<div><center><p><font size="11">Cognitive Semiotics</font></p>
(from the perspective of Tartu Semiotics)
<p>[[Part 2!|Contents]]</p>
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<div><p><font size="11"><u>Outline:</u></font></p>
<p>[[1. A brief overview of RTM/CTM]]
[[2. Classic phenomenology]]
[[3. Uexküllian phenomenology]]
[[4. Formal foundations of CogSem]]
[[5. Research program of CogSem]]
[[6. The Tartu Connection and local prospects]]
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<b>RTM</b>: //Representational// theory of mind
<b>CTM</b>: //Computational// theory of mind
RTM, compatible to some degree with Peircean terminology, lets us speak of certain //mental states// that come in the form of //representations//.
Representations are subpersonal and intentional, and they come in a propositional form.
[[Next|RTM2]]
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<p>But having subpersonal mental representations expressed in linguistic terms is rather counterintuitive. Mental representations do not need to be conceived as properly //linguistic//.
However, the idea is in principle that "cognitive mental processes are operations defined on syntactically structured mental representations that are much like sentences" (Fodor 2001: 4).
[[Next|RTM3]]
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Thought can be ~thought of~ as //propositional content//, the //content// thought and speech possess (plausibly defined as abstractions with truth conditions).
But how come the structure of thought resembles propositional structure? (Fodor 1983: 9)
Thoughts, or //propositional attitudes// (beliefs, desires and so on), "are relations between people and mental representations that stand for things in the world (their semantic properties)" (Chemero 2009: 20).
[[Next|CTM1]]
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How RTMs distinguish themselves depend on how symbol manipulation is taken to work in cognition.
The case of CTM is particular as one of the strongest currents. A CTM sees thought as //computations//. And computation is "the rule-governed manipulation of the formal symbols in [...] a language of thought" (Chemero 2009: 21).
[[Language of thought?]]
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Language of thought (LOT) or //mentalese// is the idea that the mental is expressed in a structured, sentence-like manner constrained by certain syntactic and semantic rules.
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According to LOTH, when someone believes that //P//, there is a sense in which the immediate “object” of one's belief can be said to be a complex symbol, a sentence in one's LOT physically realized in the neurophysiology of one's brain, that has both syntactic structure and a semantic content, namely the proposition that //P//. (Aydede 2015)
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[[Home|Contents]]
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The basic idea of phenomenology is starting from experience to describe phenomena in the world.
This perspective, however, is quite different from what we have seen, at least formally, in that for Husserl, "we do not ordinarily perceive signs of the world, but the world itself; and thus, if indeed meaning is involved, this must be is some wider sense of the term" (Sonesson 2006: 140).
Husserlian phenomenology is in a way a theory of consciousness, a way to examine first person consciousness and its //intentionality//.
[[How is this done?]]
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The method of phenomenological reduction, or //bracketing// is 'suspending judgment'.
Take any particular experience--dreams, perceptions, impressions--and describe it from the first person perspective. The intentionality of experience (intentional content) is what counts, not whether the assumtion is correct (Beyer 2015).
<b>But how possible is it to remove judgment from our experiences?</b>
[[Next|Lebenswelt]]
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<div><p>Husserl coins the concept of //Lebenswelt//, the life-world. Conceptually, it refers to the perceptible (and perceived) world in its subjective dimension.</p>
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<div><p>Merleau-Ponty takes the concept of Lebenswelt as the perceived world in active communion with the perceivers. "The aim of perception is to constitute a world of definite things that are there for everyone" (Romdenh-Romluc 2011: 23)
[[Next|Lebenswelt2]]
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Husserl’s conception of Lebenswelt implies that there are animal lifeworlds (Lebenswelten) as well, “as far as the analogy reaches”. The human Lebenswelt is the measure of other lifeworlds, and their model insofar as methodology is concerned. (Tønnessen 2011: 34)
This certainly echoes with a more familiar concept, doesn't it?
[[Home|Contents]]
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Uexküll's project can be called a //subjective biology// in that it takes into consideration the subjective stance of the organism with respect to the world that surrounds it.
But is it //phenomenology//?
•Husserlian phenomenology has a decidedly self-reflective approach.
•Uexküll's notion of perception is closer to a subpersonal form of description.
[[So where do we stand?|Umwelt1]]
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Tønnessen (2011) makes the argument that while //consciousness// plays a relevant role in our navigating of the world, it is not a prerequisite to do so, as it is a special case of //awareness// (35).
Uexküllian phenomenology is then a //lato sensu// phenomenology.
[[Next|Umwelt2]]
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The Umwelt as a structuring principle is what gives us a foothold to refer to the idea of Uexküllian phenomenology.
<b>But is it a valid comparison? Does awareness entail qualia, or is that a byproduct of consciousness?</b>
[[Less phenomenological approaches]]
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Cognitive Semiotics, as a disciplinary project of its own, has firm foundations on cognitive science, phenomenology and semiotics (Zlatev 2012).
Its foundations, in true interdisciplinary fashion, cannot be traced to a single source, but lie in the combination of multiple perspectives.
[[Next|CogSem1]]
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While we can construe Uexküll's perspective as a type of phenomenology, we can also see it as one of the roots of alternative approaches in cognitive science in the vein of //embodied cognition//.
[[Home|Contents]]
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Institutionally, CogSem is concerned with higher order cognition and the analysis of meaning in complex semantic systems.
It is not one fixed school of thought, which also indicates a variety of origins and positions. In fact, its alignment with semiotics as we understand it is sometimes diffuse.
The main axes of CogSem are thus:
•Linguistics
•CogSci
•Semiotics
[[Next|CogSem2]]
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The central features of CogSem are:
•integration of theoretical and empirical research
•ontological pluralism and methodological triangulation
•influence of phenomenology
•focus on dynamism
•the ambition of true transdisciplinarity
(Zlatev 2012: 2)
[[Next|Research]]
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Semiotics because it cares about meaning-making beyond the linguistic realm.
CogSci because of the stronger empirical position on which to tackle mental phenomena.
Linguistics because it follows the distinctively human practice of meaning-making through language.
But the concept of a "cognitive semiotics" starts formally more as a possible interest in cognitive science for semioticians (Sonesson 2006: 138).
[[Next|CogSem3]]
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The identity of CogSem comes together partially because of the success of non-reductive CogSci.
But such views of CogSci tend to reject the representational approach that you can find in, say, Peirce's TCD (assumed as such).
How much can we say about //signs// from within CogSem then?
[[Next|CogSem4]]
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A solution to this is perhaps to reframe signs not as representations, but as a more complex type of functionality. CogSem can use notions of the sign without having to rely solely on Saussurean or Peircean notions to make (scientific) claims about meaningful phenomena.
[[Home|Contents]]
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<div><p>The research program of CogSem is quite ample, given its transdisciplinary aims.
Zlatev (2012a) lists the following as the main fields of research:
•Bio-cultural Evolution
•Semiotic development in ontogeny
•Gesture and multimodality
•"The embodied mind"
[[Next|Examples]]
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<div><p><big>The Cognitive Semiotics of the Visual Artwork</big>
<small>Per Bundgaard</small>
•Naturalistic conception of aesthetic experience: "one according to which aesthetic experience is not a mental activity involving modes of cognitive processing foreign to everyday cognition" (Bundgaard 2009: 43)
•Aesthetic experience is not, in any case, like other experiences, just as aesthetic objects are not like other objects
•Aesthetic objects are //intentionally shifted//
•There is a difference between representation and presentation of the aesthetic object
•Aesthetic objects can be perceived and appraised at both levels
•One aesthetic object can "presentify different objects in a consistent and non-ambiguous way" (Bundgaard 2009: 50)
[[Next|Bundgaard2]]
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<div><p>Perception is automated in a pre-conceptual and pre-reflective level. The principles behind this automatization categorize and organize, facilitating perceptual judgment.
"The most arduous task of a semiotics of the visual artwork possibly consists in developing conceptual tools to capture the encoding of meaning in the artwork." (Bundgaard 2009: 52)</p></div>
<div>[[<img src="http://i.imgur.com/mnEhcTe.png">|Bundgaard3]]</div>
<div><p><font size="3">''Principles governing the semiotics of the visual artwork <font size="2">(lifted almost verbatim from Bundgaard 2009: 61-64)</font>:''
•Painting is an activity which consists of constructing meaning in vision, that is, in presenting shapes (and relations between shapes) with qualita- tive properties which are perceptually (pre-conceptually) significant.
•We do not have different visuo-cognitive systems for treating aesthetic and non-aesthetic objects.
•The grammar of aesthetic perception consists of such features and prin- ciples of form organization which allow many devices for possible meaning making.
•Following Husserl, it is an ontologcal property of any visual sign (any icon in Peirce's sense) that it consists of a presentifying stratum (the //Bildobjekt//) and a reference or a representing stratum (the //Bildsujet//).
•The constitution in perception of the painting as a pure piece of presentation (irrespective of what is represented), and the ensuing alternation between 2D and 3D interpretations of it is not something that obtains automatically.
•If it can be assumed that the semiotic (and aesthetic) impact of the painting depends on the way in which the painter organizes the presentational layer of the artwork, it is also evident that there is not just one type of interaction between presentation and representation in the work of art.
•The elements of a grammar of aesthetic intuition in general do not //rule// meaning making in visual art or delimit the domain of possible meaningfulness in art from the domain of senselessness or aesthetic ungrammaticality. They are introduced as pertaining to a weak, semiotic system. They are considered as pictorial symbolic forming devices at the disposal of any given art maker who may choose to make use of them or not.
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[[Next|Examples2]]</p>
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Other examples of research in CogSem deal with child development (taking from Piaget and Vygotsky), the evolution and changes in culture from a naturalized perspective, non-verbal meaning making and communication, embodied cognition, and so on.
[[Home|Contents]]
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<div><p>Where does the Tartu school stand in all this?
The answer to this is not easy, as we are both close and far to the institutional program of CogSem.
Biosemiotics, however, provides, if anything, a strong footing in the task of naturalization. This doesn't exactly imply full compatibility with CogSem as described.
[[Contributions and questions from Tartu]]
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Uexküll's work is quite possibly one of the most powerful tools in the development of CogSem from Tartu. Uexküllian phenomenology has been proposed by Tønnessen (2012), but there are more contributions.</p></div>
<div><p>Semiotic Threshold Zones (Kull 2009)
•An extensional understanding of semiosic characteristics provides information to separate larger areas of complexity for semiosis
•The basic distinction we can make comes in the form of //vegetative, animal and cultural// threshold zones mapped to sign types
•Cultural semiosis starts from the capability to distinguish judgments (metacognition)
[[Prospects]]
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<div><p>•The naturalization of Lotmanian concepts offers a wide avenue for developing a proper Tartu CogSem and contributing to the general panorama of CogSem as a research program.
•Biosemiotics can easily integrate into the more empirical research aimed at from CogSem, from both the theoretical aspect and in the development of possible experimental avenues.
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