At 09:40 AM 10/20/2014, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Howard wrote: That is only a narrow human view of nominalism. I
think Peirce's view of Tychasm and Agapism is more radical. He
generalizes signs, interpreters, mind, habits, and love to the
entire natural world.
Edwina: What do tychasm and agapasm have to do with nominalism?
HP: I'm suggesting that Peirce's all-inclusive view of evolution
(tychasticism, anancasticism, and agapasticism) suggests there are
functional epistemologies (like nominalism) before there were humans.
Call them proto-epistemologies if you wish, like Tyler's proto-propositions.
HP: Realism and nominalism are generalized epistemic propositions
(signs refer to individual and universal objects, or signs refer to
just individual objects).
Edwina: Is this your definition of realism and nominalism?
HP: No. It's a caricature just for brevity. I didn't want my point to
be waylaid by arguments over the many ambiguous meanings of realism
and nominalism (they were anyway). My point was only that some
functional kind of epistemology (a general interpretation of how
signs relate to their objects)) must arise before humans.
Howard wrote:
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.
Edwina: I'm not sure what this means - what does 'realistically or
naturalistically' mean? Do you mean whether the bacterium reacts
within a realistic or nominalist framework?
HP: Exactly. More generally, do the symbols of the genes code only
nominalistically for specific amino acids, or do they code
realistically for universal functions like catalysis and
self-replication? The evidence seems clear that gene symbols code for
both, as well as many other conditional and control activites that
can't be called either specific or universal.
Howard
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