Showing papers on "Sign (semiotics) published in 1972"

Toward a Theory of "Stare Decisis"

Abstract: I shall propose in this article a new theory of stare decisis (a term I use loosely to mean the practice of courts in deciding new cases in accordance with precedents) that draws upon the insights of communications theory as well as upon some previous work of my own on the decision-making process in tort law. The attempt to apply communications theory to the law is not new,x or-given that judicial decision-making is a species of verbal behavior -unexpected. Previous efforts to apply communications theory to problems of judicial decision-making have foundered, however, on a lack of clear conception as to what that theory means and can tell us about the judicial process, and it is with an attempt at clarification of the relevant concepts that I begin. Communications theory is not a unified body of thought. It has three quite distinct branches. The first, "syntactics," is concerned with the logical arrangement, transmission, and receipt of signals or signs. It is the domain of the electrical engineer; its concern is with the transmission of signals, whatever their meaning. The second is "semantics," which is concerned with the meaning of the signals to people. The third is "pragmatics," which is the study of the impact of signal transmission on human behavior.2 This tripartite division is not wholly satisfactory; we shall return to that point. The key concepts of syntactics, for our purposes, are "information," "redundancy," and "feedback," of which the first two are best discussed together. For the telegraphic engineer, information is the content of a signal that could not have been predicted by the receiver; it is a probability concept. The more probable the transmission of a given sign, the less information its actual transmission conveys. "Redundancy" is the opposite of information.

Nelson Goodman on Picturing, Describing, and Exemplifying

Abstract: The most sustained and rigorous treatment of the work of art as a sign or symbol to appear in recent years is to be found in Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art.l If his analysis proves to be correct then the consequences for aesthetic education are momentous. For Goodman attempts to show that art as a symbolism may be understood by means of the same logical categories used in the analysis of the symbol systems of science and its related intellectual activity. If science is taught by introducing the student to the appropriate manipulation and appreciation of symbols in a systematic fashion, then the same approach may be feasible in aesthetic education. Several objections arise, however, concerning the legitimacy of treating art as a sign phenomenon. While I think that Goodman is able to answer these objections, his discussion seems to need correction in important details. Like any semiotic aesthetic theory, his analysis must face two important problems arising from the nature of signs themselves. First, there is the fictional character of art. In the theory of signs, the most literal interpretation of "fictional" implies that the work of art does not have denotation (i.e., reference); at any rate, if art does denote or refer, that fact is irrelevant to its function as art. But if the art object is a sign, there must be sufficient conditions for symbolization other than reference or denotation. Thus in his classic discussion of the conditions for the

Belief or Anamnesis: Is a Rapprochement between History of Religions and Theology Possible?

Abstract: Such was Tillich's last hope in 1965, but there is not yet a single sign to indicate that a serious interpenetration between Christian theology and history of religions is taking place. This is not to say that there is a lack of interest, concern, and effort. Rather, in my judgment, all efforts have failed and will continue to fail precisely because we refuse to abandon belief or faith (I shall use these terms interchangeably and uncritically) as the fundamental hermeneutical category of religion. It is my contention that belief or faith is specifically a biblical category, not a universal category applicable to all religions. In the history of religions, belief is a secondary and specific category, not a primary, definitive, and generic category. Further, faith cannot be a hermeneutical category because by definition it precludes the possibility of progressive elucidation.