Edwina, Gary F, Frederik, and list: At 12:47 PM 10/19/2014, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
But both nominalism and psychologism are rooted in and indeed confined to the human cognition and consciousness and again, include 'thought, logic, semiotics and mind as intrinsic'. But they deny these attributes to non-human cognition and consciousness; indeed, they even deny that such actions take place in these 'lower levels of life'.
HP: That is only a narrow human view of nominalism. I think Peirce's view of Tychism and Agapism is more radical. He generalizes signs, interpreters, mind, habits, and love to the entire natural world. Frederik is elaborating Peirce's generalized propositions (I'm unsure how far). I think Peirce intended these generalizations to apply throughout all evolution. That's the whole idea. The generalized relation of signs to objects (their interpretation) is still an epistemic relation (by definition of epistemic). Realism and nominalism are generalized epistemic propositions (signs refer to individual and universal objects, or signs refer to just individual objects).
Edwina: Therefore, since Peirce rejected this perspective of confinement [of all minds and signs] to human processes, he acknowledged their existence within the natural world.
HP: Agreed. The Biosemiotic Principle generalizes at least to the origin of life (or for Edwina, with Peirce, to the origin of nature) but in either case generalized evolution is a package deal. You can't choose which parts you want to generalize and leave the rest for humans (they didn't exist until the last minute). If bacteria use signs, then we must consider if it is meaningful to ask, e.g., if the bacteria's "sugar Dicisign" (p. 145) interprets signs realistically or naturalistically. The concept of function is essential here. And consider, if you don't generalize all the way to origins, then you have to explain at what stage of evolution each generalization and interpretation arises. That is biosemiotics' problem.
There are a few clues in my early (1982) thoughts in <https://www.academia.edu/863857/Cell_psychology_an_evolutionary_approach_to_the_symbol-matter_problem>Cell Psychology, but I can see arguments on all sides -- whether it is a meaningful question and whether organisms are realistic or nominalist, starting with the genetic language (Note: I am not thinking metaphorically, and I don't think Peirce was either.)
Howard
----------------------------- 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 .
