Indexicality

From an orthodox Peircean point of view, indexicality is simply that property which makes something which is a sign into an index. However, by a slight shift of emphasis, which has at least some justification in Peirce’s work, it could be conceived as a property which, when added to the sign function, creates an index, but which, in addition, may have other parts to play in the constitution of meaning. That might account for the ambiguities of the Peircean notion, as well as for some of the uses to which it has been put subsequently.

Given the long period through which Peirce’s thinking evolved, and the state in which it came down to the public, it is not surprising that indexicality, like so many Peircean notions, should be so variously, and probably inconsistently, defined, and that many of the examples given hardly fit in with the definitions (cf. Goudge 1965). Indexicality, in any case, pertains to the general category of Secondness, which means it concerns two items and/or the relation between them. The sign being a Third, there is every reason to think that it cannot be constituted by indexicality alone. Perhaps Peirce is really considering "potential sign-vehicles" in order to investigate their "capacity to serve as signs" (Bruss 1978:87). More substantial arguments for this may be derived from a consideration of the Peircean concept of "ground", which will perhaps be useful for understanding the nature of indexicality, although it seems to disappear in later texts.

In one of his well-known definitions of the sign, or rather the sign-vehicle, Peirce (2:228) describes it as something which "stands for that object not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I sometimes called the ground of the representation". According to one of his commentators, Greenlee (1975:64), the ground is that aspect of the referent which is referred to by the expression, for instance, the direction of the wind, which is the only property of the referential object "the wind" of which the weathercock informs us. On the other hand, Savan (1976:10) considers the ground to consist of the features picked out from the thing serving as expression, which, to extend Greenlee’s example, would include those properties of the weathercock permitting it to react to the wind, not, for instance, its having the characteristic shape of a cock made out of iron and being placed on a church steeple. In one passage, however, Peirce himself identifies "ground" with "abstraction" exemplifying it with the blackness of two black things (1.293). That, of course, would be an iconical ground; an indexical ground, in a parallel fashion, would then be whatever it is that connects the properties of the weathercock as a physical thing to the direction in which the wind is blowing. If so, the ground is really a principle of relevance, or, as a Saussurean would say, the "form", connecting expression and content (cf. Sonesson 1989a:205ff).

Generally put, an indexical ground, or indexicality, would then involve two "things" that are apt to enter, in the capacity of being its expression and content ("representamen" and "object" in Peircean parlance), into a semiotic relation forming an indexical sign, due to a set of properties which are intrinsic to the relationship between them, such as it is independently of the sign relation. This kind of ground, which is a relation, is best conceived in opposition to an iconic ground, which consists of a set of two classes of properties ascribed to two different "things", which are taken to possess the properties in question independently, not only of the sign relation, but of each other, although, when considered from a particular point of view, these two sets of properties will appear to be identical or similar to each other. This is the sense in which indexicality is Secondness, and iconicity Firstness.

Such a view of indexicality as the one reconstructed above best fits in with the most general formulations given by Peirce, according to which it depends on there being a "real connection", an "existential relation", a "dynamical (including spatial) connection" and even, in one of its many conceivable senses, a "physical connection" between the items involved (Peirce 1.558; 1.196; 2:305; 3.361; 8.335). From this point, it seem natural to go on to argue that indexicality is involved with "spatiotemporal location" (Burks 1949:683ff), which underlies the "indices" of such logicians as Bar-Hillel and Montague, the "egocentric particulars" of Russell and the "shifters" of Jespersen and Jakobson (cf. index). In fact, however, as Savan (1976:25ff) observes, location in time and space will only result, to the extent that some system of co-ordinates has been conveyed by other types of signs – or, as we would add, can be presupposed by the ongoing practice of the ordinary world of our experience.

More generally, many of the examples adduced by Peirce would justify us in going along with Jakobson (1979), when he claims that indexicality is based on "real contiguity", and is connected with the syntagmatic axis of language, and the rhetorical figures of metonymy. To Jakobson, however, metonymy actually involves, not only the relation of contiguity of traditional rhetoric, but also that of part to whole, known in rhetoric as synecdoche. This distinction may be reestablished inside the category of indexicality (cf. Nöth 1975:20f), and could be described more generally in terms of contiguity and factorality (cf. Sonesson 1989a:40ff).

There is, however, another series of definitions which suggest that indexicality is, is some way, dependant on there being a relation of causality between the expression and content of the potential sign: that is, the index supposedly "denotes by virtue of being really affected by that object" (2.248). Apart from this, Peirce also makes a number of other claims about indices, many of which are repeated by Dubois (1983: 48f, 60ff) when trying to demonstrate that photographs are indices: that they refer to unique, singular objects (2.283); that they testify to the existence of its object (2.316); and that they show up the object without asserting anything about it (3.361); and that they point, by "blind compulsion" to the object of reference (2.306).

Although the definition by causality is probably the most commonly quoted of all the definitions Peirce offers of indexicality, it has come in for serious criticism. Some commentators would reject the relation between causality and indexicality altogether, while others would see it as merely coincidental. Burks (1949:649ff) takes Peirce to task for confusing the semiotical relation with mere causality, when treating, for instance, the weathercock, which is causally affected by the wind, as an instance of indexical signs: it is not clear, however, why causality should preclude indexicality, since the fact of the wind causing the weathercock to turn must be seen be the observer to be a contiguity in order for it to receive an interpretation.

More to the point, Goudge (1965:55) claims that not all examples of indexical signs given be Peirce are susceptible of receiving a causal explanation: the Pole Star, for instance, may be an index of the north celestial pole, but it is in no way caused by that astronomical location. Nor is a personal pronoun, or even a pointing finger, actually caused by the person or thing for which it stands; and if they may be said to motivate it, then this is also true of all other signs. Moreover, if could be added that even some cases which are often taken to confirm the causal explanation are actually doubtful: the causal agent may not be that which is signified, or may not signify in the same respect in which it is the cause. Of all the innumerable causes that have to concur in order for a rap on the door to occur at a particular moment, the door and the material of which it is made, and a particular person and his moving hand may seem to be the most important. However, if, at this moment, no person in particular is expected, the sign will only carry some very general meaning such as "there is somebody (probably a human being) outside the door who wants me to open it and let him in". Nor the particular person, nor his hand or the door, which are the causal agencies, are here parts of the meaning of the sign (Sonesson 1989a:39).

The idea that indices must point to their object by "blind compulsion" could be taken as a special case of causality, this time applied to the interpreter, and thus more properly described as motivation. Greenlee (1973:86) believes this to constitute a contradiction on the part of Peirce, since the interpreting mind is on the level of Thirdness, and thus lies outside the definition of indices, which derives from Secondness. It seems, however, that the contradiction, if there is one, should be located at another point, for already the "immediate object" must (perhaps contrary to the "dynamical object") be a mental unit. There is certainly an extremely Pickwickian sense in which all indices force us to attend to their objects, but in that sense the observation applies to all signs, and even to other kinds of meaning (cf. index).

According to Peirce (2.306), all indices refer to an singular instance, not to some general category. There are objections to this generalisation, however. From the size of an imprint left on the ground it may be possible for the interpreter to determine that the animal which has passed by is a horse, rather than a donkey, but normally there would be nothing in the expression of this index itself permitting him to determine the identity of the horse in question, although, if he knows that there is only one horse and one donkey inside the fence, he can draw a plausible conclusion as to which individual animal is involved. It might be argued, of course, that in any case, only one, particular, animal left the imprint; but the case is quite similar to the knock at the door, where, although a particular person must be doing the knocking, the knock itself merely means "there is someone on the door", unless we possess some additional information. The same argument may be applied to the photograph, in particular to the photogram, in which the referent would not normally be recognisable (cf. Sonesson 1989b:59ff).

Goudge (1965: 60f) also argues against this generalisation, quoting the case in which a demonstrative pronoun ("that") refers to Newton’s First Law, which as such, is not a singularity. Outside the linguistic domain, other interesting examples can be found. According to Peirce, the rolling gait of a man is an index of his being a sailor: but being a sailor is a social role, not a singularity. More importantly, however, the gait is part of a social habitus defining this role, which makes it into a part of a whole (a factorality). But if the relationship of a property to that of which it is a part is indexical, then it is reasonable to think that indexicality will also account for the relation between an item and the class of which it is a member. Such examples are apparently not among those mentioned by Peirce, but they are often cited by later semioticians: thus, for instance, if a pretzel is an index of a bakery, than that must be in virtue of its being a member of the class of products sold in the bakery. A class is of course not a singular object, but it may be considered a collection of objects. Often, however, such a class is itself determined by abstract properties. A tailor’s swatch, for instance, is a sign of a class of cloth having the same quality and pattern, but not the same shape or size. Some samples, for instance colour samples, may even be indices of abstract properties themselves (Sonesson 1989a:43ff, 137ff; 1989b: 60f).

In order to consider whether indices demonstrates the existence of their object, it might be necessary first to discuss the meaning of existence (cf. Goudge 1965:58ff). However, if existence is taken to imply the physical occurrence in the ordinary world of our experience, it does not seem to apply to all indices, not, for instance, to the cases considered above, in connection with singularity. A person having the rolling gait of a sailor may, in fact, not be a sailor; and the pretzel hang out above the bakery (admittedly an icon of an index) is still to be seen when the bakery is closed, and no bakery products are for sale. Plausible indices of a unicorn may be produced using a set of horseshoes and a bull’s horn, and do not testify to the existence of unicorns. A faked photograph of a unicorn, or whatever, may be assembled, using pieces of real photographs, processing them in a computer, or even creating them entirely by means of a computer program. Of course, the latter pictures are no photographs, and so no indices, but there is no way we can discover that from looking at them (cf. Sonesson 1989b:61f). For all practical purposes, then, indices cannot testify to the existence of their objects.

As discussed above, indexicality emerges as a potential sign, or, better, as a particular kind of ground characterising indexical signs, but which may also be found outside signs. Perception would seem to be profused with indexicality. Indeed, proximity is a basic factor of perception according to Gestalt psychology, and is also one of the relationships included in topological space perception. The relation of part to whole is fundamental to Gestalt relations themselves. All indexical relations involve either contiguity or factorality. Those indexicalities which are not as yet signs, being based on items which are not situated on different levels of directness or thematisation, or not clearly differentiated, may be described as contexts (or ‘pairings’, in Husserl’s sense). Any experience of two elements being related by proximity, conceived as a primordial perceptual fact, may be considered an actual perceptual context involving contiguity. A actual perceptual context involving factorality is any experience of something as being a part of a whole, or as being a whole having parts (cf. Sonesson 1989a,I.2.5).

When only one of the items is directly given, and the other precedes it in time, or follows it, we may speak of an abductive context (protention and retention, respectively). The term abduction is employed here in Peirce's sense, to signify a general rule or regularity which is taken for granted and which links one singular fact with another. All experience taking place in time is of this kind, for instance our expectancy, when seeing the wood-cutter with the axe raised over his head, that on the following moment, he is going to hit the piece of wood (contiguity protention), and on the moment just preceding, he lifted the axe to its present position (contiguity retention). Abductive contexts involving factorality would be, using some Peircean examples, the gait of the sailor, the symptom as part of the disease, part and whole in a picture, the partly destroyed Minoan fresco, a jig-saw puzzle, a piece of torn paper (the last three examples combine factorality and contiguity). We may use the term proto-index for an indexicality which is only momentarily a sign, as would be the "tableau vivant" of the wood-cutter, the photographic pose (which is a limitation in time), that what is seen in the view-finder (with spatial limits), and indeed many of the examples given above, to the extent that the flow of indexicalities is momentarily halted. The archaeologist’s art, from this point of view, would consist in transforming indexicalities of decayed cultures into proto-indices accessible to us.

Bibliography:

See also:

Icon, Iconicity, Index, Metonymy, Photography,