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Page 29
Let me take an example of Hermetic semiosis defeated by a thinker who acted as Peirce would have acted. One of the most celebrated Hermetic arguments was this: the plant orchis has the same form of human testicles; therefore not only does orchis stand for testicles but also every operation accomplished on the plant can get a result on the human body. The Hermetic argument went further indeed: a relationship of resemblance was established not only between the plant and the testicles but also between both and other elements of the furniture of the macro- and microcosm, so that, by means of different rhetorical relationships (such as similarity, past or present contiguity, and so on), every one of these elements could stand for and act upon every other.
The objection raised by Francis Bacon (Parasceve ad Historiam Naturalem et Experimentalem, 1620) was the following: one must distinguish between a relationship of causality, and a relationship of similarity. The roots of orchis are morphologically similar to male testicles, but the reason for which they have the same form is different. Being genetically different, the roots of the orchis are also functionally different from male testicles. Therefore these two phenomena can be interpreted as morphologically analogous, but their analogy stops within the universe of discourse of morphology and cannot be extended into other universes of discourse.
Peirce would have added that, if the interpretation of the roots of orchis as testicles does not produce a practical habit allowing the interpreters to operate successfully according to that interpretation, the process of semiosis has failed. In the same sense, one is entitled to try the most daring abductions, but if an abduction is not legitimated by further practical tests, the hypothesis cannot be entertained any longer.
Hermetic drift could be defined as an instance of connotative neoplasm. I do not wish to discuss at this moment whether connotation is a systematic phenomenon or a contextual effect (see Bonfantini 1987). In both cases, however, the phenomenon of connotation can still be represented by the diagram suggested by Hjelmslev and made popular by Barthes (figure 2.1). There is a phenomenon of connotation when a sign function (Expression plus Content) becomes in turn the expression of a further content.
However, in order to have connotation, that is, a second meaning of a sign, the whole underlying first sign is requestedExpression plus Content. Pig connotes "filthy person" because the first, literal meaning of this word contains negative semantic markers such as "stinky" and "dirty." The first sense of the word has to be kept in mind (or at least socially recorded by a dictionary) in order to make

 
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