Embodiment and Mediation: Towards a More Robust Philosophy of Communication

Abstract

The philosophical idea of communication has dramatically run through ages between the Scylla of an untenable principle of telepathy —i.e. the ideal of a direct, unmediated conveyance of thought from mind to mind— and the Charybdis of solipsism. Despite Peirce never paid attention to the “problem of communication” as such, he was surely worried by such a challenging idea, at least in the way it can be arguably subsumed under the much more intricate problem of mediation. Nonetheless, Peirce’s late definition of the sign as a medium that communicates forms has to deal precisely with a rather problematic tension between an ideal of semiotic transparency and the need for concrete expression. In this paper, the author takes into account some earlier discussions in secondary literature concerning the challenge of semiotic transparency. It will then be argued that Peirce’s mature definition of the sign as a genuine medium is, to a great extent, intended to elucidate the conundrums of both telepathy and embodiment. In this sense, it will be defended that the sign, far from being a translucent vehicle for the conveyance of pure forms, is a genuine third that plays a key transformative role in allowing growth and development in the continuity of experience. Finally, some consequences will be drawn in order to build a more robust philosophy of communication in which the abysses of both semiotic idealism and solipsism are overcome without diminishing the imperatives of indeterminacy and corporeal incarnation.