10/6/23

Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” (Part 18 of 22)

0136 Does the falseness of common and scholastic opinions_2c (SV) stand for what ought to be_2a (SO), according to the Positivist’s judgment, in regards to relation_3a and what is_1a for the Positivist’s judgment (SV)?

0137 Once again, here is the category-based nested form version of the Positivist’s judgement, which is first described in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.

0138 The sign-interpretant of the Cartesian interventional sign serves as an invitation for scientists to try to cast their systematic observations and measurements of phenomena as mathematical or mechanical models according to their disciplinary language.

0139 Of course, this leaves the common folk and the scholastics hanging.

What about their experiences and opinions?

Are they all to be replaced by empirio-schematic actualities?

Are we doomed to the fallacy that the external world, full of things themselves, reduces to its systematically observable and measurable facets (even though what is of the Positivist’s judgment says that a noumenon cannot be reduced to its phenomena)?

Can everything be modeled by science?

Deely confronts this issue in chapter ten.

0140 Where do moderns go wrong?

Here are my answers.

0141 Well, first of all, even though the Latin scholastics eventually discover the nature of signs, their conclusions are tossed into the waste-bin of modern philosophical history. Fortunately for John Deely, no one bothered to throw out the trash. John Poinsot’s writings survive.

0142 Second of all, common folk rely on their intuition. I call this intuition, “implicit abstraction”. Human capacities for implicit abstraction are honed by adaptations to the niche of the potential of triadic relations. This claim is the topic of one of Razie Mah’s masterworks, The Human Niche, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0143 Third, according to the scholastics, the sign-relation couples the world of subjects, corresponding to the ‘world out there’, with the world of objects, corresponding to the ‘world in here’. Furthermore, the sign-relation entangles material and instrumental causation. But, the sign-relation does not reduce to material and instrumental causalities that can be mathematically and mechanically modeled.

0144 Fourth, sign-objects do not reduce to things, nor to the things that give rise to them, nor to the thoughts that tell us what they are… um… supposed to be. On top of that, the sign-object for one sign can become a sign-vehicle for a subsequent sign, just as the sign-interpretant can. Plus, if that isn’t enough… did you see that salamander jump out of that fire?

Surely, failure to reduce opens one’s cognitive spaces to… oh look! There’s another one!

What interest does science have in such nonsense?

0145 Fifth, material and instrumental causalities are dyadic in nature and therefore can be modeled based on systematic observations and measurements under experimentally controlled conditions. Material causalities start to get fuzzy under uncontrolled conditions. Formal and final causalities cannot be modeled because measurements, even when they are made by experiments and surveys, tend to be specific to the ruses that permit such experiments and surveys to be conducted. Psychological experiments do not inform the subject about the formal topic of investigation. Surveys cannot directly ask about intentionality.

What does the fifth imply?

Formal and final causalities characterize the noumenon.

0146 Sixth, according to modern scientists, the noumenon must be avoided at all costs.

10/5/23

Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” (Part 19 of 22)

0147 According to Aristotle, humans are political animals.

According to Porphyry, humans are rational animals.

According to Descartes, humans are thinking things (in Latin, res cogitans).

According to John Deely, humans are semiotic animals.

0148 Even though the previous blog mangled chapter ten of Deely’s book, a few crucial points may be salvaged from the wreckage.

0149 First, the specifying sign offers a paradigm for the sign-relation. In this sign, the proximate and remote fundaments are clearly apparent (as SV-SO and SI, respectively). So are ens reale (characterizing SV) and ens rationis (characterizing SO).

Second, the specifying sign operates even when the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a are not apparent. The specifying sign operates on a content-level actuality_2a irrespective of whether one is prepared for the occasion.

Here is a picture.

0150 Second, specifying signs offer a way to appreciate an unnoticed activation of exemplar then interventional signs. The specifying sign seems to produce a flowback, where the situation-level actuality (the sign-object of the specifying sign) seems to serve as a sign-vehicle for a sign that introduces any missing content-level understanding.

In the following figure, the example of the salamander’s birth_2b offers a way to appreciate a flow, from the specifying sign, back into the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a corresponding to a salamander scampering out of steaming wet log, just thrown onto a campfire_2a.

Aristotle’s foundational hylomorphe is matter [substantiates] form. For the situation-level phantasm_2b, fire serves as matter and salamander serves as form.

Note how Aristotle’s view concerning natural philosophy, operating on the perspective-level, manifests as the normal context_3a and potential_1a that makes the salamander’s appearance_2a less surprising.

Should I call this “flowback”? Or should I call it an activation of exemplar and interventional sign-relations? Both paths complete the content-level nested form. Signs support the further production of signs, giving me the impression of an unhinged and fantastic uncontrolled experiment.

0151 Third, Descartes rejects the realness of the objective world and alchemically distills humans into res cogitans.

So much for that wild and unscientific uncontrolled experiment.

0152 In terms of Deely’s formulation of the objective world, Descartes’ claim turns into the following.

0153 Is that crazier than the idea that we are living in a fantastic and uncontrolled objective world?

0154 And what are the consequences?

Scientists do not believe that the Positivist’s judgment belongs to Deely’s objective world.

Therefore, science cannot be situated.

10/4/23

Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” (Part 20 of 22)

0155 What does it mean to say that science cannot be situated.

Here is a picture of the practice of natural science.

0156 The normal context of a positivist intellect_3a brings the actuality of the empirio-schematic judgment_2a into relation with the potential of … phenomena_1a.

Does this suggest that the noumenon can be safely ignored?

0157 The positivist intellect_3a has a rule. Metaphysics is not allowed. Only instrumental and material causation may be discussed.

0158 The empirio-schematic judgment_2a has three elements: relation, what ought to be and what is. Each of these is assigned to one of Peirce’s three categories.

A specific disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be,secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).

0159 The potential of … phenomena_1a is really the potential of the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena_1a. From the point of view of the positivist intellect, observations and measurements concern phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of their noumenon, the thing itself. So, why worry about the noumenon?

The noumenon is there because philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, says that it must be there. Philosophy cannot ignore the thing itself_1a anymore than the positivist intellect_1a cannot ignore its observable and measurable facets_1a.

0160 What does that mean in terms of the two-level interscope?

Phenomena_1a are potentials that are directly situated by observations and measurements_2a in the normal context of the positivist intellect_3a.

Their noumenon_1a is virtually situated by a potential₁ belonging a category-based nested form on the situation_b level.

Yes, the situation-level potential_1b virtually situates the noumenon_1a, just as the content-level actuality_2a directly situates its phenomena_1a.

0161 The practices of the natural sciences compose the content-level. If scientists have their way, their work focuses on instrumental and material causalities and ignores the objective world. Natural scientists are only interested in empirio-schematic inquiry into their subject matter. They are not interested in what it signifies.

Yet, some clever philosophers, responding to the birth and growth of science in the West, place a caveat that practicing natural scientists pragmatically ignore. But, no one else can ignore the noumenon_1a, because it is a gateway to the objective world, the intersubjective world, and the commerce of intellectuals who try to figure out what the thing itself means and what it can be used for.

0162 And, if Deely is correct, our objective world is real, even though it is filled with illusions, delusions, truths and revelations.

Why?

Triadic relations are real.

0163 As for the remainder of the situation-level nested form, consider the series of commentaries and articles titled, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

10/3/23

Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” (Part 21 of 22)

0164 In chapter twelve, Deely suggests that the new definition of the human being (as a semiotic animal) is beyond patriarchy and feminism.

Well, it is beyond social constructivism, critical theory and social justice, as well.

See Looking at Gad Saad’s Book (2020) “Parasitic Minds” in Razie Mah’s blog for April 2023.

So, this examination of Deely’s book suggests that Deely’s formulation accounts for the notions of patriarchy and feminism.

Why?

Because “patriarchy” and “feminism” participate in the objective world of an ideological constellation, called Big Government (il)Liberalism.

0165 A student recently complained to me, “Every feminist I meet sees only what she wants to see.”

But, the opposite is the case.

As far as he is concerned, a feminist only sees what she does not want to see.

0166 Consider the perspective level of feminist indoctrination. The category-based nested form says (more or less), “The normal context of social justice_3c brings the disciplinary language of feminism_2c, which virtually contextualizes the analysis of critical theory_2b and the results of social constructivism_2a, into relation with the potential of ‘equity’_1c“.

0167 The disciplinary language of feminism_2c is the sign-object of an exemplar sign.

It_2c is also the sign-vehicle for an interventional sign.

0168 Here is a picture of that interventional sign.

This interventional sign shows that the student’s intuition is on target, but, as noted, the target is the opposite of what the student’s intuition says.

The sign-object of the interventional sign is empty_2a, because the feminist is waiting, like a spider with its web, for someone to volunteer to serve as the content-level actuality_2a that her normal context_3a and potential_1a are waiting for.

Her interventional sign-vehicle cannot be sensed by the approaching male college student. That does not mean it_2c is not there. It is just not part of the objective world of the naive male college student.

0169 Well, the male also has a perspective-level nested form, which is not so explicitly honed, but is more implicitly abstracted. The normal context of college_3c brings the actuality of getting a degree and of networking_2c into relation with the potential of ‘getting along and getting ahead’_1c.

Consequently, his interventional sign is more like an invitation for interaction, like a raven landing nearby in hopes that someone will toss it a treat.

0170 As soon as the male student says hello, the feminist identifies him as a bigot.

She then gives him a clue as about her formal approach and final intentions.

What does he hear?

0171 Talk about objective worlds in collision!

The indoctrinated person who is trained in explicit abstractions will always win in a spontaneous encounter with a person guided by implicit abstractions.

But, the male student reflects about his encounter, leading him to come up with his explicit abstraction, that the feminist sees what she wants to see.

The irony is that she does not want to meet a bigot, she wants to meet someone who satisfies her academically trained expectations.

10/2/23

Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” (Part 22 of 22)

0172 Deely concludes with a sequel concerning the need to develop a semioethics.

The meeting of the two semiotic animals in the previous blog is a case study.

Surely, that brief clash of objective worlds entails ethics, however one defines the word, “ethics”.

Perhaps, the old word for “ethics” is “morality”.

0173 Deely publishes in 2010.

Thirteen years later, his postmodern definition of the human takes on new life. This examination shows how far semiotics has traveled, swirling around the stasis of a Plutonic publishing world where Cerebus guards the gates. Please throw a sop to the editors in order to publish, rather than perish. While academics guard the way to the underworld of professional success, Deely looks down from the heavens above.

And what does he say?

Humans are semiotic animals.

0174 Okay, I have to correct myself.

I don’t know whether Deely is looking down from a heavenly perch.

Surely, many will sheepishly testify to his devilish, as well as his angelic, qualities.

As a shepherd, he is always trying to lead his rag-tag flock of semioticians, explorers and Thomists. He gets so far as to impress upon every one in his flock the validity of his claim that humans are semiotic animals.

0175 Razie Mah takes that lesson to heart and asks, “If humans are semiotic animals, then how did they evolve?”

The resulting three masterworks are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

An Archaeology of the Fall appears in 2012, followed by an instructor’s guide.

How to Define the Word “Religion” appears in 2015, followed by ten primers.

The Human Niche appears in 2018, along with four commentaries.

As it turns out, no contemporary scientist takes Deely’s claim seriously. Yet, the implications are enormous. If humans are semiotic animals, then triadic relations must be key to understanding human evolution.

0176 This examination of Deely’s book takes that lesson one step further.

The specifying and exemplar signs step out from Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings as expressions of premodern scholastic insight.

The interventional sign steps out from Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols” and establishes a postmodern life of its own.

0177 Humans are semiotic animals and how we got here shines like a revelation.

06/29/22

Looking at Peter Redpath’s Essay (2000) “The Homeschool Renaissance” (Part 1 of 17)

0001 Twenty years pass since Professor Peter Redpath publishes an article, titled, “The Homeschool Renaissance and the Battle of the Arts”, in the Summer 2000 premier issue of Classical Homeschooling Magazine.

Homeschooling is one alternate to failing public schools systems, which are unlikely to be reformed, because these systems are governed by acolytes of the religion of big government (il)liberalism.

0002 Homeschool parents face difficult choices. There are no paths to guaranteed success.

But, certainly, homeschooling is better than the path to failure embodied by public school systems. Even the child who is accepted to a fast-track program or School of the Arts or Sciences, becomes a loser in a house divided. There is only one house, the House of God. No one knows that more than the newly minted postmodern disciplines of resentment.

Homeschools seek guidance about the Big Schoolhouse, where everything that rises must converge.

0003 Often, homeschooling parents turn to great books programs. The classics are ideal for recovering the former glory of Christendom. Here is where Peter Redpath stands, 20 years past. He is a guide to the big Schoolhouse, where the liberal arts are born again.

Classical Homeschooling Magazine illuminates the way.

0004 Today, the winds are more insistent. The leaves of disenchantment rustle through public schoolyards, as entrepreneurs follow Redpath in offering their wares, for the Big Schoolhouse, to many little schoolhouses, and to many many home schools, networked in patterns hitherto unimagined.

0005 In the following blogs, Razie Mah looks at Redpath’s whirlwind tour of a failure in the Italian, later European, Renaissance. Mah uses tools derived from the first postmodern philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce. These simple tools, wares on offer for the education of young minds, include the category-based nested form, the three-level interscope and the triadic structure of judgment.

06/28/22

Looking at Peter Redpath’s Essay (2000) “The Homeschool Renaissance” (Part 2 of 17)

0006 Small mistakes at the beginning of a grand enterprise become larger mistakes at the end.

So notes Thomas Aquinas, at the opening of his overtures to both God and fellow man.

0007 Peter Redpath wants to avoid making initial errors.

Small errors may eventually culminate in misfortune.

To magnify this insight, Redpath tells a tale…

0008 … about the last great rebirth of Western civilization.

Oh, to be born again. We wash away the sins of prior eras. So, we imagine. Then, we don white garments with tiny flaws that will unravel slowly, at first, then exponentially, at the terminus, when the once-birthed era ages and rips apart.

Redpath identifies the start of the Italian Renaissance with humanist Francesco Petrarch (7104-7174 U0′).

Why the strange dates?

Subtract 5800 in order to get to AD.

0 Ubaid Zero Prime nominally corresponds to the formation of the Ubaid culture of southern Mesopotamia. The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace addresses the importance of this culture, at the dawn of our current Lebenswelt. The current year is 7822 U0′.

The time-distance between today and Petrarch is one tenth the distance between Petrarch and Adam.

0009 Petrarch reads the ancient Latin writers and longs for the days of Rome. Petrarch envisions a return to political actuality, arising from Christendom’s spiritual potential. The actuality of Rome is political. Yet, Petrarch lives in a world where the capitol, Rome, governs a theological and organizational network and weighs upon sovereign states. The network is based on a religious construction, seeking to portray itself as sensible, operating according to the criteria of the most sensible philosopher to have walked the face of the Earth, Aristotle.

One could say that the Catholic worldview, where God encompasses both reason and revelation, might have entangled a small error. The tear becomes a harbor, for Petrarch and his fellow travelers, to lobby for a political capitol arising from the spiritual capitol.

0010 The Italian humanists offer an alternate to Christendom’s vision.

0011 First, philosophy is not sensible. It is apocryphal, initiated by the most prophetic person to have walked the face of the Earth, Moses.

Second, Moses is a humanist. He is a poet.Third, a new politics, that is, a new “polis” or “city”, will arise from the network of Christendom, as humanist learning, the poetry of governance, flowers in the rebirth of Rome.

06/27/22

Looking at Peter Redpath’s Essay (2000) “The Homeschool Renaissance” (Part 3 of 17)

0012 Poetry, what is it worth?

Surely, it is valuable in the arts of seduction, inspiration and adornment.

But who needs these, when God is Love, Commitment and Awesomeness incarnate?

0013 The Italian humanists face a problem. How do they place poetry and the writings of classical Rome front and center?

The academics in the room have an easy answer, “First of all, get rid of logic in the curriculum.”

0014 Ah, does that not sound like a small error?

Starting with Petrarch, Italian humanists alchemically place the actualities of Greek philosophy and Western history₂ into the novel context of the liberal arts₃, emerging from the potential of five disciplines₁: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and ethics.

The result can be portrayed as follows, according to A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.

0015 The dyadic actuality of Greek philosophy [and] Western history₂ is placed in an alchemic vessel₃ alien to its original, natural and organic milieu₁. Plutarch’s liberal arts₃ is a normal context that excludes Aristotle’s realist philosophy₃. The pentagram of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and ethics₁, whose points operate independently and in combination, constitutes a digestive organ potentiating transformation.

06/24/22

Looking at Peter Redpath’s Essay (2000) “The Homeschool Renaissance” (Part 4 of 17)

0016 What is this [and] between Greek philosophy and Western history?

0017 According to Charles Peirce (7639-7714 U0′), the category of secondness is the realm of actuality. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. The nomenclature is one real element [contiguity] other real element.

Here, the contiguity, [and], describes a substance that coheres to the most rudimentary causality, the contiguity between matter and form. Or, should I say, style and form? The nomenclature is Greek philosophy [and] Western history.

0018 The [and] composed by Thomas Aquinas (7025-7074 U0′) takes Aristotle as Greek philosophy and the Bible as the foundation of Western history. Does that sound like matter [and] form or style [and] form? The normal context is scholastic inquiry₃ and the potential is understanding₁, formatted according to the synthetic and analytic logics of Aristotle’s four causes.

0019 The tradition of Petrarch alters the normal context to the liberal arts₃ and the potential to the pentagrammatic disciplines: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and ethics₁.

Do these alterations elevate style [and] form over matter [and] form?

Do these alterations serve as an alchemic vessel₃ and digestive juices₁ for the meat of scholastic inquiry₂?

Is the contiguity, [and], the same for the scholastics and the Renaissance humanists?

0020 Petrarch and his fellow travelers assert that common folk, traditional Christians, cannot appreciate the lofty metaphysical grammar and moral realities offered by the ancient poets. A Christian knows that the Greek and the Roman pantheons are simply not true. These gods are idols.

But, change the normal context, and let rhetoric, poetry and history work their magic, then newly digested truths become palatable.

These pre-digested morsels are valid in the normal context of the liberal arts₃, which excludes all other normal contexts, and thus is universal. Only after digestion by pentagrammatic modes of inquiry₁, do the allegorical and figurative meanings of Moses₂ turn into the stuff of Renaissance, and later, Enlightenment ideals. Only a nominalist can delineate the pathways from Moses to Socrates and onwards to the Christians and Neoplatonists. Only a nominalist can reveal the mysterious [and], the contiguity between Greek art, philosophy and wisdom and Western history.

0021 [And], the contiguity between ancient Greek and Roman literature and the glories of Rome, takes on the substance of revival.

06/23/22

Looking at Peter Redpath’s Essay (2000) “The Homeschool Renaissance” (Part 5 of 17)

0023 The Renaissance program sets the humanities against Aristotle’s logic and naturalism. It undermines the union of philosophy and scholastic theology.

Poetry gains attention.

Logic is neglected.

Before: Philosophy (including logic) stands as a handmaiden to theology, the queen of the sciences.

After: Poetry is the transcendent queen of the arts.

0024 Of course, I speak allegorically.

According to Redpath, the humanist ascent of allegory has historic precedent. Allegory appears in Hesiod’s attack on Homer’s veracity, the Ionians critique of mythological reasoning, and Plato’s interpretations of epic poetry. Then, allegory is used to counter-attack, arguing for the truth of Homer, myths and epics. The truth is found, not in fact, but in fiction. The truth is concealed within a rhetorical facade. By the time of Augustine, rhetorician and philosopher are one and the same.

0025 I pause and ask myself, “What on Earth is allegory?”

Allegory is a technique, characteristic of our current Lebenswelt (and perhaps, the Lebenswelt that we evolved in), whereby symbols associate to concrete or material forms.

For Renaissance humanists, the forms are literary. The symbols are political.

Style becomes matter. Symbols of the glory of Rome are matter, and ancient literary works are the corresponding forms.

On the one hand, matter [substantiates] form. On the other hand, form [informs] matter.

Now, style [substantiates] form. Form [informs] style.

What is [informs]?

[To inform] is [to be substantiated by].

0026 Here is a comparison.

An Archaeology of the Fall

A Horror Story by Razie Mah

Category Archives: Peirce and Aquinas