design for a subjective situationism, including conceptual grounds of business information modeling
Pieter Wisse
Any semiotic theory built from Peirce’s triad, while leaving its irreducibility essentially intact, is representational. The ennead explains semiosis with additional dynamics oriented at a sign (engineering) and issuing from a sign (observation).
The metapattern corresponds to the ennead’s sign dimension (see Chapter 4). Through its formal concept of signature, it allows discrete shifts of focus within a model. A particular focus suggests an object, but only to the extent of exhibiting particular behavior (as represented by a foreground interpretant on the ideal dimension) in a particular situation (as represented by a background interpretant on the ideal dimension). Every change of focus yields a different configuration from the model.
Thus, as an enneadic tool the metapattern confers on conceptual models a potential for greatly increased variety. But it certainly is not the last word on representation. Chapter 6 prepares the ground for a departure from a naive (also read: objective) theory of representation.
Though the so-called mind-body problem is usually not openly addressed, a preferred solution is often implied. Traditionally, it holds that the mind, or intellect, one-sidedly controls the body. That is, the body is seen to merely wait on the intellect to execute its designs. Even when the body is obviously indispensable for sign engineering and observation, it is only conceived as an auxiliary element. Another assumption – mostly implied, too – is that the intellect is ultimately rational. The inference is then made that a sign is rational, too.
When the intellect is considered a straightforward repository of objective knowledge about an external reality, signs are supposed to be equally straightforward pictures, statements, etcetera of reality. It only marginally changes with the view that the intellect also forms intentions. With intentions once again as rational constructs, the implied solution for both the mind-body problem and the rationality of the mind/intellect is not challenged. Still, signs are seen as one-to-one representations. An internal reality is allowed to enter the picture, with the concept of intention as a stop-gap for upholding the mind-over-body position reflecting a rational will.
The mind-body problem does not permit an empirically decisive outcome. Of course, the mind-over-body axiom seems attractive. Is not it natural to award priority to the element, i.e., the intellect, which appears to produce such an axiom in the first place?
As any designer has learned from experience, it is often an assumption that is at first counterintuitive which proves especially productive. For example, why is the number zero such a powerful invention? Because it is not a number, too. Schopenhauer performs a similarly contradictory design step where it counts most. Cutting through the paradox of what he calls the Weltknoten, he radically turns priorities around. His concept of the will is not intermediary, i.e., it is not what results from an intellect. With Schopenhauer, will is the ultimate ground. Then, a particular body is a unique objectification of the will. And a unique intellect is an irreducible part of a unique body. As such, the intellect is an instrument of the will.
It follows that the Schopenhauerean intellect is not in exhaustive, leave aside rational, control of the body. By definition, the will is in control. And the will is preintellectual. Anyway, it is from the relative and necessarily limited perspective of the intellect (which, at the same time, is all it can develop as perspective).
For the representational nature of a sign, this has three major consequences. First, and again by definition, a sign is always instrumental to the Schopenhauerean will, too. Second, the intellect is not in complete rational control of signs; the will-as-ground implies preintellectuality for signs. Third, how a sign is engineered is immediately tied up with the uniqueness of the sign engineer, and how it is observed is likewise connected with the uniqueness of the sign observer.
Subjective situationism changes through Chapter 6 yet again. It openly does not start from rationalist assumptions. It concedes fundamental irrationality, thus achieving improved rationality for concepts that are subsequently erected on the will-as-ground. And with models as signs, the body-over-mind axiom also influences how a conceptual information models is valued.
Chapter 6, the last of Part i, essentially completes the design of subjective situationism. Part ii, starting with Chapter 7, applies the ontology to human communication. It sheds penetrating light on signs, resulting in much-extended models of their representational structure.
2002, web edition 2005 © Pieter Wisse
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