The Dialogical Self and Thirdness - SAGE Journals

The Dialogical Self and Thirdness A Semiotic Approach to Positioning Using Dialogical Triads Peter T.F. Raggatt JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT. The American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce described “Thirdness” as the influence of one subject on a second mediated by a third. In psychology the idea of Thirdness has been captured in a wide range of triadic models that draw on Peirce’s original insights about mediation. In this paper, links are developed between Peirce’s triadic approach to semiotics, accounts of the dialogical self as “multi-voiced,” and the role of “mediating objects” as third-term semiotic markers in self-representation. Using case material from a life history, the emergence of conflicting positions in the self is illustrated using dialogical triads. The triads incorporate meaning-charged objects (people, things, events) as third-term mediators. The mediators are distinctive because they have a doubled quality, defining both similarities and differences between opposing positions. I argue that the analytic approach developed here helps to shed light on the tension between multiplicity and integration in theories of the self’s formation. KEY WORDS: dialogical self, identity, mediation, multiplicity, Peirce, positioning, semiotics, Thirdness

In this paper I develop links between the semiotics of the American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1931–1958), accounts of the dialogical self as multi-positioned or “multi-voiced” (Hermans, 2001), and the role of “mediating objects” as symbols for self-representation. Taking a lead from Peirce’s original ideas about “Thirdness” and his triadic conception of the relations between objects, signs, and interpretants (discussed shortly), an approach to analyzing the dialogical self using triads is proposed. Mediating objects (people, events, things) comprise the third term in these triads. In order to ground the approach, I propose that accounts of a dialogical self must begin with an analysis of the self as a sign system, what contemporary THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY VOL. 20 (3): 400–419 © The Author(s), 2010. Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0959354310364878 http://tap.sagepub.com

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pragmatists call the “semiotic self” (Colapietro, 1989; Wiley, 1994). The self in this approach is constituted through language and symbolic behavior, and so signification must be prior to any apprehension of the self (Favareau, 2001). On this view, experiencing the self as integrated presumes a prior manifold of symbolic representations that must be brought together in the first place. It follows that an integrated self can be considered an “effect” or an “achievement,” and not an a priori state or transcendental object. In sum, the manifold of our conscious (and unconscious) representations of self is a multiplicity of signs. There is synergy here with dialogical self theory (DST) because multiplicity is a fundamental premise in dialogical conceptions of a self. At the same time, however, a dialogical approach should be able to account for experiences of integration or for “centralizing tendencies” in the experience of self. The semiotic model developed here suggests that key mediating objects in a person’s life story are doubled with respect to their symbolic significance. They function in a dialogical self like the twin-faced figure of Janus from classical Roman mythology—looking in opposing directions to opposing I-positions. Mediating objects divide the self, but at the same time they provide the grounds for integration.

Peirce’s Concept of Thirdness and Triangle Hybrids Peirce (1931–1958) identified three fundamental phenomenological categories. Firstnesses involve the immediacy of sensations or feelings considered in their pure qualitative aspect and without regard to outside considerations. Secondnesses are dyadic, involving brute actions of one subject toward another, regardless of any third. Secondness implies perception of something intruding, of an otherness or a second subject, but it is a subject unmediated by interpretation. Thirdnesses are triadic. They involve a first bound together with a second by the mediation of a third. Peirce describes Thirdness as the mental influence of one subject on another relative to a third. Interpretation is key to Thirdness. Peirce writes: “Secondness consists in one thing acting upon another—brute action. I say brute, because so far as the idea of any law or reason comes in, Thirdness comes in” (Peirce, 1931–1958, Vol. VIII, p. 330). The power of triadic formulations involving Thirdness is that they can be arranged into multiple complex structures. When this principle is applied to language, for example, meaning becomes dependent on the triadic relationship between an object, its signifier, and a third term, which Peirce calls the “interpretant” (or the interpretative tradition given in the culture). Figure 1 depicts Peirce’s basic semiotic triad. Applying the principle of Thirdness to interpersonal relations, to take another example, we could say that the act of giving a gift (the object) requires that the recipient (the other) understands the relevant cultural meanings of gift-giving (the interpretant). Triangle models

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of various kinds have emerged following Peirce’s original insights about Thirdness. Their common purpose seems to be to account for the social constitution of experience. A selection of such variations would include communication triangles (sender–recipient–object of reference; Buhler, 1934/1990; Valsiner, 2003), mediational triangles (subject–mediator–object; Vygotsky, 1978), epistemic triangles (ego–alter–object; Marková, 2003), and developmental triangles (child–parent–object; Bradley, 2010a; see also Zittoun, Gillespie, Cornish, & Psaltis, 2007). In each of these arrangements it is assumed that relations between a second and a third term can be used to understand something about a first. In other words, Thirdness is expressed in the symbolic relations that hold between others and objects, relative to a person as subject. Before moving to a discussion of these ideas in relation to the dialogical self, it is important to emphasize the implications of the distinction Peirce draws between dyadic conceptions of Secondness and his idea of Thirdness. In semiotic terms, a sign may directly reference, denote, or index an object: for example, a picture of an eagle denotes a large raptor bird (Bradley, 2010b). This is a form of Secondness. However, many signs carry a secondorder symbolic significance which is culturally mediated, a form of Thirdness. For example, the picture of an eagle may, to Americans, connote other meanings, such as freedom, justice, the Spirit of America, and so on. (Bradley, 2010b). Thirdness captures second-order symbolic meanings. These will be a focus later when looking at a case study of the dialogical self. The wider significance of Peirce’s triadic approach is that it opens a path to examining the dynamics of semiotic mediation in a range of cognate domains including communication, ontogeny, identity, and adult development. In relation to the self, the philosopher David Favareau (2001) has speculated about the evolution of our semiotic self and our symbolic capacities more generally, by connecting a Peircean approach to contemporary neuroscience. He writes:

Object

Signifier

Interpretant (Culture)

FIGURE 1. Peirce’s semiotic triad.


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Neurosemiotically, the ceaseless interaction of recursive ... iconic, indexical and symbolic levels of organization provide the substrate for the emergence of a meta-system propensity towards “thirdness”—a propensity which, in our species, finds its apogee in language and in the communal manipulation of publicly negotiated and therefore multiply perspectival signs. (p. 16)

For Favareau it is our “meta-system propensity to thirdness” that creates the grounds for the emergence of the self. He continues: Self-representation ... is accomplished through a massively collaborative interaction of sign-exchange across countless nodes of mediation between cell, brain, body, and world. Neuronally, biologically and symbolically, “self” is therefore cumulative, not primal. (p. 16)

The key observation here is that the self must be conceived in a semiotic framework of mediation. Without reflection through otherness, there can be no self. In the following sections the dialogical self is discussed using this Peircean framework. The approach is then exemplified using a case study interpretation of mediating objects in life history data.

Reflections on the Self: Looking into a Mirror I will begin this discussion with an examination of “mirroring.” What can we learn from looking into a mirror at our own reflection? The question has very deep roots in epistemological reflections on the self. In the psychoanalytic and discursive traditions, mirroring has been a focus for reflections on the meaning of self as imagined or constructed (Bakhtin, 1920–1924/1990; Lacan, 1949/1977). In developmental psychology, “mirror self-recognition” in infants has been a key focus of inquiries into the emergence of theories of mind (Amsterdam, 1972; Neilsen, Dissanayake, & Kashima, 2003). I want to linger on this developmental work here for a moment as a means to make some observations about the dialogical self. Studies of children suggest that mirror self-recognition emerges between about 18 and 24 months for a majority of infants. Prior to this the mirror reflection is treated either as a “play companion” or as another person, but one hidden behind the mirror. The question arises as to what precisely is “recognized” in the mirror by 24 months? The conventional idealist view is that the image in the mirror is denotative. It is confirmation of the “I” as a separate, pre-existing entity. But closer scrutiny casts some doubt on this because what we see in the mirror is only a partial image of the self, as this would be seen by a third-person other. It is a view of the self that we can never actually see ourselves (Neuman, 2003). This is a crucial point for Bakhtin and other theorists of the self because it implies that the “I” of mirror self-recognition is constituted from the outside. Perhaps this explains why there is something very disquieting about looking into a mirror. A number of writers have observed a quality of

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absence or lack in the experience (Neuman, 2003). The following commentary on mirroring from an early essay by Bakhtin (1920–1924/1990) points to this interpretation and makes a starting place for the argument here. He writes: A very special case of seeing my exterior is looking at myself in a mirror. It would appear that in this case we see ourselves directly. But this is not so. ... Indeed, our position before a mirror is always somewhat spurious, for since we lack any approach to ourselves from outside ... we project ourselves into a peculiarly indeterminate possible other .... we try to vivify ourselves and give form to ourselves—out of the other. (pp. 32–33)

In this sense, mirroring is a dyad in which there is an absence. There is the sensory impression of Firstness given by the term “I,” and there is a sense of an intruding other, but there is no third, no mediating object, and so the experience has a quality of Secondness. Neuman (2003) cites examples of these absences and emptinesses in other kinds of reflections, to illustrate this idea in a different context. For example, the art historian Rossholm-Lagerlof describes the experience of visiting a museum containing a faithful re-creation of a 1940s Swedish kitchen, familiar from her childhood. She describes the experience in terms of absences. She writes: The effect of this setting was absence, not presence. The people supposed to live among the utensils were absent, as were the living conditions, the expectations, the presumptions. The plaster cake did not fill the place of the real cake ... it did not even represent it, it rather emphasized its empty space. (Cited in Neuman, 2003, p. 6)

The reflected image of the self in the mirror creates something of this same discomforting experience of absence or emptiness. Indeed, in the infant mirror studies there is empirical evidence to suggest that the experience is inherently discomforting. In the study by Amsterdam (1972), almost all children (96%) showed discomfort and avoided looking into the mirror in the post-selfrecognition period (18–24 months). Yet, very few infants (only 3%) showed this behavior prior to 12 months (Amsterdam, 1972). While this avoidance behavior among the older infants was not the main focus of inquiry in the mirror self-recognition studies, its presence raises more questions than it answers about mirroring. The avoidance behavior is attributed to “self-consciousness” in these studies (Amsterdam, 1972). But consciousness of what, precisely, could explain the avoidance behavior? Perhaps it is the experience of absence, not presence, which explains avoidance? Neuman (2003) suggests that mirroring is an “in-between” experience, because the mirror’s reflection denotes the self but does not signify it in any meaningful context. For this, the view from the other (or a third party) is required. At this point, Peirce’s conception of Thirdness can find a place in formulations of a dialogical self. We can conceptualize the mirroring experience in dyadic formations involving the quality of Secondness described above. Figure 2 gives three examples from the literature. Looking at the first dyad in the figure, a number of theorists


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equate the reflected self with aspects of the “Me,” or self-as-object, or social self, in contrast to the subjective “I” of the stream of consciousness.1 James (1890) famously enumerated a series of Me’s, including empirical, social, and spiritual dimensions. In the second dyad, Salgado (2007) has recently proposed that the reflection represents an “Other-in-me.” It is not specified, however, whether this “other” can be viewed as an independent part of the personality, as an internalized other (someone from the outside), or as an imaginal character. Concerning the third dyad, Hubert Hermans and his colleagues (Hermans, 2001; Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010; Hermans & Kempen, 1993; Hermans, Kempen, & Van Loon, 1992) have drawn on James (1890) and particularly Bakhtin (1929/1984) to define the dialogical self as a dynamic multiplicity of several I-positions that have separate stories to tell, and that are at least partially independent formations. The significant shift in this third dyad is to conceive multiplicity in terms of the “I” (which James defined as singular), rather than the empirical “me” or self-as-object. The “I” in Hermans’ approach is itself a multiplicity, having the capacity to shift from one position to another. There is a sense, then, in which the three dyads in Figure 2 represent, in order, an increasing move away from an idealist position that centers the self in a continuity of consciousness.

On Integration vs. Differentiation in a Dialogical Self A consequence of proposing multiple I-positions is to question notions of a “transcendental,” “executive,” or “ventriloquist” self. We might consider this the strong pluralist form of dialogical self theory (DST) in its psychological aspects (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). But even while Hermans and his colleagues have actively (and productively) promoted this strong pluralist form of DST, they also recognize a countervailing and centralizing tendency towards integration in our experience. Processes of individuation, needless to say, have been a dominant theme in the literature on the self of the 20th century, particularly under the influence of Western individualism (e.g., Erikson, 1959; McAdams, 1993). “Identity achievement,” “self-actualization,” and “egointegration” are the terms that have received the strongest currency in this humanistic tradition. Even theorists with an investment in pluralist models of I + + + + + + + (secondness)+ + + + + + + ‘Me’

(object of reflection) (e.g., James, 1890) I + + + + + + + (secondness)+ + + + + + + ‘Other-in-me’ (e.g., Salgado, 2007) I-position 1 + + + + + (secondness)+ + + + + I-position 2 (e.g., Hermans, 2001)

FIGURE 2. Possible dyadic configurations of mirroring.

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subjectivity have warned against a tendency to over-emphasize multiplicity at the expense of integration (e.g., Barresi, 2002; Colapietro, 2006). In his searching examination of Hermans’ work, Barresi (2002) has argued that dialogical self theory can “not fully achieve the illusion it attempts to create of moving I-positions among characters” because “there is no way to move outside the situated consciousness of the present speaker/knower” (pp. 247– 248). This equation of the first-person speaker with the thinker/knower, following William James, brings us back to the dyadic configurations shown in Figure 2. In this move the “I” of conscious experience is contained in a situated present. In so doing, the experience of unity or integration is retained and apparently explained. However, I think this comes at a price in the form of a kind of imprisonment, in which the self is denied the capacity to move, in the medium of either time or space. In addressing the tension between multiplicity and integration in the literature, Hermans and his colleagues (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010; Hermans & Kempen, 1993) have proposed what they call “meta-positions.” A meta-position performs the function of an overseer, observing the functioning of the various I-positions below it. Note that this implies a hierarchical structure. But Hermans also leaves open the possibility that meta-positions can themselves be subject to domination by I-positions that mask a wider view. Indeed, in his most recent statements Hermans has suggested that there may be a multiplicity of meta-positions available to the dialogical self. On this view, there is no singular, continuous, centralizing tendency that can be equated with a fully integrated self. Hermans and Hermans-Konopka (2010) write: A meta-position is not to be considered a “headquarters” of the self or an agency that guarantees the unity and coherence of the self in advance. ... A meta-position is typically [the product of] ... one or more internal and external positions. ... [D]ependent on time and situation, different meta-positions may emerge. (p. 69)

Here there is implied a structure or formation that is much more fluid and faceted than a straightforward hierarchical model. It is an approach reminiscent of the philosopher Favareau’s (2001) reflections on the complexity of the semiotic self, discussed earlier. In Hermans’ most recent view, then, there is no meta-position that can capture sustained succession and continuity through time. Other theorists have approached the issue of centralizing forces in a dialogical self using a triadic approach. The Peircean scholar Norbert Wiley (1994, 2006) has proposed a triadic model of inner speech in which dialogue in the self functions as a three-way exchange between an immediately present “I,” which is the source of spontaneity and creativity, a reflective “me,” which is constituted by past experience, and a future-oriented “you,” to which thought and action are directed. These three positions are equated in order with Pierce’s phenomenological categories of Firstness, Secondness, and


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Thirdness. The model has some intrinsic appeal because it would seem that both simultaneity and succession are captured in a three-way exchange of “positions” defined by temporal location. However, in my view, the premise of dynamic conflict which lies at the heart of DST is abandoned in this model, and this is a significant weakness. In the present view, the dialogical functioning of thought presupposes an experience of self-contradiction, which leads to the emergence of distinct identities (see Michel, Andacht, & Gomez, 2008, for a discussion of this point). In commenting on Wiley’s model, Lysaker (2006) has proposed that the approach is overly cognitive and monological. According to Lysaker, each element in Wiley’s triad is another mode of the “I.” He also suggests that the model restricts conceptions of the dialogical self to a theory of inner speech, without regard to the inter-psychological domain in which the dialogical self emerges (see Bertau, 2004). While for Wiley, the “I” pronoun occupies a central position in directing our behavior, for Lysaker (2006) our awareness or consciousness is often better described as “passenger rather than driver” (p. 43). In the strong pluralist version of DST, I-positions are semi-autonomous and not the products of some persistent, “ventriloquist” I, working as a puppeteer behind the scenes. For Lysaker (2006), the dialogical self emerges from an inter-animating (or dialogical) movement among elements that cannot be reduced to a simpler entity or phenomenon. ... Thus, rather than finding within us a self-identical ... mind responsible for our perceiving, ... a dialogical theory [proposes] relatively independent locations of behavior ... whose interaction produces a whole greater than the sum of its parts. (p. 42)

In summary, with regard to the “internal dynamics” of a dialogical self, I propose that I-positions are the product of conflicting significations that (a) are at least partially independent systems, and (b) are structured out of a rich, socially constituted formation of signs and narratives that encompass past, present and future. A strong pluralist version of DST, however, should also be able to account for “centralizing” or integrating tendencies in the self. One approach to this problem would be to propose that if the self is conceived first as a multiple, semiotic construction replete with contradictions or ambivalences, then the question of integration can be treated as an “outcome” rather than as a “given.” In this approach, integration would be defined by matters of degree and of relative impermanence. A solution to the tension between centralizing and decentralizing forces in the self, therefore, is to propose that I-positions are semi-independent systems that have a latent or contingent capacity for integration from time to time. If this capacity can be illustrated empirically, then this might help to clarify some of the ambiguities about DST, and indeed conflicts more generally between Enlightenment and postindustrial models of the self. Colapietro (2006) has observed that “unsuspected processes of mediation structure and direct our most spontaneous acts” and that “the task of social and other theorists accordingly includes that of

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I-position 1 I (Me)

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Ambiguous Other (person, event, object)

FIGURE 3. A dialogical triad.

marking the presence of such processes and exhibiting their working” (p. 24). I will try to address this challenge in what follows.

Dialogical Triads Notwithstanding the theoretical shift to a multiplicity of I-positions specified in DST, the dyads shown in Figure 2 remain subject to the absences given in the mirroring experience, akin to a form of Peirce’s Secondness. A solution is to introduce a third term to form a dialogical triad. In the strong pluralist version of DST, we can write a triad which introduces Thirdness in relation to two I-positions that have separate epistemological status, as shown in Figure 3. The third component (the Other) may be another person, an event, or some object of signification that is ambiguous in meaning. It fulfils the function of a mediating object between I-positions. Notice that both I-positions can be read as containing the properties of William James’ subjective “I,” and empirical “Me,” depending on which position takes the role of speaker/thinker. I see this basic formulation as providing one means to resolve tensions across the subject–object binary in theorizing about the self. In the second half of this paper I illustrate how this triadic conception can provide an analytic framework for inquiry into the dialogical self. In this framework, mediating objects provide a key to understanding multiplicity in the self. Before turning to the case material used to illustrate triads, it will be helpful here to summarize assumptions and the strategic approach taken in order to point to what follows: • There is no transcendental, superordinate, or ventriloquist self. The self emerges in a semiotic field of interpretations. • The dialogical self is comprised of different I-positions. I-positions are emergent “in” and “over” time (the synchronic and diachronic dimensions are both important). I-positions, thus constituted, have both local specific action


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patterns and extended historical/narrative coherence and continuity (see Raggatt, 2006). • I-positions are frequently organized in paired oppositions whose coordinates may have both intra-personal and inter-personal (social) positioning origins (see Raggatt, 2007). • Dialogical triads comprise two such opposed I-positions and an “Other” (a person or other mediating object) that defines a Thirdness—a pattern of signification connecting and at the same time differentiating the opposed positions. • The mediating objects in these triads are “doubled” semiotic markers or semiotic resources. They are distinctive because they define both similarities and differences among I-positions.

Case Material: Dialogical Triads in the Case of Charles The principles discussed above will be illustrated in dialogical triads extracted from a case study described in previous work (Raggatt, 2006). A detailed description of the case can be found there and is not the focus here. The goal, rather, is to reinterpret aspects of the case material from within the Peircean framework of mediation that has been developed here. First, methods are outlined and the case of Charles is briefly sketched. With this background in place, the text focuses on four dialogical triads extracted from the case material. The triads reveal the “doubled” symbolic features of mediating objects in life history data. Method in Outline To investigate the dialogical self, I have developed a life narrative-based assessment tool (or set of tools) for “mapping” I-positions in the individual (called the Personality Web Protocol, or PWP). The method is described in detail elsewhere (Raggatt, 2000, 2002). Only the main points will be summarized here. The informant is interviewed over two sessions, and must complete a series of questionnaires and rating scales. The procedure is as follows: 1. Participants list 24 life history components or constituents (elsewhere I have also called these “attachments”) including 6 significant people, 6 life events, 8 objects and places, and 4 body image constituents. Liked and disliked or positive and negative exemplars of each component type are elicited. 2. Participants sort their constituents into typically between two and four associated groups or clusters that define associated life history material. They then label each cluster with a self-relevant identifier (e.g., creative self, spiritual self, victim).

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3. Participants rate all constituents and self-relevant identifiers, pair-wise, for similarities and differences on a nine-point scale. These ratings are submitted to Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) analyses. This statistical procedure represents distances between the objects being scaled in a solution of given dimensionality which can be visually inspected. In this case we are scaling semantic distances between life history constituents as conceptualized by the informant. The output can be analyzed into dimensions and clusters and interpolated with the participants’ commentary on the life history material given in interviews. 4. Participants are interviewed about their life history constituent lists. 5. Participants are interviewed about the constituent clusters. This process clarifies the meaning of I-positions for participant and researcher. I-Positions in Charles Charles is a 37-year-old single gay man who runs a small business. He is also a committed activist for gay rights and has twice run for election to public office. While not elected, Charles has become a spokesperson for gay issues in his local community. Charles’ life has been enriched by the commitments he has made to gay issues. But his relative success has been born out of struggle. He has encountered strong resistance in his community because of his sexual orientation. When Charles completed the PWP procedure just outlined, he identified four distinct I-positions, each defined by a set of life history constituents that he had previously reported. In the MDS analysis (see Raggatt, 2006, for details), two pairs of opposing positions define a two-dimensional space. Charles identified the positions of “humiliated self,” “activist,” “wild self,” and “masculine self” in his sorting of the life history material. The humiliated self was construed in opposition to the activist, and the wild (gay sexual) self is construed in opposition to the masculine self. This configuration emerged both in Charles’ subjective sort of the life history material and in the quantitative MDS solution obtained from his rating of constituents. Four Dialogical Triads Four dialogical triads of the basic form shown in Figure 3, extracted from the data provided by Charles, are discussed here. In order to form triads, the respective pairs of opposed positions in Charles’ dialogical self will be used to form the first and second terms. Specific constituents from Charles’ data were used to form the third-term mediating objects in these triads. Three of the triads are formed out of the opposition between the humiliated and activist positions. The fourth involves the wild and masculine positions. The humiliated and activist positions are strongly opposed in Charles. The humiliated position plays an important role in Charles’ developmental narrative, acting as a catalyst for change. Charles tells of confronting a moral crisis over


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his homosexuality. From the humiliated position, Charles recounts a succession of disturbing episodes involving rejection and shaming. In childhood, he was rejected by his father after a football match. In late adolescence he was discharged from the Navy after having an affair with an older Officer, and following that he was excommunicated from his Church group when no “cure” for his homosexuality was forthcoming. In adulthood, Charles experienced the humiliation of being the defendant in a court action related to his gay activism (on a charge of which he was later acquitted). The activist position, on the other hand, is represented in a series of constituents related to Charles’ role in the gay community. Included here are gay liberation role models such as Armistead Maupin and Quentin Crisp (discussed below), Charles’ experiences of running for election as a gay candidate, and his “victory” (or acquittal) in the aforementioned court case. It is important here to emphasize that Charles consciously identifies the activist position as a dialogical response to the moral conflicts engendered by his experiences of humiliation, experiences which largely arose out of his homosexuality. Triad 1. In the first triad the British activist Quentin Crisp is the third-term mediator (see Figure 4). Crisp is an important mediating object for Charles because he signifies both humiliation and activism. Some readers may know that Quentin Crisp appeared in drag on television acting as a spokesperson for the gay community at a time before the gay rights movement gained momentum in the 1970s. He was renowned for his flamboyant and effeminate behavior. In Charles the conflicts between his humiliation and his activism are transfigured in the feminine figure of Crisp. Here is Charles reflecting on the influence of Crisp: My other positive figure was both positive and negative at the same time and that is Quentin Crisp. He was such a flamboyant feminine figure, which is why he is both a positive and a negative role model for me. ... He is positive because of his strength of character ... but his extreme femininity and eccentricity was also a negative influence. It was like I only wanted to take pieces of him [emphasis added]. Humiliated Voice

Activist Voice

Quentin Crisp

FIGURE 4. A dialogical triad in Charles.

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In this excerpt from the interviews, the “doubled” quality of Crisp as a mediating object emerges in the image Charles offers of Crisp as someone split into parts. When Charles’ activism was emerging in his twenties he “only wanted to take pieces of” the feminized gay activist role model. For Charles, then, Crisp signifies both activism and humiliation. Crisp is a “semiotic marker” or “symbolic resource” in the dialogue between Charles the activist and Charles the humiliated homosexual. The Thirdness here is in the complex of similarities and differences, of likenesses and oppositions that Quentin Crisp embodies and that color the voices of both humiliation and activism in Charles. Triad 2. The second triad is formed out of experiences later in Charles’ developmental narrative. As mentioned previously, in his mid-thirties Charles found himself the subject of a court action related to his political activism on a charge of which he was subsequently acquitted (the details remain confidential). For Charles this experience constituted another episode of public humiliation, and his subsequent acquittal marked an important moral victory for the activist position. Reflecting on this victory he observes: I think my society now respects me you know, and think that if it came down to the crunch they would not agree that I am a bad person [emphasis added]. ... I was a homosexual [but] ... I wasn’t going to have these people [judges] standing up and saying these things. ... I will defend myself.

Triad 3. The third triad is formed out of Charles’ interpretations of his face as an embodied attribute of both his activism and his humiliation. In the part of PWP procedure which asks about body image referents (liked and disliked body parts), Charles included his face twice as a constituent. The activist position is embodied in Charles’ “strong face,” signifying his commitments and strength of purpose. But Charles also reported that he disliked his face for its “crookedness,” which for him embodied the humiliated position. Here, the same aspect of body image signifies different I-positions. Charles’ “strong face” and his “craggy face,” like the figure of Quentin Crisp, are one and the same object, but this object embodies both his humiliation and his activism. Triad 4. As noted, the fourth triad was formed out of the opposition between the “wild” and “masculine” positions. Charles’ wild self captures his uninhibited sexuality. From this position he expresses his love for men and gay culture. The life history material associated with this position delineates Charles’ private sexual world. In opposition to the wild position is Charles’ strong sense of masculinity, represented by his sportsman father, his time spent in the Navy, and images of strong military men in uniform. Here, conflict is defined by Charles’ sense of masculinity in relation to his sexual interest.


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In the fourth triad the figure of the uniformed military officer is the third-term mediator. In the assessment procedure Charles made two references to the figure of the military officer: one was to the heterosexual warrior soldier, included as part of the masculine I-position; the other was a recurring sexual fantasy of “sexually conquering” this soldier (included as part of the wild position). Recall that Charles had been discharged from the Navy after having a homosexual affair. As was the case for the other mediating objects discussed here, the figure of the military officer evokes powerfully conflicting feelings in Charles. On the one hand, he has a strong investment in asserting his masculinity. From the masculine position Charles asserts: I’ve always been extremely proud that I am a man, my maleness is totally different to my sexuality [emphasis added].

But from the “wild” position Charles reflects on a dominant sexual fantasy about military men in uniform. He says: I am very much a role player and I do like men in uniform, a variety of uniforms. I’d like to be in the aggressive position, I would like to be stimulating and satisfying their every whim and wish. And they have got to be straight, to be straight, and I am showing them a good time. ... This, this is the fag getting his own back on the heterosexual world. ... I suppose it’s all about the fag being more of the man than the man is, so to speak [emphasis added].

Here the military man in uniform is a “doubled” mediator because he signifies both masculinity and homosexuality. Charles wants to be a man’s man, but he also wants to sexually conquer and depose the figure of the masculine warrior. For Charles, then, the powerlessness and vulnerability of the humiliated position are overcome, not just in his activism, but in a vision of strong masculinity. Reflections on Theory Development For Charles, life is full of contradictions. We see this in his views of important role models such as Quentin Crisp. We see it in his conflicts over masculinity and sexuality. And we see it embodied in his face, through the contradictory readings he brings to his features. The dialogical triads described here reveal a complex network of signification in a semiotic self. We might ask: what principles emerge from these observations that bear on the development of dialogical self theory (DST)? One implication is that triadic models of mediation help to show that the self has a semiotic as well as a narrative foundation. Indeed, the appropriation of a semiotic approach inspired by Peirce to questions of narrative form and structure yields a powerful tool for testing DST, and analyzing the formation of I-positions in life history data. The evidence from Charles points to special kinds of mediating objects from his life history that are “doubled” with respect to their symbolic significance.2 These objects take a form akin to the

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classical double-faced figure of Janus from Roman mythology—the God of transitions. They have twin faces looking in opposite directions to opposing positions. While these figures divide the self, at the same time they provide the grounds for integration. Bradley (2010a) has addressed conflicting “second-order” symbolic meanings in a recent discussion of human symbolic behavior. He observes how certain kinds of symbols engender contested meanings depending on the nature of the third term. For example, many Americans would associate the Stars-andStripes with freedom, but to some Iranians the flag signifies evil. In another approach with some parallels to the present one, Gregg (1991) has used the term “octave relations” to theorize doubled mediation in his studies of selfrepresentation. In his case study of Sharon, for example, ice cream serves as the mediating object for two opposing selves, one defined by milk fat ice cream (an unhealthy self) and the other by tofu ice cream (a healthy self). We see the same kind of “doubled” second-order symbol formation in the case of Charles. His conflicting I-positions are defined in a ground of similarities. Crisp is an activist, but he is also effeminate. Charles’ face is “strong,” but it is also “crooked.” Charles reveres the masculinity of the soldier, but he also wants to seduce the soldier. It is these doubled lines of semiotic marking, of Thirdness in the story of Charles, that reveal the “stuff” of the dialogical self. A second implication for theory development relating to the dialogical self emerges from the observation that in the data provided by Charles, mediating objects can be arranged in time along what I will called an “axis of differentiation.” In this model, opposing I-positions can be configured out of this axis, which is defined by mediating objects. I have tried to illustrate this idea in Figure 5 using the analysis from Charles. The figure depicts the hypothetical tracking of the humiliated and activist I-positions in Charles through time and along an axis of differentiation. The activist emerges, as Charles sees it, out of the older humiliated I-position at a time from early in his twenties when he was first influenced by important role models. Figure 5 depicts the three triads described earlier for these I-positions, organized in chronological order: Quentin Crisp from Charles’ twenties; the court case, from his early thirties; and his face, from the present time. Each triad serves to signify both similarities and differences between I-positions at particular developmental points or landmarks in Charles’ life. The tension, then, between integration and differentiation in the self, or between continuity and change, is represented here in a sequence of dialogical triads defined by ambiguous mediating objects as third-term markers. In passing it is worth noting here that the whole structure bares comparison to Bakhtin’s (1981) notion of the “chronotope,” since the life story fragment schematized in Figure 5 has interlocking spatial and temporal dimensions. An extended discussion of personal chronotopes is not warranted here (but see Raggatt, in press).3 One question arising out of these considerations is whether the axis of differentiation shown in Figure 5 can be considered as evidence for the existence of a


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I-Position 1 Humiliated Self

queen Quentin Crisp

accused Court Case

crooked

Axis of Differentiation

Face mediating objects

hero

acquitted

Chronotope

strong

Activist Self I-Position 2 Time

FIGURE 5. Hypothetical tracking of I-positions and mediating objects in the case of Charles.

“meta-position” in the sense used by Hermans (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). To the degree that Charles is able to reflect simultaneously and consciously on the conflicts raised by his mediating objects, then it would appear we have evidence for a meta-position. For example, when Charles states that he “only wants to take pieces of” Quentin Crisp, it would seem that he is speaking from a meta-position in which he is holding both the activist and the humiliated positions up to the mirror of reflection. However, these kinds of “insights” may be relatively transitory reflections in Charles’ experience of the self. Crisp is just one of a series of objects that perform the function of interpretation for Charles. In this sense, the axis of differentiation shown in Figure 5 can be viewed as being comprised of a succession of interpretants. For Peirce, signification is a generative process—signs beget other signs through the process of semiosis, and in this sense “the self is a sign that is destined to produce increasingly complex signs of itself” (Michel et al., 2008, p. 304). We see the kernels of this kind of evolving complexity in the life story material from Charles shown in Figure 5. A metaposition could only emerge out of the conflicts mapped therein. It could not preexist them. At the outset of this paper I made the claim that experiencing the self as integrated presupposes a prior manifold of signs that must be brought together in the first place. In consequence, integration and continuity in the self could be considered an outcome or an achievement and not evidence that the self is an a priori or transcendental essence. The manifold of our conscious (and unconscious) representations of self is a multiplicity of signs. In this paper I have tried to make a case, both in theoretical terms and in empirical ones, to illuminate this argument. The claim being made here is that the grounds for multiplicity in a dialogical self can be found in third-term mediators; in other words, in a world of signs that itself is grounded in the social. Dialogue “inside” as well as “outside” the self is therefore always the product of a three-way engagement between opposed positions, but always in relation to a third term. In Charles, the dialogue between the humiliated and activist

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positions is mediated by people like Quentin Crisp. Similarly, the dialogue between the masculine and wild positions requires the doubled symbolic features of the uniformed military figure as a mediator. These objects can be thought of as helping to give form to the dialogical self along an axis of differentiation (shown in Figure 5). But mediating objects, by virtue of their doubled signatures, can also provide the grounds for the experience of integration—an experience that may emerge intermittently out of ambiguity and conflict via such mediators.

Conclusion Earlier, I proposed that I-positions are partially independent systems that may have a latent or contingent capacity for integration from time to time. In this paper I have tried to substantiate the grounds for this claim. A feature of the triadic approach used here is that it can go some way to illustrating, indeed explaining, the tension between centralizing and decentralizing forces in the self. It can do this because dialogical triads can subsume the grounds for both multiplicity and integration via the generative power of symbolic mediation. Inspired by the principle of Thirdness first proposed by C.S. Peirce, the paper has tried to show how mediating objects with doubled symbolic valuations can capture and hold these tensions. This is a potentially useful tool for future theoretical and empirical work in a literature where the tension between centralizing and decentralizing approaches is an abiding theme (see, e.g., Brewster Smith, 1994; Chandler, Lalonde, & Teucher, 2003; Gergen, 1994; Raggatt, 2006). Notes 1. Note that the authors given in Figure 2 also discuss the self in its wider social context. None confines their discussion to dyads or Secondnesses, and Salgado (2007) also proposes a triadic approach but does not elaborate. 2. Not all constituent objects (important persons, things, events) appear to have this doubled property. For example, some of Charles’ constituents appear to represent one I-position but not its opposite. 3. “In the literary artistic chronotope,” Bakhtin (1981) writes, “spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot, and history. This intersection of axes and fusion of indicators characterizes the artistic chronotope” (p. 84). While Bakhtin was concerned with literary narrative, it is intriguing to ponder that the kind of structures he envisions in “artistic narratives” find congruent formations in personal ones described here. The potential linkages (and the differences) between literary, cultural, and personal chronotopes invite further theoretical work (see Raggatt, in press).


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I would like to thank Marie-Cecile Bertau, John Barresi, Alex Gillespie, Tania Zittoun, Hank Stam, and Ben Bradley for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The research was supported by Merit Grants to the author from James Cook University. PETER T.F. RAGGATT is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. He has interests in social theory, personality, and narrative psychology. He has made recent contributions to Theory & Psychology (2007, 2010), the Journal of Personality (2006), and the Handbook on the Dialogical Self (forthcoming). He is currently co-editing a text on developmental aspects of the dialogical self. ADDRESS: Department of Psychology, James Cook University, Townsville, 4811, Queensland, Australia. [email: [email protected]]