Vincent, you wrote, “The word human might here be problematic since, in light of history, human implies one of the dualisms from which we need to extricate ourselves. Not to be cute but a transhuman humanism might be what the moment calls for.”
One of those dangerous dualisms is the implicit belief in human supremacy.(as Jeremy Lent callls it in Ecocivilization. The word “transhuman” has already been rendered problematic by some leaders of the tech giants themselves; but even “humanism” is bothersome to some of us – we who refer to “the moment” as the Anthropocene, in which Homo sapiens has come to dominate the whole planet in a manner that is not healthy for most of its inhabitants, including most humans. The gross inequality of wealth, power and privilege between rich and poor humans is just a microcosm of the effect humanity is collectively having on all our relations, notably the sixth mass extinction in Earth history. In recent years i've beeb giving more attention to this moment, its causes and consequences, than to Peirce, but i'm inclined to think he would be doing the same if he were still with us and had the benefit of developments in ecological science that have come along since his time. Nate Hagens, who's hosted hundreds of interviews, podcasts and essays on Youtube and Substack about this moment, used to call it “the human predicament,” including the AI arms race. But lately he has taken up the term “more-than-human” for the living world on which humans and their cultures are still biophysically dependent. That's the term I and many others generally use instead of “transhuman humanism.” I think of Peircean semeiotic, especially the openings he made for biosemiotics, coupled with his pragmatism, as one of the major scientific/philosophical paths leading to this increased attention to the more-than-human world. For instance, the work of ecologists such as H.T. Odum. His magnum opus Environment, Power and Society for the 21st Century (2007) makes it very clear why we humans need to think of ourselves and our cultures as parts of the more-than-human world who need to be paying back what we owe to it, instead of extracting more and more from it for artificial uses. I could go on about the connections i see between Peirce and Odum, but i'd better not ... anyway it's already showing up in my online book Turning Signs and elsewhere. I'll look up that papal encyclical instead. Love, gary f Coming from the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg Gary Fuhrman on Substack<https://gnox.substack.com/> | Turning Signs<https://gnusystems.ca/TS/> ________________________________ From: VINCENT M Colapietro <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2026 11:11 AM To: Gary Richmond <[email protected]> Cc: Peirce List <[email protected]>; Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]>; Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] The End(s) of Inquiry (was A Peircean Argument for the Reality of AI Intelligence) The environmental costs, along with the present and predictable human costs, are enormous. This deserves to be made an object of sustained, painstaking, critical inquiry. What kind of individuals and communities (individuals-in-constitutive entanglements and aggregates-in-their-individual (and other)-embodiments) are we generating and how can we harness some of these forces toward viable forms of community? The word human might here be problematic since, in light of history, human implies one of the dualisms from which we need to extricate ourselves. Not to be cute but a transhuman humanism might be what the moment calls for. " ... the inquirer more of less vaguely identifies himself in Sentiment with a Community of which he is a member, etc. ..." (CSP, CP 101; emphasis added). At the most rudimentary level, the affective dimension demands formal recognition and deep appreciation (the emotional interpretant as an integral part of any sequence of interpretants). At a more sophisticated level, the community as an affective identification, specifically, an identification principally in the form of sentiment (feeling, emotion, and sentiment are, in CSP's lexicon, categoreally distinct terms) calls for such recognition and appreciation. Allied to this, the "logical sentiments" of faith, hope, and love, in their concrete embodiment, need themselves to be seen as defining features of concrete reasonableness (as distinct from, say, purely formal rationality). When Logos is untethered to Agape, and in the grip of various debased forms of Eros, this is a sign that the gospel of greed has usurped the gospel of love, properly understood, has it not? In The Future of an Illusion, Freud acknowledges as his gods Logos and Necessity. But only a universe in which chance is ineliminable is one in which life and therefore love is possible. If not quite as explicitly, though nearly so (see, e.g., "Evolutionary Love" - again, an instance of bringing coal to Newcastle, since the readers of this know this at least as well as I do), Logos and Love deserve this recognition. The higher levels of self-control are those made possible only as a result of transfigurative forms of love (here I am reading CP 5.533, ff. in light of CN I, 188-89*; also, see Colapietro 1989; Bernstein's "The Lure of the Ideal" in Peirce & Law, ed. Kevelson) Though it might not be immediately evident, each of these points bear upon appreciating some of the most basic differences between AI and human reasonableness in its historically evolving forms. Part of the paradox here is that these forms are so deeply reliant on increasingly sophisticated forms of artifactual innovation. *Series of self-surrenders underlying our transfigured relationship to the evolving cosmos. Vincent Colapietro The Center for the Humanities Swan Hall, 175G 60 Upper College Road University of Rhode Island (URI) Kingston, RI 02881 Liberal Arts Research Professor Emeritus Philosophy & African American Studies Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 8:57 PM Gary Richmond <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Vincent, Jon, Gary F, List, I agree, Vincent, that "the recent papal encyclical might be one of the best formulations of the stakeholders in the debates swirling around the development of AI." [see: Magnifica Humanitas (On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence), https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html] I recently read sections of two chapters of the encyclical which a friend recommended as perhaps being at the heart of Pope Leo's epistle, namely, Chapter 3 ("Technology and Dominance") and Chapter 4 ("Truth, Work, Freedom"). Chapter 5, "The Culture of Power and the Civilization of Love," also appears relevant to our discussion although I haven't yet read it. Chapters 3 and 4 develop many of the themes we've recently been discussing on Peirce-L: the primacy of the human person, the social purposes technology ought to serve, and the problematic concentration of technological power in the hands of a very few persons and corporations seemingly much more interested in amassing wealth and power than in contributing to the common good. Some topics which we haven't much discussed -- truth in consideration of democratic dialogue, how AI might affect the dignity of work, and the ethical governance of AI -- are discussed at length in the pope's letter. Interestingly, the encyclical doesn't present AI itself as the principal problem; indeed, one section is even titled "A valuable tool that requires vigilance." I might note that the environmental costs of AI, regarding which several forum members (including me) have commented, have themselves become objects of inquiry, some research pointing to ongoing work on more energy-efficient practices (such as liquid cooling and so-called 'closed-loop' water systems). Whether such likely (in my opinion) advances in engineering are developed to serve human and ecological ends is, from a Peircean standpoint, a normative one: What kinds of persons and human communities are we cultivating; do we want to cultivate? And, given the assault on democracy in the USA and many places in the world, will we even be able to create the conditions for the cultivation of such communities? In that regard, your reminding us, Vincent, that the emotional interpretant cannot sensibly be eliminated seems to me to be of quintessent importance. If inquiry is mediated by lived, qualitative experience, then AI should not simply be evaluated by its computational capability no matter how fully developed; no matter how powerful. The deeper question is how AI ought to function within communities whose research is grounded in human experience, human feeling, and communal responsibility. Best, Gary R On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 6:14 AM Gary Richmond <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Note: This message from Vincent Colapietro seems intended for the List. GR The point re how anything is experienced seems to be of the most pressing importance. I am reminded of a remark by Wm James in MT: "It is quite true that the abstract word 'how' hasn't the same meaning as the abstract word 'what,' but in this universe of concrete facts you cannot keep hows and whys asunder" (Pragmatism and MT, Harvard, p. 275 [109]). What anything is, for us, is inseparable from both how it is encountered and how it discloses itself. Moreover, attention to mediation is no less pressing and important. What I want to hold onto, with utmost tenacity, is that our experience is itself a medium of disclosure (no one is better on this than John E Smith, though Joe is of course equally forceful and illuminating on it). To bring coal to Newcastle, the respects and degree to which mediating factors are at play in experience call for critical attention (you and the other participants on this exchange are clearly on this). But what I want to stress is that the emotional interpretant is ineliminable in a sequence of interpretants. Our experience of the world is mediated by feelings or affectivity (at least according to CSP). How feelings are named, interpreted, conceived, etc. of course adds to the complexity of this fact about experience, but affective mediation as an irreducible dimension of human experience seems, to me at least, important to consider in re to AI. As odd as it might sound, the recent papal encyclical might be one of the best formulations of the stakeholders in the debates swirling around the development of AI. Vincent Colapietro The Center for the Humanities Swan Hall, 175G 60 Upper College Road University of Rhode Island (URI) Kingston, RI 02881 Liberal Arts Research Professor Emeritus Philosophy & African American Studies Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 8:40 PM Gary Richmond <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Vincent, Jon, Gary F, List, Vincent, you are quite right that I was merely making explicit what has long been implicit -- and often enough explicit --in your work. It was certainly not my intention to suggest otherwise. If, as Peirce argues, intelligence learns from experience, then we need to ask not only what counts as experience, but also how experience is mediated within communities of inquiry. Scientific experience, after all, is not merely that of isolated individuals because the fruits of those experiences are continually evaluated and disseminated through communal practices: conference papers, books, lectures, etc. This tends to sharpen the AI question (at least for me). Even if AI systems do not themselves 'have experience', they may still 'participate' in inquiries whose experiential grounding remains thoroughly human and communal. If that is so, then the normative question becomes increasingly important: It is not simply what AI systems can do, but what are the ends of its participation in inquiry, Jon's concern in initiating this thread. In my view, technology ought to assist in deepening inquiry and, so, contributing to human flourishing, not merely by accelerating computation, and certainly not by concentrating power. In my view, the jury is still out on the role and value of AI. Again, like Gary Fuhrman, I am deeply concerned that the development of AI is largely being directed by a small number of individuals and corporations whose priorities seem not at all aligned with the broader well-being of humanity or the planet. And I tpp am deeply troubled by the enormous energy and water demands of contemporary AI data centers. So, perhaps the most important question regarding AI may be whether its future development will be governed primarily by commercial interests or by a commitment to human flourishing and ecological responsibility. Best, Gary R On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 12:05 PM Helmut Raulien <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Jon, List, having thought about "expectation", and what you wrote, which of course is correct, I have come to this temporary conclusion: Premisses: 1. (not necessarily true): Expectation, which antecedes the sign, is such an essential requirement for a sign, that it must be a part of the sign triad, otherwise Peirce´s method of mostly leaving the interpreter out of consideration would not be justified. 2. Everything that antecedes the sign token pertains (...) to the dynamical object (your post). Conclusion: The interpreter´s expectation belongs to the dynamical object. Now this case: Somebody is looking at a cloud and sees a face in it, of somebody he knows. Before, we were talking about the (necessary) purpose of a sign. But what is the sign in this case? Is it the assumed similarity between the cloud and the face? I guess so, because if it were the cloud, it would not have a purpose, just a reason, which is chance due to chaotic turbulence. So I guess, the cloud is not the sign, so is the cloud what people (Peirce too?) call "sign vehicle"? But the assumed similarity is the interpretant too. Are sign and interpretant identical in this case? It cannot be the similarity (without "assumed"), because then it neither would have a purpose. Best, Helmut 17. Juli 2026 um 00:17 "Jon Alan Schmidt" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Helmut, List: I already quoted Peirce's explicit statements that every sign's purpose is to express fact and every sign's ultimate interpretant is the Truth. Anyone is welcome to disagree with him about this, but it is fully consistent with his speculative grammar, in which every sign has a final interpretant in the sense of a final cause--the effect that it would have under ideal circumstances, including the shared beliefs of an indefinite community after unlimited investigation. It is also fully consistent with what he called "the Meliorist view" of human knowledge in a still-unpublished manuscript. CSP: [T]here are in the first place certain real facts, which are as they are quite independently of what you or I or any man may think about them. Secondly, truth, being the agreement of our assertions with those facts, is something definitely one way, and not otherwise. Thirdly, observation and reflection, stimulated by an eager desire to ascertain that truth, gradually lead minds toward it, so that, though ignorance and error always remain in reference to each question, yet they become gradually dispelled. (R 953, c. 1897) The dynamical interpretant--any effect that a sign token does have in an actual event of semiosis--always succeeds that sign token, while anything that antecedes it pertains instead to its dynamical object (cf. EP 2:410, 1907). It seems to me that an interpreter's expectation, like an utterer's intention, is a determination of that individual quasi-mind by previous signs--not an interpretant of the sign that is currently being uttered and interpreted. The latter is a determination of the commens, "that mind into which the minds of utterer and interpreter have to be fused in order that any communication should take place" (SS 196-7, EP 2:478, 1906 Mar 9). Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 12:34 PM Helmut Raulien <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Correction: Sorry! I meant dynamical interpretant (fat letters in the text below) Jon, List, I guess, the analysis, that AI processes symbols iconically, and does not have access to dynamical objects, is only correct as long as it merely crawls sites and posts in the internet. But what, if AI is connected with mechanical robots that interact in the real world, and have artificial eyes and ears? Maybe this already is so, maybe in Silicone Valley and China there are already some robots striding about? Purpose of a sign: I think, a sensible sign must have a purpose to exist (to be perceived). I don´t think, we can narrow "purpose" to play-impulse, habituation, reasonableness, and the quest for truth. I think, it may be just any purpose. The other requirement of a sign is, that it rings a bell, that it fits to an expectation. This is the requirement for any sign, while purpose is only a reqirement of a sensible sign. A sign, that does not have a purpose, but fits to an expectation, is not a sensible, but a false sign, like a theme conspiracy theorists use to have with numbers or faces in smoke clouds. A sign, that has a purpose, but the purpose is completely different from the expectation, and so from the interpretation too, is also a false sign, but may be corrected in the following semiosis, other than a purposeless sign, whose interpretant, and retrospectively it itself, only can be discarded. In any case, this expectation is a part of the dynamical interpretant, because it cannot be a part of the other two in any case, and neither a part of the object. But this would mean, that a part of the dynamical interpretant pre-exists. Best, Helmut _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . ► UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L<mailto:[email protected]> . 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