Thanks for your very succinct and clear outline of this chapter and its issues.
I agree that "the purely functional definition of propositions liberates Dicisigns from the confinement to human language, intention, and consciousness." (105). That's vital - semiosis proceeds without language or consciousness. This means that information and knowledge function without language or consciousness. Again, as noted (p 105), this doesn't mean a reductionism to singular particulars - which has been the key focus of so much of Western science, because as noted also, 'scholastic realism' prevents this because it acknowledges the reality of objective universals. And, 'anti-psychologism' rejects nominalism or the view that language/consciousness is necessary for knowledge based interactions. You also wrote: "The only other option would seem to be to delimit the semiosis of E. Coli for example to the dici-indexical-legisign, in which case we could retain the entire symbol dimension for the description of "higher" instances of semiosis" Here, I would tend to agree. My own view is that the symbol is a semiosic relation (that between the Representamen and the Object) which is confined to human cognition. As a purely artificial relation, I think that it REQUIRES an artificial means of expression - which is language or other cognitively constructed media system. Furthermore, I think that this enabled the human species to free itself from the restrictions of the physical realm and 'imagine' the world as it 'ought to be' rather than 'as it is'. This of course, has not merely its benefits enabling technological innovation and societal improvement but it also has its disastrous and catastrophic downside of utopianism and totalitarianism. But only man can imagine the difference between 'is' and 'ought'. This leaves the non-human realm with the Dicent Indexical Sinsign - a local mechanical reaction, and the Dicent Indexical Legisign which is, by virtue of its Legisign, connected to the truths of the Universal and thus, not merely reactive. It remains, however, firmly 'connected' to the local actual existentiality. But I'd also say that the natural world also uses that Rhematic Indexical Legisign - which similar to the Dicent Indexical Legisign gives it 'an individual interpretation of local stimuli as referenced to a general rule'. BUT, the interpretant as Rhematic is more open than the Interpretant in the Dicent Indexical Legisign and thus, far more open to novel interpretation by other organisms picking up and relation to this Sign. That is the 'Rhematic' aspect of the Interpretant enables novel adaptation to the information carried within this Rhem-Ind. Legisign. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Tyler Bennett To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee ; Peirce-L@list.iupui.edu Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 9:45 AM Subject: [biosemiotics:7267] Natural Propositions Chapter 4 Hello. It is now time to begin discussion of chapter four of Natural Propositions, "Some Consequences of the Dicisign Doctrine". I come to the discussion as a student of applied semiotics in Tartu and my main interest here is in contemporary debates about the application of Peirce for empirical sign analysis. Having covered the anti-psychologism of Peirce in chapter 2, and the definition of the dicisign in chapter 3, chapter 4 outlines some consequences of the doctrine in the terms of co-localization, the distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual content, as well as the definition of inference. Here, "naturalization means the reformulation of knowledge so it fits into a naturalist evolutionist world-view based on the reality of laws of nature" (105). Regarding consequences, to my mind the most important is that "the purely functional definition of propositions liberates Dicisigns from the confinement to human language, intention, and consciousness." (105) This chapter sets up the discussion in chapter six regarding dicisigns in biology as well as later discussion of propositions in non-verbal human semiosis. In ethos this work appears as one of the most technical attempts to defend what is sometimes called the Sebeok thesis, that semiosis and life are coextensive. A major difference here from other biosemiotic defenses of the Sebeok thesis is that, where many other biosemioticians abandon the use of terms from traditional logic altogether (such as proposition and inference) for describing non-verbal semiosis, Frederik salvages some of these terms by generalizing or deflating them, and this seems more consistent with Peirce's own project. Also, where other biosemioticians have used Peirce in a more taxonomic fashion with semiotic thresholds describing evolutionary phases (Deacon 1997; e.g. Kull 2009), the dicisign doctrine seems to reject this approach, favoring what is sometimes called the mereological approach, where even the simplest semiosis involves the highest type of sign within the 1903 classification (argument) and any sign that does not attain to this level is considered in Peircean terms "degenerate" or fragmentary. The meaningful world obtains as one sophisticated argument, the details of which work themselves out as the constituents of that 'fully fledged' sign. In Natural Propositions, the difference between the semiosis of single-celled organisms and verbal language for example consists in the difference between what are called 'proto-propositions' and fully fledged propositions or arguments which seem not to be differentiable in the terms of the 1903 classification of signs. I think one likely target for list dispute pertaining specifically to this chapter is whether the gains made by deflating the concept of proposition are worth the price of deposing the conceptual/non-conceptual dichotomy just to replace it with proto-proposition/fully fledged proposition (4.3). Much the same for (4.4). We generalize inference so as to give it applicability across the board in semiosis (all instances of semiosis entail inference), seemingly in order to salvage a hard definition of intention and consciousness (inferences can happen without intention or consciousness, which are unique to "higher" organisms). To my mind both of these arguments depend heavily on the distinction between proto-propositions and fully fledged propositions, without which distinction it appears we have no way of really semiotically contrasting the character of E. coli bacteria moving toward sugar with that of verbal language My main question pertains to how/whether we should try to differentiate proto- from fully fledged propositions in Peircean terms, specifically in the terms of the mature theory of signs where there are sub-divisions of arguments (more sophisticated than the abduction-induction-deduction trichotomy) that would make possible a still taxonomic differentiation between the semiosis of "lower" organisms and humans. The only other option would seem to be to delimit the semiosis of E. Coli for example to the dici-indexical-legisign, in which case we could retain the entire symbol dimension for the description of "higher" instances of semiosis, in the way that Deacon does. Otherwise the taxonomic-descriptive power of Peirce's theory of signs would seem really limited. Thanks for letting me participate. Regards, Tyler Bennett
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