Epistemic modalities
المؤلف:
Bronwen Martin and Felizitas Ringham
المصدر:
Dictionary of Semiotics
الجزء والصفحة:
P59
2025-05-28
462
Epistemic modalities
The term epistemic relates to knowledge, its theory or scientific study, and the modalities connected involve certainty/uncertainty and probability/improbability.
In semiotic terms, epistemic modalities form part of the competence needed by an enunciatee to evaluate a proposition. In order to establish an enunciative contract (implicit or explicit), an enunciator attempts to persuade (Jaire croire) the enunciatee, who, for his/her part, seals his/ her own interpretative doing with an epistemic judgement, that is, with either believing (croire) the enunciator or doubting (ne pas croire) his/ her statements. If I accept the weather forecast and believe that tomorrow the sun will shine, I have judged the prognosis believable.
Epistemic modalities are also part of the necessary competence for a sender-adjudicator to carry out its function in the canonical narrative schema. The epistemic judgement in this instance refers to the assessment of the narrative subject's performance being in accordance with the initial contract. It also relates to cognitive sanction in that it distributes belief or disbelief in statements made within a narrative. The king, for example, who has asked the knight to slay the dragon in return for the hand of his daughter, may not believe (negative epistemic judgement) that the task has been accomplished when the knight returns. On the other hand, he may be persuaded to acknowledge the deed (positive epistemic judgement) when seeing the monster's cut-off heads, or listening to an eyewitness account.
Scientific discourse in particular is characterized by a surfeit of epistemic modalization which appears to take the place of verifying procedures. The same goes for the experimental sciences and all discourse whose hypotheses are difficult to verify.
See also certainty and uncertainty.
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