American three terms and European two terms: Gendlin’s view on sign or symbol

In Gendlin’s philosophical writings, the semiotic terms “signifier” and “signified” are sometimes used:

The concept of doubling lets us think differently and in a better way about aboutness—that supposed gap between symbols and what they are said to be “about.” We can surpass the supposition of two separate realms, signifier and signified, with all the puzzles that that brings, as if we needed a separate access to what is represented, to check the representation. (Gendlin, 1991, p. 126)

What lets symbols be “about” things? We are told about “signifiers and the signified”—but the signifiers float. The old terms about language and signifying do not internally explain themselves, nor do they relate to living bodies. Even our little primitive model with its few terms is already further along than the usual model. (Gendlin, 1997/2018, p. 18)

Looking at the discussions above, it does not appear that much positive can be said about this pair of terms. His frustration is discreetly described in one note of Chapter IV-B of “A Process Model.” In the note, the genealogies of the American three terms and the European two terms are mentioned:

We need to retrieve and revise the way our American Pragmatists employed three terms. Currently in Europe it seems there can only be two terms, signifier and signified. (Gendlin, 1997/2018, p. 264)

First, the genealogy of the three terms can be traced back to the American pragmatists C. S. Peirce and C. W. Morris:

... by “semiosis” I mean ... an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a coöperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs. (Peirce, 1934, p. 332 [CP 5, §484])

A sign, or Representamen, is a First which stands in such a genuine triadic relation to a Second, called its Object, as to be capable of determining a Third, called its Interpretant, to assume the same triadic relation to its Object in which it stand itself to the same Object. The triadic relation is genuine, that is its three members are bound together by it in a way that does not consist in any complexus of dyadic relations. That is the reason the Interpretant, or Third, cannot stand in a mere dyadic relation to the Object, but must stand in such a relation to it as the Representamen itself does. (Peirce, 1932, p. 156 [CP 2, §274])

Symbols have three types of relation: to a person or persons, to other symbols, and to objects; meaning has three corresponding dimensions or meanings, namely the biological aspect (meaning as expectation), the formalist aspect (meaning as that expressible in a particular speech), and the empirical aspect (meaning as functional substitutability for objects). (Morris, 1936, pp. 135–6)

The process in which something functions as a sign may be called semiosis. This process, in a tradition which goes back to the Greeks, has commonly been regarded as involving three (or four) factors: that which acts as a sign, that which the sign refers to, and that effect on some interpreter in virtue of which the thing in question is a sign to that interpreter. These three components in semiosis may be called, respectively, the sign vehicle, the designatum, and the interpretant; the interpreter may be included as a fourth factor. (Morris, 1938, p. 3)

Note that although not a pragmatist, the American philosopher Susanne Langer also employed three terms:

The logical relation between a sign [signal] and its object is a very simple one: they are associated, somehow, to form a pair; that is to say, they stand in a one-to-one correlation. To each sign there corresponds one definite item which is its object, the thing (or event, or condition) signified. All the rest of that important function, signification, involves the third term, the subject, which uses the pair of items... (Langer, 1942/1957, p. 57)

Second, the genealogy of the two terms can be traced back to the Swiss linguist F. de Saussure:

The linguistic sign is then a two-sided psychological entity... The two elements are intimately united, and each recalls the other. ... I propose to retain the word sign [signe] to designate the whole and to replace concept and sound-image respectively by signified [signifié] and signifier [signifiant]; the last two terms have the advantage of indicating the opposition that separates them from each other and from the whole of which they are parts. (Saussure, 1959, pp. 66–7; cf. 1916/1931, p. 99)

Ultimately, Gendlin seems to have been more satisfied with the three-term usage. Perhaps this is because the existence of an organism interpreting signs was essential in his philosophy.

References

Gendlin, E. T. (1991). Thinking beyond patterns: body, language and situations. In B. den Ouden, & M. Moen (Eds.), The Presence of Feeling in Thought (pp. 21–151). Peter Lang.

Gendlin, E.T. (1997/2018). A process model. Northwestern University Press.

Morris, C. W. (1936). The concept of meaning in pragmatism and logical positivism. In Actes du huitième Congrès international de philosophie à Prague 2-7 septembre 1934 (pp. 130-38). Comité d'organisation du congrès.

Morris, C. W. (1938). Foundations of the theory of signs (International encyclopedia of unified science, Vol. 1(2). University of Chicago Press.

Peirce, C.S. (1932). Elements of logic (Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 2 [Abbreviated as CP 2]). Harvard University Press.

Peirce, C.S. (1934). Pragmatism and pragmaticism (Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 5 [Abbreviated as CP 5]). Harvard University Press.

Saussure, F. (1916/1931). Cours de linguistique générale (3e éd). Payot.

Saussure, F. (1959). Course in general linguistics. Philosophical Library.