Message from John Colier
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Hi all,
This is interesting, as it brings up some ancient issues that continue
to roil philosophy. I think that C.S. Peirce has the best answer to
these puzzles (and does not eliminate the wonder). For his (realist)
pragmatacism Peirce adopts the pragmatic principle that all of the
meaning of a sign is contained in our the totality of our expectations
for possible experience. He realized that this can be vague, and subject
to change based on further experience. In particular, he thought that it
is the possibility that our expectations can be contradicted by
experience that commits us to a real external world, beyond our ideas,
and requires that we should regard our representations as fallible. This
allows for the sort of leaps Rafael mentions (and which are the subject
of my doctoral dissertation). I also agree that the usual notion of the
observer is flawed, as it does not typically recognize our involvement
in the world. It is a philosophical illusion that we alone determine
meaning, and that our meanings are determinate. In THE DYNAMICAL BASIS
OF INFORMATION AND THE ORIGINS OF SEMIOSIS, in Edwina Taborsky (ed)
Semiosis. Evolution. Energy Towards a Reconceptualization of the Sign.
Aachen Shaker Verlag 1999 Bochum Publications in Semiotics New Series.
Vol. 3 (1999): 111-136, I argue that the conventional view of meaning
ironically leads to the erasure of meaning.
In /Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized/, Clarendon Press
(2007), we argue (and this is grounded in Peircean principles) that the
thing in itself is a metaphysical illusion, and does not fit modern
science. Peirce also argued against such metaphysical illusions. If you
maintain the illusion, then you get caught in nominalism and
antirealism. A proper understanding of how signs, and thus logic, works
can avoid these problems.
My best,
John
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