• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.152
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• pp.59-79
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• 2019

The main purpose of this paper is to critically examine the intractable problems of Peirce's notion of 'symbol' as a higher and perfect mode of sign, and present a more appropriate account of the higher status of symbol from an experientialist perspective. Peirce distinguished between icon, index, and symbol, and suggested symbol to be a higher mode of sign, in that it additionally requires "interpretation." Within Peirce's picture, the matter of interpretation is to be explained in terms of "interpretant," while icon or index are not. However, Peirce's conception of "interpretant" itself remains fraught with intractable opacities, thereby leaving the nature of symbol in a misty conundrum. Drawing largely on the experientialist account of the nature and structure of symbolic experience, I try to explicate the complexity of symbol in terms of "the symbolic mapping." According to experientialism, our experience consists of two levels, i.e., physical and symbolic. Physical experience can be extended to symbolic level largely by means of "symbolic mapping," and yet is strongly constrained by physical experience. Symbolic mapping is the way in which we map part of certain physical experience onto some other area, thereby understanding the other area in terms of the mapped part of the physical experience. According to this account, all the signs, icon, index, and symbol a la Peirce, are constructed by way of symbolic mapping. While icon and index are constructed by mapping physical level experience onto some signifier(i.e. Peirce's "representamen"), symbol is constructed by mapping abstract level experience onto some signifier. Considering the experientialist account that abstract level of experience is constructed by way of symbolic mapping of physical level of experience, the symbolic mapping of abstract level of experience onto some other area is a secondary one. Thus, symbol, being constructed by way of secondary or more times mapping, becomes a higher level sign. This analysis is based on the idea that explaining the nature of sign is a matter of explaining that symbolic experience, leaving behind Peirce's realist conception of sign as a matter of an event or state of affairs out there. In conclusion, I suggest that this analysis will open up new possibilities for a more appropriate account of the nature of signs, beyond Peirce's complicated riddles.