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The Effectiveness of Symbols by Claude Lévi-Strauss |
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Barnard Electronic Archive & Teaching Laboratory Barnard College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 cp264@columbia.edu |
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This paper was written for a seminar on Peirce taught by E. Valentine Daniel at Columbia University, Fall 1997. The seminar was my introduction to Peirce and the paper was an attempt to synthesize seminar readings with my understanding of Lévi-Strauss's essay. Since a web document does not have a standard page format to use for purposes of reference, paragraph numbers (enclosed in brackets and placed on the right margin) are provided for that purpose instead. The website location is: |
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[1]
Applying the philosophy of Charles Peirce is a difficult task. To those
who have tried that statement may stand on its own merit, but only in a general sense. A
refraction of this general difficulty into two senses, however, will provide the current
essay an introduction to its topic, an application of Peircean philosophy to the essay by
Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Effectiveness of Symbols.(1) But first I will
proffer this refraction to make an elemental point regarding any application of Peircean
philosophy.[2]
The primary difficulty, many might agree and have historically, is the
acquisition of a sufficient understanding of Peirce's logic and its constituent technical
definitions. The second difficulty is more subtle and substantial, and concerns the
application of the semeiotic grammar to subject matter. This secondary difficulty is
subsequent to the user's grasp of the grammar and is a function of its philosophical
underpinnings, Peirce's metaphysics. While first I will briefly evidence that initial
obstacle of attaining Peirce's thought, let me just say here that the second difficulty
concerns the rationale to engage in semeiotic analysis.[3]
Even Peirce's contemporaries rarely grasped the full scope of his
logic. His peers can be fairly dichotomized by the following general description: at one
side, a cadre of distinguished, sympathetic philosophers, most only partly comprehending
or interested in the breadth of Peirce's work; and on the other side, a persistently
adverse group of other academics and bureaucrats, either professionally unqualified or
intellectually under-powered to understand Peirce.(2) This difficulty of acceptance,
characterizing much of Peirce's lifetime, is well expressed by a close personal friend and
intellectual ally, William James, the Harvard philosopher and expounder of pragmatism. [4]
From a small sampling of James's comments on the difficulty of grasping
Peirce's thought, the essence of this difficulty surfaces. It is reasonable to ask,
though, why belabor the point that grasping Peircean thought is a slippery task? The
answer is that what also surfaces is the interdisciplinary depth of Peirce's philosophy.
And this depth not only makes Peirce difficult to understand at the outset, but also forms
the secondary difficulty of applying the semeiotic grammar as a mode of analysis.[5]
In a fundamentally emblematic statement about Peirce's original, hence
abstruse thinking, James wrote in a letter to Peirce, "Your mind inhabits a technical
logical thicket of its own which no other mind has as yet penetrated."(3) James
admired his friend's brilliant originality, but alluded to a more important issue in the
phrase "technical logical thicket".(4) Peirce's originality was a natural growth
from Peirce the eminent polymath whose field of thought comprised mathematics, logic, the
physical sciences, metaphysics, philosophy, and more. As such, the Peircean semeiotic is
an intricately faceted touch stone of thought, at once rigorously logical and
positivistic, but also deeply metaphysical and transcendent, an expansive cosmological and
evolutionary principle that is not opposed to mysticism. [6]
Herein lies the interdisciplinary novelty of Peirce's thought, that
seemingly irreconcilable metaphysical poles converge for a grandly inclusive yet
pluralistic philosophy which defines Reason as both immanent and transcendent. In essence,
one could trust in a comfortable time worn reality, but simultaneously recognize that
Reason exists independently of individual experience. This last proposition represents
Peirce's criticism of a priori idealism as well as his specific criticism of George
Berkeley's nominalism:
[7]
Among other things, the philosophical power of the semeiotic is the
recognition of an "object's independence" of particular experience and thought.
But to arrive at the semeiotic, the combination of logical realism with objective
idealism, Peirce used his knowledge of mathematics and logic to move beyond the
metaphysical limitations of nominalist and a priori thought and into pragmaticism.
The semeiotic, then, is an intellectual blend, a complex weave of logical and
philosophical learning. Without the benefit of late day secondary sources explaining this
situation, Peirce's contemporaries suffered their less well-rounded views.
[8]
The following extended reflection of James on Peirce's 1903 Lowell
Lectures at Harvard expresses well the difficulty of following Peirce, due in no small
part to the interdisciplinary quality I have indicated.
[9]
Within this commentary, James's unease with logic and mathematics is
plain to see. But an understanding of Peirce's use of logical and mathematical concepts is
a solid requirement towards applying the semeiotic to some subject matter. At this point,
the inherent difficulty of understanding Pierce, my primary difficulty, extends to what I
have earlier termed my second difficulty, that of a rationale for applying the semeiotic
as an analytic mode. [10]
This extension is contingent upon the logical and mathematical
framework supporting Peirce's semeiotic. The framework is succinctly manifest in Peirce's
theorem that only three elemental relations exist: monadic, dyadic, and triadic. All
relations numbering more than three are formed by joining triads. And all such relations
greater than three can be reduced to triads. But triads cannot be reduced to dyads, and
dyads cannot be reduced to monads, thus monads, dyads, and triads constitute the
fundamental categories of relations. Pierce's conceptual framework is his logic of
relatives wherein abstract forms of relation, monads, dyads, and triads are objects of a
mathematical inquiry, the recombination of these relations.(7)[11]
Having briefly outlined this logicomathematic framework of Pierce's
semeiotic, I am now closing in on what I mean by my secondary difficulty of applying the
semeiotic. It refers to the metaphysical importance of the logic of relatives. In a
nutshell, this logic is boundless; nothing escapes refraction into trinities. [12]
All thinking is done in signs which of course pulse along this logic of
relatives. By hypostatic abstraction, the first set of relations, monad, dyad, and triad,
are not self-contained, but extended such that the mathematic logic of their relations is
prescinded and applied ad infinitum, as the general trinity of first-, second, and
third-ness. Applied, however, may not be the best term since it implies that I am
imposing something external. Signs, for Pierce, are reals. [13]
The trinities simply are. Applied would be a term of semeiotic
analysis, meaning to look at something that is already there. To look beyond signs for the
real behind them is like peeling away layers of the onion to find the onion.(8) The
semeiotic, in other words, is a like a reader or viewer of the trinities which
characterize everything in creation, including creation (remember: there is no Kantian
style a priori unknowable "Thing-in-Itself" (9); it too has predicates,
or layers of onion).[14]
So, applying the semeiotic, engaging in semeiotic analysis is always a
matter of viewing intrinsic form, looking at what is simply just…there. That quality,
that suchness, is what I mean as the secondary difficulty, beyond the first difficulty of
understanding the mathematic logic and metaphysics of the semeiotic as a technical
construction. The second difficulty, then, is having some rationale for viewing the
trinities of a certain subject matter, given that these trinities exist regardless of the
observer's effort to reveal them. [15]
Hypothetically, just assume that anytime we analyze some phenomenon,
some structure is revealed in whatever analytic mode the observer chooses. Now, according
to the metaphysics of the semeiotic this structure is ultimately triadic, and infinitely
refractable into triadic relations in the very same sense that an infinity adheres within
the continuum of zero to one; every triad may be refracted into a series of triads, and
every triad, including its refraction into a series of triads, maybe subsumed within a
more general triad.(10) In other words, why bother, why look at something semeiotically,
as a logic of relations, if everywhere I look a triad appears? If my chosen form of
analysis is not the semeiotic, and I am revealing sensible structure without resorting to
triadic relations, why should I start? [16]
Assuming the observer is a realist and is a proponent of the semeiotic,
the first part of the answer to this question is that the triadic relations are there, at
least implicitly even if the observer has not sought to analyze the phenomenon
semeiotically. The second part of the answer is that because any phenomenon is
fundamentally a semeiosis, a logic of relatives, then the semeiotic mode of analysis is
nothing short of the most accurate mode of observation at our disposal. If the phenomenon
is a logic of relatives, a semeiosis, then the semeiotic will reveal more about its
structure then any other analytical mode. In essence, assuming the truth of the semeiotic,
refracting a phenomenon into trinities assures us the most complete understanding of its
workings. [17]
Deriving this second difficulty seemed important to me since my topic
for this essay is a partly analyzed phenomenon, but not in an explicit semeiotic mode. In The
Effectiveness of Symbols, Claude Lévi-Strauss asserts that in a certain healing
ritual a relationship obtains between a myth as psychological expression and the patient's
physiological state. Without the use of a semeiotic analysis, the relationship is
established, or at least that there is one. He defines or proposes a symbolic relationship
between the mythical healing rite and the physiological effect of a cure, but not by
analyzing this relationship as a logic of relatives.[18]
Why then should I bother conducting a semeiotic analysis of this
phenomenon if Lévi-Strauss has already proposed some structure for it? Again, assuming
the truth of the semeiotic, refracting a phenomenon into trinities assures us the most
complete understanding of its workings. Whatever the subjective matter of the given
phenomenon, it is structured as a logic of relatives. This would be a fair definition of
Peirce's logical realism, or that signs are reals. In other words, a semeiotic analysis
should reveal something fundamental to the phenomenon in question, something fundamental
but left hidden, obscure, implied, or only partially revealed in the absence of a
semeiotic analysis.[19]
In the application of the semeiotic to The Effectiveness of Symbols,
a good place to start reveals itself about two thirds of the way through the essay. Having
recounted much of his telling of the details of the rite, meant to facilitate difficult
childbirth, and its corresponding myth, which comprises tutelary spirits, malevolent
spirits, supernatural monsters, and magical animals, Lévi-Strauss suggests that the
ritual explains to the patient the cause of her ailment. With this understanding, she is
able to reset her physiological system as a coherent whole from which birth may
proceed.(11) He proceeds, however, to suggest a consequent paradox when we compare this
kind of therapy to conventional medical notions of disease causation.
[20]
That she does get well, in the absence of any pharmacological
treatment, indicates that in fact monsters do exist. The interesting question, though, is
in what manner do these monsters exist such that they are instrumental within an
ostensibly separate phenomenological order, that of the physiological workings of the
body? Lévi-Strauss continues in this vein with a partial answer, making a distinction
between mythical and medical characterizations of the relationship between patient and
disease.
[21]
The operational difference lies with the distinction between internal
and external relationships between patients and disease causation. This distinction is
really a metaphysical fork in the road. The disease caused by malevolent mythical forces
and the disease caused by germ are metaphysically distinct entities. And a semeiotic
unpacking of this distinction will help to show as much.[22]
Lévi-Strauss asserts that the internal relationship between monster
and disease "is a relationship between symbol and thing symbolized, or, to use the
terminology of linguists, between sign and meaning."(14) Now, the relationship
between germ and disease external to the mind of the patient is also one of symbol and
thing symbolized, a relation between sign and meaning, but of a radically different
nature. In this case, the term symbol is only appropriate if we are referring to the terms
"germ" and "disease" and this kind of relationship in abstraction, for
we would be using these terms and the abstraction as a conventional representation of real
entities and the relationship between them. In subjective terms, however, germ and disease
do not exist in a conventional relationship but in their own natural and non-human one.[23]
Both relationships, internal and external, are subsumed within the
larger semeiosis of the general relationship between patient and disease, but each of
these two subsidiaries travels a separate semeiotic path. In semeiotic terms, the internal
relationship, because it exists within the mind of the patient, allows for self-control
while the relation between germ and disease, external to the mind, follows a path of habit
formation that may not be entirely devoid of the patient's self-control (depending on the
type of affliction), but does operate substantially outside of the patient's ability for
mental self-correction. [24]
For the disease caused by a germ, the disease-causing relationship
external to the mind of the patient, habit formation in the form of reestablished good
health would mean that self-correction is done largely without the patient's rational
ability of self-control. This kind of disease semeiosy allows the transmission of natural
information without a sentient interpreting agency in the form of the patient who may
understand little if anything of the disease and its treatment. And, of course, disease
caused by germ is notoriously unresponsive to the willfulness of a patient's mind. The
positive will of the patient's mind, however, can have a beneficial effect on the bodily
response to disease, but the extent of this effect is relative to the virulence of the
disease in question. Because the relationship between germ and disease is external to the
mind of the patient, external means of correction are required.[25]
Instead of the mind of the patient, it is the mind of the doctor which
acts as the interpreting agency in the first triad. The doctor interprets signs, signs
which take their ground from the dynamic object, the disease. The subsequent medical
interpretant defines or proposes the relation between sign and object. This interpretant
as a definition of a sign-object relationship could be called a diagnosis. Indeed, before
a correct diagnosis is made, the disease as object could be thought of as the immediate
rather than the dynamic object since the full character of the disease is not yet
established. Therefore, before a diagnosis is made, the signs or symptoms of the disease
are determined by an immediate object, the reality that disease is present but that the
exact disease, the determination of a dynamic object, is not yet known. For the symptoms
as sign of a disease to indicate precisely what ailment has caused the symptoms, the
process of interpretation must precisely determine how the sign has been determined by a
dynamic object, the disease eventually figured as the culprit. And until we have the final
interpretant defining the relation between the sign as symptom and of the disease as
dynamic object, the process of interpretation could be thought of as the immediate
interpretant.[26]
The final interpretant, the diagnosis, would then be used as a first in
a new system of relations, a second triad, called a treatment. But this new sign, as
treatment, is taking its ground from an immediate object which represents all possible
treatments. The treatment actually decided upon is determined by the dynamic object
obtained as the final result of drawing relations between the immediate object, the
spectrum of possible treatments, and the sign or the diagnosis (the final interpretant
from the prior triad). The treatment actually decided upon is the result of the immediate
interpretant, or the process of measuring the relations between the diagnosis and the
hypothetical outcome of a class of possible treatments. Subsequently, the treatment, as
final interpretant, would be the medical idea that there is some lawfulness or predictable
behavior that occurs when the chosen treatment is applied to the given diagnosis.[27]
This chosen treatment, the final interpretant of the prior semeiotic
process is itself a sign in a new triad, the third triad in this semeiosis. As the final
interpretant of the second triad, the treatment becomes a sign in the ensuing application
of the treatment to the patient and how the patient responds to this treatment. In the
response of the patient to the treatment, we are led back to some form of an internal
relationship between the mind of the patient and the disease and its causative agent. This
kind of internal relationship, as opposed to the internal relationship referred to by
Lévi-Strauss, however, is clearly secondary to the semeiosis of the germ as agent of
disease, and the semeiosis of the externally derived and applied treatment. But we can see
from the explication of this semeiosis (establishing a diagnosis, determining a treatment,
and the consequent response of the patient) how the relationship of the germ to disease is
itself the sign which initiates (is a sign of) this logic of relatives, of a semeiosis
involving three basic triads.[28]
Relative to the rational self-control of the patient, the presence of
the germ as the object of disease and the subsequent symptoms as signs are together a
semeiosis of the transmission of natural information, a disease process, which the patient
cannot control by internal or rational means alone or at all. The symptoms of such a
disease are signs of an object, signs determined by an object in a relation determined by
an interpretant, an interpretant which signifies that the disease process caused by germ
exists independently of any human interpreting agency. In other words, this sign-object
relation has the power to exist whether or not a human mind interprets it.[29]
The external relationship of germ and disease avoids the interpreting
agency of the human mind of the patient. "Rather than mind in its fullest sense, the
interpretant is bound up with what Peirce calls a quasi-mind, which is clearly not
restricted to the human cortex."(15) The external relationship in question is
characteristic of "teleonomic semeiosy" in which an interpretant is
"triadically produced but not conventionally established."(16) This means that
the disease process creates and is created by interpretants (thirds in preceding triads,
and firsts in succeeding triads), but that these interpretants are not of human convention
but of quasi-mind.[30]
The quasi-mind can be compared to a semeiosis of human thought; both
are variable and self-correcting. But unlike human self-control, quasi-mind is not
deliberate and therefore not conventional. Instead, the quasi-mind of teleonomic semeiosy
exhibits "naturally indurated habit".(17) In terms of the germ-caused disease
process then, we might say that sign-object relations are variable as they are
processually determined by interpretants during a disease process, but that the disease
process as a whole is not a rational one, it is a natural habit beyond the human brain, it
is "thought…not necessarily connected with a brain."(18) The interpreting
agency in such a process is the body not the mind. Such natural thought or quasi-mind
"appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical
world."(19) It also appears in the work of germ-caused disease within a body. [31]
The sign-object relations, in this case the relations between the
symptoms and the germ determining those symptoms, are determined by a series of
interpretants or rule-like facts about the disease process. As the germ does its damage,
determining the symptoms or signs of that damage, there are interpretants which describe
the law-like behavior of the germ in contact with the afflicted body, or what it is about
the nature of the germ relative to the nature of the afflicted organ or organs that
determine how the disease progresses.[32]
For this essay, the significance of the germ-disease relationship as a
teleonomic semeiosis lies with the fact that because it is external to the mind of the
patient it is "not highly influenced by conscious self-correction."(20) Because
of that quality, however, it is possible to think of the germ-caused disease process,
external to the mind, as "mechanical semeiosy" wherein the "interpreting
agency is caused in a mechanical way to respond to the sign without alteration or
correction to that program."(21) In this regard, the body is the interpreting agency
at the mercy of a virulent germ and its programmatic course within the body.[33]
In this process, semeiosis proceeds in a predetermined fashion
extrinsic to the system in which it adheres. Thus, the disease process caused by a germ
proceeds in the interpreting agency, the human body, which cannot alter or correct the
program. To describe this disease process as mechanical, of course, means that we imply a
chronic, terminal, or incurable disease; something that will run its course if the body as
interpreting agency is powerless to alter the semeiosis, to terminate the disease process
at the request of mind. Of mechanical semeiosy, Liszka states, "There is little
inherent development or correction in these sorts of processes unless made from some
external source; goals are automatically predetermined or set by agencies external to the
system."(22) [34]
By this last statement, we are led back to the idea that a medical
doctor must treat the patient afflicted by the external relationship between a germ and
disease. The germ-caused disease process is predetermined within the body and external to
the mind of the patient, thus alteration of the process must come from without in the form
of doctors prescribing treatment.[35]
By the foregoing interpretation there is at least a coincidental parity
of the semeiotic implications of Lévi-Strauss's external germ-disease relationship (at
least as I have expressed them) with the notions of teleonomic and mechanical semeioses.
The parallel may represent what I have earlier stated about the metaphysical reality of
the semeiotic, as fundamentally implicit or pervasive. Or it may result from a line of
intellectual descendence from Peirce to Lévi-Strauss. As circumstantial evidence for the
latter possibility, there is an interesting reference in Brent's biography of Peirce. He
cites Roman Jakobson as having said that his "most powerful inspiration" came
from his reading of Peirce.(23) And Jakobson, of course, heavily influenced Lévi-Strauss.
Therein seems a direct line of intellectual inheritance.[36]
Whatever the case, Lévi-Strauss's distinction between the
mythical/internal and medical/external disease processes is an important one. As
manifestations of the latter process, teleonomic and mechanical types of semeiosy are
degenerate forms of triadicity. Mechanical semeiosy, however, is the most clearly
degenerate of the two. What this means is that in mechanical form, semeiosis dyadically
produces interpretants. More specifically, mechanical semeiosy is indexical, so that a
sign as an index has its relation or connection to its object independent of any conscious
agency which might interpret it as representing that object.(24) Thus the smoke from the
fire, the smoke as an indexical sign of the object fire, is clearly independent of any
agency which might recognize the natural interpretant, or create a conventional
interpretant, that the smoke is from the fire. There remains, however, the formal
condition of triadicity in that there is a natural interpretant which defines the
sign-object relation.(25) Thus, regardless of any conscious interpreting agency the smoke
is from the fire. What is being said here is that the only way that smoke can indicate or
index the existence of the object fire is through the natural physical relationship
between fire and smoke. And it is this relationship that is formally described by the
natural interpretant, which can be realized in the mind of a conscious agent. The smoke as
sign, then, at least retains the possibility of interpretation by an conscious agency.[37]
Perhaps, then, it is not wholly accurate to maintain that mechanical
semeiosy dyadically produces interpretants since the natural interpretants defining the
indexical sign-object relations obviously exist. When we say that mechanical semeiosy
dyadically produces interpretants we are referring to the idea that these indexical
sign-object relations do not require any conscious agency to propose some conventional
interpretant to define how the sign shall be determined by the object. Upon this statement
mechanical semeiosy is virtually indistinguishable from teleonomic semeiosy. The only
trait that distinguishes the two is that mechanical semeiosy cannot be altered within the
agency which harbors its process. Some external agency must install extrinsic
interpretants which can alter the mechanical sign-object relations. Thus, germ-caused
disease is a teleonomic semeiosy in a body triadically producing indexical sign-object
relations according to its natural interpretants, but it is also a mechanical semeiosy in
that it requires external interpretants from the doctor to alter the natural habit. [38]
The body as interpreting agency and receiver of the mechanical
semeiosis cannot alter the program. Metaphorically, the body must endure the smoke from
the fire with no ability itself to douse the flames (no ability for correction);
alteration is only the result of the external source (the doctor as interpreting agency
and the ensuing semeiosis of treatment). The germ-caused disease process as mechanical
semeiosy therefore at least retains the formal possibility of interpretation.[39]
Teleonomic semeiosy is similar to the mechanical form in that
interpretants are not conventionally established, but also differs since the semeiosy may
correct itself within the body that harbors it. It is not conventional triadicity because
the semeiosy is a natural habit, a natural disposition of something that does not
self-correct by means of consciousness or by means of establishing interpretants that are
based in conventionally established sign-object relations. In this teleonomic view, then,
a germ-caused disease process is always indexed by symptoms that are the natural result, a
natural disposition, of the germs inhabitation of a host body. [40]
The germ-caused disease process as teleonomic semeiosy may correct
itself, but not by the mediation of conventional interpretants. If a virus, for example,
is on the retreat from an adapted immune system, it cannot by caveat recreate its
relationship as attacker of host cells by representing the process of cell infection as,
say, a dangerous stranger gaining entrance to one's apartment by claiming to be the
building exterminator. This kind of sign-object relation is reserved for symbolic
interpretants (i.e. convention). In other words, the virus cannot attack a cell by
metaphoric convention, only by the natural disposition of how a virus can invade cells. [41
This means that although the virus cannot correct a disease process
semeiosy (to its advantage) by establishing conventional relations between itself and the
host cell, it can self-correct by establishing new natural relations, by perhaps a
mutation of its DNA, that allows it to subvert a new cell membrane defense by the host
cell. That alteration or triadic mediation of the naturally indurated habit that obtains
between the virus and the cell is thus, not by convention, not by a symbolic relationship,
but by the natural rules (the interpretants) that govern how a virus may generally attack
a host cell. That mediation of sign-object relations by natural interpretants, or natural
thought, is what is meant by quasi-mind. [42]
The interpretants in this case are not conventionally established. In
teleonomic semeiosy, the interpretants that define how an object determines its sign are
purely products of a natural process or habit. In the above example, the newly retooled
defense of the host cell is the object which defines the ground of the mutated virus as a
sign of that object. The interpretant of that relation is the natural rule which describes
the dynamism of this sign-object relation, or in other words, how the virus may adjust
itself to subvert the host cell. But all of this is played out on an unconscious,
molecular level. The virus and the cell as natural elements at this level do not, cannot,
respond to one another by convention but by the biological rules, and the variations on
those rules, of how a virus can enter a cell. [43]
Conventional relations between a sign and its object are those that may
be products of widely variable interpretants, or conscious, hence symbolic habits, like
poetic metaphor. Natural relations between a sign and its object are those that can only
be products of certain, less flexible, formal kinds of interpretants, or natural habits,
like the happiness inextricably manifest in a dog's wagging tail.[44]
Conventional sign-object relations are exceedingly important. As we
know, symbols are not purely conventional. They tend to comprise firsts and seconds. As
such they tend to rely on the fundamental qualities of non-conventional, naturally
indurated sign-object relations. When a symbol represents by convention naturally
indurated habit, that symbol has the power to represent, reveal, or utilize the relations
or semeiosis of the given naturally indurated habit.[45]
Take, for example, the "reciprocal teleological congruency"
of the metaicon in M.C. Haley's The Semeiosis of Poetic Metaphor.(26) Without going
into too much detail, let me just represent the meaning and importance of this concept
with Haley's own good example: "Keats wonders aloud whether the poet might not see
more, when he looks up at the evening sky, than 'the dark silent blue / With all its
diamonds trembling through and through?'" Essentially, Haley suggests that the power
of the "diamonds trembling" phrase to act as a metaphor for sparkling stars is
that the phrase represents the "rapid oscillating motion" or "structured
energetic vibration" that is a natural quality of stars.(27)[46]
The poetic convention includes within itself something of the natural
habit of stars. Even further, the energy wave not only powers stars, but also the poetic
metaphors which represent the them. The point I wish to make, then, is that conventional
signs have the power to represent natural thought. Reciprocal teleological congruency can
mean that the metaphor and the star "work" because they are both signs of the
same object, the natural energy wave. [47]
Now, as poetic metaphor, the conventional representation of natural
habit or thought is only providing a rational sense of a natural semeiosy. The poetic
metaphor, because it functions merely in a poem, is not intended to actually harness,
utilize, or deploy the natural habit for some goal-directed, scientific human semeiosy,
like an intellectual model or technological application. The poetic metaphor has no other
purpose than likeness, or iconicity. This is not to say that poetic metaphor as a
conventional representation of natural habit is always restricted to mere aesthetic
presentation of that natural habit, but that in this example at least, the metaphor only
conveys meaning for meanings' sake.[48]
But what of the case wherein conventional representation of a natural
semeiosy is functional in a human semeiosy, is used as more than mere likeness
or poetic metaphor? If "The function of consciousness is to render self-control
possible and efficient"(28), might it be that the symbols of human semeiosis use the
sign-object relations of natural habits to achieve this self-control? Generally, this is
just what I propose for the effectiveness of symbols in a healing ritual. [49]
Remember that for the patient, Lévi-Strauss asserts, "the
relationship between monster and disease is internal to his mind, whether conscious or
unconscious: It is a relationship between symbol and thing symbolized, or, to use the
terminology of the linguists, between sign and meaning." That this kind of disease,
as represented in Lévi-Strauss's piece, is curable when symbols are applied indicates
that the we must look to the symbol and analyze that "thing symbolized", for it
is this "thing" that the symbol has deployed to effect a cure. [50]
Obviously, Lévi-Strauss's approach is amenable to semeiotic analysis.
As I indicated earlier, this may be a natural function of the metaphysical assertion that
the logic of relatives is real, that it is a ubiquitous structural principle. Or it may be
a result of Lévi-Strauss's intellectual lineage. Most obviously, however, Lévi-Strauss
employs a brand of symbolic, hence semeiotic analysis. What I will attempt to do is to
semeiotically explode or unpack that relationship between symbol and thing symbolized to
make a more explicit suggestion about the effectiveness of symbols in the healing rite. [51]
Broadly this means that I must attempt an understanding of the
relationship between monster and disease that resides within the mind of the patient. In
Lévi-Strauss's analysis, all of the important elements are mentioned. That we are looking
for the relationship between mythical / cultural information and the state of a
physiological system (reproductive) is plainly stated. A more explicitly semeiotic
analysis, however, will suggest the significant point of contact between myth and
physiology. [52]
But as is the nature of semeiosis, which is to say the nature of nature
generally, we will be left with an answer that elicits a new question. Although I may
deduce the operative element within the mythical healing rite that employs physiological
information to effect a cure, semeiotic analysis alone cannot say how this element is
physiological. For this, I need to know reproductive physiology. Semeiotic analysis can
show me what it is about the myth I must understand in terms of physiology so that I may
truly discover the physiological effectiveness of symbols. In other words, the semeiotic
can reveal the contact between the phenomenological realms of the myth and reproductive
physiology, where resides the point at which physiological information is transduced from
the myth to the mind to the body.[53]
This is the very same situation as in the example of the Keats
metaphor. Understanding that the effectiveness of a poetic metaphor about stars relies on
the representation of the physics that powers the star really does not teach me anything
about why that physics helps to power a satisfying metaphor. What it did do, however, was
reveal to me that this element of the metaphor is what gives it its poetic power. The
"diamonds trembling" metaphor is effective because it is a point of contact
between the poem and the physics of stars. [54]
Through this reciprocal teleological congruency, or reversible
metaphor, the poem is able to receive some quality of the star. The "diamonds
trembling" element functions to transduct this star information into the data, the
words of the poem, to make the poem effective. Knowing that this poetic effectiveness is
due to this physics, the waveform, is only very general knowledge about why the metaphor
is effective. To really know anything substantial about the effectiveness of this physical
metaphor would require that we learn something about the apparent affinity of the mind for
perceptions of the physics of the waveform, why it should be a pleasing sensation. [55]
In the same way, knowing which mythical element is transducing
physiological information into the data of the myth is only the most general knowledge
about why the mythical rite is effective. To really know anything substantial about the
effectiveness of the mythical element as physiological metaphor would require that we
learn something about the apparent affinity of the mind for perceptions of the
reproductive system, why it should be a physiologically therapeutic sensation. The
semeiotic scope of the following, however, will not include physiological knowledge,
except to show where in the myth lies the point of contact with physiology, what mythical
element is the physiological transducer.[56]
Having stated that disclaimer, let me focus the semeiotic scope to find
the transducer, that point of contact between myth and physiology which converts mythical
information into physiological information. The semeiotic scope will focus on the
relationship between monster and disease, internal to the mind of the patient, and see how
it refracts into a logic of relatives, a general principle that mediates between the myth
and the body.[57]
The relationship between monster and disease, symbol and thing
symbolized, internal to the mind of the patient, is a true human semeiosy, or as Liszka
calls it, a teleological semeiosy. Unlike mechanical and teleonomic semeioses,
teleological semeiosy is genuinely triadic rather than degenerate. The distinction between
mechanical and teleonomic as degenerate, and teleological as genuine simply means that
teleological semeiosy generates conventional interpretants whereas teleonomic and
mechanical semeioses generate interpretants of quasi-mind, or natural thought.[58]
What we are interested in here is the power of conventional signs to
represent the interpretants of teleonomic and mechanical semeioses. The Keats metaphor
achieves its resonance because it conventionally represents the natural thought or habit
(teleonomic) of the energy wave. The medical doctor's cure is powerful because it is the
external source or interpreting agency which can represent the semeiosy of the germ-caused
disease process (mechanical) within the body. [59]
Both of these examples, of conventional signs representing respectively
teleonomic and mechanical semeioses, exhibit the power of teleological semeiosy to
interpret, hence utilize, sign-object relations that are not naturally related to the
conventional signs which represent them. Teleological semeiosy has the power of
convention. Essentially human symbols have the power to represent by convention natural
processes thereby utilizing those processes for a human purpose. And as Liszka states,
"Teleological semeiosy is capable of generating genuine signs, i.e., conventional
symbols (after all, a 'purpose is precisely the interpretant of a symbol' (NEM 4: 244; cf.
NEM 4: 254, 4: 261)."(29)[60]
The mythical healing rite as a teleological semeiosy is internal to the
patient's mind. The conventions of the myth represent the natural habit of the patient's
reproductive physiology for a purpose. The purpose as interpretant of the mythical symbols
defines the relations between signs and objects; the signs are the conventions of the myth
and the objects are elements of reproductive physiology. The myth as signs of
physiological objects appropriates the naturally indurated habits of those objects thereby
utilizing those habits for the explicit purpose of self-control or correction of the
ill-functioning reproductive system. [61]
This last statement is a general restatement of Lévi-Strauss's more
explicit, if not explicitly semeiotic, expression of this teleological semeiosy. It is
worth quoting him at length:
[62]
We can see in these words the semeiotic outline of the myth as sign for
the physiology as object; "verbal expression" reorganizes the physiological
process of birth. There is in this sign-object relation an interpretant for us to
discover, some mediating principle which will reveal what part of the myth, the verbal
expression, acts as transducer of physiological information or, put another way, what part
of the myth is responsible for the physiological reorganization.[63]
But first, let's hear from Lévi-Strauss again. In the following words
he gives us his notion of the effectiveness of symbols and a more explicit sense of how
the physiological reorganization is achieved.
[64]
What we have then is a real suggestion of teleological semeiosy at work
in this structural reorganization. The myth is a structure, a symbol, a conventional
representation of processes at the organic level. By reorganizing the mythical structure
we reorganize the physiological structure. The myth as metaicon, as reciprocal
teleological congruency, is a metaphor for a natural habit, a teleonomic semeiosy. [65]
And in uncanny resemblance to the earlier discussions of Haley's work,
Lévi-Strauss follows with the assertion that "Poetic metaphor provides a familiar
example of this inductive process…"(32) Except in the case of the healing
ritual, we are powering more than the affective sensation of poetic metaphor. The mythical
metaphor of the healing rite must power a physiologically effective therapeutic sensation.
Let's see to this mythical metaphor then, and examine how its conventions represent the
body as object. [66]
Within the myth we have two main semeiotic nexus. One of the social
world and the other of the body. The myth, Lévi-Strauss suggests, is a metaphorical
geography of the body. But the myth is also replete with tutelary and contrary spirits
that operate within this bodily geography. The actions of these spirits effect the
physiological reorganization as represented by mythical conventions of the bodily
geography.[67]
The social world of the myth includes the shaman and his evocation of
an army of tutelary spirits. These spirits, called nuchu, ritually embodied in
carved wooden figurines, are led by the shaman into the bodily geography of the myth. The
shaman marches the nuchu into the "abode of Muu". This abode is the womb,
and Muu is the feminine power who oversees fetal development. Muu and the nuchu are
the main players in this mythic social drama. It is Muu who is responsible for the
ailment, though she is not an intrinsically evil force, just one that is out of control.
The nuchu wage a fight with her to restore normalcy to the patient's birth process. Muu
has wronged the mother-to-be by stealing her purba, or soul. And so this is the
theme of the myth, the fight of the nuchu, and their eventual success, against Muu, in
their "quest to return the lost purba."(33)[68]
The mythical representation of the body is more complex than just the
abode of Muu as the womb. Each part of the body has its own purba. "In a difficult
delivery, the 'soul' of the uterus has led astray all the 'souls' belonging to the other
parts of the body." Muu is thought of as the purba of the uterus. She has
precipitated physiological disorder by capturing and paralyzing the other purba of the
body.(34)[69]
Normally, the purba all cooperate and insure physiological integrity.
This integrity would allow birth to proceed smoothly. The purba as souls of organs are not
only conventional representations of the body, but also represent a broadly metaphysical
principle. Everything has a purba. And every thing is a physical manifestation of
its purba. Human beings and animals, however, possess an additional spiritual principle;
they have niga. Niga, Lévi-Strauss defines as "vitality" and "vital
strength". Purba can be stolen but niga cannot.[70]
As a metaphysical principle, niga is contingent upon, but supercedes
the notion of purba. Lévi-Strauss suggests the niga of a person is contingent on the
functional interrelation of the multitude of purba. The niga as a principle compounded
with that of the purba is therefore known as niga purbalele. The significance of
this, Lévi-Strauss suggests, is that
[71]
Now let me just add this very important component of Lévi-Strauss's
interpretation of the metaphysical underpinnings of the nuchu as pivotal social players in
the myth: the nuchu are endowed by the shaman with niga. With this endowment of niga, the
nuchu become nelegan, spirits "in the service of men" or in the
"likeness of human beings."(36)[72]
What I suggest is that restoration of niga purbalele is the goal of a
teleological semeiosy. Within the myth, both the fight and eventual success of the nuchu
are conventional representations of the discordant and then harmonic purba, respectively.
The purba are conventional representations of the natural habits of the organs. This is,
then, a teleological semeiosy appropriating the natural thought, the quasi-mind, of the
teleonomic semeiosy intrinsic to the organs. Thus the battle waged by the nuchu against
Muu, the uterine purba, is a metaphor for the physiological reorganization of the
patient's reproductive system.[73]
Let me reiterate that teleological semeiosy is the genuine triadic
production of symbolic interpretants. A symbolic interpretant is the capacity of the human
mind to create relations, between signs and objects, that do not naturally exist. In other
words, the symbolic triad is composed of an interpretant, a law-like principle, that
determines a relation between a teleonomic object, a natural habit, and a teleological
sign, a symbol, a human convention. [74]
Generally, I see the purba as the object and the nuchu as the sign. I
propose further that our interpretant is the principle of niga purbalele. Herein we have
the elemental triad of a semeiosis that is refractable into at least three component
triads that follow the course of the disease semeiosy from illness to health. [75]
The patient's initial predicament of a birth proceeding in difficulty
is a sign of the immediate object that some physiological trouble exists. This relation is
the effect of the immediate interpretant that there exists an initially undetermined
physiological problem. The immediate interpretant, "the total unanalyzed effect"
of the sign, as a representation of this interpretant, is transmuted to the dynamic
interpretant once the shaman has examined the signs of disease and determined that these
signs are taking their ground from a dynamic object, Muu, the uterine purba out of
control. The dynamic interpretant is the determination of a relation between a dynamic
object and the sign which takes its ground from that dynamic object. The dynamic
interpretant is the shaman's determination that the physiological problem, the general
unanalyzed immediate interpretant, is the effect of Muu's capture and paralysis of the
purba. Thus the shaman is able to see that the patient's signs of disease are grounded in
Muu's troublesome behavior.[76]
From this first round of semeiotic analysis, the shaman arrives at the
final interpretant which translates our initial sign of disease into a new triad which
would be the healing ritual itself. For the shaman, the final interpretant
"determines certain habits of conduct"(37), meaning that as the
interpreting agency he has inferred the existence of particular affliction (this inference
derived from the initial analysis of the patient's condition), and will proceed to treat
the patient. The semeiosis as a system of information has evolved with the translation of
the first general sign of disease (the immediate interpretant) into a sign of a particular
disease (the dynamic interpretant) and, again, into a sign of and for a prognostic habit
of conduct, the ritual healing (the final interpretant).[77]
Now, within our evolving disease semeiosis, I have earlier suggested
the purba as the object, the nuchu as the sign, and that our interpretant is the principle
of niga purbalele. This triadic relation is expressly internal and I mean it as a
recasting of Lévi-Strauss's point that the relationship of monster to disease is internal
to the mind of the patient. What we now have as internal to the mind of the patient is the
fight between the nuchu and Muu, the sign-object relationship defined by the interpretant,
the principle niga purbablele, the harmony of the purba that constitutes human vitality.
Health will be the proper effect of a sign-object relation between the nuchu, as sign, and
Muu (and her effect on all the purba), as object.[78]
Now moving on from the first triad that determined the necessity for
the healing ritual, I will delineate two further triads that compose the process of the
mythical healing within the patient's mind. The battle waged by the nuchu is a sign of
Muu's corruption of the purba, the dissonance of the organs, and the dynamic object
determining the battle as sign. The niga purbabele, as the principle of human vitality
contingent upon the concordance of the purba, is the interpretant which defines this
sign-object relation. Niga purbabele can be thought of as the logical interpretant; it is
the goal of the mythical healing directing the semeiosis as a whole.[79]
For this second triad, however, niga purbalele is defining a
sign-object relationship whose effect is the corruption of niga purbalele. This corrupted
principle is then the final interpretant of the second triad, and the sign for the third
triad. As such a sign, it takes its ground from the dynamic object, Muu's intransigence.
The effect of this relation is to spur the nuchu onto success in battle with Muu. Thus our
dynamic interpretant within the third triad is the successful fight of the nuchu that
determines a sign, restored niga purbalele, which takes its ground from the dynamic
object, the actual physiology of proper reproductive function. [80]
That the nuchu as spirits can act as the dynamic interpretant, however,
determining the proper relation between correct reproductive function, as object, and
restored niga purbalele, as a sign of that object, depends on the nuchu themselves having
been endowed with the ability to represent this conventional relation between niga
purbalele, the teleological sign, and reproductive physiology, the teleonomic object or
natural habit which determines that sign. In essence, the nuchu are capable of creating
symbols; they are virtually conscious agents. [81]
Having been endowed by the shaman with niga, the essence of human
beings, the nuchu possess a symbolic ability similar to human beings. Let me suggest this
semeiotically, as a triadic relation. Both human beings and nuchu are signs of the same
object, niga. One of the effects of this relation is the ability to create symbols, to
propose conventional interpretants between signs that do not naturally (i.e., indexically)
represent their objects. As I stated earlier the power of the symbol is to represent or
utilize the natural habits of teleonomic semeioses. As symbol-using beings, then, the
nuchu are capable of utilizing the natural habits of organs; that is their particular
symbolic or conscious ability. The nuchu have the ability to guide the teleonomic semeiosy
of reproductive physiology. [82]
By evoking the nuchu, the shaman has created a social world, a
discourse community, within the mind of the patient. The patient, it is important to note,
is no passive player in all of this; she "accepts these mythical beings or, more
accurately, she has never questioned their existence."(38) The nuchu, as symbol-using
beings created by humans, are themselves symbolic of the human capacity to engage in
teleological semeiosis, the ability to create conventions which utilize the sign-object
relations of natural habits. The human beings who created the nuchu harnessed the power of
symbols to functionally represent (i.e., alter) natural habits, or quasi-mind. [83]
Thus we have these nuchu, in the likeness of human beings, who have the
exceptional power to represent the natural habit, the teleonomic semeiosy, of reproductive
physiology. The active principle defining this sign (nuchu) - object (purba) relation is
the niga (interpretant), the "vital strength" of human beings. If niga is the
metaphysical principle which constitutes human beings, the result of the harmonious
interrelation of the purba of all the organs; and the nuchu, who have niga, are the
mythical element responsible for the physiological reorganization, then the nuchu are like
real human beings who, in the context of myth, have the exceptional power to manipulate
reproductive physiology simply because they themselves, as the agents in the fight with
Muu, are precise representations of the natural habit of this physiology.[84]
By placing this social world, composed of uniquely capable human-like
beings, within the mind of the patient, the shaman has internally endowed the patient with
beings who are capable of manipulating the teleonomic semeiosis of reproductive
physiology. Some words from Colapietro will help me elucidate just what I mean:
[85]
The nuchu are entered into the inner world of the patient's mind, and
they have taken to her mind their language of reproductive physiology. By entering these
nuchu into the mind of the patient, the shaman has allowed the patient to borrow from the
nuchu this wealth of signs. This domain of inwardness is a spacious place indeed, for not
only does it include her own dimensions of inwardness, but also the inward dimensions of
the nuchu, their capacity as symbols to functionally utilize the natural habits of
reproductive organs. These nuchu, then, I point to as the elements of the myth which
behave as transducers of mythical / cultural information into physiological data. [86]
Generally stated, the nuchu within the mind of the patient is
tantamount to having the uniquely talented consciousness of the nuchu within the equally
but differently talented consciousness of the patient. What we have here, then, is two
subjectivities semeiotically connected in an exceptionally intimate way. The patient's
consciousness is effectively bifurcated such that her unique talent is the ability to
include within her own mind the consciousness of another mind thereby using its knowledge.
The unique talent of the nuchu "mind", of course, is the ability to communicate
with the body in the language of reproductive physiology. I would say that this is an
excellent example of viewing the subjective realm in intersubjective terms, of witnessing
a dialogic that results in a moment of efficacious subjectivity, to paraphrase Colapietro. But in his own words:
[87]
Our moment of efficaciousness is the moment when the patient gets well.
Instead of the introspectively of consciousnesses residing in physically separate
bodies, the healing ritual places the abstractly embodied consciousness of the nuchu
within the consciousness of the patient. [88]
The ritual, then, as the introspectively between the mind of the
patient and that of the nuchu, whose mind consists essentially in the quasi-mind of
reproductive physiology, is really about the creation of the cominterpretant. The
cominterpretant "consists of all that is, and must be, well understood between
utterer and interpreter at the outset, in order that the sign in question should fulfill
its function"(41). This introspectively of the patient and the nuchu as
cominterpretant would mean that the patient as interpreter understands the nuchu as
utterer of the sign of the object, the object being the proper functioning of her
reproductive organs. [89]
The cominterpretant is a synechistic principle wherein the patient as
interpreting agency, as "man-sign" is "welded" or
"fused"(42) with the ritually successful nuchu, the sign of proper reproductive
function. In other words, communication between interpreter and utterer is the
establishment of meaning such that the nuchu as sign is able to determine in the
patient, the sign-interpreting agency, "an interpretant which translates the dynamic
object's determination of the sign"(43). The successful nuchu, as sign of proper
reproductive function, the dynamic object, would determine in the patient the very same
interpretant, niga purbalele, which defines them, the victorious nuchu, as a sign of
reproductive health. Considered as abstraction, at the level of myth, the interpretant is
symbolic, but for the patient's body, the effect of the sign (nuchu) - object (purba)
relation, the restoration of niga purbalele, the interpretant is physiological; its
meaning is therefore real for her body. [90]
The myth as a system of signs, a semeiosis representing the natural
habits of physiology, is effectively translated into another system of signs, the more
inclusive semeiosis of the patient's mind. Her consciousness, however, is external to the
semeiosis of the disease process, the physiology of her reproductive organs. By creating
the introspectively with a "mind", the nuchu, whose very existence is
predicated on contact with that semeiosis of the reproductive ailment, which is purely
unconscious and therefore inaccessible to the patient, the ritual allows the patient to
participate in, effectively become conscious of, the discourse community of the nuchu and
their language of physiology.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, "The Effectiveness of Symbols,"
in Structural Anthropology, Chapter 10, translated from the French by Claire
Jacobson and Brook Grundfest Scheepf, New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1963. |
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