Gary, you wrote: That's why I'm inclined to think that a pansemiotic view tends to undermine a synechistic view. But this is not necessarily true of all pansemiotic views.
I certainly agree that a pansemiotic view undermines/underlies a synechistic view; indeed, it, to me, underlies all semiosis. But, what do YOU mean by 'a pansemiotic view'? Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary Fuhrman To: Peirce List Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 10:20 AM Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: [biosemiotics:5459] Re: What kind of sign is ANYTHING called "a Cathy, I'm not as eager to argue against pansemiotics as some people are, I just don't have much use for it. You ask about the significance of "separating semiosis from physical existence." My question is, What kind of separation are we talking about? I think the issue is clearer if we look at the common distinction, which Peirce fully recognized and even insisted upon, between the physical and the psychical. Peirce discerned a continuity between them, formulated for instance in his doctrine that matter is effete mind. Recognition of any relationship is impossible unless the relata are distinct; so in that sense, yes, Thirdness "comes after" Secondness. (I don't like to put it that way, though, because Thirdness is no less elementary than Secondness.) And the clearer the distinction, the more clearly the relationship can be formulated. - Unless the separation is absolute, "made with an axe" as Peirce put it, like the Cartesian mind/matter dualism, so you get "unrelated chunks of being". Peirce made it very clear that physically existing signs (sinsigns) are replicas of signs (legisigns) which do not physically exist, but rather govern physical events. More generally, he distinguished between types and tokens, between reality and existence. Without such distinctions, his synechism would be meaningless. That's why I'm inclined to think that a pansemiotic view tends to undermine a synechistic view. But this is not necessarily true of all pansemiotic views. gary f. From: Catherine Legg [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 1-Apr-14 12:07 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! 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
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