Cognition in Peirce's Semiotic

The paper deals with the problem of Peirce’s theory of signs, placing it within the context of modern semiotics (comparing it with Saussurean semiology, in particular), and considers Peirce’s semiotics from the point of view of his theory of categories (phaneroscopy) and in the terms of his classification of signs. The article emphasizes the complicated system of Peirce’s late, “mature”, semeiotic and his theory (classification) of Interpretant.

Filozofia i Nauka: Studia filozoficzne i interdyscyplinarne, 2022

Cognition is meant as the process of acquiring knowledge from the world. This process is supposed to happen within agents, which build such knowledge with the purpose to use it to determine their actions on the world. Following Peircean ideas, we postulate that such knowledge is encoded by means of signs. According to Peirce, signs are anything that can be used to represent anything else. Also, for Peirce, to represent means to be able to generate another sign, called the interpretant of the original sign, which still holds the same power of interpretability, I.e, its power to be transformed into a new sign, holding this same power. This happens through a process called semiosis, the process by which a sign is transformed into an interpretant. This whole process is performed with the aim of subsidizing the agent in deciding its behavior. So, even though the semiosis process has the power to continue infinitely, it usually stops whenever the generated interpretant brings enough information in order for the agent to effectively act in the world. We take signals to be the substract of signs. Signals are any physical property, which can be measured and captured by the agent, by means of its sensors. This includes any kind of internal memory the agent is able to have access, in order to operate. In this sense, signs can be both in the world (if these signals come from sensors) and within the own agent’s mind (if signals come from an internal memory). We understand an agent’s mind as the agents’ control system. In either case, signals can be abstracted as numbers. Not simply numbers, but numbers coming from specific sensors or specific memories. Using ideas from Peircean philosophy, in this work we postulate a pathway, in which signals, collected by either sensors or memory, can be organized in such a way that they can be effectively used as knowledge, in order for an agent to be able to decide its actions on the world, on the pursuit of its internal motivations. We postulate that agents identify and create a model of the world based on possibilities, existents, and laws, and based on this model, they are able to decide an action that maximizes the chance for the world to gain a shape, which the agents intend for it to be. This theory is postulated particularly for the case of artificial autonomous agents, meant to be constructed by engineering artifacts.

Cognitio-Estudos: revista eletrônica de filosofia

Interpretations of Peirce's frequent references to a proof of his brand of pragmatism vary, ranging from its impossibility to its substantive completion. This paper takes seriously Peirce's claim that a philosophical argument should be composed of multiple fibers and suggests a relatively neglected perspective that connects much of Peirce's thought. This additional fiber is Peirce's account of memory, often only intimated. The importance of this account arises from Peirce's claim that the practically indubitable existence of memory is a strong argument for synechism, the doctrine of continuity. Indeed, the nature of memory relates to several of Peirce's philosophical commitments, including fallibilism and realism. As an opening to inquiry, this paper will explore the role of memory in Peirce's account of cognition and its bearing on many of his philosophical positions. Working roughly chronologically, we will look at the implications concerning memory in Peirce's denial of intuition in 1868, his revision of the Kantian mental faculties in 1887, his account of perception, claims about pragmatism and abduction in 1903, and some brief remarks about memory within his mature semeiotic. By covering so much material, I intend only to show the pervasive and richly suggestive theme of memory in Peirce's thought. Accordingly, I raise more questions than I answer. Nonetheless, a probationary conclusion is that Peirce's pragmatism, considered as the logic of abduction, concerns the self-control of memory. Alternatively, under this perspective much of Peirce's philosophy is an attempt to account for knowledge based upon only fallible memory, rather than intuition.

Semiotica

Charles S. Peirce attempted to develop his semiotic theory of cognitive signs interpretation, which are originated in our basic perceptual operations that quasi-prove the truth of perceptual judgment representing reality. The essential problem was to explain how, by a cognitive interpretation of the sequence of perceptual signs, we can represent external physical reality and reflectively represent our cognitive mind’s operations of signs. With his phaneroscopy introspection, Peirce shows how, without going outside our cognitions, we can represent external reality. Hence Peirce can avoid the Berkeleyian, Humean, and Kantian phenomenologies, as well as the modern analytic philosophy and hermeneutic phenomenology. Peirce showed that with the trio of semiotic interpretation – abductive logic of discovery of hypotheses, deductive logic of necessary inference, and inductive logic of evaluation – we can reach a complete proof of the true representation of reality. This semiotic logic of re...

2025

The development of artificial intelligence and the new understanding of biomolecular processes for transmitting genetic information have emphasized the necessity to consider semiotic activity, that may operate autonomously from human cognition. In this regard, Charles Peirce's latest conception of semiosis is of particular interest. For Peirce, semiosis is an interpretation that doesn't necessitate an external interpreter. A sign is viewed as a quasimind, and semiotic processes are carried out by these signs, specifically through the quasiminds that are embedded within them: a quasi-utterer and a quasi-interpreter. Semiosis can thus be viewed as an ongoing, personalized interaction of structural semiotic entities (quasiminds). The latest findings in molecular genetics and their implications in biosemiotics shed light on a unique aspect of interpretation: it can occur without an external interpreter owing to its mechanism of self-organization. By studying communication and information processes at the biomolecular level, we can redefine pragmatics as operations intricately linked with systemic self-regulation and interaction with the environment.

ESFERAS - Dossiê Semiótica, Cognição e Comunicação, 2025

Interview with Professor Emeritus Nathan Houser, philosopher, editor, and director of the Peirce Edition Project for 15 years. In this conversation, Houser provides a living history of the institutional, editorial, and conceptual conditions that enabled the dissemination and development of Peirce's ideas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Houser's voice-lucid, historically informed, and methodologically pluralistic-resonates as both a witness to the maturation of Peircean scholarship and as an advocate for its future development across disciplinary boundaries.

2023

The intensive development of artificial intelligence, as well as describing bio-molecular processes of transmission of genetic information, makes it actual to address the problem of a semiotic activity that is not based on human cognition or mind. In this capacity, we address Charles Peirce's chronologically last and mainly unpublished conception of semiosis. Semiosis is considered as an interpretation, but it does not imply any kind of interpreter external to a sign. A sign is considered a quasi-mind. Semiotic operations are performed by signs, more precisely, by quasi-minds welded into them: by a quasi-utterer and a quasi-interpreter. Semiosis is described as consistently carried out personalized interaction of structural components (quasi-minds) of the same process. A quasi-utterer is associated with an object, and a quasi-interpreter is associated with an interpreter. As a development of Peirce's sign conception, it may be the theory of semiopoiesis, understood as a semiotic manifestation of autopoietic processes.

Proceedings of The 2021 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information, 2022

This is a work in progress that aims to study Semiotic Theory as the grounding to support the development of new models of mind. These models can be used to construct artificial intelligent agents to deal with several tasks in the real world. The introduction presents a specific scope of cognition that takes perception and action as two connected moments bound together by signs. Some key concepts related to Peircean categories and sign typology are presented, and they are used to demonstrate their connections to the three instances of the world of ideas: World of Sense, World of Things, and World of Categories. Sensors/Actuators are considered as the unique interface with the properties of the world (signals). They are the basic artificial devices in the process of sign representation that lead semiosis toward more developed signs and, consequently, more complex ideas. Finally, artificial cognition must allow agents to act in the world, and it occurs by means of the sign interpretant, mostly by the energetic interpretant.

2021

Talk delivered to the International Centre for Enactivism and Cognitive Semiotics, March 2021, organised and hosted by Claudio Paolucci (Bologna). ABSTRACT: Enactivism has greatly benefitted contemporary philosophy by demonstrating that the traditional intellectualist ‘act-content’ model of intentionality is simply insufficient, and showing how minds may be built from world-involving bodily habits. Many enactivists have assumed that this must entail non-representationalism concerning at least basic minds. Here I argue that such anti-intellectualism is overly constraining, and not necessary. I sketch an alternative enactivism which draws on Peirce’s pragmatic semiotics, and understands signs as habits whose connections with rich schemas of possible experience render them subject to increasing degrees of self-control. The talk’s key innovation is to align this cyclical process of habit cultivation with Peirce’s representationalist icon-index-symbol distinction, in a manner which I explain. The presentation is also viewable on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jrW4AsV5kCQ