0097 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, our ancestors adapt to the niche of triadic relations.

What are the sources of these signs and mediations?

One source is nature.  Nature broadcasts significations.

Another source, working in tandem with nature, are intentional manual-brachial gestures (which I call, “hand talk”).

Another source is our behavior, which signifies our commitments_1c.  Prelapsarian commitments_2c cannot be broken down into beliefs, intentions, practices and so on.  They are holistically conceived and experienced, just like nature’s signs and hand talk.

0098 Finally, there is another source, which is not a source, but built into our (human) adaptation to triadic relations, especially signs.  Whenever someone reads signs, there is always the presumption of ‘someone’ who generates sign-vehicles.  This ‘someone’ is obvious for hand talk, less obvious for committed behaviors (because the ‘someone’ is actually an actionable judgment) and obscure for natural signs.

0099 Well, maybe an interlude is called for.

Two interscopes are in play.  In the last section, I start with divine suprasubjectivity and end with human subjectivity.  One interscope swerves into another.

0100 Once again, here is the working interscope for divine suprasubjectivity.

0101 Clearly, I use the theology of Thomas Aquinas in a manner that does not appear um… theological. Nor is it scientific.  It is both.  It is neither.

I know intellectuals.  Surely, they desire to attach the proper label to whatever goes on.  To name it is to know it, as they say.  Once the intellectual grasps the desired label, then no more mental labor is required.

So, here is a word for you: “The approach is noumenal.”

0102 Science studies phenomena.  Scholastics contemplate noumena.

The two are related in the style of Peirce’s secondness.  They are two contiguous real elements.

A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.

The contiguity is [cannot be objectified as].   A noumenon cannot be turned into its suite of phenomenal objects, such as size, color, shape, properties, motions, responses to stimuli and so forth.  Nor can a suite of phenomenal objects be translated into their noumenon.

0103 Maybe, this boils down to word-play.

What other options do I have besides the term, “object”?

How about “subject”?

A noumenon may be considered the subject of an inquiry.

Its phenomena are objects for scientific investigation.

But, what is the subject?

Human subjectivity?  Divine suprasubjectivity?

0104 For the content-level of human subjectivity, the subject is active body [substantiates] sensate soul_2a.  The discipline of cognitive psychology investigates phenomena related to this noumenon.  Psychologists apply stimuli and observe bodily responses. The stimuli correspond to ‘something’_1a in the normal context of what is happening_3a.  Cognitive psychologists correlate their technical observations to self-reports of sensations and feelings_2a.

Human subjectivity cannot be not objectified by the phenomena studied by cognitive psychology.

But, don’t tell the cognitive psychologists.

Then, evolutionary psychologists propose how the correlations observed by cognitive psychologists might serve as hominin adaptations to a Pleistocene environment.  Presumably, natural selection solves problems in the environment of evolutionary adaptation.  Since these problems can be inferred from archaeological data, they may be considered phenomena.  So proposed hominin adaptations are models, accounting for what cognitive psychologists observe, in terms of Neodarwinian evolutionary theory.

0105 Divine suprasubjectivity cannot be objectified by the phenomena studied by evolutionary psychology.

But, don’t tell the evolutionary psychologists.

0106 In short, the study of phenomena associated to the content-levels of human subjectivity and divine suprasubjectivitybelongs to cognitive and evolutionary psychology, respectively.  Plus, these content-level actualities_2a cannot be objectified as the phenomena that these two sciences study.  They_1a must be identified as noumena.

But, don’t tell this to the scientists.

They cannot see that empirio-schematics of their disciplines somehow resonate with the two noumenal content-levels, but do not compose them.

0107 The situation level of divine suprasubjectivity presents a worse conundrum for science.  The revelation in the Genesis Creation Story presents a normal context_3b and potential_1b for a phantasm_2b.

Phantasms_2b are associated with opinion.  Opinion, in Greek, “doxa“, is precisely what ancient philosophers try to transcend.   Socrates does such a good job of dispatching doxa that he ends up wildly popular among the Athenian youth.  Socrates uses the symbolizing power of speech-alone words with such a flair that every opinion flounders in its own contradictions.

Why do they flounder?

Spoken words generate their referents, rather than the other way around.  Once one begins to critically examine the referent of any spoken word, the magical spell is broken and the word, ideal, slogan, curse, omen, promise and rhetorical position falls into contradiction.  A (mind-independent) referent does not define the spoken word.  Instead, a word is only as good as the symbolic order that it belongs to.

This is the condition of our current Lebenswelt.

0108 This is not the condition of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Hand talk words are icons and indexes.  They are symbols, too, because they are linguistic.  But, they are effective because they image and indicate their referents.  There are no contradictions within hominin word-gestures, because the referent defines the word, not the other way around.

With hand talk, gesture-words_2a are encountered in the same way as nature’s signfications_2a.  Sensations and feelings_2aalign.  Then, when a phantasm_2b virtually situates sensations and feelings_2a, it_2b seems to be true_1c, rather than an opinion_1c.  Plus, that truth_2b is tested in the crucible of a commitment_2c, an actionable judgment.