Terrone
Terrone
Terrone
Terrone toma como ponto de partida de sua análise, a noção de rastro – a qual
está relacionada, como ele admite, com a noção de índex, elaborada por Peirce.1 Para
Terrone um rastro é um item individual concreto (“concrete particular”) que é produzido
por uma causa e que possibilita a um observador adequado que reconheça essa mesma
causa. Daí dizer que um rastro “é o produto de um processo causal que torna sua causa
reconhecível”.
From a semantic point of view, we can say that the trace represents its
cause, and we can conceive of it as a sign that refers to its subject
through a direct causal link.
É por isso que um rastro pode representar aquilo que ele representa, mesmo
quando foi tenha sido produzido intencionalmente por alguém. Assim, as cinzas são um
rastro do fogo que as produziu, independentemente do fato de que as cinzas tenham sido
feitas por um fogo acendido por alguém pessoa. Da mesma forma, pinturas e inscrições
são consideradas representações apenas se elas tiverem sido intencionalmente
produzidas. Do contrário, elas não são representações, mas apenas resultados de
coincidências: uma nuvem que se assemelha a um rosto não é uma representação de
rosto algum.
Como se vê, o rastro é aquilo que algo naturalmente significa. Por isso mesmo,
não requer que seja produzido intencionalmente, como também pode ser percebido por
qualquer animal com um sistema cognitivo apto a perceber processos causais.
1
So, for example, a moving vane is an index of the wind, and a symptom is an index of a disease. The
trace in this sense is a sort of index, but it is worth noting that Peirce's notion of 'dynamical connection' is
broader than our notion of trace. There can be indexes that are not traces, as for example a finger F
pointing towards a subject S: in Peirce's view F is an index of S in virtue of its spatial connection with S;
but F is not a trace of S, since F was not caused by S. Even the moving vane is not exactly a trace, since it
is the movements of the vane which represent the wind direction, and not the vane itself. Indexes like
footprints and fingerprints, by contrast, are paradigmatic traces.
Essa referência a Grice é fundamental, sobretudo em razão de seu conceito de
significado natural. Para ele, o significado natural se deixa captar (e analisar) através da
seguinte fórmula: “x significa p implica p”. É dizer, algo (x) apenas pode significar
naturalmente outra coisa (p) se a existência deste algo implicar a existência do que é por
ele significado. Assim, são os sintomas de uma doença: as manchas vermelhas no rosto
de Maria significam naturalmente sarampo, se e somente se a presença dessas manchas
vermelhas efetivamente implicam a presença do sarampo (e não doença diversa, ou uma
mera maquiagem). E os rastros se apresentam da mesma maneira, como portadores ou
veículos de significados naturais, por complexos que eles possam ser, como é o caso dos
documentos, enquanto subgrupo deles.
Com efeito, Terrone situa os documentos como um subgrupo dos rastros, mais
precisamente, como rastros produzidos intencionalmente. Por isso mesmo, um
documento é portador de duplo significado, natural e não natural. Um documento é, por
um lado, rastro do ato que o produziu, ou seja, ele significa naturalmente este ato, na
medida em que a mera existência do documento implica a existência do ato que o
produziu (isso ainda vale para o caso da falsificação, sendo que, nesse caso, o
documento é rastro do ato que produziu a falsificação). Por outro lado, o documento
significa não naturalmente a específica intenção com a qual ele foi confeccionado, o
específico conteúdo que, intencionalmente, se quis comunicar ou significar com ele.
This document is the trace of an act that attested that I was born in Italy.
This document naturally means an act that non-naturally meant that I was
born in Italy.
oriendoo que apenas pode querer significar representando um ato do qual o crédito seja
um fator, ser conhecido por um sujeito minimamente preparado para identificar algo
como um documento, sem que esse sujeito reconheça, em primeiro lugar, que este
documento implica a realização do ato que o elaborou.
We commonly say things like: This document attests that I was born in Italy. But a
more accurate rendering would be:
In this sense the trace is a bearer of what Grice calls "natural meaning"; that is to say: a
trace is an x such that "x means [or x meant] thatp entails/?" (Grice 1957, 377).
A trace means nothing but its cause, and it means this cause by entailing its existence.
Since ash (= x) means that there was fire (=/?), then the presence of ash entails that
there was fire. I cannot say, 'This ash means fire, but there was no fire.' By contrast, I
can say, 'This red flag means danger, but there was no danger because the flag was
flown by mistake.'
Indeed, red flags, unlike piles of ash, are bearers of what Grice calls "nonnatural
meaning"—meaning of a sort which depends on the recognition not of a mere natural
cause but of an intention to induce a certain belief.
The scar where I cut myself shaving is a trace of an injury; but it is not a document of
the injury because it was not intentionally produced with the aim of making the injury
recognizable by someone experiencing the scar. Likewise, the ash is a trace of the fire
but it is not a document of the fire because the ash was not intentionally produced with
the aim of allowing someone to trace back to the fire which caused it. In order to be a
document, in the sense we shall here use this term, a trace has to be intentionally
produced through an act that was aimed at creating a trace. A footprint is a trace; but to
the extent that it was caused by an act that was not aimed at creating a footprint it is not
a document. A fingerprint taken in a public office, in contrast, does constitute a
document since it is caused by acts aimed at producing this very trace.
In virtue of its being an intentionally produced trace, a document allows the beholder to
trace back not only to the causal but also to the intentional source. But the document as
trace is still at its root a bearer of natural meaning, in spite of being intentionally
produced. This is because the existence of the document entails the existence of the act
that is made recognizable by the document itself. I cannot normally say:
This document attests to the Haiti 1804 Act of Independence, but there was no act of
independence in Haiti in 1804. By contrast, in the case of a bearer of non-natural
meaning (for instance, a red flag signaling danger), I can perfectly well say: This red
flag signals danger, but there is no danger. In face-to-face communication, the speaker
expresses meaning by performing an act (i.e., a peculiar event) and by directly
perceiving this act the hearer can recognize what is being communicated. When
communication is mediated by documents, however, the process is more complex. A
person expresses meaning by performing an act (i.e., a peculiar event) that produces a
document (i.e., an object); then, usually in a different context, an audience perceives the
document and recognizes that it was produced by an act aimed at expressing a certain
meaning. Thus, there are two steps in the recognition of what is communicated through
a document. First, the recognition of the document as a trace of an act. Second, the
recognition of what was expressed by the performer of that act. In Gricean terms, the
audience recognizes that the document naturally means an act, thereby recognizing that
this act non-naturally meant what was expressed. Documents as physical objects cannot
express non-natural meaning in and of themselves. They can do so only because they
can be viewed as having been produced through acts aimed at expressing non-natural
meaning. We commonly say things like: This document attests that I was born in Italy.
But a more accurate rendering would be: This document is the trace of an act that
attested that I was born in Italy. Or, equivalently, in Gricean terms: This document
naturally means an act that non-naturally meant that I was born in Italy.
Traces are signs that even nonlinguistic animals can properly understand. All you need
in order to understand what a trace represents is, indeed, a cognitive system that can be
triggered by the trace perceived in an appropriate context in such a way that you can
trace back to the entity that, by directly causing the trace, is represented by it.
I start by examining what kind of entity a trace is with the aim of establishing what kind
of entity a document is.3 1 define a trace as a concrete particular that has been produced
by a cause and that allows a suitable beholder to recognize this very cause. In short, the
trace is the product of a causal process that makes its cause recognizable.