0112 Here is a scholastic picture of the way humans think.
0113 What is the nature of the Latin term, “species intelligibilis“?
Typically, this actuality2c attempts to bring the ‘what is’ of a species impressa2a into relation with the ‘what ought to be’ of a species expressa2b.
There is another way to describe the perspective-level judgment. A relation2c brings together the universal aspects of the species impressa2a(what is) and the intelligible aspects of the species expressa2b (what ought to be). As such, the elements belonging to the perspective-level actuality2c are not exactly the same as the situationb and contenta level actualities2. They must be qualified as elements of judgment. The scholastics accomplish this task by adding the word, “intelligibilis”.
Here is a picture.
0114 Daisy cannot ask the question, “Does this makes sense?”3b.
Consequently, Daisy cannot contextualize the potential1c of herspecies expressa2bby formulating a species expressa intelligibilis2c.
Or, maybe she can.
I guess one does not have to speak the question3c in order to ask it.
0115 What is her conviction2c?
Is her phantasm2b effectively true, believable, commonly accepted, and logical with respect to an affordance1b?
What is that affordance1b?
I can only guess.
And then, there is the issue of the leash2c.
0116 Since I am able to put my species expressa2b into perspective2c, I can imagine what Daisy’s judgment might be2c. I may not be correct. But, I know that Daisy is fully capable of dispatching that cat, because, by my reckoning, she has already performed such duty on at least one other cat, a half-dozen squirrels, and a dozen rats.
On top of that, if Daisy suddenly throttles that indoor cat, whose only excursions into the wild lead directly to the catnip patch, then the cat’s owner would have to deal with me, her neighbor, whom she has studiously ignored for long enough.
0117 Hmmm. I guess I should not have said that.
There is something about my species intelligibilis2c best be left unspoken.
How so?
My little addendum enters the reader’s slot for species impressa2a and, in the process, provides a clue to what is happening3a, as well as the potential of ‘something happening’1a.
0118 I know what you are thinking.
What sort of freak would create a situation where his dog kills the neighbor’s cat in order to gain her attention?
0119 I have another label for what you are thinking.
You are thinking a meme.
According to Dennett, a meme is a unit of culture, bearing semantic information, offering ‘something’ that makes a difference and surviving through reproduction, such as gossip.
News of Daisy killing the neighbor’s cat is a meme.
0120 I snatch the cat’s corpse from Daisy’s mouth, after distracting her with one of her favorite treats. I intend to bring the deceased to the neighbor lady. I am sure that she will tell every person she knows about the incident, if she knows anyone. She seems like a sailor’s widow, waiting for her husband to return. But, she does not do what every woman whose man works the seas should be doing, going to church to pray for his safety.
I plan to carry the cat’s body in a bag and knock on her door.
When she answers, I aim to say, “I took the leash off Daisy this morning and she went right after your cat. Your cat is dead. I am sorry. If you want, I will buy you a new cat.”
But first, I ought to address another question.
0121 How did Daisy manifest her judgment2c with such vigor?
I think that the leash says it all.
Removing the leash2c produced a species impressa2a in Daisy, which specified a species expressa2b, which inspired a canine species intelligibilis2c, which stood for an action, which took the cat completely by surprise and generated a new species impressa2a in me, as I came to realize the potential of ‘something’ happening1a underlying the normal context ofwhat is happening3a.
0122 What am I saying?
Am I saying that Daisy’s judgment2c produces a sign-relation that appears inside out, because the sign-vehicle is hidden within Daisy’s mind and the sign-object is what Daisy does, for me to witness?
0123 Yes, I call this inside-out sign-relation an “interventional sign”.
0124 A meme involves an interventional sign-relation, whose sign-vehicle3c (SVi) fills in the slot for species impressa2a(SOi) while providing clues to a relevant content-level normal context3a and potential1a (SIi).
A meme also involves a specifying sign-relation, where a content-level species impressa2a (SVs) specifies a species expressa2b (SOs) within a situation-level normal context3b and potential1b (SIs).
0125 Here is a general picture of the specifying sign.
0126 Obviously, the interventional sign-object occupies the same content-level actuality2a as the specifying sign-vehicle.
The adaptiveness of the subsequent specifying sign weighs (takes into account) the initial bias (perhaps, affordance) provided by the interventional sign’s interpretant.
0127 In chapter nine, Dennett considers spoken words as paradigms of memes.
What about the gesture-words of hand talk… er… “sign language”?
Surely, these are even more paradigmatic because the gesture-word images and points to its referent.
0128 What if language evolves in the milieu of hand talk?
Here is a scenario to think about.
A warm rain falls all afternoon on my mixed forest location in eastern Africa, around a million years ago. My Homo erectus comrades can’t do much, so they huddle under trees and nap. The next day, the clouds have not given way, and I can smell something and I know what that something is. Mushrooms are sprouting!
0129 How do I know this?
A mental module has evolved, over the course of generations, specifically devoted this opportunity, the smell and the taste and the weather conditions are all encoded, because those of my ancestors who responded to the mushroom-related opportunity reproduced more successfully that those who did not.
Plus, I don’t have a leash.
0130 However, I need to recruit others. I need volunteers willing to work for food and share the riches with others. In time, others will return the favor. So, I initiate an interventional sign-relation.
0131 By Dennett’s account, my hand talk words constitute “a meme,” a unit of culture, containing semantic information, a difference that makes a difference, and a piece of know-what worth having.
0132 By a scholastic’s account, my hand talk words constitute the sign-object of an interventional sign-relation (SOi).
I don’t know whether medieval schoolmen successfully formalize the causality inherent in the interventional sign as a relational being. According to Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings, Latin-writing scholars formalize the specifying and the exemplar sign-causalities. The discovery of the interventional sign, which has all the characteristics of Dennett’s notion of “an inversion of reason”, appears in Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols”. Both commentaries are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0133 Whatever the accounting, my intervention sign initiates a specifying sign, leading to a wonderful mushroom harvest and contributing to our team (and our band’s) reproductive success.
0134 What is this “inversion of reason” business?
The interventional sign-relation inverts the commonplace notion that the sign-vehicle is visible (and thus, a subject) and the sign-object is mental (and thus, an object).
The specifying sign-relation reverts the inversion back into the commonplace notion.
0135 Both sign-relations intimate an affordance.
In this instance, the two affordances speak with one voice, saying, “Our team can gather many more mushrooms than a single individual. We can gather enough to feed all the other potential (but not, at this weather moment, actualized) teams in the band. Plus, we can dry and hide the rest. Time is short. Get to work!”
0136 Notably, this affordance cannot be articulated using hand talk.
How can one picture or point to “team”, “potential” or “affordance”?
Nonetheless, the affordance includes the potentials within the purely relational structure of the scholastic interscope for how humans think.
Clearly, each member of the team conjures the same relational structure, even though each individual possesses a different brain.
Only one more step is required to answer the question, “What is a meme?”
0137 From the previous blogs, I know that the meme is bound to the species impressa2a.
In the species impressa2a,the sign-object of the interventional sign (SOi) weds the sign-vehicle of the specifying sign(SVs).
The question arises, “How are the two united?”
0138 Aristotle’s hylomorphe meets the definition of Peirce’s category of secondness. The category of secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. My nomenclature puts the contiguity into brackets: one real element [contiguity] other real element.
0139 The two real elements are subject to the law of noncontradiction.
Plus, the contiguity is not a real element, even though it seems to be.
Ironically, I intend to use the word, “substance”, to label the contiguity. The word has a long pedigree. After being used for philosophical discourse for thousands of years, the word does not have much use in our current modern Age of Ideas. Some people call table salt, “a substance”. Some moderns call addiction to cocaine, “substance abuse”. So, my technical postmodern adoption of the term, “substance”, as the contiguity between matter and form, marks a turning point, the dawn of a new age of understanding.
More or less.
The hylomorphe stands at the beginning of the Greek Age of philosophy.
0140 Here is a picture of Aristotle’s hylomorphe.
0141 For this application, the meme is a species impressa2a manifesting the following hylomorphic structure.
0142 Dennett devotes several chapters to memes, including chapter ten (“The Meme’s Eye Point of View”) and eleven (“What Wrong with Memes? Objections and Replies”).
0143 This picture of the meme satisfies Dennett’s concept of the meme.
How so?
Memes are units of cultural information. Memes allow competence without comprehension. At the same time, memes play a role in comprehension.
0144 Of course, this picture also challenges Dennett’s notion of the meme.
How so?
The meme is a hylomorphe constructed with sign-elements of two sign-relations.
This brings me back to competence, as opposed to comprehension.
Competence merely requires both signs to function.
Comprehension depends on how apparent the interventional sign is. How well does the interventional sign-action2a(SOi), which like inversion of what we imagine a sign-object to be, convey what is happening3a and the potential of ‘something happening’1a(SIi)?
After all, comprehension implies that a person registers what is happening3a and the potential of ‘something’ happening1a(SIi), while decoding an ongoing event2a (SOi).
0145 This raises a related issue, asking “What is the proper metaphor for memes?”
According to Dennett (following Richard Dawkins, who originally promotes the idea that memes are phenomena subject to scientific inquiry), memes are like viruses. Each meme pursues own reproductive fitness. So, a cultural unit may have traits that exist simply because they are advantageous to its replication. Yet, the host must matter, because the host carries the meme, just like host carries a virus.
This makes me wonder.
Are viruses the most appropriate analogy for memes?
Or are synapses?
Virus do not form connections. Synapses do. The meme as hylomorphe connects the sign-object of an interventional sign(SOi) with the sign-vehicle of a specifying sign (SVs).
0146 A Darwinian paradigm where memes are like viruses leads to different predictions than one where memes are like synapses.
Take a glance at the following figure where a meme is a hylomorphe and ask, “Does this figure look more like one neuron [cultivating] a synapse to another neuron or a virus [infecting] a host?“
Okay, that was a rhetorical question.
0147 If memes are hylomorphic entities, then other characteristics of memes become obvious. Memes offer competence without comprehension. Memes are informational beings. They survive because they encourage the evolution of neural networks. Plus, they offer affordances. Neurons make their living by trafficking in information. Information consists in opportunities to form relevant synapses and to cost-cut synapses that are no longer busy.
Here is a picture of Dennett’s characteristics of memes.
0148 The three characteristics of memes highlight the fragility of modern theories that account for cultural phenomenawith poorly-defined labels, such as “beliefs” or “ideas”. Modern social theorists cannot account for why beliefs or ideas arise in the first place and how they are replicated among individuals. Meme theorists can.
0149 So, what do social scientists say in response?
Do I hear laughter echoing down the hallways of the College of Social Science?
Or is it it the Colleges of Social Sciences?
0150 In chapter eleven, Dennett defends the meme research project against detractors, who tend to be modern social scientists. Some of these professionals employ the paradigm of natural history to explain human adaptations. Some of them ignore human evolution altogether.
0151 Once again, here is the Darwinian paradigm, beloved by natural historians.
In the normal context of natural selection3b, an adaptation2b emerges from (and situates) a niche1b, which is the potential1b of an actuality independent of the adapting species2a. The biologist considers an adaptation2b, as a situation-level actuality, with the goal of first, identifying the actuality independent of the adapting species2a and second, delineating the specific potential that is either exploited or avoided1b.
0152 Now, replace the natural-historical terms with versions that derive from Dennett’s meme project.
In the normal context of cultural selection3b,an explanation for a meme2b emerges from (and situates) an affordance1b,which manifests the potential1b of the hylomorphic structure of the species impressa2a, as pictured above.
0153 What does this imply?
The social scientist should consider the meme as an adaptation2b, as a situation-level actuality, with the goal of first, identifying the content-level actuality2a where a sign-object of the interventional sign-relation substantiates the sign-vehicle of a specifying sign-relation2a and second, delineating the specific affordancethat is either exploited or avoided1b.
0156 Clearly, the modern anthropologist faces a more complicated and confusing task than the natural historian, because the meme2a is embedded in the scholastic interscope depicting the way humans think.
0174 When Dennett says that words are great examples of memes, he considers only spoken words. He does not suspect that language (that is, grammar) evolves in the milieu of hand talk. He knows that, today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk. Plus, his reading audience is civilized.
Consequently, Dennett’s claim that words play a role in cultural evolution carries an ironic overtone. His assertion is much larger that he supposes. In southern Mesopotamia, speech-alone is first realized by the Ubaid culture.
(This is discussed in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, as well as An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.)
Outside of southern Mesopotamia, early civilizations are potentiated by the adoption of speech-alone talk. After exposure to a speech-alone talking culture, hand-speech talking cultures drop the hand-component of their hand-speech talk. Mimesis is key. Speech-alone talks spreads from a single site to the entire world.
0175 The different semiotic qualities of hand talk and speech-alone talk play a key role in human evolution. Human evolution comes with a twist. I label that twist, “the first singularity”.
The first singularity illustrates Dennett’s key point. Speech-alone talk offers affordances that hand-talk lacks. The consequences are obvious. Cultures practicing speech-alone talk exhibit greater wealth and power than cultures practicing hand-speech talk.
Yes, the advantages are obvious.
The dangers are hidden.
0176 I wonder.
Is one of the main tasks of postmodern philosophers, such as Dennett, to reveal the dangers inherent to speech-alone talk? Or, is their main task to conceal them?
Indeed, Dennett’s postmodern philosophical approach distracts me from the manifest image of the scholastic interscope of how humans think and substitutes a scientific image of memes replicating and being selected through cultural evolution.
This is very similar to how I got the dead cat out of Daisy’s mouth, by offering one of her favorite treats as a substitute.
0177 Has the author come to a judgment2c?
0178 The species impressa intelligibilis2c, the universal aspect a content-level species impressa2a, corresponds to what is2c.
According to Dennett, the meme is a basic unit of culture, a word-like being, carrying semantic information, and offering ‘something’ that makes a difference. The meme is the source of behavioral phenomena observed and measured by social scientists, who then build models, using the specialized languages of psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics and so on.
0179 The species expressa intelligibilis2c, the intelligible aspect of a situation-level species expressa2b, corresponds to what ought to be.
The meme offers models neglected by social scientists. The meme offers models couched in the disciplinary language of the biological sciences. Can a meme be accounted for by way of a Darwinian model of descent with modification, in the normal context of cultural selection? Yes, a meme is a replicator that survives only because it replicates. Therefore, the differential replication of memes offers a scientific image for cultural evolution.
0180 The relation between what is and what ought to be passes from biological evolution (“Bacteria”) to the pinnacle of human creative engineering (“Bach”) and back to cultural evolution (“and Back”).
0146 Here is a picture.
0181 If this judgment serves as a sign-vehicle for an interventional sign, then the resulting sign-object is a scientific account of the evolution of human brains (SOi).
Part III of Dennett’s book is titled, “Turning Our Minds Inside Out”.
Inside is the noumenon, the thing itself, the human mind.
Outside is a scientific model of a brain,the observable and measurable conjurer of the thing itself.
Or do I have that backwards?
Does the mind conjure the brain?
Or does the brain conjure the mind?
0182 Here is a picture of Dennett’s work as a meme.
0189 In Dennett’s version of the evolution of our minds,consciousness and user-end illusion coincide. There is no example greater than the musical memes concocted by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Tunes are memes.
0190 Words are memes.
When it comes to spoken words, sometimes the less said, the better. Fewer words allow the user to engage neurons with less forward guidance. Clues to the content-level normal context3a and potential1a are not present to guide the evolution of an adaptive perception2b.
So, when I go to the neighbor, to present the dead cat, and to confess Daisy’s guilt, I only say, “I took Daisy off her leash this morning and she got away and killed your cat. Here it is. If you want me to bury it, then I will. If you want me to buy you a new cat, I will.”
0191 Then she starts to cry and says, “It’s not my cat. It’s my mother’s.”
Her mother died around five years ago.
The man who I thought was her husband? That is her brother. Her brother and her lived with mother until her death. Mother would not let her children go. She would not let anything go. She was a maven of the world and her concerns were with the world. She was an activist who took her children to demonstrations in order to signal that she, above all, cared for the children. Her last request to her daughter? Take care of the cat.
0192 My neighbor continued her tale.
The old house was too full of mother’s memes… er… memories of her mother. So, she and her brother agreed to sell the old house and to move somewhere new. They bought the house next door to mine.
Soon, her brother realizes that this is his opportunity to construct a life of his own. That is why he comes by with less and less frequency. The verge is overgrown. Her brother is engaged to be married. He has made a down-payment on a house in a different neighborhood.
0193 No, that is not her cat. It is her mother’s. I can go and bury it. She does not want another.
After a pause, I say, “This Sunday, do you mind coming to church with me? Service is at nine o’clock. I can come by at eight-thirty.”
0194 The words that I speak are memes, units of culture, pieces of semantic information, offering something that makes a difference, a novel affordance, a clue to what is happening3a and a new sense that something can happen1a. The reason that these memes are present, at this moment, is not because the words want to replicate, but because I want the words to bear a meaning, a presence and a message.
0195 Just as a biologist reflects upon an adaptation2b, according to a normal context3b and potential1b, in order to become aware of the actuality independent of the adapting species2a, my neighbor will reflect on the phantasm2b that adapts to this moment and provides an illusion3b of consciousness1b. The entire scholastic interscope2a comes alive. What is happening3a? What does it mean to me3b? Does this make sense3c?
0196 Razie Mah offers three masterworks on human evolution.
The Human Niche concerns the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
An Archaeology of the Fall dramatizes the first singularity, the transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.
How To Define The Word “Religion” concerns our current Lebenswelt.
These works sustain this examination of Dennett’s book.
0197 In these blogs, the term, “meme”, is technically defined using the scholastic interscope for how humans think. This interscope is also in play in Razie Mah’s blog for October 2023, Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”. A “meme” corresponds to a species impressa2a with a hylomorphic structure whereby the sign-object of an interventional sign substantiates a sign-vehicle for a specificative sign.
0198 According to Dennett, a spoken word is a good example of a meme.
Notably, our current Lebenswelt must face the question, asking, “What is the nature of spoken words?”
Why?
Spoken words facilitate explicit abstraction, while hand-talk words allow only implicit abstraction. We innately expect that spoken words image and point to their referents. But, they do not. Symbols are natural signs whose sign-objects are defined by convention, habit, law, tradition and so on. Yet, no hand-talk language has words that can picture or indicate these terms. “Convention”, “habit”, “law” and “tradition” label explicit abstractions that cannot be articulated using hand talk. They may exist, but cannot be named, while using hand talk.
0199 Recall that actualities2 are encountered.
Such actualities2 are understood by ascertaining an appropriate normal context3 and potential1.
0200 How To Define The Word “Religion” applies these lessons to a familiar and contentious term. This examination of Dennett’s book applies these lessons to the word, “meme”.
Here is a picture.
0201 The message? The meme exemplifies cultural evolution.
The presence? The meme embodies neural selection.
The meaning? A scientific image of the word, “meme”, should overlay what is going on in my mind, that is, the manifest image. My consciousness is an user-end illusion produced by the message and the presenceof cultural and neural selection.
0202 My thanks to the author. This well-documented work conveys that impression that inquiry into memes may account for the evolution of the human mind. Whether this impression is productive or unproductive depends on how one defines the word, “meme”.
0001 The full title of Deely’s book is Semiotic Animal: A Postmodern Definition of “Human Being” Transcending Patriarchy and Feminism: to supersede the ancient and medieval ‘animal rationale’ along with the modern ‘res cogitans’. The book is published in 2010 by St. Augustine’s Press in South Bend, Indiana.
John Deely (1942-2017 AD) starts as a Thomist interested in Heidegger and becomes a semiotician. He becomes a really, really good promoter of the study of signs. He writes a history of philosophy from the point of view of the revelation… or, is it discovery?.. that the sign is a triadic relation. For years, he teaches at University of Saint Thomas, Houston. He retires, moves to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, home of St. Vincent’s College, then dies.
This examination is to be read in parallel with or after reading (and writing marginalia) in Deely’s book. My argument may run like a dog on a long leash, compared to Deely’s argument. But, there is reason for the analogy. Thirteen years have passed since publication and five years since Deely’s burial, and the Age of Triadic Relations continues to manifest.
Semiotics is the study of signs. A sign is a triadic relation.
0002 Chapter one considers a question that we ask ourselves.
Humans, what type of animals are they?
Chapter two addresses the answer.
0003 Modern philosophy starts (more or less) when Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD) presents a sensation, as an idea and an image where the object of experience directs a construct of the mind. Consequently, he regards humans as thinking things… or the owners of thinking things (minds)… or something like that.
In terms of Peirce’s philosophy, there are two contiguous actualities, characteristic of the category of secondness. They are an object of experience and a construct of the mind. The contiguity (which, for nomenclature, is placed in brackets) is “directs”.
Here is a picture of Descartes’ dyadic actuality. In Latin, the title is “res cogitans“.
Figure 01
0005 As already noted, this hylomorphic structure is coherent with Peirce’s category of secondness. The actuality corresponds to a sensation. Sensation exhibits a dyadic character. Sensation is like cause [and] effect or matter [substantiating] form.
There is an implicit claim that this dyad describes the way humans think.
Plus, a superior claim (not realized until Charles Peirce (1839-1914 AD) wrote about it) may be asserted. Humans think in terms of triadic relations, such a signs, mediations, judgments and category-based nested forms.
Say what?
See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0006 With the superior claim in mind, it is no surprise that when later philosophers build epistemologies upon Descartes’ foundation, they end up shifting Descartes’ terms out of secondness, the realm of actuality, and into thirdness, the realm of normal contexts, and firstness, the realm of possibility.
Here is a category-based nested form that sort of captures Kant’s epistemology.
Figure 02
The normal context of the mind3 brings the actuality of an object of experience2 into relation with the potential of a particular condition1. What is that condition? The thing itself [cannot be objectified as] what one sees, hears, smells, tastes or touches.
0007 So, the experience of the five senses2 becomes an object2 as it simultaneously is contextualized by the mind3 and arises from the potential of a particular condition1. Plus, the particular condition1 is that the object of experience cannot be the thing itself1.
It sort of like saying that my image in a mirror is not me, even though I appear to be the object of experience.
0008 Welcome to modern… philosophy?… er… science?
The Positivist’s judgment formalizes the quasi-Kantian category-based nested form by thirdly, replacing the mind3 with a positivist intellect3. The positivist intellect3 rules out metaphysics. Secondly, the object of experience2 is replaced by an empirio-schematic judgment2, where disciplinary language (relation) brings observations and measurements of phenomena (what is) into relation with mathematical or mechanical models (what ought to be). Firstly, the thing itselfand what one senses1 are replaced by Latin terms, the noumenon and its phenomena1.
Here is a diagram of the Positivist’s judgment as a category-based nested form.
Figure 03
0009 The implications of the conversion of Descartes’ dyadic formula for sensation to a modern quasi-Kantian nested form for how humans think are most curious.
It seems that the construct of the mind weaves a normal context3 and potential1, sort of like a spider spinning a web in the hope of catching a flying insect. The metaphorical flying insect, is an experience2 that immediately becomes an object2as the manifestation of the realness of the normal context3 and potential1. Plus, the object2 is inside of the observer and the thing itself1 remains (potentially) on the outside.
Similarly, for the Positivist’s judgment, the scientist weaves the normal context of the positivist intellect3 with the potential that phenomena1 may be the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon1, then waits for observations and measurements (what is) to reveal patterns that can be modeled (what ought to be) and discussed with disciplinary precision (relation between what is and what ought to be)2. One of the oldest adages in science says, “First, observe phenomena. Second, explain them.”
0010 What a curious implication.
It is almost as if the construct of the mind is looking for an actuality2 that fits its ideals. And when it does, it transforms whatever enters the realm of actuality, such as an experience2 or a measurement2, into an object2 or an empirio-schematic judgment2.
0011 Idealism looks for something2 that it can turn into an object2 or an empirio-schematic judgment2.
What about realism?
0012 In Aristotle’s hylomorphe, matter and form are real elements and the contiguity is called “substance” (a technical use that may or may not cohere with traditional definitions of the word). Here is a picture.
Figure 04
0013 I suppose Aristotle’s philosophy is realist.
So, let me see what happens to the hylomorphe when it is tossed into an appropriate category-based nested form.
Figure 05
Okay. That is a little disappointing. I thought I would have arrows going in every direction, as in the first blog.
0014 Let me try another. “Stipulation” is a spoken word. How does the spoken word, “stipulation” pan out as an actuality, according to Razie Mah in How To Define The Word “Religion”?
Figure 06
Another disappointment with realism.
0015 Well, what if I go one step further and remind myself that, according the linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913 AD), spoken language consists of two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole and langue. Parole is “talk”. Langue is “language” (or whatever is going on in one’s head during conversation).
According to Saussure, for spoken words, parole [stipulates] langue2.
Now, I have another example of the idealist approach, with a parallel to modern epistemology.
0016 In chapter two, modern philosophy takes flight toward its twilight and, in chapter three, we enter the dawn of a new understanding of human beings.
0017 Two independent lines of thought develop in Europe and in America in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The lines seem a little crossed. On the American side, Charles Peirce reproduces the Baroque scholastic definition of the sign as a triadic relation. Yes, Baroque scholasticism sounds like Europe. On the European side, Ferdinand de Saussure recognizes that his novel model of language occasions an inquiry into sign-causality. To me, this sounds quite American. Language is a sign-machine, consisting of two arbitrarily related systems of differences.
0018 Consider a map of Pennsylvania. This map is an example of a nonarbitrary or a motivated or a systematically related system of differences. The roads on the map are signifiers. The actual roads are the signified.
0019 Consider spoken languages. Talk (in French, parole) consists in one system of differences. Each uttered word is distinct from all other words. Another term for a finite set of differences is a symbolic order. What goes on in one’s head while talking (in French, langue) consists in the other set of differences. According to Saussure, the relation between parole and langue is arbitrary. Or, one can say, parole [stipulates] langue, where the contiguity, “stipulation”, is arbitrary.
0020 Note how I can depict these examples as hylomorphes.
A map [ overlays ] a landscape.
Parole [stipulates ] langue.
Plus, the latter dyad captures the flavor of Descartes’ original hylomorphe describing humans as thinking things.
Figure 08
0021 Saussure’s hylomorphe is versatile, because parole and langue can serve as bread for a sandwich filled with expansions of the contiguity, [stipulates]. The terms, signifier and signified, to an Aristotelian, are a little misleading, because the signified is typically “out there” (like a landscape) and the signifier is typically “ready to hand” (like a map). But, the signified is simultaneously “in here”, because all one has to do is look to see the road that corresponds to a line on the map. Even more “in here” are images of the road conjured when looking at a map while planning a trip at home. No wonder Saussureans elevate the mental image of the road (“in here”) and ignore the road itself (“out there”).
Another pairing is acoustic signal (signifier) and neural signal (signified), the stuff of cognitive psychology. These are a few of the obvious pairings that can expand the contiguity between parole and langue.
Figure 09
Imagine how many academic works can be formulated based on an ever-expanding “stipulation”. Every researcher can discover or further develop one layer within the center of the intellectual sandwich.
0022 Yet, none of these sandwiches are satisfying, in the human sense of the word, because (if humans are semiotic animals, then) humans think in terms of signs… er… triadic relations.
0023 In order to understand an actuality2, the human conjures (if that is the proper word for it) a normal context3 and its potential1. This is apparent for Aristotle’s rational inquiry. A thing is an actuality2. Actuality2 belongs to secondness. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. So, the actuality2 becomes matter [contiguity] form2 as the normal context3 (of rational inquiry3) and its potential1 (of Aristotle’s four causes and similar schema1) are conjured.
