The Semiosis of Angels

The Thomist 68 (2004): 205-58 THE SEMIOSIS OF ANGELS JOHN DEELY University ofSt. Thomas Houston, Texas I. STATING THE QUESTION Semiosis is the action ofsigns whereby, through the unification of three elements under a single relation, that one of the three which stands in the foreground as representing brings about the effect distinctive of signs, namely, renvoi, which is for one thing so to stand for another that that other is made manifest to or for yet another still. The sign-vehicle, the foreground representative element or representamen, achieves this effect actually when the semiosis is completed, that is to say, when the semiosis achieves its "proper significate outcome" of including in the very single relation ofsign-vehicle to objectsignified an interpretant here and now. The effect can, however, be achieved virtually when the semiosis but determines the specific possibility of bringing about a proper interpretant in future circumstances. The interpretant, famously, "need not be mental"; that is to say, the interpretant need not be an interpreter. But in zoosemiosis and anthroposemiosis interpreters, that is to say, cognitive organisms acting as such, are normally involved. Indeed, in the case of anthroposemiosis, we find verified an intellectual component which precisely raises semiosis above the level ofperceived objects as sensibly perceived. The perceived objects common to humans and other animals thus become intellectually perceived as well, but only by the human animals. It is this further dimension added to sense perception that constitutes the possibility of realizing the 205 206 JOHN DEELY fact that what signs strictly consist in are triadic relations which, as relations, can never be perceived, though they can be understood . At the foundation of this "intellectual semiosis" stands language, in its contrast to linguistic communication, as Thomas Sebeok best pointed out near the end of the last century.1 But this intellectual semiosis proves in its turn to have a prelinguistic foundation precisely in the perceptual semiosis common to all animal organisms, which involves sensations and the interactions of brute secondness whence human understanding derives the materials from which it forms even its species-specifically distinctive representation of objects as involving more than their relation to us within experience and perception. Language may be biologically undetermined, but the zoosemiosis upon which it depends for the very materials it forms in its own way and fashions intellectually2 is most definitely not biologically undetermined. Indeed, it is unthinkable apart from the world of bodies. The question arises, could an intellectual semiosis be possible that did not arise out of and have constantly at its disposal a perceptual base of cognitive materials with which to work? Since discourse, commonly speaking, is precisely this interaction between sense and understanding, we are asking whether there even can be an intellectual semiosis which is not discursive. Or, to put it perhaps more plainly, can semiosis extend even beyond the world of matter and motion, to achieve its effect and proper work also in a realm of pure spirits bodiless from the start? Can we 1 See Thomas A. Sebeok, "The Evolution of Communication and the Origin ofLanguage," lecture of June 3 in the June 1-3 ISISSS '84 Colloquium on "Phylogeny and Ontogeny of Communication Systems." Published under the title "Communication, Language, and Speech. Evolutionary Considerations", in Thomas Sebeok, I Think I Am a Verb: More Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs (New York: Plenum Press, 1986), 10-16. See further idem, "Language: How Primary a Modeling System?", in Semiotics 1987, ed. John Deely (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1988), 15-27; "Toward a Natural History of Language," Semiotica 65 (1987): 343-58; and Global Semiotics (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001). 2 Cf. Thomas A. Sebeok, "Zoosemiotics: At the Intersection of Nature and Culture," in The Tell-Tale Sign, ed. T. A. Sebeok (Llsse, The Netherlands: Peter de Ridder Press, 1975), 85-95. See also idem, "Semiosis in Nature and Culture," in The Sign & Its Masters, Sources in Semiotics 8 (Lanham, Md.: University Press ofAmerica, 1989), 3-26; and "'Talking' with Animals: Zoosemiotics Explained," Animals 111, no. 6(December1978): 20-23, 38. THE SEMIOSIS OF ANGELS 207 even conceive of a cognitive being that has no body, and yet is capable of...