a growing red glob of silicone gel is cast in the role of an intelligent being
rather than an impersonal force. 16 But in my characterization of others’
conceptions of meaning as something blob-like, I want to make it clear
that the blob of meaning (implied in the accounts I’m criticizing) is nei-
ther possessed by nor forged by intelligence. Meaning, on these accounts,
is not a cognitive activity, but rather a fl uid substance that resides within
the combinatoric effect of the words that comprise a text, and which, in
some accounts, reaches back to connect the text with its author, and for-
ward to connect it with its readers.
We fi nd such an enlarging view of “meaning,” for example, in the work
of Christopher Spinks. Spinks argues for understanding the meaning of
Scripture as a “triadic relation,” a term he takes from James Hoopes’s
introduction to the work of C.S. Peirce. 17 Meaning, on this understand-
ing, emanates from all three principals in the communication triangle
(author, text, and reader). Drawing on Austin’s speech-act theory and on
Peirce’s pragmatics, Spinks argues that the contributions of author, text,
and reader should all be viewed as fellow components of a more “holistic”
view of meaning: “In a sense I am arguing for the supervenience of the
total speech situation over its comprising parts.” 18 According to Spinks,
Meaning ... is attained in the triadic relationship of a sign-vehicle , an object
and an interpretant , or as Hoopes states, “the meaning of every thought
is established by a triadic relation, an interpretation of the thought as a
sign of a determining object .” Within this triadic relationship the idea of an
interpretant, or the relational element, stand [ sic ] out in a world of meaning
more often governed by dualistic theories. ... Peirce himself states almost in
passing, “It seems a strange thing ... that a sign should leave its interpretant
to supply a part of its meaning .” 19But what (we might ask) are Spinks’s grounds for turning a triadic relation
of principals into something like a semantic node? As far as I can see, his
only gesture at establishing that a “triadic” meaning might correspond to
a philosophical given is to quote Kevin Vanhoozer’s characterization of
meaning as an “emergent property.” 20 Vanhoozer’s point, however, was
to enlist the notion of emergence as a way of correlating the notion of
intention with an anti-Cartesian theory of mind. 21 “Emergence” within a
theory of mind refers to the idea of a “higher order phenomenon” result-
ing from a congeries of conscious impulses and relations. That, of course,
is altogether different from the idea of combining authorial, textual,
72 J.C. POIRIER