SEMIOSIS KOMODITAS SEBAGAI SUATU RELASI DI ANTARA RELASI-RELASI

intisari tulisan Paul Kockelman“A Semiotic Ontology of the Commodity”

http://www.columbia.edu/~pk2113/Article%20PDFs/Semiotic%20Ontology%20of%20the%20Commodity.pdf

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VARIOUS “RELATION BETWEEN RELATIONS”

“RELATION BETWEEN RELATIONS” MENURUT ARISTOTLE

Aristotle argued that equivalence of value should turn on geometric ratios. For example, if we are engaged in a system of redistribution (e.g., what kinds of people should be given what proportion of goods from the collective share), then the following relation between relations should hold: as my status is relative to yours (e.g., you are a knight and I am a knave), so should my share be relative to yours (e.g., you receive 10 jugs of wine and I receive one).

Aristotle generalized this logic of equivalence to forms of exchange more akin to reciprocation than to redistribution and to forms of value turning on discipline and punishment (e.g., an eye for an eye, or a Hail Mary for an impure thought) as much as utility and price (e.g., how many bottles of wine for a pair of shoes, or how much wage for how much work)

“RELATION BETWEEN RELATIONS” MENURUT MARX

Building on Aristotle’s idea, Marx (1967 [1867]) characterized value in similar terms but with a focus on capitalist economies in which the people were (formally) equal and the goods were (qualitatively) different.

In particular, value was a relation between people (e.g., different kinds of roles within a division of labor) mediated by a relation between things (e.g., different kinds of commodities within a market)

Marx, of course, was not just interested in where value comes from or why people strive for it but also in how the systematic misrecognition of the origins of value is both cause and effect of the very relationality that mediates it

MARX’Z ONTOLOGY OF THE COMMODITY

Karl Marx’s understanding of the commodity, then, is grounded in a dualistic ontology, whose top-most branch (use-value versus value) is grounded in what he called the pivot of political economy: use-value is the product of concrete labor, a trans-historic relation between man and nature; and value is the product of abstract labor, a historically- specific relation between man and man

“RELATION BETWEEN RELATIONS” MENURUT SAUSSURE

The idea of relations between relations was not just crucial to understanding value in the sense of what someone strives for; it was also crucial for understanding meaning in the sense of what something stands for.

Saussure (1983 [1916]), for example, famously introduced this idea with regard to linguistic structure: within a given language, the relation between any particular linguistic form and its meaning (e.g., a word and a concept) must be analyzed in relation to the relations between other linguistics forms and their meanings (e.g., other words and concepts within a particular grammatical construction or semantic field).

“RELATION BETWEEN RELATIONS” MENURUT PIERCE

Peirce, in contrast to Saussure, was focused on semiotic processes instead of semiological structures, and inference and indexicality rather than convention and code.

He defined such processes in terms of relations between relations: a sign stands for its object on the one hand and its interpretant on the other in such a way as to make the interpretant stand in relation to the object corresponding to its own relation to the object (Kockelman 2005; Peirce 1992 [1868]; fig. 4).

Joint attention is perhaps the exemplary semiotic process: a child turning to observe what her father is observing involves an interpretant (the child’s change in attention), an object (what the parent, and later the child, is attending to), and a sign (the parent’s direction of attention or gesture that directs attention).

Here the relation between relations, what Peirce called “correspondence,” is the relation between the parent’s direction of attention and the object and the child’s direction of attention and the object.

SUATU RELASI DI ANTARA RELASI-RELASI : “HUBUNGAN BER-KESESUAI-AN” MENURUT CHARLES S PEIRCE A TRICHOTOMY

OBJECT INTERPRETANT

SIGN

(a) (b)

(c)

• Di satu sisi, SIGN – misalnya sebuah kata – mewujudkan OBJECT-nya [‘maklum’-nya] (a);

• Di sisi lain, SIGN mewakili its INTERPRETANT [=‘hal’-nya] (b)

• sedemikian rupa hingga membawa ‘the latter’ [interpretant, =‘hal’] ke dalam relasi dengan ‘the former ‘ [= object, ‘sesuatu’] (c)

• berkesesuaian (“corresponding”) dengan relasi dirinya [interpretant] sendiri dengan the former [=sign] (a)

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Interpretant, adalah efek sebuah sign pada

seseorang yang membaca atau

memahaminya. [Peirce, teori "triadic of the sign”]

Interpretant adalah sebab yang memungkinkan

sebuah representamen laksana sign sebuah

object; Interpretant juga "effect" dari proses

semeiosis atau signification.

"I confine the word representation to the

operation of a sign or its relation to the object for

the interpreter of the representation. The

concrete subject that represents I call a sign or a

representamen." — C. S. Peirce

COMMODITY AS “RELATION BETWEEN RELATIONS” – LAKSANA (=KUALITAS YANG MENDEFINISIKAN) “MENJADI” DAN

“SEBAGAI”

Di satu sisi, use-value mewujudkan (=“menjadi”) value (a); Di sisi lain use-value mewakili (=“sebagai”) exchange-value (b), sedemikian

rupa hingga membawa the latter [exchange-value ] kedalam relasinya terhadap the former [value] (c) corresponding - berkesesuaian,

laksana relasi dirinya [exchange-value ] itu sendiri dengan the former [use-value] (a).

What is at issue in meaningfulness,

then, is not one relation between

a sign and an object (qua ‘standing for’), but

rather a relation between two

such relations (qua ‘correspondence’).

VALUE EXCHANGE-VALUE

USE-VALUE

(a) (b)

(c)

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VALUE AS ‘COLLATERAL RELATIONALITY’

The value of a use-value is that to which all exchange-values of that use-value collaterally relate. A collateral relation is thus a particular kind of conditional relation when the object in question (in this case, value) relates interpretants (in this case, exchange-values) via commensuration: rendered comparable by reference to proportional quantities of a shared quality.

Commensuration is a process whereby otherwise distinct entities are rendered comparable by reference to proportional quantities of a shared quality (Aristotle 2001b; Espeland and Stevens 1998; Marx 1967).

IN DIFFERENT CASES: “INSTRUMENTS” & “ACTIONS”

A FUNCTION AN ACTION

AN ARTIFICED ENTITY

A PURPOSE A REACTION

AN CONTROLLED BEHAVIOR

IN THE CASE OF

ACTIONS

IN THE CASE OF INSTRUMENTS

(INTERPRETANT)

(SIGN)

(OBJECT)

(INTERPRETANT)

(SIGN)

(OBJECT)

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an action that wields entity or instrument that incorporates or

contextualizes entity (in light of the function it serves)

a reaction is an action that reacts to behavior,

an instrument that is realized by behavior, or instrument that

contextualizes behavior (in light of the purpose it

undertakes)

an instrument is not a material artifact per

se (e.g., the configuration of wood

and steel that we call a “hammer”). Rather, an

instrument is a relational process of

selection and significance

An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, which allows an individual to perform an action. E.g.,

a knob affords twisting, and perhaps pushing,

while a cord affords pulling.

IN THE CASE OF “AFFORDANCE”

PURCHASE ACTION

NATURAL FEATURE

IN THE CASE OF

AFFORDANCE

(INTERPRETANT)

(SIGN)

(OBJECT)

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an action that heeds feature or instrument that incorporates feature

(in light of the purchase it provides)

Use-values are simultaneously semiotic processes (i.e., instruments, which consist of an artificed entity as their sign, a function as their object, and a mode of wielding as their interpretant) AND the sign-component of larger semiotic processes (i.e., commodities, which consist of a use-value as their sign, a value as their object, and an exchange-value as their interpretant).

In this way a commodity is meta-semiotic: consisting of a larger semiotic process, each of whose components may be smaller semiotic processes.

A COMMODITY IS META-SEMIOSIS VALUE EXCHANGE-VALUE

USE-VALUE

Embedding Semiotic Process

Embedded Semiotic Process

SIGN: say, an artificed entity (in the case of instruments);

or an controlled behavior (in the case of actions)

INTERPRETANT: say, an action that wields an artificed entity (in the case of instruments); or a reaction (in the case of actions)

OBJECT: say, a function (in the case of

instruments); or a purpose (in the case of

actions)

CAVEAT: THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD AS A STRATEGY AND NOT A SYSTEM.

Theoretically, there may be no end to the number of threefold divisions one could introduce. And phenomenologically, there may be no end to the future forms in which the commodity will appear.

These categories have been selected because they relate most closely to Marx’s original distinctions (and hence should be familiar), and because they are particularly salient in the current context (and hence should be relevant).

They are not meant to delimit real things, nor even express ideal types, but rather to provide a pragmatic typology.

They are thereby best understood as a set of flexible and portable tools that are designed to interpret a wide-range of ethnographic data in ways that are analytically precise (yet open-ended) and empirically tractable (yet locally-sensitive).

The issue then is not their truthfulness, but their usefulness.

SEMIOTIC ONTOLOGY OF THE COMMODITY

Commodities (a) unfold into use-values, values, and exchange-values. Use-values (b) unfold into utilities, units, and numbers. Utilities (c) unfold into instigation, means, and ends.

Instigation [who] (d) unfolds into control, composition, and commitment.

Means [how] (e) unfold into means in themselves, means toward ends, and ends in

themselves. Ends [why] (f) unfold into what one wants

(possibility), what one has (actuality), and what one needs (necessity).

Units (g) unfold into dimensions, origos, and magnitudes.

Values (h) unfold into utilities, units, and numbers.

Exchange-values (i) unfold into elementary forms, total forms, and generalized forms.

Semiotic ontology of the commodity: A commodity is anything that has use-value and value, where the latter, [value] is expressed as exchange-value

APPENDICES (NEXT PAGES)

A ‘qualisign’ is a quality that could possibly be paired with an object: i.e. any quality that is accessible to the human sensorium – and hence could be used to stand for something else (to someone). For example, in the case of utterances, a qualisign is a potential cry (say, what is conceivably utterable by a human voice)A ‘sinsign’ is a quality that is actually paired with an object (in some event) and is sometimes referred to as a ‘token’. For example, an actual cry (say, the interjection ouch uttered at a particular time and place)A ‘legisign’ is a type of quality that must necessarily be paired with a type of object (across all events) and is sometimes referred to as a ‘type’ – see Table above, column 3; a sinsign is; and a legisign is a type of cry (say, the interjection ouch in the abstract, or what every token of ouch has in common as a type).

Any sinsign that is a token of a legisign as a type may be called a ‘replica’. Replicas, then, are just run-of-the mill sinsigns: any utterance of the word ouch. And, in keeping within this Peircean framework, we might call any unreplicable or unprecedented sinsign a ‘singularity’ – that is, any sinsign that is not a token of a type. Singularities, then, are one-of-a-kind sinsigns: e.g., Nixon’s resignation speech. One of the key design features of language may be stated as follows: given a finite number of replicas (qua individual signs as parts), speakers may create an infinite number of singularities (qua aggregates of signs as wholes).

THE LOGIC OF THIS RELATION BETWEEN RELATIONS PEIRCE’S THREE KINDS OF SIGNS “TYPOLOGY OF DISTINCTIONS”

(1955).

THE OBJECTS OF INFERENTIALLY ARTICULATED SIGNS

In order to understand the meaning of such signs, several more distinctions need to be made.

First, just as there are sin-signs (or sign tokens) and legi-signs (or sign types), there are ‘sin-objects’ and ‘legi-objects’. Thus, an assertion (or a sentence with declarative illocutionary force – say, ‘the dog is under the table’) is a sign whose object type is a proposition, and whose object token is a state of affairs.

A word (or a substitutable lexical constituent of a sentence – say, ‘dog’ and ‘table’) is a sign whose object type is a concept, and whose object token is a referent.

Finally, the set of all possible states of affairs of an assertion – or what the assertion could be used to represent – may be called an ‘extension’. And the set of all possible referents of a word – or what the word could be used to refer to – may be called a ‘category’

AT LEAST THERE ARE FOUR SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS OF INTEREST IN NON-NATURAL MEANING (INTENTIONAL

COMMUNICATION)

1. My intention to direct your attention to an object (or bring an object to your attention).

2. The object that I direct your attention to (or bring to your attention).

3. My intention that you use (2), usually in conjunction with (1), to attend to another object.

4. The object that you come to attend to.

RELASI ANTARA “SESUATU”, “MAKLUM” DAN “HAL”

OBJECT =

“maklum”

INTERPRETANT =

“hal”

SIGN =

“sesuatu”

(a) (b)

(c)

Dalam bahasa Arab, kata ‘hal’ yang kemudian diadopsi bahasa Indonesia pengertiannya adalah “suatu moda eksistensi di antara ‘being’ dan ‘non-

being’; Sedangkan kata “ma’lum“ - juga dari bahasa Arab – pengertiannya adalah “object dari pengetahuan, atau informasi atau data” (object dari

“sesuatu”); Maka object juga adalah “maklum” dari sesuatu (misalnya sign, symbol, token, term etc)

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Secara semiotika bahasa Indonesia sudah sejak lama

mengenal relasi di antara relasi-relasi sign-object-

interpretant ini dalam wujud relasi di antara relasi-relasi triadik “sesuatu-maklum-

hal”