Let us suppose that I have a piece of paper, written on it is the phrase 'The experience of the colour red', and I have asked you if this piece of paper is having the experience of the colour red
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There are, of course, varying perspectives among semioticians concerning the relation of a sign-vehicle to its object, and of the object to the reality objectified therein. From the perspective of a realist semiotic, the written account represents or signifies the reality (in this case the experience of red) itself, and upon reading the account one is brought into relation with that reality. To speak more generally, the sign enables a coincidence of an object (signified) and some reality or other (whether mind-independent or mind-dependent, insofar as sign-relations, generically understood, are indifferent to the ontological status of what they signify). In the present case, we have an account of the experience of red, which experience is dependent on the mind of the experiencer but not on the minds of external observers. The account itself is never identified with the experience, but there is no reason, in principle, to exclude the possibility of the signification of a thing coinciding with the thing itself in its proper being
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In what sense is metaphysics limited to the genus of mind-independent being? You don't agree with the Aristotelian identification of metaphysics with ontology, c.f. Metaphysics vi.1?
If we distinguish between mind-independent and mind-dependent being not prior to but from within metaphysics that, then semiotics would be the study of the nature and action of that being capable of transcending those two orders, namely the sign. For sign-relations are, qua relations, not limited to mind-independent categorial instantiation. Would you argue that semiotics is, then, a peculiar subfield of metaphysics?
Incidentally, what are your thoughts on the validity of the trivium and quadrivium?
I'm not sure that it's important to be thinking about semiotics in the first place. The study of things whose treatises can be held in my left hand transcends genii of being too, but I'm not sure this is a particularly noteworthy fact.
Hmmm... I'm not sure I have any interesting thoughts about them.
Importance is teloi-relative. It may not be important for you to be thinking about semiotics, but it behooves those who are interested in the subject to understand it. However, I can think of a few general reasons to take an interest in semiotics. Firstly, signs are a necessary condition for life, knowledge and communication. If one is interested in the metaphysical conditions for any of these or related phenomena, one might therefore take an interest in the field
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Yes, but teloi are chief-good-relative, and it behooves those who are interested in being good to order their activities toward it as their ideal.
As for signs being a necessary condition for our study of life, knowledge, and communication, so are letters, but we would be mistaken to make the study of letters the basis of our biology, epistemology, and dialectics. The question is not whether we can find signs in such fields, but rather what place signification has in the orders of determination and discovery in such fields.
Secondly, philosophy itself is inherently inter- and transdisciplinary or is failing to pursue it's proper telos when it is not. You may argue that this is true but that philosophy should itself be semiotics, which would be a good argument but not one I see given here nor that I'd admit at face.
Thirdly, ditto: it is the responsibility of philosophy per se to provide historians of philosophy with, etc. There is no proper distinction between philosophy and history of philosophy here.
As for signs being a necessary condition for our study of life, knowledge, and communication, so are letters, but we would be mistaken to make the study of letters the basis of our biology, epistemology, and dialectics. The question is not whether we can find signs in such fields, but rather what place signification has in the orders of determination and discovery in such fields.
I said signs are a necessary condition for life, knowledge and communication, not for the study of these phenomena (though obviously they are necessary for that as well). Your second point stands, however, but that's part of what semiotics does in fact aim to answer. For instance, the biosemiotician does not merely ask what kinds of signs are found amongst biological organisms, but also what role they play and how this is significant (see, e.g., Jesper Hoffmeyer's landmark volume, Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs).
Secondly, philosophy itself is inherently inter- and transdisciplinary or is failing to pursue it's
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It's not clear that signs are necessary conditions for life, etc., and if they are such a position can only be established by metaphysics, which makes semiotics, even if it maximally fulfills its most audacious pretensions for universality, remains a science posterior to metaphysics. In the same way, the naturalist errs in regarding metaphysics as something naturalism overcomes, since naturalist theses are metaphysical theses to be established by doing metaphysics, and so even in the most robust scientific naturalism, natural science remains posterior to metaphysics
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It's not clear that signs are necessary conditions for life, etc., and if they are such a position can only be established by metaphysics, which makes semiotics, even if it maximally fulfills its most audacious pretensions for universality, remains a science posterior to metaphysics. In the same way, the naturalist errs in regarding metaphysics as something naturalism overcomes, since naturalist theses are metaphysical theses to be established by doing metaphysics, and so even in the most robust scientific naturalism, natural science remains posterior to metaphysics.
The necessity of signs for life can be made clear to those for whom it isn't already. All perceptual and intellectual concepts are formal signs, and even in sensation (analytically but not actually separable from perception) there are sign-relations: proper sensibles making known common sensibles. Moreover, that semiotics may be posterior to and part of metaphysics doesn't seem to invalidate it as having a legitimate and important formal object.
No, but the posteriority of semiotics to metaphysics reduces it to a special science and refuses it the place of general science which you are disposed to grant it. Whether there can be a special science of the sign seems to be an entirely uncontentious question. Whether semiotics is more than a special science, e.g. that it is ontology (i.e. that science which transcends genera of being), first philosophy (i.e. that science which is trans- and interdisciplinary), or the history of Spirit (i.e. that science which sublates historical moments of philosophical consciousness)--this is contentious.
As for alternative accounts of the history of Spirit, we have of course Hegelian accounts, Marxist accounts, Nietzschean-Heideggerian accounts, etc.
That semiotics is formally more specific than metaphysics doesn't prevent it from being similarly inter- and transdisciplinary and in such a way that the doctrine of signs is the perfection of the metaphysics of communication and dialogue (and thus indispensable to if not coextensive with the metaphysics of life and knowledge). Nor does its formal specificity keep it from transcending genera of being, inasmuch as a sign's vehicle and its object can be either mind-independent or mind-dependent (or both in different respects).
I don't see why these accounts must all be seen as alternatives with respect to a semiotic account. A semiotic history would stress that history is a species of semiosis both in its unfolding and its organization by historians. As logic, semiotics could investigate the sign-relations used in the other accounts and judge their semiotic adequacy.
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Incidentally, what are your thoughts on the validity of the trivium and quadrivium?
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Hmmm... I'm not sure I have any interesting thoughts about them.
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As for signs being a necessary condition for our study of life, knowledge, and communication, so are letters, but we would be mistaken to make the study of letters the basis of our biology, epistemology, and dialectics. The question is not whether we can find signs in such fields, but rather what place signification has in the orders of determination and discovery in such fields.
Secondly, philosophy itself is inherently inter- and transdisciplinary or is failing to pursue it's proper telos when it is not. You may argue that this is true but that philosophy should itself be semiotics, which would be a good argument but not one I see given here nor that I'd admit at face.
Thirdly, ditto: it is the responsibility of philosophy per se to provide historians of philosophy with, etc. There is no proper distinction between philosophy and history of philosophy here.
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I said signs are a necessary condition for life, knowledge and communication, not for the study of these phenomena (though obviously they are necessary for that as well). Your second point stands, however, but that's part of what semiotics does in fact aim to answer. For instance, the biosemiotician does not merely ask what kinds of signs are found amongst biological organisms, but also what role they play and how this is significant (see, e.g., Jesper Hoffmeyer's landmark volume, Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs).
Secondly, philosophy itself is inherently inter- and transdisciplinary or is failing to pursue it's ( ... )
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The necessity of signs for life can be made clear to those for whom it isn't already. All perceptual and intellectual concepts are formal signs, and even in sensation (analytically but not actually separable from perception) there are sign-relations: proper sensibles making known common sensibles. Moreover, that semiotics may be posterior to and part of metaphysics doesn't seem to invalidate it as having a legitimate and important formal object.
I think philosophy ( ... )
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As for alternative accounts of the history of Spirit, we have of course Hegelian accounts, Marxist accounts, Nietzschean-Heideggerian accounts, etc.
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I don't see why these accounts must all be seen as alternatives with respect to a semiotic account. A semiotic history would stress that history is a species of semiosis both in its unfolding and its organization by historians. As logic, semiotics could investigate the sign-relations used in the other accounts and judge their semiotic adequacy.
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