Thanks for the reply, Gary! I don't disagree with anything you say below. But to me it seems inconsistent with your dissatisfaction with Edwina's view for allegedly not separating semiosis from physical existence. Perhaps the issue is that you want it to be made clear that Thirdness **comes after** Secondness, and you don't feel that a pansemiotic view achieves this?
Cheers, Cathy *From:* Gary Fuhrman [mailto:[email protected]] *Sent:* Friday, 28 March 2014 5:02 a.m. *To:* Peirce List *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: [biosemiotics:5459] Re: What kind of sign is ANYTHING called "a Cathy, In the first place, Peirce didn't say that physical existence is 'perfused with signs'. What he said was "that the entire universe,-- not merely the universe of existents, but all that wider universe, embracing the universe of existents as a part, the universe which we are all accustomed to refer to as "the truth,"-- that all this universe is perfused with signs" (EP2:394). This "universe" is, as usual with Peirce, a *universe of discourse*, or rather *the* universe of discourse, i.e. what it's all about! There is no implication here that every physically existing thing is a sign or can be regarded as a sign. For Peirce the logical/semiotic universe "embraces" the universe of existents, not the other way round. Existence, as the mode of being in which secondness predominates, is a necessary *part* of the whole truth which only Thirdness can embrace in its wholeness. (Just as the experiment carried out by the scientist in the laboratory is a part of the *thought* process which is science.) So I agree that there's no dualism here. The physical universe is not separate from the psychical or the logical, it is subsumed in it, as a degenerate form of the all-embracing Mind. An existent appears as a break in the continuity of that universe but upon sufficient inquiry turns out to be an articulation of it, food for the further growth of semiosis. gary f. *From:* Catherine Legg [mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>] *Sent:* 27-Mar-14 1:38 AM *To:* Gary Fuhrman; Peirce List *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: [biosemiotics:5459] Re: What kind of sign is ANYTHING called "a Thanks for the reply, Gary (F)! Please see below. Cathy *From:* Gary Fuhrman [mailto:[email protected]] *Sent:* Wednesday, 26 March 2014 6:51 a.m. *To:* 'Peirce List' *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: [biosemiotics:5459] Re: What kind of sign is ANYTHING called "a Cathy, you wrote, the most pertinent question about signs is whether they are **real**. And whether they are real or not does not depend on their physical existence. gf] Yes, that was my point. And that's one way we distinguish between semiosis and physical existence. So you've answered your own question! >> Nice move! Except what if physical existence is 'perfused with signs'? To give just one example, isn't it part of physical existence to be subject to physical law? Which are signs? So I don't see a dualism here at all. I see one reality, which has both a secondness (react-able against) and a thirdness (interpretable) dimension to it. >> Cheers, Cathy cl] I would be willing to wager that Peirce is ['pansemiotic'] too ("The Universe is perfused with signs", objective idealism, etc) That's a debate that has run its course on this list before, and I'm in no rush to recycle it, so I'll leave it to someone else to take your bet. J By the way, I don't think that "we are meant to reject Edwina's view". I just said that I haven't yet found any use for it in trying to develop and/or revise my own. gary f.
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