What I said was a comment on that passage. I can't help it if you didn't understand that. Also I should point out that passage is not a quote from Husserl but is someone else's interpretation of what they think he believed.

Are you worried about what I said being an attack on authority? I explained what I think is wrong with ontologically absolutizing human consciousness. What more do you want? Do you have a counter argument or critique?

:up:

Here's an example in ordinary langauge with the same form.:

1.Life therefore death
2.Life
Therefore
3.Death.

Both valid and sound it seems.

This essay proposes the Evolutionary Coping Mechanism Theory, suggesting that intelligent species create religion and science as adaptive responses to existential threats and uncertainties. — ContextThinker

So species which do not create religion and science cannot be intelligent? I would agree with you if you had said instead "intelligent species which are capable of symbolic language". A creature no matter how intelligent could not create religion or science without first possessing symbolic language.

:up:

I'd say consciousness has evolved from very rudimentary sensory awareness. So what is ontologically fundamental would be the pre-existent conditions that enabled the genesis of and continues to make possible the most rudimentary sensory awareness.

I don't see that as inconsistent with the fact that from the perspective of phenomenological inquiry what is fundamental for us is what we are and can be aware of. I don't agree with the kind of thinking that counts what is fundamental for us as being fundamental tout court. Such thinking is too human-centric for my taste. I view it as a conceit.

Well, yes. Animals cannot articulate anything in that way. But that takes us back to the question what the significance is of the various species-unique abilities we can learn - given that every species is unique in some way. — Ludwig V

Yes, I agree that every species is unique in some way. For us it just happened to be symbolic language (unless there is at least one other species that unbeknownst to us also possesses it).

However, to understand oneself or one's possession of symbolic language is either necessary nor sufficient for possessing symbolic language. — jkop

I guess it all depends on how you define "symbolic language". As I see it the abstractive ability that enables explicit self-reflective awareness would be the defining feature.

Yes, because the ability to understand things in the environment remotely via symbols (natural or socially constructed) is a function of any animal's interest. — jkop

For non-symbolically linguistic animals I would say instead "the ability to understand things in the environment via signs".

Right. And all that this entails. — Wayfarer

I'm doubtful that we would be in agreement as to just "what all that this entails" apart from the bleeding obvious.

"Though Spinoza’s Ethics suggests a monistic view where everything is part of a single substance (God or Nature), he also suggests that the mind and body are distinct modes. Humans possess a unique kind of rationality, which he considers a higher function than that of animals."

Right so not merely animals as I already said above. For me the difference all comes down to symbolic language which enables an augmented abstract-capable rationality.

Also Chatbot does not present an explicit citation from Spinoza.

Personally, I'm in agreement with Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel, that there is a difference in kind between h.sapiens and other species, due to the human ability to speak, reason, create art and science, etc. — Wayfarer

We are a different kind of animal just as all the other kinds of animal are. I'm very familiar with Spinoza and I doubt he out of all those mentioned philosophers would deny that we are animals. I'd need an explicit citation to convince me.

I think those who deny it want to believe that there is a human spirit or soul or essence which is not of this world. It seems to me something like that would be the real motivation to deny that we are animals.

We can say we are not just animals because we are "civilized"...enculturated, if being just an animal is defined as being completely determined by instinct in the ways of living or forms of life available to it, we would escape that categorization. But it could also be said that we are the civilized animal—the animal that can act counter to its instincts. Of course we don't know for sure that there are no other kinds of animal that can do that.

But Vervaeke would also say that h.sapiens have greater horizons of being than do other animals, because of reason, language, self-awareness, and all that this entails. — Wayfarer

I would put that a little differently since I believe animals (to varying degrees of course) do non-symbolic or non-abstract reasoning and have non-symbolic or non-abstract self-awareness and I believe it is on account of symbolic language (and the opposable thumb) that humans have "greater horizons of being" or in other words collective and accumulative learning and culture.

As a Dawkins or a Crick would put it, you are ' robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes' or 'You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of identity and free will are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules'. — Wayfarer

The first quote is a ridiculous anthropomorphism. The second quote is perhaps true in the sense that we can be understood that way, but it is only one among many possible perspectives, so the "nothing but" part is not true.

There's a bit of a problem with that. Articulating our understanding of how to use words and construct sentences is much more difficult than it seems. For the most part, mostly our use of language is underpinned by skills that we do not, and often cannot, articulate. — Ludwig V

I was referring to a more modest capacity—the ability to articulate that we can use words and construct sentences. I wasn't claiming that we can articulate in any comprehensive sense how it is that we are able to do that.

But it delivers considerable capacity to gain knowledge, surely you would agree. H.sapiens by dint of reason is able to do many things which animals can not. (There have been interminable, and to my mind pointless, arguments about this in the Rational Thinking Human and Animal thread.) — Wayfarer

I would say not by dint of reason but by dint of symbolic language. Symbolic language enables collective learning and perceived history. I believe animals do possess reason, but of course if they do not possess symbolic language, it would seem they do not possess symbolically augmented reason or in other words they would not be capable of abstract reasoning.

The 'argument from reason' is that reasoned inference must convey facts that are internal to reason. Seeking to justify such reasons with reference to the extent to which they provide an adaptive or evolutionary advantage undermines the sovereignty of reason by saying that it's claims have some grounds other than their self-evident nature. — Wayfarer

It is not the fact (if it be such) that reason has evolved that "justifies" reason. Reason is never justified it is merely valid or invalid, consistent or inconsistent, As I already said this has to do with the LNC as I see it. That law is integral to our worldly experience. Something cannot both be and not be itself for example. Or for another example, something cannot be a round square or both red and blue all over I believe that (some) animals (for example dogs) show by their behavior that they instinctively comprehend this.

You said somewhere recently that Vervaeke's "relevance realization" operates at all levels of life. What could this be but some kind of understanding (however) rudimentary) that something is of whatever significance it is for the organism". A predator is a predator not a prey, Perhaps the LEM also comes into play here as well as the LNC. As I replied before this is the root of both meaning and reason.

I am not arguing that it (idealism) means that ‘the world is all in the mind’. It’s rather that, whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle. — Wayfarer

I don't follow this argument. I can see that the judgement that "all such supposedly unseen realities" exist relies on an implicit perspective. What I don't see is that the existence of whatever relies on any perspective. There is an unexplained and seemingly unwarranted leap there from judgement of existence to actual existence.

When you say "What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle" you are treating only what that existence is ( or is not) for us. Of course something outside of any perspective is indeterminable for us. It doesn't follow that there is no existence outside of our perspectives or any perspective at all. You seem to be conflating experience and judgement with existence. We cannot say anything at all about anything that might exist beyond our possible experience and judgement including that it could not exist. All the evidence points to the fact that something did exist prior to our existence or the existence of any percipients.

However if the mind and reason are reduced to these terms, then this undermines the sovereignty of reason. We can discuss the details of that if you like. — Wayfarer

What do you mean by the "sovereignty of reason"? Reason by itself delivers no knowledge. As I understand it the main principles are the LNC and validity. I think the LNC features in the demand for validity or consistency. That in any example of valid reasoning the conclusion must be entailed by the premises. Obviously premises which contradict one another or the conclusion will not pass muster.

What is the actual argument for why accepting the evolution of reason would undermine those principles?

Sure it can depend on how you define "symbolic language". Via symbolic language as I understand and define it we can explicitly understand ourselves to be whatever it is we take ourselves to be. We can understand ourselves to be possessed of symbolic language on account of being possessed of symbolic language for example. Do you believe there is any evidence that any other animals can do that?

It’s never clear what you’re arguing for but I do know that you enjoy an argument, regardless. ;-) — Wayfarer

You just ignore any point that tells against your position. I've already said that I am arguing against the idea that because everything cannot be explained in terms of physics it follows that physicalism is false.

Address this (The first word there "they" referring to)

abstract reasoning, language, art, scientific invention, moral reflection, symbolic thought, and awareness of mortality — Wayfarer

They are not explained by it (physics), just as history, evolutionary theory itself, sociology, etc, etc are not because they are all different paradigms of inquiry. Physicalism is a metaphysical standpoint and just like the other metaphysical standpoints does not explain the abovementioned. — Janus

I'll also add that although physicalism (like physics itself), does not explain those things evolutionary theory can produce explanations for those things. Theoretical explanations are not provable of course, but it is equally true that they are not provably false. Such explanations may be counted as false if it can be definitively shown that they cannot possibly explain what they purport to. Nothing you have presented has shown that.

All our experience of a world of uncountable physical constraints supports the conclusion that we inhabit a world that is basically energetic in nature. Do you really believe that the Universe would not exist without us or that it is not most basically a field of energetic relations and interactions?

They are not explained by it, just as history, evolutionary theory itself, sociology, etc, etc are not because they are all different paradigms of inquiry. Physicalism is a metaphysical standpoint and just like the other metaphysical standpoints does not explain the abovementioned. So, your "argument" is trying to set fire to an asbestos tiger.

As I've said many times I'm not arguing for physicalism but rather against your simplistic idea that it is self-refuting or that the existence of areas of inquiry where physics is of no use is sufficient to refute physicalism.

I said it opened up horizons of being and cognitive skills that are different in kind to other species, including abstract reasoning, language, art, scientific invention, moral reflection, symbolic thought, and awareness of mortality. — Wayfarer

None of which are incompatible with physicalism and evolutionary theory.

One of the bits of terminology I've picked up from Vervaeke is 'relevance realisation', which operates right from the inception of organic life. — Wayfarer

Otherwise known as reason or meaning.

The properties of particles are not defined until they are measured. That is the central philosophical problem of modern physics. — Wayfarer

Nothing is defined until it is in some sense "measured". It does not follow that the properties of particles do not exist until measured.

And practically every other species apart from h.sapiens has survived, often for hundreds of millions of years (such as crocodiles) with no capacity for logic whatever. And trying to account for reason in terms of evolutionary theory reduces reason to an adaptation serving the purposes of survival. But if that is what it is, why do we place trust in reason? — Wayfarer

How could you possibly know that crocodiles have no capacity for logic? If reason is an evolutionary adaptation we can place trust in it because it has stood the test of time—the ultimate test.

Personally, I don't evangalise faith in God, but as I am critical of the philosophy of secular humanism it sort of puts me in the camp of those who do. — Wayfarer

In other words you don't have a standpoint other than your personal dislike of secular humanism and your constant attempts to marshal, arguments from (imagined) authorities to try to prove that it is self-defeating and/ or to explain it away by psychologizing it.

I wonder when the penny is going to drop for you that everything beyond what is directly observable is a matter of faith with the only arbiter being coherence and plausibility.

BTW, I agree with you here. I feel like there have been knock down arguments against correspondence for millennia at this point, e.g. Plotinus asks how one might step outside one's beliefs and experiences to compare them with the world. Yet it has trucked along nonetheless. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems to me that the problem with some people's understanding of correspondence rules it our while a more sensible understanding makes it central to human life. Even Tarski's 'T-sentence' essentially expresses the logic of correspondence. The sentence "snow is white" is true if an only if snow is white. (As Aristotle would have it "to say of what is so that it is so" (loosely paraphrased).

The reality being corresponded to is not the arcane reality of the "in itself" but the ordinary empirical reality of human experience. Of course we can't check to see if our assertions correspond to the imagined (for us) reality of the in itself, but we can at least in prinicple check whether our assertions correspond to the common human experience and judgement we share and inhabit.

But I like the idea of a non-symbolically mediated understanding it, though I'm taking that as what is called "tacit" knowledge. — Ludwig V

Right. I term it 'implicit knowledge' with its explicitation (usually termed explication) being enabled by symbolic language.

Strictly speaking, instinctive behaviour is a set behaviour pattern that is not learned, but inherited. It is not, therefore, based on any process of learning or reasoning. It is capable of rational justification at the level of evolution as contributing to the ability of the creature to sruvive and reproduce. — Ludwig V

I think it is plausible to think that we and the other animals may have an instinct to copy behavior. So some behaviors may be a combination of instinctive and learned. Learned not in the sense of deliberately taught but in the sense of acquired by mimicry.

But we do have to learn much body language in order to read it and it does not follow from the fact that we can read human body language that we can read the body language of other creatures without learning. But small children do have to be taught to recognize the body language of dogs. — Ludwig V

I think we can instinctively read some body language both human and animal. I agree that the understanding of some body language must be learned. Not learned in the sense of being deliberately taught of course.

As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language.
— Janus

.
.research offers the first evidence that parrots learn their unique signature calls from their parents and shows that vocal signaling in wild parrots is a socially acquired rather than a genetically wired trait. — jkop

Does it follow that the parrot's signaling is symbolic though? I think part of what I would count as the possession of symbolic language consists in the ability to explicitly understand that such and such a sound, gesture or mark conventionally stands for whatever it symbolizes.

The same question as above regarding the dolphins. And not I am not denying that other animals might possess symbolic language. I'm questioning whether we have clear evidence that they do as opposed to having some evidence that they might.

It's just the distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic signs. The former denote whatever they do by convention. As far as we know only humans possess symbolic language. Again though I want to stress that I don't see that fact as a justification for human exceptionalism.

What you have said here does not seem to disagree with what I've said. I think I've said several times in this thread that I believe we can read the body language of not only humans but (at least some) animals as well.

Obviously, then, the way I understand what the goose's hiss means, is by means of symbols, which the goose cannot use. Yet the difference in meaning between the two is hard to discern.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure. — Ludwig V

You could respond instinctively to the gooses hissing which I would say would be a non-symbolically mediated understanding of it. Discursive knowledge would seem to be always in symbolic form I guess.

But it doesn't follow that all abstract objects are classes. — Ludwig V

I agree and I don't think I've said or implied otherwise. I'd say abstract objects are probably all generalizations, but I don't think generalization and class are coterminous. That said I'm not confident that on detailed analysis all abstract objects will trun out to be generalizations.

Well, we can agree on that, though we may find complications if we looked more closely at the detail. — Ludwig V

Yes, that seems likely. Analysis always seems to discover complications since linguistic terms are only more or less definitive or determinate. Ambiguities proliferate under the analytic eye.

The difference between that and a symbol would take some teasing out but set that aside. The lack of a convention does suggest that it is not. — Ludwig V

Right, I think conventionality is the key difference between signs which count as symbols and those which do not.

Then presumably you conclude that paraconsistent logic is not logic proper? And isn’t the liar in ordinary language? — Banno

Right it seems that is what my position entails. The liar is in ordinary language and as I said for me it is implicitly self-contradictory from which it follows that it is inconsistent and invalid and neither true nor false.

Can you think of a propositional sentence in ordinary language which is not self-contradictory that is both true and false or neither true nor false?

I doubt it and thus conclude the LNC holds in all valid logics.

I think of validity and consistency being inseparable. I could say the liar sentence is inconsistent insofar as it asserts that it is both true and false. In other words it inconsistently and contradictorily asserts that it is true that it is false. I don't know whether it is para-consistent (unless) the para in that context means 'beyond' in a similar sense as it does in 'paranormal'. I count it as inconsistent and thus invalid and neither true nor false.

I don't know much about formal logic and perhaps there are formal ways of making invalid consistent and valid inconsistent logical posits work and even do work. I am interested only in what can be parsed in ordinary language.

I guess I have. Apart from the 'liar' sentence and the 'barber' paradox I can't think of any coherent sentences which are demonstrably neither true nor false. When I said the liar is neither true nor false that is only because if it is taken to be true it is false and vice versa. Apart from that I would not claim to be clear on what it could mean for it to be neither true nor false. Perhaps it is incoherent, from which I guess it would follow that it is neither true nor false. I think the difficulty would be to come up with a clearly coherent sentence which is neither true nor false, not to speak of one which is both true and false.

M'kay. Then my example would not convince you of dialetheism, and at this point in the debate I'd ask -- if dialetheism were somehow justified would that then justify logical pluralism? — Moliere

I would only consider dialetheism to be justified if I could think of an example of a sentence which is demonstrably true and false in the same sense and context. That said if it were somehow justified I guess that might justify logical pluralism.

Perhaps. What do you think?

But you can see an object, and clearly think about the idea that you are looking at that object. — Patterner

I don't find that I can be attentively aware of looking at an object and of myself looking at the object in the same instant. The latter comes very quickly after the former and while it being thought occludes it. That is my experience for what its worth.

This is what it all comes down to. Not evidence that it can't. Just no evidence that it can. — Patterner

I see plenty of evidence that it has, which means evidence that it can. Of course it is not, as is the case with any substantive conjectural posit, proven. It comes down to what seems most plausible. I understand that others may have a different take on what seems plausible than I.

Though I'm wondering if I've just lost you at this point? — Moliere

Not lost. For me the liar sentence is neither true nor false, not both true and false.

A dialetheia is a sentence, A, such that both it and its negation, ¬A, are true. If falsity is assumed to be the truth of negation, a dialetheia is a sentence which is both true and false.

Can you think of any examples of a sentence wherein both A and not-A are true in the same sense or context? For example I could be said to be both old or tall and not old or tall but not in the same senses or contexts.

I'm a defender of dialetheism, thus far.

Which rules out the LNC. — Moliere

Can you explain how dialetheism rules out the LNC? My point was that within any valid logical argument of whatever stripe there must be consistency between the premises and the conclusion. If a premise contradicts another premise or the conclusion then the argument cannot be valid. That sort of thing.

I havent been following this thread closely as it seems to me to be mostly boring. However I do remember someone asking whether there were any logical laws that applied to all forms of logic. How about validity and consistency? Or which is basically the same as far as I can tell—the law of non-contradiction?

What happens when you try? Is it a flickering back and forth between looking at it, and thinking about having looked at it? Or are you unable to think about looking at it at all until it is no longer in your line of sight? Something else? — Patterner

I am not able to simultaneously focus on what I am looking at and the idea that I am looking at it. Could just be me but I doubt it.

At another site (for a series of fantasy books), a guy and I posted for several pages, me trying to convince him that consciousness must be physical, because everything is made of particles. Well, he ended up convincing me of the opposite. Lol — Patterner

It doesn't make conceptual sense to me to say that consciousness is made of particles. 'Consciousness' is a word that demotes being aware. Our bodies are apparently made of particles and very perception and every thought and every sensation and every emotion is a process involving the interactions of particles. I don't believe there is any consciousness that is not in the material sense a physical process. Our subjective experience and our sense of self are most plausibly physical processes, and it is the self-reflective possibilities of language that make it seem not to be so. What is the alternative?

But if consciousness can't arise solely from the physical, which I don't think it can, then maybe there are things in our reality that are not physical. — Patterner

What possible evidence could we have that consciousness cannot arise from the physical? That seems like a mere prejudice to me. All the evidence seems to point to the opposite consclusion.

I'm sure many people believe it for that reason. I'm not among them. I'm 60. I'm not unhappy, looking forward to death, or anything. But the thought of myself going on forever is veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery unappetizing. — Patterner

Personally I love the idea of living forever. But only in a healthy body with all normal faculties and capacities intact. I'm 71.

Physicalism in relation to methodological naturalism seems to me like an empty suitcase taken on a plane. The scientific method (the plane) gets you somewhere but the metaphysical baggage of physicalism appears to be an unnecessary and unhelpful accoutrement.

I suppose physicalism draws much of its respectability from its ostensible position as the most central philosophical framework for scientific inquiry, and I’m not denying it is. But I think that can be problematised by pointing out that while physicalism does provide a background context that is inviting towards scientific inquiry, none of the successes of science required physicalism– the scientific method and its accompanying tools being enough to do the job. — Baden

Interesting OP!

As I see it methodological naturalism is the counterpart to the phenomenological epoché. It is simply a methodologically driven bracketing of what is irrelevant to or not within the ambit of enquiry.

Physicalism as a metaphysical standpoint consists in the idea that all that is real is the physical. What is the physical? That which can be observed and/ or whose effects can be observed. That which can be measured and modeled and/or whose effects can be measured and modeled.

Success in science does not require scientists to be metaphysical naturalists but it is arguable that the latter is the most plausible metaphysic. Is there even a coherent alternative?

Another question this enquiry seems to raise is as to what could possibly be at stake in the argument between physicalism and idealism. It seems that for at least some folk what is at stake is that they take physicalism to preclude the possibility that this life is for each of us not all that there is. However implausible we might consider the idea of an afterlife to be I don't see that physicalism necessarily precludes the possibility.

Can you think of anything else that could be at stake?

I suspect you are making a point that I haven't yet caught on to. I don't know why you say this. I just looked at my blue shirt. As I was looking at it, I said, "I'm looking at my blue shirt. And I am aware that I am looking at my blue shirt." And I was aware that I was looking at my blue shirt as I was looking at it. You can't think I only became aware that I had been looking at it after I looked away from it, can you? You are saying something else? — Patterner

I don't believe it is possible for you to look at your blue shirt and be reflectively aware of yourself doing so in the same instant. Observing my own experience leads me to think that I can't do it at least. You might be more skillful than I. I can't rule that out so I speak only for myself.

'Purportedly self-evident'? Do you doubt that you subjectively experience? — Patterner

I don't doubt that we experience. What I do doubt is that our experience is non-physical. I mean our experience is not a physical object to be sure but I think our intuition that our experience is non-physical is the product of a kind of illusion created by language. An illusion created by reflective thought. The alternative as I see it has to be mind/ body dualism.

I also think that much of the attachment to the idea that experience is non-physical has to do with the wish for immortality which can make us averse to the idea that this life is all there is.

When you don't have access to the other entity's mind, I'm not sure you're justified in assuming they have no symbolic communication. — Vera Mont

Its not an assumption but rather a conclusion based on what I think is most plausible given the evidence (or lack of evidence). I'm the first to admit that plausibility is more or less like beauty— somewhat in the eye of the beholder. In other words not a highly determinable or definitive criterion for justifying any assertion.

Interesting. That makes sense. But I've barely read anything on the topic, and don't seem to have an intuitive understanding of it all. My first thought was that a stop sign is, just as it says, a sign. It doesn't symbolize a stopped car. I was thinking a symbol would depict, even if the depiction was stylized, the thing. But then I looked up 'symbol', and the first example is:
for example, a red octagon is a common symbol for "STOP" — Patterner

The word 'stop' in that context symbolizes the act of stopping but does not resemble anything to do with stopping. Ikons resemble what they signify. Some early written languages used pictographs—characters which resembled what they represented. As far as I know Chinese characters evolved from these early pictographic characters. The difference with a pure symbol is that it doesn't resemble what it signifies. Think of the numeral '5'. It doesn't resemble five of anything. 'IIIII' would be a pictographic representation or ikon of the quantity of five.

Abstract objects may be treated as generalizations or particulars and I have not said nor implied anything that contradicts that.
— Janus
H'm. That's a large and tempting rabbit-hole, but I'm thinking that diving down it would be a distraction.

If you are treating abstract objects as particulars then yes. My point was that numbers are themselves generalizations. There are countless instantiations of 'two' just as there are of 'tree' or 'animal'.
— Janus
I'm not at all sure that's a helpful way to think of them, but we would have to dive down the rabbit-hole to clarify that. — Ludwig V

I'm sure there are nuances that could make it a much larger enquiry but all I have in mind is that an abstract object is abstract on account of the fact that it refers to no particular thing but ranges over a whole class of particulars thus qualifying it as a generalization.

So the word 'tree' is both a particular word and a symbol that represents the abstract generalization that is the class of objects we call trees.

I don't know what you have in mind with wondering about the "helpfulness" of looking at things this way. Its just one of the possible ways of thinking about it. I see the distinction between abstract objects as particulars and generalizations as a valid one. It makes perfect sense to me at least.

I guess that if I must choose between the two, I would have to choose "sign", because the alternative "symbol" means attributing human-style language to the dog. But the catch with this is that if we say that a goose hissing is a sign of anger hostility or danger in your sense of sign, we are positing a purely causal relationship, which would be incompatible with attributing rationality, or even sentience, to the goose.
This means that we need to draw some more distinctions. Sign vs symbol is more complicated than ti seems. I don't have a neat account of the difference, just a few remarks towards a map. The same applies to the concept of action. — Ludwig V

I think we can attribute rationality and meaning to animals in the sense of feeling. The hissing of the goose is an expression and in that sense a sign of "anger hostility or danger". But it has not been converted by a linguistic culture into a symbol that stands by convention as signifying anger hostility or danger.

I admit I have only given a basic adumbration and that more subtleties and nuances in the relationship between the concepts of 'sign' and 'symbol' could be induced by a detailed investigation of usage and association.