To paraphrase Antonio Salieri's famous "Prima la musica, dopo le parole", I say 
"first reality, then the signs".

 

Dear Joseph: “allegro, ma non troppo”!

 

In the 18th century, “nature” is still considered as God’s creation and 
therefore has priority to our (human) wordings and signings. Thus, one was 
interested in “natural philosophy” and “natural law” as manifestations. 
However, this has eroded. Nowadays, the possibility of theory-free observations 
– e.g., Carnap – is much more doubtful. Most of us will have given up on this 
“realistic” position. One would also wonder whether animals without language, 
would have the possibility to compose and perform music (without human 
orchestration).

 

It seems important to me to distinguish between the order in which things are 
historically generated (although we have no access to this process than by 
reconstructing this order) and the evolutionary order of control. The latter 
system emerges from the former: order is constructed bottom-up, but control is 
increasingly top-down. The control arrow feeds back on the historical arrow and 
from this perspective the signs come first. 

 

This may not have been included in Pierce’s writings. J

 

With best wishes, 

Loet

 

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