Are there in the specialized lexicons more technical definitions of this category and of the corresponding term? Alas. One of the most pathetic moments in the history of philosophical terminology is when the col-laborators of the Dictionnaire de philosophie of Lalande (1926) gather to discuss the definition of /symbol/. This page of a ‘technical’ lexicon is pure Ionesco.
After a first definition, according to which a symbol is something rep-resenting something else by virtue of an analogical correspondence (for example, the sceptre, symbol of regality —where it is not clear where the analogy lies, because this is a paramount case of metonymic continguity), a second definition is proposed, namely, that symbols con-cern a continued system of terms, each of which represent an element of another system. It is a good definition for the Morse code; unfortu-nately, the following definition speaks of a system of uninterrupted metaphors, and the Morse code seems hardly definable as a metaphorical system. At this point, Lalande adds that a symbol is also a “formulary of orthodoxy” and quotes the Credo.
A discussion follows: Delacroix insists on the analogy; Lalande asserts to have received by O. Karmin the pro-posal of defining as a symbol every conventional representation; Brunschvicq speaks of an “internal” representational power and men-tions the archetypical circular image of the serpent biting its own tail; van Biéma reminds the party that the fish was the symbol of Christ only for acronymic reasons; Lalande wonders how a piece of paper can be-come the symbol for a given amount of gold, while a mathematician speaks of symbols for the signs of the square root; Delacroix is caught by the suspicion that there is no relation between the sign for square root and the fox as a symbol for cunning; someone else distinguishes be-tween intellectual and emotional symbols, and the entry fortunately stops at this point. The effort of Lalande has not been fruitless; it has suggested that a symbol can be everything and nothing. What a shame.
There are undoubtedly among all the definitions above some family resemblances. But family resemblances have a curious property (see, for instance, Bambrough 1961). Let us consider three concepts A, B, and С analyzable in terms of component properties a . . . g (Figure 4.1). It is clear that every concept possesses some of the properties of the others, but not all of them. But let us now broaden the series according to the same criterion (Figure 4.2).
A B C
abcde b с d e f с а е f g
FIGURE 4.1
A B O D E F
abcde b с d e f с d e fgd e f g h e f g h i f g h i
FIGURE 4.2
At the end no common property will unite A with F, but one; they belong to the same network of family resemblance. . . . When speaking apropos of the concept of sign, it seems that it is pos-sible to outline a unique definition that can take into account the various senses attributed to this expression, thus establishing a proper, abstract· object for a general semiotics. On the contrary, it seems that, when fac, ing the various occurrences of a term such as symbol, such an univocity is impossible.
Symbol is not an expression of everyday language. A word such as sign occurs in many ready-made syntagms, and, when one is unable to give a univocal definition of the isolated term, one is still able to give a certain interpretation of these syntagms. It is, on the contrary, the pseudo-everyday language of the press or of literary criticism that says that cer-tain merchandises are the symbol of the productivity of a given country, that Marilyn Monroe was a sex symbol, that the terrorists attempted to assassinate the American ambassador in Rome for symbolic reasons, that a certain word, description, or episode has to be read symbolically. A common speaker would have some difficulty in explaining the ‘right’, sense of these and of other similar expressions.
In his exhaustive survey of all the possible uses of symbol, Firth (1973) remarks that this term is used in the place oisign when there is a certain ineffectuality: a ‘symbolic’ gesture does not attempt to get immediate concrete effects. He notices that there is a web of contrasting relation-ships, from concrete to abstract (fox for cunning), from abstract to con-crete (logical symbols), of vague metaphors (darkness for mystery); at its first level a symbol can also be conventional (the keys of Saint Peter for the power of the church), but, as soon as the symbol is considered in transparence, one finds in it new and less conventional meanings (since it is unclear what the gesture of Jesus, when he gives the keys to Peter, means exactly —moreover, why Jesus does give the keys, not materially, but ‘symbolically’).
At the end of his survey, Firth shows a propensity for a provisional and ‘pragmatic’ definition: “In the interpretation of a symbol the conditions of its presentation are such that the interpreter ordinarily has much scope for exercising his own judgement. . . . Hence one way of distinguishing broadly between signal and symbol may be to class as symbols those presentations where there is much greater lack of fit—even perhaps , intentionally —in the attribution of the fabricator and interpreter (1973:66—67). A reasonable conclusion, stressing the vagueness of meaning and the gap between the intentions of the sender and the con-clusions of the addressee. However, we cannot ignore that other theories provide different and far more contrasting definitions.
Thus, on the provisional basis of Firth’s suggestion, we shall try three complementary critical moves:
(a) We must first isolate these cases in which /symbol/ is plainly equiva-lent to «sign» as defined above in chapter one. This first decision is
certainly a terminologically biased one. It would not be forbidden to decide that it is better to call symbols what we have called signs, there-fore considering signs a subclass of symbols. Why decide that signs will be a genus of which symbols (if any) are a species? There is, however, à reason for our choice: there are many people who call symbols what we call signs, but fewer people who call signs what other people call sym-bols. It seems, in other words, that, in the couple sign/symbol, only the second term is the marked one; if there are theories where symbol is un-marked, there are no theories where sign is marked).
(b) Provided that sign expresses a genus, we shall then isolate many species of it that do not display the properties that, according to Firth, we have tentatively assigned to the symbolic experience.
(c) At this point we shall look for a ‘hard core’ sense of symbol, that is, for a specific semantico-pragmatic phenomenon that we decide to label as symbolic mode.
The diagram in Figure 4.3 tries thus to outline the series of semiotic phenomena labeled as symbolic by many theories and that in the follow-ing sections (4.1 — 4.3) will be excluded from the rank of symbols. We shall see that many of them can provide polysemous interpretations, but that these interpretations are always controlled by certain rules (be they lexical, rhetorical, and so on). Once having eliminated all these improper senses, we shall be in the position to give a survey of many instances of a properly called symbolic mode (see 4.4) as well as to provide a tentative description of the textual strategies implemented in order to produce interpretations in the symbolic mode (see 4.5).
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- Sign production
as a general semiotic phenomenon - Expressions produced by ratio facilis
- Expressions produced
by ratio difficilis
2.1. Correlated to their content by
meaning
2.2. Conveying indirectly à second
meaning on
3.1. Conveying ‘literally’ their
meaning
3.2. Conveying ‘figurative’
meanings on the basis of
3.3. Aesthetic inventions
postulates and conveying directly their
‘literal’ meaning
the basis of contextual inferences
rhetorical rules
3.2.1. Oneiric 3.2.2. Metaphors images and other
tropes
FIGURE 4.3
There are, first of all, theories that identify the symbolic with semiotic activity in its entirety. In these perspectives symbolic activity is that by which man organizes his own experience into a system of contents con-veyed by an expression system. The symbolic is the activity by which experience is not only coordinated but also communicated.
Goux (1973) has shown that such a notion of symbolic activity under-lied Marx’s theory, thus permitting the dialectic between structures and superstructures (see also Rossi-Landi 1974). Semiotic and symbolic ac-tivities are identical in Levi-Strauss structuralism: culture is an ensemble of “symbolic systems” such as language, marriage rules, economical re-lationships, art, science, and religion (1950). The possibility of the mutual transformation among structures is permitted by the existence of a more profound symbolic ability of the human mind, which organizes the whole of our experience according to the same modalities.
The symbolic and the semiotic also coincide in Lacan’s thought. The registers of the psychoanalytic field are the imagtnaryf the real, and the symbolic. The imaginary is characterized by the relation between an image and a similar object, but the similarity of which Lacan speaks is not the one of so-called iconic signs; it is a phenomenon that takes place within the very perceptual mechanism.
Men experience a mere relation-ship of similarity (an imaginary one) in the mirror stage, in the erotic dual relationship, in many cases of isomorphism. In “Seminar 1” (1953), Lacan considers these images that in catoptrics are called ‘real’ images, produced by curved mirrors (as opposed to the ‘virtual’ images of the plane mirrors) and that appear and disappear according to the position of the looking subject. This physical experience is used as an allegory of the constitution of the psychic subject, which is produced as subjective self-identity only by the phenomenon of the symbolic. The subject is an effect
