Re: RT list: Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (prior to RT)?

And good that Bill will develop his interesting Hertforshire Workshop paper
on the topic!

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 1:46 PM, <W.Downes@uea.ac.uk> wrote:

> > Dear Ernst-august and all, Yes, I think this is so but there are
> differences; its about how signs are interpreted in general, but
> intentional communication could be viewed as a special case. I gave a
> paper on this topic at the Hertforshire Workshop in UK in 1995: it is in
> the Marjolein Groefsema edited proceedings, pg.28-41. I'm returning to
> Peirce in a forthcoming book. All the best, Bill Downes.
> >
>
>
>
> > I recently came across the following claims about the work of C.S.
> Peirce:
> >
> > "Peirce showed that all interpretation is inferential, and the kind of
> > interpretation involved in translation is no exception ... Drawing on
> > semiotics to make a case for the inferential nature of translation can
> > also
> > provide sound arguments to support other theories of translation which
> > either implicitly | presuppose or explicitly discuss inferential
> processes
> > ..." (p. 261-262)
> > (Stecconi, Ubaldo. 2008. Semiotics. In Routledge encyclopedia of
> > translation
> > studies, ed. Baker, Mona and G. Saldanha. 2nd ed. London & New York:
> > Routledge; pp. 260-63)
> >
> > This sounds very much as if Peirce's 'interpretative semiotics' actually
> > preceded RT as an inferential theory of communication and appears to be
> at
> > variance with the following claim made in RT:
> >
> > "Before Grice's pioneering work, the only available theoretical model of
> > communication was what we have called the classical code model . which
> > treats communication as involving a sender, a receiver, a set of
> > observable
> > signals, a set of unobservable messages, and a code that relates the
> two."
> > (Sperber, D., and D. Wilson. 2002. Pragmatics, modularity and
> > mind-reading.
> > Mind and Language 17, no. 1/2: 3-23.)
> >
> > Looking at Sperber and Wilson 1995, acc. to the index there is one brief
> > mention of Peirce - only as the originator of the term 'semiotic' - there
> > is
> > no discussion of his views on communication as inferential.
> >
> > My own, provisional view, based on a very cursory acquaintance with P's
> > work, is as follows: Peirce and 'interpretative semiotics': P
> acknowledged
> > importance of inferential processes in acquisition of knowledge in
> general
> > (deduction, induction, abduction), and hence applied inference to
> > communication as well; however, did not recognize the special challenge
> of
> > intentional human communication, esp. the challenge of coordinating the
> > inferential processing of the audience with the intentions of the
> > communicator. In that sense, while interpretative semiotics recognised
> the
> > insufficiency of coding alone and brought out the importance of inference
> > (as part of general epistemics), it did not really come up with an
> > inferential theory that would explain intentional human communication in
> > particular.
> >
> > Since I am not very well versed in Peirce's work, I would appreciate any
> > comments and/or information on how others see his work relate to RT as an
> > inferential theory of communication. I am especially interested in
> > discussions of this issue in the RT literature, that I am not aware of.
> >
> > Thank you for your interest,
> >
> > Ernst-August Gutt
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>

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