Gary F, list
Biosemiotics isn't about the 'affirmation of the continuity of
biological evolution'. And Peirce did say quite a bit about
biological matters - all based around his concept of Mind as Matter.
Biosemiotics is about the triadic semiosic processes taking place
within the biological realm - a process that enables cells to
interact with other cells in a Mind-guided/habit forming pattern that
enables cells/organisms to intelligently react to , interact with
their environment. And to emerge, grow, adapt within a complex
network to each other. As he said - 'protoplasm feels. It not only
feels but exercises all functions of mind". 6.255.
Edwina
On Mon 22/01/18 10:55 AM , [email protected] sent:
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:[email protected]]
Sent: 21-Jan-18 12:24
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Biosemiosis (was Lowell Lecture 3.12
On 1/21/2018 9:46 AM, [email protected] [1] 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
Links:
------
[1]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'[email protected]\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
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