They are then forced to fit other criteria into themselves, which too often are without relevance or pertinence. In the absence of any critical or rhetorical criteria, this limited system of classes and members must fail. In its defense, it is a welcome step on the best path in the right direction leading toward a good end goal. The energy already exerted in this effort is certainly warranted and justified. The rhetorical consequence is simply the empowered force that signs are eventually endowed with by say syntactic communication and semantic signification and pragmatic signation in their attempt to attain some end goal. Without the rhetorical evocation the sign may yield, the grammatical information the sign may bear, and even the critical evaluation the sign may endure, will remain within semiosis but only in a crude static state. The sign as such a limited systemic class would be homogeneous, and thus stagnant. In tridential semiotics, the referred object determines the main kind a represented sign will be in each situation of semiosis, as an icon or index or symbol. The sign then determines the interpretant effect. If an experiential recognizant or agnoscent is to be held present in such acts of semiosis, then it would be collateral to the act; but it is not clear whether it would be preparatory to it, or contributory to it, or consummatory of it. It is nonetheless clear that the combined tridential tern of semiosis does not determine the collateral experience, nor would it be a consequence of the sign act. It might however be defined sequentially as a further interpretant effect of the act. If on the other hand the preexistent and preparatory collateral experience were held to determine the tern, likely starting with the kind an object will be, and perhaps to even determine the act of semiosis itself, then it would be part of synechastics, and not part of semiotics. Under rhetorics, and after its communicative means are settled, the sign is empowered further with force by its significative modes, which dyadically entails its locus or location and then its focus or function and mission. These modes are then contributory to its signative methods by which responses are determined. If the recognizant or agnoscent is to be held here rhetorically, and it must be held only here if it is to be part of semiosis, then it would likely be as a methodic reaction and a collateral one drifting beyond rhetorics and semiotics and the formal arena of the world into the natural and cultural arenas of the world. As a part of rhetorics it is isolated from grammatics, and thus not equated with representative signs or referential objects or interpretive effects. Unlimited sequential semiosis may of course constitute the recognizant as a further interpretant, but whether nonhuman animals have recognizants for say purposes of survival is unknown to me. A similar query could be offered in regard to color as a sign, as to whether it must be considered when designers deal with both human and nonhuman users of buildings. It is not clear how vast an application the semiotic nonagon ought to be put to, in the sense of whether its objects should embrace the signs of nonhuman organisms, and indeed if color and design should include the whole biotic world. If the nonagon and design admits for example insects and animals into its arena, then architecture or the built environment could not be held the exclusive domain of only humans. If an edifice furthermore is designed and built as a zoo to house animals, it is not clear if color should be designed into the artifactual habitat for the benefit of its main primordial occupants. Even if the nonagon and design were extended only to humans, the issue remains whether say a found cave cleaned out and used as a habitat for example might be deemed the product of design and be architecture; and aside from whether the object is aesthetic and of art or nonart. The semiotic nonagon is seemingly an attempt to represent a global class of object called architecture, into which might fall all the token members that have some tonal properties in common. If this lofty goal is so, the further issue is whether that normal class holder is an objective material construct that exists in some ontic arena of the world independent of life and sense and mind; or whether it is a subjective mental construct that exists only as a notion in the nominal mind of normal humans. If the typical class in waiting were found empty of token members, the further musement is whether the type would still exist as a global object at all. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
