Semiosis & Sign Exchange

design for a subjective situationism, including conceptual grounds of business information modeling

Pieter Wisse

prelude 2

Designing an ontology for conceptual information modeling, what is a promising start? Does a science of information exist? If so, (al)ready-made building blocks for constructing my particular grounds might be discovered. There are even several disciplines referring to information as their core concept, ranging from signal transmission to library services. Upon cursory inspection it already perspires that such concepts of information are usually each quite limited. There certainly are no common grounds underlying them relevant for directing attention during conceptual information modeling..

One discipline claims a general orientation. It is semiotics. Since modern semioticians without exception mention peirce as a primary source of inspiration, it is with his work that I make a start.

Frankly, I did not study all that much of the mass of texts that Peirce has written. Chapter 2 can even be seen as the result of my reflection upon a single sentence by Peirce. His targeted sentence establishes that information taken separately is not the core concept. Of course Peirce does not use information in his terminology. Sign is the label for one of his general concepts. In other words, a sign in isolation is not fundamental. Of key significance is the dynamic relationship holding between sign, object and interpretant. Peirce emphasizes that their relationship is irreducible. As three elements are involved, the core concept of Peircean semiotics is the triad.

The semiotic triad, however, does not exhaustively explain the sentence I have been studying so intensely. Indirectly, it also refers to a ground. How I handle the ambiguity Peirce leaves with respect to his concept of ground is where I definitely part company with established Peircean scholarship. I may add, probably before even joining it. For I am not pursuing interpretations of what Peirce himself, supposing that he did, might have meant by ground. Anyone who believes I make valuable suggestions on interpreting Peirce is of course most welcome to do so. However, my express aim for studying Peirce is to collect and develop valuable materials for an ontology for conceptual information modeling.

My development beyond – or astray from, it does not matter – Peirce leads from his triad to a semiotic hexad. Guided by his original three elements I propose a characteristic ground for each of them. It is definitely not yet a finished ontology, but already shows promise for further development. I like to compare it with analytical geometry. With six non-overlapping formal axes, rather than three, an ontology offers opportunities for a proportionally higher resolution in perception and interpretation.

In Chapter 3, the hexadic elements are applied for a description of reality’s assumed structure in objectified terms while attempting to honor the hexad’s irreducibility.

 

 

2002, web edition 2005 © Pieter Wisse

 

 

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