It is the instincts, the sentiments, that make the substance of the soul.
Cognition is only its surface, its locus of contact with what is external to it (CP: 1.628).
Fundamental Signs
The aim of this chapter is to define and outline the Fundamental Sign into (i) a normative fundamental sign, which is a sign primarily addressing knowledge domains and thus technical language; and into (ii) a sub‐cognitive fundamental sign, which is the emotional center in looser defined communities, e.g. brand communities. The sub‐cognitive fundamental sign is a feeling of ours or a sense of community. Like the normative fundamental sign, the sub‐cognitive fundamental sign is also normative, but at a different level than the normative fundamental sign. However, in both cases the fundamental sign is a sign of utmost importance.
The two fundamental signs are found at different depths in the community’s bottomless lake. Please note that these concepts are defined in relation to a community ‐ where the fundamental signs reside, they are defined in relation to a common and shared consciousness, thus a shared
memory. As Peirce writes in a Manuscript: “The Esprit de corps of a military company, a club, a university, a nation, is essentially of the same nature as the consciousness of a person” (MS 961a:87, 1891). Consequently, consciousness seems to function by the same principle whether we discuss a person or a community.
Whenever a person gets attracted to a community, it is because the idea of the community has such an effect upon the person that similar ideas rise towards the surface of his bottomless lake – ideas that the person feels sympathetic towards. In the following we shall take a closer look at the fundamental signs, starting with the normative fundamental sign.
The normative fundamental sign
In Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental work, “Die Goldberg Variationen7” (BWV8 988), eight important notes form the bass line or the fundament of the music. In “Das Bach‐Lexikon” (2000), the theme of the variations is described in the following way:
Die Goldberg‐Variationen sind dabei nicht in erster Linie Variationen der
“Aria”, wie es der Titel nahelegen könnte, sondern Variationen über einer Basslinie, deren Gerüsttöne in jedem Satz erhalten bleiben. Ein
7The full title of Die Goldberg Variationen is: “Clavier Übung bestehend in einer Aria mit verschiedenen Veraenderungen von Clavicembal mit 2 Manualen. Denen Liebhabern zur gemüths Ergetzung verfertiget von Johann Sebastian Bach königlich Pohlnischer u. Churfürstlich Saechsischer Hoff‐ Compositeur, Capellmeister, u.
Directore Cori Musici in Leipzig”. Das Bach Lexikon 2000, p. 228.
8Bach Werke Verzeignis.
Chapter 1 ‐ The Fundamental Sign
It is the instincts, the sentiments, that make the substance of the soul.
Cognition is only its surface, its locus of contact with what is external to it (CP: 1.628).
Fundamental Signs
The aim of this chapter is to define and outline the Fundamental Sign into (i) a normative fundamental sign, which is a sign primarily addressing knowledge domains and thus technical language; and into (ii) a sub‐cognitive fundamental sign, which is the emotional center in looser defined communities, e.g. brand communities. The sub‐cognitive fundamental sign is a feeling of ours or a sense of community. Like the normative fundamental sign, the sub‐cognitive fundamental sign is also normative, but at a different level than the normative fundamental sign. However, in both cases the fundamental sign is a sign of utmost importance.
The two fundamental signs are found at different depths in the community’s bottomless lake. Please note that these concepts are defined in relation to a community ‐ where the fundamental signs reside, they are defined in relation to a common and shared consciousness, thus a shared
memory. As Peirce writes in a Manuscript: “The Esprit de corps of a military company, a club, a university, a nation, is essentially of the same nature as the consciousness of a person” (MS 961a:87, 1891). Consequently, consciousness seems to function by the same principle whether we discuss a person or a community.
Whenever a person gets attracted to a community, it is because the idea of the community has such an effect upon the person that similar ideas rise towards the surface of his bottomless lake – ideas that the person feels sympathetic towards. In the following we shall take a closer look at the fundamental signs, starting with the normative fundamental sign.
The normative fundamental sign
In Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental work, “Die Goldberg Variationen7”
(BWV8 988), eight important notes form the bass line or the fundament of the
music. In “Das Bach‐Lexikon” (2000), the theme of the variations is described in the following way:
Die Goldberg‐Variationen sind dabei nicht in erster Linie Variationen der
“Aria”, wie es der Titel nahelegen könnte, sondern Variationen über einer Basslinie, deren Gerüsttöne in jedem Satz erhalten bleiben. Ein
7The full title of Die Goldberg Variationen is: “Clavier Übung bestehend in einer Aria mit verschiedenen Veraenderungen von Clavicembal mit 2 Manualen. Denen Liebhabern zur gemüths Ergetzung verfertiget von Johann Sebastian Bach königlich Pohlnischer u. Churfürstlich Saechsischer Hoff‐ Compositeur, Capellmeister, u.
Directore Cori Musici in Leipzig”. Das Bach Lexikon 2000, p. 228.
8Bach Werke Verzeignis.
besonderer Reiz besteht allerdings darin, dass das Bassthema nie ganz in seine Urform und auch nie unbegleitet erscheint, das „Thema“ also selbst bereits die erste Variation ist (: 228)
Every variation, and there are 30 of them, is a variation of these eight bass notes; the bass notes never appear in their original form and are never unaccompanied. Even if they are very difficult to hear, and only appear in the score to the trained eyes, they are the glue that unifies the work.
Bach’s use of such bass notes, which is common to the baroque composer9, has inspired me to develop the fundamental sign. The fundamental sign is developed according to Peirce’s semeiotic and holds the characteristics of a sign, an argument to be more specific. However, this only goes for the normative fundamental sign. It also holds the characteristics of the bass line shown above. It is basic for any community. It never appears unaccompanied, but only in representations. It is also hard to experience, but it is the glue that keeps any community together. And there can only be one dominant fundamental sign in a community. Is there more than one dominant fundamental sign, they will most surely rip the knowledge domain apart, and
9In Das Bach‐Lexicon it reads: “Die Basslinie basiert auf einem tradierten, von Henry Purcell, Francois Couperin, Johan Christoph Bach u.a. gebrauchtes standardisierten Improvisations‐und Variationsmodell. (2000: 228)
maybe split the knowledge domain into two or even more domains or communities.
The fundamental sign is the epistemological center in any knowledge domain The normative fundamental sign is a sign which in a knowledge domain is particularly meaningful, as it compresses a lot of information and communicates this information relatively to the knowledge level of the interpreter, and this meaningful sign lays constraints upon all related signs in the particular context. The fundamental sign dominates the related signs the same way as the bass notes dominate the horizontal and vertical lines of contra punctual music in the Bach example stated above.
It is the consequences of the normative fundamental sign that causes it to develop; a semeiosis that aims to reduce the knowledge potential of the normative fundamental sign and to strengthen the habit it represents.
Moreover, the knowledge potential is indeed reduced whenever we learn a new consequence of the normative fundamental sign. This is the course of semeiosis: to reduce doubt and create belief.
In the following, I will shortly define the normative fundamental sign, and afterwards I will elaborate on these short definitions.
The normative fundamental sign is a concept that puts constrains upon all related concepts. All concepts in a knowledge domain with terminological consistency are understood in relation to the normative fundamental sign.
besonderer Reiz besteht allerdings darin, dass das Bassthema nie ganz in seine Urform und auch nie unbegleitet erscheint, das „Thema“ also selbst bereits die erste Variation ist (: 228)
Every variation, and there are 30 of them, is a variation of these eight bass notes; the bass notes never appear in their original form and are never unaccompanied. Even if they are very difficult to hear, and only appear in the score to the trained eyes, they are the glue that unifies the work.
Bach’s use of such bass notes, which is common to the baroque composer9, has inspired me to develop the fundamental sign. The fundamental sign is developed according to Peirce’s semeiotic and holds the characteristics of a sign, an argument to be more specific. However, this only goes for the normative fundamental sign. It also holds the characteristics of the bass line shown above. It is basic for any community. It never appears unaccompanied, but only in representations. It is also hard to experience, but it is the glue that keeps any community together. And there can only be one dominant fundamental sign in a community. Is there more than one dominant fundamental sign, they will most surely rip the knowledge domain apart, and
9In Das Bach‐Lexicon it reads: “Die Basslinie basiert auf einem tradierten, von Henry Purcell, Francois Couperin, Johan Christoph Bach u.a. gebrauchtes standardisierten Improvisations‐und Variationsmodell. (2000: 228)
maybe split the knowledge domain into two or even more domains or communities.
The fundamental sign is the epistemological center in any knowledge domain The normative fundamental sign is a sign which in a knowledge domain is particularly meaningful, as it compresses a lot of information and communicates this information relatively to the knowledge level of the interpreter, and this meaningful sign lays constraints upon all related signs in the particular context. The fundamental sign dominates the related signs the same way as the bass notes dominate the horizontal and vertical lines of contra punctual music in the Bach example stated above.
It is the consequences of the normative fundamental sign that causes it to develop; a semeiosis that aims to reduce the knowledge potential of the normative fundamental sign and to strengthen the habit it represents.
Moreover, the knowledge potential is indeed reduced whenever we learn a new consequence of the normative fundamental sign. This is the course of semeiosis: to reduce doubt and create belief.
In the following, I will shortly define the normative fundamental sign, and afterwards I will elaborate on these short definitions.
The normative fundamental sign is a concept that puts constrains upon all related concepts. All concepts in a knowledge domain with terminological consistency are understood in relation to the normative fundamental sign.
The normative fundamental sign is a habit of thought and functions as a logical interpretant, containing both an emotional and an energetic interpretant.
The normative fundamental sign is an argument and related to medisense.
The normative fundamental sign is conditioned by the existence of a sub‐cognitive fundamental sign.
Figure 1. The figure aims to show how the normative fundamental sign is the center in a given knowledge domain. Around the normative fundamental sign, different rows of related concepts circulate.
The normative fundamental sign constrains the rows of related concepts, but the strength of the constraints seems to weaken as the interpretative distance between the normative fundamental sign and the related concepts is increased. It is important to notice that the interpretative distance between the normative fundamental sign and its related concepts is not stationary – on the contrary, as the related concepts are interpreted, they may change place between the rows. The normative fundamental sign could be thought of as a whirlpool which attracts other concepts and draws them to the center, embedding them with meaning. The closer the concepts are to the center of the whirlpool, the greater is the force of attraction from the fundamental sign.
The normative fundamental sign and its related concepts
In the above, I mentioned that an idea becomes fixated, and through semeiosis it may turn into a normative fundamental sign. But what does a normative fundamental sign contain? Being a sign of great importance for the terminological stable knowledge domain because of its fundamental status, it must consist and be built of more than merely the sign in itself, consisting of both the self‐understanding in the knowledge domain but also as a defined concept. The normative fundamental sign becomes a normative fundamental sign in respect to all its related concepts. Therefore, a normative fundamental sign is a sign that has a large number of related concepts. Each related concept interprets aspects of the normative fundamental sign. At this analytical level, the relation between the related concept and the normative fundamental sign is in fact the same as between the immediate and the dynamical object, the
The normative fundamental sign is a habit of thought and functions as a logical interpretant, containing both an emotional and an energetic interpretant.
The normative fundamental sign is an argument and related to medisense.
The normative fundamental sign is conditioned by the existence of a sub‐cognitive fundamental sign.
Figure 1. The figure aims to show how the normative fundamental sign is the center in a given knowledge domain. Around the normative fundamental sign, different rows of related concepts circulate.
The normative fundamental sign constrains the rows of related concepts, but the strength of the constraints seems to weaken as the interpretative distance between the normative fundamental sign and the related concepts is increased. It is important to notice that the interpretative distance between the normative fundamental sign and its related concepts is not stationary – on the contrary, as the related concepts are interpreted, they may change place between the rows. The normative fundamental sign could be thought of as a whirlpool which attracts other concepts and draws them to the center, embedding them with meaning. The closer the concepts are to the center of the whirlpool, the greater is the force of attraction from the fundamental sign.
The normative fundamental sign and its related concepts
In the above, I mentioned that an idea becomes fixated, and through semeiosis it may turn into a normative fundamental sign. But what does a normative fundamental sign contain? Being a sign of great importance for the terminological stable knowledge domain because of its fundamental status, it must consist and be built of more than merely the sign in itself, consisting of both the self‐understanding in the knowledge domain but also as a defined concept. The normative fundamental sign becomes a normative fundamental sign in respect to all its related concepts. Therefore, a normative fundamental sign is a sign that has a large number of related concepts. Each related concept interprets aspects of the normative fundamental sign. At this analytical level, the relation between the related concept and the normative fundamental sign is in fact the same as between the immediate and the dynamical object, the
former being the idea cognized in a sign, the latter the object outside the sign, which only a final study can investigate thoroughly (cf. EP 2:495). The analytical level is stressed because the related concept also contains a knowledge potential, which constitutes its own dynamical object. The normative fundamental sign puts constraints upon the related concept, and forces the meaning of the related concept to be relative to the normative fundamental sign. The normative fundamental sign is a fixing point in a radial structure where all related concepts bring meaning to the normative fundamental sign.
Moreover, in bringing meaning to the normative fundamental sign, it is the sum of the related concepts that creates the normative fundamental sign.
The normative fundamental sign as a logical interpretant
Touching upon the logical interpretant, we will take a short detour to Peirce’s definition of the interpretant, to see what its function is, and what relations the logical interpretant enters into. In a fragment dated 1899, Peirce defines it in this way:
A representation is that character of a thing by virtue of which, for the production of a certain mental effect, it may stand in place of another thing. The thing having this character I term a representamen, the mental effect, or thought, its interpretant, the thing for which it stands, its object." (A Fragment, CP 1.564; c. 1899)
Peirce understood the interpretant as carrying out “the office of an interpreter who says that a foreigner says the same thing which he himself says” (CP 1.553). Furthermore, he used the following example:
…suppose we look up the word homme in a French dictionary; we shall find opposite to it the word man, which, so placed, represents homme as representing the same two‐legged creature which man itself represents. By a further accumulation of instances, it would be found that every comparison requires, besides the related thing, the ground, and the correlate, also a mediating representation which represents the relate to be a representation of the same correlate which this mediating representation itself represents. Such a mediating representation may be termed an interpretant (CP 3.553)
The interpretant is, in itself, also a sign; a mediating entity. By the interpretant, the possibility of an infinite or continued semeiosis is made possible. Peirce wrote the following:
A representation is something which produces another representation of the same object in this second or interpreting representatio the 1st representation is represented as representing a certain object. This 2nd representation must itself have an interpreting representation and so on ad infinitum so that, the whole process of representation never reaches a completion. (W 2:224)
former being the idea cognized in a sign, the latter the object outside the sign, which only a final study can investigate thoroughly (cf. EP 2:495). The analytical level is stressed because the related concept also contains a knowledge potential, which constitutes its own dynamical object. The normative fundamental sign puts constraints upon the related concept, and forces the meaning of the related concept to be relative to the normative fundamental sign. The normative fundamental sign is a fixing point in a radial structure where all related concepts bring meaning to the normative fundamental sign.
Moreover, in bringing meaning to the normative fundamental sign, it is the sum of the related concepts that creates the normative fundamental sign.
The normative fundamental sign as a logical interpretant
Touching upon the logical interpretant, we will take a short detour to Peirce’s definition of the interpretant, to see what its function is, and what relations the logical interpretant enters into. In a fragment dated 1899, Peirce defines it in this way:
A representation is that character of a thing by virtue of which, for the production of a certain mental effect, it may stand in place of another thing. The thing having this character I term a representamen, the mental effect, or thought, its interpretant, the thing for which it stands, its object." (A Fragment, CP 1.564; c. 1899)
Peirce understood the interpretant as carrying out “the office of an interpreter who says that a foreigner says the same thing which he himself says” (CP 1.553). Furthermore, he used the following example:
…suppose we look up the word homme in a French dictionary; we shall find opposite to it the word man, which, so placed, represents homme as representing the same two‐legged creature which man itself represents. By a further accumulation of instances, it would be found that every comparison requires, besides the related thing, the ground, and the correlate, also a mediating representation which represents the relate to be a representation of the same correlate which this mediating representation itself represents. Such a mediating representation may be termed an interpretant (CP 3.553)
The interpretant is, in itself, also a sign; a mediating entity. By the interpretant, the possibility of an infinite or continued semeiosis is made possible. Peirce wrote the following:
A representation is something which produces another representation of the same object in this second or interpreting representatio the 1st representation is represented as representing a certain object. This 2nd representation must itself have an interpreting representation and so on ad infinitum so that, the whole process of representation never reaches a completion. (W 2:224)