Author:
A. J. J van Breemen
Affiliation:
Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands
Keyword(s):
Architectonic of sciences, Peirce, Semiotic framework, Semiotic ladder, Stamper, Firstness, radical subjectivism, Secondness, Actualism, Thirdness.
Abstract:
The strength of Stamper resides in his keen eye for the situatedness of knowledge, the strength of the founder of semiotics, Ch. S. Peirce (1839-1914), resides in his architectonic approach to processes of knowledge generation and in his subtle, albeit unfinished semiotics. In this paper I confront both approaches. The aim is to find a meeting ground. To that end I compare Stamper’s semiotic ladder with Peirce’s classification of the sciences. A first result is a distinction between two views on the semiotic ladder: 1. an outside perspective on an information system, in which the levels can be studied as if they are not interdependent and 2. an inside perspective, in which the path from input to response is followed. In the latter case the levels must be regarded as interdependent.