Aesthetic of Art Symbols: Susan Langer's Study on Symbolic Aesthetics

Author: Wu Feng / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: Lang's definition of the connotation of signs further highlights her distinction between signs, symbols, and signals. Many Western semioticians or signals and signs all things with symbolic characteristics, without strictly defining their relationships. However, Lang made a strict distinction among the three. In her view, although they are closely related and sometimes even intersect or overlap, they have essential differences. A sign (sign) is a general concept that represents all human symbolic things. Lang's view is influenced by Morris. In the preface to the second edition of "New Interpretations of Philosophy," she said: "Morris replaced the term 'sign' with the term 'sign' I originally used. The great advantage of Morris's usage is that it allows us to use the term 'sign' to represent any medium of meaning, signal, or symbol." A signal (signal) is part of an ongoing event and directly indicates the specific thing it corresponds to. For an observer with rich experience, it means a significant state of stillness, it is a sign of the state of affairs, and it is something that instructs action or a method. The relationship between a signal and the thing it represents is a one-to-one simple relationship, that is, one signal corresponds to one determined object and can only be used within a specific range. Lang further divides signals into natural signals and artificial signals. Natural signals refer to a natural phenomenon that can trigger or represent another natural phenomenon, such as a wet street being a signal that it has rained; the sound of rain tapping on the roof is a signal that it is raining; the drop in barometric pressure, the low-flying swallows are a signal that it will rain; artificial signals refer to signals made by humans to represent certain things, often the product of certain human life customs, such as traffic lights at important intersections are signals indicating whether it is stopped or can pass. (Lang's division of natural signals and artificial signals is clearly inspired by Kant.) From the perspective of constituent elements and logical relationships, a signal contains three basic aspects: subject, signal, and object. A symbol (symbol) can convey a certain meaning or intrinsic connotation, it is not a substitute for things but a medium for concepts, and it has indirect reference. Lang said: "A name is the simplest type of symbol, it is directly connected to a concept." ① The things represented by a symbol are much more complex than those represented by a signal. The relationship between a symbol and an object is not like a signal, most signals are conventional, arbitrary, and random, while a symbol and the thing it represents have a similar logical form, for example, a map is a typical symbol, it indicates specific topographic structures, that is, the logical form of topography, the isomorphism between the logical form of the map and the terrain allows people to understand the corresponding real terrain through the map. Therefore, Lang said: "Symbols and objects have a common logical form." ② From the perspective of constituent elements and logical relationships, a symbol involves four basic aspects: subject, symbol, concept, and object. Here, Lang refers to the process from the symbol to the concept as connotation and the transition from the concept to the specific thing as denotation. Lang uses "water" as an example to illustrate this point. "Water" as a symbol, people will first think of the concept it refers to when they encounter this symbol. That is, water is a colorless, tasteless, transparent liquid, the concept of water distinguishes it from other substances such as oil. On the premise of understanding this symbolic concept, people then associate water with various specific seawater, river water, lake water, well water. It is worth noting that Lang explains the fundamental difference between symbols and signals from the point of the essential difference between humans and animals. In Lang's view, there is a profound difference between using symbols and merely using signals. The conditional reflex of animals belongs to the use of signals, although humans also use signals, they do not use signals like all other animals, but also use them to express them. Lang said: "We use certain signals among ourselves, which do not refer to anything in our current real environment. Most of our words are not signs in the sense of signals, they are often used to talk about things related to them, not to guide our eyes, ears, and noses to face these things. In this sense, signals are not signs of things, but symbols of things." ① Lang believes that signals and symbols have similarities, but in the different use of animals and humans, signals are transformed into symbols. The reason why human symbolic activities are higher than animal signal activities is that symbolic activities have already included abstract and conceptual activities. Therefore, in Lang's view, the evolution from signals to symbols is not an ordinary transformation, but a transformation from the particular to the general, from the special to the universal, from the sensory to the rational, which is a qualitative leap. It is the fundamental sign of humans stepping out of the animal world. Section 5 Deductive Symbols and Representational Symbols Another important aspect of Susanne Langer's symbolic theory is that she divides all human symbolic phenomena so far into two major systems: deductive symbols and representational symbols. These two major symbolic systems represent all human spiritual life and mental experience. Lang's division lays the theoretical foundation for her proposition that "art is a special representational symbol." I Deductive Symbols Deductive (discursive) symbols originate from human naming symbols. Humans first used a series of single symbols (words) to name specific, individual, and current objects, but this simple naming symbol could not express more complex things, so people combined some naming symbols of certain things, states, and actions according to certain language symbol connection rules "combined" to express a concept, judgment, and reasoning relationship of things, thus forming a deductive symbol. Lang once said: "A name can at most hint at this thing. But as soon as you start to state, you must necessarily use a symbolic form to indicate the relationships between various things, and even the relationships between some specific things and the nature of these things." In Lang's view, deductive symbols have the following characteristics: 1. Deductive symbols are first used to describe the relationships, properties, and characteristics of various specific things. It arranges the names and symbols of individual things in a certain combination way, making them convey and describe certain objective facts and states. The reason for this feature of deductive symbols is that it not only contains symbols relative to certain things, but also the combination form of these symbols is consistent with some actual situations. Lang calls this consistency the "logical projection" of objective objects and deductive symbols. 2. Deductive symbols represent the formation process of abstract ideas or concepts, so they have a clarity and certainty, and have a plan that is deducible and operable. 3. Deductive symbols have permanent units of meaning, these units can be combined into larger units, and have fixed correspondences that make definition and translation possible. Moreover, this meaning can convey universality. 4. Deductive symbols contain elements of Russell and Wittgenstein's atomism. Russell believed that human understanding of the world is achieved through the path of logical propositions, and the entire world can be deduced from some basic proposition forms because the structure of the entire world is a logical structure. Lang's deductive symbols were developed on the basis of Russell and Wittgenstein's logical theory. In "New Interpretations of Philosophy," she cited the views of Russell's "The Scientific Method in Philosophy," Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," and Carnap's "Logical Syntax of Language" to prove her deductive symbolic theory. Lang believes that among human symbols, scientific symbols, logical symbols, and language symbols can be attributed to the deductive symbolic system, and the most typical are language symbols. Lang points out that language is the most outstanding, amazing symbol invented by humans so far, a "pure symbol" that meets the essence of the symbol in all aspects. "In a strict sense, language is essentially deductive," Lang said. The deductiveness of language symbols is reflected in that it is organized according to logical grammatical rules, the meaning of words is determined by their "reference" and their position in the sentence. This deductive symbolic language can express the connections between various specific things and can also express the nature of things as well as people's understanding and evaluation of things.