November 8th to 11th, 2004

Marcel Pauluk
marcelpauluk@ufpr.br
UFPR - Brazil

ASPECTUAL SURVEY: A STRATEGY FOR THE APPLICATION OF PEIRCE'S 10-FOLD CLASSIFICATION OF SIGNS, AND ITS COMPUTATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION

ABSTRACT
SignType - Assisted Semiotic Typifier for Phenomenological Data (CNPq 403569/2003-6) is a computational application under development at the Interaction Animation Lab (LAI-UFPR). Its main objectives are scientific capacitation of scholars and researchers from every field in the use of the semiotic methodology of Peircean sign classification, and conversion of phenomenological input into semiotic output (types of sign), maximizing the heuristic, enlightening and critiquing potentials of applied semiotics. The application's basic structure is going to be based on the aspectual survey strategy (developed by the author in 2002), which involve four stages: 1. Phenomenological observation (CP 5.41-42); 2. Identification of the most relevant 3-thrichotomic aspects; 3. Employment of the cenopythagorean restrictions (CP 8.328); 4. Pragmaticist analysis of the results (CP 8.185, 191). While first and last stages strongly rely on user's hermeneutical abilities (and at this point a didactic wizard will be of great value), the middle stages work basically executing or suspending rules drew from the philosophic presuppositions of Charles S. Peirce's semiotics. SignType is now at the end of its first phase (conceptualization), thus the main purpose of this article is going to be the analysis of each stage of the aspectual survey strategy, pointing out possible difficulties and obstacles in its implementation.

KEYWORDS: Semiotics; Charles S. Peirce; Phenomenology; Pragmaticism; Types of Sign; SignType.

Center for Pragmatism Studies
Philosophy Graduate Program
Departament of Philosophy
Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo - Brazil