https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9794-132X
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ABSTRACT
In the panorama of gesture theories, the contribution of relational sociology based on critical realism is underdeveloped. This contribution seeks to fill the deficit by considering Giovanni Maddalena's theory on the ‘complete gesture’. On the one hand, this theory is appreciated as a significant step forward from classical pragmatism. On the other hand, since theories based essentially on phenomenology and semiotics are at risk of nominalism, if we want to understand the gesture from a critical realistic perspective, we need to complement the theory of gesture with a relational social ontology. This means that the theory of the gesture as action (unit act) must be placed within an ontological and epistemological framework, in which Peirce’s triangle is related to the latent value of the real as indicated by the sign. A relational alternative to Peirce's semiotic triangle is presented here with the aim of connecting the sign of the gesture to the underlying reality.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In my discussion of Maddalena's perspective, I will refer in particular to Husserl's phenomenology even if Maddalena's thought is not directly influenced by this perspective. I therefore offer my own interpretation of the relevance of Husserl's phenomenology, being aware that the distance between Peircean and Husserlian phenomenologies is a matter of disagreement in philosophical debates.
2 According to relational sociology, a relationship, when it is properly significant, is not a simple symbolic reference (refero), but is an ‘emergent’ (a sui generis reality) that is generated by the fact that the symbolic reference becomes a bonding structure (religo) between the related terms, so that the combination of refero and religo originates a Third entity. The Third is an entity in itself, which is not the sum of the contributions given by the terms it connects, but is a different order of reality, the relational order of reality (see Donati, Citation2021a, pp. 29–33).
3 ‘The fact that meaningful intention is unified with intuition in the modality of filling, gives the object that manifests itself in intuition, when we are primarily directed to it, the character of the known’ (Husserl, Citation2005, vol. II, VI §8, p. 334).
4 ‘Semiotic scaffolding can be seen as enabling processes of sign action unfolding at several levels of organization, focusing energy flow and agency of the system or subsystem upon a constrained repertoire of possibilities, thus guiding the system’s behaviour to follow a more definite sequence of events’ (quotation from Claus Emmeche, Citation2015, p. 275 who refers to the works of J. Hoffmeyer).
5 ‘Any gesture—a cool greeting, an appreciative laugh, the apology for an outburst—is measured against a prior sense of what is reasonably owed another, given the sort of bond involved.’ (Hochschild, Citation1979, p. 568).
6 On the figure of the 'Third' - excluded by Luhmann (tertium non datur), and instead included (tertium datur) for relational sociology – see Pyyhtinen (Citation2010).
7 As an anonymous reviewer pointed out to me, ‘Peirce's struggled all of his life against nominalism; he considered anti-nominalism to be the pivotal aspect of his philosophy. Nonetheless, most Peircean scholars acknowledge that Peirce's realism was mainly concerned with avoiding what he meant by nominalism, namely the Kantian division between noumena and phenomena, reality and knowledge. At the same time, Peirce's semiotic understanding of dynamic mediation between the two opened up to the possibility of infinite semiosis. Not Peirce's inclination to nominalism, but this apparent clash between objectivism and constructivism seems at stake in Maddalena's book.’ while I agree with this suggestion, going beyond the treatment of Maddalena and his intentions, I try to show why and how Peirce offers us an insufficient perspective to clarify the mediation between reality and knowledge due to a deficient conception of the relationship between them.
8 I am aware there is a serious problem about the "true meaning" of pragmatism, and what the "true" reading of Peirce, or Mead, is. The literature on these topics is abundant, especially on Peirce's triangle, and its intriguing theory of signs that cannot be reduced to three types of them. I apologize if I have to omit this discussion due to lack of space.
9 According to Hegel (Citation1997), due to the excess of meaning over the sign expression in the symbol, what seems to be missing is the adequacy of, and the conformity between, sign and meaning, which are only found in classical art.
10 Charles Peirce, ‘How to Make Our Ideas Clear’, in The Popular Science Monthly, vol. 12, 1878, pp. 286-302, in CP 5.400 (Italian translation in Peirce, Citation2003, p. 383).
11 Here, I refer to the concept of value as Collier (Citation1999) understands it.
12 The distinction between signs and symbols is often not clear. In the culture of the English-speaking world, they are very often the same thing. I believe, however, that a symbol is a special sign of a transcendental character.
13 I refer to the previous figure 3.
14 On the concept of meta-reality, see Bhaskar (Citation2012).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Pierpaolo Donati
Pierpaolo Donati is Alma Mater Professor (PAM) of Sociology at the University of Bologna, Dept. of Political and Social Sciences, and former President of the Italian Sociological Association. Address: Via del Piombo 4, 40125, Bologna, Italy.