SaH0043 The Baroque scholastics of southern and central Europe live at the same time as the mechanical philosophers of northern and western Europe. The latter give rise to the Age of Fiction, with Cervantes publishing Don Quixote in the early 1600s. The former give rise to the Age of Ideas, with the birth of modern science.
Of course, it is not as neat as that.
Consequently, an examination of an article by Novotny serves as a capstone for Razie Mah’s online course on Baroque Scholasticism and as an introduction to an online course in Early Modernism.
Baroque Scholasticism consists of Looking atDaniel Novotny’s Book (2013) Ens Rationis from Suarez to Caramuel (and appears in Razie Mah’s blog in May, 2026).
The capstone for Baroque Scholasticism and the introduction to …and Early Modernism consists of Looking at Daniel Novotny’s Article (2017) Izquierdo on Universals
Baroque Scholasticism and Early Modernism consist of a review of Eric Santner’s Book (2016) The Weight of All Flesh.
SaH0044 Both are strands in the course: Semiotics and History.
In the Spring 2017 issue of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (vol. 91(2) pages 227-249), Daniel Novotny examines Disputation 17 of the Baroque scholastic treatise, The Lighthouse of the Sciences (1659). The title of Novotny’s article is Sebastian Izquierdo on Universals: A Way Beyond Realism and Nominalism. These comments intend to demonstrate the postmodern relevance of this work using the category-based nested form.
The student should obtain the article from online.
0268 Oh, back to the starting questions.
Some things are similar to one another. Universals grow out of this impression. Various things can share in certain universals, to the exclusion of other things. In this very brief paper, Daniel Novotny reviews and summarizes the theory of universals proposed by the Spanish Baroque scholastic, Sebastian Izquierdo, SJ (1600-1681 AD).
Izquierdo’s life overlaps with the northern European authors who mark the dawn of the Age of Ideas, including Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Rene Descartes (1596-1650). His life also overlaps with theorists marking the twilight of the Latin Age, including Francisco Suarexz (1548-1617) and John Poinsot (1589-1644). Our current age is born at this time. This is the moment to which we must return in order to come to terms with our era.
0269 Daniel Novotny is not unfamiliar with the Baroque philosophers. I commented on his full-length book, Ens Rationis: From Suarez to Caramuel, published in 2013. Novotny’s exposition is so clear that constructing (inevitably messy) category-based nested forms came easy.
My comments wove a story into his presentation, starting with the dichotomy of fact versus fiction and ending with an intimation of postmodern social construction. This narrative adds value by connecting Baroque scholasticism and our present, postmodern, world.
0270 As for the article under examination, Novotny begins with a caveat. Baroque philosophy and theology is a complex tapestry, filled with commentary and references. One can easily get lost in this forest of questions and answers. Typically, an entire text must be examined in order to configure an author’s opinion, if distinct from all others. Since such effort is very difficult and time consuming, Novotny limits this publication to a careful examination of Disputation 17 of Izquierdo’s major philosophical work, The Lighthouse of the Sciences.
Disputation 17 presents Izquierdo’s theory of universals.
0271 The table of contents for The Lighthouse of the Sciences is organized in a novel way, portending substantial differences from traditional doctrines and methods. In Disputation 17, Izquierdo considers three questions. To me, these questions sound postmodern.
Q1. What are universals?
Q2. Are some universals independent of the intellect?
Q3. If universals are intellect dependent, what is their nature?
0272 To the first question, Izquierdo offers four meanings:
0273 Let me supply an example from Eric Santner’s (2016) book, The Weight of All Flesh.
0274 During late medieval and early modern times, political theologians proposed that the king had two bodies. One was mortal. The other was glorious.
When a king died, his mortal body was quickly buried. An effigy (representing the king’s glorious body) was manufactured and placed on the throne until the coronation of a new king. Then, the effigy was buried in a separate funeral.
0275 The glorious body of the king is a universal with four meanings.
0276 The last meaning is particularly twisted. The universal, in its proper sense, cannot be a particular. Yet, here is a particular effigy that becomes a symbol of the king’s glorious body.
According to C. S. Peirce, a symbol is a sign based on tradition, convention, law, consensus and so on. Here, a political and theological consensus connects a sign-object (the king’s glorious body) to a sign-vehicle (an effigy of the deceased king).
0277 In Peirce’s semiotic terminology, the scholastic term “objective concept” portrays the union of a sign-vehicle and sign-object. The term “objective precision” reflects the operation of a sign-interpretant.
0278 In the terminology of the nested form, “objective concept” belongs to secondness, the realm of actuality. “Objective precision” belongs thirdness and firstness, the realms of normal context and possibility, respectively. An objective concept is a mind-dependent being. Objective precision is a formal act of the intellect.
0279 For example, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a murderous uncle gains the throne and becomes king (objective concept). Unfortunately, the ghost of Hamlet’s father (the glorious body of the deceased king) appears, calling Hamlet to reject his uncle’s claims (through objective precision). Hamlet’s uncle has no nobility. Therefore, his uncle is not king (and does not have a glorious body, since the glorious body of Hamlet’s father haunts the world).
0280 This dramatic call to judgment may be depicted as a relation between what is and what ought to be. Indeed, I define the actuality of judgment as this triadic relation.
0350 Next, the fourth proposition (P4) comes up for consideration.
0351 What is the disposition of the universal to each of Aristotle’s definitions?
According to the working model, both definitions are in play in the primal triad. They are not independent. How can this be? This model supports further philosophical inquiry.
0352 Propositions P2 and P3 pertain to the interscope of the individual in community.
0353 P3 points to the fact that the normal context for judgment2c is reason3c.
0354 P2 suggests that what is and what ought to be may not be labeled. Instead, phantasmsandimpressions substitute for these intersubjective unities. The resulting judgment is called an intrinsic abstraction. This is the type of judgmentrendered in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0355 The Christian sacrament of the Eucharist serves as an example.
What is appears as a piece of bread2a. What ought to be is the phantasm of the body of Christ2b. Thomas Aquinas discovered the relation, twelve hundred years after the commissioning of the Last Supper. Transubstantiation2c (as the universal, relation) brings the appearance of bread2a->2c (as the universal, what is) into relation with the body of Christ2b->2c (as the universal, what ought to be).
0356 What is emerges from the potency of the material and physical. What ought to be emerges from the potency of the formal and logical. What brings these into relation is a mystical operation emerging from the potency of human understanding.
0357 Of course, I will never hear the word “transubstantiation” on television in this era of big government (il)liberalism.
Instead, I will see a commercial for a Czech beer, starting with the image of an amber bottle, glistening with condensate. Music starts. The word “you” appears as a hand grasps the bottle. “Can”, another hand pops the cap. “Be”, one hand lifts the bottle. “The King”, the hand pours the beer. “Of Bohemia”, the cascading brew fills an image of a throne.
The music swells as the honey-colored throne morphs into a glistening glass of beer.
The voice-over intones, “You can be the King of Bohemia.”
0358 Has the glorious body of the king transubstantiated into a commodity, a regal libation?
0359 I raise my glass to Ceske Budejovice in the Czech Republic, the home of the University of South Bohemia.
0360 Daniel Novotny lists the consequences of Baroque Scholastic Sebastian Izquierdo’s Disputation 17 in The Lighthouse of the Sciences. He concludes with an impression: Izquierdo is close to modern empiricism.
0361 Izquierdo rejects the extra-mental features of universals and avoids the projection of universals into the realm of the mundane. He avoids nominalism by insisting on objective concepts.
0362 Novotny suggests that Izquierdo’s rejection of Aristotle’s act-potency distinction draws him into the same errors that plague contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of mathematics. The middle way between nominalism and Platonism must be grounded in the metaphysical structure of reality. But, Izquierdo cannot lock onto that relational structure.
0363 Charles S. Peirce gave me a gift.
0364 His three categories point to the ground that Izquierdo intimated. Izquierdo’s third way may have failed, but with the category-based nested form, I can look across the turbulent seas of the Age of Ideas and say, “I see what you mean.”
0365 The Lighthouse of the Sciences still beacons.
SandH0366 This concludes this strand on Baroque Scholasticism in the rope of Semiotics and History.
SaH 0001 The full title of the book before me is Sphere of Understanding: Tartu Dialogues with Semioticians. The book is volume 23 of the series, Semiotics, Communication and Cognition, edited by Paul Cobley and Kalevi Kull, published in 2025, by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.
Kalevi Kull is a biologist who joined the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu in 1997. Ekaterina Velmezova is a linguist and historian who graduated from Moscow State University. Each, in their own way, represents the two poles of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.
0002 The question is: Does this book mark the end of the first ascent or the beginning of the second ascent for the Tartu Moscow School of Semiotics.
0003 After the introductory chapter, extolling the virtues of dialogue, the authors offer a brief history of semiotics in Estonia. The arrival of Juri Lotman, a scholar of Slavic literature, initiates a transnational collaboration within the old USSR. The summer school at Tartu University proves seductive. Here is a place where scholars in Slavic literature are free to play.
0004 So, one aspect of the sphere that the authors desire to understand is a historical conception, sired from the intellectual loins of Juri Lotman, that has taken a life of its own. The only question is: Who is she?
0005 Kalevi Kull wrestles with emergence in biological systems. What about this semiotically inclined child of history?
0006 Ekaterina Velmezova performs translation into English, as well as, I imagine, editing in Russian. After all, these are times when Estonians may want to hedge their bets.
0007 Who knows?
Can the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics be born again?
The interviews provide clues. They are gems framed in their historical moments.
0008 So how do I, a crypto semiotician, respond?
0009 First, I look at back issues of the journal that Juri Lotman founded, Sign System Studies, and find a special issue in 2017 bearing the title: Semiotics and History.
Second, I review several of the articles, plus one from 2016, in order to produce my contribution to the book’s dialogue.
Third, I package the results into an online independent mini-course, the first in a series titled, “Semiotics and History”, by Razie Mah, starting in December, 2025.
0010 The editors of the journal, Sign System Studies, have permission to scrape the blogs of this mini-course for a special on-line issue, as well as permission translate the blogs into other languages. After all, time is cruel. If the blog goes off-line, then the editors will retain a response that addresses what the authors seek.
0011 What do the authors seek?
0012 First, they seek a “sphere”. Shall I add… “of influence”? Or, shall I be satisfied with “of understanding”.
The interviewers ask semioticians questions. After the year, 2008, these queries include how the semiotician came into contact or awareness of the (first ascent of) the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (1960s-1980s). The authors want to appreciate the school’s sphere of influence.
0013 Second, they seek understanding.
Here is where the discrepancy between Saussure and Peirce comes in. Today, practitioners of both traditions are called, “semioticians”. But, Saussure called his path of inquiry, “semiology”. And structuralism? Structuralism virtually situates semiology. Structuralism is semiology as matter substantiating aesthetics as form.
0014 So, what am I doing?
I follow the path of Peirce, into the labyrinth of triadic relations, and attempt to identify the normal contexts (thirdness) and potentials (firstness) of the actualities (secondness) of semiology and structuralism.
0015 What do I find?
I find that “she” is Slavic civilization, herself.
0016 My examination of articles in the 2017 special issue of Sign System Studies, titled “Semiotics and History”, pays tribute to the authors’ search, embodied in the title, and provides a way to understand the Tartu-Moscow School’s sphere of influence, for both the first iteration in the old USSR and its second iteration in the upcoming Eurasian convergence.
SaH 0017 The authors quest for a sphere of understanding. They seek the egg, so to speak, impregnated by Juri Lotman’s genius. In the interviews in chapter 2.1, Lotman is spent, although still alive. He is old. The interviewer is a youth, a personification of the metaphysical love-child born after Slavic civilization reveals herself to Lotman’s circumspection.
0018 The miracle of Lotman’s arrival in Estonia is, weirdly, recounted in the last interview (2.14) with psychologist and cultural theorist, Jaan Valsiner. As it turns out, Valsiner’s step-father was instrumental in getting Juri Lotman to Estonia after the Second World War.
0019 Jaan Valsiner demonstrates that the Tartu-Moscow’s sphere of influence is diffuse. His testimony is seconded by Paul Cobley (2.13), Terrence Deacon (2.12), Jesper Hoffmeyer (2.11) and Stuart Kauffman (2.10).
0020 The sphere becomes less diffuse in interviews with Roland Posner (2.9), Gunther Kress (2.8) and Wilfred Noth (2.7).
Notably, Noth conducts a discourse on the crucial potential of truth, as opposed to the potential of will. Indeed, the contrast between truth and will turns out to be integral to my examination of a 2017 article on Russian identity.
0021 Finally, the sphere becomes tangible with interviews with American anthropologist, Myrdene Anderson (2.6), who researched indigenous people in Sweden, Italian semiotician Paolo Fabbri (2.5), who railed against the wooly thinking that passes for “models” in contemporary humanities, and the Italian know-it-all Umberto Eco, who noted the importance of iconicity in semiotic humanity.
What?
“Semiotic humanity”?
What about semiology?
0022 Contemporary academic discourse is currently conducted with expert-coined spoken words, but these utterancescannot picture or point to their referents. Academics swim in a pool of differences… er… two arbitrarily related pools of differences. No one can tell where he or she flotates.
Flotates?
This is what happens when spoken words are placeholders in two arbitrarily related systems of differences.
0023 Finally, the interviews engage a still-living member of the original Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, Boris Uspenskij (2.2). This interview gets a full examination in the course on Semiotics and History. Uspenskij stands within the sphere that the authors aspire to understand.
0024 So, what does Razie Mah’s contribution under the banner ofSemiotics and History offer?
0025 For the diffuse sphere, these examinations will present a historical narrative of ideas in the style of diagrams of purely relational structures. In short, Peirce-inspired diagrams offer a new way to narrate intellectual history.
0026 For the almost tangible sphere, these examinations practice a method of association, followed by a discussion of the implications. The articles provide material to fill in the empty slots of relational structures. When associations are made, implications become apparent.
0027 For the sphere itself, one unexpected insight is that, as the first ascendant of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics struggles to fulfill the political mandate of the USSR (to make all fields of inquiry “scientific”), the researchers excavate the recently-buried remains of the civilization that is their subject of inquiry.
Imagine a scientific investigation of Russian language, history and literature, as a archaeological excavation into the being of Slavic civilization.
0028 Is that the same “she” that… um… you know… captured the attention of Juri Lotman?
How confounding.
0029 The next blog offers an introduction to Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.
SaH0001 Razie Mah offers three foundational courses that cover human evolution.
These are:
The Human Niche
(also see the four accompanying commentaries as well as the three-part Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019))
An Archaeology of the Fall
(also see the three part Instructor’s Guide, as well as The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace and Original Sin and Original Death: Romans 5:12-19)
How To Define the Word “Religion”
(also see the ten primers, starting with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction)
These courses are on sale by various electronic booksellers.
The texts are designed to be read and discussed in a seminar setting.
0002 For inquirers. educators and students would who like to try their hands at Razie Mah’s approach, Semiotics and History offers a path. This is one course consisting of many strands. Like a fiber in a rope, each strand strengthens the entire conceptual apparatus. With few execptions, each course completely appears in the blog. Some strands will have an electronic e-book component. So, don’t be afraid to make a purchase. You will find that the costs of Mah’s electronic works are reasonable.
In the following list, the date corresponds to the cover page of each strand. A strand typically covers a month.
0003 The following list extends into the future, because more strands will be added over time.
Feb 6,5, 2026
Looking at Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova’s Book (2025) “Sphere of Understanding” (Part 1 and 2 of 3)
Feb 4, 2026
Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (Part 3 of 3)
May 30. 2026
Semiotics and History: Baroque Scholasticism
May 7, 2026
Semiotics and History: Baroque Scholasticism and Early Modernism
June 30, 2026
Semiotics and History: Early Modernism
July 31, 2026 Semiotics and History: Gnosticism in Modern America
0001 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (44(3) (2016) pages 368-401) by two professors, Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin, hailing from Tallinn University in Estonia. The title is “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”. The subtitle is “A transnational perspective”.
0002 The abstract promises to situate the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics of the 1960s through 1980s. The article delivers more than promised.
How so?
0003 The authors sketch dynamic developments among intellectual circles within the (now former) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
0004 The term, “transnational”, indicates that there are nations within the former Soviet Union.
During this period in history, the governments of Estonia and Russia (along with Czechoslovakia and Poland) owe fealty to an empire with the title, “Socialist”, in its name.
So, “transnational” tells me that the article looks back from the present, into a past era, with the intent of portraying ‘something’ historical, without acknowledging that the “Union” and the “Socialist” descriptors no longer apply (at least, not in the way that they once did).
0005 “Transnational” applies to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, 1918-1989) as well as the upcoming… um… Eurasian convergence?
Here is a picture with three city-sites. Tartu and Moscow belong to the title. Tallinn is the location where the authors write their article. The blue is the Baltic Sea.
0006 “Transnational” steps over the boundaries depicted in black in the above figure.
Never mind the fact that the above territories reside behind, what American pundits once called, “the Iron Curtain”.
0007 Perhaps, one must appreciate an ambiguity to the term, “transnational”, given that there is another transit. This transit is in time. Or, even better, this transit is across a boundary between battles among Enlightenment gods.
Consider where the time period of 1960s to 1980s resides in the following timeline of Western civilization in the twentieth century.
Also consider the year when the article under examination is published.
Notice the boundary.
0008 The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiology constellates within one battle, as a transnational collaboration.
The TMS is remembered during another battle, which is not resolved, and so cannot be objectified as “historical”. I suppose that it can be objectified as “cultural”. Better yet, “theodramatic”.
Already, there is more to this article than meets the eye.
0001 The book before me is Semiotic Agency: Science Beyond Mechanism, by biosemioticians Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen. The book is published in 2021 by Springer and logs in at volume 25 of Springer’s Series in Biosemiotics. Series editors are Kalevi Kull, Alexei Sharov, Claude Emmeche and Donald Favareau. These editors have Razie Mah’s permission for use of the following disquisition, with attribution of said blogger.
Points 0001 to 0226 cover Parts I and III of this book. These Parts are titled, (I) Overview and Historiography and (III) Theoretical Considerations. These two sections set forth the rationale for scientific inquiry into semiotic agency.
0002 Chapter one begins with a question.
Can agency be a scientific subject?
To me, the question, “What is science?”, must be addressed.
0003 Scientific inquiry involves a judgment within a judgment.
0004 Okay, then what is a judgment?
A judgment is a triadic relation containing three elements: relation,what is and what ought to be. When each of these three elements uniquely associates to one of Peirce’s categories, then the judgment becomes actionable. Actionable judgments unfold into category-based nested forms.
What am I talking about?
Consult A Primer on The Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0005 Here is a diagram of judgment as a triadic relation.
A relation (belonging to one category) brings what ought to be (belonging to another category) into relation with what is (belonging to the one remaining category). Peirce’s three categories are firstness, secondness and thirdness. Firstness is the monadic realm of possibility. Secondness is the dyadic realm of actuality. Thirdness is the triadic realm of normal contexts, mediations, judgments, sign-relations, and so forth.
0006 If scientific inquiry involves a judgment within a judgment, then the larger judgment is called the Positivist’s judgment. A positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings an empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be,secondness) into relation with the dyad, a noumenon [and] its phenomena (what is, firstness).
Here is a diagram.
0007 In regards to the relation, the positivist intellect has a rule. Metaphysics is not allowed.
0008 What is “metaphysics”?
Aristotle proposes four causes: material, efficient, formal and final. The first two are (more or less) physical. The second two are (more or less) metaphysical. So, the second two causes are ruled out in the seventeenth century by the mechanical philosophers of northern Europe.
0009 Of course, ruling out formal and final causes truncates material and efficient causalities. Imagine a material cause (such as the flow of ink onto a piece of paper) without its formal cause (the piece of paper will then be folded and put into an envelope). Imagine an efficient cause (the role of glue in sealing an envelope) without its final cause (the envelope will be put in the mail).
So, the rule of the positivist intellect has the effect of truncating physical material and efficient causalities from their metaphysical companion causalities. The positivist intellect is assigned to the category of thirdness, the realm of normal contexts.
0010 In regards to what ought to be, the empirio-schematic judgment belongs to the category of secondness (the realm of actuality), even though it obviously belongs to the category of thirdness, because judgments are triadic relations. In other words, to think in terms of the Positivist’s judgment, one must disregard the obvious and regard the empirio-schematic judgment as an exercise in the realm of actuality, if that makes any sense.
0011 It may help to consider the empirio-schematic judgment as a tool for producing scientific models. 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).
Here is a picture.
These figures are initially constructed in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0001 In 2017, the author publishes a book, in Polish, with the English title, “The Metaphysics of Relation: At the Basis of Understanding the Relations of Being”. This article slices out one topic among many.
Thomas Aquinas uses the Latin term, relationes secundum dici, in ways that lead to a variety of interpretations. Consequently, the complete title of this work is “The Specificity of Secundum Dici Relations in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics”. The article appears in Studia Gilsoniana 12(4) (October-December 2023), pages 589-616.
0002 I know that this article is scholarly, because the summary (abstract) appears at the end of the text.
0003 Why does this article capture my attention?
The term translates into relations (relationes) according to (secundum) speech (dici)… er… talk (dici).
I don’t think the Romans have a word for forms of talking other than speech.
They are so civilized.
0004 The term applies to various questions, such as when a pagan calls his god, “Lord of the heavens”, as well as the relation between matter and form, the relation between accident and substance, qualities of things, one’s orientation in labeling one side of an auditorium “right” or “left”, and so. These are just samples. Duma presents five cases in detail.
0005 The dici term contrasts to a similar term, relationes secundum esse.
The latter translates into relations (relationes) according to (secundum) existence (esse)… er… esse_ce (esse).
Esse_ce?
Esse_ce is a written play on the Latin term, esse.
Esse_ce is the complement to essence.
Whatever has esse_ce also has essence. Whatever has essence also has esse_ce.
0006 Those two statements sound like relationes secundum esse even though they may be relationes secundum dici.
Why?
The relation between esse_ce and essence is another way to state the relation between matter and form.
0007 Plus, the relation between matter and form is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness, the dyadic realm of actuality (that contrasts with thirdness, the triadic realm of normal contexts, and firstness, the monadic realm of possibility).
Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the real elements are matter and form. The contiguity is not named. However, a name stands ready-at-hand. That name is “substance”. So, I can take the word, “substance”, and place it in brackets (for notation), to arrive at the following figure.
0008 Now, my interest in Duma’s article begins to clarify.
The relation between matter and form is a relation where the terminus of the relation is a word, so to speak, that denotes either the presence (matter) or the shape (form) of a thing. But, it does not denote a thing (which expresses both esse_ce and essence).
The same goes for the creature calling his creator, “master”.
When I watch the ritual proclamation, I encounter two real elements, the creature and the proclaimed word. I must figure out the contiguity between these two real elements. Both real elements are locked in a literal relationes secundum dici (a relation according to talk).
So, I place my guess into the slot for contiguity.
0009 Because Aristotle’s hylomorphe is a premier example of Peirce’s secondness, the creature [calling Creator] aspect of the dyad carries the feel of matter [substance], esse_ce, or “existence”. Also, the [calling Creator] “Master” aspect carries the feel of [substantiating] form or essence.
May I go as far to say that much of Aquinas’s philosophy carrries the feel of matter [substance] form, even as Aquinas transcends the esse_ce and essence of Aristotle’s philosophy in an intellectual flight towards a recognition that is so… so… divine?
God is Substance.
God is the contiguity between all real elements in Peirce’s secondness.
0010 According to John Deely’s massive book, Four Ages (2001 AD), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is an important waystation between St. Augustine (354-430), who poses the question of sign-relations, and John of St. Thomas (John Poinsot (1589-1644)), who finally and correctly identifies signs as triadic relations.
Aquinas mentions relatives in his discourses on various theological and philosophical questions and disputes. The diciand esse relations stand out. They are are similarly worded. The formula is relationes secundum X, where X is either esseor dici. Esse relations pose few difficulties. Dici relations lead to confusion and debate.
0011 Here is a table listing some of the characteristics of each.
0012 In this examination, I have already brought Duma’s article into relation with one aspect of Peirce’s philosophical schema.
I hope that no one is surprised.
The next step adds another layer and that may take the reader off guard.
0119 The conceptual-flow apparatus of A,B,&C also applies to Peirce’s category of firstness as explicit matter (A).
0120 An explicit definition of firstness (B) stands as form in the dicey bucket, then as matter in the esse bucket.
In the esse bucket, dici (speech-alone talk acting as hand-talk) relates to whatever follows the logics of inclusion and allows contradictions.
0121 Rather than giving another example, I proceed to section four, where the author formulates how we should understandrelationes secundum dici.
Since this examination is already disruptive, let me proceed to some suggestions that sort of correspond to the author’s points and some that do not.
0122 First, let go of the distinction between categorical and transcendental. Even though the distinction is helpful, it does not appear to be critical to the speculations at hand.
0123 Second, all dici relations have two termini, the relation itself (portrayed as a hylomorphic dyad consistent with Peirce’s definition of secondness) and the elements that go into the relation (for Aristotle’s hylomorphe, “matter” and “form”, and for the dici relation, “dici” and “relationes“).
0124 Third, as soon as relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) is formulated as a dyad in the realm of actuality, the relation is subject to the laws of contradiction and noncontradiction. The label for the contiguity is placed within brackets for clear notation. The contiguity’s label is selected on the basis that [it] minimizes contradictions between the two real elements.
[Secundum] may be regarded as a contiguity that minimizes contradictions.
0125 Fourth, relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) is an actuality2. A normal context3 and potential1 are required to attain understanding. An entire (filled-in) category-based nested form associates to understanding. Understanding encompasses the three distinctly different logics of thirdness, secondness and firstness.
In hominin evolution, our genus adapts to the potential of triadic relations, including “understanding”, defined as “the completion of a category-based nested form”. Implicit abstractions produce complete nested forms holistically (that is, without explicit articulation of the three elements). Hand-talk favors implicit abstraction.
Explicit abstractions may articulate elements within a relation, by using the purely symbolic labels of speech-alone talk. At the same time, the conceptual-flows of A,B,&C suggest that speech-alone talks engages implicit abstraction (and visa versa).
Nonetheless, A and C are not precisely the same relationes, even though they are contiguous with B, dici.
Nor, are A and C the same dici, even though they are contiguous with B, relationes.
0126 Fifth, what does [secundum] (translated as [according to]) in relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) imply?
Secundum compares to substance, in Aristotle’s hylomorphe of “matter [substance] form”.
Secundum also associates to either implicit abstraction or explicit abstraction, depending on the dyad.
Secundum entangles the distinction between categorical and transcendental relations, for those who cannot let go (see first point).
0127 Sixth, Peirce’s diagrams allow an inquirer to consider labels (from explicit abstractions) within a visual framework (that coheres with implicit abstraction).
0128 This examination adds value to Tomasz Duma’s contribution to our current appreciation of relationes secundum X,by suggesting that the philosophies of Aristotle, Aquinas and Peirce are (1) congruent and (2) illuminate cognitive features of both our current Lebenswelt as well as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0129 Furthermore (3), this congruence allows contemporary philosophers to consider the difference between explicitly abstracted relations that act as matter to dici (speech-alone talk)as form and implicitly abstracted relations that act as form to dici (hand talk)and esse asmatter.
Now, that is one complicated “furthermore”.
0130 Oh, one more “furthermore”!
Recall that Duma gives five cases where relatives appear in the writings of Thomas Aquinas.
In this examination, I also provide five examples for relationes secundum X.
The Oldowan stone tool is a case for X=esse.
The hand-talk gesture-word, [RAVEN], is a case for X=dici (hand talk).
[WOLF][FINGER] is a case for X=dici (hand talk) and then X=dici (speech-alone talk).
“Ravenous chairperson”, “cushy job” and “drought” are cases for X=dici (speech-alone talk).
“A bridge that meets code” is a case for X=dici (speech-alone talk).
0131 Is this what the author anticipated when he sent his article for publication?
I suppose not.
0132 Okay, the author may chuckle during the course of this examination, as it tracks from Aquinas’s relatives straight into a key question concerning human evolution.
Why is our current Lebenswelt not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Are relationes secundum dici integral to an answer to this question?
What if.
0133 Indeed, laughter is an appropriate response.
Who would have guessed that Aristotle, Aquinas and Peirce, all strangely brilliant yet incomplete philosophers, are (inadverently) in the business of illuminating differences between who we are and who we evolved to be?
0134 My thanks to Tomasz Duma for his article on this very intriguing topic.
