Semiotic systems

MARIO BUNGE

Introduction

A semiotic system is, of course, a system composed of signs that signify

something to someone. This definition looks obvious, but it becomes prob-
lematic no sooner we are asked to elucidate its key terms: 'system', 'sign',
and 'signification*. In this chapter I will attempt to characterize them, as
well as to show the advantages that derive from regarding languages as
semiotic systems on a par with, though of course very different from,
natural systems such as bodily organs and social ones such as linguistic
communities.

1. System

Three of the more common definitions of a system found in the systems

theory literature are the following:
Dl A system is a set or collection of items that behaves as a whole.
D2 A system is a structured set or collection.
D3 A system is a binary relation on a set of items of some kind, such as
the input-output pairs in a black box.
Neither of these definitions is suitable for scientific purposes. Dl is
defective because (a) it does not point to the feature that makes a collection
behave as a unit, and (b) it identifies 'set' with 'collection* - a mistake be-
cause, whereas the composition of the former is fixed once and for all, that
of a collection or aggregate may change over time. D2, while not wrong, is
incomplete, for failing to specify the system structure. And D3 is flawed
because it only holds for a black box, which is the coarsest representation
of a complex thing, and moreover one assuming that the system only
changes in response to external stimuli, while actually the internal forces
are at least just as important.
Semiotic systems 339

parts of a dismantled machine, a clan whose members have migrated to the

four corners of the world.

2. Kinds of system

We shall distinguish die following basic kinds of system:

1 Natural, such as an atom, the solar system, an organism, or a nervous
system.
2 Social, such as a school or a linguistic community.
3 Technical, such as a machine or a TV network.
4 Conceptual, such as a hypothetico-deductive system (theory) and a
legal code.
5 Semiotic, such as a language and a blueprint for a building.
Note the following points. First, this typology presupposes a certain on-
tology (Bunge 1977, 1979). It has no place in alternative ontologies. For
example, it is just as unacceptable to idealism (in particular Platonism) as to
vulgar materialism (in particular physicalism).
Second, the above is not a partition, let alone a classification, because
(a) most social systems are artificial as well as social: think of schools, hos-
pitals, banks, or armies; (b) some social systems, such as farms, do not
contain only people but also machines, animals, and plants; (c) all semiotic
systems, even the natural languages, are artifacts, and some of them, such
as scientific formulas and diagrams, express conceptual systems; and (d) all
modern social systems involve the use of semiotic systems. Still, the above
typology does represent in a rough manner salient objective features of the
systems that compose the world.
Quick (and therefore vulnerable) definitions of the five above concepts
follow.
D5 A natural system is one all whose components, and the bonds
among them, belong to nature (i.e., are not man-made).
D6 A social system is one some of whose components are conspecifie
animals and others are artifacts (inanimate like tools, or living like domestic
animals).
D7 A technical system is one constructed by people with the help of
technical knowledge.
D8 A conceptual system is one composed of concepts.
340 Mario Bunge

D9 A semiotic system is one composed of signs.

Finally we introduce
D10 An artificial system is one some of whose components are made.
Obviously, the class of artificial systems equals the union of technical,
conceptual and semiotic systems, as well as the social organizations set up
deliberately, such as schools, business firms, and states. All languages are
artificial for being made. The difference between 'natural* languages, such
as English, and 'artificial languages', such as predicate logic (when used as
a language, not as a calculus), is that the latter are designed instead of 'gro-
wing1 more or less spontaneously.

3. Conceptual system

Recall D8: A conceptual system is one composed of concepts. The sim-

plest of all conceptual systems are propositions, such as 'Humans are so-
ciable*. For purposes of analysis it is convenient to formalize this particular
proposition to read: 'For all x, if jc is a human, then jc is sociable', or '(Wr)
(Hx =* Sx)' for short. The components of this system are the logical con-
cepts *for all', 'if-then', and the blank JT, and the extralogical predicates 'is
human* and 'is sociable*.
Thus the composition of a proposition is the set of concepts ocearring in
it. The structure of a proposition is its logical form, best displayed with the
help of predicate logic. And the environment of a proposition is the more or
less heterogeneous and untidy set of propositions that are or may be logi-
cally related to the given proposition. Two of the members of the environ-
ment of the above example are 'All humans are animals' and 'Sociability is
necessary for welfare'. Without such an environment the given proposition
would not be such, for it would be devoid of sense. Indeed, the sentence
designating (or expressing) a proposition would be incomprehensible in
isolation.
Since propositions are systems, systems of propositions, such as sys-
tems of equations and hypothetico-deductive systems, are supersystems,
i.e., systems composed of subsystems. Nor are these the only conceptual
systems. We may distinguish at least two further types of conceptual sys-
tem: the context and the classification.
A context is a set P of (at least two) propositions together with their do-
Semiotic systems 341

main D (or universe of discourse). I.e., C = <P. D>, where D = Set of refe-
rents of the Ps. Example: any set of propositions about verb-object-subject
orders. P and D must be kept separate (though related) because one and the
same set P of (formal) propositions may be assigned now one reference
class, now another. A context is a system proper only if its component pro-
positions have at least one common referent, for in this case they arc rela-
ted by the equivalence relation of having a nonempty reference class in
common. This, then, is the structure of a context. (More precisely, if P
(Pi* P* •••' Pf —) and Ufa) ~" A» then D equals the union of the Df and
the common referents of the Ps are in the intersection of the Dr R is of
course the reference function, that maps propositions into their reference
classes.) As for the environment of a context, it may be taken as the union
of the environments of all the propositions in the context.
Finally, a classification of a given domain D of items may be charac-
terized as a partition of D together with the set of relations among the sub-
classes of D resulting from the partition. For example, the natural languages
can be divided, with respect to the verb-object-subject order, into six clas-
ses: VOS, VSO, OSV, OVS, SVO, and SOV. (Empirical investigationmay
show that one of these classes is empty. This poses an intriguing problem to
historical linguists, sociolinguists and psycholinguists, but cannot be count-
ed against the partition itself.)
So much for conceptual systems. Let us now take a look at their percep-
tible 'embodiments* (pardon the Platonic idiom) or representations, namely
semiotic systems.

4. Semiotic system

The basic unit of a semiotic system is of course the artificial sign. 'Natural
signs', such as dark clouds, and 'social signs', such as winks, are such only
by way of hypothesis. That is, they are not signs proper but rather per-
ceptible indicators of imperceptible things, properties or events. Hence they
are non-significant, and therefore talk of their "meaning" is at best meta-
phorical, at worst plainly wrong. In particular, it is mistaken to think of so-
cial life as a text or "like a text", just because people "interpret" social
behavior, i.e., make hypotheses concerning its intention or goal. Shorter:
social hermeneutic is basically flawed for confusing hypothesis with
342 Mario Bunge

interpretation. (More in Bunge 1996.)

An artificial sign may be characterized as a sign produced or used to
either designate a concept, such as that of matter, or denote a nonconcep-
tual item, such as an individual material thing or another sign. We may call
them designating and denoting signs respectively. Example of a desig-
nating sign: a numeral (which designates or names a number). Example of a
denoting sign: a proper name. (For details see Bunge 1974a.)
The relations of designation (sign-concept) and denotation (sign-thing)
can combine with the relation of reference (or aboutness), as in the fol-
lowing diagram:

Designation / \ Denotation

Concept ^ Signified
Reference

Signs arc perceptible entities, not abstract ones like concepts and propo-
sitions: think of readable sentences, visible drawings, audible words, or
gestures. However, only iconic (or representational) signs, such as most
road signs, are directly interpretable. The non-iconic signs, i.e., the sym-
bols, cannot be read without an accompanying, albeit often tacit code.
Think of the letters of the alphabet and the words they compose, in contrast
to the hieroglyphs. Or think of maps, circuit diagrams, organigrams, or even
architectural blueprints.
Symbols can be read only with the help of conventions such as 'Letter
S -* Sibilant sound1, 'Blue patch -» Water body1, 'Serrated line — Ohmic
resistance1, '$ —* dollars', and Money -* commodities1. In other words,
whereas nonsymbolic signs are purely material artifacts, symbols are ma-
terial artifacts together with (explicit or tacit) designation rules.
Note that the designating-denoting and the symbol-nonsymbol splittings
do not coincide because, whereas some symbols stand for concepts, others
Semiotic systems 343

don't. Thus while the numerals '5', and 'V1 designate the number five, which
is a pure concept, the sign '$5* denotes a concrete thing, namely a five dol-
lar bank note (or cheque or money order) or its equivalent in other cur-
rencies, or in commodities.
Note, incidentally, that I am proposing a definition of the concept of
money, which so far has eluded economists, namely this: 'Money is a sym-
bol for commodities'. In other words, money is a semiotic item. Hence
monetary systems, such as the European Monetary System that is being
hatched at the time of writing, is a semiotic system. However, it is not a
language: all languages are semiotic systems, but the converse is false.
The time has come to propose a more detailed definition than D9 of the
concept of a semiotic system introduced in Sect. 2. Here it is.
Dl 1 A semiotic system is a system 5 such that
C(s) = A collection of signs,
E(s) = A culture,
S(s) = Syntactic, semantic, phonological and pragmatic (social) re-
lations.
The first component of this triple (composition) hardly needs eluci-
dation. The second (environment) only serves as a reminder that semiotic
systems do not exist in a vacuum and, moreover, that some signs stand for
natural or social items. As for the structure of a semiotic system, the key re-
lations in it are those of signification, or sign-signified relations: see Figure
1. There are two such relations, according as the object signified is material
or conceptual.
If the sign denotes an actual or conceivable concrete thing, such as a
table or another sign, then it signifies the item it points to, but lacks a mean-
ing. If, by contrast, a sign designates a construct, as in "numeral — num-
ber", then it has a meaning proper.
In my semantics it is stipulated that in the latter case the meaning of a
sign is the ordered pair <sense, reference^ where both members of this
couple are defined exactly elsewhere (Bunge 1974b). If the construct in
question is defined, then its sense is the set of its definers. If it pertains to a
theory, its sense is the set of implying and implied constructs. (That is, S(c)
= {x e C\x => x V c =* x}.) As for the referents of a construct, they are the
object(s) it is about. Thus, the referents of "Aphasiology studies linguistic
disorders" are aphasiology and the set of linguistic disorders.
The objects referred to by a construct may be concrete or abstract, ac-
344 Mario Bunge

tual or potential, possible or impossible. Consequently, to say that a con-

struct (or the sign that designates it) is non-referring, just because its re-
ferent is nonexistent, betrays ignorance of the role of hypothesis in scien-
tific research. Sometimes explorers of the real world start their journey by
hypothesizing things or events for which they have no evidence: the aim of
the research may be to produce evidence for or against the actual existence
of such items. In sum, although all signs are real, not all of them are realis-
tic: some of them stand for (either conceptually or materially) impossible
items.
Since names have referents but no senses, they are meaningless. Hence,
all the philosophical essays on the meanings of names are wrong-headed.
For the same reason actions can have no meanings - pace Weber and the
hcnneneutic school in social studies. What actions do have, when delib-
erate, is intentions or goals. Signs are meaningful just in case they stand for
constructs. If they don't, they are at best signifying, at worst non-signifying.

5. Language as a semiotic system

A language, whether natural (historical), artificial (designed), or mixed, is

made up of artificial (or conventional) signs. (A language which, like
French, is partly regulated by an academy and a literary elite, can be said to
be half-natural and half-artificial.) Now, we all know that stray signs are
nonsignificant. Therefore, when in doubt about the signification of a sign,
we place it in some context: i.e., we attempt to discover or conjecture the
system of signs from which it may have been drawn. We always do so
when trying to disambiguate an ambiguous expression.
For instance, in one context the word 'fly* will designate an insect, in
another the action of piloting a plane. A funnier example is this: Charles
Peirce, the great American philosopher and founder of semiotics, wrote in
1893 a letter to Paul Cams containing the following sentence: "The pest of
religion is emphasising two penny ha'penny differences. That is what you
put all your strength into". Did Peirce really intend to say 'pest', or rather
'best1, 'rest1, 'nest1, or 'zest'? We do not know yet for sure but, from context,
it would appear that Peirce meant 'rest1 (Eccles 1995: 4). Indeed, he was
trying to make the point that "The essence of true religion involves catholi-
city [ecumenism, universality]", whence interdenominational disputes are
Semiotic systems 345

puny. The moral is clear a language is a system, so that no sign signifies

(i.e., is a sign proper) unless it is embedded in a semiotic system. (Inciden-
tally, this is not to be mistaken for Derrida's infamous dogma that there is
nothing outside texts.)
The thesis that a language is a system is hardly new. In fact, it had been
proposed by Franz Bopp as far back as in 1816, and had been 'in the air1
when Saussure adopted it and worked it out in his famous Cours of 1916
(Koerner 1973: 2.2.4). However, at the time it was not clear whether a lan-
guage had to be conceived of as a system of signs or as a system of re-
lations. And in any case the very idea of a system was fuzzy: so much so
that it was often equated with that of an organism - as befits the holistic (or
organicist) world view dominant in the place and time of birth of linguistics
as a separate discipline.
I submit that every language L, whether natural or designed, is a sem-
iotic system with
composition of L = the vocabulary of L;
environment of L = the collection of natural and social (in particular
cultural) items referred to by expressions in L;
structure of L = the grammar of L.
Grammar is here construed in the broad sense, i.e., as composed of syn-
tax, semantics, and phonology. The syntax of L plus the logical relations
among the concepts designated by the signs of L is the internal structure (or
endostructure) of L. (The former is a linguistic category, while the latter is
logical, and thus independent of the particular linguistic wrapping.) And the
exostructure of L is the collection of relations that bind the signs of L with
the (natural, social and cultural) world, in particular the speaker and his in-
terlocutor. The relations of designation, denotation (or reference), speaking,
and hearing belong in the exostructure of a language: they relate signs to
concepts and concrete things. The exostructure of a language is the bridge
between the language and the world. It is what makes language a means of
communication - on which more anon. (See Bunge 1974a and Dillinger
1990 for formal definitions of a language.)
As defined above, languages - unlike individual signs - are not real, con-
crete or material systems. What are real are language users and the social
systems (linguistic communities) they constitute. (The same holds for all
semiotic systems.) Consequently languages do not evolve by themselves.
Hence there are no linguistic evolutionary forces. Only concrete things,
346 Mario Bunge

such as speakers and linguistic communities, can evolve. And, of course, as

they evolve, they modify, invent or jettison linguistic expressions. The his-
tory of mathematics is parallel: Mathematicians do come up with new
mathematical ideas, which are adopted or rejected by the mathematical
community, but mathematics does not evolve by itself.
If we are interested in the dynamics of semi otic change we must look at
communication systems, in particular linguistic communities.

6. Communication system

Communication engineers, ethologists, sociolinguists and others study, de-

sign, maintain or repair communication systems, such as TV networks, In-
ternet, and linguistic communities.
A communication system may be characterized as a concrete (material)
system composed of animals of the same or different species, as well as
nonliving things, in some (natural or social) environment, and whose struc-
ture includes signals of one or more kinds - visual, acoustic, electro-
magnetic, chemical, etc.
Signals are processes in concrete systems, such as organisms and so*
cieties. But not every signal does in fact signify something. For example,
Heidegger's famous sentences "Die Sprache spricht", "Die Welt weltet" and
"Die Werte gelten" are just as meaningless as Chomsky's famous sentence
"Colourless green ideas sleep furiously".
(Incidentally, these examples suggest that Whorf and Sapir were wrong
in stating that every language has a conceptual content, whence it in-
fluences the way its speakers think. They also refute Heidegger's cognate
contention, that ancient Greek and modern German are the only languages
suitable for metaphysics. The fact that one can express meaningless as well
as meaningful sentences in any given language shows that language is a
neutral tool for communicating and thinking. And this suffices to justify
drawing a sharp distinction between scmiotic and conceptual systems. If no
such distinction existed, it would be impossible to express alternative ideas,
much less mutually incompatible ones, in the same language.)
The linguistic community is of course the unit of study of the socio-
linguist. The latter, unlike the general grammarian, is not interested in lan-
guage as an abstract object but as a means of communication among peo-
Scmiotic systems 347

pie, whether contemporaries or not. Moreover, he may not confine his in-
terest to language proper, but may also be interested in other means of
communication, such as body language. In other words, sociolinguists deal
with semiotic systems embedded in social systems. If preferred, they study
the uses that flesh-and-bone people make of semiotic systems.
The study of a linguistic community over time is expected to yield not
only descriptions and rules but also laws and explanations of linguistic
changes. Now, an explanation proper (unlike a mere subsumption under a
generalization) invokes a mechanism. In the case of linguistic changes the
mechanism is psychosocial: even if started by an individual, it becomes a
linguistic change only if it is adopted by an entire culture or at least sub-
culture. And presumably it is socially condoned for being generally regard-
ed (rightly or wrongly) as convenient. For example, the sound III is slowly
being replaced by /d/ in American English, modern Greek, and other lan-
guages, presumably because of ease of delivery and thus communication.
By contrast subjunctives are disappearing from English for a different rea-
son, perhaps because of the increase in permissiveness and the massifica-
tion of culture, both of which impoverish language in some respect while
enriching it in others.
In addition to such spontaneous changes there are, from time to time,
linguistic decrees such as those issued by governments or academics. Good
examples are the linguistic "cleansing" operations of the German language
conducted first by the Nazi regime - which, among other things, eliminated
all the non-Germanic words - and after the war by the authorities in the two
German nations - with the result that the west and the east German vocab-
ularies were far from identical. The only point in recalling these cases is to
emphasize the idea that languages, unlike linguistic communities, do not
evolve by themselves. Hence the patterns of language evolution must be
sought in the speakers and their societies.

Conclusion

This chapter boils down to the simple thesis that languages are semiotic
systems, which in turn are systems of signs employed primarily for purpo-
ses of communication. The accent here is on the concept of a system, which
is of course the central referent of any systemic Weltanschauung. And the
348 Mario Bunge

nucleus of any such global view is the hypothesis that everything is either a
system or a component of one. This hypothesis is an alternative to both on-
tological atomism (everything is either an atom or a collection of atoms of
some kind or other) and ontological holism or collectivism (everything is an
opaque whole). Systemism has the virtue that it stresses wholeness (and the
concomitant emergence) without surrendering analysis. It has the virtue that
it stresses system! city or wholeness without surrendering analysis. If prefer-
red, the systemic view has the virtue of stressing analysis without rejecting
emergence (and the concomitant systemicity). A second advantage of the
systemic view is that it invites looking for connections where none are ap-
parent at first sight. A third is that the systemic approach can be success-
fully employed in all disciplines, from physics and social science to linguis-
tics and mathematics. It is thus, along with logic, mathematics, and the
scientific method, a potent science unifier.

I thank Professors G. Altmann and R. Kdhler for their critical remarks,

and Professor Mike Dillinger for his many questions, suggestions and criti-
cisms of various kinds over the past fifteen years. And I acknowledge the
support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Cana-
da.

References

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Bunge, Mario (1974b), Meaning and truth. Dordrecht, Boston: Reidel.
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Bunge, Mario (1979), A world of systems. Dordrecht, Boston: Reidel.
Bunge, Mario (1996), Finding philosophy in social science. New Haven
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Dillinger, Mike (1990), "On the concept of a language11. In: Weingartner,
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Eccles, Beth (1995), "Note on 'pest of religion1". In: Peirce Project News-
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Scmiotic systems 349

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