Semiology

I give an outline of as much literary theory as is required in order to understand my ideas. The starting point is that when I look at an object there are three components to my awareness of it.

There is the idea in my mind of the object.
There is the name of the object that I use to identify it.
There is an external object (the reference object) which gives rise to the idea of it in my mind.

These three components align themselves into two parts. The reference object is the perceptual object, and the idea plus the name form the conceptual object. The conceptual object is called a sign. In Continental literary theory the reference object is ignored and only signs are considered. This stratagem allows phantasy to be analysed as well as reality.

[ The authors that I read seemed to be unaware that, by ignoring the reference object, this treatment of language transforms it into a feature of philosophical Idealism, which is the theory that reality is a mental construction. This treatment means that language becomes a self-contained system within the overall perspective of philosophical Idealism].

A note on style: I always use Idealism (with a capital “I”) to mean “philosophical Idealism”. In many of my psychological articles I mention idealism (with a small “i”) to mean the pursuit of one’s ideals.

Language is a system of signs, and by using signs we can communicate ideas. The sign has two parts: a name plus an idea. These parts are termed the signifier and the signified. The sign is a compound of a word that signifies, and the idea in the mind which is the signified.

The signifier is the name, which includes the sound of that name.
The image of the object in the mind is called the signified.

The sign usually refers to a particular object in the external world to which we are drawing attention. For example, the word “dog” is a signifier, and the idea or image in my mind of a small mammal with four legs, etc, is the signified.

Semiology (or semiotics) is the science of signs and owes much of its present influence to the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. A modern commentator (Jonathan Culler [¹]) takes Saussure’s central premises to be that:

a). The name of the signifier is arbitrary.
b). A particular combination of signifier and signified is arbitrary.
c). There are no universal fixed ideas, no universal conceptual objects, since these change from one language to another. Therefore the signified is arbitrary too.

Factors (a) and (b) are easily accepted. The novelty of Saussure’s ideas lies in (c), in the view that the signified is arbitrary as well.

Organising Signs

In order to understand the world we have to organise it into an unlimited number of signs (since we encounter an unlimited number of objects). These signs can be further organised into categories and abstract concepts, for defining classes of objects. For example, in biology animals are broadly grouped into vertebrates and invertebrates; vertebrates are sub-divided into fish, amphibia, reptiles, etc. One useful way of regarding these categories and concepts is that they are simply arbitrary structures.

Note. The organisation of the sensory continuum is an organisation of signs, not an organisation of reference objects. It is the images in the mind that are classified.

This organisation of signs into a particular way of looking at the world produces a language. The language reflects basic attitudes of mind of the language community, whether it be a tribe or a nation. Since any community has many different basic attitudes from other communities, so each separate language is likely to be different from any other one in the way that this organisation occurs.

The world as it is is a sensory continuum (rather like the way a baby sees the world). The sensory continuum is an endless flux of sensation which the observer has to arrange into objects and events. But objects and events are the basis of signs. So this endless sensory flux is divided up into discrete signs and categories in any way that a language community likes.

One way to see what the sensory continuum is like before we interpret it is to take an hallucinatory substance like LSD. Then the usual way that we have learned to see the world falls apart to some extant.

No sign stands alone. A sign exists only to the extent that we can separate one object from other objects. If our awareness or knowledge of facts is limited then we may treat different objects as being identical. I am not very good at botany, so when I look at a field of cereals I cannot tell if the cereals are wheat, barley or oats.

Signs are defined by their relationships to other signs. In Saussure’s view, an object is classified by the way that it differs from other objects, and not by any essence that it may, or may not, possess. Any object has only a relational identity. This table that I am writing on is a table because it is not a trolley nor a seat nor even an armchair or a bed. It is the differences that separate classes of objects.

Language is a system of signs. In this system any particular fact is defined by its place in the system, by its relations with other facts. A system of signs is a system of social facts, facts that are accepted by everyone. To investigate the way that language operates implies that we need to examine the basis of social conventions.

Values

When we classify the world into classes of signs we give structure to our perspective of reality, and that structure reflects our understanding. Structures can be of different kinds: perceptual, psychological, social, religious, etc. The study of language has produced two related disciplines: semiology is the theory of signs, and structuralism is the theory of structures (see next article). Structuralism implies that signs split the sensory continuum into compartments and categories of objects so that we can easily follow a path through life. Without such structure, it would be like trying to find our way through a wilderness without a map.

Language enables classes of structures to be standardised. Language gives structure to a relative reality, as one author (John Sturrock) explains[²]. This means that language produces a relational (or relative, in the traditional use of this term) way of understanding reality. This is the way in which we learn to make sense of perception.

In this situation of learning to make sense of perception, is language primary or secondary in its effects? Is language really the root of sign systems? Continental literary theory believes that it is so (at least when I wrote this article, at the end of the twentieth century). I disagree. To answer this question we need to understand that signs are created because the reference objects have value to society. Society is held together primarily by common values, and thus derivatively by common signs. Values come before signs. [For example, a baby creates its own private signs, such as its words for the teddy bear, only because particular objects have some value for it]. Therefore we need to consider the origin of values.

Now I part company with literary theory and bring in my ideas on psycho-dynamic psychology.

As man evolves so too his values evolve. Western theories of evolution assume that in the beginning, man was primitive and naive. Two early-modern writers were Hobbes and Rousseau. Hobbes saw primitive man as being bad; Rousseau saw him as being noble. For me, primitive man was both, but he had minimal self-consciousness. As his mind developed so did his degree of self-consciousness too. Evolution means that mankind is always facing new situations and new challenges as its self-consciousness develops. Therefore, in new situations and new roles, mankind has to create new values. So the evolution of man is basically the evolution of his value systems. This is what separates mankind from the animal kingdoms. Animals have very few distinct words in their languages, and this implies to me that they have very few values. Whereas man creates a multitude of values.

The distinguishing mark of man, at any stage of his evolution, is that he is a value-creating person.

Projection and Introjection

Before continuing, I need to introduce a couple of terms from psycho-analytic theory, these being projection and introjection.

Projection means that we imagine that our own virtues and vices and attitudes are embodied in other people. We see in other people what is in ourself. This psychological stratagem is particularly noticeable with regard to our vices. We try to escape from our faults by denying them; we see them only as aspects of other people – it is always other people that are the source of conflict.

Introjection is the complementary process. We emulate the virtues (and vices) in the people that we admire. We incorporate into ourself the attitudes of people that are significant to us. Our own idealised image of ourself can also act as a source for introjection: we can use such an image as an object from which we can introject virtues that we need.

Projection and introjection are unconscious mechanisms and much of their content is subconscious, that is, this content is usually made up of emotions and attitudes and desires that the person is not aware of. Projection and introjection operate in a similar manner to suggestion, but at an unconscious level of mind.

Projection and introjection form a loop of desire and feeling/emotion. A simple desire-emotion loop operates when I satisfy hunger by going to a nearby fruit tree and picking the fruit and eating it. The desire to eat leads to a pleasant emotional experience. This, in turn, will lead to a new desire to eat until the stomach is full.

However, in most situations there has to be a delayed fulfilment of desire. For example, if my body is weak I may desire to build it up through better nutrition and exercise. But this desire will take time and cannot be accomplished immediately. So projection and introjection are used to fill the gap. The desire-emotion loop becomes completed in imagination. I have to remain content with imagining what my quality of life will be like once I achieve a strong body. Then, after a suitable period of time, subjective imagination becomes objective reality.

The loop of projection and introjection is developed further in the article Origin of Language, in chapter 3.

Pleasure and Pain

Now I return to semiology theory. In the beginning of evolution the undeveloped mind is just a state of consciousness which is in constant change, just a state in the process of Becoming. The fundamental effect of this process on man is to create the experience of pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain arise before anything else: before signs, before language, before self-consciousness.

When pleasure and pain are added to the process of Becoming then value arises as a secondary production. Value is generated as the means of attempting to make sense of the constant flux of sensory impressions that the mind is subjected to. Something is valued positively because of the pleasure that it gives us; something is valued negatively because the pain that it gives makes us avoid it. As value arises so also does the production of signs. Signs and values arise together, under the impetus of pleasure and pain.

However, there is an intermediate step between pleasure /pain and values /signs which is a psychological one. We need to consider beliefs. It is man who gives structure to reality, and not reality itself. The organisation of signs into structures reflects underlying social beliefs. In effect, pleasure and pain give rise to beliefs about reality, and in turn these beliefs generate values.

The means of turning pleasure and pain into beliefs is through the psychological loop of projection and introjection. This loop enables the person to tie emotion to desire, or, less generally, to tie happiness to the desire for power. Therefore, in order to master pleasure and neutralise pain, man creates the loop of projection and introjection so that he can focus on happiness and power. Power is desired because it can lead to happiness. Within the framework of this loop all values take their place.

The world of man-made signs and structures pivots on the axes of happiness and power. The psychological loop of projection and introjection can be taken to represent the foundation upon which signs are created. Emotion and desire are the primitive or original basis of signs.

I look at what happens psychologically when we perceive some object in the world. Consider emotion to be the primitive signifier, signifying happiness – so instead of a name for the object, we have the emotional experience of relating to it. Consider desire as the primitive signified, signifying power over the object – so instead of the fact of the object, we have a state of desire that enables us to control it. The result is that emotion and desire structure the world, through the desire to control it in order that we may experience happiness. In this way they structure language itself.

Summary

These ideas on the origin of values lead to the understanding that the role of language is a subordinate one (this is my first disagreement with Saussure). Pleasure and pain arise before language does. Emotion and desire structure the world; this is the primary structure. Language is the expression of this process and hence is a secondary structure.

My original introduction to philosophical Idealism was by Paul Brunton.
Brunton, Paul. The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga. Rider, 1941. On philosophical Idealism, and the differences between philosophical thought and religious/mystical thought.

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Ian Heath
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