Psychiatry

Interpersonal and Biological Processes

ISSN: 0033-2747 (Print) 1943-281X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/upsy20

Toward a Triadic Theory of Meaning

Walker Percy

To cite this article: Walker Percy (1972) Toward a Triadic Theory of Meaning, Psychiatry, 35:1,
1-19, DOI: 10.1080/00332747.1972.11023694

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1972.11023694

Published online: 26 Oct 2016.

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 Toward A Triadic Theory of Meaning
Walker Percy*
I TlittleIS use
a matter for astonishment, when one comes to think of it, how
linguistics and other sciences of language are to psychiatrists.
When one considers that the psychiatrist spends most of his time listening
and talking to patients, one might suppose that there would be such a thing
as a basic science of listening-and-talking, as indispensable to psychiatrists
as anatomy to surgeons. Surgeons traffic in body structures. Psychiatrists
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traffic in words. Didn't Harry Stack Sullivan say that psychiatry properly
concerns itself with transactions between people and that most of these
transactions take the form of language? Yet if there exists a basic science
of listening-and-talking I have not heard of it. What follows is· a theory of
language as behavior. It is not new. Its fundamentals were put forward
by the American philosopher Charles Peirce three-quarters of a century
ago. It shall be the contention of this article that, although Peirce is recog-
nized as the founder of semiotic, the theory of signs, modern behavioral
scientists have not been made aware of the radical character of his ideas
about language. I also suspect that the state of the behavioral .sciences
vis-a.-vis language is currently in such low spirits, not to say default, that
Peirce's time may have come.

If most psychiatrists were asked why Both explanations are familiar, rea-
they don't pay much attention to the sonable, and dispiriting. But what is
linguistic behavior, considered as such, chiefly remarkable about them is that
of their patients, they might give two they are contradictory. No one has ever
sorts of answers, both reasonable explained how a psychiatrist can be
enough. One runs as follows: Well, af- said to be "responding" toa patient
ter all, I have to be more interested in when he, the psychiatrist, listens to the
what the patient is saying than in the patient tell a dream, understands what
words and syntax with which he says is said, and a year later writes a paper
it. And if, like most of us, he has been about it. To describe the psychiatrist's
exposed to the standard academic be- behavior as a response is to use words
havioral sciences, he might add, again loosely.
reasonably enough: Well, of course we Charles Peirce was an unlucky man.
know that conversation is a series of His two most important ideas ran
learned responses, but these are very counter to the intellectual currents of
subtle events, occurring mostly inside his day, were embraced by his friends-
the head, and so there is not much we and turned into something else.
can say about them in the present state William James took one idea and
of knowledge. turned it into. pragmatism which,

• Dr. Percy (MD Columbia Univ., College of Physicians & Surgeons 41) is a novelist living
in Covington, La.

PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 1

 WALKER PERCY
whatever its value, is not the same evident. From them certain other state_
thing as Peirce's pragmaticism. Peir- ments can be deduced. Their value will
ce's triadic theory has been duly depend both on the degree to which the
saluted by latterday semioticists-and postulates are open to confirmation and
turned into a trivial instance of learn- the usefulness of the deduced state-
ing theory (Morris, p. 287). Freud was ments to such enterprises as the psy-
lucky. The times were ready for him chiatrist's understanding of his own
and he had good enemies. It is our transactions with his patients.
friends we should beware of. Peirce believed that there are two
What follows does not pretend to kinds of natural phenomena. First
offer the psychiatrist an adequate theo- there are those events which involve
ry of language sprung whole and entire "dyadic relations," such as obtain in
like Juno from Jove's head. It is offered the "physical forces . . . between pairs
as no more than a sample of another of particles."! The other kind of event
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way of looking at things. Hopefully it entails "triadic relations":

might either sufficiently stimulate or All dynamical action, or action of brute
sufficiently irritate behavioral scien- force, physical or psychical, either takes
tists toward the end that they will place between two subjects ... or at any
devise operational means of confirming rate is a resultant of such action between
pairs. But by 'semiosis' I mean, on the
or disconfirming these statements-or contrary, an action, or influence, which is,
perhaps even launch more fruitful or involves, a cooperation of three subjects,
studies than this very tentative investi- such as a sign, its object, and its interpre-
gation. What follows is adapted freely tant, this tri-relative influence not being in
from Peirce, with all credit to Peirce, any way resolvable into actions between
pairs. [CP 5.484]
and space will not be taken to set down
what was originally Peirce and what If A throws B away and B hits C in the
are the adaptations. Here again Peirce eye, this event may be understood in
was unlucky, in that his views on lan- terms of two dyadic relations, one be-
guage were put forward as part of a tween A and B, the other between B
metaphysic, Le., a theory of reality, and C. But if A gives B to C, a genuine
and in a language uncon.genial to'mod- triadic relation exists (CP 1.345). "Ev-
ern behavioral attitudes. To say so is ery genuine triadic relation involves
not to put down Peirce's metaphysic. meaning" (CP .1.345). An index sign
But th.e problem here is to disentangle is part of a dyadic relation. An index
from the metaphysic those insights refers to the object it denotes by virtue
which are germane to a view of lan- of really being affected by that object
guage as behavior. (CP 2.248). Examples of indexes: a
First I shall give a brief statement of low barometer as an index of rain, the
what I take to be Peirce's theory of cry of warning of a dri ver to a
language considered as a natural pedestrian (CP 2.286, 2.287). A sym-
phenomenon, i.e., not as a logic or a bol, however, is something which
formal structure but as overt behavior stands to somebody for something in
open to scientific inquiry. There shall some respect or capacity ~CP 2.228).
follow a loose list of postulates which I "The index is physically connected
take to be implied by Peirce's triadic with its object ... but the symbol is
theory of signs. These "postulates," un- connected with its object by virtue of ...
like the arbitrary postulates of a math- the symbol-using mind" (CP 2.299).
ematical system, are empirical state- 1 Peirce, Vol. 1, p. 345. In the sequel, all ref-
erences to Peirce will note volume and para-
ments which are more or less self- graph number as follows: GP 1.345.

2 PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972

 TOWARD A TRIADIC THEORY OF MEANING

Dyadic events are, presumably, those which interests itself only in the overt
energy exchanges conventionally behavior of other organisms, what are
studied by the natural sciences: sub- we to make of observable behavior
atomic particles colliding, chemical reac- which cannot be understood as a series
tions, actions of force-fields on bodies, of dyadic energy transactions? What
physical and chemical transactions has happened in the past is· that we
across biological membranes, neurone have admitted of course that there is
discharges, etc. such a thing as symbol-mongering, as
Triadic events, on the other hand, naming things, as uttering sentences
characteristically involve symbols and which are true or false, as "rules" by
symbol-users. Moreover, a genuine tri- which names are assigned and sen-
adic relation cannot be reduced to a tences formed. We have admitted that
series of dyadic relations (CP 1.345). such activity is a natural phenomenon
and as such is open to scientific investi-
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Peirce seems to be saying that when a

symbol-user receives a symbol as gation. But what kind of scientific in-
"meaning" such and such an object, we vestigation? We have gotten around
may not understand this event as a the difficulty by treating the products
sequence of dyadic events or energy of symbol-mongering formally, by what
exchanges even though dyadic events Carnap (p. 123) calls the formal
and energy exchanges are involved: sciences (logic, mathematics, syntax),
sound waves in air, excitation of senso- while assigning the activity itself to a
ry end-organ, afferent nerve impulse, factual science, in this case learning
electrical-colloidal synaptic event, effer- theory, which has not, however, been
ent nerve impulse, muscle contraction able to give an account of it. It is no
or glandular secretion. secret that learning theorists will have
Peirce's distinction between dyadic no truck with symbols and meaning.
and triadic behavior has been noted Most textbooks of psychology do not
before, but so pervasive has been the list the word symbol in their indexes.
influence of what might be called dyad. Indeed, how can learning theory, as we
ic behaviorism that Peirce's "triadie know it, give an account of symbolic
relation" has been recognized only to activity? If we are to believe Peirce, it
the degree that it can be set forth as a cannot. For the empirical laws of
congeries of dyads. Morris, for exam- learning theory are formulations. of
ple, interprets Peirce's triad as imply- dyadic events of the form R ~ f (0), in
ing that in addition to response and which R = response variables and 0 =
stimulus there is a third factor, Ja "re- stimulus variables (Spence, p. 571) .2
inforcing" state of affairs. This is like The question must arise then: if tri-
saying that Einstein's special theory adic activity is overt behavior and as
will be accepted only to the degree that such is the proper object of investiga-
it can be verified by Newtonian tion of a factual behavioral science and
mechanics. Like Newtonian mechanics, is not formulable bv the postulates and
dyadic theory can account for perh~ps laws of conventional behaviorism, what
98 percent of natural phenomena. Un- manner of "postulates" and "laws," if
fortunately the phenomenon of talking-
and-listening falls in the remaining· 2 2 Actually the dyads should be segmented in
wme such order as: 0 = f(S). in which 0 = the
percent. organic variahles and S = the stimulus vari-
What would happen if we took ables; I"= =
f(I,), in which I the intervening
neurophysiological variables within the orga-
Peirce seriously? That is to say: if we nism: and R = f(0), in which R = response
variables, or mellsurement of behavior proper-
retain the posture of behavioral science ties (Spence, p. 578),

PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 3

 WALKER PERCY

any, would be suitable for such a selves with a triangle, two sides of
science? Or is the game worth the can- which represented proper "causal"
die? For, as George Miller says, when- relations between symbol and reference
ever the behavioral scientist confronts and between reference and referent (p.
language as behavior, he is generally 11). A dotted line was drawn between
nagged by the s~icion that the rule- symbol and referent. The dotted line
governed normative behavior of nam- stood for an "imputed relation" be-
ing, of uttering true and false sen- tween word and thing as contrasted
tences, may somehow be beyond the with the "real" relation between word
scope of natural science (p. 300). Shall and organism and organism and refer-
we as behavioral scientists accordingly ent. The next step was to see man's use
surrender all claim to language as a of symbols as somehow deplorable.
kind of behavior and yield the field to Korzybski constructed a curious quasi-
formalists, logicians, and transforma- ethical science of "general semantics"
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tional linguists? Have we not indeed in which he berated people for the
already settled for a kind of tacit ad- wrong use of symbols. Stuart Chase
mission that there exists a behavior for compared symbol-using man unfavor-
which there is no behavioral science? ably with his cat Hobie (p. 49).
To give some simple examples: One might suppose that a science of
Two events occurred in Helen Kel- language behavior must first determine
ler's childhood. One can be reasonably what sort of behavior is taking place
well understood by learning theory. before issuing moral judgments about
The other cannot. it.
Helen, we know from Miss Sullivan, Three men have a toothache.
learned to respond to the word cake One man groans.
spelled in her hand by searching for a The second man says "Ouch !"
piece of cake. The third man says "My tooth
EVen though we were not present aches."
and could not have seen the events Now it may be unexceptionable to
inside Helen's head if we had been, we say that all three men emitted respon-
nevertheless feel confident that learn- ses, the first a wired-in response, the
ing theory can give a fairly adequate second and third learned responses.3
account of the kind of events which But if one wishes to give a nontrivial
occurred. B. F. Skinner would have no account of language behavior, it does
difficulty explaining what happened not suffice to describe the second and
and most of us would find his explana- third utterances as learned responses. i
tion useful. . What kind of a learned response is a "\,I
But a second event occurred. One day sentence and how does it differ from
Helen learned in great excitement that other responses?
the word water spelled in one hand was Nor does it suffice to describe the I~
the name of the liquid flowing over the two events in Hel.en Keller's childhood
other hand. She then wanted to know as instances of learning by reinforce-
the names of other things. ment.
Theorists of language behavior have The greatest obstacle to progress in
been unable to give a coherent account semiotic has been the loose use of ana-
of this event. When one tried to fit this logical terms to describe different
triadic event onto a dyadic model,
queer things happened. Ogden and :I "Ouch" is a learned response. A German
WOUldn't say "Ouch" but perhaps "Aie," a Yid-
Richards, for example, found them- dish speaker "Oy."

4 PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972

J
 TOWARD A TRIADIC THEORY OF MEANING

events without specifying wherein lies cance for behavioral science. Ac-
the similarity and wherein lies the dif- cordingly what is offered is not a com-
ference. To use a term like response prehensive theory of signs but only a
analogically is to risk a spurious under- very tentative account of sentence-
standing of matters which are in fact utterance, that is, sentences considered
little understood and difficult to inves- as items of behavior. (2) The emphasis
tigate. is clinical, that is, upon mistakes, mis-
One recalls Chomsky's reaction to perceptions of sentences in their trans-
Skinner's Verbal Behavior: mission from sender to receiver. There
are two reasons for this emphasis. One
Anyone who seriously approaches the study
of linguistic behavior, whether linguist, psy- is that the clinical encounter, that of
chologist, or philosopher, must quickly be- therapist and patient, is the recurring
come aware of the enormous difficulty of paradigm in the article. The other is
stating a problem which will define the area that mistakes suggest a useful method
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of his investigation, and which will not be

either trivial or hopelessly beyond the range of exploring this treacherous terrain.
of present-day understanding and tech- There are different kinds of mistakes
nique. [Chomsky, 1964, p. 575] and there are different kinds of varia-
The following is a loose set of postu- bles in the communication process. Per-
lates and definitions which I take to be haps one may be taken as evidence of
suitable for a behavioral schema of the other. A good way to study· auto
symbol-use and which might be mechanics is to study auto breakdowns.
adapted from Peirce's theory of triads. Vapor locks, short circuits, transmis-·
Recognizing the peculiar difficulties sion failures may be the best evidence
which regularly attend such enter- that there are such things as carbure-
prises-not the least source of confu- tors, electrical systems and gears-
sion is the fact that unlike any other especially if the mechanic can't .lift the
field of inquiry language is fair game hood.
for everybody, for formal and factual 1 The basic unit of language behavior
scientists, for logicians, linguists, is the sentence.
learning theorists, semanticists, syn. A word has no meaning except as
tacticians, information theorists, and, part of a sentence. Single-word ut-
alas, even for philosophers-I ac- terances are either understood as sen-
cordingly offer these propositions with tences or else they are not underRtood
the minimal expectation that they will at all. For example, when Wittgen-
at least suggest an alternative, a way stein's worker A says to worker B:
of thinking about man's use of signs "Slabs !," worker B understands him to
which is different from the standard mean: send slabs I-or perhaps misun-
treatment and, I trust also, less dispirit- derstands him to mean: I already have
ing. slabs.
The Peirce scholar will note certain If I say the word pickle to you, you
omissions and divergencies. There are
must either understand the utterance
two main departures from Peirce's the-
as a sentence-this is a pickle, this is a
ory. (1) No account whatever is given
picture of a pickle, pass the pickles,
here of Peirce's ontology of Firstness,
tastes like a pickle-or you will aRk me
Secondness and Thirdness in terms of
what I mean or perhaps say: "What
which his semiotic is expressed. This
about pickles ?"
omission I take to be justified by the
desirability of using only those con- 1.1 A sentence-utterance is a coupling
cepts which have operational signifi- of elements by a coupler.

PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 5

 WALKER PERCY

The subject-predicate division4 is not such, the study may have validity as a
the only kind of coupling which occurs science, but the science will not be a
in sentences. 5 Not only can symbols be science of triadic behavior.
coupled with symbols; symbols can also For example, a neurologist may
be coupled with things or classes of study the dyadic events which occur in
things. Peirce's example: a father the acoustic nerve of a person who
catches his child's eye, points to an hears the sentence: The king of France
object and says "balloon." is bald. The result of such a study may
be a contribution to the science of neu-
1.2 A sentence-utterance is a triadic rology, but it will not be a contribution
event involving a coupler and the two to the science of triadic behavior.
elements of the uttered sentence. 6 A logician may abstract from the
1.21 If a dyadic relation is abstracted speaker of a sentence, study the formal
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from a triadic relation and studied as relation between the terms of the sen-
tence and what is entailed by its asser-
4 Or the NP-VP division of transformational tion. His study may contribute to the
lingUists. Or Strawson's division of a sentence
into what you are talking about and what you science of logic, but it will not con-
are saying about it (p. 181). tribute to the science of triadic behav-
5 Nor are language-couplings the only kind of
couplings which occur. There are other kinds ior.
of symbols and other kinds of sentences, e.g., the A professor writes a sentence on the
coupling of a map with the territory, the cou-
pling of Van Gogh's painting The Cypresses blackboard: The king of France is
with what is symbolized (which is not merely bald. The class reads the sentence.
the cypresses but forms of feeling as well). But
here we are concerned primarily with language- If one wishes to study this sentence-
sentences.
6 In an earlier article I had described symbol- utterance as an item of behavior, it
using behavior as being characterized by a does not suffice to abstract from the
'tetradic structure. Thus, if one were to observe
an utterance of a symbol-or, as I would say professor and the class and to study the
here, of a sentence-one would notice that there semantics and syntax of the sentence.
is not only an utterer and a coupling of sentence
elements, but also a listener or receiver of the If one considers the sentence-utterance
sentence. "The second person is required las an as an item of behavior, one quickly
element not merely in the genetic event of learn-
ing language but as the indispensable and en- perceives that it is a pseudo-sentence.
during condition of all symbolic behavior. The The sentence may have been uttered
very act of symbolic formulation, whether it be
language, logic, art, or even thinking, is of its. but it does not assert anything. For one
very nature a formulation for a someone else. thing, the phrase the king of France
Even Robinson Crusoe, writing in his journal
after twenty years on the island, is nevertheless does not refer to anything since there
performing- a through-and-through social and
intersubjective act" (p. 45). does not presently exist a king of
Today, ten years later, I would broaden the France. For another thing, a second
notion of coupling "symbol" and "object" to the
utterance of sentences in general, whether sym-
bol and object, naming sentences, or traditional sign and interpreter and between interpreter
declarative sentences with subject and predicate. and referent· is clearly, in Peirce's scheme of
This "tetradic behavior," involving an utterer, things, a pair of dyads.
a receiver, symbol and object, was contrasted The tetrad I proposed can, if one wishes to
with the "semiotic triangle" of Ogden and Rich- deal with atomic rather than molecular events,
ards, involving a sign which affects an inter- be split apart along its interface between utter-
pl'eter which in turn responds with behavior er and receiver of a sentence, yielding a cou-
relevant to an object or referent. pling of sentence elements by utterer and a
I find it convenient in this article, however, subsequent coupling by receiver. The tetradic
to observe Peirce's distinction between dyadic model, I see now, is appropriate only in success-
relations and triadic relations. It will be seen ful communication, i.e., those transactions in
that no substantial change has been made. What which the same elements are coupled by both
matters is the difference in "valence" between utterer and receiver and in the same mode of
the semiotic relations encountered in symbol coupling. Unfortunately this is not always the
use and those in signal use, whether the differ- case.
ence is between triads and tetrads or dyads In short, the earlier article dealt with the
and triads. "molecular" structure of the communication
Thus, the "semiotic triangle" of Ogden and process, the present article with the "atomic"
Richards with its "causal" relations between structure.

6 PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972

 TOWARD A TRIADIC THEORY OF MEANING

condition of bona fide sentence- The word sparkle seems to sparkle

utterance is lacking. As Peirce said, for English-speakers but not for Ger-
asserting a sentence is something like mans. The word funkeln seems to spar-
going before a notary and assuming kle for Germans but not for English-
responsibility for it (CP 2.252). No one speakers. 8
imagines that the professor has done If you do not believe that the word
this. glass has been transformed, repeat it
Many of the philosophical puzzles aloud fifty times. Like Cinderella at
about sentences have arisen from the midnight, it will lose its transforma-
failure to distinguish between actual tion and revert to what it was, a drab
sentence-utterances and professors ut- little vocable.
tering pseudo-sentences in classrooms.
1.311 A symbol must be unlike what
1.3 A name is a class of sounds cou- it symbolizes in order that it may be
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pled with a thing or class of things. transformed and "become" what is

There is no necessary relationship symbolized.
between a name and that which is The sound cup can become a symbol
named beyond the coupling of name for cup. A cup cannot be a symbol for
and thing by namer. cup.
1.31 It is the peculiar property of a 104 The coupling relation of a sen-
name, a class of sounds, not only that it tence is not like any other world-
can be coupled with a class of things relation. Yet-indeed for this very rea-
but also that in the coupling the sound son-it may symbolize any world-
is transformed and "becomes" the relation whatever, subject only to the
thing.7 context of utterance and the rules of
The word glass sounds brittle but it sentence formation.
is not. The word brittle sounds brittle
but it is not. 1.41 A sentence may mean anything it
is used to mean.
7 It is this transformation of symbols and their Thus, the sentence baby chair ut-
subsequent confusion with things that Gount
Korzybski used to rage against. "Whatever you tered by a two-year-old can be reliably
choose to say a'bout this object," he would say, understood by its mother as asserting
holding a pencil aloft, "don't say 'this is a pen-
cil.''' "Whatever you say the object 'is,' well it within different contexts any number
is not" (p. 35). of different relationships. It can also be
In point of fact, I have never seen anyone
mistake a word for a thing or try to write with understood as a command or a ques-
the word pencil, though the magic use of words tion. Some possible meanings of the
undoubtedly occurs in primitive societies and
perhaps an analogous misuse in modern tech- two-word telegraph sentence bnby
nological societies (see Percy, p. 49). chair:
Korzybski tended to treat the peculiar fea-
tures of symbol-use as misbehavior to be gotten
rid of by a therapeutic semantics which was That is a baby chair (chair for the
almost an ethical science. baby).
In a triadic theory of meaning it is to be That is a little chair.
hoped that symbolic transformations and sen-
tence-couplings with the verb is will not be put
down as instances of bad behavior or human 8 Werner and Kaplan note that the word chair
stupidity but rather will be regarded as a funda- is not merely a si'gn or label for chairs: " ... the
mental property of sentence utterance. material, phonemically unique sequence, ch-ai-r,
What needs to be explored is not human is articulated into a production whose expressive
perversity as such but rather a parameter- features parallel those ingredients in the percept
variable of symbol-use. All sentences entail cou- 'chair'. . . . Only when the vocable has become
plings. The mode of coupling is a normative imbedded in an organismic matrix, regulated
dimension in which couplings may be used truly ,and directed by an activity of schematizing or
or falsely in propositions, well or badly in form-building, does it enter into a semantic
poetry, as a transparent vehicle of meaning or correspondence with the object (referent) and
as an opaque simulacrum which distorts mean- does it become transformed from the status of a
ing. sign to that of symbolic vehicle" (p. 25),

PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 7

 WALKER PERCY

Baby is in his chair. speaking about John, (2) we are say-

Baby.wants his chair. ing something about him.lO
Where is baby chair?
Bring baby chair. 1.5 When one studies dyadic behav-
Bring chair for baby.9 ior, i.e., the learned response of an orga-
1.42 The coupling relation of a sen- nism to stimuli, it is proper to isolate
tence is not isomorphic with the world- certain parameters and variables.
relation it symbolizes. These include: amplitude of response,
It is true that the sentence John
loves Mary is a coupling of sentence alternative to learning theory is Chomsky's
"innate ideas and innate principles," specifically
elements (a child could say John Mary in this case a "language acquisition device," a
and be understood if John was loving kind of magic black box interposed between in-
put and output which contains not only the
Mary at the time) referring to a dyadic principles of universal grammar but the capacity
relationship between John and Mary. of generating the grammar of one's own lan-
guage (Chomsky, 1965, p. 59).
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But it is also true that although the I wonder whether Chomsky's LAD (language
acquisition device) is nothing more or less than
sentence John gives a ring to Mary the unique human ability to couple sentence
refers to a triadic relation obtaining elements, to couple symbols with things, symbols
with symbols, which couplings may be under-
between John, the ring and Mary, the stood to mean whatever context allows them
sentence is still a coupling of elements: to mean.
Indeed, may not grammar itself be defined
(1) we are speaking about John, (2) as the primitive coupling plus whatever inflec-
we are saying something about him. tion, particles, and patterns may be required to
supplant the diminishing context and the intuitive
It is also true that although the sen- grasp by the mother of the child's couplings?
tence John plays bridge with Mary and Thus the child's sentence baby#chair may be
understood infallibly by the mother to mean
Ted and Alice refers to a tetradic rela- The baby is now in his chair. But as the intimate
tion obtaining between John and Mary mother-child relationship declines and as it be-
comes necessary for people to talk to strangers
and Ted and Alice, the sentence is still over telephones about babies and chairs which
a coupling of elements: (1) we are at least one party can not see, it becomes
necessary to add such words as the, is, in, his,
etc.
9 Cf. Braine: Braine and others have noted H one must speak of a universal grammar, it
that an early stage of language acquisition in is surely impossible to avoid the basic phenom-
children features two-word utterances compris- enon of the sentence as a coupling and the basic
ing a "pivot" word and an "open" word. Thus a division of couplings into two sorts, whether the
child using the "pivot" word there might com- language be English or Algonquin: (1) An ob-
bine it with any number of "open" words and ject beheld by both speaker and hearer and
say there ball, there man, there doggie, etc. Then pointed at and understood as one of a class of
in a few months a second stage is reached in like objects and named by a sound which is un-
which the child combines two "open" words. derstood as a class of like sounds-thus the
Thus instead of saying there car or there man, pointing at and the utterance of the single-word
the child might say man car, meaning "A man sentence by father to son: balloon. (2) The cou-
is in the car." pling of symbol and symbol, e.g., baby#chair
Braine noted a pause or juncture between the to signify whatever world-relation or event is
two "open" words. Thus baby chair or baby beheld in common by speaker and hearer.
book, uttered without a juncture, is presumably 10 According to Veatch, mathematical logi-
a pivot-open construction meaning "(There is) cians habitually confuse logical relations with
a little chair" or "(There is) a little book." "real" relations-here we would say sentence-
Whereas the utterance baby#chair, uttered in relations with world-relations. Veatch calls the
a certain context, is reliably understood by the sentence-coupling "an intentional relation of
mother to mean "The baby is in his chair." The identity." Thus the relation of John to Bill
symbol # represents a juncture or pause. asserted in the sentence John is larger than ~ill
This open-open construction is a very large is a world-relation which can be expressed by
class and represents, to my way of thinking, the isomorphic form xRy. Mathematical logi-
nothing less than the child's graduation from cians persist in setting forth the sentence in the
the naming sentence (there ball) to the syn- form xRy, whereas in truth the sentence-relation
tactical, "subject-predicate" sentence. is of the form B'is P (Veatch, pp. 24fJ.l.
Let us agree with Chomsky that a child's Lord Russell and the early Wittgenstein of the
linguistic behavior cannot possibly be account- Tractatus believed that the sentence must be
ed for by traditional learning theory with its in some sense isomorphic with the fact asserted
notions of "stimulus control," "conditioning," by the sentence. The later Wittgenstein changed
"generalization and analogy," "pattern's," "habit his mind and came to believe that sentences
structures," or "dispositions to respond" (Chom- were plays in a language-game and could mean
sky, 1966, p. 73). whatever they were used to mean (Wittgenstein,
The question, however, is whether the sole pp. llfJ.).

PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, FebruAry 1972

 TOWARD A TRIADIC THEORY OF MEANING

latency of response, frequency of stim- ing a state of affairs between patient

ulus, reinforcement, extinction, discrim- and wife.
ination, and so on. On the following day, however, at a
But if one considers triadic behavior, group session at which both patient
i.e., the coupling of a sentence by a and wife are present, the same sentence
coupler, a different set of parameters is both uttered by patient and received
and variables must be considered. by all present with another or at least
There follow below some of these an added meaning. The new meaning,
parameters and variables. moreover, is a function of the new
community. Thus, it not only asserts a
1.51 Every sentence is uttered in a relation between patient and wife; it is
community. also delivered and received as an at-
The community of discourse is a tack, a bugging of wife and a wife
necessary and nontrivial parameter of being bugged.
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triadic behavior.
This is not the case in dyadic behav- 1.52 A signal is received by an orga-
ior. For example, to speak of a "commu- nism in an environment. A sentence is
nity" of organisms responding to each received and uttered in a world.
other by signals may be true· enough, When Helen Keller learned that
but it is also to use words trivially, water was water, she then wished to
analogically, and contingently. Thus, it know what other things "were"-until
may not be false to say that an ex- the world she knew was named.
change of growls between polar bears
takes place in a community of polar 1.521 An environment has gaps for
bears. It is trivial to say so, however, an organism, but the world is global,
because it is possible to think of bears that is, it is totally accounted for, one
responding to stimuli outside a com- way or another, rightly or wrongly, by
munity, e.g., to the sound of splitting names and sentences.
ice, in the same way we think of bears A chicken will respond to the sight
responding to growls. of a hawk but not to the sight of a tree.
But it is impossible to think of an But a child wishes to know what a tree
exchange of sentences occurring other- "is."
wise than between two or more persons. A chicken does not know whether the.
earth is flat or round or a bowl, but a
1.511 In triadic behavior, the dimen- man, primitive or technological, will
sion of community can act as either account for the earth one way or an-
parameter or variable. other.
It is a parameter, for example, in an
ongoing encounter between therapist 1.522 Sentences refer to different
and patient: the community does not worlds.
change. A sentence may refer to· the here-
It is a variable when the community and-now world, a past world, a. future
varies. The meaning of a sentence can world, an imaginary world, a theoreti-
very well be a dependent variable, de- cal world.
pending on the independent variable, There are often cues or referring
the changing community. words in the sentence which indicate
For example, the patient utters the its world.
following sentence to the therapist: My That is a balloon. (Present world)
wife bugs me. This sentence may be President Kennedy was assassinated.
uttered as a constative sentence assert- (Past world)
PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 9
 WALKER PERCY

Communism will disappear. (Future Other sentences, e.g., scientific prop-

world) ositions, are uttered, so to speak, out
Once upon a time there lived a king. of the world, that is to say, from a
(Fictional past world)
There was this traveling salesman. (Fic- posture abstracted from the everyday
tional world, joke) world, or as the scholastics used to say,
In this dream I saw a burning house. sub specie aeternitatis. From this pos-
(Dream world) ture world-items tend to be seen not as
If wishes were horses, beggars would consumer articles or sources of need-
ride. (Hypothetical world)
The square of the hypotenuse equals the satisfactions but rather as specimens to
sum of the squares of the opposite sides. be classified or events to be arrayed in
(Abstract world) causal chains. Even concrete sentences,
Once upon a time is a referring uttered from this posture, are received
phrase which clearly specifies its world as propositions in hypothetico-deductive
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for the listener. That in that is a bal- systems.

loon is a referring word which indi- Chemist A to Chemist B: The tempera-
cates something being looked at or ture is now 102!
pointed at. But not all sentences have This sentence is not a comment on the
referring words which specify the weather but is rather an evidential sen-
world of the sentence. In any case a tence, perhaps an observation of a
world must be supplied by the listener. pointer reading at the end of an experi-
Some sentences are ambiguous. Thus a ment which serves to confirm a hy-
patient may say to his therapist: pothetico-deductive system. 12
This traveling salesman was hoping to The peculiar vocation of the thera-
meet a farmer's daughter. pist requires that he listen to both kinds
The sentence may be: (1) the begin- of sentences, distinguish one from the
ning of a joke, (2) an account of a other, and respond accordingly.
dream, (3) a facetious but nonetheless Thus the sentence
true declaration of lust by the patient, After what happened yesterday I've decided
who is in fact a traveling salesman. 11 that life is not worth living.
1.523 Since a sentence entails a world is open to one of several readings. It
for both utterer and receiver, both ut- may be the serious expression of a
terer and receiver necessarily see them- decision by one man in the wbrld to
selves as being placed vis-a.-vis the
12 Here again, the uncritical use of analogical
world. A sentence-utterer cannot not be terms has impeded inquiry into distinctively
placed vis-a.-vis the world of the sen- human modes of meaning. Thus, when instru-
mentalists like Dewey describe scientific re-
tence. If he is not placed, then his search as socially useful activity like farming
relation to the world of the sentence is and marketing, they state a not very interesting
Similarity at the expense of a much more inter-
the relation of not being placed. esting difference. What concerns us here is
Some sentences are uttered and re- how the farmer sees himself vis-a-vis the world,
and how the scientist sees himself. The two are
ceived in the everyday world of market not necessarily the same.
place and fireside. More interesting still is how the layman sees
himself vis-iI-vis the world of science. Is it pos-
sible, for example, for a layman to benefit in
Broker: IBM is up two points. one sense from the goods and services of scien-
Husband: The baby is crying, dear. tific technology while in another sense falling
prey to them, e.g., coming to see himself as a
consumer of these same goods and services as a
11 Transactions between analyst and patient passive beneficiary of a more or less esoteriC,
are especially open to sudden shifts of context, not to say, magic enterprise? "They will soon
misSing referring words, uncued worlds, since come up with a cure for cancer," one hears.
the rules of this language-game require the pa- The question is, who is "they," and how does the
tient to say "what comes to mind." speaker see himself in relation to "them"?

PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972

 TOWARD A TRIADIC THEORY OF MEANING

another. Perhaps the patient intends to television or by way of a person-to-

commit suicide. More likely, it is ut- person phone call-even though the
tered by way of a general complaint acoustic and phonemic properties of the
and to pass the time of day. But per- two utterances may be identical.
haps also it could be uttered as a data-·
sentence, i.e., a product of the joint 1.54 Every sentence has a normative
patient-therapist investigation of the dimension.
patient's illness. The patient is saying: The true-or-false property which
I have indeed reached a decision but Aristotle ascribed to propositions is
rather than act on it by committing only one of the norms of sentence-
suicide I am going to play the lan- utterances. A sentence may be true or
guage-game of analysis and offer it as false, significant or nonsensical, trite or
data. The therapist in turn is -required fresh, bad art or good art, etc.
to decide on the spot whether the sen- Behavioral scientists are uncom-
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tence (1) is a cry for help, (2) asserts fortable with the normative because
commonplace low spirits, (3) offers natural science has traditionally had
data for the L-game of analysis, or (4) nothing to do with norms. As a conse-
is all three. quence, behavioral scientists are usual-
It will be seen in this context that ly content to yield the field, leave true-
Sullivan's description of the psychia- or-false propositions to logicians, bad
trist as a participant observer is in factsentences to grammarians, metaphors
an accurate characterization of the sem- to poets.
iotic options available in the thera- Yet sentences are items of behavior
pist-patient encounter. and these items have normative dimen-
sions. Therefore a behavioral account
1.53 Every sentence is uttered and of sentence-utterances must give an ac-
received in a medium. count of these norms.
The medium is a nontrivial parame- Behavioral scientists need not have
ter or variable in every transaction in made themselves so miserable. For the
which sentences are used. The medium fact is that the normative dimension of
is not necessarily the message, but the language behavior is not an awkward
message can be strongly influenced by addendum to be stuck onto the elegant
the medium. corpus of behavioral science. No, the
In learned or instinctive behavior, normative dimension of sentence-
stimulus 8 1 is received by an organism utterance is a fundamental property of
which in turn responds as it has the coupling of the elements of the
learned or been wired to respond. To a sentence, whether the sentence be a
similar stimulus 8 2 it responds similar- true-or-false proposition or a good-or-
ly according as 8 2 resembles 8 1 , A dog bad work of art.
.~) responds to his master's whistle or to a A sentence-utterance is not like other
recording of his master's whistle in the world-events and is not isomorphic
same way. with the world-event or relation the
But the sentence-utterance I need sentence is about. A world-event or
you can provoke varying responses ac- relation is generally either an energy
cording as the medium varies through exchange (sodium reacting with
which it is transmitted. water) or a real relation (China being
If President Nixon says to me, "I bigger than Japan). But a sentence is a
need you I," my response will vary ac- coupling of elements by a coupler. It is
cording as the message reaches me over bothersome to call a world-event or
PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 11
 WALKER PERCY

relation good or bad. What is good or be uttered with all the excitement and
bad about sodium reacting with water sense of discovery of a bird-watcher
or China being bigger than Japan? coming upon an occasional species.
But, since a sentence is a coupling of Even nondeclarative sentences have
elements by a coupler, these elements normative dimensions.
can be coupled well or badly.1s Patient says to therapist: "Don't you
World-events and relations are nei- dare plot against me!" An imperative
ther true nor false but sentences can be. sentence and therefore neither true nor
Yet true-or-false is only one normative false but inappropriate because, let us
dimension of sentences. stipulate, the therapist harbors no such
Here are some others. plot.
Clouds are fleece is false as a literal Said Emperor Henry IVto Pope Greg-
statement, true in a sense as a meta- ory VII at Canossa: "I apologize." A
phor, bad in the sense of being a trite
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performative sentence, hence neither

metaphor. true nor false but possibly sincere or
That is a sparrow may be a true insincere.
assertion of class relationship but it Patient to therapist: "I see what you
may also be perfunctory, a bored as- mean." It is possible that the norm in
signment of a commonplace object question here is not whether the pa-
(English sparrow) to a commonplace tient is telling the truth but whether he
class. is uttering a sentence or a nonsentence,
That is a dusky seaside sparrow may Le., making a polite sound.
assert a similar relationship yet it may
2 The receiver of a sentence can take
Here I am making the case that sentence-
13 or mistake the sentence.14
utterances are triadic events about dyadic
events. My utterance, sodium reacts with water,
is a triadic event about a dyadic event. 14 Note that an organism cannot in this sense
It is also true, of course, that a sentence-utter- be said to make a mistake in responding to a
ance, a triadic event, can be about another stimulus in its environment, Unless the word
sentence-utterance, also a triadic event. mistake is used in an analogical sense,
Thus, a coupling can be about another cou- But can't a bass be said to make a mistake
pling. A therapist makes an analysis of a pa- in taking an artificial lure? Yes, but the bass
tient's dream, to which the patient replies: does not mis-take the lure except in a trivial
"That's a lie!" The patient is making a coupling analogical sense, however tragiC the conse-
about the therapist's coupling. Note that the quences for the bass. For the bass responds to
patient's sentence addresses itself to a norma- the lure willy-nilly accordingly as the lure re-
tive dimension of the analyst's sentence. Sen- sembles what the bass has learned or been wired
tences about other sentences tend character- to respond to.
istically to be judgments about the norms of An organism responds to a stimulus Sn accord-
the latter. E.g.: "That's a lousy painting," ingly as it has learned to respond to S, a class
"Nixon's speech last night was not his best," of stimuli. The probability of response to S. can
"Kennedy wowed them in Berlin," "Stalin lied," be expressed statistically by a bell curve. The (
"That's a bad metaphor," "So that's a sparrow. response to Sn is the more likely as Sn resembles
So what?" S. "
The only point is that a sentence-coupling, If, however, you say to me: "The Russians are
being what it is, can be about anything what- coming!," it can happen that I can perfectly
ever. Since the coupling, Ohina is larger than understand the sentence accordingly as I have
Japan, is wholly unlike the relationship of learned to understand English syntax and se-
China and Japan, it can assert that relationship. mantics. Yet I can utterly mis-take your sen-
Note that a map cannot. A map is isomorphic tence. I may understand you to be reporting an
but it asserts nothing, unless some assertory invasion whereas in truth you are reading a
claim is appended, e.g., the signature of the movie marquee.
cartographer. In this use of the word mistake, I also exclude
Note that those mathematical logicians who other errors, for example, slips, misconceptions;
believe that propositions are isomorphic with the lies, false propositions.
reality they refer to have found it necessary to A Freudian slip might be described as a
invent another mark which shows that the dyadic irruption of unconscious forces into tri-
propositional relation is asserted, e.g., Frege's adic behavior and as such does not concern us
assertion mark. here. A Slip is intrapsychic. A mistake is inter-
But it is of the very nature of a sentence- personal. A mistake is a miscoupling of sentence
coupling that it not only Signifies a relation elements in which I couple the elements of your
which is unlike itself but also asserts it. sentence in some fashion other than the way

12 PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972

 TOWARD A TRIADIC THEORY OF MEANING

2.1 A sentence may be mistaken by Wrong parameter:

mistaking anyone of the parameters of NASA scientist on Wallop's Island to
the sentence. A parameter of a sen- native islander: "Look, the sky is violet!"
tence-utterance is a variable which is Islander, receiving the sentence as ,an
constant for a particular discourse but ordinary world-news item, whereas in truth
may vary from one discourse to an- the scientist is making an observation
other. which confirms the success of an experi-
ment: the discharge by rocket of strontium
Some of the parameters of sentence- chloride into the upper atmosphere: "Yes,
utterances are: the mode of coupling of it's a lovely sunset."
its elements, the community of dis- 2.111 The receiver of a naming sen-
course, the medium of communication, tence can receive the name correctly
the world to which sentence refers, the and look at the same object the namer
placement of utterer and receiver of looks at yet nevertheless mistake the
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sentence vis-a.-vis its world, the norma- sentence by making the wrong world-
tive mode (true-false, stale-fresh, ap- slice (abstraction) of the class of ob-
propriate-inappropriate, crazy-sane, j ects named.
etc.).
Father (pointing to a half-dollar with an
2.11 The receiver of a sentence can eagle on it) : "That's a half dollar."
mistake it by miscoupling its elements, Child (later, pointing to chicken): "Half
that is, by coupling the wrong elements dollar !"
or by coupling the right elements in the 2.112 There is an interface between
wrong mode or parameter. scientist and layman such that a sen-
Wrong elements: tence uttered by the former is subject
Wittgenstein's worker A: "Five slabs!" to characteristic miscouplings by the
(meaning send up five slabs). latter.
Wittgenstein's worker B (a new man
who, 'unaccustomed to A's orders, supposes Professor of medicine on grand rounds
that A is taking inventory and is reporting approaching the bed of a patient and pick-
that he has five slabs) : "Very good! I'll ing up the chart: "Hm, a case of sarcoido-
check them off!" sis."
The sentence-[tkis is] a case of sar-
you coupled them. If you say to me: "I enjoyed
beating you" instead of "I enjoyed meeting you," coidosis-is coupled one way by its ut-
no mistaking of sentences has occurred. 1 un- terer, another way by a medical stu-
derstand you well enough. What has occurred is
an irruption of your feelings into your polite dent who hears it, and yet another way
triadic behavior. Such an event is interesting by the patient himself. A proposition
enough but is not germane to a study of triadic
behavior as such. asserting class membership, logically
If 1 see a piece of paper in the woods, take it speaking, the sentence is so understood
for a rabbit and say: "Look, there's a rabbit,"
haven't 1 made a mistake? by the three persons. Yet, triadically
Also, isn't a lie a mistake? Suppose 1 did in speaking, each understands it differ-
fact see a rabbit but do not want you to shoot
it and accordingly say: "Oh, that's just a piece ently.
of paper." WOuldn't you be telling the truth if
you replied: "You are mistaken"? Professor's coupling: This is a case of
Perhaps these are mistakes and perhaps it is
true enough to say that a bass mistakes an sarcoidosis. Which is to say: this patient is
artificial lure for a minnow. a man who has something wrong with him,
Rather thtm argue the semantics of the word a disorder of unknown etiology and uncer-
mistake, let us simply define the word for our tain course but with sufficient signs and
present purposes. We shall understand the word
in its' root sense of taking amiss. More specific- symptoms and pathology in common with
ally, a mistake is the" coupling ,of a sentence other such cases to warrant the class-name
by its receiver in some fashion other than its sarcoidosis, a name however which serves
coupling by its utterer. 1 wish, in short,to set as nothing better than a shorthand method
apart triadic mistakes, the taking amiss by
one person of another person's utterances. of speaking of an ill-defined illness.

PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 13

 WALl{ER PERCY
Medical student's coupling: Thi8 i8 a the common tongue bring the real
ca8e of 8arcoid08i8. Which is to say: the closer for the therapist?
patient is assigned to the disease-class 8ar- Freud was thinking about unresolved
coid08i8 Platonically. The patient is under-
stood to participate in a higher reality than and disabling conflicts within the psy-
himself, namely, his disease. Later the stu- che. But what is beginning to dawn on
dent will refer to the patient by some such us is that the very technique designed to
sentence as: "I h~ve a case of sarcoidosis probe and resolve such conflicts may in
on the third floor."
itself loom so large for the patient, be
Patient's coupling: Thi8 i8 a ca8e of offered with such dazzling credentials,
8arcoid08i8. I have been invaded by an that he may fall prey to a technique
entity, a specter named 8arcoid08i8.
and be further impoverished. In speak-
2.1121 The lay-science interface often ing of the earlier transaction, the Freu-
leads to a reversal of roles wherein the dian slip, one is accustomed to using a
scientist-therapist "laicizes" his sen- traditional dyadic language: conflict,
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tences, while the layman-patient intrapsychic dynamism, repression,

"scientizes" his, with characteristic cathexis, resolution, etc. In the later
miscouplings attendant upon both. transaction across the lay-science inter-
Patient: "I've been looking forward to face one finds oneself using such ex-
our beating-er, meeting today. pressions as: falling preY to, impover-
Therapist: "You were thinking of ishment, loss of sovereignty, inauthen-
beating me ?" tic, etc.
Patient : "Well, I have been reacting neg-
atively lately." 2.12 The receiver of a sentence can
Therapist: "I wonder who is beating up mistake it by mistaking the world to
on WhO. Hi
which it refers.
Freud of course would have been Thus it is not enough for the receiver
-concerned with the slip and the in- to "know what the sentence means," in
trapsychic mechanism which produced the sense that a professor can write a
it. In Peircean terms he was interested sentence on the blackboard and every
in the dyadics which irrupted into tri- student can explain its syntax and se-
adic behavior. But what increasingly in- mantics, that it is a declarative sen-
terests us is how patient and therapist tence, etc. One must also know whether
talk about the slip and how one under- it is a report, a story, an account of a
stands or misunderstands the other. dream, a joke, a quotation, etc.
Perhaps no one trait of patient-
psychiatrist talk is more commonplace Salesman to boss: "There was this travel-
ing salesman who met a farmer's daugh-
than this lay~science reversal, the pa- ter-"
tient Platonizing his sentences by a Boss: receives sentence as the beginning
Good-Housekeeping psychological jar- of a joke whereas in truth it is a report, the
gon ("reacting negatively"), the thera- salesman's ~eriocomic explanation of how
he happened to lose an account.
pist vulgarizing his ("who is beating up
on who") in the reverse expectation that By its very nature classical psycho-
the real is to be found in the common analysis with its encouragement of the
tongue. In a ki.nd of minuet, patient analysand to "say what comes to
and therapist change places. The quest- mind" is peculiarly susceptible to sud-
tion is: How does the switch work? den and uncued shifts of contexts and
What kind of a scientist does the lay- attendant misunderstandings. Miscou-
man become by his Platonizing? Does plings of sentences are more apt to
occur here because parameters are
15 For the spirit if not the letter of this con-
versation I am indebted to Gottschalk, p. 32. more apt to become variables. The pa-
14 PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972
 TOW ARD A TRIADIC THEORY OF MEANING

tient can shift "worlds" and communi- and calling his attention to an immi-
ties at his pleasure. Indeed he is obliged nent threat from one sector of the
to. world. Fermi's reading of the sentence,
Therapist (after a long silence): "What
however, would place both Fermi and
comes to mind 1" the assistant outside this world in a
Patient: "The center does not hold." transcending abstracted posture from
which world-events are read as data for
Is the patient quoting Yeats, de- theory.
scribing his mental health, talking Similarly:
about the state of the union, or doing
all three? Is the sentence uttered seri- Therapist (after a long silence): "What
ously or in a playful allusive way? It is comes to mind 1"
the analyst's business to know, that is, Patient: "I've decided to break off the
analysis."
to catch on to the world-mode of the Therapist: "Tell me about it."
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sentence. Instead of replying, the patient rises,

shakes hands and leaves.
2.13 The receiver of a sentence can
mistake it by mistaking the placement The therapist mistakes the place-
of the utterer vis-a.-vis the world of the ment of the patient vis-a.-vis the world
sentence. of the sentence I've decided to break off
the analysis. He, the analyst, assumes
Scene: a room under the University of that the patient has uttered one more
Chicago stadium in 1943, during the early sentence in the language-game of an-
days of the Manhattan Project.
Fermi's assistant: "Dr. Fermi, the radia- alysis, i.e., a game where sentences are
tion count of the pile is two forty two!" reports of data to be examined rather
Fermi: "Very good!" than announcements of actions to be
The assistant is uttering an alarm, call- taken. Whereas in truth the patient has
ing attention to danger to life and shifted the world of discourse from the
limb. The sentence calls for appropriate L-game of analysis to the language of
behavior: turn the pile off, let's get out the everyday world where, when one
of here. Other such sentences might be: announces his departure, one departs.
"Vesuvius is about to erupt," or "The 2.14 A sentence can be mistaken in its
safety valve is stuck." normative mode, that is, by being re-
Fermi, however, receives the sen- ceived in a normative mode other than
tence as having been uttered, not in that in which it was uttered.
the ordinary world of predicaments but
rather as a confirmatory report of a comes Therapist (after a long silence): "What
to mind 1"
pointer reading. 16
Patient (seeing the curtain at the win-
If one diagrammed each triadic event, dow stir in the breeze): "There's a rat
Fermi's coupling and his assistant's behind the arras."
coupling, one could depict the assistant Therapist: "Who's the rat 1"
Patient: "Polonius."
speaking to Fermi within the world Therapist: "Don't forget that Hamlet
mistook Polonius for the king."
16 The classical world-mistake involving a lay- Patient (agitated): "You mean-it's
science interface was the Roman soldier's mis- oedipal? Hm. No. Yes. It is!"
taking Archimedes' complaint when the former
spoiled Archimedes' geometric figures in the Note that it is impossible to charac-
sand:
Archimedes (concerned about the mathemati- terize the sentence There's a rat behind
cal world represented by his figure in the sand) :
"Don't step on my right-angle triangle!" the arras by the conventional proposi-
Soldier (receiving the remark as a calculated tional norm of true-or-false. There is no
insult to the Roman empire) : "Take this!" (And
runs him through with his sword.) rat behind the curtain. But neither pa-
PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 15
 WALKER PERCY

tient nor analyst supposes that the sen- much aware of the analyst's theories,
tence ass!,!rts anything about a rat. The very much aware of the difference be-
sentence is rather, like so much of the tween being in the world of the an-
talk in analysis, an allusive ambiguous alyst's office and being in the world of
assertion with more than one referent. the street outside.
It is, let us stipulate, (1) a playful We suspect by the same token that
allusion to the circumstance that both the agitation manifested by the patient
patient and analyst saw a performance in the last sentence of the conversation
of Hamlet the night before, (2) a may have a very different source than
reference to a dream, (3) a surfacing of the dyadic distress ordinarily at-
unconscious oedipal feelings. tributed to him. Conventionally the pa-
A mistake in the triadic sense can tient is supposed to resist the attribu-
occur here if the therapist mistakes one tion to him of oedipal feelings (Freud,
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of the parameters of the patient's sen- p. 393). But is it not possible that in
tences, e.g., a normative parameter: this case what was thought to be dyad-
suppose he had taken the sentence ic misery may turn out to be triadic
about the rat as a true-or-false proposi- delight? So that far from being like
tion and gotten up to look for the rat. one of Freud's Victorian patients who
Or suppose he took the sentence as no "resisted" the disclosure of such uncon-
more than an allusion to last night's scious contents, this patient may be a
play-going when in truth it may refer horse of an entirely different color,
to far more serious matters. namely, late Twentieth-Century man
Up to this point we have not who likes nothing better than to exhibit
diverged from the conventional analyt- the proper pathology, in this case the
ical quest: the decoding of the patient's central pathology of the Master himself.
sentence toward the end of identifying "It's oedipal !" exclaims the patient with
and resolving unconscious conflicts. One every sign of delight.
does not dispute the validity of this Our business is to say what is right
enterprise. But we have other fish to and what is wrong here. What is right
fry. We want to observe this conversa- is that Freud was right and that the
tion, not through the analyst's eyes patient does indeed do well to confront
which see the patient as a psychic mal- his oedipal feelings. What is wrong is a
function but through a zoom camera certain loss of sovereignty by the pa-
which zooms back in order to see the tient. We must trace out the connection
encounter as it occurs, between two between valid theory and falling prey
sentence-couplers, in a world, in an to valid theory. For is it not true that
office where a certain L-game is played, the patient's chief claim to humanity
next to a street where other L-gam~s here rests on the honorable credentials
are played. of his pathology? "Hurray!" he is say-
Through such a zoomed:'back camera, ing. "I am certified human after all! I
we fancy we can see things a bit differ- have oedipal feelings!"
ently. Thus, instead of seeing the pa-
tient through the analyst's eyes as a A TERTIUM QUID:
THE LADY NOVELIST?
dyadic creature whose distress may be
traced to "repression" and "resistance" Tolstoy once said that a talented lady
to the disclosure of unconscious con- novelist could spend five minutes look-
tents, we see a certain sort of educated ing through the window of a barracks
lay person who is very much aware of and know all she needed to know about
the L-game being played here, very soldiering.

16 PRYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972

I
 TOW ARB A TRIADIC THEORY OF MEANING

If she can see so much in five min- and useful in their way, but how do you
utes, how much more must the talented get from one to the other?
therapist see after, say, a hundred hours Is the lady-novelist the only tertium
with his patient? quid? .
So here is the real question, or rather But first, what does the lady~novelist
the main specter which haunts every see if we put her down, not outside a
inquiry into language as behavior. barracks window but on the other .side
Granted the shortcomings of the two of a viewing mirror through which she
major methodological approaches to the can see therapist and patient who were
talking patient-the analytic-psychical talking about the rat behind the arras
and the organismic-behavioristic-is and related oedipal feelings? She no-
not the sole remaining altl'lrnative the tices first off, let us say, that the pa-
novelistic? Instead of "novelistic" we tient does get excited. But far from its
being the case that he is upset and is
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could say phenomenological, for the

novelist must first and last be a good "resisting" the disclosure of unpleasant
phenomenologist, and to most behavior- unconscious contents, she has the dis-
al scientists phenomenologists are tinct impression that the patient is de-
closer to novelists than to scientists. lighted. Moreover, being a good novelist
But is it not the case that when all is and well-attuned to the intellectual
said and done and all theories aside, fashions of the day, she has the distinct
what happens is that the therapist gets impression that the patient's pleasure
to know his patient pretty well, under- has something to do with the fact that
stands him, intuits him, can talk with he has produced a kind of behavior
him and about him-and that behav- which measures up to, or fits in with, the
ioral theory can never say much about very theory to which he and his analyst
it? subscribe. Perhaps it also occurs to her
Let us at least articulate our unhap- that the patient is in a sorry fix indeed
piness. Unhappiness changes. We are if his chief claim to happiness is that
no longer miserable about the old quar- occasion when he manages to be sick in
rel between classical behaviorism and the right way.
classical psychoanalysis or about the Suppose that the lady-novelist is
more intricate quarrels and rapproche- right. Is she then the tertium quid?
ments of their followers. For it has Is her way the only way to get at what
become more and more evident that our is going on? And if it is, has not all the
main emotion when confronted by both fun gone out of the game of behavioral
Freud and Skinner, say, is not partisan science and the scientific method itself
feelings-for both are "right" in their lost its splendid rigor?
way-but rather epistemological em- Have we not in fact come back to
barrassment. Both men put forward George Miller's original misgIvmg
dyadic models, one for organisms in- which haunts all behavioral scientists
teracting in an environment, the other when the subject of words and mean-
for invisible "forces" interacting with- ings is raised? Must we not then let it
in a psyche. The question now is not go at that, surrender the field to Tol-
which approach is right but how both stoy's lady novelist, or to HusserI,
can be right at the same time. To us which is to say the same thing?
now, Freud's and Skinner's models Perhaps. But Charles Peirce did pro-
stand to each other like the two worlds pose a radical theory of signs which
on each side of Alice's looking-glass. undertook to give an account of those
Both worlds are demonstrably right transactions in which symbols are used
PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 35, February 1972 17
 WALKER PERCY

to name things and to assert sentences out and identified within an adequate
about things. In view of the heroic and triadic theory. Thus, the patient's sen-
generally unavailing attempts during tence It's oedipal! must be investigated
the past fifty years to give suchan for Platonic and even magical compo-
account through one or another dyadic nents in its mode of coupling as well as
theory, it might be worthwhile for once for its valid intersubjective celebration
to approach triadic behavior with a of an important discovery. Perhaps the
genuine triadic theory. patient's sentence can be paraphrased
Such a theory might bestow order in some such terms as: "At last I have
and system upon the phenomenologiz- succeeded! At last I have produced a
ing which to the behavioral scientist proper, even a classical, piece of psy-
must seem closer to novel-writing than chopathology !"
to a science of behavior. Accordingly, the patient's behavior
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For example, the oedipal patient's with its strong normative components
agitation may be given some such pre- must be evaluated on a normative scale
liminary reading as follows: which is in turn an integral part of the
The patient's agitation is not dyadic triadic theory in question. It is impos-
misery-resistance to the disclosure of sible in other words to avoid the sub-
unacceptable unconscious contents- ject of the patient's impoverishment
but triadic delight. This delight, more- and loss of sovereignty.
over, is quite as fundamental a trait of
triadic behavior as organismic "need- In his astounding achievement of ap-
satisfaction" is in dyadic behavior. It is plying the scientific method to the irra-
a naming delight which derives from tional contents of the unconscious,
the patient's discovery that his own Freud did not have time to consider
behavior, which until now he had taken what goes on between doctor and pa-
to be the unformulable, literally un- tient, nor how a technique itself can
speakable, vagary of one's self, has loom large as part of the intellectual
turned out not merely to be formulable, furniture of a later age, much less how
that is to say, namable by a theory to it could come to pass that one can fall
which both patient and therapist sub- prey to the very technique one seeks
scribe, but to be namable with a name help from.
which is above all names: oedipal! But that does not excuse us from
As such, the patient's delight has investigating these matters.
good and bad, authentic and inauthen- Box 510
tic components which must be traced C9VINGTON, LOUISIANA 70433

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