Iconicity as a key epistemic source of change in the self

Abstract

In this text, the phenomenological categorial analysis at the basis of Peircean semiotic is used to explore the working of iconic signs and their relationship to the self as an ongoing interpretative process as well as to the manifold of identities that human beings adopt in the different circumstances they go through. A film was chosen to describe the relevance of iconicity for the evolving self-interpretative process that serves to adapt us to life changes. The plot of The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen, von Donnersmarck 2006) brings out in exemplary fashion the epistemic function of iconicity to account for spontaneity as the origin of the new and unexpected in the lifeworld. Peirce’s triadic analysis of the imagination elucidates how change is introduced even in a most authoritarian sociopolitical system, whose main goal is to avoid the irruption of the freewheeling possibilism of iconicity.

Hypoiconicity as Intentionality

“…To some degree, this criticism also affects much of the literature focusing on Peirce's semiotic taxonomy [19,[23][24][25][26][27]. Nonetheless, beyond classificatory concerns, there is by now also a substantial body of literature addressing hypoiconicity in art [20,21,[28][29][30]), on embodiment [31][32][33], in relation to iconicity and metaphor [20,21,[34][35][36]), on diagrammatic reasoning as such [37][38][39]), on architecture [40], as well as cartooning [41][42][43]. Against this background, the paper is designed to offer a fresh look at the place of hypoiconicity in Peirce's broader theme of iconicity from the angle of Husserlian phenomenology.…”

Politics of visual discourse in China: the corruption cartoon

“…Those which partake the simple qualities, or First Firstnesses, are images; those which represent the relations, mainly dyadic, or so regraded, of the parts of one thing by analogous relations in their own parts, are diagrams; those which represent the representative character of a representamen by representing a parallelism in something else, are metaphors. (CP 2.276) In the literature, Peirce's notion of hypoiconicity has been employed with reference to art (Bisanz, 2015;Jappy, 2011;Lefebvre, 2007;Morris, 2013), to diagrammatic reasoning (Bellucci, 2013;Farias and Queiroz, 2006;Stjernfelt, 2000), sign taxonomy (Freadman, 2004;Santaella, 1995), embodiment (Andacht, 2003(Andacht, , 2013Ransdell, 1979), metaphor (Jappy, 1996) as an iconic 'substratum' (Short, 2007: 216), Chinese architecture (Chu, 2018) and cartoons (Chu, 2020).…”

“…In the literature, Peirce’s notion of hypoiconicity has been employed with reference to art (Bisanz, 2015; Jappy, 2011; Lefebvre, 2007; Morris, 2013), to diagrammatic reasoning (Bellucci, 2013; Farias and Queiroz, 2006; Stjernfelt, 2000), sign taxonomy (Freadman, 2004; Santaella, 1995), embodiment (Andacht, 2003, 2013; Ransdell, 1979), metaphor (Jappy, 1996) as an iconic ‘substratum’ (Short, 2007: 216), Chinese architecture (Chu, 2018) and cartoons (Chu, 2020).…”