Jon, List,
I see, the way you put it, it is bridgeable. But not immediately, I mean, you change the territory, and the map doesn´t change then, you have to draw a new map. The other way, if you change the map, the territory doesn´t change. Though the map might be about the anticipated future, drawn by a garden-landscape-architect, and workers change the territory accordingly.
I think, what I wrote is relevant in the sense of noumenon too, because, as any thing is also governed by universal laws, types, and constants, so one might say, it partially consists of them. Then, to completely know a thing, would mean, to completely know all these universal affairs too. Not only their equations and values, but also, why they exist. Ok, one might answer, after an infinite inquiry, an infinite group of inquirers theoretically could know all, that now only God can know. But still there is the problem of entangled particles, that would lose their entanglement due to an inquiry about them. This was not known at Peirce´s time.
Best, Helmut
5. September 2025 um 00:05
"Jon Alan Schmidt" <[email protected]>
wrote:Helmut, List:
Why would that distinction be "not bridgeable"? The map is a sign of the territory, just as anyone's knowledge of an object consists of signs of that object. In both cases, semiosis connects them. Of course, in my view, it connects everything in the universe, conceived as an immense semiosic continuum.
"Thing-in-itself" is the established philosophical term in English for Kant's "Ding an sich" in the original German. It has nothing to do with persistence or existence, only whether there is something real but incognizable (noumenon) underlying any and every object that we perceive (phenomenon). Kant says yes (so does Jack), Peirce says no (so do I).
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
On Thu, Sep 4, 2025 at 9:36 AM Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote:
Edwina, Jon, List,Jon, with "Epistemic cut" (Term by Howard Pattee) I meant the not bridgeable distinction between, metaphorically, or is it metonymically, the map and the territory (Term by Alfred Korzybski).Ding an sich: "An" means "at". "An sich" is translated by Google with "per se", but that is latin. "Thing in itself" to me sounds like a matrjoschka. I would prefer "thing of itself", as I think, what is meant, is persistence, which is existence as long as it exists. The question "does a thing in itself exist?" might be replaced with first "does a thing persist?", and is answered with "yes", and second with "is the persistence of a thing due to the thing?", meaning, does it exist (for some time) of itself?I think, only partly. A thing keeps its form firstly due to its matter, but secondly, due to universal laws like cohesion, Van-Der-Waals-forces. And the matter consists of tokens of universal types (particles...). So the persistence of a thing, at least of a trivial (not complex) thing is not self-organized. Self-organized persistence too exists, is called homeostasis, and applies e.g. to complex adaptive systems in dissipative processes. I would say, these CASses, if you call them things too, "exist of themselves", with "of" meaning self-organized, which Maturana called "autopoiesis". but of course the matter, which flows through their dissipative processes, is again governed by universal laws. So, if with "in itself" is meant "completely and only because of itself", then there is obviously not such thing.Best, Helmut
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