0087 Step one concerns virtual semiosis.

Virtual semiosis contains an immediate vehicle, an immediate object and an immediate interpretant.

Yet, it is not a sign-relation.

So, “virtual” means “in simulation”.

Or does it mean “in virtue”?

0088 Perhaps, the category-based nested form can assist. 

If the term is not familiar, then see A Primer on the Category-based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah.  These e-works are available at smashwords, as well as other e-book venues.  They are brief and informative.

0089 Can the category-based nested form assist in appreciating the nature of virtual semiosis?

Well, what is an immediate interpretant?

Does an immediate interpretant describe ‘what is happening’₃?

If so, then the immediate interpretant serves as a normal context₃.

A normal context₃ arises from an actuality₂ and a potential₁.  If the immediate interpretant₃ arises from an immediate object₂ and an immediate vehicle₁, then the immediate vehicle₁ is the potential of ‘something’ happening₁.

Also, the immediate object₂ is a thing or event₂.  This immediate object₂ will then serve as a sign-vehicle in a true semiotic act.

0090 Here is a picture of the immediate vehicle₁, object₂ and interpretant₃.

0091 A landslide is a good example of virtual semiosis.

The landslide is a content-level actuality₂ with a hylomorphic structure, composed of two contiguous real elements (which is how Peirce defines the category of secondness).  The two real elements are heavy wet earth and landslide.  The contiguity is placed in brackets.  [Gives way] sounds like formal causality.

The hylomorphe, heavy wet earth [gives way] landslide_2a, is an immediate object that exists independently from what we think about it.

0092 The normal context_3a, stormy weather_3a, is also mind-independent and aids understanding when a mind recognizes that heavy rain is a normal context for certain types of landslides.   So, stormy weather_3a serves as an immediate interpretant.

Similarly, the potential of ‘rainwater’_1a is mind-independent and aids in understanding when a mind recognizes landslides as consequences of rainwater.  So, rainwater serves as an immediate vehicle.

0093 Here is a diagram.

0094 Step two concerns actual semiosis.

A discussion of actual semiosis in terms of category-based nested forms appears in Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  This examination is (more or less) consistent with that discussion.

According to Kemple, actual semiosis adds the dynamical object and interpretant to the immediate vehicle, object and interpretant of virtual semiosis.

The term, “immediate”, associates to the content-level and firstness.  The term, “dynamical”, suggests the situation-level and secondness.  Thus, actual semiosis crosses from one level of an interscope to another.  Virtual semiosis does not.

0095 As mentioned in the prior blog, a landslide_2a may serve as a sign-vehicle.  The landslide belongs to the category of secondness (hence the subscript “2”) and to the category of firstness (hence the subscript “a”).  So, even though this sign-vehicle is actual, it stands on a level associated with possibility.

Notably, the immediate object_2a (not the immediate vehicle_1a) serves as the sign-vehicle (SV) for actual semiosis.

What does this note imply?  Hmmm.  Uh-oh.  Never mind.  Where am I?  Okay, I continue.

0096 What about the sign-object for actual semiosis?

A situation-level actuality_2b virtually emerges from and situates a content-level actuality_2a, in the same way that a sign-object is formally and extrinsically specified by a sign-vehicle.

Plus, this situation-level actuality_2b (serving as the specified sign-object, SO) occurs in a situation-level normal context_3band arises from a situation-level potential_1a.  Both constitute a sign interpretant (SI).

0097 Here is a picture.

0098 I may ask, “What does a landslide mean to me?”

Well, it may not mean much, unless it blocks a road.

Then, the landslide (SV) stands for a blocked road (SO) in regards to my transportation options (SI).  How badly is the road damaged?

0099 The landslide is extrinsic to the blocked road.  The landslide specifies a blocked road.  Damages must be formally determined.

Thus, in the terminology of the scholastics, this example of actual semiosis may be labeled specified extrinsic formal causality.

0100 If I used a ruptured appendix as the example, the example would be called specified intrinsic formal causality.

0101 Here is what I have covered so far in the semiotic ladder.

0102 If I were to continue with Peirce’s schema of one sign-vehicle (immediate), two sign-objects (immediate and dynamical) and three sign-interpretants (immediate, dynamical and final), then I would try to figure a way to add a final interpretant.

Indeed, step three of the ladder adds a final interpretant, and this final interpretant is extrinsic to the human individual.  The human being appears in step four, adding an intrinsic final interpretant.

0103 In short, steps three and four are entangled, which may not be too safe when the analogy is a ladder.

Be that as it may, allow me to add a perspective level to the example of the specified sign that arises from a landslide.

0104 According to the category-based nested form, there are two signs in play.

The first sign-relation embodies specified extrinsic formal causality.  The immediate object serves as the material for the sign-vehicle.  This does not quite match Peirce’s schema (discussed above).  But, that does not mean that it does not belong to Peirce’s grand vision.  After all, the immediate object captures two features of most sign-vehicles.  First, the sign-vehicle is material.  Second, the sign-vehicle formally denotes a sign-object in regards to a sign-interpretant.

The second sign-relation embodies a different style of formal causality.  Plus, this different style comes in two flavors.   The causality associates to Peirce’s final interpretant.

Peirce’s use of the word, “final”, does not correspond to the scholastic definition of a final cause.  Or does it? The flavors are extrinsic and intrinsic.

0105 To obtain the name for this different style of formal causality, consult Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings, mentioned in a prior blog.

What matters here is that the dynamical object of a blocked road cannot avoid engaging a final interpretant, consisting of the network of paths that includes the road (extrinsic) and the individual’s options with and without a landslide (intrinsic).

0106 This apparently dualistic final interpretant covers the third and fourth rungs of the semiotic ladder.

Here is a picture.

0107 Here is what I have covered so far in the semiotic ladder.

0108 Peirce’s semiotic ladder expands a single immediate sign-vehicle with each rung.

In contrast, the category-based nested approach puts more and more of its three-level interscope into play.  Indeed, with steps three and four, Peirce’s final interpretant starts with a single situation-level actuality_2b as sign-vehicle, produces a single perspective-level actuality_2c as sign object, and allows two normal-contexts_3c and potentials_1c, corresponding to extrinsic and intrinsic final sign-interpretants.

Here is a picture of corresponding features in a three-level interscope.

0109 Say what?

Steps three and four are entangled.

Where does the third… er… fourth rung of the semiotic ladder lead?

Oh, they must lead to the fifth rung.

0110 I imagine that the fifth rung leads back to the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a.

Why do I say this?

Here, I turn to ancient Greek mythology and suggest a cultural normal context_3a and potential_1a for the actuality of a landslide_2a.

0111 Yes, this suggests a third sign, where the sign-vehicle is where the (blocked) road goes_2c and the sign-object is the landslide_2a and the sign-interpretant is the divine anger_1a of the premier god of weather_3a.  This third sign is crucial to the field of anthropology.

0112 In short, the category-based nested form associates to Peirce’s semiotic ladder, but not in a facile manner.

The associations yield three types of signs.

The first two types are introduced in Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings.

The third type is introduced in Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols”.

0113 How can a sign-vehicle serve as a symbol and as an icon?

Author Brian Kemple raises the question in Appendix 1.3 of his 2019 book, The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue (Walter de Gruyter, Boston/Berlin).

0114 Well, Kemple is not talking about the sign-vehicle for any sign-relation.

He is referring to the sign-vehicle of the intellectual concept.

Or, should I say, “He is referring to the intellectual concept as a sign-vehicle.”?

0115 How would the category-based nested form approach wrestle with these statements?

I proceed by way of example.

I left off with the a sign-relation where the sign-vehicle corresponds to a perspective-level actuality_2c, the sign-objectgoes with a content-level actuality_2a and the sign-interpretant corresponds to the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a.

0116 Does the sign-vehicle fit the label, “intellectual concept”?

I suspect that it does.  After all, the perspective-level actuality_2c offers itself as a sign-object to two sign-relations that span the situation and perspective levels.

0117 Say what?

Recall the examination of appendix 1.2, where the perspective-level actuality_2c engages an extrinsic and an intrinsic final interpretant.

0118 I can isolate the sign-object as an intellectual concept.  Surely, a network of roads and the challenges to my travelsare one level beyond situational dynamics.  A roadmap and a plan are intellectual concepts.

0119 What happens when these two sign-objects contribute to a single sign-vehicle?

Oh, let me read the first line of this examination (point 0113).

0120 The roadmap is like an icon.  An icon is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on the character of firstness… as in… similarity.  The roadmap (SV) stands for a network of roads (SO) in regards to the principle of proportion (SI).

Perhaps, it is odd to consider a SO repurposing itself into a SV keying into the same principle of proportion as a roadmap (SI, extrinsic final) as well as into the challenges to travel brought on by the landslide (SI, intrinsic final).  So, an act of Zeus contextualizes a principle of proportion (characteristic of maps) as well as a principle of divine retribution(characteristic of how devastating storms challenge travel).

0121 The challenge for my travels reflects the character of symbols.  A symbol is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on the character of thirdness… as in… convention.  Surely, the conventional path from my town to other towns relies on the road that is now blocked by a landslide.  So, the blocked road becomes a symbol for Zeus’s anger at our particular city.  I bet that it has something to do with our new king, Oedipus.

Yes, he solved the riddle of the Sphinx that once made that road so treacherous.  But, people are also getting sick and now a landslide blocks the road to medical expertise.

0122 Kemple offers a figure.  It is the second figure in the entire book.  Here is how I imagine it.

0123 The intellectual concept of where a (blocked) road goes serves as a sign-vehicle that hybridizes map (icon) and divine Zeus’s thunderbolts (symbol).  The corresponding sign-object serves as an image even though the sign-interpretant operates as if the sign-object is a symbol. 

Here is a picture.

The interventional sign produces a content level that recapitulates the original immediate vehicle, object and interpretant of virtual semiosis.

0124 Here is a comparison.

00125 The implications?

Here is one option.

Can a sign-vehicle (a perspective-level actuality_2c) generate an imagistic sign-object (a content-level actuality_2a) and a symbol-istic sign-interpretant (content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a)? 

Do human conventions generate artifacts for virtual semiosis?

Do cultural artifacts serve as immediate objects?

Consider Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols”.

0126 Appendix 2 is titled, “Language”.

Surely, one’s education should include histories of spoken words.

After all, spoken words are all we have.

0127 Take the word, “education”.  

It derives from the Latin word, educare, which translates as “to train or to mold”.

That is not all.

It also derives from the Latin word, educere, which translates as “to lead out”.

0128 Such a dual inheritance reminds me of the distinction between the words, “deduce” and “educe”.  Deduction follows the rules of logic, particularly the principle of non-contradiction.  Eduction brings out, figures out and sheds light on the topic at hand.

After considering the previous blogs on appendices 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3, it is easy to imagine that deduction applies to secondness (the realm of actuality) and that eduction applies to thirdness and firstness (the realms of normal contexts and potentials).  Or, maybe I cans say that deduction applies to sign-objects and eduction applies to sign-vehicles and sign-interpretants.

“Education” combines “deduction” (educare) and “eduction” (educere).

“Education” is a spoken word.

So, what is the nature of spoken words?

0129 At the turn of the 20^th century, Ferdinand de Saussure revolutionizes linguistics by proposing that speech-alone words are placeholders in two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole (speech) and langue (whatever is going on in one’s head when hearing or generating spoken words).

Of course, cognitive psychologists can observe and measure parole.  They can build models.  They can discuss these models using a specialized disciplinary language. As such, parole (speech acts) are similar to phenomena.  If phenomenaare observable and measurable facets of their noumenon, then parole are observable and measurable facets of langue.

0130 Well, that is my suggestion, for the moment.

0131 If I think in terms of secondness, then I think in terms of two contiguous real elements.  For spoken language, the two real elements are parole and langue.  The contiguity is an arbitrary relation.  For science, the two real elements are phenomena and their noumenon.  The contiguity is not arbitrary, nor is it obvious.  Rather, it is a slogan that goes back to Immanuel Kant.  A noumenon cannot be objectified as its phenomena.

The hylomorphic structure of a noumenon and its phenomena, attributed to Kant in the same manner that the Pentateuch is attributed to Moses, corresponds to ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment.  This is discussed in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0132 The above discussion suggests that I juxtapose two hylomorphic structures.

0133 If the juxtaposition sparks a feeling, then the feeling says, “No matter how well we observe, measure, model and technically discuss parole, we can never objectify langue, unless the relation between parole (as an external system of differences) and langue (as an internal system of differences) becomes motivated, and a comparison with Kant’s slogan is no longer secure.  If the relation between parole and langue is motivated, then the phenomena of talk can objectify the noumenon of the way that we cognitively process that talk.”

0134 The English word, “education”, arises from two Latin terms, meaning “to train” and “to lead out”.

Perhaps, German is superior to English in simultaneously evoking more than one kernel in a single word.  In German, word-elements concatenate effortlessly.  There could be a German word for “the relation of arbitrariness between langueand parole” or for “the impossibility of phenomena fully objectifying their noumenon“.

0135 Does German-speaking Martin Heidegger hold an advantage?

Maybe, maybe not.  After all, he could not concatenate das Sein (Being) and des Seienden (beings).  Oh, what am I saying?  That is what he did, more or less.  So, when I place Heidegger’s not-fully melded concatenation against what isfor science, I get the following juxtaposition.

0136 How curious.

Am I suggesting that Heidegger’s phrase, das Sein des Seienden (the Being of beings), conceals a contiguity, and that contiguity is the same as the one that applies to all scientific things?

0137 Recall, the noumenon is the thing itself.  Its phenomena are its observable and measurable facets.  Plus, according to Kant’s slogan, a noumenon cannot be fully objectified as its phenomena.  This applies to all things in the natural sciences.  Empirio-schematic inquiry observes and measures phenomena.  Their noumenon is ignored.

By juxtaposition, das Sein is Being itself.  Des Seienden are beings that we encounter in our daily lives.  Plus, according to the implicit contiguity between these two real elements, Being cannot be fully objectified as beings that we encounter in our daily lives.  This applies to all modern things.

0138 Plus, as discussed in the prior blog, during the early 20^th century, hylomorphic structures that juxtapose with ‘what is’ in the Positivist’s judgment seem to be in style.  The ground-breaking linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, comes up with a similar structure, allowing me to say the following.

By juxtaposition, langue is language itself.  Parole are spoken words that we encounter in our daily lives.  Plus, according to the arbitrary relation between langue and parole, language cannot be fully objectified by speech acts.  This applies to everything we say. 

0139 What does this imply?

That is a good question.

0140 What is the meaning, presence and message underlying a spoken word?

That is the question addressed in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0106 The category-based nested form allows an answer.  The normal context of definition₃ brings the actuality of a spoken word₂ into relation with the potentials of meaning, presence and message₁. 

0141 How does this answer apply to the topic at hand?

To me, Martin Heidegger (and Charles Peirce, for that matter) wrestle with meaning.   Social construction corresponds to the meaning underlying the word, “religion”.  Social construction is what happens when one encounters a thing or event that does not make sense.  A social construction_2c is a perspective-level reference_2c constructed on a content-level reference_2a.

0142 In addition to How to Define, the following three-level interscope is developed in Comments on Religious Experience (1985) by Wayne Proudfoot.

I start with a content-level category-based nested form.  The normal context of what is happening_3a brings the actuality of a real encounter_2a into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘something’ happening_1a.

Such an encounter would be processed on the situation level within the normal context of sensible construction_3b.  But, what if sensible construction_3b fails?  Then the failure of sensible construction_3b brings the actuality that the experience cannot be situated_2b into relation with the potential of situating the content-level encounter_1b.

0143 When sensible construction fails, most people freak out, but not Kant or Peirce or Heidegger or Saussure or other brave souls who wrestle with meaning.  They ask themselves, “What makes sense?”, where “sense” means “a recovery from a lack of composure in the face of something that is not experienced as sensible”.

On the perspective level, the normal context of what makes sense_3c brings the actuality of a social construction_2c into relation with the potential of contextualizing the unsettling situation_1c.

0144 Thus, I arrive at a three-level interscope that touches base with the hylomorphic structures introduced earlier in this examination of appendix 2 of Kemple’s book.

The virtual nested form in the realm of actuality contracts into the following hylomorphe.

A key feature of this hylomorphic structure is that the contiguity contains a negation.

0145 So far, so good.

The three-level interscope depicted above describes what Schleiermacher realizes (around 1800 AD) and what Proudfoot tries to dismantle (186 years later) in his rebuttal, entitled Religious Experience.

But, I wonder.

Is Proudfoot arguing against the interscope or the contracted hylomorphic slogan?

Plus… is there a label for a transition from a three-level interscope to a corresponding hylomorphe?

Consolidation?  Reduction?  Reification?

0146 Does the same whatever this transition is called apply to the slogan attributed to Immanuel Kant (who also wrote around 1800 AD)?

Kant reflects upon the mechanical revolution and the expansion of science.  The revolution starts rolling with the mechanical philosophers of the 1600s.  The roll is undeniable with mechanization, starting in the 1700s.

Plus, how about those crazy political revolutions in the late 1700s?

Western civilization embraces the empirio-schematic judgment.  This judgment contains three elements: well-defined specialized terms, mathematical and mechanical models, and observations and measurements of phenomena.   So, everyone (that is, those enjoying the pretensions of science) focuses on phenomena.

0147 But, phenomena alone cannot account for the thing that is being studied!

Kant (more or less) points out that a noumenon (the thing itself) cannot be fully accounted for by its phenomena (that is, the thing’s observable and measurable facets).

0148 Here is a picture of Kant’s insight within the format of this three-level interscope.

0149 Now, over time, this insight, which consists of perspective-level, situation-level and content-level actualities, is taken for more and more for granted.  A slogan appears. The slogan expresses a hylomorphic structure, so it is seems like a thing.  But, it is not a thing.  What is it?  A contraction?  An idea?  Maybe I can call it an “idealism”.  

0150 The slogan goes like this, “A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.”

The slogan has the character of a hylomorphic thing that should belong to secondness.  But, the positivist intellect regards it as what is and imbues it with firstness.  What does the positivist intellect regard as what ought to be and imbue with the category of secondness?  What ought to be is the empirio-schematic judgment, where a disciplinary language (relation) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be) into relation with observations and measurements (what is).

0151 After a century, Kant’s insights are reified into a slogan.

0152 At this time, Peirce considers the nature of sign-relations.  The story is told in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  Peirce knows that Kant’s categories are considered necessary for science, but he cannot situate Kant’s categories using his understanding of sign-relations.

So, Peirce’s social construction follows the same pattern.

0155 Heidegger walks on stage around three decades later. At the time, only a few academics are familiar with Peirce’s (re)discovery of the causality inherent in signs and his proposal of three categories of existence.

0156 Heidegger starts as a student of philosophy.  During this time, he reads a book on speculative grammar by the medieval scholastic, Scotus.  But, the treatise is only attributed to Scotus. The real author is Thomas of Erfurt. 

Then, Heidegger becomes a student of Husserl.  Husserl’s phenomenology wrestles with the nature of science.   Husserl proposes phenomenology (which is named after phenomena) in order to return to the noumenon, the thing itself, because science was on the verge of fixating on phenomena to the exclusion of its noumenon.

0157 I suppose that Heidegger realizes that what Husserl is dealing with (the Positivist’s judgment) does not extend to what Scotus (er… Thomas of Erfurt) discusses with his speculative grammar.

Eventually, Heidegger produces a social construction that bears the imprint of the hylomorphic structure that Husserl wrestles with.