On 1/21/2018 9:46 AM, g...@gnusystems.ca wrote:
His anti-psychologism, for example, which he consistently maintained
from the 1860s on, is essentially a refusal to limit the application of
logical principles to what goes on in /human/ minds or brains.
But advocating anti-psychologism is independent of advocating
biosemiotics. In discussing logic, he was emphasizing the point
that the definitions are purely formal. They are independent
of any limitation to biological processes.
But his logic/semiotic was always generalized from the human
experience of sign use, as he says in CP 1.540. And necessarily so,
because “experience is our only teacher”
In CP 1.540, he was also talking about math and logic. The fact
that he generalized his definition from human use does not imply
any limitation to just human use. Such an assumption would
"block the way of inquiry".
I still don’t see a “change in terminology” here, unless it’s the
change in usage of the word “sign” which occurred after 1903. The
terminological change was that Peirce gave up using the term “sign”
in a way that limited it to the human realm.
What I'd like to know is when Peirce generalized his views about
semiosis to animals. I'll restate the question: How and when did
Peirce's thoughts on biosemiosis (as implied by his MSS) develop?
In 1887, he published an article about logical machines. Among
other things, he cited Jacquard looms (early 1800s) and Babbage's
machines. Ada Lovelace wrote her memoirs about programming them
in 1843. If machines could use signs, there would be no logical
objection to claiming that animals could use signs.
He talked about the use of signs by any "scientific intelligence"
-- for which the only criterion is the ability to learn from
experience. His anecdotes about dogs and parrots showed how they
learn from experience. He also mentioned other kinds of animals
in various writings. His principle of continuity and his knowledge
of Darwin's studies (1859) would lead him to extend at least some
subset of semiosis to animals.
He must have been thinking about generalizing semiosis long
before 1903. Where can we find the evidence?
John
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