Howard - I think I begin to see your viewpoint but I think you have a very personal definition of some terms.
You don't mean to say that 'nominalism existed before humans' - or do you? Nominalism is, by definition, a perspective that exists only within human cognition. It says that knowledge and information are the result of how humans 'name' the world. In that sense, there is no objective reality (or if there is, it is unattainable) and what we experience is only what we have named. Nominalism can refer to generals/universals but - post hoc- i.e., only as terms set up by humans; the universal does not have any objective reality to the nominalist. So- again, your definition of 'nominalism', to me at least, seems unique. In addition, you seem to be comparing a perspective that acknowledges that there are only individual things in the world versus one that acknowledges that there are both individuals and generalities. I don't think that this has anything to do with either nominalism or realism. The first is, in my view, a type of materialist reductionism. The second - I'm not sure - because you do not define your use of 'universal'. Sometimes you refer to it as a 'general interpretation' - which has nothing to do with scholastic realism and its definition of the universal as an objectively real Form. You wrote: "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?" I think the above is a clear indication of how YOU use the terms 'nominal' and 'realist' - and these are very different from the philosophical use. You use 'nominal' to mean 'referring only to individual things'...and 'realist' to refer to both common actions and individual things..Again, your use of these terms is very different from their philosophical meanings. Your use has nothing to say about objective vs subjective experience. And nothing, really, about the existential nature of either the individual thing or the commonality. If I understand your use of these terms correctly, they refer to individual units and the common causal interactions between these units. Your concern then, seems to be the codal mechanism that determines their nature. Does the code refer only to single units or to the particular units and their common interactions? [That's not nominalism vs realism!] It is certainly specific versus general... Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Howard Pattee To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 12:19 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7261] Re: Natural Propositions Chapter 4 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- 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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