Steven, thanks for getting our next slow read started – i have a couple of
questions and a comment on your first post.
In your comments on JR's opening, you say that “Semeiotic Theory is, for me,
the first activity of scientific thinking.” I take “Semeiotic Theory” to be
your shorthand for “development of Semeiotic Theory” (since “Theory” is not in
itself an “activity”). Given the usual Peircean concept of “philosophy” as “an
experiential, or positive science, but a science which rests on no special
observations, made by special observational means, but on phenomena which lie
open to the observation of every man, every day and hour” (CP 7.526), the
proposition that “the development of Semeiotic Theory is the first activity of
scientific thinking” would seem to imply that it *is* the activity of
philosophers (as well as thinkers in more specialized sciences). Yet you say
that you “do not think this.” Should we infer then that the term “philosopher”
for you denotes something other than a practitioner of “philosophy” as Peirce
defined it? Or did you mean to say that Semeiotic theorizing is the first
activity *not only* of philosophers but of all scientific thinkers?
One comment on your paraphrase of JR's opening:
[[ Semeiotic Theory, he says, must avoid the distinction between the empirical
and the nonempirical, between experimental and the nonexperimental. ]] Yet JR
does make this distinction explicitly, in paragraphs 9 and 10, in order that it
may be “possible for us to regard *all* applied semiotics as empirical
semiotics” [8 -- emphasis JR's]. This latter claim would be meaningless if
there were no difference between empirical and non-empirical. JR's point, then,
is not that Semeiotic Theory must avoid the distinction altogether, but that we
must “disentangle the conceptions of the experiential, the experimental and the
empirical from certain other complexes of ideas with which they have become
associated” [1]. And that is what JR proceeds to do – after several paragraphs
of beating about the bush of entanglements from which he wishes to free those
conceptions.
One more question, regarding “Semeiotic Theory”: would you characterize your
“technical excursion” on JR's paragraph [2] as an instance or an application of
it? Or is it an excursion *from* “Semeiotic Theory”? For me at least, your
answer might help to clarify your intention to “to lay a more rigorous
foundation for the discussion of the rest of the paper,” as i'm finding it
difficult to see the point of your “excursion.”
Gary F.
} How do you know you are on the path? Reality checks you at every turn. [gnox]
{
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
-----Original Message-----
Sent: November-06-11 1:08 AM
Dear List,
Herein begins the slow read of:
On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph
Ransdell
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm
This paper was originally presented in 1980 and last modified as the above
version in 1998.
I have delayed starting in order to review the notes that I have made in
preparing for this reading. I want to ensure that my comments take into account
the full context of the paper and in the past few days I have spent some more
time with the paper in order to achieve this.
I have also taken the opportunity to review comments that relate to this
subject that Joe made in conversations with myself and others over the past
decade on Peirce-l. Readers of this paper should also reference the following
paper that was the subject of a slow read in July.
Is Peirce a Phenomenologist?
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/phenom.htm
This paper provides an informal discussion of "categories of apprehension" and
advocates, explores and clarifies the unified view of science and the nature of
verification as advocated by Peirce and numerous thinkers that came after
Peirce, notably Rudolf Carnap.
Ransdell's approach is provocative. He begins:
"[1] The thesis of my paper is that it is doubtful that any distinction should
be drawn between empirical and nonempirical semiotics or even between
experimental and nonexperimental semiotics. Doing so tends to reproduce within
the semiotics movement the present academic distinction between the sciences
and the humanities which semiotics should aim at discouraging, rather than
reinforcing. But to overcome this undesirable dichotomy, it is necessary to
disentangle the conceptions of the experiential, the experimental and the
empirical from certain other complexes of ideas with which they have become
associated by accident rather than necessity."
I confess that on first reading the phrase "it is doubtful that" caused me some
problems. I think it dilutes the impact of the paper and reveals a caution that
I think is unnecessary. This is, I believe, because Ransdell is addressing a
community of American philosophers, a European thinker would have been more
confidently assertive.
Ransdell here sees the development of Semeiotic Theory as the activity of
"philosophers" and they are clearly his audience, so I should make it clear
from the start - in order to contextualize my comments - that I do not think
this. Semeiotic Theory is, for me, the first activity of scientific thinking. I
further believe that it should be the first activity in mathematical thinking,
though today it is not.
This is no criticism of Ransdell, I'm quite sure he would agree, but it is
important to the reading of the paper and to understanding my comments.
In any case, what Ransdell says here is, on the face of it, radical. Semeiotic
Theory, he says, must avoid the distinction between the empirical and the
nonempirical, between experimental and the nonexperimental. Indeed, as the
paper progresses Ransdell argues that these distinctions are simply ways of
speaking - derived from convention - and unnecessary.
In my following comments concerning paragraph [2] I am going to take a
technical excursion dealing with apprehension and then leave it at that for
today. I do this in order to lay a more rigorous foundation for the discussion
of the rest of the paper.
Continuing then:
"[2] Things which are or become present to us, such that we can recall them
sufficiently well to be able to refer to and describe them in some manner --
let us call these things "phenomena" -- are usually classified or classifiable
by us as things sense-perceived, remembered, foreseen, dreamed, daydreamed,
imagined, hallucinated, inferred, supposed, conceived, envisioned, and so
forth. That is, they are classified in relation to what I will call, for want
of a better phrase, "categories of apprehension." This, or a roughly similar
classification scheme, is shared by the peoples of the contemporary Western
world, and, of course, by a great many others who have become "Westernized,"
but it is not a "human universal"; for it is a classification of phenomena
considered in relation to what we think of as our faculties of awareness, and
although it may be debatable whether the idea that there are such things as
faculties of this sort is a humanly universal idea, it is certain, in any case,
that this particular set of ways of conceiving them is far from being
universal. It is not even necessary to turn to anthropological evidence or to
histories of non-Western civilizations in this connection, for even the ideas
of remembering and foreseeing -- which are, on the face of it, the most likely
candidates for universality in this set -- are implicitly qualified by their
relations to conceptions of time and history which have developed well within
the recorded history of Western culture, and most if not all of the rest could
probably be shown to be just as clearly qualified in their meaning through
their relation to specifically Western ways of regarding things."
Ransdell claims that our concept of “phenomena” as commonly differentiated into
these “categories of apprehension” are, at least to some degree, qualified by
cultural influences that are necessarily the product of social history. And
what is more, our conception of history and time itself influence these
conceptions and are themselves the product of cultural convention.
It seems necessary at this point to identify the universal properties of
apprehension in order for us to make progress with this argument.
When considering which of the categories of apprehension have a universal
nature Ransdell suggests that the basis of the conceptions “remembering” and
“foreseeing” are the most likely candidates. I agree.
Let us attempt a more rigorous analysis of these ideas here. “Human universal”
refers here to a conception that occurs in common form independent of cultural
influence and despite any such influence.
We can argue that the notions of “order” and “specialized function,” for
example, are encountered by the child in familial relationships. If a child is
raised by parents in a social order in which the father is the provider and the
mother is the caregiver there will naturally arise the notion of
specialization. Whereas a child born to parents that share equally these tasks
will anticipate less specialization of themselves and others.
Further, if a society values the effort of the provider over the effort of the
caregiver (by awarding privilege to the one and not the other) then a sense or
“order” will arise, the placement of one before another. And clearly there are
numerous social relationships that may strengthen these senses of order and
specialized function.
We may argue then that this is the power of “analogy.” We will view analogy
here as the combined function of remembering and foreseeing, or more exactly
the “recollection of similarity” as Carnap would have it.
What distinguishes memory and prediction (as I will prefer to call them) is
that they do not arise by analogy but arise simply by human function or, more
generally, by biophysical function.
Some conceptions derived by analogy, such as “order” and “specialized
function,” may also be considered “universal.”
Let me note here, as a further example, the idea put forward by Kant that the
notion of “space” is a priori. I mention this here only to observe that the
conceptions of analogy need not be socially influenced and that there are
conceptions that naturally derive by analogy from the environment. The base
notion of “location” or “relative placement” is one such conception.
I put aside, for the moment, existential questions except to say that neither
“space” nor “time” have existential status in my model beyond their
apprehension. So despite the universal nature of the relative spacial
conceptions mentioned above I will argue that our notions of space and time are
the product of cultural influence, our the universal conceptions derived from
our experience of the world are shaped by the force of convention. And no one
today should be surprised by this view since it is consistent with Mach and
Einstein.
Similarly, We may also argue that both “order” and “specialized function” are
conceptions that derive from our direct experience of the world. We see order
in the world, there are environmental processes in which one event consistently
occurs before another, and there is a repeatability of specialized function in
the world.
I choose these examples because they have an additional feature, they are
conceptions that arise by analogy from our direct experience of the
environment. If we are denied this experience then they will not arise. They
can then only arise by social convention. But under normal circumstances
conceptions that arise from direct experience and social convention reinforce
each other in the action of consensus building.
And so we are left with three base categories of apprehension that enable us to
classify those mentioned by Ransdell, those which derive from basic human
function, by the unified operation of these functions (analogy), and by direct
experience of the world.
Since the basic biophysical function of our species is impossible to
differentiate from other species then we must assume that these conceptions are
present in all biophysics.
Where then do the influences of culture and convention fit in? These too are
apprehended by direct experience of the world. What distinguishes them from our
other experiences? Nothing at all, not even that practice we call “language.”
=====
With respect,
Steven
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