0157 “Ontogeny” is in the title of chapter four.

“Ontogeny” is an awkward term.

In philosophy, the discipline of “ontology” studies the “logos” (or “word”) of “ontos”.  Ontos?  Ontos is esse_ce, that is, being substantiated.  Yes, that is “essence without the ‘n'”.  The only way to figure out esse_ce (being substantiated) is by considering essence, (substantiated form).  This leads to a question, asking, “What discipline studies the nature of essence?”

Who knows the answer to that?

How about aesthetics, the art of appreciation?

0158 Esse_ce and essence participate in Aristotle’s hylomorphe, which happens to exemplify Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle, the two real elements are matter (or, for relations, being) and form.  The contiguity is placed in brackets for clear notation.  I select the word, [substance], as a technical term describing the contiguity between being and form.

Here is a picture.

0159 So, “ontogeny”, must mean “the genesis of being”, or something like that.  Ontogeny associates with esse_ce and corresponds to the innate development of a phenotype.  Since the human phenotype is designed to internalize culture and traditions, disentangling the innate from the cultural is most difficult, except for newborns and infants.  Cognitive psychologists study the mental development of these tempermental, yet fascinating, creatues.

0160 “Phylogeny” is in the title of chapter five.

“Phylogeny” is less problematic.

Phylogeny associates to natural history.  For biologists, the Darwinian paradigm says, “Descent with modification”. Through natural selection, modifications become adaptations.  Adaptations emerge from (and situate) a niche.  A niche is a potential independent of the adapting species.

Tomasello identifies a key adaptation characteristic of humans that is not found in the great apes (and presumably, the last common ancestor between the chimpanzees and humans).  That adaptation is joint attention.  Shared intentionalityemerges from (and situates) sociogenesis, the ability to form societies.

0161 Thus, chapters four and five give me the two real elements in Tomasello’s hylomorphe, pictured below.

I wonder whether the intrepid reader can find a another label for the term, “substance”.

0162 In the chapter on ontogenetic origins, the reader encounters the crux of hominin communication, the ability to inform, request and share content (that is, information)_2c, in the normal context of a common cognitive ground_3c, on the basis of mutual expectations_1c.

0163 To me, this associates to the perspective-level of the scholastic picture of the way humans think, now adjusted for Tomasello’s insights.

Here is a picture.

0164 The perspective level corresponds to the sign-object and the sign-interpretant of the exemplar sign (SO_e and SI_e).   The sign-vehicle (SV_e) is perception.

The exemplar sign arises from a specifying sign and leads to an interventional sign.

I conclude that, in terms of phenotype, humans are innately prepared to embody exemplar sign-relations.

0165 So, what about newborns and infants?

Oh, they must first figure out specifying signs.  They do so by experiencing the interventional signs of family and friends.  As soon as tykes express sensible interventional signs, they have mastered the art of specifying signs and are on their way to developing their own suite of exemplar signs.

On their way?

One never stops developing exemplar signs.

0166 So, that leads me to ask, “Does the above interscope serve as a label for the substance between phenotype and adaptation?  Or does the word, ‘culture’?”