John,
OK, I didn’t realize that you were looking for advocacy of biosemiotics in Peirce’s writings. I don’t think he ever used the term, and I’m not sure how Peirce would go about advocating it, if that would take something more specific than affirmation of the continuity of biological evolution. I don’t think Peirce had much to say about biological matters, so I wouldn’t really expect to find him saying much specifically about biosemiotics either. Gary f. -----Original Message----- From: John F Sowa [mailto:s...@bestweb.net] Sent: 21-Jan-18 12:24 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Biosemiosis (was Lowell Lecture 3.12 On 1/21/2018 9:46 AM, <mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca> 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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