Talk:Triangle of reference

What has happened??
I referenced the page "Semiotic Triangle", because it was a useful and informative page. Now I am redirected to this page which is at best a stub and at worst - well devoid of anything useful apart from some scattered references. Please please please reinstate the original page??? This re-direct is vandalism in my view. LookingGlass (talk) 12:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well at least I got the original diagram back! Thanks "mystery writer"! LookingGlass (talk) 16:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I support this view: Semiotic Triangle gets more Google hits than Triangle of reference.--EvenT (talk) 10:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

i have voiced the same concerns - the original article was pulled from wiki for undisclosed reasons by some 'special powers'. please put the original semiotic triangle page back again - or at least explain why it should not be in wiki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.218.47.16 (talk) 15:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Years later: why is the origianl page not put back? it was definitively more informativ as the current stub. If there were reasons to pull it, then it should be explained, otherwise it is vandalism by 'special (wiki) powers'. Why are some wiki users more equal than others and need not explain their actions?Andrewufrank (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * It is a pity with the English wikipedia that obviously nobody takes responsibility for anything. And it is a shame that the person responsible for the here addressed revert prefers to vanish.HJJHolm (talk) 06:24, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Similarities
This roughly shows Fig. 1, on page 3 of Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language, authored by Simon Blackburn (1984), where no reference is made to the seminal triangle of reference and Ogden & Richards (1923) The Meaning of Meaning. --KYPark (talk) 06:19, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The figure has been replaced. --KYPark (talk) 08:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Sensual is causal
Note that the sign-scene relation is least sensual, hence, least causal or explicit. User:KYPark --125.128.159.55 (talk) 11:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Implications
 AIM Alternate Information Model QUICK Quadrant Unit Information Cycle Knockdown

SOUP Subjective encoder-decoder axis Objective encoding-decoded axis Unified Perspective 
 * modified --KYPark(talk) 01:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * modified --KYPark (talk) 02:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * In Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity (1998) Etienne Wenger adopts the metaphors "reification" and "participation" for the upper and lower (encoder and decoder) hemicycles of AIM, respectively. --KYPark (talk) 03:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The lefthand and righthand hemicycles roughly relate to symbology or philosophy of language and epistemology or philosophy of mind, respectively. Nevertheless, such hemicycles and quadrant cycles have been too long and too intricately intertwined to be isolated from each other, hence almost irreducible. This irreducibility, esp. of the human factor along the subjective axis, is the key point of the triangle of reference (1923), of the Delta Factor in The Message in the Bottle (1975) by Walker Percy, of Person and Object (1976) by Roderick Chisholm in deliberate contrast with W.V. Quine's Word and Object (1960) along the objective axis only, regardless of the human factor on the subjective axis! --KYPark (talk) 03:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The more analytic philosophy, logical positivism, behaviorism, computationalism (a.k.a. cognitivism in irony), and the like, doing without the cognitive (knowing and coding) subject, the less cognitive revolution in effect, allegedly since the late 1950s but actually since the late 1970s, two decades later, if any. In 1990, Jerome Bruner affirmed the "contextual revolution" instead, which is so holistic by definition that Chomsky's innatism appears far worse than Skinner's behaviorism that certainly has more to do with Carol Chomsky's "repeated reading" (1978), as mentioned by Alan E. Farstrup and S. Jay Samuels (2002) What research has to say about reading instruction (p. 177) as follows:
 * "At Harvard University, Carol Chomsky, the other developer of repeated reading, had friends who reported that they were having trouble teaching reading to a few students, and they asked for her help. Chomsky (1978) devised a method in which the text was recorded on a tape and the student listened to the tape recording while reading the words in the text. The tape-assisted reading was repeated until the student could read the passage without help from the tape at a rate that was the same as the tape." --KYPark (talk) 09:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Information in flux, from spacetime to spacetime, should be encoded and decoded one way or another, from medium to medium. Such is information by definition, marked by flow and transform.

The great, e.g., digital library system is greater than the sum of its petrified parts or books. To defend old libraries, however, a ALA president-elect was to define information as a snippet isolated from the context, or, the petrified book. --KYPark (talk) 08:09, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Terrible article
This may make sense in the internal logic of whoever wrote it, but for the rest of us this article reads like a essay on Time Cube. It is unreadable and unintelligible. It seems totally unsourced and lacking in any expert input, or indeed input from anybody possessing a trace of sanity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.74.192 (talk) 04:38, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Why it is triadic
In serious face-to-face or mind-to-mind conversation, for example, we are supposed to prefer truth to lie. Then we do need something else than the word and the mind that may be too selfish to be wholly true. That is the objective thing, fact, reality, or state of affairs in question that is self-evident in itself or by definition. Hence the triad in need in deed indeed!

In this regard, the Saussure's word-and-mind dyad (1916) in terms of signifier and signified, appears fatally flawed. Then, what about the Quine's word-and-thing dyad (1960) in terms of Word and Object? This may be worse than the Saussure's, definitely in case of conversation, for example. The worst may be such objectivism as enforced at the cost of dehumanization when the human factor is unavoidable at all.

All of a sudden anyway! this may be where:
 * Paul Grice wrote "Logic and Conversation" (1975) in relation to implicature he newly coined. (Other Berkeley scholars wrote along his line of thought. They look like rallying for it!)
 * Gordon Pask, whom Heinz von Foerster called the cybernetician's cybernetician, developed the conversation theory (1975),
 * Walker Percy coined and wrote The Delta Factor (1975), synonymous to the triad,
 * Hilary Putnam coined the famous, if not notorious, dictum "Meanings just ain't in the head" (1975), arguing for objectivity (of the thing) and against subjectivity (of the mind), hence strongly against the triad, likely to defend Harvard's or Quine's dyadic tradition (since 1960).
 * Meanwhile, Roderick Chisholm deliberately contrasted his book title Person and Object (1976) with Quine's Word and Object (1960) so as to attend to subjectivity lost so long at the costly cost of objectivity.
 * Strangely, many others argued against objectivity, and for subjectivity, uncertainty, and the like quite unusually, in consilience. Why? This must have been a really great paradigm shift to take humanity seriously into account, however subjective and unpredictable.

The past contributions to this article serve as a certain measure, negative or positive. This article is definitely far poorer than the German counterpart. Why so self-defeating? if not so self-planned anyway!

This talk is to address why the trinity at all. As a sequel, how the trinity works to your benefit may come sooner or later. The present practice or karma is to be historically evaluated. Do you ever note that she may deliberately ignore something that she owes too much in fact? Refer to 1987/Kochen. I wonder what face she would make should the impact of the "triangle of reference" fully turn out.

--KYPark (talk) 11:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting comments KYPark, but, as the introduction clearly states, the triangle: "is a model of how linguistic symbols are related to the objects they represent". It is NOT a model of conversation.  Please use this Talk page within wiki guidelines i.e. NO for general discussion on the subject of the article but for furthering the quality of the article itself. LookingGlass (talk) 05:38, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Draconian changes
This article is titled: "Triangle of Reference". It deals with that work published in "The Meaning of Meaning" (1923) by Ogden and Richards. There are two things therefore that this article is NOT about:
 * It is NOT an article about communication/interlocutory acts.
 * It is NOT a general purpose page for philosophical theories of language.

The article IS a wikipedia page about a specific contribution to the field of semiotics. I have therefore "tidied" it up accordingly, placing interlocutory and other theories under the section: Interlocutory applications. In my opinion most of this should be deleted.

It can be seen from this "simple" house-cleaning exercise that there is very little in the original article that directly concerns its subject i.e. the Triangle! The overwhelming majority concerns work, substantial parts of which appear to be original research and therefore not appropriate for a wikipedia article, that simply makes tangential or implied reference to the topic as a claim for inclusion here. I have removed the "Delta Factor" section in its entirety, converting it into a simple reference to the article concerned under See Also, as it concerns essays on theories of language and, from what has been written here, does not directly address the Triangle. I would like to see the Dirction of Fit sub-section "trimmed" but do not have the heart at this time to do it as I quite like the O.R. of the table in it!! However ... I'll be back.

I have also clarified the introduction, which in its original state confounded referrent with reference and therby omitted the reference itself. While the distinction between the two may be considered debatable by some, it is the central distinction made in the Triangle about which this article is.

LookingGlass (talk) 07:38, 24 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I think we could also now consolidate the various message boxes (especially if we delete the OR..) LookingGlass (talk) 07:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

What this article has completely wrong
Forgive me. I am unfamiliar with the way you all do your editing, so this may not be the correct place to note an error. But let me please say that whomever wrote this: "The triangle concerns the relationship between an expression and the subject of that expression. It draws a distinction between referent (a word or non-literal representation e.g. a hieroglyph) and symbol (a literal representation), and sets out and describes the relationships between these and the thought or object that is the subject of them" could not be more wrong. In the bottom left of the triangle, where Ogden and Richards label "symbol" they include linguistic symbols, i.e., words. The right side of the triangle refers to actual things in the world. Thus, the word "dog" is a symbol for the "certain common objects in our streets" (12), i.e., the canine animal. Between the word/symbol and the actual animal are all the mental references (labeled "Thought or Reference") which distinguish every dog, no matter how dissimilar (such as a terrier and a mastif), from all not-dogs. The whole purpose of the triangle is to show that our words refer to mental constructs and not directly to things except perhaps in onomatopoetic situations. Whoever wrote this demonstrates profound ignorance of the subject, as this semiotic triangle (10-12) is really basic to the subject and the text at hand. 66.211.206.44 (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Object vs. subject
The final sentence of the introduction had to be changed, because the author of the former version even confused object and subject, and obviously never had any notice of the field of Semiotics, for which I added a link. HJJHolm (talk) 06:43, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

The Treachery of Art

 * The Treachery of Images

While showing an image of a pipe, you may well say a shorthand "This is a pipe" for "This is an image of a pipe." And the audience may well understand you, assuming "an image of" as a subtext submerged below it. For language should be confusingly not only precise but also concise, say, shorthand. From the viewpoint of mindful images, if any, however, such an ignoring subtext may do injustice to them. Then, one way of The Treachery of Images (1929) would be to say, "This is not a pipe." but just its helpless image!

KYPark (talk) 07:22, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Reality
Reality matters most! To say, "Let us get nearer to the fire, so that we can see what we are saying," as quoted on page 1, in front of the opening chapter Thoughts, Words and Things, is saying, "Let us get nearer to the reality so as to tell the truth," so that
 * Thoughts relate Words to Things in reality.

KYPark (talk) 16:16, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Triangle of reference. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080110140900/http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Papers/App_Papers/Erickstad.htm to http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Papers/App_Papers/Erickstad.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080102230650/http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Papers/App_Papers/Cahill.htm to http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Papers/App_Papers/Cahill.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 05:06, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

interpretation
Trying to make sense of what is behind semantics:

Most linguistically minded people are familiar with the Ogden semiotic triangle[1] as a kind of definition of semantics that I am inserting below. The figure is intended to illustrate relations between a thought, a symbol and a referent. Now assuming that such a representation is real, then we need to add the fact that what is represented is a product of an observer, a person. A person is rightfully described in terms of his/her capacity to act, to operate, including mentally. Therefore the top peak of the triangle could be identified as the person himself/herself (reduced here to a thought), who then observes and/or notice an object (the referent) and gives it a name, or recall one (the sign). The two acts may be overlapping and are either based on or result in a mental operation of the person which connects the two “objects” by a relation operation called here an imputed relation. This latter operation may also be seen as the observer relating to the two objects, both individually and then binding the two together. Thus we have a relation operation performed by the observer resulting in the establishment of a relation between the sign and the referent. The fact that the observer relates himself to both and his/her own idea or reflection of the same is usually neglected. It is also neglected that the observer produces or creates a physical sign in addition to just perceiving the rest of reality. One question is whether the above relation is a binary or a ternary relation. Before trying to answer the question, read this passage below: A dynamic interpretation of the triangle above The concept holder (a) refers to a reference (c) (isolates it), and creates a symbol (b) (gives it a name) that symbolizes the referent (by mutual agreement). He assumes that the symbol (b) refers to the referent (c), and finally the concept holder believes that the symbol (b) really stands for referent (c), although this is only an abstraction stemming in tautology. The verbs used in the triangle may be interpreted similarly - symbolizes, refers to and stands for should be seen as subjectively assigned in all cases. All those verbal relations are abstractions of relations, hence relations are abstractions represented by verbs. The first relation that exists is what a person does when he/she thinks/perceives/observes/sees/notices/detects the world around him/her. Therefore it is called relates, hence relation. 1.      Turn the triangle upside down.

upload failed, fucking procedure

2.      Imagine that you (a) (the bearer of reference) see and refer to (relation) an object (referent) (c). Draw a line from (a) to (c). This is isolation. 3.      Give it a name, or a symbol (b). Draw a line from (a) to (b). Hence you create/indicate a property (of the object, the referent c) by abstraction 4.      Think that the two (c and b) are also mentally related, or rather, they are in a relation where b substitutes c. This is another abstraction, concretisation 5.      All this is an exercise for a thought (of meaning) also possible to express as a simple sentence (SP), where any putative verb in the predicate represents the relation. “I (claim) that reference (equivalence relation) exists between a referent (object) and a symbol (its property), because I am referring to an object by referring to its name, hence being in a relation such as observation or other similar verb.” 6.  This is in fact corresponds to (the sorting act of) abstraction a-c, a-b, and b c, 7.      This may be represented as a syllogism. An exercise in (deduction): Major premise: All M (a) are P (c). Minor premise: All S (a) are M (b). Conclusion: All S (b) are P (c). Clearly, the observer or operator is removed, no longer present. 8.     What you get here is a representation of your thoughts, or you could also say, mental operations that are 1. Isolation 2. Name giving. 3. Abstraction. The semantic elements involved are: object, property and relation. Now we have answered the above question whether the relation represented in Ogden’s triangle is a binary or a ternary relation. It is a ternary relation reduced to a binary one. It means that meaning shall be interpreted in pairs of objects in a single relation at a time.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ogden_semiotic_triangle.png Rabbiplus (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2023 (UTC)