Political Facts and the Production of Meanings in Discourse

Abstract

The article proposes conceptualization of a political fact as a semiotic sign, based on Peirce’s models, which were reexamined by a number of modern researchers and filled with a discursive content. Facts are defined as statements with illocutionary power that represent a state of affairs to the mind, which interprets that representation as valid. Political facts differ from others in that the process of their interpretation is politically motivated i.e., pragmatically and normatively. Fact is also considered as a special case of a speech act: following John Searle, the author believes that such acts are always illocutionary, although there is not always a direct connection between the structure of an utterance and its intended meaning. On the basis of such understanding of facts and Peirce’s classification of interpretants, the author builds semiotic typology of facts. He distinguishes between eight types of facts depending on the position of an interpretant in relation to a sign. All types of facts are located in a three-dimensional conceptual model, which is presented in the article in three tables. The author reveals possible prerequisites that determine a subject’s choice of this or the other mode of the interpretation of facts. The author finds a connection between certain types of interpretants with behavioral choices of subjects, as well as with the concept of intersubjectivity. According to the author, such conceptualization can work as an intermediary model that connects various scientific traditions via a single apparatus that allows overcoming the differences between individual approaches through an appeal to more general characteristics of the subject. The constructed typology of facts also has practical significance, especially in the study of political discourse, where dispute about facts plays a central role. It gives a researcher an opportunity not only to focus on certain categories of facts, but also, when faced with any facts, to effectively categorize them, identifying their key characteristics.