> On Oct 15, 2015, at 5:15 AM, Stephen Jarosek <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> It is the "life because genes because natural selection" narrative.

Does he push that?  Certainly he does pushback against various primarily 
religiously inspired beliefs that tend to dismiss the history of evolution. 
However I don’t think he claims that explains life. 

I certainly think his particular approach to atheism could use a heavy dose of 
careful philosophical study. But in terms of evolution I’m not sure I have a 
whole lot of complaints beyond his thinking it says more about religion than it 
does. (It’s always easier to go up against non-sense arguments by the ill 
informed than from sophisticated interlocutors) 

> Peirce was not God. His semiotics was framed from a fairly anthropocentric 
> perspective, given that his thinking originates from an Occidental paradigm 
> that did not attribute consciousness to non-human entities. 

I’m not sure what you mean here. Animism was a fairly common belief even in 
late antiquity. At a minimum the platonists ascribed to the planets 
consciousness. (They are the daemons often) I don’t know enough about the 
nuances of late antiquity to say much about how animals were views. Again I 
don’t know the details of the views of St. Francis of Assisi or his later 
followers but I’d assume they’d give animals a bit more status than even many 
today do.

Certainly Peirce is far more expansive in what he calls mind. (Consciousness is 
a bit trickier but at times he appears to see consciousness as the inward part 
of a “swerve” of chance - and thus inherent in the universe)

> The introduction of biosemiotics into the Peircean narrative changes all that.

Biosemiotics is certainly interesting. I’m not quite sure it is as 
revolutionary to a Peircean perspective as you suggest. (I’m not sure that’s 
worth getting bogged down into mind you) It seems to me Peirce already saw his 
semiotics as having great breadth in biology.


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