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The Philosophical Relevance of a “Behavioristic Semiotic”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Thomas Storer
Thomas Storer*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska
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Abstract

As everyone who has looked into almost any philosophical journal within the last year is aware, Charles Morris has written a book on signs. (Signs, Language and Behavior, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1946, hereafter abbreviated “SLB”) More precisely, he has elaborated a strain of thought found in his very earliest writings. A first, partial culmination of these ideas is his monograph Foundations of the Theory of Signs (FTS). Since the publication of FTS, Morris has conducted experiments relative to human sign behavior. SLB, I believe, is a revision and expansion of FTS to take into account new material supplied by these experiments and increased insight into the nature of behavior psychology. For Morris now asserts explicitly, what before he only hinted: that “Semiotic thus becomes a part of the empirical science of behavior, and can utilize whatever principles and predictions the general theory of behavior has attained or can attain.” (SLB p. 19)

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 1948 , pp. 316 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1948

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References

1 Foundations of the Theory of Signs, International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, (I, 2), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938.

2 The Philosophical Review, May, 1947 (LVI, 3) pp. 258–272.

3 Two outstanding examples of this type of criticism are: A. F. Bentley, “The New ‘Semiotic’ ”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Sept., 1947, (VIII, 1), pp. 107–131; and G. Gentry, “Signs, Interpretants, and Significata,” The Journal of Philosophy, June 5, 1947 (XLIV, 12), pp. 318–324.

4 Review of SLB in The Journal of Symbolic Logic, June, 1947, (XII, 2) pp. 49–51.

5 V. Aldrich, Review of SLB, Journal of Philosophy, June 5, 1947 (XLIV, 12), pp. 324–329; A. F. Bentley, “The New ‘Semiotic’ ”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Sept., 1947, (VIII, 1), pp. 107–131; M. Black, Review of SLB, The Philosophical Review, March, 1947 (LVI, 2) p. 203–05; M. Black, “The Limitations of a Behavioristic Semiotic,” The Philosophical Review, May, 1947, (LVI, 3) pp. 258–272; D. Bronstein, Review of SLB, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, June, 1947, (VII, 4), pp. 643–649; G. Gentry, “Signs, Interpretants, and Significata,” Journal of Philosophy, June 5, 1947, (XLIV, 12), pp. 318–324; P. E. Reiser, Review of SLB, The Kenyon Review, Spring, 1947; D. Rynin, Review of SLB, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Sept., 1947, (VI, 1), pp. 67–70; A. F. Smullyan, Review of SLB, The Journal of Symbolic Logic, June, 1947, (XII, 2), pp. 49–51; J. Wild, “An Introduction to the Phenomonology of Signs,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Dec., 1947, (VIII, 2) pp. 217–233.

6 Cf. the statement made by John Wild, loc. cit., p. 217: “All knowledge … would seem to involve the interpretation of signs and symbols. So far as this is true, epistemology itself would seem to rest fundamentally on a theory of signs.”

7 p. 15, An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth, New York, W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1940.

8 Since, however, clarification may be extended to include the “ego,” we must not interpret the phrase “to create a linguistic pattern” naively. In other words, I am not here assuming or stating the existence of a linguistic creator … that is, a self.

9 As an example of what I have in mind here, I may say that one of the basic requirements of any meaning criterion that is empiricistic is a rule prohibiting introduction into the language of new predicates by means of universally quantified sentences. Thus, for example, we may not introduce a predicate of existence via the universally quantified sentence: (x) Ex (x). This restriction again constitutes a link with traditional scientific empiricism since it expresses, in essence, the thesis that “nothing can be predicated of the data as such.”

10 “Logical Positivism, Pragmatics, and Scientific Empiricism,” Actualities Scientifiques et Industrielles, No. 449, Exposes de Philosophie Scientifique Paris, Herman et Cie, 1937.

11 Cf. fn. 3 and fn. 5, this paper.

12 It should be clear that, in one sense, Morris no more defines “sign” in terms of behavior patterns than does the physicist define “red” in terms of wave lengths. “Red” is an immediately given … or, to put it differently … who knows how to speak our language as others do, knows what “red” means. That the concept “RED”, defined by the physicist, functions in his physical science in a certain very complicated sense similarly to the way the concept “red” functions in our immediate experience, is what is meant by saying that the physicist's “RED” is the same as our perceived “red.” The same explanation holds for the concept “Sign,” defined by Morris, and the concept “sign,” as directly known.

13 4.112, p 77, Traclatus-Logico-Philosophicus, New York, Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1922

14 We must remember that the psychologist, himself, has probably felt hunger, and may realize that to some extent his concept fails to catch what he wishes it to define.

15 It may be objected that definitions corresponding to mentalistic terms can be introduced without making use of a verbal response on the part of the subject. As an example, one can imagine a test for color blindness, using the familiar bubble diagrams, wherein the subject's response consists in pushing a button on which is printed a figure corresponding (in shape) to the figure he sees in the diagram. However, this elimination of a verbal subject response does not change the situation. The use of the fact that the subject and observer understand the same language occurs in the instructions given to the observer: viz. to push that button on which is printed the shape he observed in the diagram.