OK, I just talked about this a few days ago. (here and here if you're coming via Google) I still plan on finding some explicit places where Derrida requires Icons and Indexes as Signs. They are there, I've just not had time to go through my texts. In the meantime though I found a quote from Peirce about Symbols that I think makes such a necessity moot. That is if people accept that Derrida adopts the Peircean Symbol then logically the Index and Icon follows. (Of course folks can critique Derrida's understanding of Peirce)
The only way in which an index can be a proposition is by involving an icon. But what icon does this feeling present? Does it exhibit anything similar to similarity? to suppose that the feeling in question conveys its meaning by presenting in a new idea a vague duplicate of the idea first present, gratuitous as this hypothesis would be, would not suffice to prove the feeling to be an index, since a symbol would be requisite to inform us that hte first idea and the newly presented idea were similar; and even then there would be the element of preteritness to be conveyed, which no icon and consequently no index could signify. It is quite certain therefore that in this feeling we have a definite instance of a symbol which, in a certain sense, necessarily, signifies what it does. We have already seen that it can only be by an accident, and not by inherent necessity, that a symbol signifies what it does. The two results are reconciled by the consideration that the accident in this case is that we are so constituted that the feeling shall be so interpreted by us.
[...]
My principal object in drawing attention to this symbol of similarity is to show that the significations of symbols have various grades of directedness up to the limit of being themselves their own significations. An icon is significant with absolute directness of a character which it embodies; and every symbol refers more or less indirectly to an icon.
An index is directly denotative of a real object with which it is in reaction. Every symbol refers more or less indirectly to a real object through an index. (EP 2:319, 320)
I should note that the context to the first paragraph is the feeling of deja vu as being an icon. Peirce argues that it is actually a symbol. However what is key is his claim out of this thinking that all symbols have as part of them an icon. He then adds the claim that all symbols have an index. (And of course the index part is tied to the dynamic/immediate object that I'd discussed)
I bring all this up simply to point out that Peirce doesn't think that the arbitrariness of the symbol (what he calls the accidental nature) affects their also involving indexes and icons.
Now this isn't enough to necessarily indicate Derrida is adopting the Peircean sign. However it is more than enough to falsify claims that by appealing to a Symbol Derrida of necessity excludes the icon and index.
I've argued that the nature of the object for a sign entails something like Derrida's notion of the Other and that Derrida discourse of the Other entails indexicality. The bigger issue, as I've said repeatedly over the past few years, is how Peirce conceives of icons and repetition. That may be a place where one can attack Derrida. But despite reading on the topic a fair bit I'm still unsure of the exact nature of that problem.
Hopefully though I can next turn to Derrida to take the other fork of this set of criticisms.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
and Theology
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