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}Robert, list
I would say that here, you are reminding us that semiosis is a
triadic process, and to focus only on the latter part of the
process, the 'I' or Interpretant section, ignores this fundamental
triad. It would be like, in a syllogism, ignoring the Major
Premise...which would effectively nullify any syllogism.
The major premise in a semiosic process is the mediative, the
Representamen, which holds the means of transforming the DO and IO
data into - as Auke has shown - a variety of Interpretants....all of
them valid, but differing according to the context and purpose of
both the utterer and receiver in this interaction.
By context and even purpose, I include the 'commens', which can be
compared with the major premise [see Peirce's examination of major
cause EP 2.315 where he discusses 'final cause' as both purpose
and/or ideal. That is, it is the shared generalized knowledge of the
community in which this semiosic process is taking place.
This shared knowledge, which we know also as 'habit' is 'a general
rule operating within the organism' W.4.249, The major premise 2.711-
is a developed knowledge, developed by Mind-as-Matter within the
process of induction or experience.[see discussion of induction and
habits 2.643] . As a general rule it constrains and guides the input
data from the DO into the Interpretant section of the semiosic
process.
Within a biological organism, for example, this 'commens' or habit
will transform input data from food/water into the physical
development of that organism i.e., moving a turtle egg..into a turtle
morphology. Within a human communication, it will transform words or
images into interpretants - which vary according to the normative
habits shared within the dialogue.
Agapastic evolution, which I maintain is the reality in our
universe, considers that the 'commens' or 'habits' are formed within
the community , by the community and are constantly evolving... due
to interactional induction - not predetermined deduction. That is,
there is no predetermined nature of our world, only its increasing
complexity and diversity of forms. In this sense, there is no ideal
'final state'. What is the purpose of evolution? Merely to prevent
entropy or dissipation of matter.
Without this 'commens', then, we become reduced, as semiosic beings,
to mere randomness. We can see this if we examine the basic ten sign
classes, where only three of the ten have no 'commens', i.e., no
Thirdness, no habits. The qualisign, the Iconic Sinsign and the
Rehmatic Indexical Sinsign - all of these three are random, without
the mediation of mind.
I think also that we have to be extremely careful in assigning
meanings to the word 'purpose'. To say that when we use this word, we
include a final cause and that final cause means 'telos' and that
'telos' means 'purpose and that this term itself means' ideal' is, to
my view, a misunderstanding and incorrect merging of three quite
different meanings.
Edwina
On Mon 25/05/20 6:19 AM , robert marty [email protected]
sent:
Edwina, Jon Alan, Helmut, List
Most of the discussions on the list have focused philosophical
questions on final causes, efficient causes, goals, etc. ... and many
disagreements have been found ... I would point out that these
discussions focus on what is happening in the interpretants of the
hexadic sign and I have even seen that a subject on their plethora
-which I have not yet been able to consult- has been created. But on
what happens before, apart from a consensus on the Od-Oi-S sequence
that no one questions, there is very little. I mentioned it
necessarily in the parable value example in response to Jon Alan in
which I mentioned that the utterers of the sign could do nothing but
mark the sign of its subjectivity. Even when he utters the word
"pipe" he mobilizes his own conception of the concept of "pipe", most
likely consistent with what is in the mind of most potential
receivers. However, in all cases whether it is the concept itself
(for example in a discussion about the harmfulness of pipes), a real
pipe or a painful experience related to a pipe,, it will be necessary
to verify that it is indeed a pipe. And if I chose pipe" everyone will
have understood that it is to ensure the reinforcement of René
Magritte.
What I want to emphasize here is that it may not be a good
methodology to give such a preference for interpretation in semiosis
without focusing the analysis on the whole process. And I come to
Edwina's question: "Comment?" I read it in French but I could have
read it in English ... and probably the ambiguity was it intended ...
I rephrase it this way: how individual semiosis articulates with
global semiosis ? Edwina provided an interactionist response that
would result in a final interpretant that will obviously be
historically dated as a provisional result of these multiple
interactions. For my part I proposed a slightly different
conceptualization that takes into account the fact that the signs
being obligated interfaces (a medium for the communication of a form
for example) between the outside world and the inner world it is
necessary to grasp by "a same movement of thought", the before-sign
and the after-sign with the physiological perception of the sign as a
connection between these two worlds. Otherwise we run the risk of
introducing unsuspected biases that lead to questions that do not
arise or that arise in other words, such as those I mentioned at the
beginning of this post.
Je considère que le texte ci-dessous est fondamental pour justifier
l'emploi d'un nouveau concept qui remplira cette fonction de
"contre-réaction sociale" des semiosis individuelles :
" But while I say this, it must not be inferred that I regard
consciousness as a mere "epiphenomenon"; though I heartily grant that
the hypothesis that it is so has done good service to science. To my
apprehension, consciousness may be defined as that congeries of
non-relative predicates, varying greatly in quality and in intensity,
which are symptomatic of the interaction of the outer world -- the
world of those causes that are exceedingly compulsive upon the modes
of consciousness, with general disturbance sometimes amounting to
shock, and are acted upon only slightly, and only by a special kind
of effort, muscular effort -- and of the inner world, apparently
derived from the outer, and amenable to direct effort of various
kinds with feeble reactions; the interaction of these two worlds
chiefly consisting of a direct action of the outer world upon the
inner and an indirect action of the inner world upon the outer
through the operation of habits. If this be a correct account of
consciousness, i.e., of the congeries of feelings, it seems to me
that it exercises a real function in self-control, since without it,
or at least without that of which it is symptomatic, the resolves and
exercises of the inner world could not affect the real determinations
and habits of the outer world. I say that these belong to the outer
world because they are not mere fantasies but are real agencies." CP
(5.493 ,Pragmatism, 1906)
But this fundamental text alone does not solve the question posed by
Edwina because it obviously lacks the commens, this concept that
dominates both the emission of signs and their receptions. A concept
that is added to this text allows us to situate Peirce's semiotics in
the social field, his study in sociology and his practice among social
practices. But the commens as Peirce presents it is a general
framework in which individual signs are supposed to cooperate to
arrive at a kind of social semiosis whose dynamics feed on individual
variations. These are mostly the result of material changes in the
outside world as a result of the development of science and
technology, their impact on the environment, the circulation of ideas
(and viruses...), etc. It is not integrated es-qualities into the
semiotic sequence; it is just the framework in which it unfolds. One
way to integrate it is to use the concept of an institution as defined
and used in institutional analysis.
On the use of this concept in sociology there are significant
differences between its development in the Anglo-Saxon world (William
Richard Scott; Douglass North, Nobel Prize for Economics in 1993;
Di Maggio, The new institutionalism) mainly in the field of economics
an European thinkers (MarcelMauss, Max Weber) with a large French
School quite dispersed (MichelFoucauld, Cornelius Castoriadis, René
Lourau). That is why I will not refer today as I did in 1989 to its
Hegelian version. The latter, ignored from Wikipedia in English,
classically distinguishes the three moments from the concept
"instituted", "instituting", institutionalization and applies it
rather in terms of critical sociological in fields such as
psychotherapy, pedagogy, the sociology of organisms and
interventionism, psychosociology,...
(see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analyse_institutionnelle ).
That is why I will give at least a consensual definition with all
the approaches I have just mentioned that will be compatible with the
commens and pragmatic thinking present in the 5,493 mentioned above. I
borrow most of them in the en. Wikipedia :
"institutional theory is a theory on the deeper and more resilient
aspects of social structure. It considers the processes by which
structures, including schemes, rules, norms, and routines, become
established as authoritative guidelines for social behavior.
Different components of institutional theory explain how these
elements are created, diffused, adopted, and adapted over space and
time; and how they fall into decline and
disuse.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_theory)
I'will add to this an important precision which concerns the
continuous movement of change of the commens by institutions
modified by social movements driven by the evolution of science and
technology in the broadest sense including communication techniques
and populist challenges that place irrational leaders in a position
to legislate, that is, able to impose laws. Peirce provides a "weak"
version of institutional interaction (an indirect action of the inner
world upon the outer through the operation of habits) in relation to
the means of influence of his time. Today we can clearly assume that
what has been called "the communication society" and even the
"consumer society" have multiplied by an extremely high factor these
indirect actions which can be real mass manipulations.
This concept thus extended and stripped of any economic or
ideological connotations seems to me perfectly suited to guarantee
the operationality of semiotic analysis in today's world. My study on
nicotine is a good example and my answer "parable" to Jon Alan an
illustration in the course of the list.
Best regards,
Robert
Le sam. 23 mai 2020 à 22:46, Edwina Taborsky a écrit :
Robert, list
Yes - I see your point and agree. Certainly, if the FI in ONE
semiosic process was in a mode of Thirdness, then, the 'preceding'
nodes of the process could not be in any other mode than Thirdness.
But is the Final Interpretant ever due to only one semiosic process
or from one individual? I don't want to be seen as 'slithering out'
of your justified comment - but isn't the FI due to a 'commons' -
where, if we imagine a complex networked web of semiosic
interactions from MANY individuals - where some are functioning in
1ns, some in 2ns, some in a mixture of 1ns, 2ns, 3ns, and some in
3ns.....that the Final Interpretant in this networked community -
would be that generalized law? Then, this community will presumably
change its habits - but - even so, a community will continue to 'be
semiosic' within all ten sign classes, so to speak - and will only
once-in-a-while develop a Final Interpretant from within its semiosic
processes.
Comment?
Edwina
On Sat 23/05/20 4:32 PM , robert marty [email protected] [2]
sent:
Edwina ,Helmut, List
The final interpretant certainly is a change of habit (which may be
the preservation of habit or the return to old habits) but it can not
be only a Thirdness . If this were the case there would be only one
class of hexadics signs :
Od3àOi3à S3àX3àY3àZ3
in some system X,Y,Z of denominations either with Z interpretant
final ... The change in habit may or may not be a change in the
subjective theory of the receiver or a change in his physical
reaction patterns or in his modes of emotional reactions ... and then
we find the 28 classes ...
Best regards,
Robert
Le sam. 23 mai 2020 à 15:38, Edwina Taborsky a écrit :
Helmut, list - I wonder if we are mixing terms.
Final cause and the final interpretant are not at all similar.
1] Final Cause is not the same as Final Interpretant.
Peirce locates the three interpretants in order of, as I see it, of
emergence in the semiosic process, which does therefore insert a
temporality, with the immediate interpretant as the individual
subjective experience of the data from the DO and IO as mediated by
the sign/representamen, and then the Dynamical Interpretant ‘which
is the actual effect which the Sign determines [again, within the
individual] – and then the Final Interpretant…’the way in
which every mind would act’ 8.315 – which latter inserts a
commonality of understanding.
If we understand that logic requires a process of generality, then
the final interpretant includes that generality. That is, it includes
the category of Thirdness. But we must remember, that not all semiosic
events include this generalizing category. Indeed, most of our
semiosic interactions 'stop', so to speak, with Firstness and
Seccondness. This is why that last node in the hexadic process is not
always present to that process. Indeed - we could even say the
semiosic process is most often a five rather than six node process!
That would actually make sense, if we understand the Final
Interpretant as a 'commonality of laws', as a Logical Interpretant,
to be engaged in expressing those habits or laws. Habit changes are
not carried out every second but with less frequency.
2] What is final cause? To Peirce, as I understand it does not
include an agential purpose. 1.211, with final cause instead
understood, as he puts it, as ‘the ideal or final’. But what is
this 'ideal or final'? Does it include a sense of value? Who or what
would provide this value? Or is it instead ‘the general principle
which is regarded as the cause and the individual fact to which it is
applied is taken as the understood factor [EP 2.315-6]. What is this
general principle?
Final cause can also be understood as Thirdness, the law. This
brings in Peirce's concept of matter as mind. As he writes, 'Mind
has its universal mode of action, namely, by final causation....with
natural selection" the theory of how forms come to be adaptive, that
is, to be governed by a quasi purpose. 1.269, The key word is
'adaptive' where organisms interact with each other and adapt.
How does this universal law of mind operate? By, for example 'the
great law of association, an attraction between ideas' 1.270.. Or,
the universe functions within a 'law of nature, ie, the
rationalization of the universe' 1.590. And 'the process of
evolution whereby the existent comes more and more to embody those
generals which were just not said to be destined which is what we
strive to express in calling them reasonable' 5.433. [see also
agapistic evolution]. Note that evolution is not 'destined' but
'reasonable'. That inserts the notion that 'matter is effete mind.
6.25 where the two 'universes' of mind and matter coincide 6.501. Or
'matter is mind hidebound with habits' 6. 158
Note, Helmut, that this definite end of final cause is not
predetermined but operates within the objectively existent world and
renders that world functional and adaptive; it is 'adaptation' which
is the 'definite end' I,e., the generation of functional habits of
Mind-as-Matter, not some predetermined agential idea.
Therefore - the way I see it is that the Final Interpretant is a
not-often-realized semiosic event, where a commonality of
interpretation is generated by a commonality of individuals [human or
otherwise]. While Final Cause has to do with the concept of
Mind-as-Matter, where Mind is constantly 'actualizing' itself as
Matter, within a complex and dynamic interactional process of
networked semiosis.
Edwina
On Sat 23/05/20 4:03 AM , "Helmut Raulien" [email protected] sent:
Jon, List, Peirce is not necessarily always right, is he? "For
evolution is nothing more nor less than the working out of a definite
end", is theism and speculation, isn´t it? One may also assume, that
evolution is continuous adaption without an end. And when he wrote "A
final cause may be conceived to operate without having been the
purpose of any mind", had he forgotten then, that he had claimed that
the universe has a mind? If it has, why should it pursue its own end?
I think doomsdayism is always theistic speculation. The big chill
too, like the big bang, is not scientifically proven. I think, that
evolution itself has a mind, though working quite slowly. A better
example for final cause I see in the needs of organisms, who pursue
an end to these needs. Or their DNA does it for them, which is a
memory of the mind of evolution of their species. Organisms who have
brains apply a third kind of causation, volitional or example
causation: They remember or anticipate something they want to get.
These three kinds of causation are related by analogy to the three
kinds of inference. Best, Helmut 23. Mai 2020 um 04:14 Uhr
"Jon Alan Schmidt"
wrote: Robert, List: Thanks for providing this creative answer
to some of my questions, which I have been pondering carefully. It
confirms that we have very different theories about semeiosis, and
apparently very different interpretations of Peirce's writings on
that subject. For one thing, he explicitly and repeatedly affirms
the reality of final causes, and even points to biological evolution
as a paradigmatic manifestation of them. CSP: Perhaps, since
phrases retain their sway over men's minds long after their meaning
has evaporated, it may be that some reader, even at this day, remains
imbued with the old notion that there are no final causes in nature;
in which case, natural selection, and every form of evolution, would
be false. For evolution is nothing more nor less than the working out
of a definite end. A final cause may be conceived to operate without
having been the purpose of any mind ... but that definite ends are
worked out none of us today any longer deny. Our eyes have been
opened; and the evidence is too overwhelming. (CP 1.204, 1902)
Notice that for Peirce final causes do not entail agency, theistic or
otherwise. He confirms this later in the same manuscript. CSP:
It is, as I was saying, a widespread error to think that a "final
cause" is necessarily a purpose. A purpose is merely that form of
final cause which is most familiar to our experience. (CP 1.211)
However, I will not belabor that point any further. Instead, for
comparison I will try to spell out my own semeiotic analysis of my
previous post, hopefully sometime this weekend. Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [3] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [4] On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 10:58
AM robert marty wrote: Jon Alan, List
I'd rather we stay on the list. I have clues that suggest that
people are interested; if some are embarrassed they have no
obligation ...
Today I will answer your questions using another rhetorical means,
the parable ...
"A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, that
illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles"
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable [5] ) ...
I assure you, it will be prose ...
On 05/20/20 at a certain time, in the mind of a person living in
Olathe, Kansas,USA, (the sender), a person who has well-established
and known ideas from the list on the final causes, effective causes,
determinations, ... a subjective theory labelled "JAS" (Od) is formed
the idea of addressing questions to a member of the list in particular
and also to the list (the receiver, the receivers)… he imagines a
series of questions (Oi) that are necessarily determined by his
theory which they carry "in hollow" the mark ... he writes them and
publishes them (S) … its main receiver (his first name is an
index perceived first) perceives this text ... in the course of his
reading his mind is inhabited by more or less blurred mnemonic
reminders of a large number of objects of previous discussions, more
or less interconnected, mixed - as with each of the messages he
received from the same sender - with this following information
(index) which never ceased to amaze him: " Professional Engineer,
Philosopher Amateur, Lutheran Layman". All this has formed in his
mind a kind of "interpretation guide" from which he apprehends the
content of the messages received from this sender, a set to which is
added the one to which I answer by the parable - under construction
before my eyes and soon under yours, i e of all those who will
perceive it (read it). This receiver has therefore, with more or less
accuracy, conceptualized this set. He finds himself obliged, simply to
have read this injunctive message, in which the sender has somehow "
printed his mark", to modify or not his uncertain conceptualization
in which dominates the idea of "predestination" that his studies and
readings have allowed him to associate with Lutheranism (Calvinism
too) and in general protestantism: It's (If) … in immediate
reaction in his mind is recalled his own subjective theory which
contains his long-held opinions on these issues (Ie). He acquired
them early by reading Jacques Monod's 1965 Nobel Prize book ," Hasard
and Necessity," later reinforced by reading René Thom's book, Medall
Field of Mathematics (1958), entitled " Structural Stability and
Morphogenesis, W. A. Benjamin, (1972) ". After a quick confrontation
between the two theories for a possible change in the way he
considers the questions of the final causes and the efficient causes,
he decides not to modify one iota and to communicate this decision to
the person who asked it and to the list (Iex) in the explicit form
that here: "In his world of signs, determinations are efficient
causes and there is no need to incorporate final causes that his own
subjective theory and underlying atheism exclude." .
Best,
Robert (the receiver)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_and_Necessity [6]
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