0097 How does anyone know when what is out there is real?

Wisdom will tell.  That is why the word, “philosophy” is Greek for the love of Sophia.  Sophia is the personification of wisdom.  

0098 Aristotle formulates his list of categories in order to specify ways in which a finite mind can verify independent existence.  This list contains features that a being of reason (ens rationis) would need to verify in its encounter with mind-independent being (ens reale).

0099 What does this imply?

Twenty-five centuries after Aristotle, a self-promoting psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, tells me.  Dreams are the fulfillment of unconscious wishes, desires and beliefs.

Consequently, Aristotle’s categories are dream-elements that allow the inquirer to… um… step out of his or her sleep-walking.

0100 The term, “relation”, appears on Aristotle’s list.

With this observation, Deely begins his discussion and spends the remainder of chapter eight, and all of nine, recounting how philosophers wrestle with this term, “relation”, for thousands of years.  Their contest concludes with the Baroque scholastic, John Poinsot.

0101 Here is the crux.

All the other terms in Aristotle’s list allows one to distinguish between substance (the way that matter substantiates form) and accidents (properties that do not exist in and of themselves, but in and of substantive beings).  A substantive being has the character of ens reale.  An accident is more like… well… something with the character of ens rationis.  It’s realness depends on someone noticing it.

0102 Deely attributes a long period of philosophical meandering to the distinction between substance and accident.  Flowers are substantive.  Bees are substantive.  What about the relation of flowers and bees?  Well, “relation” is on Aristotle’s list.  So, it must be substantive.  But, this relation is neither flower nor bee.  Perhaps, it is real if someone notices it.  Doesn’t that sound vaguely postmodern?  A text is real only in the reading.

0103 Here is another example.

Some common folk notice that, after throwing a soggy log onto a campfire, a salamander or two runs out.  Hmmm.  What is a schoolman to say to that?

It is the same problem as flowers and bees, with one more substance.  The fire is real.  The log is real.  The salamander is real.   Also, the relation is real.  But, this relation is real only because someone notices ‘something’ about the fire, the log and the salamander.

0104 The schoolman says the following.

The remote fundament is the person who sees the event.

The proximate fundament is the salamander and the fire.

The mind-independent being is the salamander, who runs right out of the fire… er… steaming log.

The mind-dependent being is the notion that salamanders are born from fire.

0105 The schoolmen have yet to figure out that their crucial distinctions actually describe a relation with three termini.

0106 Adding to this mix is the distinction between substance and accident.

Here, it helps to remember Aristotle’s foundational dyadic actuality.

0107 For the log and fire, the substance is the contiguity between matter and form.  That is straightforward.  For the salamander, its substance is “in esse” the fire, in so far as the fire substantiates the form of the salamander.

Consequently, the relation between the salamander and fire is “in esse“.  This relation belongs to ens reale, and conveys a sense of esse_ce (which is my way of Anglicizing the Latin term, “esse“).

Plus, the relation between the the salamander and the observer is “ad esse“, from the proximate fundament towards (in Latin, “ad”) the remote fundament.  This conveys a sense of ens rationis.

0108 What a mess!

Deely winds his way through the terminology of subjective (the subject is ens reale, mind independent being), objective(the object is ens rationis, an accident noticed by someone in regards to the subject) and intersubjective (the fact that someone notices ‘something’ about the subject is itself a mind-independent being).

0109 In the 1000s, schoolmen put ens reale front and center.  Why?  They want to distinguish ens reale from ens rationis.  The idea is to separate the subject from the object.

By the 1600s, the Baroque scholastics examine the intersubjective, the ens rationis (of the specifying sign) that inspires the ens reale (of the exemplar sign), while Descartes’ vision of a mechanical philosophy takes Northern Europe by storm.

0110 In section 8.3.3, still working towards the 1600s, Deely slows to a crawl.

The distinction between substance and accident veils the triadic sign-relation.

Things have or are substances.  The technical terms are esse, substantiated being (for me, esse_ce) and ens, being as being (regardless of substantiation).

Colors or adornments are accidents that depend on the subjectivity of a subject.  The technical term is in esse or depending on the esse_ce of another.  Esse_ce is equivalent to matter [substantiating].  Note that an adornment does not alter the essence, the [substantiated] form.

Sign-relations may depend on the subjectivity of a substance as one terminus.  But, um… it may also depend on the subjectivity of an accident.  The subjectivity of the sign-vehicle associates to ens reale.  The objectivity of the sign-objectis altogether confounding, because it is ens rationis.  It depends on someone noticing.  That someone serves as the ens reale that makes ens rationis possible.

0111 What is the substance of a sign relation?

The fact that the question confuses is no accident.

It is in esse, in so far as one terminus is indifferent to substance or accident, as long as there is a substance or accident.

It is ad esse, in so far as another terminus depends on someone noticing.  Plus, it does not care who that someone is.

0112 Let me return to the salamander business.

Let me play the role of a perplexed schoolman in (say) the early 1600s.  Europe is on fire, both metaphorically and literally.  Huge wars.  Weird weather.  Some rivers flood and other run dry.  Rumor has it that a dog is born with three heads. Gold and silver from the new continent drive Spanish aristocrats mad.  Like the protestants, the aristocrats think that money is a sign of God’s favor.  So, the time has come to go to war.

At least, Fernando Suarez’s books are best sellers.

0113 Then, there are reports of salamanders.  For centuries, salamanders stand for birth in fire in regards to observations at campfires.  Now, the mechanical philosophers from the north say that the claim is nonsense and superstition.

Ugh. Three items.  And, I only have two sets of applicable distinctions.

0114 What about salamanders?

Salamanders are things.  Things belong to ens reale.  Natural philosophy says, “Consider things in terms of two contiguous real elements, matter and form.”

0115 The form is the salamander. The matter must be fire.  The essence is substantiated form, that is, a real salamander dashing from a sizzling log.  The esse_ce is matter substantiating.  The presence of esse_ce in the thing produces a potential for ‘something inesse‘.  That ‘something’ associates to the proximate fundament, the observed sign.

Also, the fact that someone notices means that something in the actuality of matter has the potential to be noticed.  So, the presence of esse_ce in the thing produces a potential for ‘something adesse‘.  That ‘something’ associates to the remote fundament, the one who observes the sign.

0116 Here is a picture.

0117 The missing element_2b belongs to the remote fundament.

The missing element_2b is also ens rationis.

So, what do scholastics conclude, with the approbation of common folk?

Fire births salamanders_2b.  This is a kind of expression, in Latin, a species expressa.

0118 In the figure below, the sign-vehicle (SV), the sign-object (SO), and the sign-interpretant (SI) are labeled for the specifying sign (or, for scholastics, specifying extrinsic formal causality).

0119 At the start of chapter nine, Deely claims that triadic relations are the only modes of being that the finite mind can form by its properly cognitive activity.

This raises an awkward question, asking, “How do I know whether my finite mind agrees with any other?”

0120 Here, Deely makes a crucial point.  Objective is not enough.  My specifying sign-object is mine.  What about others?

After all, I am a sheep.  I worry about things like that.

0121 If everyone else experiences the same specifying sign-relation, and if we all share the same perspective, then I can assume that my objective sign-object is shared among subjects like myself (intersubjective). 

Now, the confusion between subjective and objective among moderns becomes a little clearer.  Moderns confound the specifying and exemplar signs.  Moderns relabel “intersubjective” as “subjective”, because the inquirer’s frame shifts from situating content (according to the specifying sign) to contextualizing situation (with the exemplar sign).

On top of that, they relabel the suprasubjective (or perspective) level as “objective”.

0122 So, does Descartes convert the exemplar sign into a specifying sign? 

Egads!

0123 Oh, I don’t want to step off that ledge.

So, let me back up and say that there must a perspective level (corresponding to Peirce’s thirdness) contextualizing a situation level (corresponding to Peirce’s secondness).

Here is a picture.

0123 According to Deely, there are two modes for a purely objective being, objective and intersubjective. 

The situation level is objective, with respect to the specifying sign, and intersubjective, with respect to the exemplar sign.

The specifying sign couples the content (SV) and situation (SO & SI) levels.

The exemplar sign couples the situation (SV) and perspective (SO and SI) levels.

0124 In 1500, everyone agrees that fire conjures salamanders.

By 1600, lots of people are asking, “Does the claim make sense?”

That question raises the potential of contextualizing the (to the modern academic, “subjective”, and to the postmodern scholastic, “intersubjective”) situation-level actuality, the species expressa that fire conjures salamanders_2b.

0125 At this point, the Baroque scholastics are going for broke.

0126 Plus, Rene Descartes is telling everyone who will listen, “Salamanders are not born in fire.”

0127 According to the scholastics, humans are rational animals.  The animal foundation supports the specifying sign.  The rational qualifier associates to the exemplar sign.  A hand-off occurs in the situation-level actuality_2b of the interscope for the specifying and exemplar signs.

Now, imagine the fashioning of a philosophical instrument according to the following diagram.

Did I write that correctly?

0128 Another way to say that is, “The moderns call the intersubjective level, ‘subjective’.  Plus, the moderns call the suprasubjective level, ‘objective’.”

Consequently, Descartes seems to be saying, “The ‘subjective’ has the character of ens rationis (mind-dependent being) and the ‘objective’ has the character of an ens reale (mind-independent being) that we (mechanical philosophers) can agree on.”

0129 A simple translation of Descartes’ formulation into a category-based nested form yields the following modern epistemology.

0130 The mind₃ is a Cartesian intellect₃.

The object of experience₂ concerns the species expressa, where salamanders are conjured by fire₂.  This species expressais an opinion, a “subjective” view that accounts for what oneself and others have observed.  

The potential₁ offers a skeptical counterpoint₁.  The salamander₁ cannot be objectified by one’s casual observation that it runs out of a fire₁.  Systematic observations are required in order to reach an “objective” (and for scholastics, “suprasubjective”) conclusion.

0131 Note how Cartesian skepticism sets the stage for the civilizational ascent of so-called “expertise”. 

The corresponding exemplar sign says, “The idea that fire births salamanders_2b (SV) stands for a ‘subjective’ (for moderns, ‘intersubjective’ for scholastics) false opinion_2c (SO) in regards to what mechanical philosophers say_3c about the potential of systematic observations_1c (SI).

0132 In the column for normal context, the question of what the mechanical philosopher says_3c puts the fact that everyone notices_3b into perspective.

In the column for potential, systematic observations_1c virtually contextualizes casual or common place observations_1b.

In the column for actuality, the common expression that fire conjures salamanders_2b is virtually contextualized by the conclusion that this “subjective” opinion is not “objective”_2c.

0133 Then, the subsequent interventional sign brings the focus of attention back, not to the external world, but the world of science.

Here is a picture.

0134 The falseness of common and scholastic inquiry_2c (SV) stands for the necessity of the empirio-schematic judgment_2a(SO) in regards to the positivist intellect_3a arising from the potential of phenomena_1a (SI).

Phenomena are systematically observable and measurable facets of a noumenon.

0135 Perhaps, the fact that the sign-object and sign-interpretant of the interventional sign of the mechanical philosophersmanifests as the elements of the Positivist’s judgment, is a coincidence.

Perhaps, not.

0136 Does the falseness of common and scholastic opinions_2c (SV) stand for what ought to be_2a (SO), according to the Positivist’s judgment, in regards to relation_3a and what is_1a for the Positivist’s judgment (SV)? 

0137 Once again, here is the category-based nested form version of the Positivist’s judgement, which is first described in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.

0138 The sign-interpretant of the Cartesian interventional sign serves as an invitation for scientists to try to cast their systematic observations and measurements of phenomena as mathematical or mechanical models according to their disciplinary language.

0139 Of course, this leaves the common folk and the scholastics hanging.

What about their experiences and opinions?

Are they all to be replaced by empirio-schematic actualities?

Are we doomed to the fallacy that the external world, full of things themselves, reduces to its systematically observable and measurable facets (even though what is of the Positivist’s judgment says that a noumenon cannot be reduced to its phenomena)?

Can everything be modeled by science?

Deely confronts this issue in chapter ten.

0140 Where do moderns go wrong? 

Here are my answers.

0141 Well, first of all, even though the Latin scholastics eventually discover the nature of signs, their conclusions are tossed into the waste-bin of modern philosophical history.  Fortunately for John Deely, no one bothered to throw out the trash.  John Poinsot’s writings survive.

0142 Second of all, common folk rely on their intuition.  I call this intuition, “implicit abstraction”.  Human capacities for implicit abstraction are honed by adaptations to the niche of the potential of triadic relations.  This claim is the topic of one of Razie Mah’s masterworks, The Human Niche, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0143 Third, according to the scholastics, the sign-relation couples the world of subjects, corresponding to the ‘world out there’, with the world of objects, corresponding to the ‘world in here’.  Furthermore, the sign-relation entangles material and instrumental causation.  But, the sign-relation does not reduce to material and instrumental causalities that can be mathematically and mechanically modeled.

0144 Fourth, sign-objects do not reduce to things, nor to the things that give rise to them, nor to the thoughts that tell us what they are… um… supposed to be.  On top of that, the sign-object for one sign can become a sign-vehicle for a subsequent sign, just as the sign-interpretant can.  Plus, if that isn’t enough… did you see that salamander jump out of that fire?

Surely, failure to reduce opens one’s cognitive spaces to… oh look!  There’s another one!

What interest does science have in such nonsense?

0145 Fifth, material and instrumental causalities are dyadic in nature and therefore can be modeled based on systematic observations and measurements under experimentally controlled conditions.  Material causalities start to get fuzzy under uncontrolled conditions.  Formal and final causalities cannot be modeled because measurements, even when they are made by experiments and surveys, tend to be specific to the ruses that permit such experiments and surveys to be conducted.  Psychological experiments do not inform the subject about the formal topic of investigation.  Surveys cannot directly ask about intentionality.

What does the fifth imply?

Formal and final causalities characterize the noumenon.

0146 Sixth, according to modern scientists, the noumenon must be avoided at all costs.

0147 According to Aristotle, humans are political animals.

According to Porphyry, humans are rational animals.

According to Descartes, humans are thinking things (in Latin, res cogitans).

According to John Deely, humans are semiotic animals.

0148 Even though the previous blog mangled chapter ten of Deely’s book, a few crucial points may be salvaged from the wreckage.

0149 First, the specifying sign offers a paradigm for the sign-relation.  In this sign, the proximate and remote fundaments are clearly apparent (as SV-SO and SI, respectively).  So are ens reale (characterizing SV) and ens rationis (characterizing SO).

Second, the specifying sign operates even when the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a are not apparent.  The specifying sign operates on a content-level actuality_2a irrespective of whether one is prepared for the occasion.

Here is a picture.

0150 Second, specifying signs offer a way to appreciate an unnoticed activation of exemplar then interventional signs.  The specifying sign seems to produce a flowback, where the situation-level actuality (the sign-object of the specifying sign) seems to serve as a sign-vehicle for a sign that introduces any missing content-level understanding.

In the following figure, the example of the salamander’s birth_2b offers a way to appreciate a flow, from the specifying sign, back into the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a corresponding to a salamander scampering out of steaming wet log, just thrown onto a campfire_2a.

Aristotle’s foundational hylomorphe is matter [substantiates] form.  For the situation-level phantasm_2b, fire serves as matter and salamander serves as form.

Note how Aristotle’s view concerning natural philosophy, operating on the perspective-level, manifests as the normal context_3a and potential_1a that makes the salamander’s appearance_2a less surprising.

Should I call this “flowback”?  Or should I call it an activation of exemplar and interventional sign-relations?  Both paths complete the content-level nested form.  Signs support the further production of signs, giving me the impression of an unhinged and fantastic uncontrolled experiment.

0151 Third, Descartes rejects the realness of the objective world and alchemically distills humans into res cogitans.

So much for that wild and unscientific uncontrolled experiment.

0152 In terms of Deely’s formulation of the objective world, Descartes’ claim turns into the following.

0153 Is that crazier than the idea that we are living in a fantastic and uncontrolled objective world?

0154 And what are the consequences?

Scientists do not believe that the Positivist’s judgment belongs to Deely’s objective world.

Therefore, science cannot be situated.

0155 What does it mean to say that science cannot be situated.

Here is a picture of the practice of natural science.

0156 The normal context of a positivist intellect_3a brings the actuality of the empirio-schematic judgment_2a into relation with the potential of … phenomena_1a.

Does this suggest that the noumenon can be safely ignored?

0157 The positivist intellect_3a has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.  Only instrumental and material causation may be discussed.

0158 The empirio-schematic judgment_2a has three elements: relation, what ought to be and what is.  Each of these is assigned to one of Peirce’s three categories.

A specific 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).

0159 The potential of … phenomena_1a is really the potential of the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena_1a.   From the point of view of the positivist intellect, observations and measurements concern phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of their noumenon, the thing itself.  So, why worry about the noumenon?

The noumenon is there because philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, says that it must be there.  Philosophy cannot ignore the thing itself_1a anymore than the positivist intellect_1a cannot ignore its observable and measurable facets_1a.

0160 What does that mean in terms of the two-level interscope?

Phenomena_1a are potentials that are directly situated by observations and measurements_2a in the normal context of the positivist intellect_3a.

Their noumenon_1a is virtually situated by a potential₁ belonging a category-based nested form on the situation_b level.

Yes, the situation-level potential_1b virtually situates the noumenon_1a, just as the content-level actuality_2a directly situates its phenomena_1a.

0161 The practices of the natural sciences compose the content-level.  If scientists have their way, their work focuses on instrumental and material causalities and ignores the objective world.  Natural scientists are only interested in empirio-schematic inquiry into their subject matter.  They are not interested in what it signifies.

Yet, some clever philosophers, responding to the birth and growth of science in the West, place a caveat that practicing natural scientists pragmatically ignore.  But, no one else can ignore the noumenon_1a, because it is a gateway to the objective world, the intersubjective world, and the commerce of intellectuals who try to figure out what the thing itself means and what it can be used for.

0162 And, if Deely is correct, our objective world is real, even though it is filled with illusions, delusions, truths and revelations.

Why?

Triadic relations are real.

0163 As for the remainder of the situation-level nested form, consider the series of commentaries and articles titled, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0164 In chapter twelve, Deely suggests that the new definition of the human being (as a semiotic animal) is beyond patriarchy and feminism.  

Well, it is beyond social constructivism, critical theory and social justice, as well.

See Looking at Gad Saad’s Book (2020) “Parasitic Minds” in Razie Mah’s blog for April 2023.

So, this examination of Deely’s book suggests that Deely’s formulation accounts for the notions of patriarchy and feminism.

Why?

Because “patriarchy” and “feminism” participate in the objective world of an ideological constellation, called Big Government (il)Liberalism.

0165 A student recently complained to me, “Every feminist I meet sees only what she wants to see.”

But, the opposite is the case.

As far as he is concerned, a feminist only sees what she does not want to see.

0166 Consider the perspective level of feminist indoctrination.  The category-based nested form says (more or less), “The normal context of social justice_3c brings the disciplinary language of feminism_2c, which virtually contextualizes the analysis of critical theory_2b and the results of social constructivism_2a, into relation with the potential of ‘equity’_1c“.  

0167 The disciplinary language of feminism_2c is the sign-object of an exemplar sign.

It_2c is also the sign-vehicle for an interventional sign.

0168 Here is a picture of that interventional sign.

This interventional sign shows that the student’s intuition is on target, but, as noted, the target is the opposite of what the student’s intuition says.

The sign-object of the interventional sign is empty_2a, because the feminist is waiting, like a spider with its web, for someone to volunteer to serve as the content-level actuality_2a that her normal context_3a and potential_1a are waiting for.

Her interventional sign-vehicle cannot be sensed by the approaching male college student. That does not mean it_2c is not there.  It is just not part of the objective world of the naive male college student.

0169 Well, the male also has a perspective-level nested form, which is not so explicitly honed, but is more implicitly abstracted.  The normal context of college_3c brings the actuality of getting a degree and of networking_2c into relation with the potential of ‘getting along and getting ahead’_1c.

Consequently, his interventional sign is more like an invitation for interaction, like a raven landing nearby in hopes that someone will toss it a treat.

0170 As soon as the male student says hello, the feminist identifies him as a bigot.

She then gives him a clue as about her formal approach and final intentions.

What does he hear?

0171 Talk about objective worlds in collision!

The indoctrinated person who is trained in explicit abstractions will always win in a spontaneous encounter with a person guided by implicit abstractions.

But, the male student reflects about his encounter, leading him to come up with his explicit abstraction, that the feminist sees what she wants to see.

The irony is that she does not want to meet a bigot, she wants to meet someone who satisfies her academically trained expectations.