Narrative as Dialectic Abduction (Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, 64) 3031150929, 9783031150920

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Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics

Donna E. West

Narrative as Dialectic Abduction

Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics Volume 64

Editor-in-Chief Lorenzo Magnani, Department of Humanities, Philosophy Section, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy Editorial Board Atocha Aliseda, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico, Mexico Giuseppe Longo, CNRS - Ecole Normale Supérieure, Centre Cavailles, Paris, France Chris Sinha, School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, China Paul Thagard, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada John Woods, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics (SAPERE) publishes new developments and advances in all the fields of philosophy, epistemology, and ethics, bringing them together with a cluster of scientific disciplines and technological outcomes: ranging from computer science to life sciences, from economics, law, and education to engineering, logic, and mathematics, from medicine to physics, human sciences, and politics. The series aims at covering all the challenging philosophical and ethical themes of contemporary society, making them appropriately applicable to contemporary theoretical and practical problems, impasses, controversies, and conflicts. Our scientific and technological era has offered “new” topics to all areas of philosophy and ethics – for instance concerning scientific rationality, creativity, human and artificial intelligence, social and folk epistemology, ordinary reasoning, cognitive niches and cultural evolution, ecological crisis, ecologically situated rationality, consciousness, freedom and responsibility, human identity and uniqueness, cooperation, altruism, intersubjectivity and empathy, spirituality, violence. The impact of such topics has been mainly undermined by contemporary cultural settings, whereas they should increase the demand of interdisciplinary applied knowledge and fresh and original understanding. In turn, traditional philosophical and ethical themes have been profoundly affected and transformed as well: they should be further examined as embedded and applied within their scientific and technological environments so to update their received and often old-fashioned disciplinary treatment and appeal. Applying philosophy individuates therefore a new research commitment for the 21st century, focused on the main problems of recent methodological, logical, epistemological, and cognitive aspects of modeling activities employed both in intellectual and scientific discovery, and in technological innovation, including the computational tools intertwined with such practices, to understand them in a wide and integrated perspective. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics means to demonstrate the contemporary practical relevance of this novel philosophical approach and thus to provide a home for monographs, lecture notes, selected contributions from specialized conferences and workshops as well as selected Ph.D. theses. The series welcomes contributions from philosophers as well as from scientists, engineers, and intellectuals interested in showing how applying philosophy can increase knowledge about our current world. Initial proposals can be sent to the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Lorenzo Magnani, [email protected]: . A short synopsis of the work or the introduction chapter . The proposed Table of Contents . The CV of the lead author(s). For more information, please contact the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected]. Indexed by SCOPUS, zbMATH, SCImago, DBLP. All books published in the series are submitted for consideration in Web of Science.

Donna E. West

Narrative as Dialectic Abduction

Donna E. West Department of Modern Languages State University of New York College at Cortland Cortland, NY, USA

ISSN 2192-6255 ISSN 2192-6263 (electronic) Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics ISBN 978-3-031-15092-0 ISBN 978-3-031-15093-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Advisory Editors

Akinori Abe, Faculty of Letters, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan Hanne Andersen, Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Otávio Bueno, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA Marcelo Dascal, Department of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Gordana Dodig Crnkovic, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden Michel Ghins, Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, L3.06.01, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Marcello Guarini, Department of Philosophy, Univeristy of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada Ricardo Gudwin, Computer Engineering and Industrial Automation, State University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil Albrecht Heeffer, Sarton Centre for the History of Science, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium Gerhard Minnameier, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany Margaret C. Morrison, Trinity College, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Yukio Ohsawa, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Sami Paavola, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, HELSINKI, Finland Woosuk Park, Humanities and Social Sciences, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea (Republic of) Luís Moniz Pereira, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, CAPARICA, Portugal Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen, Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Demetris Portides, Department of Classics and Philosophy, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus Athanassios Raftopoulos, Psychology, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

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Advisory Editors

Gerhard Schurz, Department of Philosophy, DCLPS, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Cameron Shelley, Centre for Society, Technology & Values, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada Frederik Stjernfelt, Center for Semiotics, University of Aarhus, Aarhus C, Denmark Mauricio Suárez, Logic and Philosophy of Science, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain Jeroen van den Hoven, Faculty of Technology, Policy & Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands Peter-Paul Verbeek, Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, Enschede, Overijssel, The Netherlands Mireille Hildebrandt, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Michael H. G. Hoffmann, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA Alfredo Pereira, Institute of Biosciences, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Dagmar Provijn, Centre for Logic and Philosophy, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium João Queiroz, Institute of Arts and Design, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil Colin T. Schmidt, Ensam Paris Tech & Le Mans University, Laval, France Nora Schwartz, Department of Humanities, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina Marion Vorms, Pantheon-Sorbonne, University, Paris, France Riccardo Viale, Economics, Management and Statistics, University of MilanoBicocca, Milan, Ital

Preface

The impetus for this volume germinated from a set of symposia held in the Semiotics Society of America Forum, which Myrdene Anderson and I organized over the last 4 years. The consensus of the symposia highlights how dialogic interchanges impinge upon dialectic operations. Semiotic approaches are privileged over Linguistic paradigms in that narrative is not restricted to unidirectional exchanges (as are the latter) allowing a single teller and a single listener. In view of the interplay accorded to dialogue and logical advancement intrinsic to the present approach, bi-directional inquiry (often reciprocal) defines the narrative process. As such, the present narrative model demonstrates the work of perspectival changes to introduce sometimes opposing propositions/arguments. The dialogic orientation inherent in semiotic paradigms convinces us of the need for Socratic origins underlying inferential reasoning. Sharing explanations for surprising outcomes has far-reaching benefits early on; it awakens the consciousness episodic rationality—that communicating explanations for outcomes between participants while telling narratives constitutes the most effective tool to uncover objective principles. In this way, the dialogical brings to light what otherwise might be sterile, subjective assertions. This inquiry demonstrates the privilege of Semiotic models over purely Linguistic ones, particularly featuring that of C. S. Peirce. Peirce’s semiotic model is unique; it demonstrates how exchanging different explanatory accounts activates dialectic operations—hastening the examination of truth value. The very teleology of Peirce’s semiotic fosters an explanatory component naturally flowing from dialogically presented meaning relations, orchestrated either intersubjectively, or intrasubjectively. This monograph emphasizes Peirce’s adherence to dialogic foundations for dialectic advancements. Accordingly, this account demonstrates the need for narrative paradigms early in development, and the integral support of Peirce’s semiotic to effectuate the process. It explains how Peirce’s two-sided meaning-making process is implemented when propositions/arguments surface unbidden, as well as when they emanate from external sources. Both kinds of “double consciousness” (1903: 5.53) innervate dialectic operations, eliciting plausible inferences. This monograph walks the reader along an ascending path to recognize the value of narrative genres, given their bidirectional frames in which narrators identify, describe, and vii

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Preface

explain unforeseen consequences. Attention is likewise accorded to interpretative efforts—receiving (instinctually) or consciously considering (deliberative) dialectic operations. In the end, this account brings to light the indispensability of narrative genres—their power to hasten argumentative coherence in episodic frames; it provides us a cognitive and social affordance—a living template to extract the viability of raw inferences. Cortland, NY, USA

Donna E. West

Acknowledgements

I am much indebted to the SUNY Cortland librarians who have tirelessly accessed and renewed texts from other lending facilities; their dedication to realizing my aspiration for this book is immeasurable. My indebtedness to my many assistants has no bounds. They cheerfully located and perfected citation formats and performed internet searches for relevant empirical and theoretical texts. Without their energy and foresight, this book may not have come to fruition. Especially deserving of note is Adam Ferguson, whose insight and quick humor heightened the substance of my arguments. The means to exercise Socratic methods supplied an avenue to refine my own thoughts from their embryonic state. In short, Adam’s intervention significantly enriched the book’s content and its procedural efficacy. Likewise deserving mention is Myrdene Anderson, who introduced narrative as a topic of inquiry for our jointly organized Semiotic Society of America symposia over the last several years. Her encouragement has sustained my research agenda during this monograph’s development. I remain grateful to Lorenzo Magnani, Editor in Chief of the SAPERE series, and Leontina DiCecco, my editor at Springer, not merely for their patience and helpful suggestions, but especially for their liberality in allowing me free reign to express harnessed imaginings. I am grateful to the State University of New York at Cortland administrators for granting me a sabbatical leave to complete this project, especially to Dean Bruce Mattingly and, to my Chair, Paulo Quaglio.

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Contents

1 Promoting Dialectic Processes Through Dialogic Inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Literature as Abductive Foresight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 The Robustness of Pragmatic Factors in Literary Genres . . . . . . . . 1.4 Advantages of Other Literary Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Pragmatic Determinants of Abductive (Dialectic) Reasoning . . . . . 1.6 Narrative as Facilitator of Dialectic Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7 Narrative as Mood Enhancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8 Early Narrative Use to Promote Dialectic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.9 Topics and Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 3 6 8 10 11 13 15 18

2 Theoretical Background of Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction—How Index Promotes Peirce’s Endoporeutic Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Indexical Gesture as Dialectical Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Endoporeutic Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 The Dialogic Character of Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Narrative—Sources and Defining Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Interpretants’ Reach in Narrative Schemas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 Conclusion—Reflections on Reflective Interpretants . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 Prelinguistic Developmental Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Endoporeutic Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Foundation—Index as Individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Performatives as Action Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 The Semiosis of Early Performatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41 41 42 44 47 50

21 22 23 27 30 32 36 37

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3.6 Early Performatives as Propositions/Assertions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 The Ultimate Teleology of Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54 56 62 63

4 Processing Precursors in Narrative Genres: The Case of Abductive Instinct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Relevance of Processing in Narrative Endeavors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Semiotic Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Relevance of Baddeley’s Working Memory Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Anatomy of Peircean Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Processing Percepts in the Abductive Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 The Role of Instinctual Abductions in Telling Narratives . . . . . . . . 4.8 Constraints as Meaning Enhancers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67 67 68 69 71 75 79 82 86 89 91

5 Co-attentional Considerations for Episode-Building in Narrative Construction: Working . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Development of Episodic Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 The Need for Abduction in Episode-Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 The Emergence of Episodes and Autonoesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Perspectival Diversity in Abductive Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 The Contribution of Peirce’s Ten-Fold Division of Signs . . . . . . . . 5.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93 93 94 98 101 103 104 108 109

6 Unlocking Principles of Sequence in Narrative Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Peirce’s Principle of Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 How Strands Become Effective in Narrative Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Subjunctivity in the Principle of Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Application to Narrative Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 The Element of Surprise in Narrative Exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.7 Peirce’s Categories to Facilitate the Principle of Sequence . . . . . . . 6.8 Surprise as a Catalyst to Enhance Double Consciousness . . . . . . . . 6.9 “Perceptuations” in the Narrative Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.10 The Intrusive Weight of Vividness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.11 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

113 113 114 115 117 118 121 125 127 130 135 137 138

Contents

7 Auditory Hallucinations as Internal Discourse: The Intersection Between Peirce’s Endoporeusis and Double Consciousness . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Introduction and Rationale—Privileging Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 The Unique Value of Hearing Inner Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 The Abductive Nature of Double Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Vividness Versus Feelings in Double Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 How Double Consciousness Fosters Abductive Reasoning . . . . . . . 7.6 Feeling Versus Force in the Abductive Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.7 Externisensations as Double Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.8 A Word from Experimental Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Between Two Minds: Retrospective Approaches in Narrative Profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Foundational Remarks Regarding Aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Aspect as a Measure of Seeing and Doing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 How Energetic Interpretants Feature Aspectual Changes . . . . . . . . 8.5 The Perfectivity Inherent in Energetic Interpretants . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 Retrospective Narrative Construction as Facilitator of Listener’s Abductions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7 Evidence from Children’s Narratives: Frog, Where Are You? . . . . . 8.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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141 141 142 144 145 147 148 150 152 154 155 157 157 158 164 167 169 172 177 184 186

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Chapter 1

Promoting Dialectic Processes Through Dialogic Inquiry

1.1 Introduction Evidence abounds that the humanities and social sciences are well equipped to hasten hypothesis generation; but their advantages are often underdetermined. Such may be the case consequent to the fact that their facilitative devices are not directly observable. While mathematical algorithms and scientific theorematic principles can provide structural templates to discern and record cause-effect relations, measuring and stimulating reasoning, the meanings which they convey may alone be insufficient to incite inquiry. Their adherence to a single correct response/method often stifles insight, as well as foresight. Nonetheless, the implicit meanings conveyed via literary genres (particularly narratives) can bring interpreters to a higher logical level—to assert revisionary hypotheses. In short, the abstract semantic character of mathematical expressions does not encourage revisionary reasoning, because its meanings are not specific enough to relate cause to effect, particularly within a retroductive framework (independent of whether the surprising consequence is foregrounded or backgrounded). Conversely, storylines which rely upon pragmatic skills may more effectively foster inferential reasoning, since they situationalize specific changes in states and attitudes of the characters in particular contexts—thereby encouraging foresight not insight alone. As such, interpreters look ahead to anticipate potential effects in subsequent contexts. Furthermore, while the natural sciences may supply indexical and relational information, the semantic content is often rather opaque, making it difficult to determine where to apply the algorithm. This is especially the case for less experienced interpreters, given the disconnect between knowledge of an algorithm and its appropriate use in actual problems/life events. The present inquiry argues that exposure to narratives and narrator attitudes naturally raise interpreters’ dialectic competencies, especially early in ontogeny. The claim here is that narratives are so influential to hatching novel inferences. Because narratives lay out episodic schemata, they require listeners to assume another’s role, a shift which heightens awareness from the less idiosyncratic accounts to what does, can, and what might happen to an objective other. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. E. West, Narrative as Dialectic Abduction, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7_1

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1 Promoting Dialectic Processes Through Dialogic Inquiry

1.2 Literature as Abductive Foresight In support of the foregoing, Harrowitz (1983: 194–197) identifies how literary genres provide indispensable scaffolds whereby interpreters apply general principles to single cases, percolating and managing inferential problems. The cues embedded within stories are valuable devices whereby readers/listeners explain unexpected consequences by applying unique antecedent cues. The resultant expectations/habits of belief demonstrate the birth of abductive operations, not based upon insight alone, but upon foresight—predicting the likelihood of a future repeat-outcome. Harrowitz (1983: 194) refers to the liberality of drawing foresight from literary genres as “poetic intuition.” These intuitions emanate from what Peirce terms Firstness, in that insights stem from the will (not merely intellect) of interpreters to exploit latent meanings. These novel meaning-object associations derive from cues which interpreters exploit in building episodic frames. Harrowitz tempers this literary advantage against the backdrop of mathematics as the quintessential establisher of exact measurement. In support of the advantage of literary genres, she explains how poetic intuitions flowing from literary cues are effective in infusing the irrational into the rational—freeing interpreters to conjure idiosyncratic presumptions (which might not operate without poetic cues). Absent poetic cues, interpreters may remain captive to their own subjective perceptions; or they may adhere without questioning to meanings simply from event sequencing—an indexical analysis alone which assumes meanings across happenings consequent exclusively to their precedent-subsequent status. As such, foresight from poetic intuitions is effective in replacing subjective rationality with more objective, more dialectic paradigms. The benefit is particularly obvious in stories which require a detective-like approach to interpreting causes for surprising events (see infra). Detective approaches afford interpreters the means to refine dialectic skills by assuming the character’s rather different knowledge characteristics, at once a dialogic and dialectic operation. Leaving aside one’s own knowledge base, and taking on that of the character can attune one to subtle cues which otherwise may be ignored. Assuming the other’s perspective can help to rule out causes—extracting them from other more profitable antecedents. Eliminating the immaterial factors is necessary to determining the viability of inferences, in line with Woods’ (2013: 365–370) notion of “subduence.” Although no bright line exists between the need to draw upon scientific and literary sources to generate abductions, discounting the prophet that can be gleaned from literary cues is unwise, because ignoring the latent clues short circuits inquiry into which cues qualify as distractors meriting elimination, and which pertain to the outcome and require further examination. Literary clues (which authors artfully hide in detective accounts) allow interpreters to lean upon their own powers of inquiry to propose relations between clues at early stages in story communication. Seeking out the hidden meaning of these intentionally planted clues protects interpreters against deception by red herrings/outliers—factors which may be immaterial or misperceived as having relevance in view of some impositional and rogue characteristic.

1.3 The Robustness of Pragmatic Factors in Literary Genres

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The instruments inherent in literary genres, namely, clues which are not blatant, facilitate digging below the surface to propose cause-effect relations. Despite fallibilistic tendencies, Peirce’s axiom that the truth will surface at last via flashes of insight (1903: 5.181), namely, from implicit clues, legitimizes the advantage of literary genres. Detective genres are notorious for discretely populating the story (written or spoken) with relevant and irrelevant hints to stimulate interrogative pursuits. Planting detective-based cues constitutes a modal operation; it affords performativelike effects on interpreters—tasking them to question and likewise assert the relevance and truth value of each of the author’s cues. These open opportunities to construct arguments serve as implicit performatives—promoting self-initiated (internally dialogic) searches for antecedents and rationale for their role in the crime (in the case of detective-based accounts).

1.3 The Robustness of Pragmatic Factors in Literary Genres Literary genres do not simply require interpreters to solve a single algorithm (as per mathematical genres); instead, mysteries must be resolved by working among different layers of truth measurement (often at the same time). These layers include inquiries such as: determining individual facts, and their believability. The former relies upon locutionary force, while the latter injects a modal component of illocutionary force (be it from inner self dialogue, or from another’s prodding). Both layers are critical when narrators wish to influence interpreters to settle upon certain judgments and reasons. When presenting facts, narrators influence their listeners by making specific determinations: which facts to include/omit, their relative order, and the performative status. The latter pertains to the degree of desire, on the part of the narrator, that the interpreter join in the same orientation regarding fact construal. The ultimate construal, utilizing both levels, is a compilation of meanings from distinct actors’ knowledge, together with the performative influence which both listeners and narrators produce upon each other. Performative issues are certainly not productive in mathematics or the natural sciences, since the purpose of algorithms and theorems is to establish procedures to be followed, which is intrinsically non-dialogic; whereas literary genres encourage conjectural diversity through perspectival amplification. The difference between the two genres lies in the intent of a single crafter (in the case of narration) known to the listener who intends to impose an argument upon another party, versus an unknown, objective crafter in the case of the natural sciences. Deciding how to respond to the narrator’s explicit/implicit recommendations enriches the interrelationship perceived among narrated events. As such, the performative character of narratives increases interpreters’ impetus to bind facts within the narrative—hence facilitating propositional and argumentative logic; and the decision whether to adopt the narrator’s interpretive stance is the next step.

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Further distinctions between the two genres pertain to the issue of illocutionary force, since it is a hallmark of the humanities and the social sciences, but not of the natural sciences. Such is the case given dependence of the former upon pragmatic factors. In fact, it is these pragmatic paradigms which cultivate the use of dialogic measures for dialectic purposes. Semantic/conceptual factors stripped of the pragmatic give-and-take processes intrinsic to literary genres, particularly narratorlistener paradigms, lack the impetus to assemble propositions without another’s scrutiny. Construing fact relations from a semantic vantage point alone is an incomplete operation, in that generation of propositional logic (absent pragmatic influences) remains unfacilitated by another’s promptings, and hence is not expedient. Without illocutionary force, interpreters lack the impetus for adopting different event construals—and developing other points of view is not a pressing matter. Zeman (2018: 182–184) illustrates the core purpose of pragmatic considerations in the decision whether to adopt another’s event renditions when she contends that narratives pose a more complex problem for interpretation than do simple dialogic interactions. Imposing meanings upon narratives requires more than shifting speaker’s originary propositions against the listener’s, but entails apprehending and synthesizing more than two fact scenarios whose underlying argument structure may conflict. The layers of narrative interpretation entail synthesizing the truth of distinct propositional contents with attitudinal operators, which evolves into narrator’s intent to affect interpreter’s beliefs. According to Zeman (2018: 182–184) this attitudinal conveyance gives rise to the use of modal verbs. Propositional content pertains to veridicality of the character’s intentional and knowledge states when they act, together with the narrator’s rendition and reason for influencing the interpreter’s mental state. Furthermore, when knowledge states of the same character appear to be conflictual, e.g., knowledge during and after the storied events, an additional dimension complicates the analysis. This subtlety can obscure different knowledge states in the same character, even if the two knowledge states are distant temporally, e.g., Little Red Riding Hood’s first impression (identifying the grandmother in the bed), versus her later identification that instead it was the wolf. Here, the character exhibits two states of knowledge, authorizing two conflicting propositions/arguments: the mental state of not knowing the identity of the bed’s occupant, but thereafter knowing it. Zeman (2018: 185) attributes modal shifts to Frege’s attention to the characters’ context, particularly how different contexts demonstrate the different knowledge/propositional perspectives. These different perspectives can materialize even in the same character, e.g., in the knowledge state of Little Red Riding Hood: “So what the [Little Red Riding Hood] example in the tenor of Frege shows [is[ that propositional attitudes behave like narrative structure insofar as they provide two different contexts and hence the potential of a context shift.” Zeman confounds two very disparate concepts: Frege’s “sense and reference” (Sinn und Bedeutung, 1892) and speaker context pertaining to performative usage. This mix obscures the distinction between Searle’s speech acts and mental states. Shifting contexts are better characterized as locutionary (factual event within the narrated situation) versus the illocutionary force present in the intent of speaker to change the hearer’s rendition of the

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narrated situation. The temporal and spatial and circumstance shifts further discussed in Recanati (2000) reveal a more amplified and more realistic profile of characters’ changing knowledge bases, reconciling the character’s earlier state of knowledge with what later becomes known. In other words, context shifts/textuality has the power to highlight gaps in the character’s narrated “lived experience,” particularly when the context itself is necessary to meaning-making. Recognizing implicit meanings inherent in context shifts supplies major advantages. It ensures that interpreters consider both the narrator’s state of knowledge and that of the characters, as well as gaining sensitivity to the intentionality and reference points of those holding the knowledge. This integration of perspectives to grasp truth value within the narrative depends chiefly upon synthesizing time, place, and orientation. The reconciliation results in several grammatical insights, namely, selection of grammatical operators. The narrator’s implementation of these operators indicates the amount of illocutionary force projected upon the listener: “…narrative discourse mode is constituted by a more complex configuration which is based on a distance between the illocutionary and locutionary level and, in consequence, triggers an additional intentional layer of narratorship (i.e., narrative force) as a projection of the illocutionary level” (Zeman, 2018: 175). In other words, interpreters are tasked with discerning at very least a doubled layering of locutionary facts, e.g., the objective events in the narrative, together with the illocutionary force of the narrator, e.g., how the narrator construes the narrative events versus what he wants the listener to believe and why. All of these orientations and subtle imperatives to believe in certain ways require discernment of and integration of many factors, both epistemic and deontic in nature. Likewise, in accord with Recanati’s distinction between context and circumstance shifts, interpreters must measure shifting temporal and spatial orientations of both characters and narrators, and must differentiate how the narrator’s distance from the characters’ situation colors the way in which the events are reported. Zeman determines that all of these considerations are further complicated by the prospect of making objective inferences, despite the narrator’s subjective coloring of the events and attempts to import certain belief structures. In the end, interpreters must settle upon judgments by first sifting through the events and determining their degree of plausibility (despite unconventional conduct of the characters), then establishing to what degree the narrator’s intent in communicating his complexion of the events comports with the story’s theme(s). In short, clarifying the ultimate reason for the narrator’s need to convince is paramount. The upshot for interpreters is that mimicking the assertions of the narrator may not be the best course of action, because adopting another’s argument structure, however compelling are the performatives, may either be incongruous with the interpreter’s own worldview, or may exceed the bounds of convention (scientifically or socially). Evidence from the social sciences makes obvious the need to entertain arguments which possess the promise of importing truth. Clinical accounts from patients illustrate occasions when adopting narrators’/character’s propositions/arguments might be far from the best course, given their propensity to showcase delusional/irrational beliefs. Delusional propositions/arguments surface when these patients enact/call

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up infelicitous sequences of narrated events, or when the events are invented altogether, constituting logical impossibilities. Their interpretation often derives from distorted memories/interpretations of personal experiences. These clinical sessions ultimately have an interventive purpose with a performative effects—to make obvious which habits of belief/conduct is overly disparate, and which factors are responsible for establishing delusional and infelicitous beliefs. Identifying these outliers may motivate habit-change for these patients. Hence, narratives of patients’ reactions to unexpected consequences (i.e. recognition of the infelicity of their beliefs/conduct) is sufficiently stirring to question the explanatory coherence of assumed cause to consequence. In the end, these patients reform their beliefs regarding what precipitated their delusional propositions.

1.4 Advantages of Other Literary Devices Ginzburg (1983) demonstrates how accounts from the humanities and social sciences present alternative viewpoints and suggest to interpreters hidden/less conventional antecedents for unexpected happenings. Ginzburg (1983: 81–88) argues that paintings (specifically Morelli’s methods) can reveal by implication (when incorporated into the scenes) the underlying reasons for the unexpected consequent events. The sequential features of stories need not be told; but iconic and indexical signs can tell the story by implication. To fill in some gaps in Ginzburg’s account, the diagrammatic character of indexical signs (often without linguistic signs) captures interpreters’ attention to episodic meanings, in which contiguity between events and event boundaries are made salient. These visually-based images/contours (icons, indices) provide connective templates across objects; as such, they tell a story by insinuating the relevance of events to other events (see West, 2014, 2019 for further discussion). These semiotic relations become the foundation by which inferencing is activated. In fact, they may well serve a more innervating source for identifying and explaining unexpected consequences in crime scenes, than does telling stories via the medium of words/symbols. Were detective stories to be represented by visual scenes, (e.g., Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes) seemingly hidden clues may not, as easily as do linguistic accounts, escape interpreters’ notice, since their objects need not hinge upon mention, and since iconic/indexical clues themselves have longevity. In this way, iconic and indexical signs (which characterize paintings) provide some means to separate locutionary force (spatial relations between physical objects) from illocutionary force (e.g., increasing salience via color intensity or primacy/recency in the memory stream). Affording interpreters notice of locutionary sources has a mixed effect (locutionary and illocutionary). Increasing interpreters’ focus on a state of affairs by frequent flashing of iconic/indexical episodes across the visual field highlights the truth value of the events and their characters’ situatedness. Such fosters inferences based upon the happenings themselves (with featured clues), rather than upon narrators’ renditions of them. Conversely, symbolic signs relied upon in telling stories are usually presented only once; and interpreters must reach into memory

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(provided that the scene was noticed, processed and stored). As such, memory sources are remote, and are a less reliable source to access their representations. Furthermore, although performative meanings are primarily attributed to linguistic forums, they can be present in characters’ acts within the narrated situation. Hence characters’ conduct can carry implicit performative values which may be employed in making inferential determinations. Apart from implying that the arts are conveyers of pragmatic meanings, Ginzburg (1983) alludes to literary genres in determining meanings to be drawn from pragmatic and semantic factors. He asserts that unlike the stark and pat answers which the natural sciences force interpreters to consider, stories (particularly narratives) shift responsibility to interpreters, namely, to access implied relational meanings, including the primary arguments which the teller of the account intends to convey. These underlying arguments allow interpreters to exploit subtle implicatures, such that the narrator’s reason for a string of happenings is both clarified, and becomes open to scrutiny and modification. Ginzburg’s argument reveals how listeners are advantaged by the need to simultaneously determine semantic meanings of the story’s happenings, while discerning the narrator’s intent. As such, expression via narrative genres compels interpreters to “perspectivize,” to inject more objective explanatory principles when making determinations. In this way, narrative genres host inferences which possess greater likelihood to be affirmed. In short, Ginzburg (1983: 81) convincingly argues in favor of the supreme value of literary devices over mathematical/scientific algorithms to effectuate abductive processes; he posits that they are more likely to elicit novel, explanatory inferences. Because of their means to picture when each event begins and concludes, literary genres do not relegate propositions to isolated and egocentrically oriented interpretations; rather, they awaken interpreters to the necessity of perceiving propositions as arguments, and diversifying the arguments even prior to asserting them. Ginzburg opines that it is the tacit components (less obvious features) inherent in literary/art forms that are responsible for the interpreters’ need to seek out event relations. Nonetheless, he falls short of mentioning the role of the red herring, i.e., deliberately misleading the interpreter. It is just this strategy, on the part of the story inventor which hastens the interpreter’s need to draw from other points of view—to guard against going astray. In this way, dialectical procedures (e.g., attempting to bring before the consciousness counter arguments) can be helpful to assert more objective hypotheses. Intersubjective or intrasubjective interchanges can promote revisionary abductive reasoning. The process entails determining precisely which fact is immaterial, and which has real causative merit. Introducing contradiction is a subtle instrumentation baiting the mind to determine which factors to discard as invalid possibilities. This dialectic approach is akin to Aristotle’s concept of apagoge (Prior Analytics II.25; 1901: 7.249; Florez, 2014: 267), such that to prove a claim one begins with an attempt to disprove its contradiction: “To say that apagoge takes us closer to knowledge is the same as to say that it is not a demonstrative or apodictic inference as deduction. The latter takes us to knowledge directly, whereas apagoge is not as perfect and therefore merely takes us closer to it. It is to say that its conclusion is only probable or plausible,

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not necessary or certain. …This element of Aristotle’s apagoge is clearly present in Peirce’s concept of abduction” (Florez, 2014: 267). In other words, abductive inferences for Peirce, need not qualify as accurate/true; they merely need to contain some plausibility. Inferences are not required to offer the best explanation. Given the fact that abduction need not serve as the best explanation for causal relations, it supersedes Aristotle’s apagogic paradigm. Aside from contradiction, Peirce incorporates another Aristotelian, namely, the cognitive capacity to grasp the cause. Grasping the cause entails a more profound competency to understand the link between antecedent and effect. In his Posterior Analytics, Aristotle refers to this capacity to determine the cause as “quick wit,” or “sagacity” (see Florez, 2014: 272 for further discussion). Peirce uses instinct to encapsulate the claim that the capacity to grasp causes does not reside primarily in external sources, but in internal ones. The upshot is that abductions need not depend upon the will or self-control, but upon novel germinations as the basis for dialectic connections. Here, Peirce’s notion of instinct demonstrates the prominence of insight in abductive rationality. As a sudden operation, instinct can exploit the quick wittedness made alive in unprompted forums of self-to-self dialogue.

1.5 Pragmatic Determinants of Abductive (Dialectic) Reasoning The use of dialogic (narrative) approaches to convince others of particular dialectic orientations operates chiefly through the interplay of pragmatic (cf. Grice, 1975; Searle, 1975) and to a lesser degree, semantic knowledge. Recognizing the facilitative effect wrought by the potential contrast between pragmatic meanings (what the narrator thinks and wants to have the listener believe) and the semantic meanings of character/object interactions (picked up by interpreters) is paramount. This requirement of double entendre of narrative paradigms heightens and broadens discernment of cause-effect arguments, requiring (more so than do other literary and science-based genres) the infusion of objectivity into the episodes of a single story. Interpreters must likewise simultaneously reconcile their own arguments of narrated events with the narrator’s interpretation. This operation forces listeners to focus on more discrete incidentals of the narrative, which are less obvious—for they may well supply the key to connecting consequences with antecedents. Ginzburg (1983: 81–82) features art (paintings, depictions) as another viable means to tell stories. Art can uncover cause-effect connections for interpreters; but, in this effort, attention to latent features of visual arrays is paramount: “…one should refrain from the usual concentration on the most obvious characteristics of the paintings, for these could most easily be imitated… Instead, one should concentrate on minor details, especially those least significant in the style typical of the painter’s own school: earlobes, fingernails, shapes of fingers and toes” (Ginzburg, 1983: 81–82). Concentrating upon what appear to be minor details is hastened by the need to reconstruct the narrator’s construction of

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them coupled with his intent for the listener to have a certain argumentative structure. This forced objectivity incites listeners to notice causes which otherwise may have been missed. Ginzburg applies the identical caution to interpreters of detective stories, namely, that noticing clues (less obvious suggestive facts) instrumental in solving crime cases is indispensable, e.g., Sherlock Holmes’ focus on a severed ear to determine the identity of the victim (Ginzburg, 1983: 84). Accordingly, Ginzburg claims that untaught and unarticulated principles guide interpreters to construct dialectic relations: “It’s a matter of kinds of knowledge which tend to be unspoken, whose rules…do not easily lend themselves to being formally articulated or even spoken aloud. Nobody learns how to be a connoisseur or a diagnostician simply by applying the rules. With this kind of knowledge [intuitions] there are factors in play which cannot be measured—a whiff, a glance, an intuition” (Ginzburg, 1983: 110). The subtlety of these less obvious features places increased reliance upon interpreters’ basic insight and foresight. Ginzburg’s further distinction between “high intuitions…rooted in knowledge,” and “low intuitions, …rooted in the senses” (Ginzburg, 1983: 110–111) characterizes kinds of abductive rationality, whether instinctive or self-controlled. The distinction reveals that intuitions are not restricted to theoretical efforts of rule generation (as in more conscious abductions), but have their source in practical, action-based determinations (potentially giving rise to more instinctual abductions). The integration of sensory sources in the operation of abductive rationality demonstrates reliance upon intuitions, because they require individual actors to make immediate judgments. These judgements are spontaneous, since they need to, at a glance, conjecture as to the effects of a single, surprising experience within the scheme of a narrative frame. Ginzburg explains that both kinds of intuition (High and Low) derive from “the Arabic concept of firasa,” which relies upon transcendental/mystical, as well as insight/foresight (see Ginzburg, 1983:110). As such, high intuitions are the source for discernment of deep truths, given that they afford penetrating conjectural competencies for interpreters. In contrast, low intuitions result from filtering out the effects of certain sensory experience from the effects wrought from other sensory experiences. Literary and art-based genres are particularly ripe to exact from interpreters both High and Low intuitions, given interpreters’ need to organize a parade of or barrage of events into some semblance of a story. Sequencing events is paramount to make sense of the narrative’s theme, and the narrator’s reason for telling/depicting the account. High Intuitions appear at first glance to have greater relevance than do Low Intuitions, in that they often imply extra-conceptual relevance beyond the trajectory of the narrative itself (the narrator’s intent). Low Intuitions likewise supply interpretive advantages. With the use of iconic and indexical signs, they embody how sensory cues (experienced by the characters whom interpreters observe) illustrate emotional reactions, and foreshadow certain resultative states of affairs. In other words, Low Intuitions simulate (for interpreters of narrative depictions) a feeling of self-involvement in determining novel path trajectories and goals within and across episodes. Both of these intuitions operate more effectively in literary and art genres, in that they have the power to shift interpreters’ considerations beyond formulaic

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algorithms to less conventional germinations for how events consist and how causes might depart from ordinary assumptions. The foregoing establishes the inordinate powers of literary genres to elicit abductive rationality. Accounts of fiction, or sensational/outstanding episodes detailing actual surprising events provide interpreters the impetus to search out tacit rationale to explain the consequences. In this way, stories become agents for insightful thinking— beyond simple application of formulae to solve a problem. Characters’ diverse reactions allow interpreters to be custodians of different emotions/assertions, eventually resulting in an abduction—interpreters’ own choice as to which has greatest viability. As a consequence, interpreters draw upon their own mental tools to navigate among viable orientations, reasons for actions, and causes for consequences. Ginzburg’s argument, together with the premises presented in this book illustrate the distinct advantages supplied by literary and art-based genres to present cues not simply as isolated facts, but as invitations to interpreters. These invitations provide greater confidence for interpreters to draw upon intuitions (both High and Low) to suggest potential antecedents which explain surprising consequences. In this way, narrative genres ensure increased confidence of interpreters’ proposals by operating on their own intuitions in crafting rationale for unexpected outcomes. This integral involvement of interpreters affords them the means to take on an interrogative role in the pursuit of truth value relations.

1.6 Narrative as Facilitator of Dialectic Operations Dialogic measures are undoubtedly the most effective tools to stimulate dialectic thought. The presence of “di” (two) in the former sets up an underlying potential contrast between meanings held by different parties or perspectives held by the same party. As such it is a natural conduit to introduce new hypotheses and beliefs—an operation which is principally dialectic. The search for truth (a defining attribute of dialectic) protects interpreters against accepting overly subjective or obsessive/compulsive hypotheses. The operation of dialogue to promote the truth, not argument for argument’s sake determines whether new beliefs are proffered or accepted. As such, dialogicality creates and maintains a didactic element encouraging one party to become conscious of the potential efficacy of a proposition/argument. Beyond its didactic component, dialogue supplies a space and time to analyze the efficacy of propositions/arguments across interpreters’ meaning systems; hence dialogue triggers a semiotic process by which collaboration mediates sign use upon delivery of viable meanings to the meaning system of another user. In this way, dialogic forums encourage genuine dialectic operations, especially those reasoning efforts which give rise to new beliefs consequent to insights derived from viable hypotheses. Still other characteristics of dialogue are indispensable to the logical framework of dialectic thought, namely, deictic operations. Deictic paradigms consist of semantic slots which facilitate application to different referents, such that each takes different roles at different points in the episode, e.g., agent becomes receiver and the reverse

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(see West, 2011, 2013 for further discussion). Other deictic terms likewise advance a shifting paradigm, namely, the locative contrasts “this”/“that,” and “here”/“there” (see Diessel, 1999, and Diessel, 2006). “Now,” and “there” encode similar shifts, although temporal in nature, situating listeners to the time of the events being narrated (Lyons, 1995: 303). As such, deictic meanings and expressions are integral to establishing and maintaining episodic continuity for listeners; they afford them the advantage of an active role in the discourse—making the narrative a dynamic affair. In this way, listeners can periodically have narrators clarify their arguments; and/or when listeners become speakers, they may reveal whether the narrative has affected a change in their own propositions/argument structures. The benefits of shifting speaker-listener roles within narratives are evident. Person deictics (e.g., “I” and “you”), form functional templates which inform who can experience what, and when. These deictic terms (see Levinson, 2004; Lyons, 1995: 303) have the dual purpose of codifying semantic slots, while regulating pragmatic roles. The latter function supports the flow of players in narrated events, as well as in speech events, such that characters embody possible players proceeding according to a goal. The kinds of characters filling the slots implicitly define the physical and mental abilities necessary to successfully assume the roles. Inferring what players must possess to assume participant slots is relevant both inside (character role shifts), and outside the narrative event (speaker-listener shifts). In view of the foregoing, Deictic terms serve as a conduit by which dialogic frames communicate dialectic operations, i.e., new subject-predicate affiliations. In turn, new propositions/arguments are recommended to listeners, who thereafter can reverse roles, assuming speaker’s slot. A primary consequence of this deictic process is sharing arguments (the dialogical resulting in dialectic renovations). The upshot is the dawning of new belief structures which invite logical reactivity.

1.7 Narrative as Mood Enhancer The narrator’s illocutionary force in presenting (implicitly, explicitly) the story’s theme invites interpreters to predict who and what is responsible for consequences significant to reconstruct the story’s purpose. The presence of the narrator’s perspective in the offing inserts an additional layer, a pragmatic forum to elicit listeners’ agreement or refutation regarding particular epistemic and deontic orientations (inserting a performative and hence modal impetus). Absent this dialogic forum, the exigencies of collaborative exchange to seek out the validity of arguments is likely to be thwarted. In dialogue (especially when interpreters attempt to determine the narrator’s ethical purpose), speakers expect their listeners to react to the moral and logical tenets of their propositions/arguments in a timely manner—indicating either agreement or modification. Absent any reaction, the goal for telling the story is frustrated. When narrators affect a response from listeners, dialogic interchanges are at their best; they draw interpreters away from ignorance and error by adjusting

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interpreters’ misleading assumptions regarding a particular topic. As such, the locutionary force of the characters’ plights, and the illocutionary force of the narrator diminish the influence of misleading, idiosyncratic assumptions. It is obvious that narrators’ propositions/arguments communicated in the story often advance moral directives–convincing listeners to take the same argumentative and ethical positions. Narrators draw upon listeners’ emotional, logical, and ethical determinations seeking some recognition of the efficacy of their own, or a character’s actions/beliefs. In fact, it is often the case that the underlying purpose of telling a story is to convince another (within a relatively short interval) to seriously consider adopting the proposition/argument in question because of its truth value (or not), and its agapistic effects. In this way, the narrative as a deictic system constitutes a significant force in triggering and in amplifying the logical and moral principles of fellow members of the continuum. Communicating the fate of the story’s protagonist (fortunate/unfortunate consequences encountered from implementing beliefs/actions) can advocate (implicitly/explicitly) consideration (consciously/unconsciously) of critical ethical responsibilities (see Nair, 2002: 193 for relevant background). Attempting to convince interpreters of the merits of a different argument constitutes a primary purpose of telling stories. As such narrative genres are notorious for changing the orientation/complexion/attitude of listeners toward the truth of facts or toward the arguments that underlie them. The narrator’s modal devices can hasten interpreters’ attention to logical and moral relationships across facts, hence serving a dialectic purpose. As such, narrative episodes become windows into truth claims, and into compelling children to generate rationale for binding causative event relations. More particularly, the narrative forum brings before our mind facts that we might otherwise leave to chance (if we had to experience them empirically). When left to chance, the experiences, as facts in the ontological world, may never surface (nor may a mind find an opportunity for direct encounter). Accounts told to others often augment facts, explaining some foundational actions consequent to observations; they likewise introduce facts and their consequences which listeners may never observe. In narrative, one interlocutor (the narrator) aspires to pass along an account of a set of happenings/episodes to a willing/unwilling compatriot. If the “listener” is not open to hearing the narrative, the narrator’s use of mood for commandeering the “listener” becomes critical. Even when the listening party is open to hearing the account, the narrator still must exert effort to convince the interpreter that some truth resides in the propositions and arguments in the story under consideration. Independent of the degree of willingness on the part of the listener, the narrator’s forethought is an absolute must—not merely to secure listeners’ attention, or to lay out the events in a sequence which would enhance the narrator’s performative purpose, but to excite the partner’s sensibilities to put him/herself within the narrated events. The latter entails refined affective and cognitive skills, e.g., knowledge of listeners’ experiences and knowledge base, together with knowledge of the most fitting caliber, pace, and rhythm (of events). Maintaining attention requires more than Grice’s relevance principle— the narrator must deliberately construct what Peirce refers to as demi-cadence of events (1907: MS 318: 46–47)—the ups and downs of the story. To do so, narrators

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must determine how to situate events with respect to neighboring events, and how long to hover on particular events. Likewise measuring when to pause the telling for reflective effect is an additional competency. Altering the canonical sequence of events (e.g., flashbacks) constitutes another strategy to commandeer the interest of listeners. Consequently, drawing a willing/unwilling partner “inside” the narrative, such that he/she “feels” the tenor or “demi-cadence” of events, allows listeners to “ride” precariously on the hills and valleys of the event-stream. Obviously, mood enters into how the teller convinces the hearer of the believability of his rendition. The account related by the narrator provides a recommendation/model/template for how hearers should act or believe. But the modal operators which the narrator employs may be implicit, communicated by means of emphasis/deemphasis of concepts via: stress patterns, intonational contours, or event order. Even these less explicit devices to affect listeners’ knowledge and attitudes qualify as performative, because they suggest viable courses of action/belief without outrightly expressing their intent. As such, the account implies particular assertions on the part of the narrator—the intended recommendations to the hearer. This paradigm, in turn, may shorten the interval of inference formation formulated between antecedents and their consequences because, in putting together events into a sequence, the retelling diagrams event proximities and traces their on-and-off character. By highlighting boundaries and their frequencies (perfective attributes), narratives suggest to the hearer which factors are sufficiently insistent and/or persistent to significantly influence the course of the consequence.1

1.8 Early Narrative Use to Promote Dialectic The purpose in telling narratives has particular import upon knowledge and acquisition and into developing explanatory support for argumentsa dialectic operation. Such is the case, given the nature of memory processes (see Chap. 6), and of the norms which they hold. Likewise, after cultural norms are adopted, children are often consigned to them until analytic skills are developed to evaluate whether to question the conventional belief, typically after 8;0 (Piaget, 1950/1954: 420). In any case, presumptions of what the culture deems to have caused restricts children’s openness to alternative explanations for outcomes, which may undermine children’s discernment of which consequences are surprising. The rationale is as follows. Child observers may fail to measure the weight of certain outcomes, in view of strong adherence to cultural conventions. Alternatively, children may engage in mimetic/iconic procedures, simply following the directives of others (depending upon the nature of their familiarity with the interlocutor). What is most salient, however, is children’s increasing competency to use narratives for purposes of constructing episodes and cause-effect schemata. Goldman and Varnhagen (1983) provide evidence of this trend. They report that the youngest listeners/readers (3rd grade) in their study were 1

cf. Atkins (2018: 195) for elaboration of Peirce’s concept of “insistence” and “persistence”.

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least likely to connect the three episodes of the goal-sequential stories. Goldman et al. (1984) note that these younger subjects likewise showed less developed logical skills, namely, fewer clear reasons for outcomes, e.g., why primary characters were bored, or why a character wanted a paper route. Immature moral developmental factors are thought to be responsible for this difficulty linking precedent states of affairs with consequent events. This interference between logical and moral considerations blocks generation of new arguments. According to Goldman (1985: 272), the moral implications of antecedents to outcomes do not emerge until fifth grade (at 10;0). In another study, Goldman et al. (1984) read Aesop’s fables to children of differing age groups (kindergarten through fifth grade); whereupon children were required to recall and to determine the lesson/s taught by the story. “Among older elementary children, 90% of the responses reflected some level of generalizing from the text to moral convention lessons. In contrast, this was the case for only 26% of the younger children’s responses” (Goldman (1985: 272). Although this finding reveals text-based developmental competencies, it nonetheless evidences the need for further empirical research evaluating children’s narrative skills. These findings likewise demonstrate the further need for strategies to facilitate apprehension of logical/moral effects, especially at earlier ages, e.g., consequent to goal-finding, children identify unexpected outcomes. The lack of recognition of resultative states of affairs and their explanations create constraints upon children’s means to propose argument structure, taking up the question of which factors constitute antecedents. Given this lack of logical readiness, episodic skills may experience delays. In other words, the episodic flow of the story and discernment of purpose may be short circuited by developmental constraints. These delays are likely to become prolonged if interventions are not implemented, e.g., assuming more than listener roles in the narration. Freezing deictic role-taking appears to limit emergence of interpretive skills, consequent to frequent relegation to passive, “do what I say” discourse paradigms. A semiotically based intervention to mitigate children’s more passive role in narratives entails the use of signs other than symbols, i.e., icons and indices. Presenting stories in pictorial sequences, such that scenes are depicted whose meanings imply event goals, afford children the means to assume speaker role—telling the story. This intervention can be effective; it supersedes children’s experience as agent, providing them with intermittent active and receptive speech roles. Portraying events iconically and indexically maintains children’s attention to action-based similarities inherent in distinct characters, providing the foundation to infer thematic roles then predict character’s reactivity. Utilizing Peirce’s semiotic, Stjernfelt (2014) has explained the significance of diagrams to convey meanings. He details how icons with directive force (Dicisigns) are affiliated with meanings. Stjernfelt shows how these diagrams (index-icon aggregates) are a privileged species of sign in their sufficiency (apart from linguistic signs) to imply (or be conduits for) meanings. Utilizing pictorial diagrams to invite interpretation of happenings is particularly instrumental early in ontogeny. It allows children increased opportunity to assume the role of narrator, and to craft explanations of how the depictions might unite argument structures to tell a story. This attentional process can, in turn, make salient (intermittently) the story’s

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surprising consequences and their antecedents. Findings from this semiotic intervention can reveal the age at which explanations for unexpected effects emerge. In fact, in Chap. 8 of this monograph findings from children at different ages indicate the advantage of employing this diagrammatic paradigm. Specific findings demonstrate how children (at 3;0, 4;0, 5;0, and 9;0) identify surprising outcomes. Comparisons across age are likely to reveal stark differences in frequency and kind of surprising outcomes, consequent to the signs appearing in the visual modality—narratives mobilized simply from episodic diagrams. Additionally, the frequency and quality of the children’s explanations for cause-effect relations will be examined. It is expected that comparisons between the rationale of the younger and older children will uncover notable advances in abductive rationality with age.

1.9 Topics and Purposes The present inquiry argues that the dialogic nature of story-telling raises attention to dialectic operations. In this way, narratives serve a facilitative purpose for interpreters, heightening discernment of the why, where, and what thereby affording processing of ultimate themes and purposes. Telling stories supersedes reporting events as unconnected assemblages. Instead, narratives invite interpreters to bind events into episodic constructs, thereby facilitating dialectic understanding. The present inquiry demonstrates how telling stories enhances how interpreters handle incoming memory units to favor episodic processing—in how they encode, store, and retrieve event bundles. Baddeley’s (2000, 2007) concept of the episodic buffer (see Chap. 4) is utilized to legitimize the claim that episodic processing in memory increases inferential reasoning competencies. The present claim is that inferencemaking is ultimately facilitated by providing slides of storied events, and inviting interpreters to chunk events still further—according to goal-related templates. In this way, the events become bundled with dialectic properties. As such, telling stories enshrines inferencing-making from the bottom up. Chapters 2 and 3 lay out children’s underlying memory competencies and their explanatory skills across a spectrum of ages. These chapters contend that underlying event binding is a semiotic competency, namely that Indexical Gestures constitute the foundation for abductive inferencing. Chapter 3 argues how Peirce’s Interpretant takes on performative meanings—advocating other construals of event goals. In this way, semiotic meanings serve as locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary devices informing interpreters of different propositions and advocating their truth value, even early in ontogeny. Chapter 4 demonstrates the pivotal role of C. S. Peirce’s Interpretants in attaching meaning to event schemas. It explains how his two kinds of inferences (instinctive and reflective) consolidate events into episodic frames. Accordingly, this account demonstrates how Peirce’s retroductive inferencing draws from percepts and propositional content to make cohesive event meanings. These hypotheses derive from percepts and propositions innervated by surprising consequences; and surprising consequences, in turn, constitute implied

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arguments revealing expectations of states of affairs. These surprising consequences compel internal dialogue which stimulates dialectic operations; and the dialectic operations often arise out of a spontaneous, instinctive source. In short, Chap. 4 argues that percepts and propositions from surprising consequences form the touchstone for retroductive inferencing, since they initiate determinations of which factors may have contributed to the unexpected outcome. Chapter 5 elaborates on the role of memory in advancing dialectic operations such as retroductive inferencing. The chapter discusses how episodic memory is necessary for abductive reasoning. It features findings which evidence the state of the art regarding how and when episodic thought emerges, e.g., consequent to autonoetic consciousness. In support of the developmental findings, the chapter profiles how narration which requires processing extended episodes preempts more efficient use of attentional, storage and retrieval skills. This increased event processing further facilitates dialogic and dialectic operations, e.g., identifying and shifting narrator, interpreter, character perspectives. Chapter 6 demonstrates how perspectival diversity and dialectic advances are interdependent. It explains how Peirce’s Ten-Fold Division of Signs, in which he expands his concept of Interpretant, reveals further interconnections between dialogic and dialectic operations. Chapter 6 demonstrates how Peirce’s more expanded Interpretants incorporate perlocutionary force. Perlocutionary force constitutes a dialogic operation communicated through semiotic devices whose meanings keep the sign alive. The implied meanings are perlocutionary in that they have a subjunctive effect upon the interpreter, such that they compel them to expand or contract earlier meanings/effects associated with event signs. Peirce’s “principle of sequence” in his Ten-fold Division of Signs (1908: 8.373) supplies an analogue to officiate listener meaning receptivity, especially within narrative paradigms. As such, Peirce’s principal of sequence (likewise discussed in Chap. 6) provides a logical framework— like a search engine continuing to fill signs with Emotional, Energetic, and Logical Interpretants (see 1907: MS 318, and West, 2020). This active search for logical event binding is naturally animated in narrative paradigms within which hierarchical event organization is paramount, e.g., inferring the story’s theme progression. The remainder of Chap. 6 discusses how Peirce’s categories underlie his principal of sequence, and how the categories facilitate interpretation of narrative themes. Explanation for the integral involvement of Peirce’s categories to episodic progression illustrates how Firstness as feeling supplies initial unbidden convictions, because it directs which actions are primary. Explanations for the influence of Secondness feature how surprising consequences (as external facts) launch inquiry into precedent causal factors. The chapter continues elucidating the effect of the categories, namely, how awareness of Thirdness-based fact congruities in the stream of storied paradigms culminates in notable dialectic advances. The operation which Thirdness triggers is a dialogical, reciprocal affair, in line with Peirce’s concept of “double consciousness” (1903: 5.53, 1904: 8.330). Chapter 6 takes note of the dialogic power of Peirce’s double consciousness regime to change listeners’ habits of belief/conduct (see West, 2021a). This is the case when the outer world (“non-ego”) clashes with the inner world. More often the former introduces alternative beliefs/conduct which has the

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potential to reform interpreters’ beliefs, such that new hunches emerge. The chapter then discusses the critical role of narratives in this endeavor—their energy as external devices to convey/impose arguments different from earlier held, internal assertions. The chapter then naturally elaborates on Peirce’s “perceptuation” process in which he privileges the non-ego to influence habit-change. The process of “perceptuation” process highlights the effect of external factors to effectuate new ways of explaining phenomena. It characterizes a dialogic interchange in which new arguments from outside ego resolve inquiries. Chapter 7 demonstrates how “perceptuations” can arise from within the internal mental experience of the inquirer, and still qualify as non-ego. It capitalizes on the effects of an often undetermined modality in the perlocutionary process, namely, the power of auditory hallucinations to change interpreters’ belief/conduct spectrums. These auditory hallucinations can be salient and convincing, when they depict imagined, startling outcomes. These unbidden pictures or voices emit implicit or explicit claims evoking a response; and these hallucinations often express salient consequences. These imagined voices tell interpreters extra-reality based accounts consisting of exigent outcomes. These kinds of auditory hallucinations constitute quintessential conduits for double consciousness. This is the case despite their incongruence with ordinary reality based surprising outcomes, provided that they qualify as possibilities. The perlocutionary force of these forums consists in imagined imperatives to act (or not) in the face of often fantastic happenings; and interpreters reject or accept assertions, making implicit judgments. The judgement (whether to adhere to the hallucinations’ injunction) measures its truth or falsity—illustrating its dialogic force. The chapter takes up the question of how interpreters handle auditory hallucinations (as particular external stimuli, and whether they apprehend the fallibility of the source. The chapter discusses the unique cognitive and dialectic value of hearing inner voices; it presents cases in which auditory vividness compels attention to and consideration of novel claims. The argument raises Peirce’s contrast between force versus feeling in arriving at new hunches. This question brings readers full circle to the question of which sources influence change upon unwitting listeners, i.e., whether external or internal propositions/arguments are more likely to produce habit-change (belief/action modifications). The concluding chapter (Chap. 8) reflects upon how narrators’ aspectual representations (the interplay between durative and instantaneous events) affects retrospective inferences regarding why and how characters intervene. Narrators’ use of aspectual markers has a perlocutionary effect, namely, which characters’ actions should be perceived as central to the themes and purposes. Events which are characterized as imperfective may indicate continuance in the face of a perfective, sudden happening (see Vendler, 1963, and West, 2021b for a foundation). In this way, the aspectual complexion of each event places constraints upon listeners’ dialectic matrix interpretations, vis a vis whether two events stand side-by-side as non-interacting, or whether one happening interrupts the other permanently or otherwise. The narrator’s aspectual determinations uniquely scaffold the why of the event interaction, influencing interpreters’ assertions. As such, narratives constitute unique genres to frame dialectical event relations which stimulate listeners’ abductive inferencing. Unique

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to this volume is the latter section which provides empirical evidence for how child narrators scaffold their listeners’ episodic interpretations with intermittent mention of surprising outcomes. The findings trace children’s reference to surprising consequences (with age), and use of explanations in their spontaneous narrations. What is most prominently featured in the children’s narratives is how they depict episodes retrospectively—surprising outcome to potential cause.

References Aristotle. 350 BCE. Prior Analytics. Trans. A. J. Jenkinson. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/ Aristotle/prior.html Atkins, R. K. (2018). Charles S. Peirce’s phenomenology: Analysis and consciousness. Oxford University Press. Baddeley, A. (2000). The episodic buffer: a new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(11), 417–423. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01538-2. Baddeley, A. (2007). Working memory, thought, and action. Oxford University Press. Diessel, H. (1999). Demonstratives: Form, function, and grammaticalization. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Diessel, H. (2006). Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar. Cognitive Linguistics, 17(4), 463–489. Florez, J. A. (2014). Peirce’s theory of the origin of abduction in Aristotle. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 50(2), 265–280. Frege, G. (1892). Über Sinn und Bedeutung. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Philosophische Kritik, 100, 25–50. Ginzburg, C. (1983). Morelli, Freud, and Sherlock Holmes: Clues and scientific method. In U. Eco & T. Sebeok (Eds.), The sign of three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (pp. 81–118). Indiana University Press. Goldman, S., & Varnhagen, C. (1983). Comprehension of stories with no-obstacle and obstacle endings. Child Development, 980–992. Goldman, S. (1985). Inferential reasoning in and about narrative texts. In A. Graesser & J. Black (Eds.), The psychology of questions (pp. 247–277). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Goldman, S., Reyes, M., & Varnhagen, C. (1984). Understanding fables in first and second languages. NABE Journal, 8(2), 35–66. Grice, H. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). Academic Press. Harrowitz, N. (1983). The body of the detective model: Charles S. Peirce and Edgar Allan Poe. In U. Eco & T. Sebeok (Eds.), The sign of three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (pp. 179–197). Indiana University Press. Levinson, S. C. (2004). Deixis and pragmatics. In Horn & G. Ward (Eds.), The handbook of pragmatics (97–121). Lyons, J. (1995). Linguistic semantics: An introduction. Cambridge University Press. Nair, R. B. (2002). Narrative gravity: Conversation, cognition, culture. Routledge. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1866–1913). The collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce Vols. I–VI, ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931–1935); Vols. VII–VIII, ed. Arthur Burks (ibid., 1958). Cited with the CP convention of volume and paragraph number CP X.yyy. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1866–1913). Unpublished manuscripts are dated according to the Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce, ed. Richard Robin (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967), Cited according to the convention of the Peirce Edition Project, using the numeral “0” as a place holder. Cited as MS or R.

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Piaget, J. (1950/1954). The construction of reality in the child (Trans. Margaret Cook). Basic Books. Recanati, F. (2000). Oratio Obliqua-Oratio Recta: An Essay on Metarepresentation. MIT Press. Searle, J. (1975). The logical status of fictional discourse. New Literary History, 6(2), 319–332. Stjernfelt, F. (2014). Natural propositions: The actuality of Peirce’s doctrine of Dicisigns. Docent Press. Vendler, Z. (1963). Linguistics in philosophy. Cornell University Press. West, D. (2011). Deixis as a symbolic phenomenon. Linguistik Online, 50(6), 89–100. West, D. (2013). Deictic imaginings: Semiosis at work and at play. Springer-Verlag. West, D. (2014). Perspective-switching as event affordance: The ontogeny of abductive reasoning. Cognitive Semiotics, 7(2), 149–175. West, D. (2019). Semiotic determinants in episode-building: Beyond autonoetic consciousness. Filozofia i Nauka (philosophy and Science), 7(1), 55–75. West, D. (2020). Perfectivity in Peirce’s energetic interpretant. Cognitio, 22(1), 152–164. West, D. (2021a). Double consciousness to scaffold narrative skills: A Peircean developmental perspective. Chinese Semiotic Studies, 17(1), 123–142. West, D. (2021b). Between two minds: The work of Peirce’s energetic interpretant. Contemporary Pragmatism, 18(2), 187–221. Woods, J. (2013). Errors of reasoning: Naturalizing the logic of inference. College Publications. Zeman, S. (2018). What is a narration—And why does it matter? In A. Hübl & M. Steinbach (Eds.), Linguistic foundations of narration in spoken and sign languages (pp. 173–206). John Benjamins.

Chapter 2

Theoretical Background of Narrative

2.1 Introduction—How Index Promotes Peirce’s Endoporeutic Principle This chapter provides an account of how the index, in its means to exploit dialogic exchange, enhances inference-making. It proposes that the particular way in which index represents, promotes co-significative influence. As gesture, index monitors the movement of events, so critical to the maintenance of narrative structures. Index does not only mark beginning middle and end of events, but, shunts attention to the event’s underlying meanings, especially those intimating novel propositions. This latter process orchestrated by index manages the outside-in turns of reciprocal interchange within a single mind or between minds. In managing spatiotemporal features of the physical world, as well as the attentional/conscious world, indexical gestures have a unique function in the abductive process—to trigger realizations of logical relations on the ontological, the epistemic, and on the action plane. The meanings which underlie performative actions (such as gestures which command) convey not merely subjects and implied predicates of propositions (in genuine indexical uses), but they promote the transfer of inclinations toward belief and actions from agents to interpreters and back. The dialogic nature of these action signs is only beginning to be explored systematically (cf. Mittelberg, 2018; West, 2018); as such, this fresh inquiry argues that this process develops in ontogeny between two semiotic actors, particularly in view of imperative and subjunctive meanings or effects of diagrammatic signs housed within Energetic Interpretants.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. E. West, Narrative as Dialectic Abduction, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7_2

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2.2 Indexical Gesture as Dialectical Abduction The attentional effect of gestural performatives (indexical signs whose interpretants present assertions via action matrices, or whose directional character suggests reactions to novel predictions between antecedents and consequences, 1908: 8.373), is to enhance the interpreter’s means to infer propositions/arguments which they have yet to consider (cf. West, 2018). These kinds of signs particularly advance Peirce’s endoporeutic principle, because their purposes ultimately scaffold inter- and intrasubjectively conveyed propositions from the outside in. The process plays out when agents intentionally make salient abductions, and do not wish to harbor them; rather, they try them out on another to establish their logical adequacy, hence information proceeds from outside ego (interpreter, to within. As such, agents producing gestural indices present, urge, or submit propositions/arguments to alter their own or another’s beliefs/conduct (cf. 1908: 8.338). They do so either to insure the viability of their hunches for themselves, or to influence the mind of another. Their semiotic effect is to unequivocally suggest novel meanings to sign recipients (self, others)—ultimately to determine the “reasonableness” of the proposition or argument. With respect to crafting narratives, the interpreter must decide whether the narrator’s claim in the account has sufficient coherence and cohesion to merit contemplation. The interpreter ultimately makes the judgment whether the agent’s proposed proposition or argument holds enough logical validity to adopt as their own assertory version of the happenings told by the agent. Peirce’s endoporeutic principle1 (cf. Pietarinen, 2006, 1909: MS 614) illustrates how degenerate kinds of indices promote the transfer of attentional focus from the speaker to the hearer (as obviated in narrative exchanges), maintaining the focus. The latter ensures that the agent designing the set of propositions/arguments in the episodic sequence of the narrative is cognizant of the particular interpreter’s predilections. Early gestures illustrate index’s clear invocation of the endoporeutic principle when they ensure that the two parties to the discourse are continuing to attend to the same subject of the chain of implied propositions. They orchestrate this by obviating, in their Energetic Interpretants, individual “things” or by sufficiently individuating the focus from within the long-term memory of the interlocuter. As such, the communicative intent of the agent, as the outside force on the interlocuter’s beliefs/behavior, is highlighted, be it a declarative message, an imperative, or a subjunctive intent. In the former, what comes in from the outside is a simple statement that a subject has a certain attribute, or a specific function; whereas the two latter modal operators either force an action/belief, or invite the interlocuter to comply with the agent’s assertion. Even interrogatives impinge upon the interpreter in a similar way—compelling a habit-change through requesting why a state of affairs is other than expected. In these more subjunctive cases, the outside

1

In the original Greek, “Endo” refers to “internal,” while “poreutic” refers to “passage into.” Although endoporeutic processes are largely governed by illustrations of receptive competencies within the individual, they likewise apply to the receptivity of the masses to access and embrace propositions.

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agent grants the interpreter some leverage/self-control decision-making whether to take up the proffered assertion as his own. Austin (1962) supports Peirce’s elaboration of the effects (interpretants) of indices; he contends that prelinguistic gestures “say something” implicitly; as such, they present (declare), urge (command), or recommend (suggest as subjunctive) action/belief changes for self or for another. Ultimately, the intended influence upon the state of self’s or another’s truth values may experience modification be commanding or recommending adoption of novel habits and practices. Rationale supporting these claims is drawn from Austin and Peirce; and evidence charting the ontogeny of children’s gestures (gaze, pointing, offering, enacting) illustrate the first attempts to manage others’ conduct. These early uses of index give us pause to reflect on how simple directional signs can effectuate interpretive negotiation. The kinds of interpretants which Peirce ultimately works into these indexical signs (to urge, to recommend different belief/action paths) permits them to share equal (if not greater) meaning potency than do symbolic signs. The implied semanticity pregnant in these directional signs require interpreters to rely less upon explicit/predetermined/conventional meanings, and instead to exploit implied ones. The performative and privileged status of gestures over conventional signs is attributed to the combinatorial effect of their give-and-take attentional representamen together with the power of their interpretant to diagram future ways of responding. This is obviated in the habit-changes (effects) which ensue from the graphic and determinative features which index showcases, as well as the social reactions which support the primacy of Peirce’s endoporeutic purposes. The tacit meanings of early gestural uses (Gibson, 1979; Magnani, 2001) constitute prim examples of performatives (however implicit); they supply a sequential model for conduct, while insinuating with a co-index (gaze, pointing) who is expected to comply. The effect upon interpreters from outside-in, double directional signs is to search out latent meanings—meanings which are obvious in symbolic (ordinarily linguistic) uses. When indexical signs are employed, the interpreter is put in mind of the agent’s objective, without explicit mention of how to act. This process creates a greater vigilance in both the agent and the interpreter to “get it right,” (the subject-predicate associations).

2.3 Endoporeutic Foundations Beyond genuine uses of index in Secondness, index’s degenerative uses demonstrate the import of dialogically designed, out-side-in means to convince others of the validity of hunches. In c. 1910 (MS 680) Peirce indicates distinctions between kinds of Secondness, gradually acquiring elements of Thirdness. This differentiation ultimately demonstrates the semiotic advantages of using indexical features (particularly forms of consciousness) to determine the validity of propositions and their arrangement within a episodic account. Peirce identifies three kinds of degenerate Secondness: consciousness of contrast extracted from a physiological component; consciousness of experience in which attention is an active element; and “exertion”

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of will for change (c. 1910: MS 680: 11–12). These consciousness-based processes are obviously borne in Secondness for Peirce, since in the same manuscript he refers to the “effort” in handling aspects of consciousness. Effort, for Peirce, is separated from the muscular or neural exertion; rather its nucleus is nothing short of psychologically directed fervor: “…the effort may be considerable without any muscular or other psychophysical contamination” (1910: MS 680:17). Obviously, Peirce’s concept of effort (exemplifying Secondness) entails internal conviction and force toward keeping out a weak premise, which Peirce refers to as “perceptuation” (1905: MS 339:; cf. Atkins 2018: 195). In fact, in the latter manuscript (logic notebook), Peirce makes explicit difficulties inherent in maintaining effort over the long haul, since effort, not perceptuation, is “easier to annul.” Volitionally internal is that which one seems to have more or less power to annul if one wishes. Volitionally external is any content or element of consciousness which seems to be present in spite of all one can directly do. An externisensation is a two-sided state of determination of consciousness…in which a volitionally external and a volitionally internal power seem to be opposed, the one furthering the other resisting the change. An effort is an externisensation in which the active element (that furthering the change) is volitionally internal, the resistance, volitionally external. A perceptuation is an externisensation in which the active element is volitionally external while the passive element is volitionally internal (1905: R339: 245r).

Although In his Logic notebook, Peirce highlights the compelling effect of external factors—as active elements in the process of determining whether the new or the old takes precedence in the double consciousness process, he likewise hints at the difficulties that might arise were effort (internal factors) to dominate—their likelihood to be “annulled” jeopardizes consideration of their relative validity. The fact that Peirce features effort over perceptuation demonstrates his commitment (in the 1910 passage) to guard against spurious data from the outside—which could result in the destruction of already well-formed habits of thought/action. The exertion required for this caliber of effort is formidable, in that previous habits of thought are subject to annihilation in favor of the attentional force of newly conceived vivid premises. The assertory power necessary not to abandon the old habit is formidable. The principle for abductive rationality is to preclude novel vivid Dynamical Objects in the event that their adequacy weakens the explanation holding between antecedents and their consequences. It is evident then that Peirce’s degenerative Secondness (effort to preserve already established plausible hunches) draws upon forceful Thirdness-based mental power. Such is exemplified in double consciousness, because the effort in balancing the efficacy of two competing hunches is invoked when a new hunch appears to have less adequacy than does a previously embraced premise. Consequently, the degenerate form of Secondness (as a two-sided consciousness) supplies the forum to practice

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abductive rationality. This forum is grounded in Thirdness regimes in which Secondness is the vehicle for resolving the conflict, namely, double conscious paradigms between the teller of the account and the interpreter. These interchanges promote habit-change for self and others by epitomizing the search and transfer of proposed assertions between two quasi-minds. This, in turn, results in conflicts between old and new knowledge, either within a single mind, or from one mind to another. Gestural indexes privilege new information and qualify as perceptuations—such that the outside force impinges upon internal efforts to create a habit-change; they reorient another’s mind to alternative cause-effect paths which events might follow (either deontically, or epistemically. As such, the Energetic Interpretant of Index “exerts” an influence over a “quasi-mind” (that of the interpreter) 1906: MS 318: 43 and (:4.536). Here, index brings about particular behaviors without explicitly calling for them (1907: MS 318: 16, 17). This endoporeutic influence can be orchestrated either via imperatives or by more subtle means—recommending alternative propositions through a directional look, or onset/offset of an action. Instrumental pointing (Bates 1976: 61) impels the agent himself to orient toward and to take up an assertion; while influencing others’ self-control requires joint gaze/pointing. Either use can qualify as outside-in influences which ultimately have the means to alter conduct. Such is orchestrated via the command-effects upon self or another—that they should adopt the proposed proposition/argument, or recommend that they do so. In short, Peirce’s expository classification as expressed in his ten-fold-division of signs supports the shift from subjective (instrumental) to imperative/subjunctive meanings—graduating from using subjective imperatives to influence the topics on which self focuses to those whose effects brutely influence another to attend to the same entity. The command from the outside is directed toward an interpreter; and as such, the imperative/suggestive proposition requires the interpreter to take serious note of a new/viable conduct or belief. This “outside-in” influence from one quasi-mind to another hastens considerations of new hypotheses which the receiving mind has not previously considered. Nonetheless, Peirce cautions that the “quasi-utterer” is responsible for representing the truth in a way that the “quasi-interpreter” can comprehend, primarily to avoid misinterpretation: [S]igns require at least two Quasi-minds; a Quasi-utterer and a Quasi-interpreter; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct. In the Sign they are, so to say, welded. Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of human Psychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every logical evolution of thought should be dialogic…. The two collaborating parties shall be called the ‘graphist and the Interpreter.’ The Graphist shall responsibly scribe... The Interpreter is to make such erasures and insertions … may accord with the ‘General Permissions’ deducible from the Conventions and with his own purposes. (4.551-4.552)

Peirce advocates that the scriber of the message be responsible for generating truths clearly and unambiguously. Accordingly, the new hypotheses which the quasiutterer presents to the quasi-interpreter must have an element of truth, qualifying it as an abduction—not expressing merely a spurious or misleading proposition. Later in

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the same passage, Peirce refers to the quasi-utterer as the “Graphist,” and the quasiinterpreter as the “Interpreter,” which makes relevant narrative as a forum in which abductions can be expressed responsibly. The narrator’s responsibility does, however, allow the agent-narrator to mention the propositions which he deems relevant to his ends, and permits the interpreter to delete (“erase”) or add (“insert”) what he deduces to be irrelevant or which detracts from the objectives of the premise. In the above passage, Peirce legitimizes the active role of the interpreter to operate upon the narrator’s propositions and arguments, provided that such is tempered by conventional meanings. This responsibility serves as a check and balance—to insure objectivity against the interpreter’s own insights. The role of index takes special prominence here—establishing propositional common ground between speech participants (that both are focused upon the same semiotic material), and informing them about propositional linkages and shifts within the narrated situation: “…the index, which like a pointing finger exercises a real physiological force over the attention…and directs it to a particular object of sense. One such index at least must enter into every proposition, its function being to designate the subject of discourse” (1885: 8.41). Even though Index’s function is “to designate the subject of discourse,” it likewise implies a predicate when it “forces something to be an icon.” This is obviated in how index has a unique function to facilitate the progression of propositions, especially implied propositions: “It is remarkable that while neither a pure icon or a pure index can assert anything, an index which forces something to be an icon…does make an assertion, and forms a proposition” (1904: EP 2: 307). The predicate of the proposition need not be verbal (explicitly representing meanings), but can be diagrammatic, such that interpreters infer logical relations between antecedents and consequents via scant episodic enactments. An apt illustration of this is the ability to navigate between two points automatically, without expressing to another the steps from point A to point B. The directional progression (index) in forming a shape from beginning, middle, and end, “forces” the path to be an icon in that index’s trajectory forms a geographic shape which in its totality bears likeness to the actual topography of the land being traversed. In Peirce’s later work, the graph which the graphist draws for the interpreter further demonstrates how index forces something to be an icon. The likeness of the propositions which compose the graph to the interpreter’s already conceived propositions constitutes an icon, compelled by attentional characteristics of the graph, e.g., the sequentiality or location of its components. Featuring the graph is intrinsically endoporeutic, because according to Peirce, the exchange between graphist and interpreter is “endogenous” (1910: MS 650: 18–19; 1913: L477). Pietarinen (2004), explains Peirce’s position further as follows—that Peirce characterizes “endogenous” as the substitutive nature of the graphist’s hypothesis imported to another’s quasimind. Peirce wishes to emphasize the issue of the substitutability of a proposed idea/proposition into the mind of another as a kind of transplantation (from the outside in) of an individual’s hunch into the assertory compound of the other. If the Graphist intends to influence the Interpreter in scribing an alternative path to reach a destination, he necessarily makes the other conscious of a different route to access new modes of acting. His suggestion is nothing short of a recommendation of a new

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course of action (MS 637), changing the interpreter’s geographic knowledge and conduct, without leading the interpreter astray. This process constitutes the transfer between minds of an abduction, in that it brings the interpreter to an awareness of the entire geographical area. Here index graphicalizes the new contour of the local geography; as such it qualifies as a deliberative abduction. The exchange (transplantation) of the graphical abduction constitutes a kind of outside-in narrative in its dialogic composition, transducing a plausible hypothesis from one mind to another. Peirce’s endoporeutic principle acts as an underlying, pivotal device—nudging self/other to determine the ultimate efficacy of the proposition/argument.

2.4 The Dialogic Character of Index Several characteristics of Index, especially its status as individual, qualifies it as particularly germane to influences from the outside in, between quasi-minds and between a single quasi-mind and the surrounding environment. The resolution which index affords opens up the way for momentary attentional foci on the part of one sign user to be incorporated into the continuum by virtue of the establishment of common foci with other members. Here, the endoporeutic principle is not merely relevant, but further facilitates topical shifts between interlocuters by introducing new assertions of one of the parties and by receiving the other parties modifications. In fact, Peirce explicitly characterizes Index as subject of proposition and rising to the level of assertion. In Secondness, by directing the attention to entities, Index individuates, while at the same time, it accounts for joint focus and sustained attention thereafter to insure coherence in the narrative arena. The effect of degenerate index is to cement meanings between conversational partners, which unlike genuine uses of index, supersedes the single contribution of particular dynamical objects in specific places and at fixed times (cf. West, 2015). This coherence of Dynamical Objects to Immediate Objects, orchestrated by index, forms the foundation for event and conversational structure and meaning, such that the function of diverse objects in diverse contexts provenates the operation of Thirdness—it foundationalizes the triad’s future instantiations within narrative accounts (cf. Deely 2009, 2012; West, 2018b). At the same time, Index is afforded an assertory power. The relations which Index as individual implies constitute the foundation to forge would-be effects of objects upon one another. This may involve altering the placement, orientation, and use of these objects, hence foreshadowing the dynamic character of event templates. The perceived object relations make possible the generation of novel assertions—conjectures as to who is impinging upon what and what kind of events might ultimately transpire, e.g., agentive giving and receiving, or experiencing an unexpected state of being. In making these relation-based suggestions, the individual nature of Index is welded into the continuum—it examines which propositions must be modified based upon composite experience, to establish which propositions speakers/listeners will assert. To this end, Index helps establish the endoporeutic principle by bringing

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together for both conversational partners interpreting the meaning of the sign the organization of propositions with respect to one another—the nature of particular event frames (cf. West, 2014). Index has an endoporeutic purpose, in that it sequences and integrates spatial and temporal components to appreciate time and space travel (the event’s episodic complexion). As an endoporeutic agent (passing meanings, solidifying them between interlocutors) index makes it more likely that both interlocutors actually have a common focus leading to a common meaning. It literally illustrates how and where to trace the event’s shape when it highlights beginnings, middles, and conclusions/destinations. This specifies what the message-maker is asserting to the message receiver, particularly when index directs attention toward the source and purposes of the motion paradigm, establishing common ground and suggesting which participants are necessary to carry out the event and in which order. Since early deictic gestures are virtually always in existential relationship with their objects, they qualify as genuine indexes; whereas personal, demonstrative, and relative pronouns are so only when they both refer to present objects and are employed in this manner for the first time. The latter is the case because it is then, and then, only that their principle function is to individuate; in these applications (subsequent to their initial use with an object), they are degenerate, in that their interpretant includes some Thirdness-based information beyond existential considerations. Indexes supersede their genuine use when a mental association has already been established regarding that object (based upon some form of analogy), and a particular interpretant housing iconic or symbolic meanings is accessible. In the degenerate cases, the object has already been singled out from the pool of potential referents (cf. West, 2013, Chap. 7). In short, in making prominent Index’s role as existential attention focuser, or “zoom agent” as with gestural performatives, index has a central role in discourse establishment in the endoporeutic principle. As such, the index which the agent employs suggests terms and even propositions that the message receiver can infer if Index is successful in creating a similar focus/ “common place to stand.” In this way, Index enhances “passage into” of the term/proposition to other parties. Index’s later function as tracker of discourse topics further facilitates endoporeutic purposes in its use of locative demonstratives “here, there, this, that” to obviate perspectival relations between interlocutors. In English, the speaker is the point of reference; and the message receiver must recognize such in order to determine placement of the array. These linguistic indexes unquestionably have an endoporeutic purpose— despite Index’s genuine use as a carrier of conventional meaning. As Legisign, Index’s use is genuine and at the same time endoporeutic, in that by way of words whose meaning incorporates shifting perspectival roles, it requires interlocutors to “pass into” the alternative viewpoint of the other, particularly in view of the momentary shifts which it harnesses.2 It becomes quite obvious that Peirce privileges genuine

2

In 1903: CP 4.447, the seeds for augmenting the influence of Index as submitter of arguments was conceived, although not fully worked out: “[The index] is a real thing or fact which is a sign of its object by virtue of being connected with it as a matter of fact and by also forcibly intruding upon the mind, quite regardless of its being interpreted as a sign”.

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indexes (such as gestures), given his disqualification of certain Legisigns (linguistic indexes) from Indexical status. This status is assumed when the classificatory meaning of pronouns/proper names becomes primary. They cannot qualify as genuine Indexes, because their designative power/identifying function is muted by comparison-based knowledge already present in the mind of the interlocutors, as an Immediate Object. As Peirce argues (EP 2:274), unless reference to an individual constitutes the sign’s primary purpose (not clouded by reference to conceptual similarities), it fails to qualify as an index. Thus, only on the first occasion of use can pronouns/proper names qualify as Indexes, because their use individuates unique objects—and gestural performatives (when standing alone), always qualify. Linguistic indexes qualify only when their attentional function is primary. Genuine indexes (embodied in gestural performatives) presumes, however, that the “zoom” effect in the sign is of utmost importance to make the sign-object connection for the hearer. But, once the subject of discourse has been established between speaker and hearer, indexes are degenerate—they are pointers which depend upon elicitation of other, meanings/effects, namely, stored memories, functioning similarly to common nouns (cf. West, 2013, Chap. 7). In fact, when pointers require access to classificatory meanings (stored interpretants), their indexical purpose is altered to serve a more auxiliary function. Index’s role as action performative still qualifies as genuine because it takes responsibility within its representamen (directing the attention to a sequence of involved objects and participant persons) to directly illustrate the object in the physical context which represents the producer’s topic of discourse—his settled will. When gestural performatives supersede this genuine indexical function such that they “force something to be an icon…or force us to regard it as an icon…” (1904: EP2:307) they function as degenerate. In this case, the gestural sequence straddles/transitions between genuine and degenerate uses, if the global shape of its representamen becomes central in capturing the meaning. In short, gestural performatives are privileged in their role as genuine indexes, because they supply physical enhancements for interlocutors—to facilitate attachment of the producer’s communicative intent to the sign (in order that a specific something is performed). Utilizing the relational and diagrammatic power of indices is paramount in narrative construction. Via indices, narrators can build episodes from event material, assembling spatial and temporal event coordinates, and organizing them (perhaps sequentially) to determine potential logical relations (cf. West, 2014; West, 2019). Similarly, reliance upon index is critical to determine whether the same episodic assumptions are shared, and to consider the interlocutor’s openness to urgings or submissions to change his habits of conduct and belief. Indexical signs are primary in determining the contributory effect across events, because it requires situating the when and where of antecedent and consequent happenings (cf. 1908: 8.373). In fact, index’s role in implying logical connections beyond antecedent and consequent supplies still further means to propose sound predictions regarding the principles that hold (for self and other) between antecedents and consequents (cf. 1908: 8.373).

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The function of index does not stop at establishing cohesive and coherent episodic structures (cf. Pinto et al., 2016; Pinto, Tarchi, and Bigozzi, 2018: 92–93 for elaboration); it rallies interlocutors to consider admitting alternative renditions of event relations into their own logical system. As such, Peirce explicitly affirms the primacy of index in promoting dialogic thinking—in the enterprise of communicating coherent and cohesive episodes to others as follows: “…B. Designatives (or Denotatives), or Indicatives, Denominatives, which like a Demonstrative pronoun, or a pointing finger, brutely direct the mental eyeballs of the interpreter to the object in question, which in this case cannot be given by independent reasoning” (1908: 8.350). Peirce makes plain the indispensability of sharing narratives to promote consideration of others’ meanings—critical to advance semiosis. Here the “mental eyeballs” of the listener are opened upon consideration of newly conceived interpretants expressed in the narrator’s implied propositions/arguments. Narrators can narrate to themselves, or to another; and as such, novel thoughts become ripe for consideration of further effects regarding event relations within the narrative. Peirce unequivocally determines that all thinking is dialogue—either within the same mind or between minds, and that signs are by their very nature dialogical. He posits: “Thinking always proceeds in the form of a dialogue, a dialogue between different phases of the ego, so that being dialogical, it is essentially composed of signs” (1906: 4.6). Signers can enter “different phases of the ego” either consequent to self-talk, or after discoursing with interlocutors. In either case, new phases of thought surface, illustrating cognitive advancement from phase to phase.

2.5 Narrative—Sources and Defining Attributes Two distinguishable approaches—from widely separate disciplines has provided a less than cohesive account of what qualifies as narrative. While cognitive accounts assume narratives to emerge out of recognition of goal matrices, linguistic models presume that the production of clausal relations expressed by conjunctions is the key (cf. Bamberg, 1997: 91–92; Fivush and Hayden, 1997; Trabasso and Stein, 1997; McNeill and Duncan, 2000: 144; Kita 2000: 170). As such, cognitive approaches emphasize intentionality toward an event’s purpose; whereas linguistic approaches privilege the adverbials which transition events of neighboring clauses. While both approaches adequately underscore the need for narratives to situate events and participants relative to other events, neither gives sufficient attention to the discourse competencies necessary for successful interpretation. Labov and Waletzky’s, (1967) model requires the presence of at least two events and two participants. In spotlighting the reported event, rather than the shared meanings within the speech event, they fail to address the relevance of discourse issues. Accordingly, the import of “bounded units of discourse,” proposed by Bamberg (1997: 91–128) remains unrecognized. Bamberg’s model (a more cognitive approach) places, front and center, the need to draw upon viewpoints to create narrative structure. He recognizes the significant impact of representations and their

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meanings upon narrative conveyance, in attending to indexical signs as primary facilitators: “…viewpoints (i.e., the indexical coordinates of an utterance) are signaled by use of subtle (and sometimes more explicit) linguistic means, and …the signaling of viewpoint functions to the build-up of a narrative whole” (Bamberg, 1992: 9). Here, Bamberg does not address pre-linguistic instantiations of index (gaze, pointing, reach) as does the present inquiry, he does highlight the need to follow alternating perspectives of different participants in narrated scenarios. Shifting viewpoints demonstrate that reports of events change according to the theory of mind which narrators adopt at that moment. In other words, the viewpoint which the narrator adopts bears witness to the events, participants, and affective inclinations which the interpreter chooses as foci, altering ultimate goals and outcomes for the narration itself. Bamberg (1997: 96) distinguishes four viewpoint types which change the structure and content of narratives: an autobiographical perspective, assuming the perspective of one of the characters, or adopting a low level/uninvolved, more objective orientation. The degree of involvement determines which events are told, and how events unfold. This latter feature is paramount, in that it brings into focus the element of explanation as a component of narrative, hinting at the relevance of inference-making in its construction. Bamberg notes that narrative competence is not merely facilitated by discouraging first person use, but likewise by discouraging a “detached perspective” (Bamberg, 1997: 128). Bamberg affirms that the construction of effective narratives is dependent upon the facility to assume several involved viewpoints, not a single subjective self-generated one. The viewpoint/s which privilege other participant roles and which eventually inform some objectivity to what is being narrated, is what Bamberg recommends (Bamberg, 2016). As in 1992, Bamberg (2016): 1292 draws upon index to facilitate conversational shifts, but extends index to non-linguistic signs, e.g., narrator leaning forward/toward listeners, but leaning back/away from narrator when narrator shifts role to recipient. Bamberg’s (2016) account supports the present inquiry, in that it showcases the critical place of indexical gestures in the process of dialogic exchange—in view of discourse alternations after language has emerged. The influence of diverse involved viewpoints (as particular endoporeutic forms) on the formation of narratives cannot be over emphasized. It constitutes a more comprehensive model than does Labov’s taxonomy of voluntariness/volitionality, and is superior to Tomasello’s characterization of intentionality (Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, and Moll, 2005; Tomasello, 1999: 142–143, 178–182). The inferiority of these models is derived from their incompleteness—knowledge of an interlocutor’s volition or intentionality is insufficient to reveal the intended goals of actors within the narrated event. In fact, narrators often color the epistemic and/or deontic event features by omitting or misrepresenting what participants to those events think and feel, hence deliberately not representing to the listener the affectual inclinations or propositions held by involved actors.

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2.6 Interpretants’ Reach in Narrative Schemas Narratives must likewise contain event organization consonant with Lakoff and Johnson’s lived experience schema: a beginning, middle/progression toward goals, and a resolution. Augmenting Bamberg’s discourse model with this kind of ontological model which acknowledges the primacy of conceptual episodic units satisfies both Peirce’s endoporeutic principle, and his ultimate purpose for promoting inferential reasoning—the service of objective ends. It is in the convergence of these two (the endoporeutic with more objective perceptual judgements/arguments) that Peirce integrates the pragmaticistic (viewpoints) and scientific elements into his semiotic. Accordingly, like substantive meanings, procedural factors become inaugurated into sign relations; like substantive factors, they inform interpretants. Event-based organization into episodes is procedural in nature, still it translates into potential meaning-based material, such that sequence informs logical relations. This reflects Peirce’s new order of semiosis as expressed in his ten-fold division of signs—that terms/propositions which previously convey emotional/energetic interpretants can convey logical ones by incorporating implied meanings/effects (1905: 8.338). As such, interpretants of terms imply more than a subject of discourse (predicates); and interpretants of propositions can imply extended predicates, namely, arguments (cf. Bellucci, 2014 for elaboration). In this way, Peirce “widens” the meaning of the sign (1906: 4.538)3 ; and narration promotes this “widening” by implying alternating viewpoints and by, in turn, calling listeners to construct inferences of event relations based upon little or no evidence. Inferential logic within narratives is hastened when event sequences intimate how the events practically influence participants within those events, and how the mental state of the discourse partners is affected by the way in which the narration is constructed, e.g., what is omitted, made implicit/explicit, together with the topical emphases. Hence, sequencing events into logical episodes (procedural) is inextricably connected with its substantive function; it suggests an objective and logical principle, e.g., cause-effect relations. The presentment of the episode to listeners via narrative implies which event within the sequence narrators perceive to be the antecedent, and which the consequent; narrators in this case only present, not urging or submitting arguments to the interlocutor. It is not until the narrator submits a hunch in an implied argument, that the listener considers the veridicality of the proposed

3

“A familiar logical triplet is Term, Proposition, Argument. In order to make this a division of all signs, the first two members have to be much widened. By a Seme, I shall mean anything which serves for any purpose as a substitute for an object of which it is, in some sense, a representative or Sign. The logical Term, which is a class-name, is a Seme. Thus, the term “The mortality of man” is a Seme. By a Pheme I mean a Sign which is equivalent to a grammatical sentence, whether it be Interrogative, Imperative, or Assertory. In any case, such a Sign is intended to have some sort of compulsive effect on the Interpreter of it. As the third member of the triplet, I sometimes use the word Delome […], though Argument would answer well enough. It is a Sign which has the Form of tending to act upon the Interpreter through his own self-control, representing a process of change in thoughts or signs, as if to induce this change in the Interpreter”.

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rationale for himself. The implied argument articulated as a term/Seme or a proposition/Pheme can reveal a previously unconsidered principle for the sequence (1908: 8.373). To communicate episodic features within narratives, interlocutors must likewise apprehend the issue of punctuality/telicity—beginning and momentary features (cf. Vendler’s 1967 schema), and must apply such to relevant events. To package past facts into sequences, the antecedent and the conclusion of a particular event need to be distinguishable (possessing telicity) in the temporal order, such that at the point when an episode concludes, a different episode begins. Perceiving events as separate from one another identifies each event as separate—demarking the juncture of one event’s endpoint from the onset of another’s beginning. Apprehension of events as individuals, in the true Peircean sense as momentary (cf. West, 2015), ascertained in large part by noticing their beginning and end, is crucial, because discerning their identity/uniqueness is precedent to making inferences regarding the potential influence of one upon the other, i.e., distinguishing antecedent events as separate but contributory to a consequent, is paramount when exploring the viability of potential explanations holding between events. Cause-effect or antecedent-consequent skills emerge between 3;0 and 4;0, especially evidenced by children’s explanations/descriptions during their/other’s action sequences. This form of self-talk serves as a catalyst to force children to posit some adequate rationale for the antecedent-consequent sequence. As such, ego talking with ego constitutes a facilitator and transition from formulaic cause-effect event associations to more reasoned ones, such that logic (semantic and procedural) governs the connections between antecedents and their consequents. Children generate audible sequences of utterances in the process of constructing how they will address their actions to problem-solve, e.g., “now I am going to do X, then X, and afterward X.” The process of using speech to enhance goal directed event logic begins with organizing precedent and resultative events according to the degree of effect upon the consequence ordinarily to the self are scaffolded onto event schemas, such that the need to utilize a procedure is vitiated in order to regulate ourselves—the critical component of Peirce’s notion of mature thinking is self-regulation. Findings from three and four-year-olds (Winsler, Diaz and Montero, 1997: 75), are in accord with this premise: “These findings suggest that the movement from interpersonal collaboration to independent problem-solving involves children’s active participation in taking over the regulating role of the adult collaborator. The suggestion here is that in the development of cognitive functions children use private speech to collaborate with themselves in much the same way that adults collaborate with children during joint problem solving.” Certain linguistic collaborations are especially instrumental in regulating self as agent—those which demand double viewpoints, because they require assumption of shifting roles necessary to articulate private speech. Increased use of listener pronouns and telephone interactions are particularly useful to this end. Telephone interactions are especially efficacious in transitioning from private speech to inner speech— audible self-talk to inaudible self-talk, since it requires speakers to reflect upon and make assumptions regarding the state of others’ knowledge (epistemic assumptions),

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and their emotional inclinations toward the subject of discourse (deontic assumptions). Additionally, speakers must realize that access to the physical context afforded to them is not afforded to the listener; and as such, spatial coordinates critical to the subject of discourse must be made explicit, e.g., sufficiently describing depictions in a story book. To establish common ground (joint focus), speakers need to appreciate that it is they who have the burden of determining what must be made explicit, what implicit, and what information can be omitted. These decisions hinge upon the accuracy of speakers’ theory of mind assumptions. Inadequate preparation to this end, or simply lacking knowledge of the listener’s unique epistemic or deontic base can depress strides toward establishing and maintaining common ground. Moreover, speakers’ misplaced assumptions can likewise depress apprehension of interlocutor’s different logical connections—those representing their episodic assumptions. If the speaker’s assumption is that a listener already recognizes and validates a particular event relation, supplying detailed explanations as to its plausibility is unnecessary; and inclusion of extraneous (known information) can be rather confounding. Several researchers, among them, Cameron and Lee (1997), Cameron and Wang (1999), and Cameron and Hutchison (2009) examined children’s linguistic adaptations when using a telephone as a communicative device. Their purpose was not merely to measure the kinds of modifications in the telephone medium (compared with face-to-face interaction), but to monitor the success of the device in hastening private speech. At 3;0 and 5;0, children were instructed to tell a story to a familiar interlocutor (Frog, Where are You?) in two conditions: over the telephone and faceto-face. The book displays a series of pictures about a boy and his dog attempting to capture a particular young frog who escaped from a jar while at their home (Mayer, 1969). The picture sequence demonstrates the locations (where the characters explored) to orchestrate the capture and in what sequence. Children were expected to describe and explain the happenings as per narrative structure. Findings illustrated clear differences between the telephone and the face-to-face conditions. In the telephone phase, subjects’ utterances were more elaborated—their utterances contained more descriptions, and were longer (Cameron and Wang, 1999). Subjects’ increased need to identify and situate objects and events for the addressee while on the telephone contributed to decreased use of gestural pointers, demonstrative pronouns, and personal pronouns), but greater dependence upon iconic descriptions and informational indices (cf. Stjernfelt, 2014: for elaboration) to paint mental images for the listener. The use of informational indices disambiguates who does what to whom, and where and when (cf. West ), which forces children to make explicit these factors for themselves in private speech. Alderson-Day and Fernyhough (2015: 939) suggest another intervention—referring to one’s self as “you.” This strategy forces less experienced speakers to reflect upon and assume listener roles for themselves, in turn, significantly facilitating private speech, and promoting improved problem-solving skills. This same approach has been advocated as an intervention for children at 3;0 (cf. West, 2011). The rationale is as follows: referring to the self as “you” highlights the inherently shifting character of speaker-listener roles so necessary to constructing private speech, in

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that it forces greater objectivity in viewpoint paradigms. In short, narrating events into episodes via the medium of listener role or via the telephone forces children to spatially and temporally situate constituent events for themselves and for others. In this way, episodic features can be made more prominent, in turn enhancing apprehension of logical relations across individuated events. With these kinds of linguistic tools, children become proficient at perceiving and expressing the refined event relations inherent in inner speech, and mature logical systems (cf. Cameron and Wang, 1999; West, 2014). As a consequence, arguments which were once implicit, are expressed explicitly, but are likely to obviate effects on the self. As such, argument structure at the three-year mark organizes locations but not time coordinates. While at 3;0 children can make explicit place sequences, where objects have been transferred to a hiding place (Hayne and Imuta, 2011), their competencies at 4;0 are far more elaborated—extending to expression of temporal sequencing (Tulving, 2005). At 4;0 children are competent at narrating not merely where past events took place, but when events materialized with respect to one another (Perner and Ruffman, 1995). When telling about a fire alarm incident, children (at 4;0) were accurate at narrating the places and times of past events which they, themselves experienced (Pillemer and White, 1989). The temporal organization, however, pertains to past events only; and those events were autobiographical in nature. When children begin narrating to themselves inaudibly (as in Vygotsky’s notion of inner speech), their dependence upon structural skills intrinsic to language, namely, syntactic competencies is minimized, since the “talk” is no longer audible for another to hear and comprehend. If any syntactic issues are operational, they are rather automatic—not requiring much attentional resources in working memory. Because speech becomes internalized, children’s working memory resources are freed-up to generate more semantically and logically based relations. This is so consequent to the draw on the executive working memory system to consider the viability of particular hunches. Holding in working memory factors contributing to what appear to be logical conflicts can burden the system, especially if audible language likewise is being processed. The same principle applies with respect to the need to coordinate the higher-level processes necessary for abductive rationality, because determining whether and how antecedents affect consequents requires substantial on-line resources, which would not be available were language processing at issue. Likewise, when engaging in inner speech, children take double albeit not conflicting roles—as generator of utterances, and as considerer of the viability of those utterances (reflecting upon their logical promise). Fernyhough (2008:239), supports the fact that inner speech is a form of Peirce’s “double consciousness,” which advances the generation of promising logical relations, in that inner speech “…provide[s] a link between intentional agent and mental-agent understanding.” This link is a form of double consciousness, in that it resolves the conflict induced by the surprising consequence, and, at the same time, allowing the signer to hold in consciousness the established with future renovations. This double consciousness is foundational to apprehending diverse viewpoints after 5;0.

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2.7 Conclusion—Reflections on Reflective Interpretants Not until children’s narration is characterized as folk psychological, can they narrate events drawing upon double consciousness; and it is ascertaining “common…knowledge” (1908: MS 614)4 that is responsible for strides in Peirce’s double consciousness. Peirce’s concept of common knowledge/ground brings to bear the dialogical character so intrinsic to narratives. Doing so entails appreciating both distinctions in viewpoint, as well as explanations which underlie them (Gallagher and Hutto, 2012: 30). The emergence of folk psychological narratives is compelled by “…the actions of others [when they] deviate from what is normally expected in such a way that we encounter difficulties understanding them” (Gallagher and Hutto, 2012: 30). Other viewpoints are apprehended by way of the unexpected nature and distinctive character of the other’s conduct, reminiscent of Peirce’s concept of double consciousness5 and Vygotsky’s notion of double stimulation, defined as “a conflict of motive” (cf. Sannino, 2015: 9 and Vygotsky, 1931/1997:152–158). The conflict arising from another’s unexpected action makes it “notable, “ causing the conduct to “fall into the spotlight for special attention and explanation” (Gallagher and Hutto, 2012:30). In fact, reflecting upon another’s seemingly anomalous behavior impels consideration of the rationale underlying such behavior, which, in turn, compels “…explanations of a specific sort that involve understanding the other’s reasons for taking the particular action” (Gallagher and Hutto, 2012: 30). Essentially others’ unexpected actions/states of being beget conflict, which in turn, begets reflective/metacognitive considerations. These metacognitive skills advance children’s means, not merely to recognize other viewpoints, but to engage in abductive reasoning—such that via viable hunches proposals surface to explain the notable action. When using double consciousness, there are more factors to consider the viability of outsidein paradigms; memory units and resources are more available to handle external factors, after linguistic ones become internalized. This additional means to manage reflective skills supplies the nuts and bolts to master inner dialogue—self-talk in which conflicts are resolved, and explanatory hypotheses are reconciled between two phases of the self.

4

“No man can communicate the smallest item of information to his brother-man unless they have π oυσ τ ωσ ι [a place to stand] of common familiar knowledge; where the word ‘familiar’ refers less to how well the object is known than to the manner of knowing”. 5 “Examine the percept in the particularly marked case in which it comes to us as a surprise. At the moment when it was expected the vividness of the representation is exalted, something quite different comes instead. I ask you whether at that instant of surprise that there is not a double consciousness, on the one hand of an ego, which is simply the expected idea suddenly broken off, on the other hand the non-ego, which is the strange intruder, in his abrupt entrance” (1903: 5.53).

References

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References Acredolo, L. & Goodwyn, S. (1990). Sign language in babies: The significance of symbolic gesturing for understanding language development. In Ross Vasta (Ed.), Annals of Child Development, Vol. 7, 1–42. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Alderson-Day, B. & Fernyhough, C. (2015). Inner speech: Development, cognitive functions, phenomenology, and neurobiology. Psychological Bulletin, 141(5), 931–965. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955, J. O. Urmson & M. Sbisà (Eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Baldwin, D. A. & Saylor, M. (2005). Language promotes structured alignment in the acquisition of mentalistic concepts. In J. Wilde & J. A. Baird, (Eds.), Why Language Matters for Theory of Mind, (pp. 123–143). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bamberg, M. (2016). Narrative. In K. B. Jensen & R. T. Craig (Eds.), The International encyclopedia of communication theory and philosophy (pp. 1287–1295). Oxford, UK, Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Bamberg, M. (1997). A constructivist approach to narrative development. In M. Bamberg (Ed.), Narrative Development: Six Approaches, pp. 89–132. Hilldale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bamberg, M. (1992). Binding and unfolding. Establishing viewpoint in oral and written discourse. In M. Kohrt & Arne Wrobel (Eds.), Schreibprozesse—Schreibprodukte: Festschrift für Gisbert Keseling. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. Bellucci, F. (2014). “Logic, considered as Semeiotic”: On Peirce’s philosophy of logic. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 50(4), 523–547. Cameron, C. A. & Lee, K. (1997). The development of children’s telephone communication. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 18, 55–70. Cameron, C. A. & Wang, M. (1999). Frog, where are you? Children’s narrative expressions over the telephone. Discourse Processes, 28(3), 217–236. Cameron, C. A. & Hutchison, J. (2009). Telephone-mediated communication effects on young children’s oral and written narratives. First Language, 29(4), 347–371. Clark, E. (2009). First Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deely, J. (2009). Purely Objective Reality. Walter de Gruyter. Deely, J. (2012). Toward a postmodern recovery of “person.” Espiritu, 61(143), 147–165. Engeström, Y. (2007). Putting Vygotsky to work: The Change Laboratory as an application of double stimulation. In H. Daniels, M. Cole, & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky, pp. 363–382. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fernyhough, C. (2008). Getting Vygotskian about theory of mind: Mediation, dialogue, and the development of social understanding. Developmental Review, 28, 225–262. Fivush, R. & Haden, C. (1997). Narrating and representing experience: Preschoolers’ developing autobiographical accounts. In P. van dan Broek, P. Bauer, & T. Bourg (Eds.), Developmental Spans in Event Comprehension and Representation, pp. 169–198. Hilldale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gallagher, S. & Hutto, D. (2012). Understanding others through primary interaction and narrative practice. In J. Zlatev, T. Racine, C. Sinha, & E. Itkonen (Eds.), The Shared Mind: Perspectives on Intersubjectivity, pp. 17–38. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hayne, H. & Imuta, K. (2011). Episodic Memory in 3 and 4-year-old children. Developmental Psychology, 317–322. Kita, S. (2000). How representational gestures help speaking. In David McNeill (Ed.), Language and Gesture, pp. 165–185. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Labov, W. & Waletzky, J. (1967). Narrative analysis. In J. Helm (Ed.), Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, pp. 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Magnani, L. (2001). Abduction, Reason, and Science. Kluwer Academic.

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Mcneill, D. (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mcneill, D. & Duncan, S. (2000). Growth points in thinking-for-speaking. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and Gesture, pp. 141–161. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mayer, M. (1969). Frog, Where Are You? New York: Dial Press. Mittelberg, I. (2018). Gestures as image schemas and force gestalts: A dynamic systems approach augmented with motion-capture data analyses. Cognitive Semiotics, 11(1), 1–21. Neisser, U. (2004). Memory development: New questions and old. Developmental Review, 24, 154–158. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vols. 1–6 edited by C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931–1966. Vols. 7–8 edited by A. Burks. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1958. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. 1, N. Houser & C. Kloesel (Eds.); Vol. 2, Peirce Edition Project, (eds.). Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1992–1998. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). Unpublished manuscripts are dated according to the Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce, ed. R. Robin (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967), and confirmed by the Peirce Edition Project (Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis). Peirce, C. S. & Victoria, V. (i. 1898–1912). Semiotic and Significs: The Correspondence Between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria, Lady Welby. C. Hardwick and J. Cook, (Eds.). Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1977. Perner, J. & Ruffman, T. (1995). Episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: Developmental evidence and a theory of childhood amnesia. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 59, 516–548. Pietarinen, A. V. (2004). The endoporeutic method. In M. Bergman & J. Queiroz (Eds.), The commens encyclopedia: The digital encyclopedia of Peirce studies. New Edition. Pub. 131013-2050a. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/encyclopedia/article/pietarinen-ahtiveikko-endoporeutic-method Pietarinen, A-V. (2006). Signs of Logic: Peircean Themes of the Philosophy of Language, Games, and Communication. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Pillemer, D. B. & White, S. (1989). Childhood events recalled by children and adults. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 21, 297–340. Pinto, G., Tarchi, C., Gamannossi, B., & Bigozzi, L. (2016). Mental state talk in children’s face-toface and telephone narratives. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 44, 21–27. Pinto, G., Tarchi, C.,. & Bigozzi, L. (2018). Is two better than one? Comparing children’s narrative competence in an individual versus joint storytelling task. Social Psychology of Education, 21, 91–109. Sannino, A. (2015). The principle of double stimulation: A path to volitional action. Learning, Culture, and Social Interaction, 6, 1–15. Saylor, M. (2004). Twelve- and 16-month-old infants recognize properties of mentioned absent things. Developmental Science, 7(5), 599–611. Short, T. L. (2007). Peirce’s Theory of Signs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stanfield, C., Williamson, R., & Özçali¸skan, S. (2014). How early do children understand gesturespeech combinations with iconic gestures? Journal of Child Language, 41, 462–471. Tomasello, M. (1999). The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 675–735. Trabasso, T. & Stein, N. (1997). Narrating, representing, and remembering event sequences. In P. van dan Broek, P. Bauer, & T. Bourg (Eds.), Developmental Spans in Event Comprehension and Representation, pp. 237–270. Hilldale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Tulving, E. (2005). Episodic memory and autonoesis: Uniquely human? In H. S. Terrace & J. Metcalfe (Eds.), The Missing Link in Cognition: Origins of Self-Reflective Consciousness (pp. 3– 56). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vendler, Z. (1967). Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Vygotskii, L. (1924–1934). Thinking and concept formation in adolescence. In R. van der Veer & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Vygotsky Reader, pp. 185–265. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. Vygotskii, L. (1931). The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions (Collected Works of Vygotsky, Vol. 4). Ed. Robert Rieber. Heidelberg: Springer, 1997. Vygotskii, L. (1934). Thought and Language. Ed. And Trans. A. Kozulin. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986. West, D. (2011). Deictic use as a threshold for imaginative thinking: A Peircean perspective. Social Semiotics, 21(5), 665–682. West, D. (2013). Deictic Imaginings: Semiosis at Work and at Play. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. West, D. (2014). Perspective switching as event affordance: the Ontogeny of abductive reasoning. Cognitive Semiotics, 7(2), 149–175. West, D. (2015). Dialogue as habit-taking in Peirce’s continuum: The Call to absolute chance. Dialogue (Canadian Review of Philosophy), 54(4), 685–702. West, D. (2016). Indexical scaffolds to habit-formation. In D. West & M. Anderson (Eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. West, D. (2018). Early enactments as submissions toward self-control: Peirce’s ten-fold division of signs. In G. Owens & J. Pelkey (Eds.), Semiotics 2017. https://doi.org/10.5840/cpsem20171. West, D. (2019). Index as scaffold to the subjunctivity of children’s performatives. The American Journal of Semiotics, 35(1–2), 155–186. Winsler, A., Diaz, R., & Montero, I. (1997). The role of private speech in the transition from collaborative to independent task performance in young children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 12, 59–79.

Chapter 3

Prelinguistic Developmental Considerations

3.1 Introduction This Chapter provides a new characterization of gestural performatives, providing a semiotic analysis of their dialogic meaning—that performatives function as action signs, specifically indexes. Consonant with Peirce’s Ten-Fold Division of Signs, it proposes that the meanings which underlie performative actions supersede the interpretants of the Dicisign and therefore become the subjects of propositions. The dialogic nature of action signs is only beginning to be explored systematically (cf. Mittelberg, 2018; West, 2018e); as such, this fresh inquiry argues that this process develops in ontogeny between two semiotic actors, particularly in view of imperative and subjunctive meanings or effects housed within the Energetic Interpretants of signs whose representamen depict movement. The attentional effect of performatives as action signs ultimately scaffolds interand intrasubjective propositions and arguments via presentment, urging, and submission (cf. 1908: CP 8.338). This is the case because their influence upon the mind of another unequivocally validates their performative function, in suggesting novel meanings to sign recipients (self, others)—ultimately to determine the “reasonableness” of the proposition or argument. Accordingly, the interlocutor decides for him or herself whether the claim has sufficient plausibility to merit contemplation, and ultimately whether the agent’s proposed proposition or argument holds enough logical validity for him/her to adopt. The primary feature for performative status is that the endoporeutic principle1 (cf. Pietarinen, 2006; 1909: MS 614) is sufficiently operational to transfer the attentional focus from the speaker to the hearer. Early gestures illustrate index’s clear invocation of the endoporeutic principle when they 1

In the original Greek, “Endo” refers to “internal,” while “poreutic” refers to “passage into.” Although endoporeutic processes are largely governed by illustrations of receptive competencies within the individual, they likewise apply to the receptivity of the masses to access and embrace propositions.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. E. West, Narrative as Dialectic Abduction, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7_3

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obviate, in their Energetic Interpretants, attention to the communicative intent of the agent—declarative, imperative, or subjunctive(having a recommending influence). According to Austin’s (1962) contention, prelinguistic gestures “say something” implicitly; as such, they present (declare), urge (command), or recommend (suggest as subjunctive) action/belief changes for self or for another. Ultimately, the intended influence upon the state of self’s or another’s truth values may experience modification be commanding or recommending adoption of novel habits and practices. Rationale supporting these claims is drawn from Austin and Peirce; and evidence charting the ontogeny of children’s gestures (gaze, pointing, offering, enacting) illustrate children’s attempts to give pause that simple directional signs represent pillars for interpretive negotiation which must not be overlooked. The kinds of interpretants which Peirce ultimately works into these indexical signs (to urge, to recommend different belief/action paths) permits them to have equal (if not greater) meaning potency than do symbolic signs (in view of the semanticity of linguistic signs), because the Energetic Interpretant diagrams meanings which require interpreters to rely less upon explicit/predetermined/conventional meanings intrinsic to symbolic signs and Logical Interpretants. The performative and privileged status of gestures over conventional signs is attributed to the combinatorial effect of it’s give-and-take attentional representamen together with the power of its interpretant to diagram future ways (including sequences) of responding. This is obviated in the habit-changes (effects) which ensue from the graphic and determinative features which index showcases, as well as the social reactions which support the primacy of Peirce’s endoporeutic purposes. The fact that early indexical gestures are associated with tacit meanings (Gibson, 1979; Magnani, 2001), augments their performative character, because it facilitates the communicative intent. Searching out potential meanings for these early indexical gestures, in turn, puts the receiver in mind of the common experiences/concepts with the speaker—to obviate the propositions/arguments which the speaker wishes to impart.

3.2 Endoporeutic Foundations Although gestural indexes begin on the sensorimotor plane to measure propositional advances for subjective purposes, they do not stop there. Later in development, they promote habit-change for others by graphically (through action schemas) encouraging them to consider alternative constructions of events. As such, the Energetic Interpretant of Index”exerts” an influence over a “quasi-mind (that of the interpreter (1906: CP 4.536), such that index brings about particular behaviors (1907: MS 318: 16,17). This endoporeutic influence can be orchestrated either via imperative or by more subtle means—merely recommending alternative propositions or explanations (having a subjunctive character). Subjective meanings are characterized by exercising self-orienting devices to present objects (instrumental pointers, Bates, 1976: 61), while influencing others’ habits of mind/conduct characterizes

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either imperative/subjunctive uses, given that they can command self or another to adopt the proposed proposition/argument, or can more softly make recommendations. Peirce’s expository classification as expressed in his ten-fold-division of signs supports the shift from subjective (instrumental) to imperative/subjunctive meanings or effects. The representational shift materializes consequent to a syntactic advance within index as follows: inclusion of subject only, then additionally incorporating the predicate, toward recognizing logical contributions among events, finally to advocating that others consider the viability of relations between events. This progression demonstrates transcendence from gestures whose interpretants contain a term only, to propositions with both subject and predicate, to those having argument status. The nature of indexical gestures as semes capitalizes on their deictic teleology—differentiating entities present to particular interlocutors without ascribing properties to them. While explicit arguments are described by Peirce as strictly verbal in nature (cf. Short, 2007: 232), indexical gestures function as implied arguments, given their distinctly motion-based episodic character. In their representamen, they depict space and time expanses or travel; since in some uses their meanings imply more than propositions (more than x = x or x = y). By incorporating spatial source, path, and goal, they suggest how an actor or object can affect or be affected by another, with the primary components of an argument, e.g., “y was caused by x.” Here, these indexical contours imply the nature of the effect of actors and events. Initially, interpretants of gestural indexes are best characterized as squarely Energetic in nature (1907: MS 318) in that their intent is to produce common attentional or action schemas. Afterward, their interpretants (although still Energetic in nature) incorporate predicates which compel others to comply with mental actions (propositions or sets of propositions). In this latter use, interpretants of index have imperative and subjunctive meanings; they promote internal, self-reflection, or reflection in others. The Energetic Interpretants more often serve an imperative function in self-reflection, subjunctive meanings or effects—are more likely in intersubjective contexts—in submitting to another a proposition or argument for adoption. The teleology of this social use is to convince others of the value of the event relations proposed in the proposition, without forcing their adoption. The subjunctive import constitutes a more viable way of convincing others of the plausibility of propositions, in that the agent has sufficient assurance of the truth of the proposition, that he need not impose it on the listener; recommending its adoption is perhaps more effective. The presumption is that the agent (him/herself) already adopts the proposition/argument (asserting it), considering it to be plausible for him/herself. In either case, Peirce’s endoporeutic principle acts as an underlying, pivotal device—nudging self/other to determine the ultimate efficacy of the proposition/argument.

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3.3 Foundation—Index as Individual Peirce’s second characteristic of Index (as individual) resolves the seeming contradiction in adhering to momentary existence while giving great weight to the continuum. This resolution which index affords opens up the way for momentary attentional foci on the part of one sign user to be incorporated into the continuum by virtue of the establishment of common foci with other members. Here, the endoporeutic principle is not merely relevant, but further facilitates topical shifts by introducing new assertions and by modifying those of the other sign partner. In fact, Peirce actually characterizes Index as assertion. In Secondness, by directing the attention to entities, Index showcases individuation, while at the same time, accounts for coherence among members of the continuum (entities, and conversational partners), superseding the single contribution of particular dynamical objects in specific places and at fixed times (cf. West, 2015). This coherence of Dynamical Objects to the continuum orchestrated by index forms the foundation for event and conversational structure and meaning, such that the function of diverse objects in diverse contexts provenates the operation of Thirdness—it foundationalizes the triad’s future instantiations (cf. Deely, 2009, 2012; West, 2018b). At the same time, Index is afforded an assertory power. The relations which Index as individual implies constitute the foundation to forge wouldbe effects of objects upon one another. This may involve altering the placement, orientation, and use of these objects, hence foreshadowing the dynamic character of event templates. The perceived object relations make possible the generation of novel assertions—conjectures as to who is impinging upon what and what kind of events might ultimately transpire, e.g., agentive giving and receiving, or experiencing an unexpected state of being. In making these relation-based suggestions, the individual nature of Index is welded into the continuum—it examines which propositions must be modified based upon composite experience, to establish which propositions speakers/listeners will assert. To this end, Index helps establish the endoporeutic principle by bringing together for both conversational partners interpreting the meaning of the sign the organization of propositions with respect to one another—the nature of particular event frames (cf. West, 2014). Index has an endoporeutic purpose, in that it sequences and integrates spatial and temporal components to appreciate time and space travel (the event’s episodic complexion). As an endoporeutic agent (passing meanings, solidifying them between interlocutors) index makes it more likely that both interlocutors actually have a common focus leading to a common meaning. It literally illustrates how and where to trace the event’s shape when it highlights beginnings, middles, and conclusions/destinations. This specifies what the message-maker is asserting to the message receiver, particularly when index directs attention toward the source and purposes of the motion paradigm, establishing common ground and suggesting which participants are necessary to carry out the event and in which order. Peirce elaborates upon Index’s unique means to signify moving events, without resorting to spoon-fed resemblance/culturally agreed upon meanings. He constructs the case that no other sign can synthesize particular Seconds with individual features of Secondness (present, past, future) to form assertions. Hence, the unique effects

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of Index operate: to obviate physical and logical relations, and to make relevant the individual to the continuum. Index does this by coordinating the stuff of different Secondnesses—orienting sign users to relevant spatial and temporal axes. Peirce illustrates this in the following passage: Indices may be distinguished from other signs, or representations, by three characteristic marks: first, that they have no significant resemblance to their objects; second, that they refer to individuals, single units, single collections of units, or single continua; third, that they direct the attention to their objects by blind compulsion. …Psychologically, the action of indices depends upon association by contiguity, and not upon association by resemblance or upon intellectual operations. (1901: CP 2.305)

In directing attention “to the object by blind compulsion,” index takes responsibility for making the other interlocutors aware of the sudden compulsive attentional shifts on the part of the message initiator to other objects, e.g., other topics. Furthermore, the attribution of contiguity to Index is plain; it serves as relations enhancer for message-makers and receivers, uniting the momentary focus from one individual to another, and with the whole of the continuum. Recognition of relations in contiguity operates when Index regulates the association of sign to place and time of an Object’s appearance, because it monitors potential changes in the where and when of Objects’ instantiation, and situates them within the framework of events. In the previous passage, Peirce still requires that the genuine Index (gesture) be employed concurrently with a present object; but with the advent of degenerate index, he extends reference to dynamical objects as mental constructs, e.g., reference to absent objects as images in the mind. The latter use of index allows for temporal and spatial distance/attenuation between the Dynamical Object and Index. This represents a significant semiotic transition, because as degenerate Index, it can now have as its Object, something mental (an image), which permits sign-object attenuation. This attenuation strengthens the sign—allowing broader applications, and lays the groundwork for incorporation of space and time-travel necessary to shape the episodic character of moving events (cf. West, 2014; West, 2018a, b, c, d, e). It likewise shepherds the increased influence of the Immediate Object—attributing to it the means to link in the mind similar Dynamical Objects. When Index progresses in semiosis with more elaborated Immediate Objects and Logical Interpretants (illustrated by attenuated uses), it acquires iconic and symbolic qualities —affording a more informational interpretant: An Index or Seme … is a Representamen whose Representative character consists in its being an individual Second. If the Secondness is an existential relation, the Index is genuine. If the Secondness is a reference, the Index is degenerate. A genuine Index and Its Object must be existent individuals (whether things or facts), and its immediate Interpretant must be of the same character. But since every individual must have characters, it follows that a genuine Index may contain a Firstness, and so an Icon, as a constituent part of it. Any individual is a degenerate Index of its own characters. Examples of Indices are the hand of a clock, and the veering of a weathercock. Subindices or hyposemes are signs which are rendered such principally by an actual connection with their objects. Thus, a proper, [a] personal, demonstrative, or relative pronoun, or a letter attached to a diagram, denotes what it does owing to a real connection with its object, but none of these is an Index, since it is not an individual. (1903: EP 2:274)

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Since early deictic gestures are virtually always in existential relationship with their objects, they qualify as genuine indexes; whereas personal, demonstrative, and relative pronouns are so only when they both refer to present objects and are employed in this manner for the first time. The latter is the case because it is then, and then, only that their principle function is to individuate; in these applications (subsequent to their initial use with an object), they are degenerate, in that their interpretant includes some Thirdness-based information beyond existential considerations. Indexes supersede their genuine use when a mental association has already been established regarding that object (based upon some form of analogy), and a particular interpretant housing iconic or symbolic meanings is accessible. In the degenerate cases, the object has already been singled out from the pool of potential referents (cf. West, 2013 Chap. 7). In short, in making prominent Index’s role as existential attention focuser, or “zoom agent” as with gestural performatives, index has a central role in discourse establishment in the endoporeutic principle. As such, the index which the agent employs suggests terms and even propositions that the message receiver can infer if Index is successful in creating a similar focus/“common place to stand.” In this way, Index enhances “passage into” of the term/proposition to other parties. Index’s later function as tracker of discourse topics further facilitates endoporeutic purposes in its use of locative demonstratives “here, there, this, that” to obviate perspectival relations between interlocutors. In English, the speaker is the point of reference; and the message receiver must recognize such in order to determine placement of the array. These linguistic indexes unquestionably have an endoporeutic purpose—despite Index’s genuine use as a carrier of conventional meaning. As Legisign, Index’s use is genuine and at the same time endoporeutic, in that by way of words whose meaning incorporates shifting perspectival roles, it requires interlocutors to “pass into” the alternative viewpoint of the other, particularly in view of the momentary shifts which it harnesses.2 It becomes quite obvious that Peirce privileges genuine indexes (such as gestures), given his disqualification of certain Legisigns (linguistic indexes) from Indexical status. This status is assumed when the classificatory meaning of pronouns/proper names becomes primary. They cannot qualify as genuine Indexes, because their designative power/identifying function is muted by comparison-based knowledge already present in the mind of the interlocutors, as an Immediate Object. As Peirce argues (EP 2:274), unless reference to an individual constitutes the sign’s primary purpose (not clouded by reference to conceptual similarities), it fails to qualify as an index. Thus, only on the first occasion of use can pronouns/proper names qualify as Indexes, because their use individuates unique objects—and gestural performatives (when standing alone), always qualify. Linguistic indexes qualify only when their attentional function is primary. Genuine indexes (embodied in gestural performatives) presumes, however, that the “zoom” effect in the sign is of utmost importance to make the sign-object 2

In 1903: CP 4.447, the seeds for augmenting the influence of Index as submitter of arguments was conceived, although not fully worked out: “[The index] is a real thing or fact which is a sign of its object by virtue of being connected with it as a matter of fact and by also forcibly intruding upon the mind, quite regardless of its being interpreted as a sign”.

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connection for the hearer. But, once the subject of discourse has been established between speaker and hearer, indexes are degenerate—they are pointers which depend upon elicitation of other, meanings/effects, namely, stored memories, functioning similarly to common nouns (cf. West, 2013 Chap. 7). In fact, when pointers require access to classificatory meanings (stored interpretants), their indexical purpose is altered to serve a more auxiliary function. Index’s role as action performative still qualifies as genuine because it takes responsibility within its representamen (directing the attention to a sequence of involved objects and participant persons) to directly illustrate the object in the physical context which represents the producer’s topic of discourse—his settled will. When gestural performatives supersede this genuine indexical function such that they “force something to be an icon…or force us to regard it as an icon…” (1904: EP2:307) they function as degenerate. In this case, the gestural sequence straddles/transitions between genuine and degenerate uses, if the global shape of its representamen becomes central in capturing the meaning. In short, gestural performatives are privileged in their role as genuine indexes, because they supply physical enhancements for interlocutors—to facilitate attachment of the producer’s communicative intent to the sign (in order that a specific something is performed).

3.4 Performatives as Action Templates Since the term “performative” emanates from “perform” which entails underlying action affecting the self or another (Austin, 1962: 6), any conduct that illustrates doing/putting into action what would on the linguistic plane be a term or a proposition equally qualifies as a performative: “it [performative] indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action—it is not normally thought of as just saying something” (Austin, 1962: 6–7). Even utterances classified as performative in the Searlean sense do not always “say something” specific. In fact, the intent of many gestural performatives may communicate more specificity than do the normative ones. In introducing more than vague anythings, they intimate the producer’s discrete underlying propositions or perhaps assertions, implying the producer’s will and attitudes toward the hearer’s production of a particular state of affairs. Accordingly, these action-propositions/assertions are sufficiently specific to be interpreted (at minimum) as propositions. In fact, they meet Peirce’s standard for “determinations” (cf. 1911: MS 674: 14–15). Here Peirce defines determinations as “a settlement of…will,” in the sense that the producer’s action clearly depicts his specific desire—to communicate a command or suggestion for the issuance of conduct. As such, the meaning potential emanating from what these indexical actions “say” is sufficiently directive-like to quicken another to act or think in a certain way in particularized circumstances, akin to Peirce’s concept of habit (cf. West, 2015, 2016; MS 620: 1909). Their meaning cuts to the quick, even within Secondness, as a scaffold to produce new actions or beliefs. Consequently, explicit language-based performatives express what actions alone merely imply—identifying and classifying

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objects and events, as well as determining potential effects that the conduct is likely to produce. An action alone can illustrate the producer’s attitude of mind regarding another’s response to it, e.g., that another comply with a command, or that he agree with a proposition which the producer’s action suggests. The pragmatic classifications of Austin and Searle necessitate a still more finegrained analysis of whether prelinguistic actions have communicative sufficiency for performative status. According to Austin (1962: 101), and Searle (1979: 12–15), there are three kinds of performatives: locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary. Austin’s (1962: 95) recognition of actions as locutionary supports their status as performative. To be locutionary, acts must contain one of three qualities: phonetic, phatic, or rhetic (Austin, 1962: 95). Acts can “do something” without linguistic features, or with few conventional linguistic qualities, and can hence satisfy classification as locutionary. “We begin by distinguishing a whole group of senses of “doing something…which includes the utterance of certain noises [phonetic], the utterance of certain words in a certain construction[phatic] and the utterance of them with a certain ‘meaning’ in the favorite philosophical sense of that word, i.e., with a certain sense and with a certain reference [rhetic] (Austin, 1962: 94). So an action which lacks rhetic status—which merely is accompanied by an intonational stream (having phonetic status)—can, nonetheless, qualify as a performative act. Austin’s rationale supports the inclusion of prelinguistic intonational actions as locutionary even though they materialize absent conventional, linguistic conveyance. This is so, because they illustrate a command/declarative displayed in an act of offering/giving (prior to the onset of language)—an exercise underscored by [na] with rising/falling intonational contours. The pragmatic qualification for performative status is satisfied in action; these actions implicitly convey propositions to another’s consciousness, requesting or compelling that they examine their plausibility. This opens a whole new venue for representing less patent meaning/intent of the producer’s conduct as message. Although these actions are locutionary on their face, they unquestionably effectuate pragmatic goals—having discrete illocutionary and/or perlocutionary force. Prelinguistic actions which are locutionary in nature, often have in the mind of the producer how such might affect the future conduct of the self or another, a pragmatic requirement for performatives. While illocutionary acts “involve the securing of uptake” when saying something in a conventional way, and “take effect” in particular ways (Austin, 1962: 116), perlocutionary acts, on the other hand, are maximally pragmatic because they “achieve [those] effects” unconventionally by saying something or simply by doing something, e.g., hurling tomatoes to command/urge that another cease and desist a behavior (Austin, 1962: 117). Accordingly, sensorimotor actions (those displaying a social, directional, and dimensional character) can possess some foreseeable illocutionary and perlocutionary force, e.g., “saying:” “take/look at this X; it is for you.” This principle of affecting self/another via action propositions is particularly germane in early ontogeny, prior to the onset of language, when actions with gestural shape tell others something about what the producer desires or is declaring. This is

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particularly critical at the juncture in ontogeny prior to the emergence of language— when conventional symbols more explicitly communicate the producer’s intentions. According to Austin’s definition of performatives, prelinguistic actions (on the sensorimotor plane) qualify as performatives, since they “say something” implicitly, thereby revealing to the interlocutor the producer’s recommendation for response. Austin’s recognition that implicit meaning resides in early gestures heightens performative status to that of conduct prior and beyond the the more obvious effect of language, e.g., “I bet” containing a foundational imperative/declarative correlate in behavior. Austin elaborates as follows: the instrument conveying the influence of the act may be “wide,” allowing for implied illocutions, or “narrow,” as in the case of an explicit linguistic statement (Austin, 1962: 7). More specifically, Austin indicates that this distinction is “between doing and saying” (Austin, 1962: 47). If the term/proposition/argument is implied, as in the case of prelinguistic actions, the performative constitutes a wide use; and the meaning to be communicated depends upon careful attention to joint attentional instruments. Although use of these gestural performatives places more burden on the interlocutor, in view of the inferences required to determine the producer’s intent, researchers have found that, for both adults and children, up-take of formattable meanings (which otherwise may have gone unnoticed) can satisfy communicative purposes earlier in development—thus minimizing the frustration of potential misinterpretations which all-to-often characterize early interaction. Enfield et al. (2007: 1738) support the efficacy of this rationale. They found that for their adult subjects “typically added speech [to their primary gestures] is merely supportive/elaborative of the B-point gestures (“big” in form, e.g., pointing to keys to identify their location); and if anything is dispensable it is the speech.” These researchers found the B-points to be “primary,” rather than the effect of accompanying language because of the effectiveness of their foregrounding component (Enfield et al., 2007: 1723). In fact, the foregrounding function of this gesture was often sufficient to anchor the interlocutor to the space, time, event participants, and to the intent of the producer—especially demonstrating by graphic means how the interlocutor was expected to respond. The communicative effectiveness of these B gestures is attributed largely to the foregrounding nature of these indexical gestures, because foregrounding content features over and against other contextual ones organizes the message, clarifying the intent. This organization separates relational features (space and time coordinates) from focused, often new content. As such, these early gestures even when standing alone, serve a powerful communicative function, organizing background from information focus. This has the further logical advantage of incorporating relations of subject and predicate into implied propositions/arguments, which can serve a pivotal function as proto-episodes (cf. West, 2018a, b). The indexical nature of these gestures (particularly B-points) provide convincing motivation to classify them as early performatives, and as such, enhancing the effectiveness of message conveyance at early stages in development. In short, Enfield et al.’s findings obviate the sufficiency of these indexical pointers to alone communicate to another the producer’s intent, i.e., to convey the effect or purpose of the act.

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3.5 The Semiosis of Early Performatives To clearly establish the primacy of indexical signs as communicative devices, charting their influence on the development of logical relations across events is necessary. The embodied character of these indexes is noteworthy, since they establish a direct physical connection with the objects to which they refer. But, the joint attentional paradigm of early gestures is likewise responsible for index’s indispensability in establishing communicative intent, in that it supplies the pragmatic features necessary to promote social, endoporeutic ends. The joint attentional, pragmatic quality intrinsic to performatives (their illocutionary force) facilitates more intersubjective effects, namely advancing subjunctive meanings through new propositional expressions. The ontogeny of these performatives follows a particular course: beginning with instrumental pointing (intimating subjective meanings only), advancing to social (joint attentional) uses, finally culminating in more iconic gestures which resemble action templates. Bates (1976: 61) and Clark (2009) intimate that the production of initial single indexes fail to qualify as performatives, because they promote self-communicative ends, rather than social ones. These indexes remind the self of the merit of the percept focus, and mark its spatial and temporal location. Targeted reach (0;4)3 or pointing without engaging another’s gaze (0;8) illustrate proto-performative status only, in view of the lack of interlocutor involvement. This “instrumental” use is merely pre-performative, in that the gestures, although directed, are nonetheless grounded in object-finding for the self, not in social effects. Here, interpretants of indexical gestures are characterized more as an effect on the self than as a meaning to communicate a proposition to others, since the purposes of the indexical gesture are to preserve memory of where (cf. Leslie, Xu, Tremoulet and Scholl 1998 for support for the presence of indexical files by 0;6), and when objects can be subsequently found, and to monitor paths to obtain them. But, these instrumental gestures serve an underlying motivation for social exchanges—forming the ontological foundation to eventually construct and propose simple propositions. Even the later competency of arm extension to recover objects arguably falls short of performative status, since it is still absent social-representational design. The intent of the gestures at this juncture is not to reliably produce a particular effect upon an involved party. The pre-semiotic classification of these reaching gestures is arguably supported by their failure to contain an interpretant, conforming to genuine index status, coupled with the absence of communicative intent to promote endoporeutic ends. Instead, their purpose promotes access to proximate entities of interest to the self, having little communicative import to others (Cameron-Faulkner et al., 2015). According to Baldwin and Saylor (2005), the advent of interactive gaze, initiated by children’s gestural indexes (joint gaze with pointing, holding objects in lap, arm extensions toward another) mark the threshold when intent is communicated. Advancement to social interactive gestures (according to Bates, 1976; Bates et al., 1979) such as 3

The convention in the field of developmental psychology is to use “(year;month)” to denote the child’s age.

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declarative shows, e.g., hold out and gives (Ho&G’s) can qualify as performatives, provided that the meaning of the joint gesture sufficiently implies attempts to show or offer the object in question. These proto-transfer gestures emerge at approximately 0;10, immediately preceding obvious shows, such as declarative finger pointing (Cameron-Faulkner et al., 2015: 577). It is obvious that at this stage, declarative finger pointing communicates what children want interlocutors to do, illustrating its performative character. More clear instantiations of declarative finger pointing materialize when children share objects/experiences by using movement-indexes, e.g., reaching toward another with object in hand (cf. Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011). Because this gesture implies a request that another take the proffered object, its communicative intent is unquestionable (cf. Carpenter, Nagell, & Tomasello 1998). Similarly, children employ these kinds of gestures with intent to have another access the object in question. In short, even without accompanying language, the interpretant is alive and well—urging/commanding another’s response. McNeill (1992) makes a similar claim—that declarative finger pointing at approximately 0;11 conveys a specific message to a social partner, but notes that the character of the pointing (or other indexical gesture) must incorporate the element of motion to be truly performative; in fact, McNeill refers to them as “gesture movements with definite referential significance” (1992: 300). The hold out and gives which surface at a similar age, are unequivocally fullfledged performatives, in view of the clearer directionality of the index, and as such, their clearer social function (offering/showing). Give-based movements are less ambiguous than are holdouts, and demonstrates an obvious social, communicative intent. The ambiguity of holdouts resides in their static form—rather than extending the hand/arm toward the receiver, the hands remain immobile, on the lap. In contrast, the give-based gesture clearly offers a directional transfer to another. The directional arm extension constitutes a social, communicative act, in that its corresponding meaning is tantamount to the issuance of a command to “take” or “see, or simply to relieve the child of the object. Once children’s gestures entail effects upon others, they more clearly qualify as action performatives, because their production expresses a wish to control how another might behave. To further measure the specific communicative intent which underlie children’s action performatives, investigators have monitored the intonational contours which children produce along with the action. These rising or falling intonational strings often express children’s affect, and can shed light on deontic features of the interaction—how they prefer that others react. Several investigators have noted two distinctive accompanying pitch contours /vocalizations. Flax et al. (1991) identify action performatives which serve an imperative function: “pre-linguistic requests for objects and actions,” which “request-commands” in other than linguistic form often give place to a particularized intonational contour. By 1;0, the intonation of accompanying pitch implying an imperative illustrated a falling contour, while in declarative uses, intonation contours conformed to a distinctly rising sequence (CameronFaulkner, 2014: 856). The different pitch contours demonstrate the association of distinctive meanings (interpretants) in operation—secondary accompanying paralinguistic indexes, informing primary indexical ones. As such, as secondary indexes,

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these intonational contours bear witness to the claim that performatives can emerge as prelinguistic pointers. In fact, these gestures with intonational patterns can likewise carry new meanings/effects—beyond declarative or imperative ones. The action shape illustrated in the indexical gesture can recommend additional behavioral paths to follow, e.g., where one should proceed to find an object. Cameron-Faulkner (2014: 857), and Cameron-Faulkner et al. (2015: 584) take a harder stand regarding the question of whether conduct alone is sufficient to qualify as performative. They appear to indicate that conduct qualifies only when accompanied by these paralinguistic contours. They articulate that intonationally accompanied actions “bridge” meanings in which the social component (influencing another’s actions/beliefs) is essential. These investigators make this pronouncement without closely examining the expanded representamen of indexical gestures—their dynamic, movement-directed shape toward a particular social partner. The emergence of iconic gestures especially showcases the existence of communicative intent, in that they supply not merely indexical direction (shape toward a target), but iconic (picture-shape). While the former provides hints of destination, the latter supplies a resemblance-based image-likeness of the soughtafter object. This is the juncture when index informs icon. Esteve-Gibert et al. (2017: 123) similarly found that communicative intent for indexical gestures and vocalizations was present by 1;0. Nonetheless, they further found that even at this early age, infant’s responses to adult’s gestureintonational shape (imperative, informational, expressive) demonstrated specific message comprehension (imperative versus declarative). Infants’ responses indicated that they accorded different meanings to distinct hand shapes/movements on the part of adult interlocutors. The experimenter’s hand shape (which infants interpreted accurately) displaying imperative intent resembled upward-tilting whole-hand pointing, rather than index finger pointing. Children’s differential responses to these gestures indicates reliable comprehension of the intended communicative message. More convincing of performative understanding is the fact that their comprehension was concurrent with joint attention ventures, which unquestionably consist in a social component. It is obvious that distinctive communicative meanings were associated with the adults’ different hand shapes and different intonational contours. These investigators later had adults use double indexical signs (distinguishing specific messages, e.g., gaze with pointing). These double signs (with increased shape contour) gradually make the index more potent, given increased emphasis on similarities in path contours. This double sign use on the part of adults advances the functionality of index—in introducing shape, the scope of index’s message is enhanced to include more amplified paths beyond straight line directionality. As such, the performative gesture incorporates iconic features which has enhanced effects to show a new behavioral path, or a novel belief path for another to follow. This double sign (marriage of index and icon in Peirce’s Dicisign) is formidable for increasing understanding of communicative intent, especially at early ages. This double sign obviates the communicative intent still further, such that infants gave greater weight to performative gestures when weighted with more pictorial attributes. Three kinds of adult hand shapes were produced: informational (pointing finger with narrow pitch range

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and abbreviated syllable length), expressive (pointing finger with wide pitch range and longer syllables) and imperative (palm open and wide pitch and short syllables). Infant responses to the adults’ three gestures were quite different: often extending a cup (motion sequences) to the adult in the imperative condition, but merely holding the cup in place (presumably to show it) in more declarative conditions. The former arguably illustrates an index forcing another to regard an icon, in that it displays some holistic shape, the latter conforms to Peirce’s genuine indexical use, given that the hand holding the cup in one place merely implies the merits for attending to it. Other kinds of early gestural indexes, such as offering behaviors, are precursors to pointing, and serve as a bridge to full-fledged performatives, be they declarative or imperative in nature. Holdouts and shows appear to be precursors to giving exchanges. “As Ho&Gs involve sharing attention to proximal objects, they are cognitively simpler than drawing attention to distal objects the remit of index finger pointing” (Carpenter, et al. 1998). According to McNeill (1992: 302), children engage in whole-body enactments as proto-iconic gestures by 1;6, such as a hand waving downward for a slide, or moving the torso back and forth for a swing (Accredolo & Goodwyn 1990). By 2;6, McNeill refers to these and other enactments as “Iconics” (1992: 302). Fundamental to the development of such iconic gestures from protogestures are C-VPT (character viewpoint) and O-VPT (observer viewpoint) gestures, which emerge between 1;4 and 1;6 (McNeill, 1992: 301). Children’s comprehension of the communicative intent was hastened by observing adults’ movement-based gestures (enacted iconic gestures) while producing a subject and verb utterance, e.g., “I’m eating” while either scooping closed right fist toward mouth (cereal) or while moving cupped hands in U-shape (sandwich) (Stanfield, Williams, & Özçali¸skan 2014: 467). These investigators conclude that observing adults’ iconic gestures was the factor most responsible for their selection of the accurate picture (depicting consumption of the sandwich/the cereal). Since these gestures (with index and icon) depict the practical and logical progression of episodes (West, 2017a, 2018e), their influence is substantial, and are more effective later in development than are deictic ones (469). In line with this rationale, these investigators characterize the ultimate effect of iconic gestures as follows: “Overall, our results suggest that the complexity of a gesture (ICONIC vs. DEICTIC) as well as its relative frequency in the input might serve as important contributors to children’s developing ability to unpack multimodal communications addressed to them at the early ages” (Stanfield et al., 2014: 470). A semiotic analysis (particularly Peircean) of these findings a more explanatory account of how intent is communicated via prelinguistic gestures, namely, via attentional signs whose interpretants augment the nature of the proposition which the producer wishes to convey. This approach demonstrates the way in which early indexical gestures as signs, house deterministic propositions in their interpretants. This reveals how actions alone qualify as conveyers of unexpressed, performative meanings.

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While deictic gestures (individuating objects from a global array) have a differentiating function, iconic gestures depict more relational principles, such as a moving event (Stanfield et al., 2014). For this reason, they illustrate the sequence and spatial dynamicity of the event in an episodic fashion. As such, iconic gestures help to unpack increasingly complex reciprocal exchanges—events whose complexion requires cause-effect scenarios and role switching in endoporeutic sign exchanges. It is obvious that only when a psychosocial purpose for indexical gestures emerges does the gesture gain status as Dicisign (cf. West, 2018e), with the potency to shape involved icons and to effectuate more symbolic-like inferencing. The latter materializes when performative indexes refer to dynamical objects which are expected in the context, but are absent therefrom—onset at 1;6 (Sachs, 1983). It is evident at this juncture that interpretants of index contain symbolic and subjunctive meaning, given the attenuation and conflict between what is expected to actualize and the absence of such in the context. At this point in development, indexes have an interpretant of the third mode of being, in that in some sense, they are replicas of a symbol. The shape of the performative action constitutes a convention, since it is the shape which has an expected, law-like meaning, e.g., an extended, cupped hand meaning awaiting receipt of x. Accordingly, this use of index attains a symbolic character, qualifying it as a degenerate form of Thirdness. Interpretants at this point in ontogeny transition from energetic to logical, and eventually ground the sign. When offering behaviors emerge, as in “hold-out” gestures, index informs icon—it facilitates social exchanges by drawing a triangle between participants and between objects. This imposition of directionality clearly motivates interaction among players. For this reason, indexical gestures are particularly ripe for imperative uses–compelling others’ notice of event shape in the here and now. Interpretants of initial gestures are often imperative-like, benefiting self, whereas interpretants of later social and iconic gestures carry subjunctive meanings/effects. While the meaning of deictic gestures compels the interlocutor’s recognition of propositions (e.g., the object under scrutiny has merit for focus and is an X), more iconic gestures approximate subjunctive-like meanings, and have a more assertory sense. This is obviated by the fact that Peirce widens the interpretants of indexes which represent terms or propositions (cf. CP 4.538). In widening what the term and proposition can embrace, Peirce endows index with the power to “submit” claims for potential integration into another’s logical system (1905: CP 8.338). The subjunctive character of the latter makes possible renovations in complexions of mind by encouraging, not forcing, consideration of a claim which has assertory status (1903: CP 5.543) for the agent.

3.6 Early Performatives as Propositions/Assertions A key operator is the degree to which performative gestures reveal the information packaged within index. From shape and movement trajectories (Indexical representations), interlocutors can infer assertions or arguments, providing gestures with

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performative status. At the outset, Index “asserts nothing” (1885: CP 3.361) when it exclusively has an individuating function. In this capacity, it does not imply relations, nor does it convey information. Afterward, in the Pheme and in the Dicisign, when index informs icons (1898: MS 485), it gains the power to assert: “An assertion is an illative transformation of an index into an icon.” Here Peirce alludes to this illative transformation again in 1904, when he more strongly claims that “Neither a pure index nor a pure icon can assert, but an index which forces something to be an icon, as a weathercock does, or forces us to regard it as an icon, as a legend under a portrait does, does assert and forms a proposition” (1904: EP 2: 307). Without index, icons would lack assertory power, i.e.—they not merely draw attention to meritorious objects, but provides the organizational promise to recognize the icon in the first place. Index orchestrates the internal organization of the icon when it demonstrates relations among the spatial and temporal components of the icon as a global shape. It does so by highlighting the contiguity relations within the icon—by setting up the necessary sequence as an array to form the iconic whole. Peirce’s characterization of index as Pheme further illustrates Peirce’s elevation of index as assertion, because in the Pheme index can imply effects beyond propositions. Phemes, as mere natural events, e.g., weather patterns, convey not merely that the weather is dangerous, but determine the real imminence of the need to remove one’s self from the location. Hence, Phemes as indexes supersede the proposition characterizing the particular weather conditions. Phemes can likewise embrace actions, e.g., slamming down a musket. Here, index as Pheme expands the propositional meaning to that which entails an assertion i.e., a call to arms (). Later Peirce extends the interpretants of Phemes to implied arguments status. This takes the form of children’s enactments which have the power to convince others to engage in similar behavior with “positively possible” solutions. These enactments, e.g., reproducing a cause-effect sequence, implies the logical connection between the antecedent and the consequent, and ultimately even hints at the “principle for sequence” (1908: CP 8.373). This latter series of relations between antecedent, consequent, and principle of sequence can be folded into the interpretant of index as Pheme widening its effects to incorporate implied arguments—whose ultimate purpose is to “submit to the interpreter for his independent reason.” With these implied arguments Phemes can assert propositions and attempt to influence others to adopt new habits of mind and action which they may not otherwise have considered by virtue of their own internal ruminations. The interpretant of index as Pheme (having performative status, is to introduce an alternative, viable course of action/belief which the agent determines has some truth value for himself, and which he wishes to impart to the interlocutor. Because performatives consist in implied meanings both of event relations, and compliance to directives intrinsic to the event relations, their interpretants are rather complex.

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3.7 The Ultimate Teleology of Index Peirce endowed Index with the means to have others notice invisible relations by highlighting icons (1898: MS 485; 1904: EP 2: 307); otherwise the intended interpretant might not fulfill the endoporeutic principle—such that the interpretant is shared by both parties. The attentional character of index facilitates “passage into” and hence lays the groundwork of the endoporeutic principle; whereas the icon supplies the common semantic meaning to promote this principle via resemblance within the sign for both conversational partners. The icon which Index underscores, ultimately provides sign users with a “common place to stand” for sign receivers (1909: MS 614) making especially relevant Peirce’s endoporeutic principle.4 Here Index saves the icon from obscurity, from not being noticed by the interlocutor; and as such, it supplies the informational components necessary to establish, maintain and expand upon sign meaning/effects for the interlocutor, his “brother-man.” In 1906 (CP 4.538), Peirce amplifies Index’s power to imply more than a subject of discourse. It can convert simple signs (Semes) to Delome status by suggesting predicates. Here, gestures become enactments, endowed with subjunctive force— influencing another’s disposition and habits of self-control (cf. West, 2016). Peirce likewise endows potential habits with the potency to carry performative meanings in his characterization of “virtual habit” (cf. West, 2017a, b, and MS 620: 1909). As such, future gestures (especially those which are likely to reemerge), qualify as instantiations of pregenerative Thirdness, Thirdness which is present in Peirce’s notion of possibility but not yet in actuality (cf. Bergman, 2016: 192–196; West, 2017a, 2018a). Peirce illustrates his continued commitment to informational Indexes (containing some element of Thirdness) as an agent to submit arguments when he extends the range of its Dynamic Interpretant: “According to my present view, a sign may appeal to its dynamic interpretant in three ways: 1st, an argument only may be submitted to its interpretant, as something the reasonableness of which will be acknowledged. 2nd, an argument or dicent may be urged upon the interpretant by an act of insistence. 3rd, argument or dicent may be, and a rheme can only be, presented to the interpretant for contemplation” (CP 8.338). In this passage, the dynamic interpretant of informational indexes can be applied to arguments and dicents, in that they contain 4

“No man can communicate the smallest item of information to his brother-man unless they have a place to stand of common familiar knowledge; where the word ‘familiar’ refers less to how well the object is known than to the manner of knowing” (1909: MS 614). In capitalizing on the “manner” (how something is known), rather than the degree of knowing, Peirce privileges those processes arrived at through inferential logic, especially those inferences arrived at through collaborative innovations. Indexical gestures represent signs from which interlocutor’s must extrapolate meanings from implicit forms, e.g., knowing that by gaze toward an X, the producer intends to have another confirm the efficacy of that X by complying with the attentional paradigm or to influence how the interlocutor interacts with the X by his mode of access. Here, Peirce’s emphasis on the manner of knowing is particularly obviated, when one interpreter implies his kind of knowledge, and the other enters a process of inferring the intended meanings. The need to negotiate what each infers regarding particularized and objective ways of knowing that object becomes paramount.

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propositions for the self or for others to consider. “Arguments” here refers to a set of logically connected propositions, which as a whole can make a case for a generalized view of argument—a step which Peirce himself did not explicitly take. Even Terms may imply propositions in their new taxonomy as Semes, despite the absence of an explicit predicate. The latter materializes when simply focusing upon a subject of discourse over another (e.g., one entity instead of another) determines a response to an interrogative. The information (proposition) within index may be implied or explicit. The implicit kind of informational index surfaces as Interpretants of Semes where subjects of discourse change the focus of the interlocutor to an alternative, suggesting that a partner attend to a more viable, or relevant topic. Peirce’s replacement of Seme for Term makes possible presentment of pictures to another as an alternative subject when it better fits an already proposed predicate. Phemes contain informational indexes by virtue of their command-like character. Their propositions are expressed as actions to induce the self or another to behave accordingly. Informational indexes are more obvious when submissions of new logical connections are articulated as full arguments, with the agent’s assertion to convince another of the argument’s veridicality. The purpose of submissions is to import the information of the index (subject and predicate of the focus) for potential integration into the other’s own mental program. In doing so, the agent influences the propositions/arguments of the other party; and the index has a subjunctive function—to convince others of the truth of propositions/arguments. While the Pheme directly constitutes an index for Peirce in that indexes (like Phemes) qualify as the subject of propositions (EP 2: 168; Stjernfelt, 2014: 60; West, 2018d), the Delome likewise incorporates index (EP 2: 274) in that it, in fact, includes a host of propositions with subjects. All of these constitute uses of index (Seme, Pheme, and Delome) to establish propositional subjects, and to change others’ attentional and assertorial focus—influencing their habits of mind. Index’s primary function consequent to its syntax as subject of propositions, is obviously attentional in nature, even in light of Peirce’s more mature semiotic. This attentional quality is foundational to Peirce’s endoporeutic purposes—to secure and maintain the mental focus of self and other. Moreover, his later characterization of index as affecting the “mental eyeballs” of the interpreter (1908:8.350) furthers this principle, given its subjunctive-like effect. Early in ontogeny, index’s call to attend individuates objects in the here and now (in Secondness) for self-focus and later for that of others. This attentional function is implicated in early performative use, in that the intent of the sign producer is to change either his own momentary focus (excluding other objects)/discourse topics, or to compel another to focus on same, or to assert a novel proposition/set of propositions. This latter use especially qualifies as performative, given the presence of underlying intent on the part of the sign producer to attempt to align his interlocutor’s focus to his own, and to compel or recommend that another behave in a particular way, e.g., to agree to make the object accessible. Although Peirce’s more mature semiotic still incorporates attentional components, the motivation underlying the use of these directional signs, housed in his interpretants, is characteristic of increasingly more modal effects—effects which not merely command another to act in certain ways, but which suggest taking an alternative

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habit of conduct/mind, consonant with Peirce’s concept of dialogue and his use of “habituescence” (cf. 1908: CP 8.350; 1913: MS 930).5 Despite the more elevated meaning of indexes in their subjunctive use, their form/representation is rather simple, namely, Semes or Phemes when they qualify as genuine indexes. Index’s means to house these social interpretants in rather simple signs/forms, provides the potency necessary to capture interlocutors’ attentional focus and to beg responses to the gesture. This effect to change another’s focus and reaction constitutes a new attentional habit which elevates emotional interpretants to energetic and logical ones (cf. 1907: MS 318). The transformation materializes as a consequence of the enactmentlike quality of the representamen in the case of gestural indexes, transforming them from percepts (images in the mind without interpretation) to having a representational character as perceptual facts/“percipuum”6 (cf. Short, 2007: 218–219). The presence of Thirdness as the interpretive component is made evident in perceptual facts (percipuum), consequent to the need to deliver communicative intent and to imply other ways of knowing the object under scrutiny (cf. CP 2.141, CP 2.143 for foundation on the percipuum). Although an interpretant (Thirdness) may be present in images, as well (cf. de Tienne, 2013), it is in gestural enactments (when index is profiled) where Thirdness is particularly striking. This interpretative component in the perceptual fact obviated in gestural performatives (saying something by indexical conduct alone) illustrates a reach for successful mutual understanding/common ground (MS 614). In short, gestural performatives imply Thirdness by virtue of index’s means to elaborate its interpretant, and thereby serve as a subjunctive tool to recommend, not merely to compel another’s attention/response. At this juncture, interpretants of index go beyond the force of imperatives—they contain seeds to persuade rather than forcing compliance, in that the interlocutor is encouraged to determine for himself whether adherence to the directive which the producer intends in the gestural performative (act, Pheme) is reasonable. The performative in Austin’s sense constitutes an act which implies which causes interpreters to respond in particular ways, because they share underlying propositions with the producer of the performative. In fact, shared interpretants of these indexical acts can even consist in implied arguments, if the performative implies more than a single subject and predicate. An act, such as a salute might imply a chain of propositions, namely, that the producers is part of the same hierarchy as the officer receiving the salute, that the salute demonstrates respect, etc. Performatives as arguments have an imperative function, as well as a further purpose—the power to suggest or to persuade. The latter demonstrates the influence of parties’ actions upon one another, with the force to have them take up the same sign—a subjunctive process. In fact, index is the kind of sign whose Dynamic Interpretant produces subjunctive-like effects. In 5

CP 8.350: “…Indicatives…which like a Demonstrative pronoun, or a pointing finger, brutely direct the mental eyeballs of the interpreter to the object in question, which in this case cannot be given by independent reasoning”. MS 930: “[The] Third mode of consciousness may be briefly denominated “The consciousness of taking a habit,” or in one word, ‘habituescence’”. 6 “…I propose to consider the percept as it is immediately interpreted in the perceptual judgment, under the name of the ‘percipuum’.” (1908: CP 7.643).

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1905(CP 4.538), Peirce demonstrates this in claiming that interpretants of Phemes (ordinarily indexical signs which compel the interlocutor), supersede their explicit propositional effects by containing the possibility of implied arguments (cf. MS 295). Accordingly, a claim which the performative gesture implies is integrated into the interlocutor’s representational system, and can be either rejected, shelved for future consideration, or adopted by the interlocutor. In any case, it is not forced upon him; instead, its reasonableness is determined initially by the influence of the producer’s argument, and ultimately by consistency between it and other tenets of his own system. For example, the interlocutor may decide that transferring another cookie (the object to which the performative gesture is directed) is unreasonable, if he anticipates overindulgence and the folly of dessert obsession, consequent to memory of previous perceptual facts. In this way, when Index (via gestural performatives) permits another to contemplate his own, volitional response, it supersedes its single propositional (subject) status, rising to the level of argument(implicit presence of several connected propositions). When index’s interpretant suggests/recommends, rather than forcing beliefs or conduct, its interpretant becomes a prime modal operator. It hints at compliance and allows the other to make his own choice, much like how (in subjunctive verb use) speaker’s perspectives regarding the likelihood of an event’s occurrence or the factors contributing to a consequence is offered to the interlocuter for him/her to decide for him/herself. As such, the speaker’s assertions can result in a host of responses; but absent the speaker’s assertions, the way to inquiry would be truncated for other members of the continuum—a consequence which Peirce vehemently warns against. Accordingly, prelinguistic performatives influence but do not determine outcomes; their role as significant agent in the establishment of new complexions of mind is indispensable. Indexes do so by submitting future states of affairs packaged in gestures which “say something” as assertions, communicating them to other minds. Interpretants of these assertions can take the form of: imperatives, interrogatives or indicatives. Accordingly, as imperative, interrogative, or as simple statement of fact, these prelinguistic performatives possess a subjunctive sense, in Firstness, in their potency (possibility) to modify other’s consciousness by submitting (rather than compelling) a new object of focus, together with a novel response. These submissions (which mature Indexes brings about) affect the seriousness with which other minds consider the possibility of events under scrutiny; and the manner in which the assertion is packaged (reflecting the degree of speaker’s commitment), serves to recommend the strength of the assertion to the receiver. Index’s role as assertion experienced a lengthy ontogeny: from Pheme, to Dicisign as proposition, and finally to Dicisign as implied argument. Peirce’s new taxonomy, especially his substitution of “Delome” for argument, demonstrates Index’s potency as submitter of assertions: The new words I substitute for these [“term,” “proposition,” and “argument” (c.1900: MS 142: 6)] are, Seme, Pheme, and Delome…. It is a division according to the final interpretant. …The second member of the triplet, the “Pheme,” embraces all capital propositions; but not only capital propositions, but also capital interrogations and commands, whether they be uttered in words or signaled by flags, or trumpeted, or whether they be facts of nature

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3 Prelinguistic Developmental Considerations like an earthquake (saying “Get out of here!”) or the black vomit in yellow fever (with other symptoms of disease, which virtually declare, or are supposed to declare, some state of health to exist). Such a sign intends or has the air of intending to force some idea (in an interrogation), or some action (in a command), or some belief (in an assertion), upon the interpreter of it, just as if it were the direct and unmodified effect of that which it represents. (1906: MS 295:26)

In its capacity as Pheme, Index directs others’ thought germinations and ultimately their assertions ordinarily through forcing an idea before their mind. Nonetheless, later (1908: CP 8.338) Peirce extends the objective of the Pheme by incorporating a subjunctive function—requesting message receivers to consider the plausibility/likelihood of future events. The introduction of “seme” (index as percept) permits Terms to imply more than subjects of discourse, while the introduction of “Pheme” for Proposition demonstrates more than an application of a predicate to a subject. In fact, “Pheme” was later consolidated into the “Dicisign” (cf. Bellucci, 2014: 539–540; West, 2018d). The Pheme serves a purpose beyond the proposition, in that it forces others to consider the veracity of its claims. Nonetheless when Peirce folds “Pheme” into the Dicisign, he recognizes the full use of Index as conveyer of information to be submitted for consideration by other minds. As Phemes, ideas become interrogations; actions become commands; and beliefs rise to the level of assertions. In any case, the introduction of “Pheme” to incorporate linguistic indexes to “zoom” in on possible conceptions of future states of affairs marks a transition from Index as shepherding each instantiation of present objects, to Index as tracer of future event profiles. Index’s influence (its effects in performative contexts) does not stop at its command-like character; it is expanded to house the complexion of the Delome, in which Index as Term or Proposition can imply an argument. To do this, Peirce was required to “widen the use of Term and Proposition (alluded to previously): A familiar logical triplet is Term, Proposition, Argument.7 In order to make this a division of all signs, the first two members have to be much widened. [—] As the third member of the triplet, I sometimes use the word Delome […], though Argument would answer well enough. It is a Sign which has the Form of tending to act upon the Interpreter through his own self-control, representing a process of change in thoughts or signs, as if to induce this change in the Interpreter (1906: CP 4.538).

Peirce indicates that although Phemes (containing an index) are not Delomes, their interpretants can contain implied arguments. This semiotic modification is revolutionary—it elevates action signs to performative status. By “saying something,” in the interpretant of index, the gesture affords possible effects (e.g., whether the interlocutor is likely to respond in the face of the directional sign). This incorporates possible worlds of other interpreters, not merely actual ones. 7

A definition of argument follows: “An “Argument” is any process of thought reasonably tending to produce a definite belief. Two primary competencies underlie the development of modal logic, both of which are shepherded by indexical signs: perspective-taking and dialogue. Although each of these skills are distinct, they likewise rely upon the same semiotic facility, namely, Index.” (1908: A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God, CP 6.456).

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Peirce provides several illustrations of performative actions (those possessing imperative and argumentative purpose): acts of nature, e.g., an earthquake which says “get out of here” (MS 295) and a call to arms, orchestrated by thrusting down a musket. On its face these Phemes constitute Dicisigns, in that they contain a proposition, having the meaning/effect of an imperative—to seek compliance, e.g., fleeing in the face of an earthquake. Alternatively, the earthquake can serve as a submission—“maybe you should leave”—an implied argument is born. Here, the interpreter can decide whether it is truly advisable to uproot his entire existence using his own assumptions. In short, within a thirteen-year interval (1885–1898) the function of Peirce’s Index underwent revolutionary alterations—marking not merely Dynamic Objects’ location, but ultimately serving as a logical travel guide to interpret the veridicality of events (propositions) and episodes (set of viable propositions into arguments). Peirce’s introduction of “Delome,” tacitly integrates the Logical Interpretant into Indexical use, such that meanings of Terms or assertions which are indexical in nature rely upon consolidating several Propositions. In other words, what operates as an obvious purpose in the Argument (explicitly expressing the plausibility of an assertion), likewise exists implicitly in the Term and the Pheme, extending the interpretant of index from imperative only, to subjunctive operator. In widening Term and Proposition to imply informational Indexes (imperative uses, and suggestions for future conduct), Peirce provides fertile ground for minds to communicate beyond expected conventional meanings; permitting interlocuters to extract meaning relations by means of abductive inference. This operation endows Index with the potency to imply new meanings, especially packaged in assertions. In fact, the lack of explicit mention of the conclusion and “principle of sequence” in the Seme and Pheme (1908: CP 8.373) turns out to enhance index’s endoporeutic function—beckoning the interpreter to utilize the partner’s recommendations to infer new relations and plausible conclusions. Reliance upon interpreter’s competence to infer conclusions from IndexObject relations demonstrates the expansion of index’s interpretants (in informational indexes) to supply practical and logical rationale critical to Peirce’s ultimate pragmatistic paradigm. Index fosters this endoporeutic purpose by drawing invisible lines to event players (suggesting their role), and intimating their unique contributions. This flow or directional “pull” of meanings beyond stark physical contexts is bolstered by rhematic or iconic qualities, which Peirce ultimately integrates into the Dicisign (cf. Stjernfelt, 2014, 2018 and 1909: EP 2: 496). Although (because they explicitly mention the conclusion and principles of sequence) Arguments possess a more subjunctive character, in that they more directly induce the interpreter to take a position after deliberation, Semes and Phemes likewise can contain implied arguments, but by way of a more indirect exercise. The latter requires abductive reasoning, such that memory of all previous relevant knowledge, together with relevant aspects of the current context (physical, social, affective) are called up. The interpreter’s dependence upon less direct mental operations permits more sound conjecture to determine the viability of potential conclusions/principles which, in turn, shed light on the connection between particular antecedents and conclusions. As such, interpreters are not directly provided with

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conclusions/principles for sequence among events; instead, these logical connections are abduced from graphical gestures (action performatives) and spatial arrays via self-controlled reasoning.

3.8 Conclusion This inquiry demonstrates how Peirce’s treatment of Index as Seme, Pheme, and Delome accounts for the ripeness of early performative gestures to enhance communicative intent in ontogeny—utilizing endoporeutic principles to facilitate imperative and subjunctive meanings or effects. Since 1905, Peirce’s semiotic evidences the farreaching influence of indexical signs, beginning early on in development with performatives. This early action sign evidences how index’s non-symbolic character is more efficacious than their symbolic uses even beyond early uses, presenting, urging, or submitting propositions/arguments. This is so given the distinctly directional function of presentments, urgings, and submissions to determine which topics of discourse interlocuter’s take up. This showcases the potency of graphic sign meanings both before and after predicates are ascribed—representing more complex symbolic meanings (beyond attention to topic selection, and place and time coordinates). The Energetic Interpretants present in indexes individuate objects and imply meanings absent reliance upon symbolic, conventional signs/interpretations. In MS 318 (1907), Peirce makes plain that index’s means to invite interlocuters to infer relations (on an unconscious plane) is the work of the Energetic Interpretant. In fact, the effectiveness of index at early stages in development is attributed in large part to the Energetic Interpretant, obviating purposes for action schemes well prior to the influence of more symbolic, linguistic signs. The ontogeny of children’s pre-linguistic performatives clearly evidences the primacy of indexical actions/attention upon meaning-making on an intrapsychological and on an interpsychological plane—indexical meanings do not initially depend upon full conscious awareness of proposition transfer. Peirce’s index permits children to imply intentionality to others, and to infer such (communicative intent) from them—crafting pre-linguistic messages in the form of behavioral performatives, which tacitly reveal their expectations. As gestural performatives, indexes realize their role as indispensable agents to establish and highlight the implicit intentions pregnant particularly when interlocutors exchange meanings. This is especially obviated in the Energetic Interpretants associated with different phases of index—proceeding from intrasubjective to intersubjective exchanges (cf. West, 2018c). The implicit relations which index facilitates are so foundational—having primacy in establishing attentional forums, in generating propositions, and in implying arguments to explain the logical viability of event relations. As such, they serve as necessary precursors to the emergence of performative actions, ultimately scaffolding the construction of sound arguments. But index’s ultimate teleology derives from its syntax as determined by its Energetic Interpretant (moving gestures) to express imperatives, and to imply the logical content of Arguments. This potency elevates index to an endoporeutic instrument—shaping social

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ends. Here, Peirce’s index experiences its highest calling—invigorating abductive reasoning by presenting, urging, and/or submitting suggestions to enhance another’s self-controlled reasoning.

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McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. University of Chicago Press. Mittelberg, I. (2018). Gestures as image schemas and force gestalts: A dynamic systems approach augmented with motion-capture data analyses. Cognitive Semiotics, 11(1), 1–21. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 1–6 edited by Charles Hartshorne & Paul Weiss. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931–1966. Vols. 7–8 edited by A. Burks. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1958. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. 1, N. Houser & C. Kloesel (Eds.); Vol. 2, Peirce Edition Project, (Eds.). Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1992–1998. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). Unpublished manuscripts are dated according to the Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce, Ed. R. Robin (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967), and confirmed by the Peirce Edition Project (Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis). Pietarinen, A.-V. (2006). Signs of Logic: Peircean Themes of the Philosophy of Language, Games, and Communication. Springer-Verlag. Sachs, J. (1983). Talking about the there and then: The emergence of displaced reference in parentchild discourse, in K. E. Nelson, Children’s Language, Vol. 4 (1–28). London: Psychology Press. Searle, J. (1989). How performatives work. Linguistics and Philosophy, 12(5), 535–558. Short, T. L. (1996). Interpreting Peirce’s interpretant: A response to Lalor, Liszka, and Meyers. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 32(4), 488–541. Short, T. L. (2004). The development of Peirce’s theory of signs. In C. Misak (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Peirce (pp. 214–240). Cambridge University Press. Short, T. L. (2007). Peirce’s Theory of Signs. Cambridge University Press. Stanfield, C., Williamson, R., & Özçali¸skan, S. (2014). How early do children understand gesturespeech combinations with iconic gestures? Journal of Child Language, 41, 462–471. Stjernfelt, F. (2014). Natural Propositions: The Actuality of Peirce’s Doctrine of Dicisigns. Docent Press. Stjernfelt, F. (2018). Signs conveying information: On the range of Peirce’s notion of propositions— dicisigns. In M. Danesi, (Ed.), Empirical Research on Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric, pp. 177–192. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., & Liszkowski, U. (2007). A new look at infant pointing. Child Development, 78(3), 705–722. West, D. (2013). Deictic Imaginings: Semiosis at Work and at Play. Springer-Verlag. West, D. (2014). Perspective switching as event affordance: The Ontogeny of abductive reasoning. Cognitive Semiotics, 7(2), 149–175. West, D. (2015). The work of secondness as habit in the development of early schemes. Public Journal of Semiotics, 6(2), 1–13. West, D. (2016). Indexical scaffolds to habit-formation. In D. West & M. Anderson (Eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness (pp. 215–240). Springer-Verlag. West, D. (2017a). Virtual habit as episode-builder in the inferencing process. Cognitive Semiotics, 10(1), 55–75. West, D. (2017b). The abductive character of Peirce’s virtual habit. In J. Pelkey (Ed.), Semiotics 2016: Archaeology of Concepts (pp. 13–22). Philosophy Documentation Center Press. West, D. (2018a). Fashioning episodes through virtual habit: The efficacy of pre-lived experience. Studia Gilsoniana, 7(1), 81–99. West, D. (2018b). Peirce’s legacy to living and non-living systems: Deely’s last word. The American Journal of Semiotics. West, D. (2018c). Early Enactments as Submissions Toward Self-Control: Peirce’s Ten-Fold Division of Signs. In J. Pelkey & G. Owens (Eds.), Semiotics 2017. West, D. (2018d). The work of Peirce’s dicisign in representationalizing early deictic events. Semiotica, 225, 19–38.

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Chapter 4

Processing Precursors in Narrative Genres: The Case of Abductive Instinct

4.1 Introduction Constructing comprehensible narratives relies heavily upon the inferential skills that both partners bring to bear regarding the meaning chunks within each party’s temporary mental store. Guessing what resides within the working memory (WM) store is particularly critical when fashioning and interpreting narrators’ ultimate purpose in telling the story. This process requires good guessing (in the form of instinctual and deliberative abductions) as to the meaning chunks residing within the other partner’s WM. These inferences must be episodic in nature, hinting at reasons for defining spatial, temporal, and participant vectors critical to the story’s ultimate purpose. This guessing is evidenced when the explanatory potency of events within the narrative transform discrete events into connected, sequential aggregates which communicate principal goals/themes. As such, absent the explanatory advantage which plausible inferences supply, both narrators’ and listeners’ focus is likely to become diverted, such that narrators disclose less relevant sub-themes in lieu of principal topics; and, in turn, listeners’ discernment of the account’s purpose becomes confounded/thwarted. Another related deleterious consequence of listeners’ absence of explanatory direction is their inappropriate foregrounding of irrelevant/tangential/inconsequential facts. This inability to uncover the narrator’s purpose often results from insufficient knowledge of narrators’ consequential percepts in the story’s over-all scheme. As a consequence, the purpose of the episode’s purpose is subject to indiscriminate event processing. In other words, what truly matters in the narration may not be guided by the ultimate reason for telling the story. This failure on the part of narrators to highlight the movement of percepts and their meanings for their listeners compromises representation and storage of the narrative’s primary theme; and inferences that follow draw upon scant, and diffuse facts. What guards against ignoring narrator’s accounts or the formation of unfounded and illogical inferences is structuring narratives such that they contain surprising peeks with underlying explanations. In this way, what might have been expressed

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. E. West, Narrative as Dialectic Abduction, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7_4

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as disparate events brings about a coherent and germane set of contributor-toconsequent structure. Supplying the hills and valleys of surprising (unexpected) consequences promotes the processing of the kinds of abductions which Peirce advocates to advance inquiry—rational instincts (see Paavola, 2012 for further foundation of abduction as instinct). The narrator is responsible to provide the framework for episodic processing—to integrate single happenings into purposeful stories. Implicit abductions (when hypotheses arise instinctually), as well as explicit abductions (when hypotheses materialize consequent to mental involvement) supply measurable explanatory adequacy to entertain episodically-based insights, necessary for effective story-telling. In effect, these explanatory inferences reveal the goals and themes which the narrator wishes to foreground; and both instinctual and deliberative abduction (although the former is more influential) provide clues to the reason for the narrators’ sequential assemblage of the events. This account argues that rational instinctual abductions are more favored in narrative representations, since iconic and indexical features (as a single bundle) make obvious the consequence and hence compel interpretive partners to reach into their own rational reservoirs to find explanations; otherwise, listeners would be consigned to a passive role—message follower. These kinds of signs (icon with index) create a cognitive synergy, which promotes WM processing because their analogous features naturally combine into chunks which represent a single, determinative meaning/effect.

4.2 Relevance of Processing in Narrative Endeavors Even before messages are entertained in internal speech, prioritizing which representations to include in overt speech (for listeners) avoids expending attentional resources on irrelevant units; In this effort, narrators can ensure that listeners’ WM resources are freed up. This exercise allows the limited resources (R. Ellis, 2008: 469) and space (fifteen to seventeen units, West, 2012: 211; Erlam, 2009: 72) in WM to be freed up for temporary storage of more relevant meaning chunks (N. Ellis, 2001). Accordingly, meaning units for listeners would be allocated to signs— to afford clearer means to integrate meaningful chunks into the temporary store. Failure to do so is likely to result in insufficient attentional resources to process the necessary chunks to form propositions and to proffer hypotheses, such that subjectpredicate combinations can be processed. Furthermore, uniting chunks in WM is vital in constructing and reconstructing narratives, because integrating long-term memory units (taking up even more WM space/resources) into the mix is likewise primary to apprehend the sequential character of stories. When instinctual hunches militate in favor of scrutinizing an external or internal fact, such must be accomplished not in isolation with other facts, but must be integrated into a sequential frame of reference with other facts toward episode formation. the process of transforming attentional stimuli into chunked units establishes/authenticates terms (subjects) and propositions (with predicates) for implicit

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or explicit meanings within percepts or perceptual judgments. These associations exceed simple stimulus–response connections; instead, they are grounded on representational principles. Representations surface as messages (consonant with Levelt’s, 1989, and 2000 model). These messages contain semantic and syntactic information which guide subjects and predicates produced in overt speech—increasing the consciousness of implied subjects and predicates. An integral claim of Levelt’s model of speech production is that “The product of ‘conceptualizing’ will be called the preverbal message” (Levelt, 1989: 9). The upshot is that the first components of preverbal messages are representational in nature by virtue of Levelt’s conceptualizing operation—knitting together spatial (situational) and propositional (logical) elements of declarative knowledge (Levelt, 1989: 72). Nonetheless, even at early junctures in narrative generation (when messages have yet to be produced overtly), they are, nonetheless, fluid, permitting revisions (prior to production). The upshot is that even these pre-messages are guided by constraints inherent in the working memory system. Consequently, messages are fine-tuned preverbally to highlight logical premises for listeners even before overt production. This fine-tuning during preverbal processing entails creating and proposing subjects which are ripe for association with particular predicates (see Levelt, 1989: 90), and making further consolidations with subjects and predicates of neighboring assertions. These subject-predicate associations (however unspoken in the narrative) nonetheless effectuate implicit propositions and/or implicit arguments (see Bellucci, 2014: 539–540; West, 2016: 55). But the memory-based constraints that clearly hasten subject-predicate associations is consolidation of smaller structural divisions into chunks (which contain an overarching meaning), together with limitations on the number of chunks permitted within WM. These operations determine how many of the overarching chunks can be handled simultaneously. In fact, chunking constraints allow the inclusion of greater meanings in the string; and to do so, they require radical contraction, not of encoded units alone, but of LTM units integrated therewith. This contraction promotes formulation of predicates, uniting them into individual chunks, and limiting them to fifteen (Erlam, 2009: 72). This process is obviously abductive and episodic, although the nature and number of involved chunks may not be easily measurable, given the less conscious nature of instinctual inferencing.

4.3 Semiotic Applications The very nature of abductive chunking effectuates integration of events into a purposeful, episodic framework, be it guided by instinctual or deliberative inferences. In the former case, the underlying propositions appear to be diagrammatic, while in the latter case the representations are more symbolic. Diagrams exemplify foundational inferential signs (depictions with a legisign) having both iconic and indexical status (see Stjernfelt, 2014: 59–60). In large measure, these signs

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depict action sequences as chunks in WM, and frequently become action-habits (see Stjernfelt, 2014: 60). Obviously, these action depictions are mediated by semiotic processes—by suppressing attention to inconsequential signs (individual curves/line vectors), and by imposing propositions/arguments which hold together the entire diagram (particularly its moving character). These chunks then naturally integrate single signs containing subjects into a more propositional form, with the assignment of an action-object (event sequence). This integration of forms with larger action instantiations infuses a clearer goal and purpose into their representations, hence illustrating episodic signs. Unlike Peirce’s semiotic model, other representational models do not attribute diagrammatic forms with propositional content (Levelt, 1989: 153). Peirce’s triadic model does accord episodic meaning to indexical and iconic forms. Accordingly, he accords a vital role to implied meanings of icon and index (Bellucci (2014). The latter materializes upon assignment of analogous and situational features to the information to be encoded and stored in WM. This triadic assignment (sign, object, meaning/purpose) has the advantage of earlier contraction of items in WM (into meaningful chunks) by pictorially depicting subjects and predicates, such that propositions and arguments are implicitly enfolded therein. This kind of semiotic chunking may constitute a first-line illustration of implicit inferencing, in that representational and memory constraints militate together in favor of chunking (see West, 2018b for additional applications of semiotic chunking). This chunking, promoted both by semiotic enhancements and memory constraints facilitates abductions (instinctual and deliberative), in that by their very nature, representations fit forms (sometimes disparate) into single meanings. In this way, semiotic operations advance WM chunking by exploiting propositional and argumentative meanings in a single sign whose meaning lends itself to the realm of possibility and to the generation of hunches. In this way, both processing and abductive efforts are enhanced simultaneously at foundational stages in message formation; and this integrative process is manufactured consequent to semiotic, specifically diagrammatic representations, whose meanings possess potency for narrators. As such, meanings of diagrams give rise to instinctual abductions, indicating explanations for episodes by determining why objects and event participants are situated together in a particular scene/sequence. For C. S. Peirce, the prominence of event sequences (episode-building) in generating abductive rationality is pivotal (see West, 2014, 2018a for further discussion). This is the case, because linking surprising consequences to potential explanations often arises insistently, especially in narratives, where sudden unexplained happenings capture attention and suggest contributing events. The presence of abductive rationality for narrative resolution is indispensable; it establishes and maintains notice of core chained events, consequent to their means to recommend to another the favorability or un-favorability of particular deontic/epistemic/practical courses of action (see 1909: MS 637: 12). These recommendations couched in the actions and motivations of the story’s characters permeate all inquiry. It is relevant to phenomenological, metaphysical, epistemic, and semiotic genres. Accordingly, recognition of

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how minds process these kinds of episodescontaining additive or conflictual propositions/arguments—is necessary to appreciate the inception and the nature of the mental processes which underlie newly held explanatory conceptions. Knowledge of how episodes are encoded, stored, and retrieved illuminates which kind of abduction is operating (instinctual, deliberative),—the relative amount of LTM versus encoded WM chunks in the episodic buffer can indicate that the proposition may have emanated from new associations held in LTM, rather than from newly encoded information not yet stored. Accordingly, the manner in which units are processed in working memory, particularly exposited in Baddeley’s model (phonological loop, his visuospatial sketchpad, and in his episodic buffer), is not incidental to the abductive process. Baddeley’s model reveals that at lower levels of consciousness, degrees of control can be mastered such that elementary units (digital/phonetic/lexical/pictorial) are chunked to consolidate what can fit into simultaneous on-line strings. In this way, implicit inferences are generated to resolve propositional/argumentative conflicts which arise within the string.

4.4 Relevance of Baddeley’s Working Memory Model The meaning assignments in WM are a necessary foundation to the formation of propositions, and arguments, especially in view of the fact that the latter depends heavily upon the following WM processing factors. Tailoring arguments relies upon: which linguistic and visual units are admitted into the central executive and the episodic buffer, which become temporarily stored there, and ultimately how the encoded units become integrated with LTM units within more permanent storage systems (Baddeley (2007: 203–205). Without these underlying meaning assignments permeated within WM, linking logic to representations (forming new concepts, new propositions, new arguments) is an unlikely prospect. In fact, whether inferences are instinctual or deliberative, they, nonetheless, depend upon contraction within WM; otherwise, the plethora of smaller meaning units would retain a grammatical and/or a parochial meaning, which would preclude meaning at higher cognitive/linguistic levels, e.g., semantic, syntactic, discourse. The preclusion is undoubtedly the result of ignoring contextual factors, such as spatial, temporal, and participant influences within narratives as a direct consequence of a bottleneck created by attention to too many lower level structural units (e.g., phonological, and syllabic components). In effect, the more that is included within a chunk, the more conscious are the percepts, perceptual judgments, and arguments, which trigger hints regarding the ultimate purpose for the narrative in the first place. Without these foundational representations for abductive pursuits, following the purpose for narratives becomes a nearly impossible task. This is so because discovering purpose for episodes within narratives requires listeners to have some degree of conscious control over higher level chunks even when lower level ones are under scrutiny, because the latter imposes too great a burden on memory span—the amount that one can retain in WM concurrently within a three second interval (see Baddeley, 2007: 181–184). In short, discourse features

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which especially demonstrate coherence across events, and which promote intrasentential and intersentential cohesion (inherent to sound narrative interpretation) shrink in the face of the inability of memory span to consider higher level chunks while lower level ones are primary. Hence, cognitive control over these processes (before arguments are generated) relies upon the capacity to minimize (suppress) attention to lower level chunks (see also West, 2012:); and executive resources can be maximized by prioritizing contextual episodic features over redundant inconsequential ones, e.g. verb lexemes over phonemes (Labov & Waletzky, 1967: 13, 32). This operation requires exertion of conscious control, such that phonological and syllabic units become largely automatic, freeing up attentional resources for representations which afford scrutiny of goal related themes. The length of time that units can be held in WM before being forgotten, shelved, or buried, is likewise a primary factor affecting the promotion of inferences made when narratives are told. Refreshing what one is about to say subvocally is an effective strategy for narrators to guard against forgetting; such likewise has the advantage of practice to determine the efficacy of the chunks as an aggregate. Apart from linguistic units, memory span can constrain units in the visuospatial sketchpad, which likewise are shunted into the episodic buffer, unless their meanings are found to be irrelevant. Items from the sketchpad destined for further integration in the episodic buffer ordinarily are visual and spatial in nature. These visuospatial chunks may take on greater significance, given the role of imagery in melding components into situational chunks (see West, 2014). Similarly, the sketchpad incorporates tactual forms such as shape, since parameters between components defines not merely physical attributes, but individuates the outer boundaries of the image. The latter image contributes to episode building within narratives by conjoining structural elements into a sign with obvious iconic and indexical meanings (see Stjernfelt, 2014: 59–60). The meaning caliber and effect of this sign within Baddeley’s visuospatial sketchpad is formidable; its nature as a Dicisign emphasizes resemblance along with spatiotemporal relevance; in so doing, it declares its meaning with a legisign, as well as chunking that meaning in a consolidated image. At the same time that WM span imposes constraints (which at first glance might appear to be deleterious), its limited space and time forces consideration of the most relevant chunks within a larger meaning base. This operation offers the advantage of requiring the subversion of sound features to automatic status, while promoting increased meaning potency for each higher-level chunk by enlarging its units either in the phonological loop or in the visuospatial sketchpad. Ultimately, WM constraints have several beneficial functions: they force resolution of attentional competition; and they marshal the mind to apply episodic meanings to individual phonological elements or to features of diagrams (Dicisigns). Producing episodic meanings and extracting their meanings entail discourse related skills, especially when telling narratives. Episodic meanings require support of Baddeley’s visuospatial sketchpad, made obvious by their deictic nature. Comprehending the exigencies exerted by participant role alterations, following changes in location and orientation, and switching temporal frame reference, constitute deictic

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competencies which facilitate a mutual and ultimate vision for episodes within narratives. These deictic parameters affect episodic narrations, since they require vigilance in arranging units in WM given the need to instantaneously reinterpret/formulate different and perhaps opposing judgments—all instantaneously online. This incessant call to revisit temporary memory units challenges how and whether certain representations become concatenated with others to make obvious the episodic and explanatory construct of narrative components. It is evident that the constraints and affordances of space and time encoding are crucial to sustain propositions/arguments, because they determine the core meaning elements which are actually kept and maintained in Baddeley’s buffer to associate terms with predicates. Because the number of units and their duration in working memory are finite (four for a three second period prior to being refreshed, Baddeley, 2007: 145; Cowan, 2001), and since propositions/arguments require particular space and resource load to sustain them, the structure of the working memory system must not be ignored. Viable claims regarding how hunches surface, and their character requires a deep seeded appreciation for the number of memory units in the proposition/argument, together with the amount of executive resources necessary to sustain their storage. The degree of memory resources to support simultaneous retrieval of long-term memory (LTM) elements and to make comparisons between propositions/arguments newly encoded constitutes still another compensatory issue meriting consideration. Abductive reasoning requires uniting a number of memory units, as well as ferreting out the relevance of LTM units (old information) of newly encoded information. This entire process not only draws upon encoding constraints of space and memory span, but also upon significant executive resources to coordinate WM units with those from LTM (shunted into the buffer). This is evidenced when previous LTM units (assumed to be relevant) surface concurrently with the newly encoded units (linguistic, visuospatial); and judgments as to the plausibility are called for. In the process of encoding a surprising consequence, consideration of which elements (phonetic, lexical, visual) need to be omitted/shelved/attended to is central to germinating hunches—obviously the viability of the hunch must be measured against previous LTM knowledge, so that decisions as to which has more merit can be determined. In fact, instinctual abductions are unlikely to require as many resources as do more deliberative abductions, since they ordinarily do not depend upon comparisons and adjustments with units from LTM. Accordingly, utilization of a well-anchored working memory model is in order (to reason abductively), especially one for which episodic units are given a central place. Baddeley (2000) and Baddeley (2007: 148–156) has updated his 1986 model to account for the role of the episodic buffer. The episodic buffer affords several functions: to control attention, to control focus, to divide/separate units, and to switch attentional frames. To orchestrate the latter, the buffer is additionally tasked with interfacing WM with LTM (Baddeley, 2007: 139–142). The buffer contributes to enhanced chunking in the following ways: it monitors encoding linguistic and visuospatial information from what Baddeley refers to as the “slave systems;” it temporarily stores this encoded information; and it integrates the former with relevant information from LTM.

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The two slave systems (the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad) are the point of entry for perceptual information (be it diagrammatic or symbolic); and each has spatial and temporal limitations even more restrictive than those characteristic of the buffer. Baddeley’s phonological loop is responsible for encoding, brief storage, and recall of items which are deemed relevant enough to remain in the loop. Although phonological units can be chunked in the loop (representing an early stage in processing), the aggregating process is often rather automatic. As a consequence, strategies for recall are frequently unconscious (Baddeley, 2007: chapter 3). As such, rehearsal can be covert, such that phonological units are reviewed absent refreshment via articulation or subvocal rehearsal. Accordingly, any meaning chunks are initially practiced subvocally in a single modality (the loop or the sketchpad); and the modality does not afford the sound feedback which is natural especially to linguistic chunks. In the event that rehearsal is overt, phonological units are afforded a feedback loop (permitting practice of primary points in the narrative)—sound units are both produced and afterward are heard. The role of audition in this enterprise is substantial; it allows the producer to detect elements in the message that might deserve improvement. In either case (covert or overt rehearsal), recall is made more accurate via conscious or unconscious practice. Baddeley’s loop provides a very limited work space in which to encode perceptual information, prior to shunting it to the episodic buffer for further integration with other measures of the memory system (e.g., the visuospatial sketchpad and LTM). Holding on to phonological units creates a memory trace which is held in the loop, giving the item efficacy to be recalled and to advance to the buffer. While verbal information has greater potency to stay in the loop (resulting in a memory trace which can be beneficial when telling narratives), visual information can more easily be precluded from entry into the loop if subvocal rehearsal is blocked (Baddeley, 2007: 40). Without engaging in sub-vocal or vocal rehearsal, phonological units are especially subject to rapid decay (causing narrators to forget their premise), particularly when more than three seconds intervene between presentment of stimuli and repetition (Baddeley, 2007: 38–39). The upshot for enhancing memory is the likelihood that irrelevant units are unpracticed and become quickly forgotten/inaccessible, and of course do not pass beyond the loop into the buffer, while those which are practiced by Narrators are strengthened. Factors which further limit encoding of phonological strings include the morphemic and semantic complexity which overlays the phonemic units, together with prosodic and distinct phonotactic patterns (Baddeley, 2007: 42). The latter two factors can interfere with accurate recall when stress/pitch is unexpected, or when the position of sounds with respect to one another conflicts with the conventional patterns of the particular language. Additionally, memory of the same sound across the same string is more likely to be forgotten (Baddeley, 2007: 49), perhaps as a consequence of lower salience and decreased attentional affordance. Accordingly, recognition of the same/analogous sound constitutes a more passive cognitive intervention to guard against forgetting, with the advantage of preserving iconic representations and their meanings. Nonetheless, memory of longer strings may require a more active strategy for remembering structural chunks coordinated by meaning; they need to be refreshed through rehearsal (rearticulating just a portion of the string).

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Determining the viability of meaning chunks and exercising smooth articulations within overt messages provide a scaffold to fill in any gaps. The ability to chunk a longer string bears witness to this more active (more conscious) memory strategy, because longer words (with greater numbers of morphemes) can, nevertheless, be successfully chunked. Moreover, strings containing more than a single word appear to rely upon selection of semantic and syntactic assignments to more consciously aggregate meanings into chunks. This process of folding less integral structures into wider and more concept-based and more predicate-based memory components has the benefit of ensuring the memory of what had been an arbitrary unit; but, clarifies the potency of semantic and conceptual meanings to bind initially arbitrary elements with concurrent event-based profiles. This active approach of building increasingly larger units of meaning demonstrates the advantages of Baddeley’s model; it demonstrates how otherwise arbitrary phonological and visual percepts are converted into semantic and syntactic units for ease of interpretation by other minds. This process shows how more linguistic units can be interpreted concurrently when compared with units whose meaning is disconnected and abstract. Baddeley’s (2007: 68) discussion of the capacity of only four chunks within the visuospatial sketchpad, as opposed to four and nine in the phonological loop suggests that the propositional knowledge which underlies more graphical items is closer iconically to processes inherent in event goals; hence fewer units need to be integrated into each visual aggregate—each chunk consisting in a greater number of features; whereas, phonological units have a less obvious reason to fit into a unitary semantic chunk (hence fewer sound units are included in each chunk).

4.5 Anatomy of Peircean Abduction A common purpose of both forms of abduction (instinctual, deliberative) is the establishment of logical relations across happenings; and absent the novel, germinating nature of hypotheses to hint at the relevance of events to one another, inquiry would be cut off at the quick, counter to Peirce’s dictum: “Do not block the way of inquiry” (c. 1899: 1.135; Haack, 2014: 319). Making sense of invisible but potent relations across events is at the very core of abductive reasoning, because, without the retroductive drive to look backward for contributing happenings (central to Peirce’s semiotic), underlying explanations for surprising consequences would not be sought. Hence the relevance of incorporating LTM units into WM and chunking them sequentially. The very fact that one happening insinuates that some other event or series of events may have contributed to its actualization calls minds to seek an answer; and that answer situates (chunks) happenings together which have previously never been accorded validating status. While many events might appear to surface as contributors, they must offer some (however small) scintilla of rational support (in the form of a determination) to qualify as abductive inferences (cf. MS 620). In other words, To qualify as a hunch by the abducing agent, the consequence and its explanation must meet muster as a determination; it must be specific. Peirce characterizes abductions as

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propositions on which the abducer must take responsibility, to the point of “[acting on it] in vital crises” (1898: EP 2: 33; 1902–1903: 5.543). As such, the hunch must be specific enough to suggest a plausible explanation for the unexpected consequence. The episodic nature of explanatory hunches, however, may not conform to the classic assumption in which temporal sequencing (A before B) is obligatory. The abductive process is episodic not because the proposed contributing event is antecedent to the surprising consequence (although such is ordinarily the case); instead, some contributing events may materialize concurrently with their consequences. For this reason, episodes are construed as logical pairings not constrained to temporal sequencing. Peirce’s concept of the continuum likewise informs us of how episodes, (synchronically and diachronically—between minds directly or across the scientific community) exude continual interpretation and reinterpretation, hence illustrating the (according to Merrell, 2010: vii and Humphreys, 2019: 341) episodic and dialogic characterization of narrative. Merrell (2010: vii) characterizes the dialogic continuity (which hastens novel inferences between and across minds) as “becoming something other than what it was becoming.” This process of becoming encourages inferencemaking and is inherently episodic, because it entails using novel explanatory hunches to question preconceived propositions/arguments. Accordingly, Peirce’s continuity is abductive in the sense that it constitutes a new effect, such that a reorganization of how LTM components integrate with newly encoded chunks in WM. If this process draws upon signs to access novel hypotheses, the processes which underlie abductions require semiotic rechunking, given the emergence of different meanings. In this way, signs can advance the adequacy of explanatory operations. Merrell’s (2010: 202) characterization of emerging meanings supports this line of reasoning, in that it consists in “what we think the semiotic is.” According to Merrell, “becoming cannot be ascertained in the same moment.” This process of meaning growth demonstrates how meaning modifications experience semiosis in the continuum—within and across minds. Merrell’s claim demonstrates the inherently episodic character of narratives; he emphasizes how discovering the continuum is dependent upon semiotic competencies, e.g., different minds discern changes in the interpretant (Merrell, 2010: 202). In an implicit way, Humphreys (2019: 341) likewise illustrates the central role of episode in the interworking of Peircean abduction. Humphreys never clearly defines episode, nor does he show the subconscious and conscious skills upon which abduction relies. He clearly suggests though, that Peirce’s notion of “episode” is an outgrowth of his dogged insistence on the continuum. Precisely how hunches are generated episodically within individual minds, across generations, and/or across species, is not explicitly addressed. Humphreys’ expresses an affinity between the continuum and abductive rationality, highlighting the weight that Peirce accords to the continuum in the over-all scheme. This scheme is implicitly abductive, in that it entails searching for truth to determine the means to improve hunches across generations. Although Humphreys’ account narrowly addresses the effects of abductive rationality, it places too much focus on the impact of the continuum. As such, it ignores the process of how individual minds become informed of increasingly

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enlightened explanatory hypotheses. In omitting the onset of abductive processes (often of the instinctual kind) in individual minds, Humphreys overly attributes the result of hunch revision to future generations, and in so doing, he fails to recognize how individual minds subconsciously derive hunches. Similarly, Humphreys’ connection between abduction and what he refers to as episode limits the power of the individual mind to exploit instinctual hunches. His characterization of abductions as episodes is but a starting point for what he determines to be the role of the subconscious to further the continuum: “…a perceptual episode derives its justificatory status from the temporally spread-out content with which it is continuous” (Humphreys, 2019: 341). Humphreys’ use of “temporally spread out” indicates the need to augment explanatory information within hypotheses over time, and obviously across incidences (see also Hausman, 2012: 77 for additional discussion of “temporally spread” out facts which are knowable). The promise of enhancing underlying rationale given temporally diffuse analogous knowledge, harkens back to Peirce’s ultimate purpose for seeking knowledge—to “get at the truth at last” (1903: EP 2: 250). Peirce defines the truth as “the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate…” (5.407). The analogy between “temporally spread out” and “getting at the truth at last,” fails to illustrate sufficient similar purpose to truly be comparable. Nonetheless, an implicit interpretation of Humphreys’ characterization of abduction as requiring a “temporally spread out” platform, implies the following: his focus upon shifting contextual features facilitate interpretation of temporal and spatial features, in all contexts. This emphasis upon episode as temporally spread out contexts must likewise incorporate a sequence and purpose for the events within the episode; otherwise inferential connections might be lost altogether. Humphreys further overlooks the implicit influence of percepts in the inferential process. Instead, he makes the case that to qualify as an abduction, inferences must contain a perceptual judgment (see Atkins, 2014: 61–62 for a similar perspective to Humphreys). Such excludes the power of percepts to influence originary hunches and to operate to revise them. While Peirce is clear that perceptual judgments have the logical form which qualifies them as abductions (1903: EP 2: 155), he does not preclude the existence of logic in other, more elementary genres, before “form” has materialized. The argument is as follows: percepts, as subjects without explicit predicates still can contain interpretive components given Peirce’s pronouncement that the meaning of terms and propositions “need to be much widened” (); and widening their meaning entails the predicates/arguments that attributed to these abbreviated/contracted forms by way of rational inferencing. The equivocal nature of percepts to subjects affords them similar interpretive privileges (implicit predicate incorporation) to terms whose meanings need to be “widened.” In this way, Peirce accords to percepts an interpretive function, albeit implicit. This interpretive arm of percepts he refers to as the “antecipuum” and the “ponecipuum” (1903: 7.648) which shade into meanings of perceptual judgements, but which are not perceptual judgments in form. Despite the fact that they do not qualify in form, antecipuum and ponecipuum have the potency (as anticipations/memories) to trigger hypothesis generation and modification. Acknowledging the potency of the

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percept uncovers an episodic feature (unacknowledged by Humphreys): “The peculiar element of the present, that it confronts us with ideas which it forces upon us without reason…” (1903: 7.675). Percepts are more than nerve-based physiological responses to external stimuli (sensations); they entail a modicum of interpretation of the factors affecting unexpected consequences (per anticipations or memory traces, ordinarily the result of some unanalyzed but instinctual inference connecting (at least weakly) contextually situated events. Humphreys’ vague claim that abduction possesses an episodic character (although unsupported) does have significant merit, but not merely consequent to its temporal spread-out-ness” (Humphreys, 2019: 337). What Humphreys fails to recognize is that this episodic character is not diffuse, and that it (the character of abductions) has its origin in a less obvious conscious avenue of processing, namely, in the slim meanings implicit in the percept. It is in the widening of meanings derived from percepts when spatial and temporal features of the immediate and expanding contexts are accorded increased effect (1906: 4.538)1 ; Peirce observes that “we feel the blow of [the percept], the reaction of it against us” (1903: 7.643). As such, momentary meaning- representation affiliations experienced in the present (in Secondness) emerge so instantaneously that they have little time to become deliberative; hence, if they are plausible hunches they materialize as instinctual abductions. Here, the percept (in preparation to qualify as a perceptual judgement) constitutes foundational meanings, because it exploits implicit sources and as such promotes inferential processes. The upshot is that interpretation (however implicit/tacit) is operational earlier than Humphreys and Atkins suppose, by way of percepts. To emphasize the interpretive character of percepts, Peirce (1903: 7.643) invents a name to mark when Thirdness emerges beyond mere sensation, namely, the percipuum. Contrary to Atkins’ (2014: 61 and following) claim that Thirdness surfaces at the onset of the Percipuum (in view of its classification as a perceptual judgement), it is the percept which intimates novel predicative meanings (see Bellucci, 2014: 539–540 for elaboration). The fact that Peirce deliberately separated out the interpretive fibers of percepts illustrates their underlying Thirdness-based potency. In short, percepts give rise to projected meanings in their anticipatory function, lending further credence to their value as tools for inferencing. Furthermore, Peirce’s coinage of “antecipuum” (near anticipations) and “ponecipuum” (recent past knowledge) reveals the inception of signhood (1903: 7.648). Any semblance of anticipation indicates the existence of expectations; and reliance upon past knowledge (recent or otherwise) validates access to already stored facts for use in determining future hypotheses. Both of these sources are critical to effectuate more fitting courses of action in the face of unexpected consequences. Unlike Atkins’ position, Hausman (2012: 91) is in accord with the percept as the foundation and ultimate purpose for interpretive endeavors: “…percepts are the beginning and the end of inquiry…[it is] the dynamical object in relation to the immediate object [i.e.,] the percept….” Hausman (2012: 91) further characterizes the percept as nothing short of “the pre-interpreted or finally interpreted …goal of 1

While Peirce does not directly refer to the percept as being widened, he implies such when he states that terms and propositions must be widened to include the interpretant and predicate.

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thought.” Accordingly, Peirce advocates the interpretive value of the implicit meanings housed within the percept, and opines that they emerge well prior to the influence of perceptual judgments (whose propositional content is more explicit). Hausman supports Peirce’s premise as follows: “pre-interpreted percepts initiate perceptual judgments…” Moreover, percepts qualify as Semes (indexes having subjects only, saying “this is an X”), implying predicates, while perceptual judgments are Phemes (often with imperative status, e.g., “get out of here,” 1906: MS 295), in that they include an explicit predicate along with the subject (see West, 2019b: 10; West, 2020: 161; Hausman, 2012: 91). Conversely, perceptual judgments can never qualify as Semes; but Phemes only, since they have propositional content with explicit predicates. The propositional nature of perceptual judgments is evidenced when Peirce remarks that the perceptual judgment “tells us what we so perceive” (1903: 7.643). In “tell[ing] us what we so perceive,” perceptual judgments carry the logical form of propositions; and meanings need not be inferred, as in the case of percepts. In short, while percepts (via antecipuum and ponecipuum) suggest new meanings for stimuli without expressing them, perceptual judgments explicitly express predicates.

4.6 Processing Percepts in the Abductive Effort The existence of implicit predicative meanings in percepts lends support to the premise that many abductions are derived instinctually, and are informed by subconscious processes. Peirce argues this claim in significant detail as follows: A visual percept obtrudes itself upon me in its entirety. I am not therein consciousness of any mental process by which the image has been constructed. …notwithstanding its apparent primitiveness, every percept is the product of mental processes, or at all events of processes for all intense and purposes mental, except that we are not directly aware of them; and these are processes of no little complexity. (1903: 7.624)

Because percepts “obtrude” upon the mind as a whole, “in their entirety,” because any implicit predicative inferences are not separated out from other features, they do not require more than awareness for processing; and hence, they are not governed by self-control: “the spontaneous conjectures of instinctive reason” (1908: 6.475). Although the introduction of novel subjects intrude upon our consciousness, the presence of implicit predicates (although unexpressed) still constrain interpretation of the subjects without intruding altogether. These implicit predicates provide further contributory information with respect to subjects—suggesting contributors to a consequence and the potential effects upon other players within narrative venues. In this way, percepts inform inferential reasoning at early stages in the representational process, in WM when chunking affords the caliber of meaning present in signhood— that of at least a single potential effect as an Energetic Interpretant (see West, 2020 for elaboration of features inherent in Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant). In short, well before perceptual judgments come into play, percepts have a riveting effect upon the mind by way of showing narrative partners observations of external affairs, or

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intimating sudden, intense recapitulations (novel arrangements), hence painting new scenes. Either of these kinds of percepts redirects attention to full-fledged contextual features, in turn permitting the attachment of more explicit predicative material. These less-conscious operations consist in: attention to stimuli, notice of the import of such stimuli to the consequence, the application of noticed stimuli to amplified contexts, and apprehension of familiar appearance patterns between competing stimuli. All of these operations rely upon unconscious processing (often of simple percepts yet without explicit predicates) in the WM system; but they are, nevertheless, subject to the limitations and affordances imposed by the WM system. Attentional based operations characteristic of percepts materialize when features within contexts are noticed over other features—visual, auditory, tactile, or olfactory; and these operations suggest more elaborated applications. Peirce supports this ground-level percept-based influence by way of prescissive abstraction (1903: EP 2: 270), such that a feature enjoys exclusive focus. This focus is intensive—allowing the beholder to narrowly consider whether this attentional effort has merit. Selection of an exclusive attentional focus prioritizes one feature over others. Because of its selectivity of one subject over another, such that implicit comparisons are drawn to settle attention upon a particular feature, it determines what predicative matter can apply. This juxtaposition and hence clarity of focus is consonant with MacWhinney and Bates’ 1995 Competition Model, which advocates that elementary conscious awareness is required to select one stimulus over others and to advocate its increased importance. This is relevant given decisions (however automatic) which elevate the exigency to examine the effects of one factor over those of other competing forms/meanings. On this plane, some awareness operates prior to overt expression; and determinations are formulated in WM as to which inferences have greater merit to be articulated. Peirce’s percipuum—the bridge between the percept and the perceptual judgment (1903: 7.643)—illustrates perhaps the most convincing case of groundbreaking inferencing, especially when featured within the pragmatistic impetus of his double consciousness forum. The presence of meaning in percepts is unequivocal; it is supported by the fact that for Peirce, percipuum constitutes, in fact, a meaning chunk processed in WM, which harnesses the antecipuum and ponecipuum (see 1903: 7.648–7.652) to become a combined cognitive bundle for predicative elaboration. The attentional preferences determined in percepts become bound with more explicit predicates in the perceptual judgment. This operation regulates implicit sign-object-meaning associations at an embryonic stage—prior to the clear existence of explicit propositions, with their subject and predicate components. These implicit sign-meaning associations entail selecting a property (per hypostatic abstraction or prescissive abstraction) for exclusive focus. This Firstness-based operation affords an opportunity to experience its intensity (1906: LI 361), and pre-sensitizes the processing agent to potential effects. In this way, Peirce demonstrates how a property’s intensity emanates from an internal source—an observer’s feelings of

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what it is that the object affords.2 Intensity as an internal source for inquiry is supported by Atkins’ (2018: 195) acclamation of Peirce’s distinction between: objectdirected consciousness in which external features control representations, and minddirected consciousness in which internally derived sign-meaning relations (attaching instinctually upon interpretation of percepts) control. Peirce memorializes this seesaw-like tension between objects in Secondness and instantaneous receipt of nuggets of truth in Firstness as “externisensations” consisting of perceptuations versus internally derived knowledge sources; and he privileges the former kind, as ultimately contributing more objective truth (1905: MS339: 245R; see also West, 2020b). Peirce’s elevation of the effect of objects in the perceptuation process further demonstrates his endorsement of the percept as the point when meaning unites with objects, such that upon interpreting percepts, messages come into existence (see West in press for elaboration). In this way, meanings enter “at the gate of perception,” and are subject to further vetting at the threshold of perceptual judgments (1903: EP 2: 241). Similarly, Peirce further acknowledges the privilege of internal forces in the inferencing process by virtue of their contribution to the invention of truly unique explanations which might not otherwise surface (1905: MS339: 245R). But, these inferences remain idiosyncratic unless they enter into a kind of dialogic filter—either within a single mind or between minds (double consciousness)—to exploit implicit Thirdnesses from bare object-sign relations. The necessity of dialogic factors in the inferencing process cannot be overstated; it guards against adherence to overly parochial hunches (percepts absent the possibility that such would contribute to truth), while highlighting legitimately mind-external sign interpretations. At the pre-production stage, the merit of each competing component of the message ultimately to influence other minds is underway. This preparation of internal (unspoken) messages to refine overt ones clearly demonstrates the inherently dialogic character required to recommend different yet believable interpretations explaining anomalous consequences. The necessity for shared signobject-meaning paradigms keeps minds on track to maintain the episodic integrity of arguments, as themes within narrative contexts—superseding unitary propositional validity. This impetus toward communicating episodic purpose to secure focus on theme recognition relies chiefly upon sign interpretation—but for the minds’ need to extract amplified meanings, telling narratives as a dialogic process would be precluded (see West, 2019a: 211–212 for elaboration regarding how dialogic intent establishes semiosis). Hence, when preparing a message, lexical and structural efficacy (the conjecture of how well the words and their phonological form comport with the narrator’s intended message) are critical. The preparation entails whether the proposed representation (with its sign-object-meaning connection) gives rise to an assertion which contracts lexemes into a recommendation for the message receiver. 2

More specifically, Peirce drily observes that: “What the psychologists study is mind, not consciousness exclusively. Their mistake upon this point has had a singularly disastrous result, because consciousness is a very simple thing. Only take care not to make the blunder if supposing that Selfconsciousness is meant, and it will be seen that consciousness is nothing but Feeling, in general, – not feeling in the German sense, but more generally, the immediate element of experience generalized to its utmost” (1902: 7.365).

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The recommendation present in the assertion may contain novel propositions; but it must, in any case, calibrate with the narrator’s/receiver’s beliefs/actions—their knowledge-base. Those semantic and syntactic features which capture instantaneous attention (e.g., novel assertions) lend themselves to further analysis, while features less attended to (e.g., old information) are subject to narrator’s reliance that listeners have access to this information in active storage. Manufacturing riveting percepts in the mind of the message receiver is a necessary vehicle to ensure the listener’s attention throughout the ups-and-downs of the narration. This approach entails punctuating the narrative with surprising consequences for which inclusion of instinctual abductions is pivotal. Uniting instinctual abductions beyond mere momentary attention enhances the listener’s notice of how events chain into episodes. This approach stimulates anticipation of the story’s primary message for the listener. In fact, highlighting unexpected events/consequences in the storyline ensures that listeners maintain attention to the account’s integrity and eventual conclusion. As a consequence, listeners can construct what might be the narrator’s intent for telling the event sequence, and can likewise more easily extract the ultimate purpose (implied by the narrator) for future courses of conduct within the narrative.

4.7 The Role of Instinctual Abductions in Telling Narratives Instinctual abductions arise suddenly (often automatically). These instinctual abductions surface as instantaneous hunches, and spring from: a compelling percept, a sensation, or a divine revelation. When they emanate from the former (percepts), the spatial arrangement is intrinsically bound into the chunk, and does not require graduated degrees of consciousness to determine logical meaning. Conversely, deliberative abductions depend heavily upon cognitive control to associate and integrate meanings, which requires significantly greater memory resources. In other words, determinations of their logical relevance rely chiefly upon active integration of units (more explicit learning) into a foundational and coherent set of chunks. Arriving at deliberate abductions is further complicated by reliance upon deictic arrangements (spatial and temporal contextualization) to extract underlying logical factors impinging upon the surprising consequence, e.g. momentary features supplying changing locations, orientations, participant role alternations, and the like. The necessity to unite newly encoded information which requires frequent updating with already told facts serves as the springboard for both narrators and listeners to report and to determine the nature of the logical and practical relationship holding across what may originally appear to be rather disparate happenings, but for the element of surprise which compels listeners’ focus. To motivate listeners’ abductions, narrators must skillfully synchronize contextual features of events within the story with changing facts

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and their effects, that listeners are able to chunk meanings, store them, and ultimately retrieve them when needed. Afterward, prior knowledge must be integrated with elements within WM (recently revealed and encoded meaning chunks) revealed in the narration. This sets the stage to infer plausible explanations for unexpected effects posited in the account. Accordingly, the present claim advocates that good story-telling relies upon both instinctual and deliberative abductions, although the former has greater promise in the enterprise, their iconic and indexical construct puts together the facts into a single whole, and reduces the need for WM management. In kinds of representations have great promise at fundamental stages in both the narrator’s and the receiver’s construction of the story progression by because they consolidate in a single sign which implies movement toward a goal without syntax. The advantage of more diagrammatic representations upon which instinctual abductions rely invites both partners to the narrative to generate their own explanations for the depicted surprising state of affairs. In this way, the narrator and the listener become equal partners in deriving episodic meanings and explanations which unexpected diagrams suggest. The upshot is that arriving at instinctual abductions (with less conscious processing requirements) drives narrative partners to utilize their unique guesses to uncover unspoken explanations; and subconscious processing of a consolidated meaning chunk as an episodic framework is expedited. Santaella (2000: 23) demonstrates how instinctual abductions can likewise include a rational component, which is effective in garnering the listener’s attention to the ultimate purpose for the account. Her perspective integrates instinctual and deliberative abductions in characterizing them as “rational instinct.” At first glance, “rational” and “instinct” might appear to be juxtaposed or conflictual; but, together they illuminate that awareness permeates even the most instantaneous and foundational inferences. Even at the very onset of a hunch, some degree of awareness operates, when the feeling of surprise awakens the intellect as a “force majeure” (1898: 5.581); and the force of deliberate inclusion of surprise in the narrator’s account galvanizes listeners to enter into the abductive process—a kind of future causation. This is the benefit of including instinctual abductions founded upon rational premises. The advantage for listeners is to convince them that they are players in a logical game so to speak to guess at the riddle—to predetermine what will happen next.3 Santaella’s use of “rational” modifying “instinct” makes obvious the action present in sudden hunches for narrators and their listeners to manage discord between the expected and the unexpected. The need for narrative partners to manage conflicting percepts (when narrators inject surprising happenings), compels both partners to enter into an elementary form of shared consciousness, evidenced in an implicit awareness of the logical value or the stream of awareness. Narrators need to distinguish between yet prioritize information 3

“The act of observation is the deliberate yielding of ourselves to that force majeure, - an early surrender at discretion, due to our foreseeing that we must, what we do be borne down by that power, at last. Now the surrender which we make in Retroduction, is a surrender to the Insistence of an Idea. The hypothesis, as the Frenchman says, c’est plus fort que moi [It is stronger than I am]. It is irresistible; it is imperative. We must throw open our gates and admit it at any rate for the time being”.

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being encoded in WM, over that held in LTM. Without this balance among factual focus (which fact(s) are being featured), discerning the potency of each implication of the narrator’s reasons for consequences in the telling of the story is likely to be minimized for the interpreter. Santaella’s use of “rational instinct” (2000: 25) as spontaneous cognitions makes plain the need for narrators to represent event chains to actuate the listener’s intuitive powers to construct a new relationship between events—to compile them such that their contribution to seemingly anomalous consequences acquires some validity. If narrators wish to enlist a willing and productive mind to co-construct the event series, they must fashion events as logical episodescompelling their partners to take a look backward and forward at how the narrator’s hints instantaneously coalesce to form a coherent episode. In this way, the presence of rational instinct is a core component in telling narratives. It demonstrates the need for message producers to invite listeners to interpret implicit logical relations to identify story nuclei—revealing the purpose for telling it in the first place. In this way, hunches are hatched and advanced. Following this line of reasoning, Santaella’s characterization of Peirce’s ultimate plan for abduction—that it constitutes the platform for his semiotic in which Thirdness guides interpretation, such that bare percepts are infused with meaning. The interpretation of percepts springs from influences from the categories of Firstness and Secondness, in monadic and dyadic applications. The operation of the former is grounded in intensive examination of a feature, as in prescissive or hypostatic abstraction (1903: EP 2: 270), while the latter enhances self-dialogic processes, as in Peirce’s notion of double consciousness between ego and non-ego (1903: EP 2: 195). Santaella’s use of “rational” with “instinct” derives its influence from the categories, in that it promotes the assemblage of hunches by the dialogic operation of self-talk (narration) or talk to others. Both regimes emanate from double consciousness, in that the presence of rationality early on influences minds, such that it bears upon attentional foci to offer explanations for how it is that abductions are viable. For this reason, Secondness-based operations are central even to instinctual abductions, because they enhance the process of shared encoding, storage, and integrations in WM. The operation of meaning to hatch hunches underscores how Thirdness and Secondness combine to promote meaningful chunking of attentional information, which is a Thirdness based operation guarding against bottlenecks within WM processing. Although Santaella may not have envisioned the implications of her union of rational with instinct, it nonetheless, opens up fertile ground to showcase how feelings (convictions) drawn from unexpected percepts constitute hunches; and those hunches may undergo revision requiring alternative algorithms for chunking in WM. The characterization of hunches as “rational instinct” underscores the potential need to recast meaningful units in WM. Selecting which WM and LTM chunks should be united to comprise a logical subject-predicate connection serves as the foundation for exploiting the theorematic and pragmatic value of instinctual hunches. In fact, the governance of WM over instinctual hunches determines narrative up-take when the listener is faced with more than a single hunch to explains a consequence; and his insight selects one of them in a flash. Hence, the work of rational operations, to which Santaella refers, is indispensable to story-telling, because narrators must

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tell the account in view of the likely hunches of their listeners. In this way, narrators facilitate interpretation by anticipating the instinctual inferences to advance the ultimate purpose for relating each event in its sequence. Despite the primacy of instinctual hunches in telling narratives, deliberative abductions are not insignificant; they help to determine the future validity of decisions—whether one hunch is to be favored over another, and in which contexts. The emergence of more deliberative abductions is regulated by a more lengthy (more complex) and reasoned operation. Still, instinctual abductions (given the prominence of their emergence in the context of surprising consequences within stories (their rapid means to integrate logical with pragmatic facets) corrals the mind toward the most plausible explanatory material. Santaella (2000: 25) further amplifies the need for the rational basis of Peircean instinct, when she posits that reason guides guessing, which constitutes not merely the core of abductive inferencing, but the impetus for unraveling the narrator’s ultimate purpose in telling the narrationthe pragmatic maxim for the narrative, e.g., the recommendation for new courses of action given particular consequences. Despite the sudden initiation of instinctual guessing, the hunch which emerges is, nonetheless, rational, in that tacit awareness still guides their rapid emergence. The rapid appearance of an hypothesis does not rule out integration of newly encoded information with facts from long-term memory. Rationality in the hypothesis is evidenced when the receiving mind decides to entertain the hypothesis—without discarding it out of hand. The influence of percepts as instinctual guesses at the ground level (observed or reported) inclusive of “ponecepts” (recently stored facts) and “antecepts” (anticipatory germinations) are formidable contributors in the abductive arena- Peirce goes so far as to say that the three terms are relative: “It is a difficult question whether the serial principle permits us to draw sharp lines of demarcation between the percept and the near anticipation, or say the antecept, and between the percept and the recent memory (may I be permitted to call this the ponecept, a distant and dubious memory being perhaps quite another thing?)…” (1903: 7.648). In effect, Peirce exchanges the “sharp lines of demarcation” with dotted ones. Yet, without the percept’s instantaneous reinterpretation of already stored predicates per the ponecipuum (1903: 7.648), abductive rationality would be sorely in jeopardy. This inferential process is but one illustration of the potency of the percept toward interpretive ends, as Peirce indicates: “…the direct and uncontrolled interpretations of the percept…” (1903: 7.648). Despite the uncontrollable nature of the percept, in that it is not subject to planned or voluntary connection of facts for truth-seeking, it, nonetheless, supplies a critical source without which abductive rationality would be severely truncated. As Peirce determines, even acceptance and rejection of abductive hypotheses do not necessarily rely upon conscious control, but upon some kneejerk reaction of what elements might advance legitimate logical ends. Peirce further capitalizes on the instinctual nature of the percipuum (as the interpreted percept)

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by equating it with Kant’s intuition—which informs an inference (1903: 7.652).4 Whether cognitive control (at a very foundational level) operates during the emergence of instinctual abductions is still a viable position, by virtue of the mental regulation to integrate present and past facts with whispers of anticipations. Contrary to Hausman’s (2012: 126) classification of this process as “precognitive,” it, nonetheless, is cognitive, in that it obviously requires elementary mental processes at the level of awareness. As integrations with WM and affective anticipations, percept interpretations are cognitive, but subtly so; meaning bindings are subtle to such a degree that their sign-object-meaning relation is not consciously discernible. These instinctual integrations within the percept are by consequence, non -reflective because working memory chaining is an involuntary affair, subject to processing constraints (see Baddeley, 2007: 145). The effect of these less voluntary factors (as a tacit, but controlling force in hatching hunches at early stages in their generation) is formidable, although it falls short of consciously driven self-control. Peirce clearly acknowledges this as follows: “However man may have acquired his faculty of divining the ways of Nature, it has certainly not been by a self-controlled and critical logic…. he cannot give any exact reason for his best guesses” (1903: 5.173). This passage advocates that some involuntary feeling underlies plausible guesses—self-control does not account for the sudden ingenuity exercised in assembling hunches. Guessing does not depend upon caution in decision-making; neither control nor reflectivity are operating. As such, “instinct,” absent “rational” can be misleading—presuming that “involuntary,” or lack of self-control is equivocal to vacuous mental operations. In fact, isolation of instinct from rationality is not at all in keeping with Peirce’s vision of abductive processes, even instinctual ones. His instinctual abductions consist in a form of awareness which regulates chunking linguistic, spatial, and temporal units, and mark the turning-point when consciousness dawns to invoke novel explanations whose truth-value has merit.

4.8 Constraints as Meaning Enhancers Memory-based constraints (long-term and working memory sources), produce cognitive conditions that force choices for a message producer (see Burton, 2000: 153– 154). The argument here is that memory limitations benefit narrative interpretation, by virtue of forcing decisions as to which elements to include/feature in the episodes under construction. Constraint-based WM conditions include: whether to augment existing files or create new ones in LTM, and whether and how to manage encoded information with respect to preexisting facts (Peirce’s concept of Ponecipuum). The 4

“But although Kant unwarily confused the idea that time, as ‘intuited’ (to use his language, for he himself translates his Anschauung [view] by the Latin intuitus), has no parts that are not themselves times with the very different idea that there is a way of dividing time so as never to reach an ultimate part (though such parts there may be), yet his reasoning, taken as a whole, is consistent only with the idea that time as intuited has no ultimate parts, or instants. That opinion I share, substituting the percipuum for his intuition” (1903: 7.652).

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working memory (WM) forum restricts the number of sensory and verbal units; otherwise, it becomes overloaded. Within WM, decisions must be made instantaneously how to feature certain issues, and which issues to deliberately put aside as trivial (for the benefit of the listener) and which to forget. In effect, WM permits admittance of representations have greatest relevance, while allowing automatic knowledge to operate concurrently—maximizing the limited WM space. In other words, WM processes regulate the interplay between input (on the one hand) and contracted attentional mechanisms on the other. The present argument advances the claim that two WM factors supply the potency to generate the inferences necessary for successful narration: chunking during encoding messages (to meet memory span constraints), and resolution of event cadence (by inhibiting irrelevant or conflictual facts in story delivery). Although these memory constraints, at first glance, appear to have a deleterious effect upon developing and following the fit among events within episodes (in view of their restrictions on quantity of facts under focus), in point of fact, the limitations force the partners to a narration to encapsulate certain favored facts into a framework. This encapsulation becomes the instrument whereby partners regulate (exercise control over) the components which have the most promise of maintaining coherence across encoded facts and already stored ones. In turn, these WM restrictions require prioritization of meaningful units, which minimizes interference (confounding) given the information put aside or forgotten. Being forced to contract fact units compels the creator and beholder to advocate the import of specific features/facts over others, and to become aware of the possible epistemic and deontic affinities between the few facts which merit inclusion. It is this very operation that suggests the rationale for “putting together what …[a listener] never before dreamed of putting together” (1903: 5.181). In the forced selection, both parties set themselves upon a track toward inquiry—how the episode unfolds. Because a small memory span simply cannot sustain temporary attention to and storage of less relevant facts, those facts are deemed immaterial at an early stage in the inquiry; and competition between relevant and irrelevant facts takes up less memory resources, and consequently is less disabling to overall message production and comprehension. Because of (not in spite of) the limited space in which to situate encoded structures, and the three second time frame allotted for this purpose (Baddeley, 2007: 145), meaning can be exploited to chunk smaller components within larger ones. As such, the limited meaning components within WM (despite their constraining nature) facilitate fashioning explanatory inferences, particularly those of the instinctual kind. Instinctual abductions are hastened by these constraints consequent to the instantaneous drive to arrive at hypotheses. These kinds of abductions consist in a single meaning chunk only; hence the operation of assembling several meaning chunks at once becomes unnecessary. This single chunk is holistic, in that its features surface within it together, within one indivisible unit—hence its instinctual nature. According to Peirce (1903: 5.181), instinctual abductions are exacted “like a flash” of “an act of insight,” not requiring planning and/or advanced forms of consciousness, e.g., self-control, theory of mind or metacognitive skills. Instead,

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the consciousness which supports instinctual abductions is: apprehension (awareness) of the absence of a feature, or some awareness of a propositional conflict. This process becomes obvious in Firstness when an image which features explanatory components contributing to the surprise consequence, produces a logical effect on the mind. These instincts consist according to Peirce in “creative hallucinations”— holistic hunches which resolve a conflict between the new image and the status quo. (1903: EP 2: 192). These images are quintessential illustrations of instinctual abductions, in that they arrive suddenly, as one integrated memory chunk, as in a flash envisionment of a more effective backdrop for a painting in progress (1903: EP 2: 192). In short, instinctual abductions place less burden on WM; and because of this memory representation advantage they are favored when telling holistic events (e.g., narratives) over deliberative abductions. A distinct and more arduous cognitive operation supports the processing of more deliberative abductions, namely, inhibition. This operation measures the degree of attention-based control (at lower levels of awareness) that the processing agent can muster to keep out or ignore learned responses (see Baddeley, 2007 and Cowan, 2001). To inhibit, one must exercise significant control over a stimulus/property such that such can be temporarily unattended to. Inhibition of chunks held in WM (decisions not to attend to units) require more deliberative abductive processes to determine and execute explanatory operations. As such, more deliberative abductions (such as theory of mind) can likewise enhance narrative building, since anticipating how to craft messages for particular listeners is crucial in narrative genres. Anticipating what the listener is likely to possess and access in long-term memory is but one example of how deliberation makes the facts told in the narrative more coherent and more cohesive for receivers putting together the individual events into micro and macro episodes. In addition to inhibition, interference may also be a limiting factor. The deliberative processes required to keep back/inhibit information from being processed may prioritize the most relevant narrative themes, placing greater emphasis (for the listener) upon the reasons for inclusion of such facts in the limited WM space. As a consequence of inhibiting less critical facts, dominant facts are highlighted and afforded greater scrutiny. In this way, narrators together with listeners can sift through diffuse sets of happenings with a more focused eye, foregrounding primary themes, while backgrounding less critical states/actions. Otherwise, the effectiveness of telling the narrative could well be undermined. The need for inferencing when constructing and interpreting narratives is vital; it effectuates the sequences which define the movement of the characters. But the influence of memory in controlling subconscious and conscious flow of events in narration must not be overlooked. LTM issues may determine processing efficiency. When the dominant facts are likewise novel, the novelty forces LTM to create new object files, increasing processing load and time: “[novel object files] should be associated with slower processing times than [updated object files]” (Hommel, 1998: 186). Obviously, subconscious control underlies both instinctual and deliberative abductions, as a frontline device, when meaning is compelled to cement associations with linguistic/diagrammatic forms (e.g., phonetic information or pictorial depictions).

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This encoding is foundational to the most elementary of inferences; it operates automatically (perhaps at the perceptual level), when attentional constraints both restrict and consolidate what narrators observe. Examination of how these memory devices regulate which facts to attend to, which to keep, and which to tell has a formidable influence upon the inferencing process; hence, the subconscious processes which determine the inferences that narrators reveal in their accounts needs to be further scrutinized. The factors contributing to inference-making have been overly simplified. This trend is evident in the fact that both kinds of abduction (instinctual, deliberative) have been characterized as mutually exclusive and at polar opposites (supported by philosophical models). Instead, WM processing (during narrative construction) narrative commandeers recognition that the consciousness which underlies narrator’s inferences is gradient—it relies upon both subconscious awareness and conscious operations. Let us explore the view that the instinctual/deliberative distinction is not binary, and that control of processing is operative in unconscious (non-reflective), as well as conscious inferencing. This argument proposes that to facilitate narrative competency, WM processes must make use of sound inferential skills. As such, arriving at plausible inferences is both an unconscious and consciously reflective affair, utilizing memory control in the former, and deliberative control in the case of the latter. As such, the inferences that are made consciously and unconsciously control what narrators reveal to another, in view of what is determined to be the telos/purpose. Without consideration of memory models, making claims about the inferencing process is at best uninformed, and at worst, arbitrary and capricious. Treating abduction merely as instinct (Paavola, 2012: 43; Barrena and Nubiola 2019: 194) ignore the cognitive requisites for inferencing. The impact of attentional and resource memory factors is not overstated; an analysis of abduction short of such consideration ultimately invalidates the role of consciousness in inference-making, and confounds the impact of conscious processing with conscious control.

4.9 Conclusion The rational and instinctual nature of Peircean abductions demonstrates how narrators and their listeners depend upon WM processing to decide upon the sequence of events and the story’s over-all purpose at graduated stages in meaning assignments. Narrators derive implicit inferences from percepts, then check their plausibility via perceptual judgments, which crafts and highlights narrative themes for listeners. By this means, narrators frequently derive inferences from phenomenal sources (by way of instinctual abductions), and translate inferences consequent to percepts into those with more objective recognition. Peirce’s categories illustrate how narrative generation facilitates formation of idiosyncratic meaning chunks, and afterward these chunks are translated into hunches anticipated to be viable for others.

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In this process of inferring other’s inferences, Peirce’s concept of double consciousness is pivotal; it provides an intersubjective forum whereby hunches guide the narrative’s purpose. As such, narrators craft accounts (within a single mind and between minds)—anticipating alternative conflicts which might inform the narrative’s telos for listeners. As such, meanings are cultivated from how the narrator represents percepts (unexpected and surprising events within the narrative). These new sign-object-meaning connections facilitate understanding of the partner’s alternative abductions arrived at instinctually. Chunking on the part of listeners, at early stages in WM processing advances the primacy of meaning elements, and permits narrators to contrast conflicting propositions between two percepts/perceptual judgments. This conflictual state of consciousness compels narrators to determine a viable sequence for happenings; and narrators decide early on whether to discard or omit altogether particular facts in order not to confound their listeners. The power (on the part of objects) to impress features results chiefly from Peirce’s categories, since they bring together noticed objects, relations to participants and other objects, and insinuate meanings. Secondness is implicated when narrators communicate the utter vividness of foregrounded objects, while situating them within an episodic framework. The power of Firstness likewise affords an additional vehicle to augment meaning in narratives. In narrative contexts, instantaneous decisions are arrived at determining whether idiosyncratic images (percepts) meet muster for objective-acceptance. If so, listeners are permitted to examine others’ internally derived instinctual inferences. What drives narrators’ attention to internally derived abductions (as elements of Firstness), according to Peirce, is the intensity of the depiction. Narrators may utilize WM mechanisms either to suppress these internal suggestions, or (before its telling) to omit the hunch, in the event of its logical insufficiency. Narrators can utilize their WM processing to exclude irrelevant facts via the cognitive mechanism of inhibition, or can advance other facts—ensuring that their accounts result in listener’s plausible hunches. As such, narrators have the opportunity not merely to assign meanings to signs/representations, but to reconfigure messages in WM to their listener’s advantage. This process can materialize before producing the message overtly, and can preclude listeners’ unwarranted and inaccurate assumptions. Consequently, narrators can ignore immaterial facts when delivering the story, which could increase listeners interpretation of the story’s purpose. The latter might entail suppressing knowledge of objects/relations/features per Baddeley (2007)— even those which pertain to background facts. This notice of percepts is preparatory to abducting instinctually or deliberatively, because the imposition of properties upon the mind by the percept constitutes but the start of the inferencing operation. For Peirce, these percepts are externisensations favoring either external objects as impositions, or images manufactured internally, by the mind itself (1905: MS339). Narrators can increase the potency of these percepts for their addressees. In establishing fundamental sign-meaning chunks which define the progression of unexpected events along the way. This process evokes instinctual hypotheses, which makes obvious the underlying meanings that can be brought to bear upon listeners determinations. Narrators can introduce percepts intermittently to maintain the progression of related

References

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events—narrators’ own percepts serving as pre-messages to direct their listeners’ attention. With their meaning chunks, these percepts prepare narrators to affect their listeners’ notice in significant ways, because they can predetermine the elements of surprise which, in turn, captures partners’ interest in how the episode carries on. As a consequence, narratives are fashioned as a sequence (not a disconnected series) to emphasize the fit of each surprising event to the episode at large. In short, in view of their implicit meanings, percepts perpetuate fundamental shifts in semiotic awareness and in abductive rationality; they trigger and maintain the ongoing interplay among reported events.

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Chapter 5

Co-attentional Considerations for Episode-Building in Narrative Construction: Working

5.1 Introduction This chapter explores the semiosis of personal narrative construction and its role in affording inference-making at early stages in development. It demonstrates how episode-building and other’s accounts of their own episodes suggests insightful ways of construing effects between events. Of particular notice is how mental images take on a sequential character in ontogeny, and how they develop as moving representations impelling interpreters to abduce logical relations. Attention will be accorded to visual images which surface spontaneously and suddenly project novel hypotheses by means of different feature-based arrangements or by a new sequence among such images. These modified images suggest new perspectives or narratives not only of world knowledge, but of other narrations of how events operate. These novel event relations suggest new episodes, and invite new explanations for such. Children are able to operate upon the new episodic suggestions consequent to their semiotic simplicity—their iconic and indexical nature. This semiotic simplicity allows children to abduce prior to the emergence of language. The development of these more iconic, attentional competencies hasten assembling elements of propositions, as well as consolidating propositions into arguments; and their meaning-structure interplay as episodic happenings obviates their fundamentally narrative character. Examining the development of this implied propositional material is critical for narrative development, given that recounting events according to a logical sequence for narrator and hearer is fundamental. The arrangement of events into episodes often begins with single pictures in the mind; the meanings communicated to interlocutors must contain some common elements if they are to exploit them in comprehending narratives. As such, the primary claim to be explored is that accounts of world knowledge need to be episodic (having a narrative complexion) if they are to hasten and facilitate the emergence of abductive thought (West, 2014, 2016c). A semiotic approach demonstrates how episodic determinants emerge prior to language, and how they influence and are influenced by informative hunches. In this vein, Peirce’s ultimate function accorded to index in his Ten-Fold Division of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. E. West, Narrative as Dialectic Abduction, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7_5

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Signs sheds particular light on how these early image-based signs are instrumental in conceiving moving action aggregates. Attention is widely accorded to utilization of indexical signs and their interpretants which aptly represent both action relations, and resultative states of affairs. Emphasis is placed on alterations made in the interpretant within the first five years (meanings, effects) consequent to eventimage innovations. Peirce’s ten-fold division of signs advocates that deictic (often dialogic) meanings/effects of action schemas constitutes the ultimate event interpretant, and that index is the sign most implicated in this episode-building process (West, 2016b, 2017). Support for this claim is grounded securely in Peirce’s Dicisign and Pheme (1908: 8.337–339), because the development of images as propositions/assertions/arguments depends largely upon whether they function as Phemes and Dicisigns. In fact, it is the interpretant of the Pheme and Dicisign which, in making explicit a proposition, can likewise imply assertions and arguments (cf. Bellucci, 2014; Stjernfelt, 2014; West, 2018). They do so because they consist in indexes together with icons which have the power to influence others’ complexions of mind by implying recommendations for courses of belief and action. This account provides evidence in support of Peirce’s latest semiotic division. It illustrates how children’s early event representations become associated with increasingly more objective, logical interpretantsfrom events whose effects impinge upon the self, to those which are other-centric. Empirical findings will demonstrate that children’s event representations emerge as single goal driven events, then expand into deictic, two ordered reciprocal events featuring space and time coordinates. In this way, new assignments of narrated interpretants give rise to qualitatively different conceptions of event templates, which inform children’s inferencing skills.

5.2 The Development of Episodic Thought Infants must first perceive the event’s situatedness, spatial and temporal boundaries, prior to constructing episodes wherein they generate their own stories of the objective world. Integrating objects and participants’ orientation with the issue of motility is foundational to imposing logic upon events. Imposing situatedness upon events (when and where one event surface with respect to other happenings) suggests motility from one event to another—a necessary competence in developing narratives. Quinn and Intraub (2007: 331) found that infants possess some competency with respect to spatial situatedness. As young as 0;3 they were aware of the existence of spatial boundary extensions. Their subjects habituated (looked less) at pictures depicting a wider panorama, beyond a narrow visual field, and looked more at a narrow one where boundaries were prevalent. Looking longer at a narrow slice of occupied space (than a wider scene) indicates apprehension of implicit boundaries, e.g. corners or windows in a room. The stimuli consisted of a teddy in a corner (both wide and narrow views), without any obvious border around the teddy. In looking longer at the narrower scene, infants imposed their own spatial boundaries—scenes

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which demonstrate early inferential competencies when infants use logic to connect them into episodes. At 0;6, infants recognized not merely where scenes end, but directionality within and across scenes, namely paths. Managing paths facilitates infants’ awareness of sources and provides a trajectory toward some logical relatedness with the next event. Infants demonstrate path competency when they look longer at actions depicting motion, rather than at static event features. Moreover, the fact that infants stopped looking when paths were blocked as well as when the motion event concluded clearly illustrates path awareness. These findings demonstrate that infants at this age encode some notion of objective path trajectories—intimating the presence of skills foundational to episode-building for narrative arenas. This is relevant to event relations in that recognition of end of paths demonstrates the emergence of near and beyond space—necessary when describing characters’ locations, and contributions within narrative structures. Apprehension of motion along paths evidences knowledge of feature distinctiveness and continuity, foundational to apprehension of where events begin, who participates in them, and where they end. Recognition of the beginning and end of paths demonstrates that infants have manufactured underlying hunches housing their expectations regarding event structure—the raw material for abducing connections between events. The hunch/expectation either separates events or posits that events consist together as aggregate structures/episodes. According to Baillargeon (1986), at 0;6, infants realize that objects proceeding along a path can be stopped if blocked by another object. Although at 0;6 children recognize where motion events end, e.g., when objects stop at the end of a path or when they are prevented from proceeding further, they fail to demonstrate episodic thought, given the lack of continuity across events—relating a happening along one path to a resultative state of another. Until episodic thought is operational, competence to construct one’s own narrative, and the means to tell such fails to reach muster, because events are still shy of expectations of how they contribute to consequent events. The nonepisodic character of memory at this age likewise surfaces in children’s enactments. At 0;6 infants reproduce path-like gestures with physical movement of their own body, demarcating a beginning and an end point. Nonetheless, their gestures (head movement) at this age are merely imitative (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977; Barr et al., 1996). Infants’ gestures at this age are arguably non-episodic, in that they do not show clear evidence of foundational behavioral correlates. Infants’ gestures only constitute immediate reproductions, since little, if any time, intervened between observation of the model and reproductions. In short, despite recognition of graphical arrays at 0;3 (Quinn & Intraub, 2007: 331) and spatial boundaries at 0;6 (Baillargeon, 1986), infants lack the skill (which index ultimately affords) to unite event features into an integrated behavioral course, preempting narrative structures. Rather, early on, actions resemble automatic bundles performed unconsciously—lacking inferential/abductive connections across constituent actions. Given the virtual absence of inferential skills at these young ages, semantic and syntactic classification of actions/states into event types (giving, putting) does not materialize at this juncture. These kinds of classifications preempt narrative structure because they imply an awareness of directional sequences (source, path, goal, to receiver). The exchanges

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which narrators choose to move accounts alone, determine the number and roles of the participants which they are attempting to depict for the listener, namely, agents, receivers, benefactors, and the like. Thus, a foundation for subsequent events is forged. The event classifications which narrators select are regulated by predictable directional templates, which induce hearers to formulate inferences about effects of the transferred object in the giving exchange. The listener utilizes the directional components within narratives to predict effects of giving upon particular receivers. Being made aware of giving events encourages listeners to draw logical assumptions of how the source implies which path will be forged (the object’s projectile toward an intended destination. But, until memory can situate the components of these procedures, individuating events, and consolidating them to create a more replicable structure lacks the regulation which hearers rely upon to develop expectations of what is likely to transpire next in the narrative. Without the structures which narratives supply, hearer’s expectations would be spurious and would be subject to being discarded as ill-formed hunches, because the situatedness of the more foundational event is somehow in question. In short, utilizing events within narratives is a challenge at best without anticipation of the next event and its consequences. This anticipatory competency is equivocal to thinking episodically—a skill still insufficiently developed at this developmental juncture, given the absence of reliable logical connections between the narration and the potentiality for exploiting an inferential base of reasoning. Forming viable hunches to improve comprehension of the point to be learnt from the participants’ experiences from within the narrative is underway until some metaskills of are present to allow the interpreter to exercise self-control. Bundling events recounted in the narrative into classes is the initial step. This is critical because recognition that events can cohere semantically with other happenings (forming event structures which contain several similar procedures) fosters apprehension of the purpose of the recounted event, and obviates the episodic aspects (proceeding from origin, path, to goal). Children eventually classify these action/stative relations when event aggregates are understood as kinds, consonant with encoding into syntactic and pragmatic templates. In this way, children discern that it is not merely the endpoint which determines whether events fit into the same template, but other factors internal to the event, e.g., participant roles. Factors external to the event under consideration likewise contribute to how events are classified, e.g., other events which can preempt the emergence of the original event. Internal factors typically entail semantic roles (agents, receivers, instruments) whose intentions bring the relations of the event into existence, or into sharper focus. The sharper focus of events is tantamount to the attentional element—permitting interpreters to separate/individuate the logical factors (kinds of participants, number of arguments) inherent in reconstructing the narrator’s set of assertions. Building the episodic character of events (on the part of the interpreter) entails not merely well-founded conjectures of event consequences, but appreciation for the

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narrator’s knowledge-base and intent for the particular detail under scrutiny. Distinctions between the narrator’s and the interpreter’s meaning are revealed by examination of the degree of overlap between their interpretants. This distinction is rather difficult to measure, in view of the fact that these meanings (although present) are ordinarily unexpressed. This meaning potential, referred to as “provenation” (Deely, 2009: 29; Deely, 2012: 156) is a repository for more augmented meanings. Essentially, the caliber of events’ interpretants (how objects are utilized, or how actions suggest other actions/states of affairs) create profiles for interpreters of narratives. The inception of the meaning begins at the very moment that meaning/effects are first assigned to the event sign. The upshot is that even primitive interpretants of event signs, e.g., uni-directional motion, invite more elaborated interpretants, e.g., bi-directional templates consisting in episodes. These event interpretants pre-exist the onset of language, in that the realization of where object/participant trajectories begin and conclude (telicity) alone (without symbolic sign use) gives rise to expectations of event slots and their relations. As such, notice of how event initiation/termination identifies individual events and their participant roles (orchestrated by index) informs the construction of episodes. The function of indexical representations does not stop there: it supersedes practical determinations, hastening logical reasoning by inferring which internal event components must be discarded in subsequent uses, and which can suggest further interpretive direction (cf. Atkin, 2005; West, 2016a). Noticing spatial boundaries constitutes the touchstone in thinking episodically. Episodic thought entails apprehending telicity - the point where an array/action ends, and where beyond near space/present time begins (cf. Vendler, 1967 for an elaboration of telicity). It is critical to recognize that for infants, apprehension of boundaries defines space containment; nonetheless, spatial containment is but one component toward notice of temporal progressivity/sequentiality. Unless contiguous qualia are apprehended as first filling, then superseding individual fields, events (actions, states of affairs) fail to reach muster as episodes. Accordingly, perceiving events as narrative aggregates (episodes) first requires recognition of space as occupied (incorporating objects/participants and their qualia); afterward determining how to unite bounded events characterizes more refined episodic thought with a narrative complexion— reflecting a more expanded relational character. In short, the principle of purposive, contiguous motion through space is one of the most primary advancements in narrative interpretation. because its operation actually fills space while extending time. Keeping time constant, while expanding space (or the reverse) permits interpreters to determine the viability of an abduction, because it separates the co-occurrence of events from the frequency with which they impinge upon immediately following events. These attempts to separate space from time event coordinates allows interpreters to control factors impinging upon outcomes, thereby clarifying the effects of specific conditions upon states of affairs. In this way, children utilize semiotic devices (index) to attend to and to maintain attention upon events which are candidates for abductive material, e.g., separating events which may contribute to surprising consequences). As such, the process of asserting and discarding hunches is initiated, and children implicitly posit relational purposes between events and outcomes.

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At 0;6, after objects have been associated with place and identity attributes, in object files, (Leslie et al., 1998: 11; Leslie & Káldy, 2007: 117) their representations fail to qualify as truly abductive. Their insufficiency is validated by the lack of control over attentional factors simultaneously—holding in memory: events’ place, together with several eventualities of context such as the when and where of contiguous happenings. Absent this attentional control, the space and time coordinates necessary to narrative interpretation are inaccessible. To reach muster as narratives inferences must orient event purpose, suggesting an episodic trajectory; otherwise, figuring out the where, when, and how of a participant’s involvement is unlikely. Location/color/shape attributes only define event representations as static units, without a connected, episodic character. Until event representations supersede individual relations to predict which objects/participants are present to effectuate the event, the representation does not incorporate the dynamicity which episodes afford to narrative structure. This dynamicity intimates logical relations which further obviate practical event sequencing, i.e., suggesting likely resultative events. Consciously tracing internal practical factors, such as participant roles, can have far-reaching logical benefits—hastening plausible predictions of concurrent or resultative events. To think episodically and to interpret episodic accounts told by narrators, children must apprehend before the consequence, that the appearance of a contributing event suggests an outcome. This is a lengthy process. As mentioned earlier, infants’ reproductions of single gestures (head movement) are non-episodic; they do not suggest consequent states of affairs, since spatial boundaries only, not temporal ones, have been internalized. Even apprehension of relations between objects and locations (“object index” at 0;6, Leslie et al., 1998) does not give rise to abductive skills—the recognition of events as moving toward a logical end. This is the case because the relations which these skills are so individuated that they fail to hint at the events purpose in states of affairs. Hence, apprehension of single locations or actions on the part of infants do not directly supply the kind of information from which abductions are formed; these identity-based characteristics cannot bridge one occupied space with another to hint at the progressivity necessary to discern the plot of narratives.

5.3 The Need for Abduction in Episode-Building The association of qualia to objects, operational at 0;9 (Leslie et al., 1998: 13) facilitates episodic representations, in that it evidences the that objects have been encoded as place markers, or as location keepers. Purposes for objects become especially obviated when they embody certain attributes associable with particular spaces. Identifying spaces with qualia indicates that rationale must explain the purpose for such association. In other words, the functional relations between objects in allied locations over time suggests some purposive affiliation—compelling interpreters to generate hunches to account for the unaccidental spatial and temporal proximity. Putting together filled spaces is paramount for interpreting narratives; this is why noticing qualia absent the where and when of its occurrence fails to invite object

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inclusion within moving, action templates. This is evidenced by the incomplete picture that accounts of Firstness (in the form of single focus upon object attributes only) supply; they fall short of suggesting resultative states of affairs. The invasion of phenomenological forces by way of Firstness considerations (culminating in hypostatic abstraction) can vitiate the logic required to connect objects and places to moving effects. For this reason, children’s construction of object files (the most elementary entity-based memories) fail to highlight object use, leaving predictions of potential paths /goals unconsidered. As simple snapshots of qualia, event representations are not moving, but are spatially and temporally static. Even at 0;9, when infants are “sensitive to individual identities of objects within spatial arrays, they have yet to demonstrate sensitivity to movement trajectories necessary to encode event paths and goals” (Richmond et al., 2015: 88). Further evidence of infants’ limited understanding of event motility is their inability to order visual displays. At 0;11 ordered recall of visual displays (not action events) does not endure beyond one month (Meltzoff, 1988: 475; Mandler & McDonough, 1995: 471; Bauer, 2006: 382; Bauer et al., 2000: 135).1 This demonstrates that memories still consist largely of single, uni-directional actions, falling short of the episodic character necessary to consolidate several events into narrative structures. Similarly, search and find activities, despite object displacement from the visual field, do not yet sufficiently evidence that infants represent events episodically. Although search for hidden objects emerges at 0;10 (Piaget & Inhelder, 1966/1969: 14–15), path-goal representations are still not fully episodic; they are not reliably guided by bi-directional reference-point templates. Only single, uni-directional (the child’s own) goal behaviors are illustrated when uncovering objects from hiding places. If egocentric perspectives endure, the perspectives which Narrators intend to communicate may well be thwarted. The abductive character of children’s extended search behaviors is still rather weak, in that even though they can hold more than two hiding places in long-term memory, and can successfully retrieve the particular objects for which they were seeking, their simplistic explanations/implied rationale upon finding different objects in such places reflects an inability to manage happenings beyond self-prescribed ones, and a conformity to learned automatic sequences. Children’s abductive skills are not yet guided by dialogic, and bidirectional perspectives. Instead, their assumptions for object-place associations and the effects that objects can produce is controlled by should-bes, not by could-bes. Their knowledge of object-location affiliations reveals mere verbatim facts based upon self-experience alone. With apprehension of other sequential space, time and participatory coordinates, more dialogic explanations for place affiliations are entertained—providing children with more objective vantagepoints for more viable inferencing. Children become more equipped to monitor diverse participants/objects in different event-roles and unconventional objects in unconventional places. Short of this more dialogic

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Mandler and McDonough (1995: 471) also observe that their subjects recalled causal events more reliably than arbitrary events. Cf. Mandler (2004: 230–233) for a general discussion of ordered recall in development.

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skill, rudimentary episodic status (what is responsible for which consequence in which context) is hardly likely. Not even when three sequential actions endure in memory (at 2;0) for 24 plus hours (Bauer & Shore, 1987; Bauer et al., 2000: 135) is there sufficient evidence demonstrating that children think episodically, such that they can implicitly propose hypotheses for the cohesion of neighboring events. This is demonstrated by the unfounded presumption on the part of two and three-year-old children that contemporaneous events always possess some logical relationship. In fact, it is not until children’s conduct reveals that their inferences supersede perceptual data, that abductive rationality is present. When children begin to alter sequential reproductions of others’ action schemes (while still maintaining a measure of objective logic) that a semblance of abductive rationality surfaces. This conduct does not emerge until after exact action sequence reproductions are produced, beyond the two-year mark (Wenner & Bauer, 1999: 589), that episodic thought is truly operational. Nonetheless, evidence that children bind location with objects in visual arrays between 1;5 and 2;0, and that they remember two sequential events (Richmond et al. (2015) is still insufficient to qualify as episodic. The fact that their subjects looked longer at objects which changed location than at objects substituted in the same place as the original object, still fails to demonstrate that any logical relationship (cause-effect or otherwise) has been applied to the objects. It only suggests that substituting objects in the same array (rather than moving them to other arrays) is an operation which children notice at this age, perhaps consequent to increased familiarity. In point of fact, Richmond et al.’s findings do not go beyond suggesting children’s greater comfort with object substitutions, without addressing the issue of object movement or displacement into contiguous events. These investigators need to demonstrate when children appreciate not merely episodic thought, but when they encode more dialogic conceptions of how episodes are established. Richmond et al. need to explore the emergence of more complex psycho-social skills, such as autonoesis and theory of mind skills. The latter entails how children appreciate diverse perspectives in similar kinds of events. Typically, children transition to this dialogic appreciation through self-experiences. These embodied experiences initially allow them to imagine how events transpire beyond single formulaic points of view when they assume varied participant roles. In this way, they can freely become other identities, which promote explanatory hunches in the face of new, surprising experiences. More Diverse first-hand experiences move children into other kinds of event participation (receiverships, and the like) which otherwise might be unattainable. In this way, self-participatory involvement in different kinds of events (causative, ergative) model how actions/states of being depend upon particular orientations, and as such preempt explanations for their occurrence. In these novel roles, explanations readily flash across the consciousness as to the why for the episode’s complexion—entailing orientational shifts from participant to participant. In short, assuming diverse paths and orientations via one’s own body supplies the directional experience necessary to abduce. In other words, abductions are enhanced by engagement in dialogic processes, and require theory of mind

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consciousness, because such enhances the means to predict the outcomes of other’s role participation. Children’s ability to assume rudimentary allocentric perspective-taking at 2;0 (Sluzenski et al., 2004) constitutes the foundation upon which dialogic thinking can be exercised. At this stage, appreciation of allocentric perspectives is demonstrated by children’s selection of the plate under which the experimenter has hidden a reward. Success at reward recovery was the case despite their need to reorient to the plates in light of array changes. At different times, children entered an arena from different doors, observing the array of plates from different orientations. Subjects unequivocally demonstrated relational competencies when they accurately located objects despite new orientations (Sluzenski et al., 2004; Ribordy et al., 2013: 19). According to Ribordy et al. (2013), these allocentric skills are critical to a cohesive spatial perspective; and such perspective is unequivocally constructed from inference-making consequent to physical/perspectival reorientations. Two year olds’ success locating the target plates after shifting their orientation (despite the absence of landmarks) demonstrates apprehension of sequences of shifting spatial boundaries necessary to the distinct orientations between narrator and interpreter. This allocentric perspective (approaching the object array from different directions) allows children to sequentially experience different spatial relations with object arrays, foundational to the more symbolic perspectival distinctions found in dialogic shifts when telling narratives. The integration of distal visual cues and other vantage points (points of origin) illustrate the children have had to infer the differences and similarities among perspectives, and assemble the perspectives into a coherent and cohesive whole. This process constitutes a particularly challenging affair, since, in integrating distinctive points of view, children must implicitly account for changes arising in participant roles and object location/relocation. The way in which children shape episodes to eventually exchange these accounts to others is rather personal and quite embodied— they enact event sequences (three events). If these enactments are replicas of their observations of those of a model, however, the re-enactment (especially within one month after a model is but imitation (Bauer et al., 2000: 135), and lacks the seeds for abductive reasoning. Nonetheless, this use of the whole body illustrates underlying hypotheses regarding the purposes and ultimate consequences for the motion trajectory. In these self-enactments, the body serves as an index, directing the behavior toward resultative states of affairs. The entire body physically transitions from one action to another, highlighting changes in the constituency of the event in question.

5.4 The Emergence of Episodes and Autonoesis Children can employ either of two orientation systems to determine the source for the memory and to bind elements of the spatio-temporal context: an egocentric or allocentric perspective (Ribordy et al., 2013: 26). The former always precedes the latter in ontogeny for mammals and for other species (Raj & Bell, 2010: 387). An egocentric paradigm, discerning paths from the vantage point of self only, is employed

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utilizing path integration as early as 0;7 (Acredolo, 1978). In contrast, utilizing vantage points from another’s perspective to determine locations of objects within the event is quintessential to appreciate the objective skill of thinking episodically. These other points of origin may consist of persons or other objects with inherent fronts/backs. Unlike egocentric perspectives, allocentric vantage points require landmark integration; as such, they emerge as late as 1;6, provided that stimuli/locations are familiar (Richmond et al., 2015: 89). According to Ribordy and et al. (2013: 26) the means to distinguish and remember “closely related spatial locations” improves between 2;0 and 3;6, consequent to maturation of distinct hippocampal circuits. Ribordy et al. (2013: 22) employed measures beyond looking time to determine whether egocentric or other points of reference were employed to inform subjects’ orientation to objects—skills primary to dialogic thinking. Certain environmental features were systematically manipulated (presence of opaque curtains, multiple goal locations, and starting positions). These control conditions induced subjects to utilize points of reference other than the self to reorient, hence, measuring the shifting character of motion events. Subjects reentered an arena via different doors across several trials. Consequent to each of their novel orientation to objects (plates), subjects’ view of the array altered, accurately matching the actual array. What is still missing at this stage in children’s perspectival skills to approximate utilization of advanced episodic thought entails conscious dialogic interplay between at least two subjective perspectives. Attribution of allocentric perspectives to participant event roles, not within arrays whose physical conditions are limited (consonant with those previously shown) is still not sufficiently objective to permit all perspectives to be recognized. Without allocentric perspective-taking, children lack the means to project differing viewpoints into moving events as do adults. This immature competency has significant deleterious effects in terms of developing and expressing reasoning skills—since inferences are not drawn from many specific and legitimate ways of viewing consequential material. This perspectival insufficiency is particularly obviated when orientational conflicts/contrasts arise. Contrasts are particularly poignant when the parties to an exchange within a narrative face one another (cf. West, 2011: 95). While egocentric paradigms always employ the self as referent point for objects (even when self’s orientation is altered), other-centered vantagepoints define allocentric systems (those enriched with perspectival diversity), such that objects/persons outside of self likewise determine the location and distance from objects/participants. Children can either enact the event themselves from diverse vantagepoints, or can mentally project themselves or another into the event. Allocentric perspectives necessary in comprehending narrations fashioned by others allow the child to take part in the event without direct participation. With these more objective determinative viewpoints, valid inferences are more likely to arise and be entertained. As such, utilizing allocentric points of view is critical in developing abductions within episodes which rise to the level of being believable. Their greater believability is consequent to incorporation of additional referent points. These referent points are then easily inserted into narratives, such that the rationale for constructed episodes in the account are suitable to interpret narrator’s renditions of what they see/hear/feel, including the

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situatedness of the context. Hence, the necessity for establishing referent points upon which parties to narratives can rely is obvious. This reliance must operate because often parties to the narrative are facing in different directions, or have different orientations altogether to the narrated episodes.

5.5 Perspectival Diversity in Abductive Thinking Unlike the narrowness intrinsic to egocentric perspectives, appreciating other visual, ethical, and logical goals is a skill without which abductive thought is not possible. Abductive reasoning (entertaining inferences which contain some degree of legitimacy) requires exploiting allocentric viewpoints, because amplifying perspectival knowledge provides raw material with which perspectives can be updated. These updates supply the flexibility necessary for modifying hunches, and ultimately determining their functionality on a pragmatic level. Actual experiences observing location and participant motility/substitutions commandeer children to try out alternative interpretations which advocate opposing physical, moral, or logical principles. The deictic character which requires updating from episode to episode (frequent location and orientation shifts), hastens the manufacture of inferences as to how such shifts (object/person substitutions) redefine the event in question, and how subsequent events, in turn, might be affected. On a purely physical level, were an narrated event characterizing ball-playing, one episode might entail the agent launching a round object along a path, to reach another player at another location, only to reverse the process. But, the abductive material is obviated in the ultimate purpose, determined and animated by an unexpected effect to another player/participant. These event turns within narrative episodes provide a catalyst for children to anticipate the factors contributing to the receiving player’s inability to control the ball. Once reaching the receiver, the perspective, together with the event structure alters with the shift -role, mandating recalculation of object distances and object access according to an allocentric viewpoint. Were an observer to utilize an egocentric viewpoint only, distances and orientations of objects at each turn would be measured from ego’s place of continual relocation and/or ego’s updates in orientation alone. Accordingly, use of narrative accounts constitute a tool by which children’s appreciation for other interpretations becomes particularly relevant. In short, working through the turns in direction of characters and event complexions which narratives supply forces children to formulate anticipatory rationality, i.e., how different characters are likely to respond in the face of distinct effects that consequences might have upon each character. The purposes of indexical signs here are most relevant; they highlight effects upon perceiver’s partially by measuring their gaze trajectories. Attentional focus of players in narration is a clear determinant of the importance of the focus, and construal. The focus which narratives afford permits children to indirectly experience how unfamiliar others handle their roles and control the consequences. This attentional skill hastens abductive competencies by widening what otherwise might

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have been narrow predictions, but which now require children to incorporate external and objective viewpoints. It is important to stress that foundational memory skills are implicated in widening perspectives, and in informing predictive capacity. Managing allocentric paradigms to to predict how best to resolve moral or logical conflicts entail foundational cognitive organizational competencies—chief among them is encoding/storing/retrieving events as episodic units, while leaving open the need to make changes. Until some perspectival objectivity defines logical relations (facilitated by exposure to narratives), rationale for how one event precedes/follows another (from a host of viewpoints) is inaccessible—because using logic to explain event relations is unreliable/deceptive. Perspectival blindness obscures the potential contribution of events to consequent states of affairs. In other words, if simple idiosyncratic embodiment is the only/primary consideration, as is the case when employing an egocentric paradigm, effects upon other participants are likely to be foreclosed; and generating plausible inferences (containing valid logical claims) about events to come, is often compromised. In view of reliance upon ordered recall and orientational posturing within events, episodic constituencies within narrative structures (in addition to encoding semantic information) offer procedural affordances, in that they chart sequences of happenings (Hayne, 2007: 228). What semantic knowledge (factual knowledge emanating from declarative knowledge) brings to bare for interpreters is a framework whereby likeevents are classified, and the contiguity across events to ascertain the consequent is fostered. The latter process chains events logically, such that neural connections facilitate retrieval. In this way, the episodic nature of narratives relies upon both semantic and procedural memory competencies. The procedural components of narrative episodes emerge later than do semantic components (Tulving, 2005: 11), presumably because they require a clearly established differentiated object system, while semantic memory can feature an undifferentiated world-knowledge-based system.2

5.6 The Contribution of Peirce’s Ten-Fold Division of Signs A semiotic explanation serves a far more fitting rationale (than does a purely cognitive one) for the rather late emergence of episodic features of narratives. This is the case given the implicit way in which indexical signs represent propositions. Indexes do so by way of emphasis upon procedural factors. For Peirce, indexical signs are characteristically procedural in view of their means to attentionally establish the distinctness of objects within an undifferentiated stream of space. Consequent to this attentional function, indexes are most responsible for proposition-making (1906: MS 295: 26) (be the propositions implicit or explicit), in that they provide the seeds upon which events cohere. Because propositions state/imply a claim about a state of affairs, 2

For a discussion of the emergence of declarative and procedural memory, cf. Bauer et al. (2007: 241–243).

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they operate to construct events and to unify them into moving logical episodes. Hence, index constitutes a prime component in establishing the narrator’s focus and in securing interpreter’s attention to such. The propositional content of indexes transport implied propositional components within a dialogic network—from narrator to interpreter; hence narrators direct interpreters as to which terms/propositions to attend to. Narrators likewise set up surprising consequences within their accounts which interpreters are encouraged to explain. Index’s power to individuate events, while suggesting their relations and purposes constitutes a subtle, and preemptive device, especially for children, to communicate the subject-predicate connections of abductions. Indexes force the attention of the interpreter to utilize narrator’s implied meanings to infer new event relations. Unlike symbolic signs, these kinds of situational signs require far more inferencing to determine potential logical event-connections, because they merely hint at the nature of the relations holding between event components. Unlike indexes/icons, symbols express the nature of event relations, making inferencing less necessary. This issue is especially relevant to the development of episodic thought, wherein apprehending relational representations (namely indexes) is central. Hayne’s (2007) and Hayne and Imuta’s (2011) findings support the fact that event relations rise to the level of episodic thought. They demonstrate that episodebuilding depends largely upon the consciousness of the child’s own past experiences. The consciousness to which Hayne and Imuta refer supplies the raw material to infer connections across events which index implies. At 3;0, memory of previous hiding places was operational, but not their temporal order. Hayne and Imuta (2011) conclude that although episodic memory begins emerging between 3;0 and 4;0, it is not reliably in place until 4;0, when consciousness of temporal sequences (enhancing memory) is in place. Three-year-olds were able to remember where objects were hidden in a particular room (after observing the hiding process); but not when they were hidden, or who was responsible for hiding them. Four-year-olds were conscious of and were able to recall all three factors of the hiding process (where, when, and whom), indicating that recall of temporal and participant sequences consisting of more than two events require more advanced representational skills than remembering three “where” events. Processing indexical relations sheds particular light on the reason for these ontogenetic distinctions (as set forth in Peirce’s ten-fold division of signs), since far less inferential reasoning is necessary to relate co-present objects than to integrate sequential actions. In the former, index implies propositions only, while in the latter it suggests arguments. Inferring a proposition from co-existent entities is cognitively simpler in that only the relations need be constructed; the objects are still before the mind. Conversely, to infer arguments, observers must hold in memory integrated scenes of previous experience in the process of inferring relations among them. Given that episodic memory requires awareness and recall of temporal sequences, it does not emerge until children unequivocally demonstrate (ordinarily through narration) conscious reconstruction of the events in the order which matches actual experiences (Tulving, 2005: 32): “Children’s ability to remember how and when and in what setting they learned a new fact can be assessed even more directly [via

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narratives]. When this is done, findings again suggest a magical number of 4 as the number of years needed to develop a nearly fully operational episodic memory system.” Bauer et al. (2016) findings similarly indicate that at 4;0, event recall for narrative purposes after one week is more accurate when cues (especially location) are provided, compared to uncued recall. In short, although narrative accounts successfully incorporate episodic features, onset at 3;0, sequencing of narratives continues to be refined even beyond 6;0 (Nelson, 1993; Perner & Ruffman, 1995: 543; Tulving, 2002: 7). Here, differing functions of index explain the late acquisition of more full-fledged episodic memory skills—telling others about the logical and moral purposes for characters’ participation in narrated episodes, wherein surprising consequences are featured. Because narratives often feature non-present events as opposed to present ones, children are led to further enter the world of otherness, beyond there subjective experience. Essentially, children utilize index to infer the relevance of other places, times, and other participants to a previous event or one before the mind. To ascertain a full-fledged episodic memory system, children supersede memory of past temporally ordered events, and utilize past memories to infer character’s states of mind in narrated accounts. As such, children’s consciousness is informed by future states of affairs, such that contributing events/conditions have genuine potential to be apprehended. To make this inferential leap, children must exploit index’s ultimate function as Pheme and Dicisign. They first need to associate icons (object qualia) with the definiteness of place and time in the process of proposition-making (cf Stjernfelt, 2014, 2016; West, 2018). Later, children can draw argument-based inferences when recognizing the logical relevance of locations, times and participants roles displaced from the original condition. They eventually exploit place, time, and person coordinates to arrive at plausible conjectures, but often only after measuring how they themselves would respond in discrete but possible scenarios. The work of Tulving (2002, 2005), Mandler (2004), Hayne (2007), Klein et al. (2002), Suddendorf et al., (2011: 31) and Klein (2015: 12) demonstrates the necessity of projecting the self (even at 4;0 and beyond) into events (prior to projecting others). This skill requires the means to consciously reflect on how resultative events affect particular participants and how they might affect such in the future, namely autonoesis. Wheeler et al., (1997: 332) define autonoesis as a system of memory that “renders possible conscious recollection of personal happenings and events from one’s past and mental projection of anticipated events into one’s subjective future.” Wheeler et al.’s definition brings into focus the importance of remembering beyond simple past event sequences, by virtue of building potential event sequences to satisfy a future goal. Autonoesis is necessary for narrating exchanges, and for developing episodic thought, in that they enhance the perspectival diversity so critical in craft accounts. Communicating the crucial attentional foci in an account to another requires a unification of actions and their purposes (especially enabling ones). Although many investigators note the vital role of autonoetic consciousness in episode-building, Tulving’s (1985, 2002, 2005; Wheeler, Stuss and Tulving 1997) insights have been the most influential. Whereas noetic consciousness entails consolidating events which are remembered accurately in their actual and logical

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sequence (requiring index to supply some rudimentary argument structure), autonoetic consciousness entails the additional skill of remembering how the self traveled, or is likely to travel, through the event sequence (which requires index to suggest future-oriented spatial and temporal conditions for the self). In short, index allows imaging consolidated event sequences (noetic), as well as inserting the self as player in constructed event sequences (autonoetic). But, what truly sets episodic memory apart from autonoesis is the means to further project the self into events experienced by others (not by the self alone), and situating others in subsequent diverse events. In view of this other-based viewpoint, taking allocentric perspectives is vital to thinking episodically—a fact recognized by Szpunar and Tulving (2011: 6) as well as Klein (2015). When children represent the self in past scenarios, and recall the sequence of those scenarios ordinarily during narratives, they are only remembering the happening itself and their own feelings. To truly think episodically (going beyond Tulving’s assertions), children must make inferences based upon others’ anticipated reactions—a less direct source. As such, children not merely cultivate autonoetic consciousness (insinuating the self only as event participant), but insert others into their perspectives and they, themselves assume the perspectives of the other. Until children consciously incorporate appreciation for diverse perspectives—projecting the self into possible events which others may have experienced, or others into the children’s own experiences—their narrations fall short of their ultimate episodic character. Consciousness of objective points-of-view must subsist in the guiding element, such that the narrative’s function becomes a device to recommend courses of action, one of Peirce’s primary directives for abductive reasoning (1909: MS 637:15). To make workable recommendations, procedural memory (knowing the steps to reach a goal) must integrate with semantic memory (knowing what to suggest to ascertain a goal). To recommend successful courses of action for diverse others in narrative accounts, children must reason abductively—anticipating interpreters’ likely reactions, and proposing more workable paths of action. This is so, because episodes consist in event frames which hold together by implicit logical affiliation. In fact, the rather late ontogenesis of episodic memory (Tulving, 2005: 11) is likely to be a consequence of the need to integrate procedural with declarative knowledge (the latter is a component of semantic knowledge). Because procedural knowledge cannot ordinarily be “brought to conscious awareness” (Mandler, 2004: 46), accessing it and integrating it into perceptual-motor memories requires executive control, not present early on in ontogeny (Baddeley, 2007: 148–149). The procedural knowledge necessary for episodic memory, however, is not disconnected from semantic knowledge, since it resides not merely in the spatial but temporal (sequencing) situatedness of the contributing events. In contrast, the autonoetic property of episodic memory relies chiefly upon declarative, semantic knowledge. Its procedural dependence is not insignificant—given its means to coordinate spatial and temporal components (sequencing the where and when of events for partners). In fact, Newcombe et al. (2011) analysis is not inconsonant with the inclusion of procedural knowledge in the mix. In short, narrating episodes and proposing new hunches for unexpected consequences require integration of procedural with semantic knowledge; the necessity of their sequential processes requires organization of past and

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future event-representations pertaining to self and others. To coordinate both kinds of knowledge effectively, children need to have an awareness of the source for their event memories, i.e., how they know the events—from self-observation, or others narratives, and need to exert executive control, utilizing the episodic buffer (Baddeley, 2007: Chaps. 8 and 9), to block irrelevant event memories from influencing related abductions.

5.7 Conclusion Because narrators use indexical signs unconsciously, they rely upon them more often to suggest to their interpreters the meanings which reside in the accounts which they select to tell. As such, indexes afford interpreters an implicit mapping of the narration, and of the narrator’s purpose for telling the episode. Securing and sustaining attention to the progression of narrative events toward their conclusion illustrates index’s pivotal function. The implicit propositions residing in the movement across contributory events toward consequents advances inferencing skills, especially for the interpreter. Its function as individuator, then consolidator of events insinuates novel interpretants; thereby accounting for an earlier onset of abductive skills than might be the case for other signs. Suggestions of how episodes characterize logical relations between events is the catalyst for building hunches which adequately account for the nature of their contribution to the episode itself. This abductive skill emerges when interpretants of narrated scenes imply dynamic motion coordinates. The process may begin with flashes of insight, such that definite icons surface in the mind without planning or without measurable deliberation; but, other abductions lend themselves to more deliberative processing of episodic features to determine explanatory inferences. In fact, static mental images reach status as abductions when their episodic character becomes obviated, and when interpretants supply objective behavioral directives to suggest participant roles and objectives. This process is accentuated in narrative, when the narrator paints a picture of the events in sequence and includes in those episodes unexpected consequences. This active construction of episodes compels the interpreter to develop hunches. These hunches have the power to explain the surprising consequences or offer alternative behavioral directives to self or other regarding how to mitigate or reproduce the consequence in question. As such, the directives contained within narratives have the same pragmatic objective as do abductions—to recommend to the interpreter novel action-paths (1909: MS 637: 12). Because these directives represent viable suggestions for how to act within definite contexts, their form transcends mere resolutions, qualifying them as determinations (1909: MS 620). As such, the determinations communicated to interpreters through narratives constitute propositions, then assertions to be assumed by interpreters; and when their episodic directive for the objective other is realized, they reach implied argument status (1903: EP 2: 204). Nonetheless, matching the same meaning to the event sign between sign users is not a simple process, since it relies not merely upon implied relations between events, but upon unrevealed inferences

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imposed by two distinct signers which feature such relations. In fact, guessing right for both sign producers and receivers requires acting upon implicit knowledge drawn from latent effects between events which signers may or may not notice. As such, discerning relations depends heavily upon phenomenological factors—beyond the scope of direct experience. This is paramount in ascertaining perspective diversity for episodic sign use, given the incompleteness of event relations in the face of employing ego’s perspective alone. Absent episodic meanings facilitated by telling and interpreting narratives, the range of event interpretant affiliations are limited. Limitations include an over-dependence on embodiment, and a tendency to preclude more abstract, classificatory meanings. In the former, self’s own bodily activity underdefines episode classification; and in the latter, event configurations are constrained by the participants and valencies experienced by self alone. This is where observations of other’s experiences/opportunities amplify who can serve in particular roles, and the like. In short, without the facilitative device which narrators afford: organizing events for interpreters, inviting them to align with the narrator’s inferences or to propose updated ones, and questioning their assumptions with episodes intimating logical incongruities/disjunctions, the emergence of abductive rationality would be a rather protracted affair.

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Chapter 6

Unlocking Principles of Sequence in Narrative Contexts

6.1 Introduction This inquiry posits that narrative is perhaps the most efficacious forum for enhancing the kind of inferencing which Peirce advocates as foundational to innovative rationality. It argues that injecting the element of surprise energized by suspense and retrospective devices lifts listeners out of their “limpidity” of thought (1906: MS 298: 31). As a consequence, listeners’ mental “eyeballs” become open to receive notable features which narrators fashion (which is a reciprocal process). These features include: use of active voice, selection of verb lexicons to clarify thematic roles, and matching syntactic order to canonical event sequences. Narrators design scaffolds when they highlight event affiliations with semiotic devices—linguistic strands which compel listeners to uncover underlying purposes for discrete situations; in sharing their hunches with the narrator, listeners inferences (rationale for connections between surprising consequences and antecedents) become fortified. This account will demonstrate how Peirce applies his semiotic to promote logical advances, specifically inferential ones. It will elaborate on how Peirce’s later treatment of the interpretant is dependent upon dialogic interaction—upon two minds trying out idiosyncratic inferences on the other. Afterward, listeners make modifications to their inferences upon receipt of their partner’s confirmation/disconfirmation. This dialogic scenario makes obvious how plausible inferences derive from concerted interplay between what Peirce refers to as the scribe and the interpreter (1906: 4.552). This interaction is characterized by degrees of subjunctivity to influence listeners’ episodic meanings which cement sign-object-interpretant pairings. Peirce advances three degrees of suggestive fervor that can be executed by narrative partners: Seme, Pheme, Delome (1908: 8.374). Hence, narrators and listeners shift roles in telling the purpose for the story when they employ these suggestive semiotic devices. Finally, this account illustrates the prominence of Peirce’s categories (Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness) to ground dialogically constructed interpretations. The influence of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. E. West, Narrative as Dialectic Abduction, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7_6

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the categories begs examination of which factors impinge more upon interpreters— internal factors in Firstness (instinctual abductions as hallucinations), or external factors in Secondness. It is the latter which narrative forums privilege when both narrators and listeners embellish the storyline through sharing and refining their inferences.

6.2 Peirce’s Principle of Sequence Late in his work, in his ten-fold division of signs, Peirce provides us with a decidedly semiotic template to enhance the process of narration—both its construction and its interpretation. In other words, sign-object-meaning relations are responsible for the truth principles that narrators and their listeners settle upon at different junctures in the account’s progression. Peirce intended to convey that semiotic relations are not mere after-thoughts or cosmetic coverings to highlight suspenseful happenings in the account; rather they constitute a scaffold to discover implied meanings which underlie how events progress. The relations between existents, expressions, and meanings facilitate the consolidation of what might appear to be scattered happenings, and consolidate them into episodes which possess some truth value. As such, semiotic operations govern logical ones (1908: 8.377, 8.378).1 Semiotic operations underpin logic to the extent that absent their influence, the inferencing process would be truncated, undermined, or precluded altogether. This conviction becomes particularly evident in his latter six sign divisions (1908: 8.369–8.374). In particular, in 8.373 Peirce introduces three kinds of signs which contain distinct measures of logical specificity: the Seme, the Pheme, and the Delome. These signs possess ascending logical potency to suggest inferences—how certain kinds of happenings contribute (or not) to a consequent happening. The ultimate logical sign is the Delome, in which not merely the subject and antecedent are explicit components, but the principle of their sequence, as well. “IX. As to the Nature of the Influence of the Sign: Seme, like a simple sign; Pheme, with antecedent and consequent; Delome, with antecedent, consequent, and principle of sequence.” (1908: 8.373). In these entries, Peirce features the control which interpretants exert over the awareness of how and why events set up conditions for subsequent ones. Here Peirce demonstrates (however cryptically at times) the supreme influence of the interpretant (immediate, Dynamical, and Final) over generating anticipations that are prosperous—those that are likely to hold with events that might transpire in the future. 1

“I have often thought that if it were not that it would sound too German (and I have an utter contempt for German logic) I would entitle my logic-book…”Logic considered as Semeiotic” (or probably Semeotic without the i;) but everybody would think I was translating als Semeiotik betrachtet, which I couldn’t stand” (1908: 8.377). “So significs appears to be limited to the study of the relations of Signs to their Interpretants…. On the other hand Logic is more interested in the Truth of Signs, i.e. in their relation to their Objects” (1908: 8.378).

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In this way, given the triadic nature of signs (in their incorporation of effects to involved parties via the interpretant), listeners integrate initially disparate events (going beyond applying them to physical contexts), taking them to a higher logical level. In this inquiry, attention is accorded most to Peirce’s Final Interpretant, since it is in this measure that inference-based meanings are given greater weight. In 1906, when Peirce pronounced that Terms and Propositions “must be much widened,” implicit meanings/effects of Terms and Propositions became recognized, so much so that he applied new names to Term and Proposition—Seme and Pheme (MS 295: 27–30). Highlighting implicit meanings/effects (widening interpretants) affords consideration of predicates and arguments which are present but not expressed. As such, Semes can carry predicates, and Propositions can convey arguments without explicit mention. This allows actions and states of affairs to possess their own logical life, independent of linguistic accompaniment; and interpreters are invited to infer predicates, etc.

6.3 How Strands Become Effective in Narrative Contexts The logical level of narratives comprises two superimposed elements: concept-based predications of properties to substantives, and contextualized functions which determine the where, when, and “occupancy” (content) of what might be referred to as a “strand of events.” This “strand” is an episodic unit; it consists in the time, place of occurrence/utterance within the narrative, as well as the instrumentation of the involved parties who effectuate certain effects. The episodic arrangement of the strand, particularly the verb, implies logical relations across contributing strand events, such that an action template provides an exemplar for more objective logical relations, e.g., rationale holding consequents to antecedents. The components of the strand together (as an aggregate) naturally simulate the antecedent of a conclusion, in that they assemble events to illustrate causal sequences in real time absent instruction how to assemble them. As such, narrators set up rudimentary episodes for their listeners with verbs at the core. The episodic nature of these strands provide the raw material to infer arguments from the way in which facts are spatially and temporally showcased. From narrators’ subject-predicate pairings, listeners manage logical event relations suggested by the syntax and the verb lexicon. Provided that narrators highlight new and favored components, listeners can advance logic still further—inferring reasons for the pair’s inclusion and its placement in the story’s sequence. Inferences made consequent to the foregoing offer listeners the challenge of independently “twigging new ideas” (1913: MS 930: 33). As a consequence, the arguments which are often unspoken and presented as Semes or Phemes by narrators become Delomes when listeners infer from the order in which the episode is related, the narrator’s intonational contours, and verb choice. The aforementioned factors intimate the intended reason for individual event situatedness, which gives rise to conjectures as to a principle (objective rationale for sequencing) behind the account.

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Peirce articulates this point with unusual and startling clarity: “The third member of the triplet, the ‘Delome’, (dee-loam) embraces all arguments, syllogisms, and inferences, found or not. It professes or has the air of professing to convey the very creative law or reason which determines facts to be as they are” (1906: MS 295: 29– 30). Peirce’s inclusion of “creative law or reason” is paramount; as Peirce opines in the same passage that such law/reason is “creative” in the sense that it: determines facts to be as they are.” The “creative” reasoning to which Peirce refers is nothing short of abductive inferencing, in that suggested explanatory hypotheses constitute creative (novel) hunches which connect surprising consequences with different antecedents; and these connections (be they within Semes, Phemes, or Delomes) need not prove to be logically accurate in the end; they merely need to contain some hints of validity. These hunches can “embrace all…inferences sound or not” (1906: MS 295:29). When hunches surface in narratives in an effort to impose relations across events, interpreters are at liberty to apply meanings/effects to signs and objects absent the limitations imposed by worry about conformity to absolute correctness. Instead, interpreters can engage in the “twigging of ideas” (1913: MS 930: 33)—making interim determinations of consequent-antecedent pairings (especially those which appear to be central/primary to the account). They can afterward update the substance of arguments when they manufacture revised hunches, e.g., why the boy took home a frog which is unlikely to be his original pet frog. Listeners’ attempts to conjecture how participants unexpected response can be increased or decreased—rationale for how to avert a deleterious outcome. From their inferences, listeners can then propose more effective participant conduct to remedy the surprising negative consequences—a primary function of abductive reasoning (1909: MS 637: 12). This results in semiosis—advocating alternative practical/logical meanings/effects for potential antecedents from the narrator’s account, integrally from surprising consequences. Afterward, listeners can exercise the liberty of “twigging” out novel principles of sequence (1908: CP 8.373)—recommending courses of action. These principles for different courses of behavior and thought rise to the level of Peirce’s Delome, in that they suggest changes in habits which may apply to a host of genres—moral, political, legal, or simply personal (see West, 2016, Chap. 13). This ingenuity to infer narrators’ implied arguments equips listeners with far-reaching benefits. It facilitates searches for the narrator’s ultimate reason for choosing to tell this series of events to this particular listener, in a particular way (deliberately including/excluding places, times, actions, attitudes, etc.). Uncovering narrators’ reasons for telling the account qualifies as Delome, in that listeners’ construction of principles of sequence between antecedents and consequents, central to the logic explicitly embedded within Delomes. Integrating Narrator’s often piecemeal accounts of events is a challenging, but satisfying affair, provided that episodic approaches are invoked. The latter gives rise to increased discernment of the mood for the narration in the first place. Listeners determine the mood of the narrative when they infer principles of sequence which pertain to contexts beyond those featured in the narrative itself (given their law-like status)—when listeners abduce narrators’ suggested habit-changes for themselves, as well as for societies and cultures now and in the future. In this way, narrative

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represent a body of events which imply recommendations for alternative courses of action, translating into determinations of new principles of sequence. Listeners’ conclusory strands provide the advantage of overlaying a newly experienced consequence with a contributing event—perpetuating a logical affinity between events never before conceived of. The semiotic links the conditions of two distinct happenings with a more abstract effect; and the conditions pre-play the rudimentary predicate of the Pheme, heightening it to antecedent status. The Pheme carries a form of antecedent and consequent (8.373) which suggests a semantic template (together with a syntactic one) between subject and predicate. Within the semantic template of Phemes resides the question whether actors can perform the action/engage in the state referred to, while syntax-based inferences determine (in English) whether the roles (active, passive sentences).

6.4 Subjunctivity in the Principle of Sequence The process of arriving at a principle of sequence begins with inquiry of a particular kind. It begins with the implied components of the second member of the triplet, the Pheme. Several of Peirce’s entries support this contention: the “widening” of the first two members of the triplet, the Term and the Proposition to implied propositions and arguments, respectively—which Peirce renames as Seme and Pheme (1906: MS 295: 27–30). The widening of these members goes beyond their forms; it highlights interpreters’ power to infer from a present context (surprising consequence) to an invisible antecedent. The Pheme insinuates itself upon the consciousness of the interpreter such that it “…intends or has the air of intending to force some idea (in an interrogation) or some action (in a command) or some belief (in an assertion) upon the interpreter of it, just as if it were the direct and unintended effect of that which it represents” (1906: MS 295: 29). This function of the Pheme, not merely as a propositional sign but as one which forces an idea, action, or belief upon the interpreter demonstrates an analogous effect to the third kind of sign, arguments. In forcing interpreters to consider/adopt other’s ideas, e.g., an earthquake commanding or suggesting “get out of here,” (1906: MS 295: 29) actions, beliefs, as Phemes, amplify the acceptance of arguments, such that interpreters assert modes of action or belief (see West, 2020). Hence Peirce’s motivation to rename the third member of the triplet to Delome is even more warranted (1906: MS295: 30). Clearly distinguishing reasoning between consequent and antecedent (Argument) from a law-like principle establishing the consequent-antecedent sequence (Delome) highlights the objective superiority of the latter. The process of utilizing Phemes as suggestive (strongly, weakly) ways of thinking or behaving (analogous to the effects incurred by arguments) is a formidable component of Peirce’s later semiotic, so much so that he refers to the interpretant of those signs which implicitly suggest (imperatively or subjunctively) the principle of adopting certain conduct in particular contexts as the investigand: “Instead of

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interrogatory, the mood of the conclusion might more accurately be called ‘investigand’, and be expressed as follows: ‘it is to be inquired whether A is not true.’ The reasoning might be called ‘reasoning from surprise to inquiry’ (1905: MS L 463). Peirce characterizes the investigand as a mood elicited by an outcome (see Bellucci 2018A&B, and Bellucci and Pietarinen 2015) which the observer does not expect. The surprising consequence is key in this kind of inquiry for two reasons: the retroductive nature (hence unfabricated search) and the increased attentional care brought to the inquiry in view of the unexpected intrusion (hence emptying of former ready memories) upon the consciousness (1898: 5.581) changing. In this way, surprise is responsible for reversing the logical sequence from antecedent first, to retroduction, in which searching out the antecedent is spurred from a position of ignorance recognition—for which logical resolutions become foremost. The process of opening up other minds to substitute explanations (in the form of alternative antecedents which can come in the form of others’ suggestions)—those which more adequately account for the errant consequence Peirce refers to as “mood.” This mood gives rise to imperative/subjunctive pursuits, as well as declarative and interrogative processes. Pietarinen and Bellucci (2014: 357) further enlighten us as to how the investigand is mood provoking; they emphasize the suggestive nature of mood (particularly imperative and subjunctive) given their power to compel interpreters to commit to seeking specific relational truths, especially when unprecedented consequences emerge. “As the conclusion does not present a given hypothesis for contemplation, it merely suggests (emphasis mine) that it would be reasonable, given the overall goals and the context of investigation, to inquire whether a given hypothesis is true or not. The schema does not commit one to the truth of the hypothesis; it merely suggests (emphasis mine) the adoption of [the] hypothesis to be reasonable in the sense of proposing specific strategic advantages to those who adopt it” (Pietarinen & Bellucci, 2014: 357). Pietarinen and Bellucci highlight the persuasive effect that these suggestive methods produce in the listener. Augmenting arguments with advantages to the interlocutor may be the most convincing approach to evoke their notice. But, while Pietarinen and Bellucci highlight the potency of suggestion as a tool to affect logical change in another, they fall short of identifying social and psychological effects arising between interlocutors particularly in narrative contexts.

6.5 Application to Narrative Contexts It must be noted that effects emanating from investigands constitute quintessential illustrations of interpretants produced by either the Pheme or the Delome, depending on the explicitness of the argument which it advocates. In either case, the effects are endoporeutic in nature; they consist in either implied or explicit gestures or linguistic measures (1906: MS 295: 28–29) utilized by one party to invoke a change in another’s actions/beliefs. These measures (gestural, linguistic) command/recommend that a partner reflect upon and/or adopt the other’s perspectival orientations; and independent of their form (recommendation, imperative), they can produce distinct and

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lasting logical changes, consequent to their emotive force. The implied arguments which narrators utilize to tilt their listener’s viewpoints can range from brute to subtle; nonetheless, either sign (Phemes, Delomes) bearing implicit or explicit arguments can have the effect of coloring the facts under focus. Accordingly, both Phemes and Delomes can scaffold the dawning of hunches— securing the attention of listeners, and convincing them either of the truth/falsity of a proposition, or of the moral efficacy of participants’ actions/attitudes. In the process, Peirce’s endoporeutic principle2 (Pietarinen, 2006: 183; 1906: MS 614, 1906: MS 293: 53, 1909: MS 514, 1911: MS 669: 4) is carried out, in that narrators influence their listeners’ earlier propositions, and eventually their arguments when they, themselves retell the story. Narrators exert the power of the endoporeutic principle when they express gestures/claims specifying their sequence-based interpretations. The process is from the outside-in, in that it augments bare propositions with accompanying injunctions to consider truth values and to adopt new beliefs. Narrators might indicate to their listeners that: “it is unfortunate that the infiltration of the bees disturbed the travelers’ effort to locate their lost frog.” The Narrator’s initial clause (“it is unfortunate”) commandeers their listeners to make a determination that the bees’ intrusion produced a particular negative effect. In like passages, narrators attempt to enlist listeners to feel the same conflict as they, themselves feel,3 i.e., “it is unfortunate” not only reveals the convictions of the narrator, but colors the truth value of the fact itself. Accompanying gestures can further the effects of narrators’ subjunctive statements, e.g., pointing to the bees while wearing a dejected expression (see West, 2019 for a discussion of subjunctive effects of performatives). In this case, listeners are invited to feel as the narrator feels—to have the same conviction, and to cling to the same/similar assertion. The forgoing suggestive clause demonstrates the redirecting power of Phemes, in that listeners are invited to consider different emotions and assumptions regarding the surprising consequence of the appearance of the bees, and the antecedent search for the lost frog. In this way, narrators effectively change the story’s ultimate complexion when their underlying arguments are influenced, e.g., the search should not have been undertaken prior to protecting the physical surround. The forgoing is the case, provided that reasons for settling upon the antecedent from the surprising consequence offer some ingenuity (1903: 5.189, EP 2: 231; 1905: MS L 463) is operating. Peirce demonstrates the import of the narrator and the interpreter in suggesting new meanings (purposes for events in the 2

In the original Greek, “Endo” refers to “internal,” while “poreutic” refers to “passage into.” Although endoporeutic processes are largely governed by illustrations of receptive competencies within the individual, they likewise apply to the receptivity of the masses to access and embrace propositions. 3 “Feel” here is used in the Peircean sense, indicating conviction, not entirely consonant with deontic matters; nor is it epistemic altogether. Feeling derives from Peirce’s categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. For Peirce, a feeling lives in the mind and is more “complex” than physical states in Secondness, in that it requires sustained attention in Firstness, together with comparisons between states of being/affairs in Thirdness. Comparisons may embrace possibilities never before materialized, whose implied predicates are not entirely aligned. Feelings are not severed from their contexts (although attention to a single feature may be underway); a feeling “only exists as a state of something else” (1903: PPM 141).

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scheme of a story) in his description of how two parties (the graphist and the interpreter) engage in back-and-forth inquiry (collaboration) to settle upon the content of messages. Together they try out Phemes toward construction of Delomes as follows: We are to imagine that two parties collaborate in composing a Pheme, and in operating upon this so as to develop a ‘Delome.’… The two collaborating parties shall be called the ‘graphist and the Interpreter.’ The Graphist shall responsibly scribe... The Interpreter is to make such erasures and insertions … may accord with the ‘General Permissions’ deducible from the Conventions and with his own purposes. (1906: 4.552)

Each party (the one scribing and the one receiving) has input to “erase” or and modify the ultimate message, injecting their own arguments. In the course of telling narratives, it is not the narrator alone who generates the congregate facts and/purposes for the account, but the interpreter augments the purposes for the narrative by inserting his own Phemes; and in the end, the two arrive at a more objective interpretation (concentrated in a Delome). Pheme-based reasoning considers the rationale only (between consequence and antecedent), and is typically restricted to a more idiosyncratic argument, rather than a more amplified claim asserted by a society or scientific contingent. It is not until more objective rationale is deemed to hold between consequent and antecedent that Delome-based reasoning reached for the narrator (graphist) and the interpreter (listener). With this more advanced rationality, both parties are guided by interpretants derived from both of their meanings, ultimately allowing them to arrive at principles of sequence. Both parties must cooperate via collaboration to determine likely reasons that apply in analogous situations, such that the proposed logical connection (between surprising consequence and antecedent) holds for similarly situated interpreters, constituting a Delome. Although narrators employ interpretants which contain subjunctive force upon listeners, listeners do likewise—they reciprocate; otherwise their collaborated inferences would have little effect upon larger contingents of interpreters, thereby loosing efficacy. In short, both parties attempt to sway the mental complexions. Together they paint event profiles—such that narrators and listeners take turns joining in to establish more acceptable inferences. They orchestrate this by embellishing bear facts with their own deontic and epistemic orientations. In this context, the subjunctive mood plays a prominent role in establishing new subjects for scrutiny; it is characterized by the use of Phemes—inciting listeners’ searches to determine valid fact relations. Retroductions are particularly featured—inferencing from consequent to antecedent—because the element of surprise, itself, constitutes an investigand (interpretant of Phemes), a compulsion/suggestion demanding further inquiry. The intrusion of surprise itself constitutes an investigand—it sets up conditions which divert attention from other features while compelling it to alternative factors, making obvious its subjunctive effect. In cases of Firstness in particular, states of affairs themselves serve as investigands—given their implied purpose to affect other events, hence serving as a catalyst for reinterpretation. As such, narratives offer two (often concurrent) subjunctive expressions—one emanating from language, the other from diagrams in the imagination (of the narrated event). In both cases, subjunctive instruments allow several degrees of

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influence (affectively, informationally) from narrators to listeners: suggestions, more moderate influences such as recommendations, and stronger commands (be assured that the presence of the bees caused havoc for the travelers). Consequently, the effect of Peirce’s investigand supersedes asking questions or declaring facts in narrative contexts; it entails significant attempts to change the way in which listeners perceive the facts; as such, it engenders listeners’ reconsiderations and/or revisions. Its subjunctive character (to convince listeners in the fact exchange) transforms their minds—to search for the story’s ultimate purpose. The search is enhanced by utilization of subjunctive expressions which permeates stories more so than prose, given increased commitment of the interpreter to ferret out the narrator’s meaning intimations, and to propose alternative suggestions—explaining contributory fact patterns, utilizing anomalous outcomes as the source for the inquiry). In short, the fact that the investigand impels looking beyond a surprising consequence to an antecedent, demonstrates a subjunctive purpose, driving listeners (in the case of narratives) to figure out the reason for the story—such that, in the process, they settle upon plausible antecedents to explain the non-conforming consequence. This search for antecedents materializes retroductively, while looking backward from the unexpected consequence. The listener is spurred to inquire which event or combination of events demonstrates sufficient logical merit/affinity to qualify as an antecedent in view of the story’s plot. Nevertheless, for abductive hunches to rise to the level of Delomebased retroductions, they must offer an objective reason underlying the consequentantecedent connection. Essentially, the listener’s commitment to seek out the relational meaning is incited by the search for what other minds would accept as viable (even interlocuters which do not share perspectives). Seeking the “investigand” (on the part of interpreters) demonstrates the central role that Peirce accords to semiotics in the inferencing process. absent the semiotic meanings ascribed by the Interpretant to yet unauthorized effects—principles of sequence (objective logical operations) are unlikely to come to fruition. Hence, semiotic issues make relevant principles of sequence residing in the Argument/Delome when they demonstrate that a reason for their proximity is far from accidental; rather, the contributing factor is woven into the fabric of a previously unforeseen consequence.

6.6 The Element of Surprise in Narrative Exchanges Peirce introduces surprise as the core element in the quest for knowledge—constituting the catalyst to the entire abductive process: The surprising fact, C, is observed; But if A were true, C would be a matter of course, Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. (1903: 5.189; EP 2: 231)

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In surprise comes the realization (however implicit) that new facts are in disaccord with already established principles, calling for an inference to resolve the disagreement. It is the operation that keeps us humble—forever lifting the mind toward amplification and contraction of increasingly more rational hypotheses. Telling narratives is an efficacious means to develop and remonstrate over these hypotheses for several reasons. The first entails the episodic nature of stories. The episodic nature accounts for the expectation of resolution both for producers and listeners. This expectation that the story will supply a goal and a resolution rivets interpreters to draw upon their reasoning skills to learn the reason for inclusion of each participant, and event. The upshot of this episodic approach requires that interpreters of narratives actively assemble the story’s happenings into a planned lesson which builds an event-crescendo, such that both narrators and listeners extract what the character/s) in place of the listener, should do to ascertain a remedy. As such, the unexpected consequences (as instances of surprise) provide scaffolds to ascertain the why for such consequences. Bruner (1990: 81–83) describes an experiment in which children were presented with a story of a birthday party, but some iterations of the story “violated canonicality”: “the birthday girl was unhappy, or she poured water on the candles rather than blowing them out, and so on” (1990: 81). The surprising consequence (pouring water on the birthday candles) violates the children’s expectation that they would be extinguished by more conventional means, e.g., blowing out their luminating benefits. Here, the children are drawn to an explanation for extinction by water, and to generate inferences to account for the discrepant conduct. All three of Peirce’s categories (Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness) work as an aggregate (informing inferences) to put together the story’s facts episodically, in a way that best explains the reason for facts’ emergence in that context.4 To do so, interpreters’ attention is redirected to an unconsidered fact or set of facts (antecedents) which might have effectuated the surprising consequence, however latent the facts might be. With respect to Firstness, surprise is consonant with a sense of feeling. This sense of feeling often comprises a betrayal of previous assumptions/assertions. The pre-established principles promote how to think or how to act in prescribed circumstances; but, doubt as to their plausibility from surprising consequences leaves the door open to remain vigilant—to search out more fitting inferences. Peirce espouses that feelings arise from some prebit which is then checked against the validity of already held assertions; whereupon subconscious considerations of truth acceptability for the inference materializes. Hence, the surprise element operates as a catalyst, whereupon message receivers re-examine the efficacy of the unexpected fact in light of stored classifications and propositions. Surprise defines the juncture when the facts inform old information, such that a surprising fact has merit to question the validity of current assertions. 4

Bruner claims that children have a natural tendency to produce and interpret narratives; in fact they serve a scaffolding function for determining more objective social and logical principles. As such, he observes: “Four-year-olds may not know much about the culture, but they know what’s canonical and are eager to provide a tale to account for what is not” (1990: 82-83).

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The incongruity activated by surprise becomes more solidified as a feeling (conviction) if the narrator or the receiver of the account questions whether stored knowledge no longer explains a consequence(s); instead, newly presented condition/s more adequately do so. When the unexpected consequence is conceived of via an internal force, it exercises both a deontic and epistemic effect over the receiver. This conflict materializes when a qualitatively different paradigm (pictures, diagrams) suddenly emerges to compete with formed conceptions. Surprise begins the process of destabilizing preconceived operating standards—both epistemic and emotional ones; it surfaces when an outcome suggests to interpreters alternative, if not more viable contributors to a consequence told in the narrative; otherwise the consequence would never have materialized. This resultant conflict between feelings drives interpreters to apprehend some perhaps lack of preparedness on the part of the listener (deontic) for this eventuality given less adequate assertions. In surprise, Peirce advocates that a collision strikes the consciousness (1903: 8.266),5 that a conflict (rational and affective) is about to be revealed. Cooke (2012: 185–186) recognizes the effects of surprise (both rational and emotional) which Peirce advanced to demonstrate the inception of inference-making: “…Peirce’s focus on surprise as a rational or cognitive emotion at the beginning of inquiry and the transformation of unpleasant surprises and irritations of doubt into the pleasures and calm of new habits of belief confer new levels of self-control in the world.” The mechanism responsible for steering the levels of self-control to which Cooke refers is nothing short of abductive inferences, because it is when principles replace old ones (especially sequential principles), that surprise is resolved, ushering in habit-changes (see Bergman, 2016: 190). Homeostasis is reached when the irritant of surprise gives rise to a rethinking (see Aliseda, 2016: 147–148), some recognition of ignorance (hence abduction is ignorance-preserving, see Woods, 2013: 365), and a reformed proposal of why the fact scenario surfaced in light of different antecedents. Beyond the strict element of doubt which surprise induces, Peirce affords great weight to the instrument of narrative. He proposes that narrative situations (time, place of utterance) constitutes a critical force to open one’s mind to improved hunches. Super imposing episodic frames upon individual events with the intent of determining the designs of the narrator confronts interpreters with alternative models. Surprise provides interpreters with the impetus to consider more than a single event/perspective (even beyond that of the narrator), such that listeners are driven to perceive the goals of narrative participants and the reasons for their attitudes and actions. This skill constitutes dialogic thought, in that others efforts become central to comprehension of event progression. Figuring out how and why characters behave and think subverts the narrowness of idiosyncratic viewpoints, and opens up opportunities for listeners to lay aside their parochial assumptions. It is an interesting phenomenon that playing out actions/expressions/states of being as experienced by characters in narratives affords seekers who have a stake in interpretation a bird’s-eye view of alternative interworking of events. This outside but soon to become accepted

5

“…the shock of reaction between ego and non-ego”.

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as inside experience permits listeners the luxury of aligning their self-centric perspective without entering into the actual experience of the other. For Peirce, this imagined or virtual experience (see 1909: MS 620: 26; 1904: 8.330; Bergman, 2016: 190; and West, 2017)6 ,7 possesses greater potency for the listener than does the actual experience, given the vicarious effect for the listener of inferring that the foreign episode is particularly relevant to them. As mentioned previously, imagined touch/words are often more vivid and riveting than are actual interactions (see West, 2019), perhaps because imaginers are drawn to “feel” (in the Peircean sense) the fullness of possibilities (1902: 6.364–367) soon to come. This virtual experience is but one means to facilitate dialogical reasoning. Unquestionably, making real dialogic experiences as intrasubjective, self-talk regimes, in which self convinces self as to the efficacy of alternative rationale is central to promoting abductive rationality, because it affords virtual exploration— naturally opening up listeners to new vistas. If startling consequences within a narrative naturally recommend a better explanation/avenue of conduct (either from characters or from narrators themselves), listeners are easily drawn into the fray and are invited to engage in conjecture as to how the consequence emerged, taking on new orientations and searching for alternative causes from reports whose descriptions are vibrant and alive. As such, surprising happenings become especially salient, in that they are deemed important enough to have been converted from iconic and indexical representations to symbolic ones as spoken and consolidated episodes. In reporting the events elevates notice of their connectivity, given the presence of verbs to express implied relations between characters and states/actions toward other entities. In this way, the selection of verbs on the part of narrators characterizes how the events transpire, together with narrators’ orientation toward the events inclusion. As a consequence, speaking about imagined or actual happenings sharpens the progression (called aspect) of events at hand. In turn, the verbs become a scaffold, having a particular interpretive effect—intruding upon listeners’ consciousness, and animating them to take up the cause of narrated characters. Accordingly, verbs, in particular, create virtual experiences thereby underscoring logical relations and conflicts between new and old principles of sequence. The foregoing demonstrates how telling and imaging stories hastens mastery of reliable techniques to ascertain plausible arguments. Peirce’s use of double consciousness on numerous occasions (1903: 5.53) further illustrates the effects of surprise upon inference generation. This is so given the pivotal role of surprise in sharing perceived truths (intrasubjectively and intersubjectively)—truths which surface from conflicts between 6

“By ‘virtual touch’ Milton’s Adam meant something that was not touch, but we might all the delight that touch can bring. So a determination is not a habit, …but it works all the effects of habit, and is, therefore, strictly speaking, a virtual habit” (1909: MS620: 26). 7 “The truth is that an oft-repeated performance in the imagination on the same sort of imagined occasion of one and the same sort of action will create a real disposition to a real performance of an action on the same sort of real occasion. The effectiveness of this disposition appears to be not only as great relatively to that of a habit induced by real performances on real occasions, as the proportional vividness of the imaginations that induce it are to the vividness of the perceptions that would induce the habit, but in truth to be far greater” (1909: MS 620: 25–26).

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already accepted propositions/arguments and facts which appear to disconfirm those truths. This dialogic process amplifies the benefits of both between-person renditions of events, as well as self-to-self ruminations; the latter has the advantage of incorporating reasoning overlooked by narrators, or perhaps even alien to them.

6.7 Peirce’s Categories to Facilitate the Principle of Sequence Discerning truths to replace previous truths initially draws upon some degree of conscious comparison—an awareness of and selection of the validity of particular properties over others. As such, feelings require scrutiny of properties. The distinction resides not in whether the mind is implicated in the operation of attention to the minutia of a feature, but in the wish to do so—the attention must be governed by the will. For Peirce, the will is equivocal to motivation to notice and consider a property, requiring some advanced degree of mental commitment. This commitment, if engaged in with some regularity, becomes habit (see West, 2016: 216; and West 2022); and consequent to the adoption of new regularities (to behave or not to behave in certain ways) a measure of consciousness is born. Accordingly, feelings initiate new habits of mind, bringing about changes in habits of mind or conduct. In this way, feelings (novel convictions) govern thoughts and behavior as expressed in preferences toward different foci. Although this process begins from feelings in Firstness, and results in increased scrutiny. Minds select one feature to attend to over others; and feelings determine the quality that will be scrutinized, as in hypostatic/prescissive abstraction. The reverse is not the case—qualities have little control over feelings. The distinction derives from the fact that most feelings are predicated upon an emerging awareness of resultative affairs (especially when conflicts surface), while qualities do not ordinarily evoke such responses. Peirce’s concept of hypostatic abstraction (compared to precisive abstraction)8 illustrates the effects of feeling upon consciousness: it demonstrates how close attention to a particular attribute (superseding color) can intimate novel uses for the item under scrutiny, paving the way for the generation of new hypotheses. If the hypothesis has merit, new habits of belief and/or action make their way into the organism’s productivity in the form of associations/transassociations (cf. 1907: MS 318: 43–45). These changes (deontic/epistemic and/or action) bear witness to the efficacy of close scrutiny. Despite the phenomenal influence which hypostatic abstraction affords, it is the impetus for attention maintenance; it gives rise to prolonged mental and corporal orientations whose effects are spurred on by inquiry itself. The inquiry which feelings 8

Peirce also refers to hypostatic abstraction as “subjectual abstraction”: “…Thus predication involves precisive abstraction. Precisive abstraction creates predicates. Subjectual abstraction creates subjects” (1905: 4.332; 1904: NEM III.2: 917; cf. Atkins 2018: 125). Hypostatic abstraction and precisive abstraction are necessary in habit formation/habit-change (which is predicated upon an instantiation of Surprise), especially the latter, which requires explicit predicates.

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engender, supersedes observation of mere static properties; it insinuates underlying meanings/effects of qualities, which, among other things, give rise to preferences for objects and the events/episodes within which they are situated. Peirce is clear that these attentional preferences comprise nothing short of aspirations/motivations for taking up specific affective and logically based actions. In fact, it is this motivational disposition that characterizes Peirce’s notion of feeling. Furthermore, habit enters into feelings, not only consequent to commitment/preference, but as an outgrowth of mental comparison, however implicit. The presence of comparison demonstrates the presence of both Firstness and Secondness in the operation of taking up new habits simultaneous narrowing attention to particular objects in Firstness, and a state of conflict between two objects in Secondness work together to effectuate habit-change. But, absent the emergence of a new hypothesis, a change in any of the realms referred to is an unlikely affair. More explicitly, consideration of two objects (whose qualities or effects conflict) characterizes how Firstness and Secondness consort to produce an operation in Thirdness, namely, habit. In turn, habit (thinking/acting repeatedly in a certain way non-mechanistically) brings attention to physical/social regularities, thereby increasing conscious awareness of new underlying principles, as the following example illustrates: the classification of a single experience of the color red as “red” or a sound as “loud” requires access to long-term memory to relate such to other experiences. Hence habit is born in forging either a new conceptual regularity, or in maintaining previous ones by the addition of new exemplars. Although not obvious, comparison materializes as an operation of Firstness when it is additive in nature based upon similarity alone; comparison pertains, despite the lack of active contrast which is ordinarily characteristic of Secondness. In short, the operation of adding experiences of the same general kind (redness) in the mind exemplifies habit (despite its largely Firstnessbased operation), in that it reifies (strengthening) subsequent identification of color as a property in that context. The dialogic component inherent in surprise is likewise rooted in genres of Secondness for Peirce (1903: 5.53). The surprise element is pivotal in narrative exchanges, in that the listener represents the other for narrators—inciting them to build into the account sufficient surprising events. Punctuating narratives with surprise events both captures listeners’ attention to what happened in Secondness as brute fact (1898: MS 339B: 295; 1903: 1.24), and suggests applications (extensions) in which such consequence might be instantiated in the future. The two-sided dialogic oppositions which characterize sharing narratives provides the motivational and attentional vehicles without which more advanced inferential processes, such as recommending courses of action9 (likewise reliant upon dialogic interaction) would be unlikely to surface. The contribution of surprise to resolve conflicts in consciousness regimes marks the onset of habit-change, demonstrating how unexpected happenings promote intrapsychological and interpsychological dialogue. It is just this dialogic interchange which ultimately hastens the most productive 9

“It will be remarked that the result of both Practical and Scientific Retroduction is to recommend a course of action,” (1909: MS 637: 12).

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kind of reasoning—where viable insights and plausible constructive abductions are forthcoming. To advance the dialogic potency of narratives not merely across minds, but across cultures, and generations as well, Ake (2018: 67) describes the emergence of surprise as interobjective rather than intersubjective: “In other words, Peirce’s semiotics and phenomenology depend on intersubjectivity, and the best he will do is articulate an interobjectivity.” Ake’s line of reasoning follows Peirce’s principle that double consciousness is nothing short of the introduction of objectivity into the subjective mind, such that a clash is felt between ideas. The effort to extract more absolute truths is the objective of double consciousness regimes; and the clash between feelings brings about surprise, and activation of inferences. Cooke characterizes surprise “as a form of error recognition” (2012: 179). In this capacity surprise serves as an irritant for change of habits within logical interpretants: “surprise disrupts a habit and shows a belief to be wrong, and thereby initiates inquiry…” (Cooke, 2012: 186). Surprise, however, may not always dissolve beliefs altogether; instead, it often calls for some less severe alteration, e.g., assimilation (additive operation) to previous schemas. Surprise opens the road to inquiry, and hence operates as an agent of Firstness and Secondness to usher in new Logical Interpretants in Thirdness. Its purpose is to mark the dawning of belief conflicts in the wake of a decision of how much weight to ascribe to the unexpected, non-ego element. Accordingly, surprise promotes semiosis—in harkening to the vividness of objects in Secondness, and converting them into potential facts with meanings which vie for authentication. Surprise in Firstness and Secondness ignites at least some basic awareness of whether to further examine and embrace novel Interpretants.

6.8 Surprise as a Catalyst to Enhance Double Consciousness Peirce advocates that a two-sided conflict of thought is the cognitive state which surprise compels, and that it requires the influence of all three of his categories. This mind-set of a two-sided consciousness advances both internal narratives (derived within a single mind) and shared narratives (between minds). Likewise, the emergence of surprise (in establishing conflictual hypotheses) constitutes a primary component in facilitating novel insights, because the conflict which surprise uncovers produces both an interrogative to change previous inferences and an imperative to modify the earlier hypothesis (see West, 2018 for further discussion). The dialogic interactions obviating belief/action conflicts begin with attention to the viability attributed to a different proposition (derived from a vivid, surprising circumstance). A flash of insight surfaces as a consequence of the impact of an unexpected event— suggesting that preexisting propositions/arguments are in need of change. According to Peirce, this insight emanates from outside forces such as vividness (cf. Atkins,

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2018: 195–196 and MS 318: 1907; MS 643: 1909). The primary advantage of vividness in surprise within double consciousness is its attentional benefit for determining whether the old or the new knowledge better cultivates truth principles. As such, focus is secured to vivid consequences, calling for explications of their logical relationship with antecedents. To determine the value of the insight flowing from the vivid, surprising circumstance, subjects rely upon a two-sided consciousness (1903: CP 5.53), whereby either the insight is discarded as a hypothesis (reestablishing the efficacy of old assumptions), or new propositions/arguments are deemed to have more merit (CP 8.373: 1908). The purpose of the two-sided argumentative venue is to reconstitute propositions in such a way that certain subjects are chunked with predicates which has the benefit of improved truth value. The intrusion of novel propositions/assertions (consequent to the element of surprise) are accorded greater power to compete with old propositions when their meanings or effects are well differentiated—with the potential of eliciting conduct or belief alterations. These forms of dialogue influence the inferencing process: an agent’s propositions/arguments compel a receiver’s acceptance/rejection, which determines whether the propositions/arguments will ultimately be invited to comprise the updated inference. The element of surprise is paramount in its spontaneity as a component of Firstness; but, without Secondness surprise would be truncated; without it, the two-sided conflict which it affords would not advance into the level of consciousness required for the Thirdness of habit. The presence of Secondness insinuates that a former habit of belief or action is in need of reform. Nonetheless, it is Secondness that supplies the platform for the struggle between former and present conflictual paradigms. In its resistance against effort (an unexpected quality/event) Secondness becomes the agent to abduce—to act—to create a change in habit (in Thirdness), thus resolving the opposition of forces. It does so at the moment when the old habit and potential habit clash, and the “vividness of the representation is exalted” (1903: 5.53). The exaltation drives the interpreter to examine the non-ego-based fact over and against already held mental/physical practices. The examination requires a close comparison—plunging the mind into increasingly more profound depths of consciousness as to whether a habit-change is recommended. To encapsulate, Firstness in surprise (unexpected mind-set), together with Secondness) managing the effect of the unexpected fact on established habits(elevate interpreters’ minds to increased degrees of consciousness—necessary to arbitrate the decision of which habit to choose. It is evident that each of the categories is influential in bringing to fruition Peirce’s clash between feelings. Firstness does not operate alone to promote opposition between feelings; rather Peirce emphasizes the essential role of Secondness to access modes of consciousness which may not otherwise be ascertainable. The rationale is based upon the premise that once contrasts surface in the mind, Firstness is no longer primary. Instead, Secondness energizes the clash between feelings which results in more obvious, action-based habit-changes. Peirce describes the role of Secondness in habit-change as the process of resolving the conflict between effort and resistance: “The existence of the word effort is sufficient proof that people think they have such an idea; and

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that is enough. The experience of effort cannot exist without the experience of resistance” (1904:8.330). Peirce contends that effort is part of a duality, that of effort and resistance; it is not comprehensible alone. This duality is the essence of Secondness, and validates how real habit-change transpires—the mind pushing against an intruding and distinct pattern of operation. In other words, a war between feelings (1904: 8.330) sets the stage for a struggle to resolve the conflict—hence Secondness governs. Peirce’s double consciousness (by way of his categories) reveals the necessity for dialogic exchange within or between minds to initiate and maintain inferential rationality when arranging sequences of events within narratives. These double interactive forums draw intrusions into established assertions; they constitute novel propositional suggestions in the form of subject-predicate diagrammatical paradigms. In short, in view of its extraordinary means to secure the attention to vivid features in the external world, the element of surprise supplies the affective fervor for truth value consideration later, within dialogic forums. Surprise accounts for the initial mental and affective state of the abducer to recognize both novel relations between factors contributing to a particular end-state and the state itself, together with a change in emotional complexion toward the new alignment. The emergence of sudden explanatory insights for resultative states of affairs creates increased vigilance for the abducer to begin the inductive process—that of testing the proposed hypothesis. This vigilance produces an integrative epistemic and deontic internal orientation (complexion) toward the event relations, one in which alternative courses of belief and action are implicitly recommended. The upshot is that abducers have pause to turn from previous expectations and responses, and enter into a new mind-set, in which new states of readiness to act in certain ways constitute regenerative tools. The regenerative nature of acting upon replacements for previously modified/discarded event relations propels exploration into the validity of proposed hypotheses—leaving in its wake a felt confidence to supersede old orientations and to engage in what Peirce refers to as “the twigging of new ideas” (1913: MS 930: 33). The “twigging of new ideas” begins with a feeling incited by the potential that a different explanation mediates between a meaningful consequence and the antecedent. This new awareness demonstrates the dawning of the non-ego impinging upon the ego (the status quo). It arises concurrently with a call to adopt different feelings (non-ego) toward the explanations which govern event relations. These new feelings constitute the inception of newly crystalized facts put together in markedly unique ways. Accordingly, the non-ego invades the ego by entering into living systems, thereby changing thoughts and reactions in immeasurable ways. Peirce determines that the non-ego encompasses several factors (both internal and external): an external result emanating in a distinctive context, and an internal feeling that this new relation will result in modified habits of thought and action. Peirce describes the effect of the non-ego as a “strange intruder in his abrupt entrance” (1903: CP 5.53), which makes obvious the process created by the destruction of one feeling by another (CP 8.330: 1904). In this way, the emergence of feelings demonstrates that inferences are on the horizon, which foreshadow habit changes if the inferences have sufficient legitimacy (in thought and conduct). Inferences are

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born when apprehension of a conflict with previous feelings (toward the same consequence) becomes more than a momentary affair. The feeling-conflict resolves in a new habit when the new hypothesis has greater merit for the time being. But for the emergence of a new feeling (sense of gathering attention to improved and legitimate principles), together with comparisons between the former feeling, and the resolution (what Peirce refers to as double consciousness regimes) would remain unresolved. Accordingly, it is the comparison between the feelings which is responsible for notice of critical semiotic affiliations—in particular, that the Dynamical Object is distinct from the Immediate Object (from previous conceptions accorded to the object). In short, notice of the unique properties to be newly ascribed to the Immediate Object, general characteristics ascribed to an entity/set of entities (1909: EP 2: 495), would be an unlikely prospect, absent this war between feelings.

6.9 “Perceptuations” in the Narrative Exchange In the Logic Notebook, Peirce considers which source is more influential to modify feelings—internally derived surprising consequences, or surprising facts which bear witness to some different state of affairs: “An externisensation is a two-sided state of determination of consciousness…in which a volitionally external and a volitionally internal power seem to be opposed” (1905: MS 339: 245r). In this opposition, the external power takes precedence given its promise of fresh meanings. The external factor offers this attentional benefit in view of its likelihood to kindle surprise in the listener. Nonetheless, whether surprising, external factors are further encoded and integrated into listeners’ immediate object is determined by the precautionary measure of discarding notions which suggest impossibility. In the case of meaning construal in narratives, the process of internal versus external influences to change earlier assertions and to supplant such with objective principles of sequence is paramount because it is within stories that the greatest efficacy to receive surprising arguments exists; otherwise, the impetus to relate the story would be extinguished. Narrators’ intent is most often to relate a set of coherent facts (external factor) which challenge listeners’ preconceived assumptions. They do so via painting scenes with words, in such a way that listeners behold and anticipate progression ordinarily toward a particular resolution; and listeners are called to enter into a groundbreaking experience—a kind of odyssey with their narrators to resolve belief conflicts, e.g., which facts contribute to consequences, or purposes for the account’s delivery. Working out these conflicts is particularly poignant in “open-world” or “freeroam” video games, e.g., Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Cyberpunk 2077, or Bioware’s Mass Effect and Dragon Age series.10 Compared to 10

It is worth noting that while “open-world” games do place minor constraints upon players (for example, one cannot call down a spaceship into the Old West), there are game and combat dynamics that rely upon player choice—either beforehand in character creation or forced narrative choices within the game itself (see also Eberhard 2016).

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the linear narratives of earlier games such as Frogger or Super Mario Bros., players are required to abduce the “best choice” to resolve in-game narrative situations, often with in-game moral repercussions, e.g., attacking the wandering chickens in the Zelda universe, or deciding which of your squad mates will permanently die by detonating a nuclear bomb in the first Mass Effect. Eberhard (2016) details how this choice/abduction engine can break down, as with the controversial ending of Mass Effect 3, in which players saw their 300 + hours of heavy moral choices, many involving life, death, and genocide capped off with a rather inconsequential cinematic of red, blue, or green lights. Unlike abductive scenarios, explanations for unexpected resultative situations are not elicited in “open-world” games; hence parties creating the narrative merely roam; instead, they justify their actions by way of a personality wheel—sarcastic, emotional, aggressive conduct, etc. These kinds of responses fall short of more strict Peircean definitions of abductive reasoning. Beyond roaming, narrative creation is limited to initial character creation and selection of “love interest” (see Ferguson, 2017 for a discussion of narrative representation in romantic choices). By comparison, more traditional role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons (Crawford et al., 2014) require far more narrative interaction, e.g., dialogue between narrator (also called “Dungeon Master”) and listeners (role-playing participants). The Dungeon Master (DM) presents the players with a narrative-like “painted” scenario; the players then interact within the context of this world. Once the players make their narrative choices, the DM then alters the narrative accordingly—for example, if the rogue sets a barn on fire, the DM might inflict smoke inhalation on the bard. Each agent in the dialogue presents external factors for the other agent(s) to compensate and “figure out” despite their initial lack of responsibility and/or internal motivation. Nonetheless, in all of these scenarios, external factors, such as narrators’ choices regarding which events to disclose, and the sequential measures to do so impinge upon how listeners work out logical event relations. Accordingly, Like Peirce, Sternberg takes the position that external factors are privileged in narrative contexts, perhaps because such factors maintain listeners’ adherence to the story’s goals. Sternberg (2001: 117, 1990: 903–904) identifies three factors which effectuate listeners’ renewed attention to the external sources and interest in resolving the conclusory argument(s)—intended to be conveyed in stories: suspense, curiosity, and surprise. Suspense is a critical tool to capture and maintain attention (for prospective purposes) to running sub-episodes; whereas curiosity is retrospective and brings listeners to the brink of ingenuity. Surprise marks the dawning of inquiry into what caused a particular anomaly. The three factors together demonstrate the import of temporal differentials in the account’s disclosure. In other words, awareness of the interval between reporting time and that of the narrated events is paramount to how events are assembled logically. “This interplay between temporalities generates the three universal narrative effects/interests/dynamics of prospection, retrospection, and recognition—suspense, curiosity, and surprise, for short.” While (for Sternberg) suspense pertains to prospective conjecture regarding future emergence and conditions of reported events, curiosity arises from retrospective endeavors—examining factors that might have incited past consequences. The element of surprise, however, materializes as recognition of a spatial or temporal

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event displacement—a present phenomenon steering prospective determinations. In this way, Sternberg supports Peirce’s emphasis on surprise when he demonstrates that it drives suspense. Afterward, suspense accelerates the consolidation and upward cognitive and affective force—riveting attention to how events sustain goals. According to Sternberg, “suspense arises from rival scenarios for the future,” a critical factor governing the inception of inferences for Peirce. Sternberg’s account mirrors Peirce’s concept of abduction, in that it incorporates the complex consideration that conflictual facts constitute indexes for prospective inquiry, and that they (the conflicts) can predict subsequent circumstances—illustrating the primary role of index in promoting event reasoning. Sternberg’s further assertion that “rival scenarios” must be interpreted such that “the future” arises in contexts implicitly supports Peirce’s insistence that antecedents are often identified as contributing to unexpected consequences after retrospective operations—after looking backward from a future vantage point (prospective operations). This mix of past, present and future considerations are necessarily incorporated into the formation of inferences, particularly for Peirce’s retroduction. But, retroductive reasoning does not draw upon memory of past events alone; it carries a prospective directive—to examine how the events pertain to one another and to subsequent (consequent) events. Peirce’s emphasis on futurity is echoed by Bremond (1980: 5, 14); he claims that narrative genres cement past events with present and future ones, hence illustrating the importance of considering possible, future realizations. Bremond (1980: 5, 14) posits that the process proceeds in three stages: opening a possibility, actualizing/not actualizing it, and the potential results of the latter. Bremond’s and Peirce’s positions advance inferencing when they demonstrate how narrators and listeners search for as many relevant (future) scenarios as possible to viably serve as antecedents to the consequence responsible for the dissonance. The ultimate purpose for extensive searches is to propose objective principles of sequence to explain the surprising consequence. These Delome-based considerations handle questions of consequences which surface as anomalous to listeners’ established belief habits. Hence, the element of surprise (unexpected consequences) constitutes the external catalyst for suspense and for the logical operations which suspense incites, namely, grappling with how events should transpire. Two distinct external sources appear to elevate this force within narrative genres: 1) access to moving pictorial scenes, and 2) narrators’ intonation contours, the verb lexicons which they select, and the detail and aliveness of entity/action descriptions. Herman (2009: 94) opines that the temporal factors which Sternberg identifies as distinctly narrative may apply to other kinds of discourse, i.e., the episodic nature of events themselves. Herman’s position fails to recognize the supreme benefit of explicitly sketching (via language) events into arguments. Were every interpretation left to rely simply upon the trajectory of events themselves, listeners would miss objective elements of interpretation from social genres, jeopardizing consideration of plausibility, leaving listeners shy of critical tools to determine whether an argument is truly reasonable. The separate influence of flashbacks in establishing the plot likewise activates listeners’ inferential skills. Flashbacks not only inform listeners of primary facts

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working toward suspense/illustrating states of conduct; they likewise reveal to listeners some semblance of social acceptance—how the character inside the narrative reacts to surprising consequences (how such establishes suspense), and listeners’ beliefs regarding the relevance of current experience to the goals/purposes of the over-all plot: [Suspense’s] fellow universals rather involve manipulations of the past, which the tale communicates in a sequence discontinuous with the happening. Perceptibly so, for curiosity: knowing that we do not know, we go forward with our mind on the gapped antecedents, trying to infer (bridge, compose) them in retrospect. For surprise, however, the narrative first unobtrusively gaps or twists its chronology, then unexpectedly discloses to us our misreading and enforces a corrective rereading in late re-cognition. (Sternberg, 2001: 117)

This awareness of theory of mind, understanding/predicting others’ thoughts and emotions (see Tomasello, 1999: 178–179), broadens listeners’ knowledge-base by affording them alterity—sensitivity to the veridicality of others’ logical relations. As such, child interpreters consider different ways (those of the narrator) of chaining events to predict antecedents (revisiting the past and returning to the present); then they can determine which have sufficient suggestive power to have impinged upon significant states of affairs. Child listeners do so by entering the mind of characters within a narrative. In this way, an inside other can perceive that a particular factor is responsible for uncanny consequences. It is obvious that effects of surprising consequences (even when they are derived from players in reported episodes) take center stage—either listeners follow narrators in arranging events sequentially as chains reflecting the sequence as it transpired, or they represent non-sequentially, such that present and past surprising events inform purposes. Afterward, episodes permeate boundaries between times and spaces. Prince (1973) identifies the contextual factors which are utilized in narrative genres to establish episodic frames. He posits that when narrators tell cohesive accounts, they supply specific time and space transitions which particularly hasten logical event connections for their listeners: “Story order and chronological order often do not coincide” (Prince, 1973: 57).11 In turn, listeners have at their ready disposal possible, relevant contributory antecedents to match with surprising consequences, which may never have been conceived of absent flashbacks, which Prince describes as “a series of events having occurred in the past…telescoped into a series of events occurring in the present” (1973: 57). A measure of caution, however, is in order to ensure the efficacy of abductive reasoning in these contexts, namely, increased cognitive dissonance consequent to frequent temporal shifts. Although the dissonance of sequence can scaffold construction of arguments as Delomes, having narrators implement this without careful planning may result (for listeners) in a temporary state of cognitive disequilibrium (see also Kafalenos, 2006 for concurrence on this point). The aforementioned factors demonstrate the major influence of external sources (narrators’ planned sequence, characters’ state of mind) in facilitating listeners’ 11

Prince also notes questions of medium: “Oral narratives break up the chronological sequence of events much less often than written narratives, probably because it would otherwise be very difficult for their audience to follow their development” (1973: 58–59).

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logical relations between events. In fact, non-sequential accounts may well foster more active searches for antecedents, since (in supplying a look back at contributory facts) narrators intimate new argument structures which listeners might examine. Reporting carefully designed episodes may well be the most efficacious means to direct the mental eyes of listeners, in that it Provides a boost to generate more objective explanatory rationality. In fact, the role of indexes as semiotic artifacts in directing the notice of events as distinct and pointing to how one distinct event provides efficacy for other events. This process is indexical, in that it moves interpreters to inquire after rationale for event configurations. For younger listeners, simply maintaining the order of events identically to their chronology (rather than using flashbacks) may facilitate processing and re-reporting to others the episodic tenor, making it easier to determine the account’s purposes and goals. In fact, children’s elicited repetitions of within clause events provide evidence of the facilitative effect of conforming narratives to isomorphic event sequences. Mis-repetitions of narrators’ passive sentences, e.g., omitting “by” in “the flowers were gathered by the visitors,” illustrates the nature of children’s misinterpretations. The order differential between syntax in which the agent appears last, and the events themselves (in which the agent is the source of the consequence), makes obvious the frequency for children’s interpretive errors (see Lust et al., 1996: 68). The discord between sequence and semantic constituents causes children to utilize the latter (rather than the former) to guide interpretation of episodic meanings. Kirby (2010: 114) provides evidence from children at 4;0 that this phenomenon has merit. Children misconstrue the syntactic subject (the initial component of the sentence) to be the semantic subject (the agent). According to Kirby, the semantic scaffolding hypothesis best explains children’s mismatches, given their propensity to presume that initial sentential components are equivocal to thematic roles, such as agent. Processing effects likewise appear to contribute to children’s assumptions—primacy and/or recency effects or what Murdock (1962: 482) refers to as “serial position effects.” These effects result in a concerted focus on the beginning and/or end of sentences, which is particularly germane to interpretation of passive utterances for children, in that the last component is the agent, rather than the receiver. Consequently, sequence, as an external factor, alone does not always promote interpretation of semantic issues, given discord between semantic and syntactic order, e.g., thematic roles of agent, following that of receiver. Were interpreters to strictly follow the sequence of passives to determine characters’ thematic roles, they would be misled. Similarly, designing narratives, such that disparities surface between constituent events and their temporal location in the scheme of episodes can either confound younger listeners, or can force adult listeners to rely upon sequence only to determine logical relations. Alternatively, this disparity can incite them to piece together which event was likely to have been responsible for other events which may have been reported earlier, but which transpired later. Nonetheless, Peirce (1905: MS 339: 245r) ultimately professes that external sources supersede the effect of internal ones; and this applies directly to the sequence utilized in narratives, given interpreters’ ultimate inquiry for objective “principles of sequence.” Peirce arrives at this pronouncement in view of the increased status

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afforded (in his ten-fold division of signs) to dialogic sign interpretation (1908: 8.373–8.374; also see West, 2019). Peirce’s realization of the prominence of dialogic (shared) meanings in communicating derives substantially from his decided integration of the categories into his semiotic. With semiotic processes as the foundation, listeners’ have the advantage of weighing the validity of influences which intrude from inside from those which invade from the outside, whether phenomenological sources are not less reliable to support the inferences ultimately settled upon. Within narratives, however, the fact that two interpreters are present demonstrates the rising prominence of the external in foisting upon the consciousness of another their own internal (phenomenologically determined) conceptions. how events (In this way, two interpreters try out the other’s embryonic inferences, determining their more objective promise. Hence, internal factors are brought to listeners via another’s report, often with episodic structure. The source which interpreters attribute with the potency for influence depends chiefly upon physical, social and psychological conditions which surface at the time and place of the narrative: distractibility from external features, meaning matches between partners, and the surety of already conceived facts.

6.10 The Intrusive Weight of Vividness An external factor which often enhances narrative cohesion is the vividness of reported objects/characters/actions. Peirce gives significant weight to vividness as an external factor in individual and dialogic interpretations. According to Peirce (MS 298: 29–31, 1906) and Atkins (2018: 195–196), vividness is a feature of Secondness (external, here and now elements), initiating surprise. In noticing differentness from imagining/examining previous and present features, interpreters utilize external factors to initiate novel considerations in the process of inference-making. In narrators’ descriptions (along with accompanying pictorial action-based episodes) vividness “riles the limpidity of our thoughts and interferes with our business” (1906: MS 298: 31). For listeners, narrators’ descriptions of features and action sequences awaken listeners’ awareness that their assumptions may need to be questioned, or may require banishment altogether—to be replaced by more serviceable abductions. In the same vein, Peirce refers to the influence of external features as the “insistence” of the object in Secondness (1903: 5.181). In aligning Secondness with vividness, Peirce advances the scope of Secondness to “an experience” (1904: 8.330). This advancement is characterized by his application of the dyad to energize feelings in firstness. The energy afforded to these motivations is an active force, working to resolve conflicting convictions as in a “war between feelings”—a compulsion to arrive at determinations and viable inferences. As such, external forces, such as vividness, heighten interpreters’ consciousness of objects’ role in producing novel states of affairs, as in habit-change (see West, 2016, Chap. 13). Vividness further ignites Thirdness-based operations, when it calls for the manufacture of plausible inferences to explain the appearance of highlighted objects in particular contexts. The

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Thirdness residing in the vivid scenes which narrators paint unequivocally constitutes outside forces; it (vividness) initiates listeners’ curiosity (Sternberg, 2001: 117) as to relations across events, ultimately informing purposes for antecedents. Narrators enhance listeners’ notice of vivid events when they capitalize on them by supplying discrete descriptions. These descriptions supersede identification of object/event qualities for listening partners; they serve as indexes to capture listeners’ focus. The process entails index’s function in individuating objects, so that listeners can better identify potential factors contributing to particular outcomes (see West, 2014: 156). The nature of narrators’ descriptions to promote vivid illustrations especially facilitates listeners’ notice of relevant surprising consequences to antecedents, in view of increased semiotic potency as double signs, as icons and indexes (Stjernfelt, 2014: 59–60). Narrators’ descriptions of clear and riveting resultative events creates iconic mental representations for listeners, distinguishing the events as potential antecedents. As such, concurrent pictorial representations which accompany descriptive moving characterizations can hasten listeners’ realization of new logical relations (via semiotic tools). What narrators must recognize is which components within the story to make vivid. Ordinarily, new information, that which is topicalized, constitutes the units in need of the greatest degree of vividness—that novel facts might be highlighted for listeners’ benefit. Iconic and indexical representations together are more likely to intrude upon the consciousness, in view of their novelty and position in the communicative array. In this way, the icon and indexical character of these vivid narrative components constitute a superior auxiliary stimulus to expedite superior inferences. These signs hasten interpreters’ opportunities to infer the function of characters and their actions in the account. These conjectures guide discovery of the story’s primary lesson/purpose, and incorporate explanatory meanings into the interpretants of the events themselves. In fact, latent attributes of the story’s characters can be uncovered, thereby promoting episodic synergy. In short, enhancing the vividness of notable objects provides additional hints to augment listeners’ initial fleeting inferences—strengthening their hunches to reach abductive status. A formidable means to effectuate hunches of event relations is semiotic tools; they utilize shared meanings to link events which, on their face, may not accentuate logical connections. It is quite plausible that Peirce’s reorganization of the interpretant in 1908 in his ten-fold division of signs accounts for his alteration of vividness as feeling in Firstness, to vividness as an external influence in Secondness (an experience of conflicting feelings). As such, he characterizes vividness (of surprising consequences) as: “quantity of quality” (1909: MS 649: 9). In building in “quantity” to “quality” and in determining (in the same passage) that “vividness is a force and is no feeling at all,” Peirce clearly makes the case that vividness is an external force, which is quantifiable and therefore measurable. Quantifiable sources (as opposed to those having particular qualities) can more demonstratively affect the mind of other interpreters, which, as mentioned above, is a process which narrators have the responsibility to promote. Hence vividness, as an external force, constitutes an intervention for Peirce; given its attention drawing potency, vividness enables a two-sided exchange of accounts and

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their rationale. In fact, narrators’ and listeners’ emphasis on the significance of character features and action affiliations clearly supports Peirce’s final word regarding the power of the interpretant to force the “mental eyeballs [attention] of the interpreter” (1908: 8.350) upon the Dynamical Object (the real object/events actually transpiring in specific narratives). This transition from privileging internal factors (listeners’ memories) to privileging external ones demonstrates Peirce’s priority for dyadic meaning exchange, particularly in its dialogic character. This shift from Secondness as passive, to Secondness as active (pivoting feelings against each other) is paramount in the generation and regeneration of interpretants so critical in abductive reasoning. The interpretant gains special relevance in each interpretive operation, even prior to the onset of objective rationality. In fact, the individual (idiosyncratic) meanings accorded to Dynamical Objects during particular story-lines is the Energetic Interpretant, because it supplies a template which stages a one-time sign application, coupled with a single scenario (see 1907: MS 318: 43)—intrinsic to narrative exchanges. Any inferencing which surfaces from this kind of effect is instinctual in nature, but it goes beyond feeling the blow of the experience, or possessing a single feeling/conviction toward it. Peirce acknowledges that merely feeling the emergence of inferences is so tenuous that they will “evaporate” absent the action present in the Energetic Interpretant (1907: MS 318: 43; West, 2020: 154; and West, 2021).

6.11 Conclusion The power of narrative forums to enliven (vivid) features and relations of past, present, and events to come is formidable. It constitutes an external force, uniting two minds toward discovering the logic to unlock episode cohesion, Peirce’s key to semiosis (in the semiosphere). When narrators and listeners share their hunches of how past event strands can inform best practices in future endeavors, they either confirm or disconfirm those hunches. Peirce’s later semiotic further advances narrative as a tool to encourage dialogic conjecture. The essence of his claim is that the structure of narrative is unique. It not merely serves as a story-telling device, but as a two-sided, interactional process in which narrators and listeners alike try out their internally-derived hunches on one another. This process has the advantage of suggesting, recommending, or commanding the other party to consider alternative construals. Such dialogic back-and-forth inference-sharing constitutes the platform for determining what truly transpired. As such, narratives enjoin the speaker and the listener to examine the nuts and bolts of event rationality—contributing their tenable or untenable conclusions. In employing the story element, narratives compel interpreters to enrich others with reasons for cohesive event structures (episodes). Finally, Peirce’s “principle of sequence” (1908: 8.373–374) memorializes his conviction that

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sharing meanings/rationale not merely strengthens individual thought, but determines whether such merits abductive status. In levying individual reasons for event sequences, Peirce’s “principle of sequence” via dialogic meaning-making supplies us with a new standard for measuring how minds can best lift novel rationale to sociocultural prominence.

References Ake, S. (2018). That mystery category “fourthness” and its relationship to the work of C.S. Peirce. In L. Marsh (Ed.), Walker Percy, Philosopher, 63–87. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Aliseda, A. (2016). Belief as habit. In D. West & M. Anderson (Eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness (pp. 143–152). Springer-Verlag. Atkins, R. K. (2018). Charles S. Peirce’s Phenomenology: Analysis and Consciousness. Oxford University Press. Bergman, M. (2016). Habit-change as ultimate interpretant. In D. West & M. Anderson (Eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness (pp. 171–197). Springer-Verlag. Bremond, C. (1980). The logic of narrative possibilities. Trans. E. D. Cancalon. New Literary History, 11, 387–411. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Harvard University Press. Cooke, E. F. (2012). Peirce on wonder, inquiry, and the ubiquity of surprise. Chinese Semiotic Studies, 8, 178–200. Crawford, J., Wyatt, J., Schwalb, R. J., & Cordell, B. R. (2014). Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook (5th ed.). Wizards of the Coast Press. Cyberpunk 2077 [Video Game]. (2020). Warsaw, Poland: CD Projekt. Dragon Age Series [Video Game]. (2009–2012). Edmonton, AB: BioWare. Eberhard, J. C. M. (2016). “What do you mean none of my choices mattered?”: Collaborative composition and the ethics of ownership in games—A case study of Mass Effect 3. In D. Eyman & A. Davis (Eds.), Play/Write: Digital Rhetoric, Writing, Games. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press. Elder Scrolls Series, The [Video Game]. (1994–2020). Rockville, MD: Bethesda Softworks. Ferguson, A. (2017, 15–18 March). Rethinking the OTP: Rhetorics of LGBTQIA+ Gaming [Paper Presentation]. CCCC Annual Convention: Cultivating Capacity, Creating Change. Portland, OR. Frogger [Video Game]. (1981). Tokyo: Konami. Herman, D. (2009). Basic Elements of Narrative. Wiley-Blackwell. Kafalenos, E. (2006). Narrative Causalities. University of Ohio Press. Kirby, S. (2010). Passives in first language acquisition: What causes the delay? Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 16(1), 109–117. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The [Video Game]. (2017). Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo. Lust, B., Flynn, S., & Foley, C. (1996). What children know about what they say: Elicited imitation as a research method for assessing children’s syntax. In D. McDaniel, C. McKee, & H. S. Cairns (Eds.), Methods for Assessing Children’s Syntax (pp. 55–76). MIT Press. Mass Effect Series [Video Game]. (2007–2012). Edmonton, AB: BioWare. Murdock, B. B. (1962). The serial position effect of free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64(5), 482–488. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1866–1913). The New Elements of Mathematics, Vol I-IV, ed. Carolyn Eisele. The Hague: Mouton Press, 1976. Cited as NEM. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 1–6 Charles Hartshorne & Paul Weiss, (Eds.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931– 1966. Vols. 7–8 Arthur Burks, (Ed). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1958. Cited as CP.

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Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. 1, N. Houser & C. Kloesel (Eds.); Vol. 2, Peirce Edition Project, (Eds.). Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1992–1998. Cited as EP. Peirce, C.S. (i. 1867–1913). Unpublished manuscripts are dated according to the Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce, (Ed.) Richard Robin (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967), and confirmed by the Peirce Edition Project (Indiana UniversityPurdue University at Indianapolis). Cited as MS, R, or L. Peirce, C. S. (1903). Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard Lectures. Ed. P. Turrisi. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Cited as PPM. Pietarinen, A.-V. (2006). Signs of Logic: Peircean Themes of the Philosophy of Language, Games, and Communication. Springer-Verlag. Pietarinen, A.-V., & Bellucci, F. (2014). New light on Peirce’s conceptions of retroduction, deduction, and scientific reasoning. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 28(4), 353–373. Prince, G. (1973). A Grammar of Stories. Mouton. Sternberg, M. (2001). How narrativity makes a difference. Narrative, 9(2), 115–122. Sternberg, M. (1990). Telling in time (I): Chronology and narrative theory. Poetics Today, 11(4), 901–948. Stjernfelt, F. (2014). Natural Propositions: The Actuality of Peirce’s Doctrine of Dicisigns. Docent Press. Super Mario Bros. [Video Game]. (1985). Kyoto: Nintendo. Tomasello, M. (1999). The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Harvard University Press. West, D. (2014). Perspective switching as event affordance: The ontogeny of Abductive reasoning. Cognitive Semiotics, 7(2), 149–175. West, D. (2016). Indexical scaffolds to habit-formation. In D. West & M. Anderson (Eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit (pp. 215–240). Springer-Verlag. West, D. (2017). Virtual habit as episode-builder in the inferencing process. Cognitive Semiotics, 10(1), 55–75. West, D. (2018). Early enactments as submissions toward self-control: Peirce’s ten-fold division of signs. In G. Owens & J. Pelkey (Eds.), Semiotics 2017 (pp. 49–63). Philosophy Documentation Center Press. West, D. (2019). Index as scaffold to the subjunctivity of early performatives. The American Journal of Semiotics, 35(1–2), 155–186. West, D. (2020). Perfectivity in Peirce’s energetic interpretant. Cognitio, 21(1), 152–164. West, D. (2021). Between two minds: The work of Peirce’s energetic interpretant. Contemporary Pragmatism 18, 187–221. West, D. (2022). Habit across the categories. In J. Pelkey (Ed.), The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Semiotics, Vol. 1, 241–258. Woods, J. (2013). Errors of Reasoning: Naturalizing the Logic of Inference. College Publications.

Chapter 7

Auditory Hallucinations as Internal Discourse: The Intersection Between Peirce’s Endoporeusis and Double Consciousness

7.1 Introduction and Rationale—Privileging Narrative This inquiry advocates examination of narrative beyond traditional analyses in which plot is primary. It places emphasis upon dialogic narratives between two “phases of the ego” (1906: 4.6) or between two individual minds: “…thinking always proceeds in the form of a dialogue—a dialogue between phases of the ego—so that, being dialogical, it is essentially composed of signs as its matter, in the sense in which a game of chess has the chessmen for its matter” (1906: 4.6). The primary claim is that abductive inferencing is hastened in a context in which negotiating parties operate upon spontaneous accounts of novel event sequences, hence raising awareness of the other as to the legitimacy of a proposition/argument which they might otherwise fail to consider. The reciprocal and interactive nature of these narratives provides increased opportunity to handle critical elements of abductive inferencing, namely, surprise, propositional/argumentative conflicts, and recommendations for novel courses of action (1909: MS 637: 12). These interactions promote resolution of conflicts which arise in surprise scenarios. The conversational complexion of spoken narratives (as opposed to written ones) cultivates more directed and more sustained joint attention to unbidden propositions, because constructing coherent episodes and presenting those to others depends upon a unique reflective balance. This balance entails apprehension of another’s logical assumptions, together with their likelihood for acceptance of the proffered hunches. This predictive preparation on the part of the narrator, drives abductive processes for interpreters, since the surprising events selected to be included in the narration have greater likelihood to be utilized by the interpreter, and hence have increased potency for making a decision whether to discard, shelve, or to accept the proposition/argument as an assertion. In spoken narrative contexts, interlocutors are constantly invited to manufacture accounts to attribute propositions with some degree of plausibility with respect to the other party or other phases of self; as such, both fashioners of the narration must strive to consider what the interpreters already hold in long term memory, and what the parties are willing to consider as

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true—whether the interpreter will augment existing knowledge in light of the newly presented perspective. In short, because narratives foster dialogic abductions, they, by their very nature, communicate to another implicit meanings/effects latent in the sign. In turn, utterers are called to exploit creative meanings of unbidden images (embracing new purposes), or to resolve conflictual propositions. The reciprocal nature of on-line, dialogic narratives illustrate how the sign draws narrators and interpreters together, in their bound effort to exploit the sign’s meaning/effects: Moreover, signs require at least two quasi-minds; a quasi-utterer and a quasi-interpreter; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct. In the sign they are, so to say, welded. Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of human psychology, but a necessity of logic, that every logical evolution of thought should be dialogic. (1905: 4.551)1

This dialogic connectedness represents an obvious advantage over reliance upon self-contained systems, because engaging with a novel meaning, or novel mental system requires conjuring definitions and implications which might arise from surprising events, particularly when they conflict with established conduct and belief.

7.2 The Unique Value of Hearing Inner Voices Surprising information (underlying information conflict) may emerge as auditory or visual images—taking the form of either mental pictures/voices, and/or from externally derived sources, e.g., gestural/linguistic imperatives (cf. West, 2019a for a discussion of these kinds of performatives). Auditory images/hallucinations often suggest changes in courses of action/belief—implicating the indispensability of the energetic interpretant in advancing the purpose of narrative’s (cf. West, 2019a for further discussion). These voices have the potential to express legitimate inferences; they need not be obsessive in nature (1903: EP 2: 192; and West, 2016). The claim here is that the effect of internal voices can exceed that of external ones, given their compelling nature as vivid signs. They are compelling in Secondness especially, in that their insistence and persistence requires the parties to the narrative to attend to the sign-object’s existence, and logical legitimacy. In fact, their compelling nature confronts interpreters to such a degree that they are powerless to ignore their effects: The act of observation is the deliberate yielding of ourselves to that force majeure,—an early surrender at discretion, due to our foreseeing that we must, what we do be borne down by that power, at last. Now the surrender which we make in Retroduction, is a surrender to the Insistence of an Idea. The hypothesis, as the Frenchman says, c’est plus fort que moi. It is irresistible; it is imperative. We must throw open our gates and admit it at any rate for the time being. (1903: 5.181)

The irresistibility of the sign-object relation is intensified upon the association here with a different/modified interpretant, which Peirce refers to as an “idea.” When a 1

For further discussion, cf. West 2015.

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new meaning is insinuated in the mind of an interpreter (either the interpreter’s own pictorial insights, or from reported episodes of the narrator), attention is riveted to how the novelty of the meaning can be integrated with previously established habits. Hence, the vividness of the emerging idea becomes a catalyst for a cognitive readiness for receipt of any plausible proposition/argument. This state of readiness supplies the precondition to “surrender” to the “force majeure.” The effect, for Peirce, is yielding to the potency of hunches—those internal creative hallucinations or reported narratives which contain some legitimacy. The reciprocal nature of this intersubjective and intrasubjective interplay convinces us of its distinctive dialogic character. Nonetheless, it is the element of vividness which constitutes the agent for the dialogic process, such that the salience of the Dynamical Object individuates its uniqueness; and as such, it forces attention to expanded instantiations of the sign (MS 318: 16–17). This power of the object to insinuate itself via vividness implicates the primacy of Secondness in taking up or discarding novel hunches. According to Peirce (MS 298: 1906), and Atkins (2018: 195–196), vividness in Secondness is heightened by two factors: the personal nature of the source, and the insistence of the external object with its context. With respect to the former, the signer’s own storage of facts and his consideration of new information in working memory suggest a new way forward—of action or belief (cf. Baddeley, 2007 and Baddeley & Andrade, 2000). These voices mediate abductive rationality, in that a directive for habit change proceeds from the beholder’s own memory system. In other words, the element of surprise in the vividness of the internal picture, enhances the potency for determining the validity of the implied proposition. But, the conflict resulting from the surprise upon notice of a new proposition within a creative hallucination necessarily requires a comparison of “feelings,” for Peirce: […]nor could I call my Quality a Feeling, since the simplest feeling is more complex. My quality is an element of feeling. Every feeling has a greater or less degree of vividness; but vividness results from a comparison of feelings. It is the contrast between one’s general state of feeling before a given sensation and during that sensation. This [is] the sense of commotion. Now every feeling appears to be accompanied by this sense of commotion which is reckoned a part of it. …Besides, there is a much greater objection to calling my Quality of feeling. Namely, by a Feeling we mean something that arises in a mind. It is essentially something which exists only as a state of something else, namely, a mind. But, my Quality is whatever it is of itself. And it would occasion frightful misconception to call it a Feeling.” (1903: PPM 141)

Peirce is clear that a comparison necessarily underlies a conflict and its resolution. The new feeling (which is only one manifestation of “quality”) is either assimilated into previous feelings (old feelings), or is opposed to them. Although this feeling constitutes Firstness, the conflict between feelings in causing commotion presides in Secondness, given the dualistic struggle intrinsic to the two-sided old versus new motivation to notice and incorporate the new premises into conclusions (cf. 1909: MS 514:16). In fact, absent a new feeling, the narrator’s impetus to “…be sure to scribe every premise that is really pertinent to the conclusion one aims at… [and to] scribe them with sufficient analysis of their meaning” lacks any underlying magnetism to create a coherent reported event for a receiving party. Although Peirce’s initial intent

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in this passage was to explicate the purpose of existential graphs (cf. Roberts, 1973), its application to the representations within narratives is hardly irrelevant, since it too seeks to bring together interlocuters (creating common ground) via an emergent and implied auditory premise. Peirce is clear that expressing relevant premises unambiguously with definitive conclusions is indispensable to affect the interpretability of a narrative. In fact, the most critical influence of imagined voices is its dialogic character, because such facilitates the consideration of originary inferences in a two-sided conscious paradigm. This two-sided forum in which distinct perspectives are compared consciously, consists in the imposition of Thirdness upon Secondness, since both vividness in Secondness and memories in Thirdness strike some opposition, while integrating the purpose of the sign. Each category demonstrates opposition within its own genre; but they share the same interpretant (in promoting the identical purpose). This form of Thirdness (that which operates upon and within Secondness) is degenerate (Noeth, 2011: 458), in that recommendations for preferable conduct require a comparison between already asserted habits and new ones, impinging (insistently, persistently) upon the mind: “A ‘Representamen’ […] is not a single thing, but it is of the nature of a mental habit; it consists in the fact that something would be” (MS 675). In fact, the presence of a particular end/purpose in sight distinguishes Secondness from Thirdnessseparating out the influence of the Dynamical Object in Secondness from the impact of the interpretant (purpose as Thirdness, cf. Pietarinen, 2006; 1904: 8.330). The latter entails a determination whether the Dynamical Interpretant is sufficiently plausible to warrant changing the Immediate Interpretant. This process is critical in qualifying as sign for Peirce (1906: 4.6), because the work of double consciousness as internal narrative highlights the dialogic character inherent in both Secondness and Thirdness. In fact, absent the two-sided nature of consciousness, Secondness as fact alone would remain bare Secondness, stripped of the possibility for sharing propositions/arguments within ego or between signers to a narrative. In short, the Thirdness of double consciousness supplies a supportive venue in which: attention to the merit of each proposition/argument can be maximized, such that apprehension of implications for antecedent-consequent relations is noted, and a forum to develop metacognitive skills to inform rationale for propositions/arguments is maintained.

7.3 The Abductive Nature of Double Consciousness The voices surfacing in double consciousness rely upon factors extrinsic to the beholder’s contained perceptual and logical system. They entail many factors: vividness, the element of surprise, effort and resistance, Force, commotion between representations from different perspectives, and the like. The vividness of new information derives from what Peirce refers to as the non-ego, accompanied by the element of surprise which creates a clash between new and old information. Because this twosided process is required to notice and to work out perceptual and logical conflicts

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between new and old information, it naturally underlies both forms of auditory narrative—internal hallucinations and external voices (cf. Dominguez and Garralda, 2016; Fernyhough, 2016; Gregory, 2016; Linden, et al. 2011). For this reason (salience in Secondness), the semiosis of the percept from sensation to interpretive structure is in order (7.643); it illustrates how vividness in the momentary experience of surprise evolves into higher cognitive paradigms in the Percipuum and in the perceptual judgment. Examine the Percept in the particularly marked case in which it comes as a surprise. At the moment when it was expected the vividness of the representation is exalted… something quite different comes instead. I ask you whether at that instant of surprise that there is not a double consciousness, on the one hand of an ego, which is simply the expected idea suddenly broken off, on the other hand of the non-ego, which is the strange intruder, in his abrupt entrance. (1903: 5.53)

Peirce intimates that the ego (assertions in long-term memory) is truncated when clashing with the non-ego (new information entering working memory. This clash may operate internally, as self talking to self, or as externally, narrator influencing self to likewise take up certain propositions. Both kinds of narrative (talking to self through visual and auditory means, and external forces which “talk to us”) are endoporeutic in nature—privileging the process of information “coming from the outside in,” rather than from the “in-side out” (cf. Pietarinen, 2004, 2006). In narratives, Propositions/arguments come from the out-side in,” in that the non-ego or new information has greater weight/effect over that which is already asserted. Even if the propositions/arguments are conceived of within ego’s own mind, they still come from the out-side-in, since they intimate some novel construct, which throws into question previously held constructs. Privileging the out-side in sourcing emerges as a consequence of the imposition of factors external to the interpreter— such that perceptual and or epistemic assumptions are questioned. This primacy of external factors in launching novel hunches by way of conscious exchange has farreaching effects. It raises awareness of an alternative means of “putting together what we had never before dreamed of putting together” (1903: 5.181). For this reason, double consciousness offers a playing-ground to conceive of alternative subjectpredicate associations. Reliance upon double consciousness as a venue for selection of plausible hypotheses heightens narrative’s role from informer of facts along a temporal/spatial continuum to a tool for changing habits, be they belief or action based.

7.4 Vividness Versus Feelings in Double Consciousness The primary characteristic of narratives whose source is external is the vividness which the object affords to the mind of the interpreter. Peirce distinguishes between vividness of an object and its intensity (1909: MS 645). If, in fact, the “percept comes to us as a surprise” and effectuates “double consciousness” (1903: 5.53), the element of vividness of an object is responsible for surprise. In fact, but for the object’s

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vividness, surprise would be hard pressed to surface. The object in the Peircean sense refers not merely to a single uncontextualized entity, but to the unexpected appearance of entities in a context functioning in unfamiliar ways. So, in that “moment” when a something is expected, but “something different comes instead,” the “vividness of the representation is exalted” (1903: 5.53). The exaltation of vividness here refers to the salience of the previously held Dynamical Object within the representation/sign—such that the lack of fitness of the Dynamical Object conceived of and called up from long-term memory captivates interpreters’ attention, albeit static in nature, and restricted to propositional subject only. As such, vividness surfaces consequent to the unexpected appearance of what was once fitting, but which is all of a sudden anomalous as embodied in the previously held Dynamical Object. This is so, in view of the riveting effects of the representational conflict upon the mind of interpreters—to focus upon, process, and potentially assert certain propositions over previously held ones. This process epitomizes the aspect of Secondness within Peirce’s double consciousness—forcing interpreters’ attention to an anomaly in previously held propositions/arguments, and, in this way, alerting them to a conflict between the ego and the non-ego (1903: 5.53). This kind of forced notice of conflicts is essential in bringing about the kinds of hunches ripe for abductive inferencing, given that the implied purpose for the vividness of the surprising consequence is to resolve the conflict (the unexpected with the expected) so that some viable explanation might hold. Whereas the ego is equivocal to the expectation of the interpreter, the non-ego captures the element of vividness and surprise, in the entry of the “strange intruder” (1903: 5.53). The strange intruder characterizes the vividness/abruptness of an unexpected interpretation which often attaches itself to a percept, as previously mentioned: “Examine the percept in the particularly marked case in which it comes as a surprise. At that moment the vividness of the representation is exalted…” (5.53). What is especially “exalted” is the portion of the representation which emphasizes the expectation, because what interpreters expect of a representation are signs-object relations within preconceived contexts; but what they “get” instead, is an instantiation falling outside that context. For Peirce, it is in the conflict inherent in double consciousness (between the expected and the unexpected), that the dawning of interpretations sprout. This sprouting of new meanings/effects out of old meanings, such that percepts become “percipuua,” when interpreted through perceptual judgments (Short 2007: 319; Wilson, 2016: 96–97). Peirce demonstrates this process as follows: But at that moment, [of surprise] that one fixes one’s mind upon it [the new meaning of a percept] and think the least thing about the percept, it is the perceptual judgement that tells us what we so “perceive.” For this and other reasons, I propose to consider the percept as it is immediately interpreted in the perceptual judgement, under the name of the “percipuum”.… (1903: 7.643)

The dawning of a new component of meaning either modifies earlier meanings or wholly replaces them. Peirce coined “percipuum” to mark the interpretive juncture when the reason underlying the surprise is apprehended. In other words, the sudden appearance of surprise illustrates the emergence of a percipuum; it marks the point

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when the interpreter notices conflictual meanings; such marks the dawning of interpretation. Furthermore, the onset of interpretation (new meanings in the percipuua) indicates an up-dated meaning association, where old meanings are “broken off” (1903: 5.53). The new meanings are likely to consist in the application/integration of novel subjects—not requiring a reconstruction of predicates, e.g., like bananas, other fruit become brown upon ripening. The perceptual judgment is the final step in ascertaining novel propositions. It constitutes a fuller ratification of purpose within the predicate, than is the case in the percipuua. Alterations to existing knowledge entail modification to the predicate, such that novel purposes are attributed to entities or happenings. This progression from percepts, to percipuua, to perceptual judgments is instituted by surprising consequences, and consequently marks the inception of abductive rationality. The taxonomy (naming the graduation to percipuua and perceptual judgement) illustrates how interpreters associate increasingly more complex purposes to the same signs, demonstrating progression from automatic processing to that which is more deliberative.

7.5 How Double Consciousness Fosters Abductive Reasoning Peirce identifies several factors which eventually produce alterations in previous meanings—chief among them is commotion. He defines “commotion” as the difference in sensation prior to and during that sensation (1903: PPM 141). But in 1904 (8.330), Peirce refers to this commotion as “an experience,” whereby the two aspects of sensation coalesce into a new meaning which renovates beliefs or actions. Upon the awareness of the conflict consequent to the commotion, interpreters orchestrate steps toward resolving the conflict by means of insight or deliberative hunches. Peirce refers to this realization (a foundational form of consciousness) as “experience”. In other words, the apprehension of a change in thought or action is an “experience.” Experience, then, with its awareness of the necessity for habit-change, constitutes the precondition for abductive rationality, and the juncture when interpreters manufacture resolutions for conflicts. In short, an “experience” (awareness of the conflict via commotion) drives interpreters to become aware that a new way of handling states of affairs is necessary. Peirce illustrates how the categories are implicated in reaching this state of awareness as follows: “the breaking of the silence by the noise is an experience” (1904: 8.330). An “experience” surfaces in an instant from the unexpected noise; and its effect is active, preempting interpreters to operate upon the sequence of events/happenings. In Secondness through conflicting sensations/feelings in Firstness, experience is born. Since experience entails further interpretive competency, it brings Thirdness to bear. Because Thirdness converts a pure physical event into that which requires reinterpretation, it is a formidable element in bringing interpreters from feeling as awareness of the experience to doing –orchestrating a change to a

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new paradigm. The presence of Thirdness supersedes taking notice of the conflict; it entails recognition that this conflict produces discord (commotion), and that the discord needs resolution. Interpreters are thus compelled to pay conscious attention to the why of the conflict in order to determine which hunches are viable candidates for resolution. Essentially, conflictual feelings in Firstness and Secondness initiate awareness of the need for belief/action change, making double consciousness a necessary forum to foster abductive processes. Some more elevated level of consciousness, driven by Thirdness, underpins the deliberative form of abductions (cf. West, 2016 and 2019b for elaboration on the kinds of abductive reasoning). Peirce further emphasizes the dialogic nature of double consciousness as a process of “destroying the old feeling;” and as afore mentioned, he defines this as an “experience” (1904: 8.330). As alluded to earlier, this destruction demonstrates the need for a pre-existing state of commotion between feelings, from which eradication of an established habit is the ultimate end. In fact, it is the commotion within double consciousness that hastens interpreters’ advancement of interim resolutions—which the conflicts creating the commotion beckon them to do.

7.6 Feeling Versus Force in the Abductive Process What is being destroyed for Peirce, is not a thought, or action, but a “feeling.” Hence, examining how Peirce defines feeling is in order. His concept is far from being confined to emotion/affect (cf. Atkins, 2018: 195); rather it consists in a sort of conviction—a movement toward or taking up a cause. Peirce distinguishes feeling both from vividness and from quality: “Vividness is no part or essential attribute of feeling. It is of an entirely different nature” (1909: MS 645). In the same manuscript, Peirce makes an even more fine-grained distinction, namely, that feeling is predicative, while vividness (or its counterpart, force) is “nonpredicative.” The nonpredicative nature of vividness/force as an intrinsic component of double consciousness, obviates the need to highlight compulsion absent purpose/directionality. Highlighting the foundational attribute of force demonstrates its critical role as a catalyst toward becoming conscious of conflicts. Although force does not itself contain reason, it, nonetheless, supplies the attentional thrust to promote it. Unlike feeling, force compels interpreters to attend without supplying a goal, destination, or without guiding interpreters by means of some will to think or act, albeit directional. Force alone fails to lend conviction to participation in events –the reverse effect of feeling. What feeling adds to the mix is a predicative element –providing purpose for attending to and resolving the commotion of the conflict posed by the impingement of the new information (in “breaking off” the old, (MS 5.53). In juxtaposing nonpredicative (vividness) and predicative (feeling), Peirce measures the contribution of different degrees of consciousness, namely, attention via momentary noticing, versus apprehension that a conflict merits yielding to habit change. The more deliberative attention inherent in feeling drives the mind of interpreters to consider propositional information— hence allowing consideration of the both subjects and predicates of propositions.

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The sustained attention afforded by feelings ensures that interpreters can grapple with oppositions, containing several contrastive propositions/arguments. The import of feeling to forums of double consciousness is formidable; it advances interpreters’ means to hold in working memory several propositions for the construction of arguments. In transcending momentary events/memories before the mind, feeling secures the installation of novel actions/beliefs, while, at the same time, maintaining in working memory already established propositions. hence feelings commandeer self-control. In this way, the role of double consciousness is primary to incite abductive determinations. The control of feeling over attention demonstrates how basic forms of attention, e.g., the foundational character of apprehension triggers consciousness (Innis, 2014), thereby raising it to higher levels of mental examination, namely, to awareness, then meta-knowledge. However prematurely, Peirce appears to be in accord with this later, well established claim—that attention, apprehension, awareness, meta-cognitive skills are but gradient forms of consciousness, and that this skill is not simply binary. Peirce’s notion of feeling suggests his conviction that attention is a basic form of awareness, preempting more expanded forms of self-controlled conscious consideration. As such, he would support the claim that consciousness is not reducible to an all-or-nothing mental state (cf. Dehaene, 2014). Although vividness (in view of its attention-getting but nonpredicative force) constitutes the prime agent in Secondness to initiate the state of double consciousness, it (absent elements of Firstness and Thirdness) lacks the element of sustained, more episodic attention to propel the mind of interpreters toward resolving conflicts. In fact, absent the conviction which feeling in Firstness supplies, attention to the resultative effect of each conflicting state of affairs is not ascertainable, in light of the pervasive element of Secondness. In short, absent the more complex attentional component intrinsic to feeling (in which opposing feelings create a will toward change), consciousness would be resigned to a basic level; and little abductive potential would be forthcoming, since effects even of practical conflicts would lack the attentional potency present in Thirdness. In the same manuscript (MS 645), Peirce further distinguishes vividness from feelings; the former is force, the latter quality with degrees of intensity. This further differentiation provides additional rationale underscoring their distinctive purposes. Peirce illustrates here how feeling is necessary (for interpreters) to compare and contrast alternative viewpoints/objective consequences (however automatic or rapid the inferential process may be). He explicitly states that feeling is not force, because it consists in internal factors of the will; whereas force is external altogether, as a momentary thrust in the operation of Secondness. He accordingly determines that force and vividness are equated, given the fact that only external factors can possess vividness, and that force, by its very nature as quantity and not quality (MS 645), is external. The nature of feeling as will toward a definitive end, obviates its internal operations, unlike the “look at an external X” phenomenon playing out in force. Further rationale for the externality of force is its non-predicative character. Although feeling unquestionably drives the mind of interpreters to attend consciously to a more full-fledged degree, force has a hand in the noticing process before internalization. It secures momentary attention to the vividness of individual entities/paradigms. By this

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means, force is fundamental in drawing interpreters’ focus toward and away from certain relevant stimuli, thereby serving as the first intruder to changing previous habits of mind. Essentially, the effect (interpretant) of force is to forfeit focus on one stimulus in favor of another. The interpreter must determine whether to surrender to force by taking up its focus, or by pushing against it/its focus with internal energies of effort. Because Peirce determines effort to be a rather arduous affair (cf. R339 and supra), force is likely to have its way in altering interpreters’ attention/focus. In short, without force/vividness, attention to a new stimulus would not surface in the mind of interpreters; and the element of surprise in discovering novel percepts, actions, or beliefs would be undermined. Peirce provides further characterization of force/vividness in the same manuscript. He refers to the information contained within vividness as a “prebit” (MS 645). A “prebit” is not predicative; nor does it contain the commotion of feelings in conflict necessary to bring interpreters from a state of surprise to what Peirce refers to as a real determination necessary for abductions (1911: MS 674: 14–15). Instead, the “bare prebit” of force leaves interpreters at the threshold of surprise. But what force does supply for interpreters is the groundwork for the narrowness/specificity necessary to engage in plausible inferencing. The rationale consists in the fact that prebits are irreducible as subjects of propositions, not implicating predicates. Although force preempts interpretive endeavors by showing interpreters what they must next consider, it appears devoid of purpose/interpretants. Peirce repeatedly expresses a preference for the specificity of terms, propositions, and arguments when he favors determinations over resolutions. Determinations are more sought-after than are resolutions, given their greater truth value and assertory power in the business of determining viable inferences. This is the case, in view of their active, and specific nature in bringing about assertions. As such, determinations (rather than resolutions) more clearly identify the effect of particular antecedents upon certain consequents, a critical purpose of the sign for interpreters (1908: 8.373; cf. West, 2019b). Peirce characterizes the passive and ineffectual nature of resolutions as follows: “Hell is paved with good resolutions” (1909: MS 620: 24). The element of feeling with its commotion/conflicts, yet with its conviction toward definitive purposes and goals, is without recourse if expressed as resolutions. In short, only when interpreters consciously couch their inferences in determinations, can their explanatory hypotheses qualify as abductions.

7.7 Externisensations as Double Consciousness Peirce posits two kinds of double consciousness, that whose source is internal (as ego), or that which derives from some external source. The former Peirce refers to as “effort,” while the latter he characterizes as perceptuations (1909: R339: 245r): “A perceptuation is an externisensation in which the active element is volitionally external while the passive element is volitionally internal.” In the same passage, he refers to these two externisensations as double consciousness, in that both are

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“two-sided” in nature: “An externisensation is a two-sided state of determination of consciousness…in which a volitionally external and a volitionally internal power seem to be opposed” (1909: MS 339: 245r). Although self-control dominates in the internal kind of externisensation, Peirce appears to privilege the external kind. Volitionally internal externisensations appear less privileged because only actions/beliefs which are part of a self-contained system govern. Conversely, volitionally external externisensations (perceptuations) entail the impingement of factors from without— opening ego to the non-ego, such that an awareness of factors beyond the static self penetrate an otherwise closed system. The process of perceptuation demonstrates the affirmative effects of opposition which alter habits of mind and action; as such they measure the struggle to supersede the status quo. This force from outside is often too compelling to resist (1904: 8.330). The element of surprise may put the interpreter off balance, advantaging the influence of the intruding fact. In this way, external facts are privileged (for Peirce) because the element of surprise (a definitive characteristic of abductions) initiates the force to destroy established patterns (1903: 8.330) ego’s established patterns. This oppositional character produced by new external facts can materialize either as voices within ego’s own mind, or voices from without; but, the two are forms of what Peirce refers to as nonego. In any case, both sources (voices from within and those from without) qualify as narrative, in that they relate (either implicitly or explicitly) a series of events detailing effects of antecedents upon certain consequent events. Internal narratives materialize in two ways: either the new fact comes as a flash of insight, (as an instinctual hunch) or is manufactured in ego’s system and worked out over time (as more deliberative hunches). The former includes auditory hallucinations—imagined voices of known or unknown persons, while the latter may consist in private speech or inner speech. Nonetheless, to hear internal voices which offer more plausible recommendations, one must “dissociate” the message from the giver of the message, which entails “depersonalization,” and later “absorption” (cf. Alderson-Day et al., 2014: 294 for further discussion of the process of dissociation). Moreover, imagined voices (in the form of ego’s own self-directives, or fabricated voices of another) suggest some dissociation skills, since selection processes are utilized to choose which “friends” qualify as imaginary ones (cf. Harter and Chao, 1992; Pearson, et al. 2001a, 2001b; Taylor and Carlson, 1997; Taylor, et al. 2004). Afterward, degrees of compliance with suggested conduct from such “friends materialize. Beholders of imaginary “friends need to determine ultimately whether their recommendations are in furtherance of objective principles or whether the recommendations are obsessive (cf. EP 2:192). In contrast, external narratives consist either in entities which persist in influencing the mind of ego, or in explicit accounts produced by another (a narrator‘) which enlighten ego of states of unfamiliar affairs. Either kind of narrative (internal, external) ensures that Interpreters embrace alterity; and with this broadening of perspective, narrative partners can better anticipate the other’s knowledge-base, implicating the relevance of collateral experience (cf. Bergman, 2010; and Lee 2011). Moreover, they can more accurately predict the other’s reaction to new facts. Narrators can thereby more successfully choose how to fashion the episodes that they recount, making determinations whether to reveal

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certain elements of the background (of which they are privy). Narrators can instead exclude rationale for a character’s conduct (with which narrative partners are likely to disagree). These deliberative approaches permit narrators to subtly and gradually present their arguments in a more successful and convincing manner. With this approach, narrators can effectively privilege the external facts to their partners by omitting or including background information, or by emphasizing/deemphasizing foregrounded facts. Internal narratives (such as creative auditory hallucinations) still exhibit the active, non-ego influence. Although conceived internally, the hallucination suggests a distinctive interpretation; and as such, it may constitute the most effective (least invasive) means to effectuate instinctive abductions, because it does not ordinarily project the other partner’s value judgements. Instead, an internally derived but non-ego-based form of narrative permits hunch evaluation to be underway with little negative overtones. The most explicit influence which externisensations offers is overt talk –a more conventional form of external narrative. This structure is often characterized by a tempo/cadence of reciprocal exchange. The arguments which the speaker frames are crafted with the listener’s knowledge-base and ultimate acceptance in mind. This dialogic character guides the nature of the speaker’s abductions –to carefully generate proposition and argument sequences, such that the listener can follow the logic. The upshot is that the proffered hunches of the speaker’s arguments are attended to and effectuate habit-changes. In short, Peirce privileges perceptuation—allowing the active external element to penetrate. The external influence is heightened when it alters habits of mind; hence it constitutes the primary factor instituting change. Conversely, idiosyncratic effort remains passive—that which resists the change (1905: R339). Accordingly, self-control over the influence of the non-ego (new information) is curtailed: “we must open our gates and receive it [the external factor]” (1904: 8.330). In short, the influence of the external successfully find its way in in support of Peirce’s endoporeutic principle.

7.8 A Word from Experimental Findings A wealth of findings from experimental studies confirm that persistent use of imaginary friends during childhood and beyond is positively correlated with employment of inner speech, and that inner speech constitutes mental practice, advantaging inferential competencies. Findings from two studies in particular confirm Peirce’s pronouncement that the most prominent source for receiving and affirming hunches is dialogic and narrative in nature. Underlying the designs of these studies is the presumption that auditory practice (hearing voices and reacting to them) is arguably the most effective means to facilitate the emergence of viable hunches, especially given the natural context for producing vivid propositions for easy notice. The rationale is founded upon the fact that some degree of objectivity materializes when the interpreter hears voices of those who are not physically present; thus compliance to what the voice is suggesting is not forced, because the source is still internal. Findings indicate that practice hearing and responding to auditory hallucinations produces a

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pattern to fall back on—to become more sophisticated in deemphasizing one voice, while making prominent another. Fernyhough et al. (2019) report that adults who admitted to utilizing imaginary voices (hearing them during childhood) were more likely than were those not hearing voices to hear voices when none were present. Subjects were presented with three conditions: white noise (without any voice), white noise with a barely audible voice, and white noise presented with a clearly audible voice. Those subjects who reported hearing voices as children were the most likely to accurately hear both the clearly audible and the somewhat less audible voices. More interestingly, these subjects heard voices in the white noise condition, where they were never actualized. In other words, subjects who were accustomed to hearing voices, heard them when they were not even there. In fact, the trend of imagining voices may provide far-reaching benefits when interpreters are faced with incongruities—how to act or what to believe when conflicting possibilities surface. With increased practice listing to imagined voices, processing the propositions/arguments therein, and recommending courses of action/belief, these interpreters are narrative-savvy. They are more attuned to using dialogic methods in the exercise of inferring a partner’s implied meanings. Fernyhough and et al.’s (2019) findings demonstrate that the kind of externisensations which interpreters favor are perceptuations, particularly those which are auditory and which surface internally but as non-ego. These findings are poignant indicators that those practiced in dialogic exchanges appear to be more adept at destroying former, ego-oriented, assertions and replacing them with those which imagined voices suggest. The subjects who frequently imagined friends talking to them were listening for voices in virtually every context. They, unlike their non-listening counterparts, exploited another’s recommendations, allowing in the external element of the externisensation. This predilection demonstrates their facility for ascertaining what Peirce refers to as an experience –generating a determination (not merely a resolution) out of conflictual facts. This is tantamount to a situation in which the salience of voices is perpetuated; their influence cannot be ignored—they amount to the force majeure to inform semiosis (1904: 8.330). Trionfi and Reese (2009) tested forty-eight children, of which twenty-three reported having imaginary friends. The children were followed from 1;7 until the fiveyear mark, to determine how prolonged the imaginary experience must be to have an affirmative effect upon their means to produce and interpret narratives. Experimenters first related the narrative while referring to a children’s picture book of thirty-two pages. Afterward children were expected to tell the story to a puppet who was not privy to the story using the same text. Before conducting the study, experimenters identified sixty-three propositions, referring to them as “memory units.” Those children who reported having imaginary friends were the most successful at telling the narrative, partially consequent to the fact that their retelling contained a greater number of memory units, a maximum of forty of the sixty-three. It is obvious that children who imagined friends were more narratively advanced. Keeping in memory and communicating two-thirds of the propositions constitutes a fuller account of what they were told, and what they, in turn, issued to the “listening” puppets. The subjects’ retelling of the narratives likewise contained more descriptions, character

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inclusion, and productions of deictic (temporal and locative) terms to connect one event to another to create more causally-based episodes. According to Trionfi and Reese, the feature that most distinguished the subjects’ retelling of the narrative was dialogic competency. Internal dialogues to imaginary friends (especially when they were prolonged) provided practice for the more successful children, which likewise appeared to be the case for adults in the Fernyhough, et al. (2019) study. Davis et al. (2013) found that imaginary companions increase the internalization of private speech, often lending to additional fantasy related dialogue. Inner speech including talking to imaginary friends plays a central role in regulating behavior and supporting complex cognitive functions. (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015). Inge Seiffge-Krenke (1993) also noted protective functions of imaginary companions during adolescence such as social support and coping. This exploitation of perceptuations supports Peirce’s endoporeutic principle—the tendency of taking advantage of legitimate outside influences by turning them into internal principles.

7.9 Conclusion Experiencing and reconstituting hunches does not occur in a vacuum. The twoparty system of ego and non-ego operating together upon the raw material for hunches guards against dependence upon a limited-capacity mental system in which pre-existing propositions resurface only to coddle pre-existing arguments. Instead, hunches that emanate from vivid and persistent propositions have greater success for status as abductions, consequent to the fact that they enjoy increased attention, in view of their auditory and dialogic attributes. These signs materialize as voices resounding in the mind either from existent or imagined others. Both voices heard from without and those heard within qualify as perceptuations; and are unlike any other; they are externisensations for which the external element has the greatest impact upon the interpreter’s consciousness. These voices do so given their unique means to be both vivid and creatively redundant. Some of these voices surface as auditory hallucinations of imaginary friends or of abstract (less familiar) others. The voices of these sources gain increased potency to drive interpreters toward adopting new ways of belief and conduct, since the voice sign projects fragments of its interpretant. Via pitch, and stress, the nature of the insistent and persistent effect of the representamen upon the consciousness is emphasized. In fact, the work of pitch and stress preempts meanings of novel hunches, which narrators intend to impress upon interpreters. The double forum which defines personal narratives creates further urgency to operate upon the partner’s interpretive material, and to redesign it with nothing less than their very own hypotheses by means of a non-adversarial other. Hearing voices is an easy way in—perceptuations whose active, external element is manufactured internally, without being a foreign other.

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References Alderson-Day, B., & Fernyhough, C. (2015). Inner speech: Development, cognitive functions, phenomenology, and neurobiology. Psychological Bulletin, 141(5), 931–965. Alderson-Day, B., McCarthy-Jones, S., Bedford, S., Collins, H., Dunne, H., Rooke, C., & Fernyhough, C. (2014). Shot through with voices: Dissociation mediates the relationship between varieties of inner speech and auditory hallucination proneness. Consciousness and Cognition, 27, 288–296. Atkins, R. K. (2018). Charles S. Peirce’s phenomenology: Analysis and consciousness. Oxford University Press. Baddeley, A. (2007). Working memory, thought, and action. Oxford University Press. Baddeley, A., & Andrade, J. (2000). Working memory and the vividness of imagery. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129(1), 126–145. Bergman, M. (2010). C.S. Peirce on interpretation and collateral experience. Signs, 4, 134–161. Davis, P., Meins, E., & Fernyhough, C. (2013). Individual differences in children’s private speech: The role of imaginary companions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116, 561–571. Dehaene, S. (2014). Consciousness and the brain: Deciphering how the brain codes our thoughts. Viking. Dominguez, M., & Garralda, M. E. (2016). Assessing and managing hallucinations in children and adolescents. British Journal of Psychiatric Advances, 22(6), 380–390. Fernyhough, C. (2016). The voices within: The history and science of how we talk to ourselves. Basic Books. Fernyhough, C., Watson, A., Bernini, M., Moseley, P., & Alderson-Day, B. (2019). Imaginary companions, inner speech, and auditory verbal hallucinations: What are the relations? Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1–10. Gregory, D. (2016). Inner speech, imagined speech, and auditory verbal hallucinations. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 7(3), 653–673. Harter, S., & Chao, C. (1992). The role of competence in children’s creation of imaginary friends. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 38(3), 350–363. Innis, R. (2014). The bottomless lake of consciousness. In T. Thellefsen & B. Sørensen (Eds.), Charles Sanders Peirce in his own words: 100 years of semiotics, communication, and cognition (pp. 81–86). Walter De Gruyter. Linden, D., Thornton, K., Kuswanto, C., Johnston, S., van de Ven, V., & Jackson, M. (2011). The brain’s voices: Comparing nonclinical auditory hallucinations and imagery. Cerebral Cortex, 21, 330–337. Pearson, D., Burrow, A., FitzGerald, C., Green, K., Lee, G., & Wise, N. (2001a). Auditory hallucinations in normal child populations. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, 401–407. Pearson, D., Rouse, H., Doswell, S., Ainsworth, C., Dawson, O., Simms, K., Edwards, L., & Faulconbridge, J. (2001b). Prevalence of imaginary companions in a normal child population. Child: Care, Health and Development, 27(1), 13–22. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 1–6 edited by C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931–1966. Vols. 7–8 edited by A. Burks. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1958. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). Unpublished manuscripts are dated according to the Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce, ed. R. Robin (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967), and confirmed by the Peirce Edition Project (Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis). Peirce, C. S. & Welby, V. (i. 1898–1912). Semiotic and Significs: The Correspondence Between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria, Lady Welby. C. Hardwick & J. Cook, (Eds.). University of Indiana Press, 1977. Peirce, C. S. (i. 1867–1913). The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. 1, N. Houser & C. Kloesel (Eds.); Vol. 2, Peirce Edition Project, (eds.). Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1992–1998.

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Pietarinen, A. V. (2004). The endoporeutic method. In M. Bergman & J. Queiroz (Eds.), The commens encyclopedia: The digital encyclopedia of Peirce studies. New Edition. Pub. 131013-2050a. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/encyclopedia/article/pietarinen-ahtiveikko-endoporeutic-method Pietarinen, A. V. (2006). Signs of logic: Peircean themes of the philosophy of language, games, and communication. Springer-Verlag. Roberts, D. (1973). The existential graphs of Charles S. Peirce. Mouton. Seiffge-Krenke, I. (1993). Close friendship and imaginary companions in adolescence. New Directions for Child Development, 60, 73–87. Taylor, M., & Carlson, S. (1997). The relation between individual differences in fantasy and theory of mind. Child Development, 68(3), 436–455. Taylor, M., Carlson, S., Maring, B., Gerow, L., & Charley, C. (2004). The characteristics and correlates of fantasy in school-age children: Imaginary companions, impersonation, and social understanding. Developmental Psychology, 40(6), 1173–1187. Trionfi, G., & Reese, E. (2009). A good story: Children with imaginary companions create richer narratives. Child Development, 80(4), 1301–1313. West, D. (2016). Recommendations as imperative propositions in the operation of abductive reasoning: Peirce and beyond. IfCoLog Journal of Logics and Their Applications, 3(1), 123–150. West, D. (2019a). Semiotic determinants in episode-building: Beyond autonoetic consciousness. Filozofia i Nauka, 7(1), 55–76. West, D. (2019b). Narrative as diagram for problem-solving: Confluence between Peirce’s and Vygotskii’s semiotic. In G. Owens and E. Katic (Eds.), Semiotics 2018, 201–219. Charlottesville, VA: Philosophy Documentation Center Press. Wilson, A. (2016). Peirce’s Empiricism: Its roots and its originality. Lexington Books.

Chapter 8

Between Two Minds: Retrospective Approaches in Narrative Profiling

8.1 Introduction This concluding chapter consolidates and heightens the inquiry of narrative by fielding the question of which semiotically driven methods enhance the capacity for listeners to impose sound inferences on narrations and to apply them to living contexts. The answer proffered herein determines that narrators’ sensitivity to and utilization of Peirce’s Phemes improves listeners’ comprehension of the story’s episodic framework. The present approach advocates that understanding perfective and imperfective meanings can inform listeners (especially children) as to spatial and temporal meanings which the sequence of depictions imply. Narrators’ intuitions about how to characterize placement of pivotal events encourage listeners to draw their own explanatory inferences from the outcomes which narrators make prominent. This account proposes that inserting sudden events into the narrative at important junctures (reconfiguring event-matrices or interrupting the process of events) induces listeners to ask foundational questions about the reason for the narrator’s inclusion or omission of neighboring events and/or key participants. Listeners’ inquiry at this early stage in the listening process hastens their understanding of the episodic congruity within the account. This chapter argues that using signs which highlight instantaneity and telicity increased the prominence of surprising consequences which has the effect of riveting listeners’ attention to and focus on topical within the narrative; hence, listeners’ propositions/arguments explaining foregrounded consequences are facilitated. The effect for listeners is enhanced event-binding—into episodes (see Chap. 4 for a discussion of Baddeley’s working memory model). The signs utilized to tell stories (depictions for children) demonstrates the import of Peirce’s semiotic. The indexical and iconic meanings prominent in telling stories constitutes a most effective tool to enhance and trace aspectual changes. Peirce’s triadic system advantages both narrators and listeners by forcing listeners to examine single events, then to attach distinct meanings/effects—later inferring their power over other events. The meanings intrinsic to Phemes as double signs (indexical © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. E. West, Narrative as Dialectic Abduction, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7_8

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and iconic) are compulsorily associated with Peirce’s portrayal of the Energetic Interpretant. As such, listeners are compelled to assign specific meanings/effects early on to signs with sudden outcomes, associated with telic or punctual meanings. Narrators’ deliberate foregrounding of this kind of sign (the Pheme) hastens interpreters’ searches for plausible reasons to explain Narrators’ renditions. The rationale is that narrators’ deliberate foregrounding of perfective, sudden, outcomes has the benefit of fostering their listeners’ abductive rationality. Leading with retrospective, sudden consequences (perfective aspect) compels listeners to determine early on the relevance of reported events, inducing them to fill in the gaps with causative facts.

8.2 Foundational Remarks Regarding Aspect Lyons supplies us with a clear, diachronic account of aspect: “The term aspect[…]was first used to refer to the distinction between ‘perfective’ and ‘imperfective’ in the inflexion of verbs in Russian and other Slavonic languages (given the frequency of morphemic forms within temporal frames). The term ‘perfective’ (or ‘perfect’) is reminiscent of that used by the Stoic grammarians for the somewhat similar notion of ‘completion’ found in Greek” (Lyons, 1968: 313). Lyon’s historical account (although accurate at its core) omits pragmatic and psycho-social factors defining the use of aspect. Comrie fills this gap by incorporating subtle ways in which speakers determine how listeners perceive the flow of event sequences. He characterizes aspect as: “different ways of viewing the internal temporal consistency of a situation” (1976: 3). Accordingly, aspect is not itself temporal; rather, it describes how constituent events within a congregate of events (within an episode) strike the interpretive mind. As such, narrative interpretation illustrates how listeners construct stories as matrices which are held together by underlying logical arguments. The narrator crafts the story introducing a cadence of events to privilege or highlight the impact of certain constituents over others in the stream of listeners’ consciousness. Salaberry and Ayoun ascribe to the above characterization; they capitalize on the distinction between aspect as a pragmatically-based system (in which interpreters make construles regarding the relative import of events within an episodic framework), and temporality (the material, ontological organization of events). Here aspect is given its due by validating the role of interpretive minds within temporal frames. This acknowledgement legitimizes the fact that perceptions of how events interact with one another in the past, present, or future, is vital. These pragmatic considerations intrinsic to aspect measure interpreters’ logical determinations regarding whether and how reported events overlap, and entertains conjectures of the potential for certain events to impinge upon others, and the like. Salaberry and Ayoun further emphasize a related claim of Comrie, namely, the critical distinction between aspect and tense: “[A]spect is concerned with situationinternal time, whereas tense is relative to situation-external time” (2005: 3). Here Comrie uncovers the real value of aspect—recognizing the influence of individual

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minds to interpret how the lexical and syntactic caliber in the narrative limits perceptions of event interaction. Aspect is a discourse phenomenon; it intrinsically measures perceptions of narrator’s and listener’s internal time. Listeners’ interpretation of the narrated events is at least equally important to an ontological categorization of events into temporal slots. Aspect makes relevant the experiences of others to listeners’ own interests, such that they are able to participate virtually in reported events, which promotes a more insider based motivation to reconstruct the flow of events as episodes. This operation draws upon fundamental semiotic skills of the Pheme and Delome (see Chap. 5) which situate events with respect to one another, together with implying inter-events effects. In this way, these kinds of event signs (Phemes) depict the nature of the impact of events upon one another. The indexical and iconic characterizations wrought by these event signs preempt listeners to generate predictions about what will happen next in the story-line. At its core, aspect’s relationship to events reveals the speaker’s mental state,1 especially with respect to the internal constituency of events and the degree of affiliation—of speakers and listeners—whether the interpreter’s rendition of the event in question is perceived (by the speaker/listener) to be durative/on-going, or whether instead the aspectual marker indicates instantaneity, or onset/offset. If the event is interpreted to be iterative, the meaning of durativity is offset by repeated attention drawn to the singleness of action reintroduction. The latter emphasizes abrupt being/doing, in contradistinction to its potential for signaling homeostasis or feelings of monotony which might be present in redoing/re-experiencing (see Beavers, 2012: 23–27 for an elaborated discussion of consumption and creation verbs, and Koontz-Garboden, 2012 for a discussion of the Monotonicity Hypothesis). The present semiotic account offers a reliable means to test whether perfectivity or imperfectivity should permeate iterative events. The argument does not rest upon syntactic or semantic factors, but upon the meanings ascribed to event signs in particular context by interpreters. A reliable test for whether interpreters conceive events to be perfective is whether the events sequence is characterized as having surprising effects (see this volume Chap. 5 for elaboration on the effects of surprising consequences; and Rothstein, 2012: 60–67 for an extended examination of iterativity particular to Vendlerian verb classes). The punctual meaning inherent in perfective events becomes compromised when they do not arise as single, foregrounded (and often surprising) outcomes. When the event resurfaces continually, its attentional value/effect upon interpreters becomes muted; and less attention is attributed to the effect of the event’s onset as interruption of a stream of events. Instead, interpreters’ underlying inferences upon exposure to repeated events consider them to be secondary to another, more foregrounded event in the particular episode, e.g., “the telephone rang as we entered the house.” In this way, instantaneity is muted for interpreters upon repeated reports of doing/becoming; and consequent to iterativity, the perfectivity of repeated events reverts to imperfective status. This interpretation is particularly ripe when listeners perceive that narrators are utilizing event redundancy as backgrounded rather than foregrounded information. Nonetheless, a consensus 1

see van der Auwera and Filip (2008) for a full review.

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regarding the perfectivity or imperfectivity residing in iterative events has not been reached. In contrast to Rothstein, (2012). Comrie universally characterizes iterative events as perfective, because they represent the same event taking place but on innumerable occasions, retaining their punctuality (1973: 42). The rationale is as follows. Events which inherently draw attention to their conclusion are characterized as “telic” (see Vendler, 1967). Telicity is determined not by selection of certain verb lexicons; but the nouns likewise influence whether narrators intend to emphasize the end boundary of an event, over and against events of the account which they wish to deemphasize. The present account advocates that the narrators’ selection of telic lexicons isolates events as those whose effect upon interpreters of the episode is particularly notable. Following Vendler’s analysis, Comrie associates telicness with events which must possess some perfectivity, and applies “atelic” to events which are imperfective in nature (1973: 46). This characterization illustrates the need for integration of perfective with imperfective to create the movement necessary for states and actions within story-lines. However, certain verb lexical items with restrictive PPs and/or NPs (whose semantic content connotes both durativity and onset/offset) contain elements of telicity accompanied by progressivity, hence communicating at once perfectivity and imperfectivity (cf. Beavers & Koontz-Garboden, 2020: 36–40 for a fuller discussion of how prepositional choice affects telicity). The verbs which uniquely measure both aspects within their lexicons belong to the accomplishment class, e.g., knitting a sweater or producing a work of art. They measure perfective aspect when they establish completion/termination of events; but, when they work toward that completion they monitor imperfective paradigms.2 In this way, accomplishment verbs institute a two-pronged meaning for interpreters: the flow of dynamic forging/surging (toward an end, imperfective), complemented by the precision of an instantaneous and often unexpected resultative effect. In fact, the place of telicity in the lexicon with its phrasal constituents is primary.3 Telic verbs have a defined terminal point (i.e., “Susan wrote the novel.” Nonetheless, telicity is distinct from punctuality in the verb lexicon, in that the former possess internal structure, while the latter lack such—instead instantaneity and momentariness prevail. The imperfective meaning of accomplishment verbs cultivates some mounting effort toward a goal/destination; hence momentary meanings are obscured. Their meaning expresses regulation of energy toward completion of an event.4 But for working toward the telicity/completion inherent in particular events (i.e., “Build a house.”), the energy intrinsic to imperfective paradigms would be lost; the perfectivity of completion after expending energy to ascertain the goal would likewise be thwarted. In other words, absent the control of energy necessary to work toward a goal (an imperfective characteristic), the meaning inherent in

2

For a similar analysis, see Sasse (2002). See likewise Kennedy, 2012: 103–106 for considerations of how nominal quantity affects telicity, namely—while limiting NP quantity results in telic meaning, amplifying the NP quantity is associated with more atelic meaning. 3 see Comrie (1976: 44) for an integral discussion of telicity and its relevance to aspect. 4 see Comrie (1976: 49).

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perfectivity (event completion) would lose its effect. The upshot is that accomplishment verbs uniquely provide the means for narrators and listeners to depict energy expended toward a resultative effect, as well as the finality of the effect itself. As such, the narrative experience naturally integrates the imperfective with the perfective aspect, further illustrating how imperfective and perfective paradigms support one another. Selection of stative verbs likewise integrates the two aspects, in demonstrating a change in thinking or being. In contrast to aspect, tense does not implicate modal or subjunctive-like directives. Instead, it organizes sequences of discrete fixed points within which events are situated (from a speaker’s vantage point). Comrie’s rendition of aspect likewise characterizes it as a means of encoding the speaker’s perception of an interruption of one event with respect to another. In the latter case the aspect is punctual. In light of its deictic advantage of providing internal temporal coordinates, aspect (perfective/imperfective) can indicate a causation (in terms of goal and purpose) for the episode. Shirai and Andersen further evidence the internal temporal nature of lexical aspect when they explicate Vendler’s schema as follows: ACHIEVEMENT: that which takes place instantaneously and is reducible to a single point in time (e.g., recognize, die, reach the summit, etc.). ACCOMPLISHMENT: that which has some duration, but has a single clear inherent endpoint (e.g., run a mile, make a chair, build a house, etc.). ACTIVITY: that which has duration, but with an arbitrary endpoint, and is homogeneous in its structure. For example, in John is running, at every moment the fact of his running has the same quality of running (e.g., run, sing, play, dance, etc.). STATE: that which has no dynamics and continues without additional effort or energy being applied (e.g., see, love, hate, want, etc.). (1995: 744). Vendler’s “state” verbs are, by far, the most difficult to classify because their internal meaning is, on the one hand, dynamic (imperfective), and, on the other, telic (bearing semblance of perfectivity given its function to mark a completive juncture). The meaning of stative lexicons extends over a diversity of temporal ranges; the diversity can include changes in conditions (incorporating a telic and perfective feature) or an unbounded flow of a single physical/mental condition (more imperfective and atelic in nature). Hence this kind of verb can materialize as perfective (in the former case) and imperfective (in the latter). In the latter case, often no specific appearance of internal movement or obvious directionality surfaces within the lexical entry itself, although markers of movement in space or in time (adverbials, such as “suddenly”, or “gradually”, may indicate telicity) (atelic) may disambiguate the verb’s usage. In short, while perfectivity is associated with a sudden, or instantaneous, event without internal efficacy, or events which encode onset or offset, imperfectivity denotes continuity, on-going repetition, or durativity. It is useful to note that modern linguistic genres may not constitute the only (nor the most relevant) venue responsible for the conceptualization of aspectual meaning; they may, in fact, emanate from more philosophical beginnings. In fact, sources conjecture that aspect emerged much earlier—Harold Coward estimated its birth to be in the seventh century BCE (1990), but the precise MS date, although identified,

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is still unconfirmed. Reference to aspect has been found in manuscripts dated from the seventh century BCE. It is Yaska’s insightful analyses which delineate some of the most primary grammatical categories, uniquely containing aspectual distinctions. He singles out nouns (as “being”) from verbs (as “becoming”): Now, what (are) the four classes of words? They are the following: noun and verb; prepositions and particles. With reference to this, they thus prescribe the definition of noun and verb: the verb has becoming as its fundamental notion, nouns have being as their fundamental notion. But where both are dominated by becoming, a becoming arising from a former to a later state is denoted by a verb, as ‘he goes,’ ‘he cooks,’ &c. The embodiment of the whole process from the beginning to the end, which has assumed the character of being, is denoted by a noun, as ‘going,’ ‘cooking,’ &c. The demonstrative pronoun is a reference to beings, as ‘cow,’ ‘horse,’ ‘man,’ ‘elephant,’ &c.; ‘to be,’ to becoming, as ‘he sits,’ ‘he sleeps,’ ‘he goes,’ ‘he stands,’ & c. (1.1). Yaska’s classification of nouns and verbs clearly lends an integral basis to aspectual meanings by discerning its application beyond verb entries. While nouns denote “being”, given their imperfective character as present and continuous existents, verbs denote perfective features, namely, highlighting the change or passage from one action/state to another. Perfectivity is encoded in the notion of change—from one action/state to another—or in a transition—from an unfilled interval to the taking up or putting down of an action/state. “In some Romance languages, when ‘becoming’ connotes a sudden or gradual alteration in condition, it is often encoded along with a different verb lexeme altogether, or a passive-like pronoun” (Salaberry & Ayoun, 2005). When this eventuality emerges, morphological perfective markers signal emphasis upon a temporal juncture before which a different state of affairs was in place. In Romance languages, because there is no single verb entry which means “to become” (as is the case in English), the notion of becoming is encoded morphologically, as affixes to indicate perfective or imperfective aspects. The following uses from Spanish illustrate how “become” is encoded morphologically: “duermo” (“I sleep”), as opposed to “me duermo” (“I fall asleep”). The latter form encodes the notion of change from a state of alertness to a state of sleep—obviating a contrast or process of becoming. This early classification is ripe for an extension to more current metaphysical, phenomenological, and inferential genres, given Yaska’s foundational paradigm, which sensitizes us to the internal, temporal construct of events’ contribution to neighboring events, hence inviting interpreters to infer relationships between antecedents and consequences. As such, Yaska’s and Vendler’s lexical analyses underscore that perfective and imperfective contrasts (telic versus atelic) inform us how logic is imposed upon events, uniting them into propositional and argument schemas. Accordingly, they establish that change of motion paradigms by their very nature, imply not merely a goal/destination, but also a purpose, which motivates and fosters the change. This integral integration of purpose defines the very core of Peirce’s

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interpretant, most clearly his Energetic Interpretant.5 The movement of action events within/across more static states of affairs informs us of the essence of their congregative situatedness, and hence establishes specific logical relations. The interpretation of these stop and start (and the reverse) relations in situatedness with respect to participants, particularly speakers, invites minds to settle upon inferences—in view of the perspectival orientation of spatial and temporal deictic coordinates.6 The deictic character of event relations (the situatedness of the place and time of events and their participants’ perspectives) insinuates the purpose for the events/episodes under scrutiny. In fact, increased consciousness of contrasts of perfectivity, over and against imperfectivity, (often established by the speaker’s degree of intimacy to the respective events) particularly highlight the internal constituency of single events—drawing attention to who is the agent or the source, and what might be the goal/destination for the event structure. Abraham (2008) applies the temporal suddenness (perfective) and durativity of an event (imperfective) to a psycho-social genre—demonstrating the effect of the speaker’s perception of the event, whether integrally part of or apart from the event’s happenings. Abraham’s unique contribution to aspectual models is the integration of the speaker’s role within the events which he narrates (integral or observer-like).7 He proposes, building upon Joos (1968: 129), that instantiated, imperfectivity connotes the speaker’s perception of being “inside” an event/episode; whereas the use of perfective aspect signals a sense of being “outside” events, observing them more remotely. Present-day conceptions of aspect extend toward the aforementioned semantic approaches, while augmenting them with pragmatic ones. The semantic model embraces the lexical approach attributed to Vendler (1967) and Lyons (1968). These models assume that aspect is governed by the Aktionsart 8 inherent in the verb lexicon that narrators employ (Comrie, 1976: 6n.), given that such verb selection determines the nature of event participants within the episode. Locative approaches, on the other hand, offer analyses of more pragmatic factors contributing to narrators’ perceptions of how the internal constituents of reported events are construed by listeners.9 These locative models emphasize the import of psycho-social factors relied upon to appreciate such aspectual features as how and to what degree narrators and listeners personally enter into/identify with the characters and their plights. As such, listeners can intimately follow the ups and downs of characters’ thoughts and actions. These psycho-social factors (made obvious in locative models) enhance understanding of the flow inherent in reported events because narrators and listeners can inhabit the experiences of the characters that they hear about; hence reported events take on a personalized and more relevant profile.

5

cf. Pietarinen (2006). cf. West (2011) and Zeman (2016). 7 cf. Leiss (2012). 8 Aktionsart (German: ‘kinds of action’) is broadly defined and often equated with aspect; Comrie (1976) demurs the point and classifies it as a verb lexicalization. 9 see Comrie (1976: 129–31). 6

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8.3 Aspect as a Measure of Seeing and Doing The interplay between pragmatic factors (e.g., who is doing what and when) and aspect has been given greater weight, consequent to the shifting character of participant and action constituents, namely, agentive/receiver/benefactor roles, and place and orientation changes with action migration. For example, the stops and starts of events are influenced by the nature of the action, and the agent’s idiosyncratic preferences and predilections. These predilections are prime determiners of mood considerations, given their means to establish event validity and recommendations for others’ beliefs and actions. Pragmatic factors, such as how narrators frame participants’ contribution to events/episodes affect listeners’ interpretation of event closures and resultative effects. Such interpretation includes: whether the event has/is actually materializing and how the constituents of events are carried out. These pragmatic factors have significant effects upon the inclination of participants in the event/episode to act in particular ways, which are not entirely determined. Hence, the issue of mood becomes relevant. Interpretation of the internal constituency of events (aspect) bears upon the how events are represented—whether existent, possible, shifting, and whether the narrator perceives the competence of participants to be sufficient to execute the event. Joos recognizes the influence of contextual features upon the aspectual genres which he identifies. He posits that interpretation of aspect depends heavily upon interpretation of contextual features. Joos (1962) measures this contextual effect by the presence and kinds of pronouns, vocatives, and verb inflections, because listeners rely upon these shifting features to determine the goals (intended outcomes) of participants in reported speech, their purposes (meanings/reasons for conduct), hence making the resultative consequences key to the central meaning (Joos, 1968: 127). He intimates that the telic nature of certain verbs performing a perfective function implicates how events effect other events, thus suggesting logical relations to listeners: An event is not only sure to have a cause, though sometimes its cause may be difficult to ascertain; it is likely to have effects too, and here the relation is clearer or even obvious. A finite verb will hardly be used to specify an event unless there are effects; it is fair to say that language is not organized for entirely idle talk but is rather well adapted to mentioning things because they matter. (Joos, 1968: 138–139)

Joos intimates that cause and effect relations particularly highlight junctures between events, and as such, serve as the linchpin for generating logical paradigms, i.e., for determining the validity of particular outcomes in light of contributing factors. He intimates that interpretation of event junctures encompasses apprehension of changes in both space and time vectors; in fact, the two (cause, effect) may be construed as reagents present simultaneously—the contributor may not precede the result. Joos (1962: 138) refers to this causative event scenario (perfective) as “phase”—likely because effects/consequences (often possessing resultative meanings) accentuate the need to seek precedent events (their causes). Joos’ claim has additional implications: attributing a temporary and modal character to aspect. Since

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the roles of participants shift, and are even replaced by other participants, logical reorientations across the reporting of sub-episodes are called for (perhaps having distinct construals for different interpreters). Joos demonstrates the relevance of mood in showing how truth-value is varied absent tense, and how alterations in the aforementioned contextual factors, e.g., participant viewpoints, the need to emphasize non-existence/possibility. According to Joos (1968: 149), the “validity of the predication vanishes outside a certain span of time.” He appears to claim that outside the realm of past facts, the reported happening loses its purpose as fact, and enters the realm of possibility and impossibility in the mind of the interpreter. As such, the subjunctive mood emerges with increased use of finite verbs (as perfective operators) to emphasize one event having a resultative impact upon a particular state of affairs. The perfective aspect is further made obvious consequent to Joos’ (1968: 138– 9) temporary aspect, given the time-boundedness of the narrator’s assertions, i.e., discrete time frame in which the episode in question is reported to have taken place. The validity of the predication “vanishes” once the event has terminated (perfective); whereas imperfective aspect may maintain the validity of the assertion, given its progressive (“-ing”) meaning. Anderson (1973) and Miller (1972) likewise support the pragmatic interpretation; that identifying the locative relevance of narrated events calls hearers to situate themselves inside the reported events as participants, not outside them as onlookers. Rationale for a pragmatic viewpoint is as follows: as insiders, listeners can feel the durative nature and the contours of characters’ experiences; whereas as outsiders, they can only measure spatial and temporal junctures between reported events. The former competence of permeating the internal works of characters and their actions, provides an inside track to characters’ future beliefs and actions. This skill enhances logic inherent in imperfective orientations, when it secures notice of the line of dynamic flow holding across characters’ behaviors. The opportunity to follow the stream of their characters’ conduct, in turn, sensitizes listeners to what might happen next; and this sensitivity becomes key in abducing the underlying rationale and fitting explanations for characters’ individual involvement, be it past, present or future. In assuming an inside, imperfective stance, listeners are granted the privilege of participating in the episodes’ outcomes along with their characters, not merely sporadically glimpsing events in a disconnected manner. In this way, employing imperfectivebased perspectives affords unique inferencing opportunities. Inferencing is wrought by engaging in an embodied approach—whether to behave and reason according to the character’s model; whereby suggestions afforded by templates of the model advance knowledge of likely outcomes and their rationale. Showing and telling via character modeling constitutes a new way to forge others to enlist in the same conduct as characters—a practice in which observers (as self-influencers) construct internal templates of viable conduct for themselves or for others, before actually exercising the recommendation. This virtual experience is reminiscent of Peirce’s concept of “virtual habit” (see 1909: MS 620) which may be more powerful than actual practice (1909: MS 620) to influence the self’s (as observer) eventual habits (see also Bergman, 2016; West, 2017; and West, 2018).

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The significance of mood becomes apparent in the permeating influence which virtual doing distinctly provides. Doing without doing (as if the act itself had been performed) can facilitate more adequate inferencing—a form of pre-determining whether a specific resolution of an act is plausible. Virtual acts can preclude lengthy and circular quandaries about how to resolve logical and affective problems by means of a kind of imaginative mimesis—a feeling or disposition whether to enact the characters’ behaviors to reach particular goals. As such, the meaning underlying the energy of watching imagined episodes acquires new powers—to avert/institute the conviction for doing the act by virtue of Peirce’s virtual habits. Hence, Insidedness provides an early and preemptive measure of what it is like to pre-inhabit the outsideness of event participation. Internally conceived of recommendations (often imperfective operations) can provide the means to observe and discern the stops and starts (perfective operations) of the self/others as characters’, specifically their contributory roles (afforded by telicity). In turn, observers recognize viable interventions to upcoming consequences becomes far less available. It is the glue holding events together as logical operators. This perspectival competency (seeing from inside) supplies a more objective look of the segmentation and assemblage of events into a schema of what comes next. Observing events perfectively and imperfectively at the same time requires rather complex cognitive skills, namely, the means to affiliate so intimately with the interworking of characters that listeners imagine themselves doing things that they, themselves have never done, and in places, orientations, and times different from their own situatedness. The additional augmentation provided by telic (perfective skills) become the catalyst for envisioning event possibilities, namely the means to decipher person, time and place displacements. Accordingly, viewers are afforded the benefit of apprehending the value of increased locative potentiality, necessary for gaining knowledge of how to utilize characters’ suggestions of how to contribute to event solutions/outcomes. These cognitive competencies are rather advanced; they require Theory of Mind skills (ToM)—decision-making while utilizing the mind-set of another exclusively, without considering what is possible/reasonable (see Harris & Kavanaugh’s, 1993 “Naughty Teddy” study, also discussed in West, 2016d: 68–69). The complexity of Theory of Mind resides in assuming identities/logical systems which are in conflict with one’s own, or which defy possibility. To do so, one must ignore one’s own now location and switch places and times with characters of little familiarity. This deictic competency (to enter inside logical systems different and sometimes disparate from reality) requires sensitivity to fluid changes in perspective and position (see West, 2013, Chaps. 1 and 2 for further discussion of this deictic skill).

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8.4 How Energetic Interpretants Feature Aspectual Changes Although the internal constituencies of the narrated events depict single events (not a pattern of events), they are necessary to suggest potential antecedents and reasons for unexpected consequences. In this way, Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant reveals the internal constituencies of the narrative (cf. West, 2019a, 2021 for further background on the Energetic Interpretant); it monitors aspectual changes (perfective and imperfective) for narrators and listeners. The purpose of the Energetic Interpretant to focus on meanings/effects of a single event effectuates its pivotal role to enhance notice of the topic for those crafting and those interpreting the story-line—hastening a common place to stand for both. Narrative’s effect is further accentuated when the narrator provides collateral experience to the hearer by way of imposing his own meanings /effects of the eventsign. When telling hearers about the sign’s effect, the event sign has “an exertion upon the quasi-mind of the interpreter,” much like a modal operator from one mind to another. This effect of how the listener should interpret events contained within the narrative is thus ascribed to the Energetic Interpretant (1906: CP 4.536 and CP 4.551), given the single effect that narrators’ event interpretations have upon the assertions of the receiving mind. The Energetic Interpretant’s ability to highlight particular action/state schemes is indispensable to discernment of how individual events contribute to event sequences. This discernment is necessary to understand the progression of the narrative itself— and to infer reasons for the narrator’s selection of which events to localize in which order when crafting the story for the particular addressee(s). In light of the benefits of these perspectival devices, Energetic interpretants manage both the continuities and discontinuities present in the narrator’s account, thereby differentiating which happenings are foregrounded, and which are backgrounded. As such, the narrator’s arrangement of individual events hones interpreters’ attention to the nature of each event’s effects—allowing them to sculpt the narrative as a comprehensive series. In short, narrators craft their accounts not merely to convince listeners of the veridicality of a state of affairs, but impel them to enter into the course of the events to manufacture their own epistemic and deontic template and their own assertions. The aforementioned action of “entering into” an unexperienced event flow demonstrates the relevance of modality (mood)—when narrators supply scaffolds which compel listeners to formulate complexions of prefaced events by way of inferencing which events have primary logical weight in the episode’s framework. Narrators impel listeners to first isolate event’s meaning/effects within the narrated schema. As such, narrators position their listeners to accept, reject, or modify beliefs and conduct as presented. For this reason, Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant constitutes a prime facilitator of whether the narrator’s assumptions regarding the resultative states of affairs is logically sufficient to adopt as his/her own. This process draws upon Peirce’s concept of “experience”, such that dualities of feeling often conflict, and activate belief and action resolutions. Energetic Interpretants inject into the sign

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particular kinds of purposes, namely, those forging action/belief alterations. As such, interpreters are encouraged to determine the destinations and goals of the participants of the narration. The destinations and goals are determined by the logical relations among Energetic Interpretants; they predict the ambulatory complexion of particular involved parties in the narrative episode toward one another. They do so by supplying a regulatory template whereupon happenings (actions, states), their participants, and the coordinates of space and time can be charted. As such, Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant is far from being prescriptive; it opens interpreters to impose new meanings, beyond those which narrators imply. To do so, interpreters utilize indexical measurement to monitor the origins, paths which single events contribute. Accordingly, Energetic Interpretants pinpoint the onset and offset of actions/beliefs and implicate causal agents—often prefaced by another’s preferences/recommendations/imperatives. This directionality and formation of action/belief schema shapes the incentive for episodes. Whether particular agents (and other participants) are influenced by preexisting or emerging deontic/epistemic leanings of other participants/onlookers can determine whether other participants behave in certain ways. As such, attitudes/perspectives can activate behaviors, or extinguish them suddenly or in progress—thus determining how an episode is likely to conclude (cataclysmically and saliently, or gradually and imperceptibly). Hence, Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant is an index of the tempo and collegiality of conduct; it can measure whether cooperation or competition surfaces between different actors. Thus, Energetic Interpretants instantiate both the being and shape of events in such a way that aspect (perfectivity and/or imperfectivity) is accentuated and promoted as a tool to follow the shape of reported accounts. Listeners of accounts rely upon how narrators characterize the movement and interaction of events, not merely interactions brought about by participants, but by the complexion of the events themselves. Whether and how an event interrupts the process of another (independent of particular agents/receivers) reveals the internal logic which the narrator is advocating. The perceived stops and starts of reported events are determined by the nature of the action (ordinarily within the lexicon which narrators choose), in addition to the narrators’ and listeners’ unique predilections. The punctuality and durativity depicted in aspectual meanings are inaugurated in Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant. This interpretant clarifies the internal constituencies of events, and helps listeners to distinguish the resultative effect across events—facilitating rationale of individual episodes. Since Energetic Interpretants trace agents’ efforts within and across events, they accentuate causative events. These interpretants force interpreters’ attention to one event (causative), while ignoring or deemphasizing others (less material in the logical scheme). As such, those events which are causative/contributors to a consequence, are made more obvious in the story scheme. Furthermore, consciously inhibiting/resisting a force by representing event prominence (via Energetic Interpretants) introduces narrator control–what tellers of the episode advocate that their receivers have in mind as linked events, hence potential arguments to consider. This influence satisfies Peirce’s maxim of promoting a “common place to stand” (MS 614), demonstrating mutual comprehension of

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the sign’s proper effect upon listeners. As such, Energetic Interpretants epitomize the perfectivity exercised by particular efforts, intimating the likelihood of their discursive success.

8.5 The Perfectivity Inherent in Energetic Interpretants Emphasizing changes by employing telic lexicons represents a quintessential illustration of the utility of Peirce’s Energetic Interpretant. The singleness of this kind of interpretant accentuates effort toward an effect, which is a primary feature (indicating telicity) intrinsic to accomplishment verbs (and implied in verbs having dynamicity). In fact, Energetic Interpretants constitute primary tools to energize behavior/belief changes, in view of their emphasis on effects emanating from a single event (1907: 5.475). Energetic Interpretants further make obvious the juncture of conclusions, hence further demonstrating dependence of telic verbs upon them. This trend especially operates in the case of accomplishment verbs, because they express resultative effects (in reported speech or otherwise). The telicity of accomplishment verbs can enliven listeners’ consciousness of a pivotal logical link contributing to the story’s episode, namely, the singleness inherent in the finality of a result. Furthermore, the agent’s influence over whether and how a happening materializes in the imperfectivity and perfectivity of these accomplishment-based events sensitizes listeners to the shape (endpoint) of the event itself. Because narrators’ selection of lexical items (verbs and nouns) and their arrangement (mixing of progressivity with completion forms/meanings) demonstrates the primacy of aspect’s operation in narrative genres. The fact that narrator’s choices influence how listeners attend to internal features which steer listeners’ underlying propositions of other events and participants manifests their modal effect. Narrators’ influence upon listeners’ composition of episodically motivated propositions and arguments illuminates aspect’s status as a modal operator. Narrators’ lexical portrayals bring to light the goals and purposes for recounting the events. Narrators’ intuitive decisions about how to situate constituent events to imply ontological and logical event interactions for listeners depends chiefly upon how they paint each event’s character and potential to monitor other events—like clay in the hands of a potter. Energy flows from narrators’ often unconscious renditions of how events spiral toward a resultative state of affairs, recognizing some increase in force.10 This issue of energy/force and changes in condition legitimizes the need to recognize the effect of perfectivity and imperfectivity, even in narrators’ choice of stative verbs. Deliberate employment of stative verbs (with NPs and PPs) which highlight dynamicity can accentuate experiential changes of participants in the narration—making applicable perfectivity-based meanings. Although perfectivity meanings are more implied in the use of stative lexicons, they offer some advantage over accomplishment or achievement verb lexicons. Listeners are encouraged to infer how participants 10

see Comrie (1976: 49).

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might think or feel at particular junctures, consequent to reported changes in their states, e.g., becoming well or digesting a poem. Forcing listeners to infer changes in state of participants in the narrative constitutes a concerted means to advance an insider viewpoint—such that listeners feel what participants feel, and think what they think.11 Selecting stative lexicons (with determinate NPs and PPs) and arranging them (sequencing and overlapping) to emphasize moments of change, advances modal operations; it entreats listeners to enter into the plight of those inside the narrative, discerning their belief and action reactions to stative modifications. Hence, the effect of drawing upon perfective meanings in states of being and doing facilitates insider viewpoints, thrusting listeners in the same functional role as the characters. Modal operations are alive and well, in that another (the listener) is entreated to anticipate and solve participant problems. As such, narrators’ employment of perfective meanings against imperfective ones commands listeners to question or confirm the beliefs/behaviors of another (who is often absent), and to search for reasons to avoid unforeseen outcomes. Energetic Interpretants often result in an effect of notable proportion (cf. supra) either upon affairs in nature (which ultimately are subject to interpretive minds), or directly upon mind-sharing between interlocutors. As such, Energetic Interpretants are charged with increasing the resultative element of episodic structures—namely, their effect. In doing so, the kernel of abductive reasoning, the consequence, is afforded greater prominence and heightened focus to the interpreting mind. Accordingly, attention to changes in states of affairs is intensified, bringing junctures into sharper focus. In this way, the termination of one state of affairs, and the institution of another, permits interpreters to impose analyses, the objectives of which recognize event-boundaries and hence discern contributions to consequent events. The element of surprise, in its external vividness, further centers the interpreter’s focus upon the need for consequent-based explications for unexpected states of affairs. As such, surprise embodies the very notion of perfective paradigms and draws attention to the onset of changes in regularity (the inadequacy of previous actions or belief structures). Hence, surprise brings interpreters the need to orchestrate habit-change. Nonetheless, the suddenness of instinctual surprise eventually expands into more reflective processes, as in double consciousness exchanges. The more conscious nature of this reflection promotes use of rationale to determine how to translate experiences of action sequences into recommendations for viable courses of action for self and for others. As such, Energetic Interpretants epitomize the perfectivity exercised by “perceptuations” or efforts, even when the resolution of conflicts is prolonged. The more prolonged exercise of the same effort ordinarily indicates that 11

For an amplified analysis of onlookers/observers, see Kravchenko (2018) in which he distinguishes between definite and indefinite sources of knowledge. The former, Kravchenko associates with immediately perceived events, while the latter, he determines to be “known”, but more accurately taken from memory. This analysis may be misleading, in that Kravchenko pairs the definite (observed) with the perfective aspect and the indefinite (known) with the imperfective; many stative verbs which are not easily perceptible can be either perfective or imperfective (i.e., “realize”). Peirce’s notion of “individual” would be a better fit for the characterization of perfective as momentary (1868: MS 931: 24), while the imperfective is more of a Peircean general.

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resistance is pronounced, and that the process of reconciling new with old facts is particularly arduous. The process of reconciling the new with the old can be complicated by discursive factors within narrative exchanges, demonstrating further challenges when separate minds fail to sufficiently share interpretants or collateral experience. The dialogue surfacing externally (between interlocutors) is more complicated, due to the sometimes-unfounded presumptions assumed by the partners; whereas internal dialogue presents fewer challenges. Once discourse becomes the forum for expressing hypotheses (within the same mind or between different minds), resolution of whether to accept the intruding facts must materialize in the form of an explicit assertion. The assertion’s intrusion upon the mind is significant, in view of the fact that interpreters have already attributed a degree of ownership to its logical value; thus, this intrusion forms the essence of the punctuality (telicity) inherent in surprise, as contrasted against the on-goingness. of atelic dynamicity. While surprise more often implicates punctuality, given the suddenness of the new feeling, it likewise demonstrates event continuity/durativity, in the interruption of a longstanding habit of belief or action. In other words, vivid happenings are accentuated against a backdrop of a progressing episode. Similarly, conflicts arising in double consciousness obviate perfective aspect by demarcating and tracing how unforeseen happenings disturb the flow of assertion consideration. In short, the awareness of the perfective and imperfective nature of Peirce’s Energetic Interpretants facilitates a search (via surprise and reconciliation) for workable hypotheses; the Energetic Interpretants make more prominent the shape of cause-effect paradigms by underscoring beginnings and conclusions of event sequences.12 Without attention to the demarcation between events, over and against progressivity (intrinsic in melding/adhering one event to another as per episode-building), arguments would simply be more disjointed, as assembling facts into a coherent and cohesive line of inquiry would be compromised. Inherent in punctual events (versus dynamic ones) is the element of surprise, which compels communicating the surprising event to others in the context of narrative. These narratives often begin when a surprising consequence, represented by a Pheme, forces the mind of the narrator to attach an explanation for the unexpected (anomalous) event; and afterward narrators share their hypotheses with listeners. When consolidating all of the defining features of Energetic Interpretants, it is exertion upon the mind of the interpreter that highlights its (the energetic interpretants’) function. This exertion applies both to aspectual changes within states of being (onset/offset of the state as a perfective, telic event), as well as to imperfective aspects as descriptions of event progression or iterativity (between interpreting minds). Because Energetic Interpretants are the most equipped to raise awareness of these aspectual distinctions (beginnings/culminations of events or repetition/ongoing event progressions), they can best measure the propulsive force that Peirce depicts in natural elements. In fact, this propulsion can equal or surpass that of human 12

cf. West (2016c).

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agents. By doing so, natural elements can “say things”; they can imply propositions, recommend courses of action. These natural signs (Phemes which function as modal operators for the perfective aspect) compel interpretations—at least as forcefully as do explicit linguistic propositions/arguments—and might be even clearer in their intent. Natural elements beckon us unambiguously toward the apprehension of certain ontological truths, as when an earthquake says, “Get out of here” (1906: MS 295). The earthquake insinuates itself punctually as a brute force modal operator—compelling notice of a different subject or predicate. Similarly, Phemes apply equally to narrative genres; they constitute speakers’ compulsive measures to reorient addressees’ focus, bearing witness to the partner that an imminent departure is the recommended course of action. Peirce’s Pheme is the quintessential sign to promote the Energetic Interpretant; it animates forces of nature to warn against or to suggest alternative beliefs/conduct. In doing so, it especially demonstrates the function of aspect in amplifying the Energetic Interpretant—in bringing before the mind the history of earthquakes’ effects, and convincing interpreters of the truth of the earthquake’s implied assertion to “get out of here”. Clearly, the perfectivity/suddenness of the event is forced upon the mind of the interpreter via the purpose that enlivens index—the exertion of the Energetic Interpretant. What the Energetic Interpretant makes particularly relevant, when it exerts its line of reasoning, is the space and time of the command, from natural or from living sources. This facility (afforded by perfective markers) to derive emotive exertions from natural, as well as cognizing, agents highlight the power of Energetic Interpretants to scaffold interpretive pursuits early in human ontogeny,13 and to serve a similar purpose for all animals—extracting meanings from the same natural speakers. In short, the effect of the natural and interpreting world to modify conduct from the perfective nature of exertive signs (indexes) constitutes a modal reorienting device, without which locations/paths and immanent times may be deemed irrelevant.

8.6 Retrospective Narrative Construction as Facilitator of Listener’s Abductions Linking sensical reasons to consequences in the mind of narrators (retrospective telling) is energized by particular signs (Phemes)—even before the narrative is told; when explanatory propositions are associated with Phemes, the signs which inform the progression of narratives take on argumentative status (1906: 4.552). Peirce refers to these arguments as Delomes, because they qualify as “creative inferences…” akin to abductive rationality. The process unfolds as follows: the meanings/effects (interpretants) initially emerge from Phemes (given the singleness of their occurrence), afterward these startling consequences (Energetic Interpretants) acquire a wider, more objective, and more logical meaning (Logical Interpretants). Although Phemes 13

cf. West (2016c/2019b).

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and their Energetic Interpretants energize telling the story at the outset, when inferences are proposed, it is Delomes which govern narrative interpretation. For the narrator, Delomes supply a reason and a forum to foreground new hypotheses. The rationale (proposals of how it is that the surprise materialized) are the essence of listeners’ Delomes. Although Phemes are elementary, in that they often emerge in the narrators’ working memory prior to telling the narrative, the Delome (developing from the Pheme) offers a more intricate logical scheme, in that propositions are strung together proffering more objective inferences. As such, the unexpected appearance of the single consequence (Pheme) activates searches for the underlying events which offer reasons explaining the surprise (advancing to Delome). The core meaning of Energetic Interpretants rests upon the punctual aspect intrinsic to surprising events. When narrators plan and tell their stories, they topicalize surprising outcomes and imply or state explanatory rationale for contributory antecedents. This process demonstrates the capital role of Energetic Interpretants and logical ones to communicate aspectual cues, which reveal the internal constituents of event relations. Using surprising consequences, narrators fashion the shape, the life and movement of constituent events. The internal constituency of episodes is gleaned from inferences explaining the progression and interactive potency of events, in view of how the characters act/react. Meanings of single events communicated via Phemes and their Energetic interpretants suggest the presence of influences/causes, they serve as catalysts for interpreters to develop arguments. They are the foundation for linking propositions to other propositions. Accordingly, narrators’ use of Phemes can reveal their primary intent in telling the account. Nonetheless, Peirce is explicit that it is the promise of framing Delomes (between narrators and interpreters) which causes interpreters to draw upon their own powers of “self-control” to “convey the very creative law or reason which determines facts to be as they are” (1906: MS 295: 28–29). Peirce, likewise, indicates that the Delome is an agent of “change” such that it: “tend[s] to act upon the Interpreter through his own self-control, representing a process of change in thought or signs, as if to induce this change in the Interpreter” (1906: 4.538). Peirce’s ultimate logical purpose is served via the scaffolding process, whereby tellers and interpreters of stories recommend effects not obvious to the other party, hence a change in thoughts or signs is effectuated within the listener’s own system of inquiry. According to Peirce, a primary device to activate self-control changes in thoughts and signs is to make happenings “actions of experience” by having the narrator express a series of surprises: “but precisely how does this action of experience take place? It takes place thought a series of surprises” (1903: EP2: 154). Peirce demonstrates in the same passage how a series of surprises activates Delomes as self-controlled creative inferences. These series of surprises contain unexpected happenings which conflict with interpreters’ propositions. The narrative genre constitutes a most fertile forum for narrators to augment propositions held by the receiving party, for the ultimate purpose of generating plausible Delomes/syllogisms/inferences (1906: MS 295). In “scrib[ing]” propositions/arguments via graphical signs (pictures or words which describe states of affairs and their sequences) narrators paint scenes for their interpreters; where upon the interpreter makes “erasures” and “insertions [that] accord with the ‘general

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permissions’ deducible from the conventions and with his own purposes” (1906: 4.552). To recommend syllogisms or inferences which have some likelihood of being sound, interpreters must first follow the tenor of the narrator’s propositions in each event. But, discerning the narrator’s arguments requires semio-episodic competencies, guided by a search for truth. Accordingly, the “erasures and insertions” (1906: 4.552) which interpreters impose upon narrators’ accounts bring them into line with community standards, while at the same time: “convey[ing] the very creative law or reason which determines facts to be as they are” (1906: MS 295: 29). In this way, interpreters serve esthetic ends which supersede their own idiosyncratic objectives (see Stjernfelt, 2021; West, 2021: 65; c. 1906: EP 2: 377). The ultimate purpose of narratives is to serve a higher purpose beyond individual goals—to work together for the benefit of improving current belief systems, embedded action schemes, and cultural climates, for the betterment of world communities at large. Before making suitable erasures/insertions, the interpreting party must have discerned the narrators’ reason for putting together the events as stated, and must apprehend the effects of such rendition were it to apply on a larger scale. To effectually do so, interpreters must formulate a matrix of each of the event’s meanings/effects, fitting them into more amplified episodic genres. Discerning the meanings/effects in accordance with Peirce’s triadic sign system (given the interpretants attaching to his Pheme and his Delome) supplies listeners with a template to first sculpt individual scenes within the narrative, then to agree with the narrator’s rationale or to offer alternative hypotheses for the influence of different antecedents. What gives licensure to interpreters to join in composing the narrative’s purpose is the order in which narrators reveal facts, and whether certain facts are deliberately unmentioned. Interpreters are likely to feel invited to resituate event relationships when narrators employ retrospective paradigms, in which sudden outcomes are made prominent, and antecedent events are left out. This template scaffolds listeners to become interpreters and critics—conjecturing and composing a new order of event and argument structure. Measuring the potential effects of single events (Energetic Interpretants) provides interpreters with one perhaps unanticipated effect which propels them toward further inquiry into which events might have contributed. Hence, retroductive telling recapitulates retroductive inferencing, in determining the plausibility of specific causes from surprising effects. Accordingly, listeners become increasingly cognizant of how single events serve as catalysts for constructing objective arguments, such that consequences predict and measure the influence of antecedents. In short, retrospective approaches on the part of narrators promote listeners’ interpretations—by leading with surprising consequences they highlight critical aspectual event features (telicity and punctuality). Initial retrospective telling features primary aspectual event characteristics which foment logical vigilance for listeners. Making prominent the perfectivity of sudden outcomes over the imperfectivity of background events narrators expose which happenings comprise a logical nucleus. Early identification (on the part of narrators) of sudden, culminating events, classifies them as resultative, and recommends that listeners insert plausible contributory events along with at least some tenable rationale. When interpreters draw upon these resultative happenings (Energetic Interpretants) to measure the kind and

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degree of consequences wrought (whether affirmative or detrimental); then interpreters invite themselves through their own self-control as to what factor(s) would have been responsible. Retrospective story paradigms allow interpreters to initially springboard from the same propositional focus as their narrators (the surprising consequence); afterward they are granted the licensure to insert additional propositions to account for the consequence. In this way, Delomes are born—to explain percussive outcomes. It is obvious that where and when the narrator situates particular events can affect whether listeners are cognitively ready to conjecture as to viable antecedents to the consequence. Placing the consequence before possible contributing events in the story scheme reveals not merely its prominence in the narrative, but serves as an imperative to impose abductive rationality by inserting propositions to convey an argument/Delome. In fact, how narrators present events as contemporaneous or sequential with respect to neighboring events is nothing short of a deictic affair. This holds relevance in narrative genres since classification of the event’s aspect determines what logical meanings are associated with antecedent events. The order and proximity among events can imply some interaction (although admittedly such may lead interpreters astray); in any case, deictic issues of time, place and participant shifting intimate aspectual changes such as endpoints/iterativity inherent in perfective and imperfective meanings, respectively. Temporal deixis is made relevant when narrators make plane the tenor of events’ effects upon one another in portraying actions/states as either emerging simultaneously or sequentially—since in the latter case one event terminates, while the other is initiated (perfective aspect). The former case suggests imperfectivity, since a descriptive meaning take precedence—emphasizing events as part and parcel of a whole (an episode). Conversely, perfectivity implies imposition or lack of entanglement between events, emphasizing finality. Such may not always operate as described; choosing simultaneity sometimes depicts perfectivity, when narrators choose to have two events run concurrently (at the outset), but may have one terminate thereafter—emphasizing some perfectivelike effect. The result upon the interrupted event often suggests causal relations vital to the narrative’s progression. Alternatively, lexical choices (not merely event placement) on the part of the narrator can force listeners to focus on certain resultative effects and to determine premises and hypotheses which might follow. In this way, narrators lead listeners to conjecture as to possible antecedents of resultative events: by presenting first the unexpected resultative circumstance—allowing listeners to look backward to generate Delomes. Introducing the consequence before its antecedent has the advantage of surprising listeners, such that they (along with narrators) conjecture as to how the consequence might have materialized. Utilizing this retrospective approach provides narrators with a reliable paradigm to make their listeners active partners. It is a non-artificial device that narrators can employ to put listeners on notice that the why for the consequence needs to be filled in. A retrospective approach (first presenting the consequence to the listener) increases the efficacy of the narrator’s account; and listeners’ conjectures can serve as a measurement of the success for telling the narrative in the first place.

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In fact, listeners are more likely to inject themselves into participants’ unsuspecting outcomes and propose more viable outcomes), when they feel that they have a stake in the outcome. Consequently, narrators’ presentation of the outcome first is a helpful strategy; it induces listeners to utilize narrative facts/undisclosed facts to propose their own explanations for surprising outcomes. Narrators’ use of a consequence-first, retrospective method is instrumental in promoting a search for plausible reasons to explain the surprising outcomes. Presenting the surprising consequence first demonstrates how emphasizing perfective events can induce interpreters to reconstruct the story as the narrator sees it, or to diverge with their own conjectures. Presenting single event strikes of perfective, surprising outcomes is paramount for Peirce; they convince interpreters that unexpected consequences are not arbitrary and/or capricious, but warrant serious inquiry for underlying rationale. The narrative genre is particularly ripe to compel consideration of new, originary hypotheses, and hence can serve as the catalyst to compel interlocutors’ adoption of novel inferences. Introducing material into the narrative which advances inquiry into the role of explicit and unmentioned events, allows narrators to direct listeners’ attention to the topic of discourse, and to the propositions/arguments which the narrator holds to be primary. In this way, interpreters receive integrated event composites which convey narrators’ episodic schema—insinuating how the events at hand impinge upon one another, (logically and practically). The implicit questions which narrators pose—what event(s) caused the surprise—cause listeners to impose a logical schema to integrate events into an episodic framework, but entering the very fabric of the narrative by feeling characters’ motivations and future resultative states of being. Shifting listeners’ attention to resultative events (having punctual or telic attributes) when telling narratives, compels them to enter into the fray of the narration as if it were a living set of happenings whose consequences and antecedents are relevant to their own interests. Structuring narratives to accentuate these internal event constituencies can make relevant (logically and practically) the train of the characters’ proceedings which, in turn, stimulates predictions of what characters are likely to do next. As such, narrators entreat listeners to see the unseen (the yet to happen), as though they were present in the narrative. With retrospective devices, narrators invite listeners to appreciate aspectual changes (perfective to imperfective) by residing in the trajectory of the event-flow. If narrators have the foresight to do this, they can hasten interpreters’ opportunity to make sound predictions from an inside (experiencing event-flow), rather than an outside perspective. A more inside perspective forces listeners to experience the aspectual character of the narrative—by way of the shock and dynamicity which might not be realized otherwise. With this inside experience, interpreters have an enhanced profile of what the narrator intends to background and deemphasize, or foreground and topicalize. In short, narrators have at their disposal specific means to supply further opportunity for their listeners to make use of implicit relations to fabricate retroductions.

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8.7 Evidence from Children’s Narratives: Frog, Where Are You? Frog, Where are You? constitutes a ripe forum to examine how child narrators understand and communicate aspectual changes, because it consists of twenty-four individual scenes depicted on different pages within a story book. Having the same depictions and sequence facilitates topical unanimity—allowing more valid comparisons across subjects. Moreover, using the same picture prompts militates in favor of common content/focus within and across age groups. The structure of the book provides a sequence of events, and actions/expressions insinuating protagonists’ goals. But, to ensure against being overly suggestive of the story’s theme, the title of the book was obscured altogether. Prior to narrating, the adult preempted what subjects focused on; the adult named and pointed to: a boy, a dog, and a frog. This method provided a topical focus for younger subjects—to determine who and what had prominence. Subjects were first asked to look through the entire book, then tell the story while both parties looked at the pictures. During the narration, both child narrators and adult listeners sat side-by-side, such that both were able to see the pictures. Looking (as adult listener) at the pictures simultaneously with child narrators may introduce an artificial factor, since the adult-experimenters were discouraged from prompting or providing substantive comments,—the use of verbal feedback was minimized. Silence, nods of the head, articulating “uh-huh”/“okay”/“yes”/“anything else?”/“go on” are examples of remarks to be excluded. The fact that both the child and adult had access to the same depictions (story-line) may have been a disincentive for the children to tell listeners what they already know; hence, shared knowledge may have decreased the number of topics which the child narrators introduced. Shared knowledge of the pictures may have permitted more focus on filling in the spaces or gaps between pictures, and suggesting rationale for facts. This practice could prevent children from merely describing the singleness of individual pictures—especially at 3;0 and 4;0 (Berman and Slobin 1994: 23). A disadvantage of this method is the content bias (of what to tell) in light of narrative structures: onset, unfolding, and resolution of plot (Labov and Waletzky 1967, cf. Berman and Slobin 1994: 46), especially given younger children’s tendency to identify pictures, without making logical connections detailing the what and why of the boy’s and dog’s actions and feelings. Findings from Berman and Slobin (1994: 23) show that older children are not subject to this limitation—at 5;0 and thereafter, children transcended fixation on the individual pictures, expressing an episodic framework (plot beginning, unfolding, and resolution). Shared knowledge (simultaneous focus on the same depictions) may supply an advantage for older child-narrators— with iconic and indexical cues, they can together make inferences explaining logical relations across events from a retroductive perspective, beginning with surprising consequences. With respect to younger children, telling facts for which listeners have little prior knowledge may force them to reflect upon the reason for the prior or next happening. Directing both younger and older children to base their logical

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pursuit retroductively, from the consequence to potential antecedents (according to Peirce’s abductive inferencing approach) requires the implementation of some deliberate enhancing methods on the part of interlocuters. Drawing children’s attention to the surprise element of outcomes is vital to integrate retroductive rationality into the story. Nonetheless, on their own, independent of interlocuters’ interventions, signs, themselves (particularly Phemes) can have interventive effects. The lack of obvious explanation which pictures/depictions afford can compel younger narrators to inference retroductively. For the present study, the data were recoded to determine whether surprise influenced what narrators included in their narrations. Children’s verb production of Vendler’s four lexical categories (see infra, this chapter) was orchestrated to show whether punctual and telic events, which enshrine the element of surprise, supersede stative and activity events. Verbless sentences with noun phrases were likewise included in the analysis. Two independent raters reached a 0.9 interrater reliability rate based on 60% of the data. See appendix A for a sample coding scheme. The criteria used to distinguish surprising events from regular events include: 1. The depicted event portrays something startling or unusual based on the narrator’s prior knowledge schemes (subjective) 2. The depicted event breaks from the logical sequence established in previous frames (objective) 3. The degree of surprise displayed by the characters depicted in the event, e.g. expressions of fear, suspense, pleasure, confusion, misfortune (empathic). The present analysis reveals that, although frequencies of both surprising and other events increase with age, frequencies of surprising events are notably higher at all ages. Mean relative frequencies of surprising events are as follows: 0.7 at 3;0, increasing to 0.8 at 4;0, rising to 0.9 at 5;0, and finally reaching 0.99 at 9;0 (see Fig. 8.1). These frequencies show that subjects overwhelmingly mentioned events which depict unexpected characters or effects in their narratives, rather than mentioning a preponderance of background, expected events. These findings indicate that children at all ages employed surprising consequences to form the nucleus for proposition-building for their interpreters—a claim for which Peirce is adamant (see 1906: MS295: 29). These surprising outcomes become the bedrock connecting propositions to other propositions, and calling for arguments (1906: 4.552). In short, the present findings show that Phemes (as surprising, indexical and iconic signs) operate as a potent force when telling narratives, given the attentional impact spurred by the double nature of indexical and iconic meanings. The contrast between features expected to surface and those which actually appear excites narrators’ notice as unlikely bedfellows, e.g., pictures featuring new object configurations or new together-objects. These surprising depictions suggest different logical subjectpredicate connections, which accounts for the fact that they are more often selected by the subjects for topic presentation to their listeners. The indexical component of Phemes further advances the fit of new propositional material proposed by the iconic features into the episodic scheme. As such, At all ages, subjects employ the indexical component to serve a critical deictic function—pointing backward to see whether

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Fig. 8.1 Comparison of surprising vs. regular events with age

plausible antecedent events can complete the inquiry by offering explanations for the surprising outcomes. In this way, the potency of icons and indices together in the Pheme incite the adult listeners to use unexpected outcomes as catalysts to determine causality through retroductive inferencing. The mean relative frequencies of surprising events have been calculated as proportions of total surprising events (twelve) which subjects mentioned in their narratives. Similarly, the mean relative frequencies of regular events represent proportions (of the twelve events) which the subjects actually mentioned. Children’s mean relative frequencies of telic verbs show a similar pattern to frequencies of surprising events. Telic verbs in this analysis incorporate both use of achievement and accomplishment verbs. Findings demonstrate predominance of telic verb use when mentioning surprising versus regular events across all age groups— 0.6 at 3;0 to 0.75 at 9;0 (see Fig. 8.2). In contrast, telic verb use in non-surprising contexts (although likewise high) increases are less notable—slightly increasing at 4;0, then decreasing at 5;0, and ultimately increasing markedly at 9;0. These trends show a sample-wide preference for telic verbs in production of surprising events. When mentioning surprising events, child narrators (at all age groups) employ Achievement verbs most often compared to verbs of other Vendlerian categories (see Tables 8.1 and 8.2 and Figs. 8.3 and 8.4). The mean relative frequency of Achievement verbs is more than double frequencies of Accomplishment, Activity, or State verbs. Such is the case among three-year-olds; but frequencies further increase to more than triple the relative frequency of other verb categories by nine years of age (0.46 at 3;0, 0.47 at 4;0, 0.51 at 5;0, and 0.64 at 9;0). With respect to events without the element of surprise, an upward trend with age for achievement verbs is likewise noted, although the trend is less steep than

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Fig. 8.2 Mean relative frequencies of telic verb use in surprising events vs. regular events

Table 8.1 Mean relative frequencies of surprising events 3;0

Achievement verbs

Accomplishment verbs

Activity verbs

State verbs

0.46

0.18

0.16

0.2

4;0

0.47

0.16

0.24

0.14

5;0

0.51

0.21

0.15

0.13

9;0

0.64

0.07

0.12

0.16

Activity verbs

State verbs

Table 8.2 Mean relative frequencies of regular events Achievement verbs

Accomplishment verbs

3;0

0.14

0.23

0.27

0.36

4;0

0.16

0.34

0.33

0.18

5;0

0.18

0.3

0.27

0.26

9;0

0.25

0.23

0.37

0.14

that of surprising events. In contrast, children’s production of other verb categories (accomplishment, activity, state) shows no pattern of use for either surprising or non-surprising events, which constitutes A reverse trend compared to production of surprising events. Conversely, mean relative frequencies of Achievement verbs in non-surprising contexts demonstrate an altogether different pattern; they are lower than those of the other verb types for all age groups except age nine (0.14 at 3;0, 0.16 at 4;0, 0.18 at 5;0, and 0.25 at 9;0). This performance difference (preference for

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Fig. 8.3 Mean relative frequencies of surprising events

Fig. 8.4 Mean relative frequencies of regular events

achievement verbs) in surprising events is further highlighted by the rather flat distribution of frequencies for the four verb types across all age groups, independent of the surprise element. Nonetheless, unlike surprising events, mean frequencies show quite different selection of verb types when less surprising events were described, namely, increased production of Activity Accomplishment, and State over achievement verbs.

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Nonetheless, the low incidence of accomplishment verbs at 3;0 is curious, since these verbs include in their lexemes the semantic element of culmination, which is associated with perfectivity. In fact, they employ accomplishment verbs least often with respect to the other verb categories: 0.18. Essentially, younger narrators within the sample less frequently chose verbs which emphasize internal movement toward a goal (accomplishment verbs); but their frequency of use of punctual verbs (which feature instantaneity) nonetheless demonstrates a preference for perfectivity over imperfectivity. The three-year-olds’ frequent production of achievement verbs featuring sudden happenings is in line with their more frequent mention of surprising outcomes. While the latter express something happening all-at-once, the former (accomplishment verbs) encode dynamicity as well as telicity—the former characterizing imperfectivity. But, (as mentioned previously) three-year-old’s use of achievement verbs appear to demonstrate a proclivity to separate out each instantaneous event, rather than to focus on outcomes for purposes of eliciting inquiry into causes for the respective outcome. In other words, at early ages, achievement verb use may not encode logical goal-based meaning paradigms. With age, however, meanings of achievement verbs (punctuality) is augmented after 5;0, once argument structure incorporates contributory binding of instantaneous happenings. A caveat is notable here with respect to the performance of the three-year-olds. Their high frequency of punctual verbs to emphasize events as separate may (despite possible absence of a logical terminus) unwittingly advantage their listeners to make inferences from the narrators’ attention to consequences as topics in the narrative. This focus may (without young narrators’ realization) may lead listeners to infer antecedents. In short, the three-year-old’s proclivity to direct listeners’ attention to surprising outcomes can serve as a model for retroductive approaches. Child narrators’ frequent use of punctual verbs (achievement) may not actually imply the existence of antecedent events from sudden outcomes, but may at least establish and put into motion Peirce’s consequent-to-antecedent paradigm. Even if causal grounding (potential antecedents which might have promoted the consequence) is not operating for three-year-olds, their piecemeal narrative may still give rise to a cognitive advantage for listeners. Changes in states (which can possess a telic meaning component) appear to be similarly unlinked to causal eventualities for subjects at all ages. Since production of stative verbs is reasonably low with respect to achievement verbs, the telic, hence perfective meanings which can reside in stative events may not have been realized. Telic meanings in stative verb use (e.g., recovery from physical illness) are often less frequent and less obvious in adult input than are more imperfective uses, because the primary semantic feature of conditions ordinarily comprises continuance. As a consequence, the preponderance of imperfective meanings in this verb type (stative) may have contributed to low incidence. Conversely, suddenness as instantiated in both onset and offset, and in instantaneous events (codified in punctual and telic verbs) even if not associated with their full meaning, may, nonetheless serve as a catalyst for abductive logic in narrative contexts. What these child-narrators recognized and reported in their narratives as primary consequent to exposure to the picture book are depictions of unexpected outcomes.

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Subjects overwhelming chose to include such in their narratives, when an icon depicted some incongruence with an indexical feature, namely, the sequence of events. Hence, these kinds of signs (whose icons conflict or are unconventional with respect to the series of events that comprise the episode) account for child-narrators’ impetus to announce them, and to impose their import upon listeners. These kinds of iconic and indexical strands became enshrined in the narrative, which produces a discontinuous profile. The semiotic character of this profile often omitted descriptive, background information (based on imperfective meanings)—requiring listeners to fill in the progression of the account. Gaps in the narrators’ account may have been influenced by the arrangement in the book itself—placement of depictions on distinct pages. This surprise oriented narrative paradigm is not without some advantage— advancing interlocuters’ inquiry into logical explanations for the surprises. Still, the possibility of creating logically discontinuous stories (with slide-like accounts), may imply the existence of several narratives, intertwined—precluding retroductive inferencing. The separation of scenes may have different effects for narrators at distinct ages—having a more affirmative effect for older children (inducing inquiry into event-relations). Narrators must apprehend that the facts of the narrative consist likewise in the spaces between pictures/icons—superseding their function as signposts. The literal mind of younger child-narrators assumes that empty spaces/pauses mean just that—absence of meanings in which logical relations are not implicated. More specifically, at 3;0, accounts are rather disparate, such that the rationale or why of the episode itself does not structure the component events (Hayne & Imuta, 2011, see also Chap. 2). Hayne and Imuta’s findings reveal that child narrators inform their listeners of the places where events transpired, while not imposing temporal organization (which would indicate beginning and endpoints with respect to other events). Tulving (2002: 7 and 2005: 11) discusses how child narrators’ inability at 3;0 to supersede place considerations and organize component events according to a logicbased time-line reflects a failure to embed the elements into episodic frames. In light of Tulving’s observations, interventions (on the part of narrators) to make prominent telic and punctual aspects of events, while integrating background descriptions of ongoing states, is critical. Before 5;0, child narrators do not reliably possess the requisite theory of mind skills to realize which signs contribute to sequenced events for their listeners. In fact, they, themselves may not have imposed logical coherency on the series of events; hence their means to express temporal overlaps between events is inadequate to reveal episodic coherence. The emergence of these temporal skills (sequencing and binding into episodic frames) has far-reaching facilitative consequences—highlighting aspectual distinctions for their interlocuters. Narrators must direct their listeners to view the internal constituencies of events—that episodes are implied. Utilizing signs which increase listeners knowledge of and rationale for participants’ motivations and next moves is paramount to the interpretive process. For this reason, narrators’ aspectual competencies and the semiotic devices which represent them become the linchpin to predict what participants will do next, and to infer which preceding events are responsible for the unexpected outcomes. Highlighting continuities and stops and starts within the account, is indispensable to enhance aspectual determinations; and failure

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to express event dynamicity and culmination can depress generation of interpreters’ retroductive inferencing. Expressing punctuality by means of surprising outcomes, while omitting foregrounded happenings, although having limitations, may, in fact, hasten the self-controlled inquiry which Peirce advocates.

8.8 Conclusion The value of highlighting aspectual changes when telling stories is formidable; it orients interpreters (especially children) to which events constitute signposts for the establishment of themes. Emphasizing the length and frequency of events (which perfective and imperfective aspect accomplish) provides hints to interpreters as to the permeability of events to be influenced by others. Narrators can imply the role that events play in the narrative by first introducing a perfective event (a surprising outcome) to initiate interpreters’ searches for relevant antecedents. Populating narratives with surprising events constitutes a scaffolding strategy to call interpreters to become partners in determining rationale which underlie prominent effects. This process is retrospective in nature; and it is summarily semiotic—in that it utilizes Phemes for the manufacture of Delomes (1906: 4.552). Leading with surprising consequences constitutes the introduction of Phemes, which command interpreters to investigate reasons for the unexpected outcomes. Peirce advocates that the latter is foundational to engaging in self-controlled inquiry toward entertainment of plausible hunches. These hunches qualify as abductions; they suggest logical relations paramount to determining the narratives’ meaning applicable to wider, esthetic purposes, e.g., why participants are featured in particular roles, and how their actions/states (frequency, continuence, suddenness) inform the narratives’ teachable intent. When interpreters contrast imperfective events with perfective ones, consequent to narrators attempts to highlight resultative affairs, they induce interpreters to propose logical schema which hold together consequences with effects. In short, setting certain actions/states as background and foregrounding them with surprising, perfective events promotes interpreters’ discernment of themes within the narrative. The present account demonstrates how narrators utilize individual events (given their Energetic Interpretants) to propose believable rationale with more amplified (more esthetic) meanings applicable to the community at large. In foregrounding surprising events to hasten listeners’ self-initiated proposal of Delomes, narrators make obvious atomistic event attributes; such emphasizes the punctual and telic characteristics intrinsic to perfectivity, topicalizing that proposition when listeners formulate arguments therefrom. This way of telling narratives demonstrates a pivotal role for aspect in the generation of Delomes. Contrasting the onset and offset of the dynamicity/on-goingness of other events provides more imperfective, background facts from which interpreters can examine potential antecedents. In this way, both aspects can be employed to fashion a coherent matrix: pausing, highlighting interruptions between events, overlapping events, and creating parallelisms

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across events. With these methods, narrators create not a web of undifferentiated, entangled happenings, but a template for their listeners to follow the plot. When narrators suggest valencies across events by contrasting sudden with descriptive states of affairs, they create opportunities for listeners to make inferences regarding interevent shape. As such, narrators scaffold listeners’ generation of arguments, which comprise not single propositions alone (descriptions of a single event), but explanatory connections between/among propositions, per Peirce’s Delome (1906: 4.552; 1906: MS 295:29). Narrators’ introduction of surprising events thrusts listeners into a different state of consciousness—a change in expectation—about the progression of the narrative. The perfectivity (punctuality) of presenting the surprising consequence launches a new awareness of cause-effect event relations. In using perfective events to call listeners to look back at contributing events, narrators can induce an appreciation of how the dynamicity of imperfective events within the narrative (or even events not explicitly presented therein) might have evoked the surprise. In featuring junctures between events (beginning, middle, end) as foregrounded, and in demonstrating their resultative consequences upon background states of affairs, narrators leave their listeners to infer the reasons for “bumping” or “crashing” of one event into/against another; or conjecturing gradual sustenance between two concurrent events—causative events emerging/taking place in tandem. In these ways, narrators’ aspectual choices recommend to their listeners how to determine whether antecedents or concurrent happenings are responsible for a given surprising consequence. As such, making prominent Energetic Interpretants allows interpreters to measure how such affects other states of affairs. Measuring the interaction of these two events, underscores any changes wrought by the action/state; this observation determines the shape of episodes for listeners. Moreover, the attentional competence to keep imperfective events in the background (imperfective aspect)—describing as commentator—supplies additional insight for interpreters into which happenings have less relevance in the context. Circumscribing aspect on events is indispensable in narrative genres; it enhances interpreters’ awareness of subtle event contours, thereby navigating them toward more plausible and creative laws (1906: MS 295: 29). Consequently, notice of aspectual distinctions in actions/states increase the practical and intellectual purposes within the sign, making more prominent the role of the Energetic Interpretant to command responses, or to recommend courses of action (1909: MS 637: 12). The increased awareness, which aspect supplies, permits speakers and hearers to draw upon more informed (more specific) collateral experience (either facts from LTM or concurrent facts in the narrative).14 This collateral experience is invaluable to generate sound judgements to mitigate deleterious effects likely to materialize outside the narrative, in the community at large.

14

cf. Bergman (2010) for background on Peirce’s concept of collateral experience.

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Index

A Abduction deliberative abduction, 27, 67, 68, 73, 82, 83, 85, 88 instinctual abduction, 9, 68, 70, 73, 78, 82–89, 114 Abductive reasoning, 7, 16, 36, 61, 63, 73, 75, 101, 103, 107, 116, 131, 133, 137, 148, 170 Allocentric perspectives, 101, 102, 107 Antecedent, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 13–15, 22, 24, 26, 29, 32, 33, 35, 55, 61, 76, 113–123, 128, 129, 132, 133, 136, 144, 150, 151, 162, 167, 173–176, 178, 179, 182, 184, 185 Apagogy, 7 Argument(s), 3–5, 7, 8, 10–14, 16, 17, 22, 25–27, 30, 32, 33, 35, 41–43, 49, 54–62, 69–71, 73, 76, 77, 81, 86, 87, 89, 93, 94, 96, 105–108, 115–121, 124, 125, 127, 128, 130–133, 141, 143–146, 149, 150, 152–154, 157–159, 162, 168, 169, 171–176, 178, 182, 184, 185 Aspect imperfective aspect, 162, 165, 171, 184, 185 perfective aspect, 158, 160, 161, 163, 165, 170–172, 175 Austin, 23, 42, 47–49, 58 Autonoesis, 100, 101, 106, 107

B Baddeley, 15, 71–75, 86–88, 90, 107, 108, 143, 157

Bamberg, 31 Bergman, 56, 123, 124, 151, 165, 185 Binding, 12, 15, 16, 86, 182, 183 C Chunking, 69, 70, 72, 73, 75, 79, 84, 86, 87, 90 Consciousness double consciousness, 16, 17, 24, 35, 36, 80, 81, 84, 90, 124, 127–130, 144–150, 170, 171 D Deixis, 175 Delome, 32, 56, 57, 59–62, 113–121, 132, 133, 159, 172, 173, 175, 184, 185 Dialectic, 1, 2, 4, 7–13, 15–17 Dialogue dialogic, 8, 10, 11, 16, 126, 127, 141 E Egocentric perspectives, 99, 102, 103 Encoding, 73, 74, 84, 87, 89, 96, 104, 161 Endoporeutic, 21–23, 25–28, 31, 32, 41–44, 46, 50, 54, 56, 57, 61, 62, 118, 119, 145, 152, 154 Episode, 6, 8–10, 12, 13, 16, 18, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 53, 61, 67, 68, 70–72, 76, 77, 82, 84, 86–88, 91, 93–95, 97, 98, 100–104, 106–109, 114, 115, 124, 126, 133–135, 137, 141, 143, 151, 154, 157–160, 163–169, 171, 173, 175, 183, 185 Episodic buffer, 15, 71–74, 108

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 D. E. West, Narrative as Dialectic Abduction, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics 64, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15093-7

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190 F Firstness, 2, 16, 45, 59, 80, 81, 84, 88, 90, 99, 113, 114, 119, 120, 122, 125–128, 135, 136, 143, 147–149

G Gestural performative, 22, 28, 29, 41, 46, 47, 49, 58, 59, 62

H Habit habit-change, 6, 17, 23, 25, 42, 116, 123, 125, 126, 128, 135, 147, 152, 170 virtual habit, 184 Hallucination auditory, 17, 151, 152, 154 obsessive, 142, 151 Hypostatic abstraction, 80, 84, 99, 125

I Icon, 6, 14, 26, 29, 45, 47, 52–56, 68, 70, 94, 105, 106, 108, 136, 179, 183 Illocutionary acts, 48 Index, 21–23, 25–31, 41–46, 50–62, 68, 70, 93–95, 97, 98, 101, 105–108, 132, 136, 168, 172 Inference retroductive inferencing, 15, 16, 174, 179, 183, 184 Interpretant dynamic, 45, 56, 58, 108, 144 emotional, 16, 32, 58 final, 43, 59, 113–115, 137 general, 120, 170, 173 immediate, 45, 114, 144 logical, 16, 30, 32, 42, 43, 45, 54, 55, 58, 61, 62, 76, 79, 94, 96, 108, 113, 115, 118, 119, 121, 127, 136, 163, 168, 171–175, 184 Intuition, 2, 9, 10, 86, 157 Investigand, 117, 118, 120, 121

L Legisign, 28, 29, 46, 69, 72 Locutionary acts, 48

M Mass effect, 130 Mass effect 3, 131

Index Memory episodic, 16, 105–107 procedural, 104, 107 semantic, 104, 107 working, 35, 67, 69, 71, 73, 86, 87, 143, 145, 149, 157, 173

N Narrative narration, 3, 18, 31, 32, 36, 67, 73, 82, 83, 85, 93, 96, 103, 107, 108, 116, 168, 176, 178 narrator, 1, 3–9, 11, 12, 17, 26, 32, 67, 68, 70, 72, 82, 83, 85, 88–90, 96, 102, 108, 113, 116, 120–124, 126, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 142, 143, 145, 151, 152, 157, 158, 161, 167–169, 171–178, 182–185

O Object dynamical object, 24, 27, 44, 45, 54, 78, 130, 137, 143, 144, 146 immediate object, 27, 29, 45, 46, 78, 130 Ontogenetic, 105

P Path bi-directional, 97, 99 uni-directional, 97, 99 Peirce ten fold division of sign, 16, 32, 41, 94, 104, 105, 114, 135, 136 Percept perceptual judgement, 77, 78, 146, 147 perceptuation, 81, 151 Perlocutionary acts, 48 Phemes, 55, 57–61, 79, 94, 115–117, 119, 120, 157, 159, 172, 173, 178, 184 Phonological loop, 71, 72, 74, 75 Pietarinen, 22, 26, 41, 118, 119, 144, 145, 163 Pragmatics, 184 Principle of sequence, 16, 55, 61, 114, 117, 125, 137, 138 Proposition, 4, 5, 7, 10–12, 15, 17, 21–23, 25–28, 30–33, 41–44, 46–50, 53–55, 57–62, 68–71, 73, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 90, 93, 94, 104–106, 108, 115, 117, 119, 122, 125, 127, 128, 141–150,

Index

191 152–154, 157, 169, 172–176, 178, 184, 185

Q Qualia, 97–99, 106

R Representamen, 23, 29, 41–43, 45, 47, 52, 58, 144, 154 Retroduction, 118, 120, 121, 126, 132, 142, 176

S Secondness, 16, 23–25, 27, 44, 45, 47, 57, 78, 81, 84, 90, 113, 114, 122, 126–129, 135–137, 142–147, 149 Seme, 32, 33, 43, 45, 56–62, 79, 113–117 Surprising consequence, 1, 10, 15, 16, 18, 35, 70, 73, 75, 76, 82, 85, 97, 105, 106, 108, 113, 116–122, 130, 132,

133, 136, 146, 147, 157, 159, 171, 173–178, 184, 185 Symbol, 6, 14, 49, 54, 105

T Telicity, 33, 97, 157, 160, 161, 166, 169, 171, 174, 182 Temporal deixis, 175 Tense, 158, 161, 167 Theory of mind, 31, 34, 87, 88, 100, 133, 166, 183 Thirdness, 16, 23–25, 27, 28, 44, 46, 54, 56, 58, 78, 81, 84, 113, 119, 122, 126–128, 135, 136, 144, 147–149 Triadic system, 157 Tulving, 35, 183

V Visuospatial sketchpad, 71, 72, 74, 75 Vividness, 17, 90, 127, 128, 135, 136, 143–146, 148–150, 170