The Four-Cornered Negation and the Semiotic Expression of the Presemiotic

[essius]

The other day it occurred to me that Indian philosopher Sañjaya Belatthiputta’s principle of four-cornered (or four-fold) negation (FCN) may bear an important conceptual relation to presemiotic semiosis, i.e., to semiosis that expresses no awareness of semiosis.* FCN follows the form “Neither A, nor not-A, nor both A and not-A, nor neither A nor

Comments

[essius]

Are you suggesting that this "choiceless awareness" is analogous to, say, the state of mind Peirce describes in "What Is a Sign?" to get at pure firstness and away from any thoughts about objects of our awareness or reactions to them?

When? In my last comment? No. I was not attempting to elaborate on the connection of FCM to semiotics here, but to speak generally of FCN, since you seemed to be having some difficulty with the concept. If you experience further difficulty, I recommend Raju's article on the FCN. (Google.) But if you meant in the OP, the answer is still no, though I can see vaguely what you're getting at. I would need a better grasp on Firstness to tell how closely the two are connected.

…any First is what it is without respect to anything else, so it definitely is. Doesn't that contradict the idea of being "neither A, nor not-A," or am I misunderstanding?

But what you say "it definitely is," you are speaking through Thirdness, so you have not let the implementation of the FCN take full effect.

Eh, I think my understanding of the categories is good, though by no means perfect. How concise are you thinking, exactly?

Depends. How would you fare if your prof asked you to write a page and a half to two pages on the subject? Are you capable of that kind of concision?

[royinpink]

Actually, I meant in the OP, but I might check out that article tomorrow. I was just wondering how you saw these expressions of "presemiotic reality" to be connected, and that was my guess.

Well, yes, I'm speaking through Thirdness, but I'm speaking of something that isn't apprehended through Thirdness. Unless you're attaching more significance to "definitely" than I intended, as I didn't mean to suggest a First wasn't vague, only that it was not accurately described by "not-A", unless, again, I misunderstand the FCN. This could probably be solved by me actually reading the article--but only after I sleep, because right now, I am braindead.

Oh, a page or two would be excellent. Usually it's like, 'Get the Peirce done with as quickly as possible and don't introduce anything that isn't essential to understanding what you'll use it to analyze,' and it pains me. I hardly get to spend any time on the categories, when I think that's most essential to getting like, every single other trichotomy in Peirce's semiotic. Augh.

um, case in point

[royinpink]

er...I meant the part about being "neither A ...," but since it's not not-A too, what I actually wrote makes no sense.