I’ve always tried to approach philosophy with a practical mindset. While theory is crucial for any meaningful application, the value of practice—’the practical touch’—is often underestimated in philosophy.
The practical touch is especially important in Peirce’s semiotics, because for Peirce, feelings and sentiments are the foundation of semiosis. Understanding the world isn’t just an intellectual process driven by what Peirce calls logical interpretants. Emotional and energetic interpretants are equally important for participating meaningfully with the world.
In other words, semiotics isn’t something you can fully grasp purely on an intellectual level, rather it’s a skill to be practiced. To truly understand Peirce and semiotics, we must develop a sense of what it feels like to experience the world semiotically.
One way to explore this idea is by focusing on mindsets or attitudes, which refer to the ways we approach and interpret our experience. Mindsets, as I see them, lie somewhere between sentiments and guiding principles of thought. They shape our thinking more explicitly than sentiments, but they are emotionally more charged than purely ‘intellectual’ principles.
Consider problem-solving for example. One person might face problems with a negative mindset, viewing every challenge as a frustrating barrier. Another person might approach the same problems with a positive attitude, seeing them as opportunities for growth and learning. The perception of the situation is the same, but the experience can feel completely different depending on the attitude.
This brings us to a key question: what does it mean to have a semiotic attitude? And more importantly, how does it differ from the attitude we might currently hold?
Dyadic and Triadic Thinking
There are at least two kinds of attitudes: dyadic (nominalistic) and triadic (semiotic).
Dyadic thinking is about drawing boundaries, identifying contrasts and opposites. It focuses on classifications, dualisms, juxtapositions and tensions, often organizing phenomena into a framework of dyadic continuums. This way of thinking is deeply embedded in how our society currently approaches the world.
A clear example of dyadic thinking is found in intersectionality, or as the slang term goes, ‘the woke’. Intersectional thinking sets off from the premise that every general thing—be it habit, symbol, pattern, organization, convention, social structure, or culture—can ultimately be reduced to and explained by an underlying relation of oppression between an oppressor and the oppressed. In this view, our society, as a system, is shaped and governed by these pervasive structures of conflict and domination.
In other words, everything that can be explained, every general pattern, is framed through the lens of a dyadic conflict. When every explanation is fundamentally rooted in domination, our attitude gradually shifts toward seeing conflict everywhere.
Another example of dyadic thinking is the classic Cartesian paradigm, which divides reality into two fundamentally distinct and mutually exclusive chunks: mind and matter. This dualism creates a persistent challenge: how to bridge the gap between phenomenological experience and physical processes.
The central problem with Cartesian thought is that it treats mind and matter as discontinuous realms, without any true shared continuity. Thinking becomes trapped in this dualistic framework, where one either attempts to wrestle with the paradox or is forced to choose which realm is fundamental, collapsing the other into it.
For instance, materialists often try to escape dualism by reducing everything to physical interactions (2ndness). However, this reductionism struggles to account for phenomena like meaning, logic, purpose, or life, which seem irreducible to mere material processes.
We could spend all day exploring the many forms of dyadic thinking, but I want to make a more general point. Dyadic thinking divides, deconstructs, and frames the world in terms of conflict, leaving us feeling disconnected from reality. It builds walls, highlights boundaries, and perceives unbridgeable gulfs. Why? Because its entire approach is rooted in setting phenomena against each other, attempting to explain the world by breaking it into isolated pieces of being. As Peirce observes:
[Dualistic philosophy] performs its analyses with an axe, leaving, as the ultimate elements, unrelated chunks of being. (EP2: 2, 1893)
As I see it, the dyadic thinker has two options:
Attempt a synthesis and bring the chunks together, but because true synthesis requires triadic mediation, the relationships between chunks are reduced to dynamic relations of conflict and force (2ndness), such as ideas of oppression or domination.
Elevating one chunk above the others and reduce everything else to second-order phenomena, as seen in the materialist perspective, where one chunk (matter) is considered fundamental, and all other phenomena (mind, meaning, purpose, life) are regarded as derivative.
Semiotic Thinking
What is then the semiotic attitude? Honestly, I don’t think I’m in any position to definitively answer this question—if there even is a simple answer. What I share below are my personal reflections, not a final or authoritative description of what the semiotic attitude might be.
That said, in my view, triadic (or semiotic) thinking starts from a fundamentally different place. Where dyadic thinking emphasizes division and contrasts, semiotic thinking begins by seeking the common ground—the shared medium that mediates between two opposing parts. It focuses on finding the “third” that connects the first and the second.
Rather than highlighting separations, semiotic thinking strives to weave everything together into a coherent whole, to see the bigger picture. Its focus is on mediation rather than difference. In this way, triadic thinking expresses itself as a constructive, unifying attitude.
But in my opinion, there’s more to the semiotic attitude than just seeking mediation. For this attitude to truly make sense, one must hold certain underlying beliefs:
There is a real shared continuum of being: Beneath the differences, there exists a deeper reality that connects everything into a continuum that unites everything.
Separation and conflict are not final: The parts of life and reality that seem divided or even in opposition can be brought together. They are not fundamentally opposed but are capable of being reconciled or woven into a harmony.
The first idea is synechism: the belief that reality is, at its core, a continuum. From this perspective, individuals aren’t entirely separate from one another but are instead expressions of a larger, continuous whole. Imagine individual points on a sheet of paper. At first glance, they seem separate and disconnected, but in reality, they all share the same continuous sheet that holds them together.
Particular things give the impression of being self-sufficient and separate from everything else, but for Peirce, they are ultimately connected to the greater continuum. Everything is connected on a deep level and nothing can be completely separated from the underlying unity. This applies naturally to us too:
I doubt if any of the great discoveries ought, properly, to be considered as altogether individual achievements; and I think many will share this doubt. (EP1: 371, 1893)
This brings us to the second idea: the belief in the cosmic unconditional love—agape. Even though we are all part of the same continuum, real differences exist, and these differences can lead to conflict and tension. Nevertheless, conflicts can be overcome. There is the possibility of cosmic harmony.
The movement of love is circular, at one and the same impulse projecting creations into independency and drawing them into harmony. This seems complicated when stated so; but it is fully summed up in the simple formula we call the Golden Rule. … Sacrifice your own perfection to the perfectionment of your neighbor. (EP1: 353, 1893)
The semiotic attitude is grounded in a belief in the inherent reasonableness of the cosmos. It holds to the idea that the universe isn’t just a random collection of disconnected parts but a unified, meaningful, and beautiful work of art. At its heart is the conviction that unconditional love (agape) is the fundamental guiding force of all reality.
Where dyadic thinking creates separate realms that cannot truly communicate, triadic thinking seeks to establish communication and connection with everything. Dyadic thinking breaks things apart. Triadic thinking brings them back together.
Thank you for reading.
Sincerely,
Markus
Your didatic is incredible Markus!