November 8th to 11th, 2004

Tiago da Costa e Silva
lesingedeplanete@hotmail.com
PUC - SP - Brazil

THE ADMIRABLE DESIGN - A STUDY ON PEIRCEAN AESTHETIC SIGN

ABSTRACT
This work suggests a study, in a more specific dimension, of the aesthetic sign and its semiotical functioning using the theoretical background provided by some of Charles Sanders Peirce's concepts. To unveil the windings of the logical-formal functioning of that semiosis, i. e., the action of a sign being interpreted by another sign - which is, in this case, an aesthetic sign - we should also verify the main characteristics of peircean esthetics, the relation between esthetics and semiotics and also the relations with peircean pragmatism, since that this sign will be considered in a process of signification. Esthetics is the first of the normative sciences, which studies what ought to be the greatest ideal that should guide the human conduct toward the growth of concrete reasonableness. It has two aspects. The first aspect comprises two levels: in the first we find the theory of deliberated habits of feeling. The second level, less abstract than the former, studies the phenomena in their firstness, the production and reception of the aesthetic 'objects'. The second aspect was never formulated by Peirce himself, and it is a part of his theory, to wit, esthetics by the light of semiotics, which has to be constructed.
The signic articulation implied in the production and the reception of aesthetic objects finds in the General Theory of Signs a sort of sophisticated basis to understand this meaning process. Taking into account that the final interpretant of an iconic sign is an aesthetic sign, it becomes possible to draw a sort of cartography of the pragmatic orientation to which that kind of sign conducts.

KEYWORDS: Semiotics; Peircean Esthetics; Semeiosis; Aesthetic Sign; Pragmatism.

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