INTRODUCTION

 There are many ways of knowing and understanding. Knowledge is revealed by structure. These structures may be in the form of language, music, or art. The concept of structural epistemology allows one to go beyond predilection for language as a system of expression within a rhetorical culture. It brings into play other forms or modes of knowing in the form of visual and resonance metaphors. Structural Epistemology has to do with the expression of sign systems and Structural Hermeneutics has to do with the interpretation of various sign systems within a knowledge framework. If one has an idea and it is not connected to some kind of structural expression, the idea is ineffable. If one has an idea and it is connected to some kind of system of tangible expression, then the idea constitutes a kind of knowledge structural epistemology.

Structures are organized forms of information. They provide access to organized bodies of information in the form of structural knowledge. What is important about structures is that they are instruments that provide access to meaningful. If one has an idea, that idea cannot be shared unless it is objectified. When forms are objectified, they can be communicated. Not only must forms be objectified, they also must be organized in a systemic way. When organized structures are shared they constitute social knowledge. The study of knowledge structures and their expressions is referred to as structural epistemology. Hence, knowledge structures are significant because they are organized systemically. They may take on different forms of logic and modes of expression, but they are all organized within a larger framework of systemic knowledge. Structural epistemology has to do with the creation and use of structures of expression while structural hermeneutics has to do with the interpretation of these structures. At a deeper level, however, both have to do with the organization of objectified social knowledge. The reason for this focus on structure is clear, if structures are not available, then their embedded concepts are ineffable.

THE LIMITS OF STRUCTURAL SYMBOLOGY

As noted earlier, knowledge structures may occur over several modalities. They may exist as tonal structures, visual structures, mythical accounts, or biological and physiological constructs. The process of interpreting sign has been traditionally limited to written systems. Semiotics, the study of sign systems, has expanded this tradition to include graphics and other forms of art. Incorporated within this model is the concept of oppositions. Entities exist because they contrast with each other and it is from this contrast that they emerge as separate signs. Both structural epistemology and structural hermeneutics differ from traditional hermeneutics in several ways. The motivating structures are not based on patterns or structures that are in opposition to each other. For example, the tradition of musical notation is not based on opposition but on a theory of tonal harmony. Similarly, art is based on how human beings conceive of the organization of objects and how they are balanced within a visual space. Hence, it is argued that there are many approaches to structured information that cannot be adequately accounted for within the paradigm of semiotics. Consequently, structural epistemology is not limited to the semiologie of Ferdinand de Saussure or the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce. Those models are predicated on certain sign relationships and certain traditions based on those relationships. These models are based on abstract relationships that are meant to apply globally to all kinds of structured knowledge.

Structural epistemology deals with contextualized forms of social knowledge. Semiotics is based on the assumption that sign systems are neutral. They can apply to all knowledge structures. In structural epistemology, on the other hand, there is a recognition that codes are not neutral. They are situated within social systems and the values of those systems are embedded within those codes. Codes are always contextualized and consequently contain the social, cultural, and historical values associated with those codifications. There are many ways of knowing and understanding and each of these has its own inherent logic. Visual systems are based on a different organizational principle than music systems and these also differ in substantive ways with language systems.