Cathy, Gary, List, This is a response to a thread that started on the biosemiotics list [5459] Re: What kind of sign is ANYTHING called . . .
Cathy has asked some questions about the character of what exists, Gary F. has provided a reminder that we should think of Nature as a whole as a Great Mind--call is the Universe of Discourse--and that the existent objects in this world are but a part of this larger whole. For the sake of teasing out some of the claims, t might be helpful to draw on some distinctions that are highlighted by Richard Smyth in <Reading Peirce Reading>. In his reading of "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man," Smyth provides a neo-Platonic interpretation of Peirce's theory of cognition. He divides the discussion into three parts: that which deals with knowledge itself, that which deals with the owners of knowledge, and that which deals with the objects of knowledge. With respect to the part of the theory that deals with knowledge itself, he interprets Peirce's argument as being built on a set of assumptions that commit him to infinitism in the metatheory. With respect to the third part of the theory that deals with the objects of knowledge, he interprets Peirce's argument as being built on a fundamental tenet of Aristotelian empiricism. That is, "in the order of epistemological causation, the objects come first in this sense: any initiation of a movement or change in the concepts that result in knowledge has to be caused by the dynamic objects of the knowledge." Some of the questions that have recently been asked seem to center on this idea about the objects coming first in the order of epistemological causation. As such, I'd like to explore some ideas that have been tossed around in our recent discussion about the contrasts between the mind like character of the objects of inquiry and the brute existence of those objects. Referring to the Universe of Discourse as an subject for inquiry is something we do in logic when we've moved to the level of meta-theory. Referring to the objects that exist in the world is a fine way to talk when we are thinking like an Aristotelian empiricist. This kind of discourse finds a natural home in our common experience, in the special sciences, and in our theory of cognition when we are building an account of the objects of knowledge. Moving back and forth between levels of discourse may cause confusion--especially when, in developing a semiotic theory, we are tempted to draw metaphysical conclusions about the nature of the individual existents and the general regularities we are studying in metaphysics. Smyth cites the following passage from Plotinus as a way of pointing to the difficulties we face in working on a semiotic theory: "Since we are compelled to think of existence as preceding that which knows it we can but think that the Beings are the actual content of the knowing principles and that the very act, the intellection, is inherent in the Beings, as the fire stands equipped from the beginning with the fire-act; in this conception, the Beings contain the Intellectual-Principle as one and the same with themselves, as their own activity." Smyth asks: "What is the source of the impulse to find signs of something 'mind-like' in the objects of knowledge?" It is a good question. Getting straight on the answer is crucial, I think, for providing an adequate interpretation of the arguments he is developing his theory of cognition. Any thoughts about the answer? --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Catherine Legg [cl...@waikato.ac.nz] Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 10:17 PM To: Jeffrey Brian Downard; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 5, Semeiotics, or the doctrine of signs What kind of end might prove to be inexhaustible? Only the growth of concrete reasonableness, understood semiotically, it seems to me. Not an original answer, of course. Cathy -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu] Sent: Thursday, 27 March 2014 10:32 a.m. To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 5, Semeiotics, or the doctrine of signs Jon, List, Your reference to the Latin and Greek roots of the words 'purpose' and 'object' make me think about the purpose of a theory of semiotics. For the sake of reading Peirce, I've mainly assumed that the purpose is articulated in the science of esthetics and then refined in the science of ethics. It is probably worth noting that the scientific articulation of the highest aesthetic and ethical ideal is something that we need for the purposes of pure theoretical inquiry. That is, we need more clarity than common experience already supplies. These philosophical accounts of the ideals of pure inquiry are, for the sake of our everyday experience, accounts of ideals that are themselves really parts of much larger ends that live and grow in human communities and in the larger community of nature of which we are but a part. In the third lecture in RLT, Peirce says this about the end of life: "Generalization, the spilling out of continuous systems, in thought, in sentiment, in deed, is the true end of life." (p. 163) The phrase always reminds me of the following passage from the early part of Goethe's Faust. Having earned doctorates in the trivium of philosophy, medicine and jurisprudence, Faust has grown tired of the futility of trying to discover the great secrets about Nature herself. As he enters his study, he is trying to determine an end for the next phase in his life. At this point, as he calls on the old arts of magic, he says: 'Tis written: "In the beginning was the Word!" Here now I'm balked! Who'll put me in accord? It is impossible, the Word so high to prize, I must translate it otherwise If I am rightly by the Spirit taught. 'Tis written: In the beginning was the Thought! Consider well that line, the first you see, That your pen may not write too hastily! Is it then Thought that works, creative, hour by hour? Thus should it stand: In the beginning was the Power! Yet even while I write this word, I falter, For something warns me, this too I shall alter. The Spirit's helping me! I see now what I need And write assured: In the beginning was the Deed! What kind of end, I wonder, might prove to be inexhaustible? Only an end of this kind could, I suspect, serve as the purpose of pure inquiry. Hence the importance of getting greater clarity about the inexhaustible nature of the true continuities in this world. --Jeff
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
