we could see all nature ruled by semiosis — apokrisis
Semiosis explains immanence or self-animation through an appeal to the dual reality of both matter and symbol. — apokrisis
Here you are just trying to win an argument by playing with definitions. — apokrisis
The advantage of this pan-semiotic view is that it would properly ground the phenomenon of living being in the world. — apokrisis
Science also does not study generalities; that would be the province of metaphysics and ontology. — Janus
Which is the precise point that I made. — Wayfarer
So there is no such thing as inanimate being? — Mitchell
And if were a duality of matter and mind, then we wouldn't have an argument. I'm saying that the concept of symbol doesn't make a lot of sense without there being mind. But that's the conclusion you're wanting to avoid. — Wayfarer
That was the point I was making and as far as I'm concerned it hasn't been rebutted. — Wayfarer
So, again, the question that occurs to me, is that if there is a top-down organising principle, as systems science seems to be saying, what is responsible for that, because the ‘immanent metaphysics’ model seems very bottom-up, as far as I can understand it (which I readily admit might not be very far.) — Wayfarer
This is an ontology of a world of already given objects, not one that is in fact a story of immanent development - a process with a self-structuring flow. — apokrisis
To be fully immanent, a tale of prime matter and prime mover is not enough. — apokrisis
But true metaphysical immanence is about how the potential produces the actual. And that requires a bootstrapping or self-structuring view of causality. — apokrisis
Aristotle's first cosmological cause is hylomorphic then there exists a prime (ground) substance with cosmic potential. This is the universe, the nature of which can be investigated as with any hylomorphic particular. — Andrew M
So with prime substance we have true metaphysical immanence. — Andrew M
How would 'investigating the nature of the Universe' in this manner, be any different to what science is actually doing? — Wayfarer
Again - is this something which can be detected or known by empirical science? In other words, is there anything which might be used to convince a scientific sceptic that there is such a substance? — Wayfarer
I mean, what is the criterion which when met by a candidate(s?) counts as being a universal? — creativesoul
Some things are universal, others individual. By the term 'universal' I mean that which is of such a nature as to be predicated of many subjects, by 'individual' that which is not thus predicated. Thus 'man' is a universal, 'Callias' an individual. — Aristotle - On Interpretation, Part 7
Doesn't answering that answer the OP's question? What is the ontological status of universals? — creativesoul
↪creativesoul Have a look at the second half of this post — Wayfarer
I mean, what is the criterion which when met by a candidate(s?) counts as being a universal?
— creativesoul
Some things are universal, others individual. By the term 'universal' I mean that which is of such a nature as to be predicated of many subjects, by 'individual' that which is not thus predicated. Thus 'man' is a universal, 'Callias' an individual.
— Aristotle - On Interpretation, Part 7
Doesn't answering that answer the OP's question? What is the ontological status of universals?
— creativesoul
I would say so. — Andrew M
However then - a further now metaphysically speculative slant, as it is not quite yet mainstream science - we could see all nature ruled by semiosis. Even a plasma may have this irreducible structure in some meaningful sense. And so we would be able to track a continuity of kind (to some degree) as we go from living organisms back across the epistemic modelling divide to regard the simple material world again.
The advantage of this pan-semiotic view is that it would properly ground the phenomenon of living being in the world. It would articulate both what is the ontic difference, and also what is the basic dynamical causal mechanism “all the way down”. — apokrisis
So with prime substance we have true metaphysical immanence. — Andrew M
Consider such a proposition as "Edinburgh is north of London." Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. This is, of course, denied by many philosophers, either for Berkeley's reasons or for Kant's. But we have already considered these reasons, and decided that they are inadequate. We may therefore now assume it to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation "north of," which is a universal; and it would be impossible for the whole fact to involve nothing mental if the relation "north of," which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything mental. Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.
(I don't seem to be able to create a link) SEP, "Form and Matter", section 2 "Prime Matter" — Mitchell
Hence we must admit that the relation [‘north of’], like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create. — “Bertrand Russell”
It's a crucial point that has been lost ever since the mind has been reconceived as "constructive" by the neo-Kantians - in that they took the mind's function to be adding form onto sense impression, instead of perceiving (the form).Hence we must admit that the relation [‘north of’], like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create. — “Bertrand Russell”
There we go, this is a realist position and is opposed to the Kantian. According to the latter, "north of" is dependent upon the mind, since it is the mind that adds spatial form to the contents of sense impressions - that gives the experience of whatever is perceived as "in space". It is also this spatial form that puts sense impressions in relations of "north of" etc. to each other.The way thought operates constantly relies on such judgements, that are not dependent on a particular mind, but only perceptible by a mind. — Wayfarer
The need to assume such a principle, that plasma employs semiosis, which is contrary to the evidence, points to bad metaphysics. — Metaphysician Undercover
I can't see how that can be the case without there being mind in the first place. When Peirce says that 'matter is effete mind', this does seem to be his meaning. As we've discussed, he seems to have acquired this idea from Emerson, Schelling, Kant, and others of that ilk. He is also invariably categorised as an idealist philosopher - actually as an objective idealist. — Wayfarer
So, the reader or interpreter of symbols, and thus of form and matter, is herself exhaustively constituted by matter/symbol ('symbol' here understood in the broadest sense as inclusive of sign, icon and symbol). Matter/ symbol reads itself? — Janus
Wayfarer keeps returning to the one quote that is his convenient hostage to fortune. — apokrisis
it is unfair on Peirce to read his incredibly broad-minded approach to a "philosophy of nature" in such a narrow and self-serving fashion. — apokrisis
Peirce understood nominalism in the broad anti-realist sense usually attributed to William of Ockham, as the view that reality consists exclusively of concrete particulars and that universality and generality have to do only with names and their significations. This view relegates properties, abstract entities, kinds, relations, laws of nature, and so on, to a conceptual existence at most. Peirce believed nominalism (including what he referred to as "the daughters of nominalism": sensationalism, phenomenalism, individualism, and materialism) to be seriously flawed and a great threat to the advancement of science and civilization. His alternative was a nuanced realism that distinguished reality from existence and that could admit general and abstract entities as reals without attributing to them direct (efficient) causal powers
Aristotle scholars call it "Prime Matter", not "Prime Substance". — Mitchell
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