DOI 10.

1515/css-2016-0014  Chinese Semiotic Studies 12(2): 145-147

Essays by Officers of the IASS

Priscila Borges, Vice-Secretary General

Semiotics as an Interdisciplinary
Methodology
A person browsing through the fields of research in science and social sciences
will most likely find no mention of semiotics at all. On the other hand, Peircean
semioticians will probably see semiotics everywhere. How is it possible that
something like semiotics can be seen so differently? If we regard it as an
interdisciplinary methodology, we may understand why, at first glance, it is not
evident that semiotics is a field of research in itself, and why, when looking
deeply, it is actually everywhere.
The interdisciplinarity of Peirce’s semiotics begins with his experiences
with the different fields of science. He was a “mathematician, astronomer,
chemist, geodesist, surveyor, cartographer, metrologist, spectroscopist,
engineer, inventor; psychologist, philologist, lexicographer, historian of science,
mathematical economist, lifelong student of medicine; book reviewer, dramatist,
actor, short story writer; phenomenologist, semiotician, logician, rhetorician,
and metaphysician” (Fisch, 2016). In the introduction to the first volume of
Peirce’s Writings, Max Fisch says that Peirce “would prefer employment that
gave him scope for diversity of researches over a period of years” (1982: W1:
xxiii). This diversity of experiences would give him the basis to develop his logic
further, including the logic of mathematics, science, and signs. The great range
of scientific experiences Peirce had and his interest for so many fields probably
influenced him to propose a general theory that could function as an inquiry
method for the most diverse fields of science. This general theory is what he
called semiotics. It is not a particular method for a specific science, but a
general one, “the science of the necessary laws of thought” (Peirce c.1896: CP
1.444).
Epistemological questions motivated Peirce’s thought: What are we able to
understand? What can we not understand? What are the limits of our
knowledge? If we can understand something, how can we do that? The sense
that the world contains an almost infinite number of things and that our
knowledge grabs only small portions of it raises the question about how we can
learn or know something. Semiotics is a discipline that may help us understand
this process since it describes ways in which we can transform a huge and

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146  Priscila Borges, Vice-Secretary General

complex universe such as perceived by our senses into information and

organized knowledge.
Working on a theory about sign mediation and production of meaning,
Peirce built a method of investigation that aims to reveal truth, which is
understood as “that belief to which sufficient inquiry would inevitably lead”
(Peirce, c. 1907: Prag [R]. MS [R] 322). However, truth is never achieved by an
individual mind, since “there is a residuum of error in every individual’s
opinions” (Peirce, 1871: CP 8.12). In addition to sufficient inquiry, it is necessary
that an agreement between a sufficiently large number of inquirers be formed.
Consequently, the semiotic method does not yield a final truth, but gives the
inquirer a path to get closer to it.
Peirce’s classes of signs may be seen as the path that guides inquiry. They
do not concern particular signs, but a general process of sign mediation that
grants us the power of thinking. In the text ‘Questions concerning certain
faculties claimed for man’, Peirce asks,“whether we can think without signs”
(Peirce, 1868: EP 1:23). He explains that we can only know thought by external
facts and by observing external facts we can only find cases of thought in signs.
It is evident, then, that for Peirce the study of signs is crucial for every inquirer
in any field. All scientific research, no matter the field of expertise, must have a
method to ensure the growth of thought.
But how do the classes of signs show the growth of thought? By showing
the enchainment of signs. According to Peirce (1868: EP 1:24), no thought is
found in an instant, it requires time. That means that “thought must be
interpreted in another” as signs must determine other signs. The classes of signs
show a logical sequence that guides the enchainment of signs in order to
achieve truth, the goal of semiotics. Following this logical sequence is a way to
guarantee that our thought is moving along the right path.
Being on the right path, however, does not guarantee the truth of a
proposition in thought. For this, the knowledge of specific fields of research is
necessary. By combining a general method to a specific one, an
interdisciplinary methodology arises. The generality of Peirce’s semiotics is
favorable to interdisciplinarity. While semiotics provides general principles to
the more specific discipline, its applications in specific fields nourish the
general theory with experience.

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Bionote
Priscila Borges
Priscila Borges (b. 1980) is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication at University of
Brasília, Brazil. Her research interests include Peirce’s philosophy, semiotics, and visual
language. Her publications include “A visual model of Peirce’s 66 classes of signs unravels his
late proposal of enlarging semiotic theory” (2010), “Peirce’s system of 66 classes of signs”
(2014), “Experience and cognition in Peirce’s semiotics” (2014), and“A system of 21 classes of
signs as an instrument of inquiry”(2015). Email: primborges@gmail.com

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