Peirce and Biosemiotics

<center> <big>''PEIRCE AND BIOSEMIOTICS''</big> //A brief introduction to Peirce and the relevance of his work for Biosemiotics.// [[<img src=http://i.imgur.com/cyKjwnj.gif>|History]] [[References]] </center>

<center>A little bit of history first</center> There are a couple of other names that resonate with Peirce, one, an important figure of the past, and the other, one of his contemporaries. Of course, we're talking about [[Kant]] and [[Frege]]. They're both pivotal figures in our understanding of semiotics. Why are they important? [[And what does Peirce have to do with them?]]

[[<img src="http://i.imgur.com/PPAVAeV.png">|Categories]] <center>http://existentialcomics.com/comic/39</center>

<div style="float: right;"><img src='http://i.imgur.com/vc1pf9C.png'>Frege was an anti-psychologist about Logic, much like Peirce. In fact, there are some very important points in which both Frege and Peirce converge. Semantics and notation are perhaps the most relevant points that we can talk about. For now, we'll (very) briefly focus on [[Fregean semantics]].</div> <center>http://existentialcomics.com/comic/28</center>

Kant is essential to understand Peirce's thought. In fact, one of the central aspects of Peirce's philosophy of signs is a response to Kant's notion of //Categories//. Kant considers four different groups for his categories, //quantity//, //quality//, //relation// and //modality// (B104-B105), each containing three categories for a total of twelve different categories. These categories give us a list of possible relations from which we can draw regarding what we can say about the world. That is, all categories relate to our judgments in that they are the necessary stepping stones that we have for even thinking about things. They govern all possible judgments we can make about anything, including judgments such as ‘Peirce is a biosemiotician’ or ‘Biosemiotics is Peircean’. But [[what do they do]] for biosemiotics?

<center>''//Sinn// and //Bedeutung//''</center> //Sinn// is usually translated as 'sense'. It refers to the mode of presentation of the reference. //Bedeutung// is usually translated as 'reference'. It's what is represented by an expression. //David Bowie// and //Ziggy Stardust// both //refer// to //Duncan Jones//, but they have different modes of presentation! The upshot is that an object has multiple ways of being accounted for, resulting in different possible inferences from the way they are presented: “an appeal to the difference between the signs does not explain the difference in content” (Potter 2010: 13). But is [[this notion]] enough for Biosemiotics?

Treating linguistic meaning in the same sense as biological meaning can be a dangerous way of self-confirming a theory without the original theory doing the work required for the confirmation! [[History]]

Are Kantian categories enough to be foundational for Biosemiotics? And why did Peirce believe he had to go in a different way? We'll check that in a moment! [[History]]

We've seen some important notions related to Peirce's philosophy: [[Categories|Peirce's Categories]] [[Reference|Detective Peirce]] With that reviewed, we can see how Peirce and Biosemiotics intertwine: [[Biosemiotics with Peirce]]

Peirce develops a system of categories in response to Kant’s own thought, simplifying the twelve categories into three, //firstness//, //secondness// and //thirdness//, each covering “quality, reaction and representation” (Pietarinen 2015: 373). Peirce’s categorical thought has very specific derivation: Categories are considered ''modes of being'', and this will expand each of the three categories in a way that we can use the terminology in semiotics in a different way that we would if we only counted with Kantian categories. [[BACK!|And what does Peirce have to do with them?]]

[[<img src="http://i.imgur.com/0mi7U6a.png">|Peircean reference]] <center><a href="http://existentialcomics.com/comic/115">http://existentialcomics.com/comic/115</a></center>

Peirce's thought on signs evolved quite a bit, and it wasn't limited to linguistic signification. In fact, what stops in thought and language when dealing with sense and reference is extended in understanding the role of indexicals for a theory of signs (Short 2004). The indexical sign makes cognition not necessarily preceded //solely// by cognition: It allows the picking out of elements by virtue of the connection between the object and its index. The index is more than a conceptual connection, its own nature is ''causal or nonceptual''. Smoke, sound, fever, thunder, these are all comprised by the treatment of the index. Peircean signs extend the field of view beyond matters of language towards the nonhuman. [[BACK!|And what does Peirce have to do with them?]]

Current Biosemiotics works within a strong Peircean framework because sign theory does a lot of work in reframing how we understand biological organisms and their action in their environments. For instance, the 1984 manifesto ‘A Semiotic Perspective on the Sciences’ starts by assuming that the universe, as stated by Peirce, is ‘perfused with signs’ (Anderson et al. 2010 [1984]: 382) in that they suggest, nodding to Peirce, that the universe originated with the sign. This thirdness would have to presuppose secondness, and in turn firstness. The evolution from free energy-information, interaction, communication, meaning, and condensed meaning stored in knowledge systems can be all understood as further by-products in the ontogeny of the universe-system. (2010 [1984]: 401) Basically, what this does is give us a ground on which to stand when referring to sign action in things we would not refer to as having the property of cognition. [[Peircean concepts]]

Peirce developed relevant concepts such as: <ul> <li>[[Sign relation]]</li> <li>[[Interpretation]]</li> <li>[[Synechism and Tychism]]</li> <li>[[Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness]]</li> </ul> And [[Biosemiotics has used these in different ways]].

A sign in Peirce’s view, is a triadic relation between an //object//, a //representamen// and an //interpretant//. The sign relation is the essential building block for semiotics in that we give a consistency to our understanding of meaning. That is, meaning for biosemiotics does not require the fixation of a concept or belief by means of having a previous reference. Instead, a sign relation is entailed by perceiving something and reacting to that perception. A sign relation is, in Peirce's view, ''//irreducible//''. [[Back!|Peircean concepts]]

Let us consider Peirce’s basic classification of signs, icons, indices and symbols, all of which are built upon the basis of the sign relation. //Icon//: a relation of resemblance //Index//: a relation of causality //Symbol//: a relation of convention Yet, interpreting the specifics of, say, the index, can derive in some odd versions, such as pansemiosis and physiosemiosis. Biosemiotics deals with this problem with the axiom that life and semiosis are coextensive (via Sebeok). Peirce's classification of signs depends on his //categories//, because of their role as possibilities in perception. While the categories appear to be related to knowledge and not to being since they allow us to find and analyze signs, there’s an important part uniting both conceptions, and that is Peirce’s idea of continuity or synechism. He sees mind and matter in continuity to avoid strong dualisms, and thus the categories are both part of the mental and of the physical. Despite the fact that the categories are ontological in nature, they are derived from phenomenology, and this can be granted because Peirce attempts to naturalize the mental to a certain degree. [[Back!|Peircean concepts]]

''//Synechism//'' is the underlying proposition for the existence of the categories. For Peirce, synechism is the idea of ontological continuity. Mind //and// matter are continuous in this view, not separate substances. Synechism: <ul> <li>Allows the existence of categories from its ontology.</li> <li>Connects the perceiver to the world.</li> <li>''Naturalizes'' sign relations.</li> </ul> What about [[Tychism]]?

As we know, these are considered by Peirce to be modes of being, which we could understand as properties of things as related to their complexity (and perhaps even to what we can say about them). While these three categories have been also called //Quality//, //Reaction// and //Representation//, or //Possibility//, //Actuality// and //Reality// (Stjernfelt 2007: 13), we can examine them further and attempt to give them a more precise definition. Basically, the premise of a continuum in reality can be acknowledged, for Peirce, within a phenomenal analysis. As such, Peirce recognizes that there’s three categories to experience that can be elucidated and formalized. [[Firstness]] [[Secondness]] [[Thirdness]] The categories as presented by Peirce start as a phenomenological exploration with huge metaphysical implications, but also depending on certain other propositions in order to work (remember synechism). [[Back|Peircean concepts]]

''//Tychism//'' is the idea of “absolute chance” (CP 6.102). This, to Peirce, means that the universe must be evolutionary of necessity, with mental properties being a natural part of the growth of the universe. This also plays out in Peirce's opposition to substance dualism. [[Back!|Peircean concepts]]

Peirce recognizes it as the "//quality// of experience: in order for something to appear at all, it must do so due to a certain constellation of qualitative properties. Peirce often uses sensory qualities as examples, but it is important for the understanding of his thought that the examples may refer to phenomena very far from our standard conception of ‘sensory data’, e.g. forms or the ‘feeling’ of a whole melody or of a whole mathematical proof, not to be taken in a subjective sense but as a concept for the continuity of melody or proof as a whole, apart from the analytical steps and sequences in which it may be, subsequently, subdivided" (Stjernfelt 2007: 13). [[Secondness]] [[Back|Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness]]

[[Firstness]] Secondness (reaction or actuality) bridges Firstness by making qualities patent: Standing on the outside of a door that is slightly ajar, you put your hand upon the knob to open and enter it. You experience an unseen, silent resistance. You put your shoulder against the door and, gathering your forces, put forth a tremendous effort. Effort supposes resistance. Where there is no effort there is no resistance, where there is no resistance there is no effort either in this world or any of the worlds of possibility. (CP 1.320) In other words, Secondness is the expression that puts quality into matter (CP 1.527). [[Thirdness]] [[Back|Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness]]

[[Secondness]] Thirdness (representation, reality) subsumes the previous categories into a more complex one. For Peirce, the elements in a perceptual instance become patent, both in their quality and the imprint of said quality in something different from the quality itself. [[Back|Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness]]

The theories of semioticians like [[Hoffmeyer]], [[Brier]], or even the [[Tartu School]] have all used Peirce to different degrees. We'll only examine a few of the implications for each of them. But [[is Peirce right?]]

Hoffmeyer introduces the basic sign concept as described by Peirce (Hoffmeyer 2008: 20-21), trying to move it away from the conception of exclusive applicability to human interpreters. The relevance of Peirce for Hoffmeyer lies in his belief that a chemical description is not quite enough for talking about significative processes in the biological world, with biosemiotics offering a union of the psychophysical“for free” (Hoffmeyer 2008: 24). How so? Because of the [[categories|Peirce's Categories]]! The categories create in Hoffemeyer’s biosemiotics a basal constituent of reality, and causal processes that we can identify through science appear at the level of Thirdness. [[Back|Biosemiotics has used these in different ways]]

Brier's own //cybersemiotics// is heavily Peircean. In his words: Peircean biosemiotics is based on Peirce’s theory of mind as a basic part of reality, (in Firstness) existing in the material aspect of reality, (in Secondness) as the “inner aspect of matter” (hylozoism) manifesting itself as awareness and experience in animals, and finally as consciousness in humans (Brier 2008: 40). Brier’s Peirce has a different take on the nature of scientific inquiry, because the nature of sign action can be applied to cognition //lato sensu// and to scientific practices. [[Back|Biosemiotics has used these in different ways]]

Kull (2009) proposes a triadic layering of natural semiotic capabilities. Here, the talk of semiotic zones or threshold is coupled with a Peircean understanding of sign types, with the vegetative level being capable of recognition (icons), the animal level, of association (indexes) and the cultural level, of combination (symbols) (Kull 2009: 15). The expansion and recombination of Peircean influences with the early cybernetic turn in Tartu-Moscow semiotics has shown to be a fruitful interaction for the development of semiotic theory. [[Back|Biosemiotics has used these in different ways]]

Peirce was not infallible, and his musings should not be considered simply axiomatic to semiotics. Some of the current criticisms against Peircean biosemiotics come from within. Barbieri (2015) takes a very strong stance against it in the following points: <ul> <li>Peircean metaphysics entails //pansemiosis//</li> <li>Semiotic models can't be taken as primitives, they must be empyirically tested</li> <li>Peircean terminology only renames known phenomena in a self-serving fashion</li> <li>A scientific biosemiotics is possible only if we ditch //ad hoc// definitions and move to an experimental setting</li> <li>Peircean research has moved into an //industry// interested in its self-preservation</li> <li>Peircean biosemiotics uses arguments employed by //Intelligent Design//</li> </ul> To that rather long list we can also add theoretical vagueness of all the sign talk and the axiomatization of metaphysical hypotheses (paraphrasing Vehkavaara 2007). There's quite a lot to discuss about the need for a Peircean biosemiotics and its shortcomings! [[References]]

Anderson, Myrdene; Deely, John; Krampen, Martin; Ransdell, Joseph; Sebeok, Thomas; von Uexküll, Thure 2010 [1984]. A Semiotic Perspective on the Sciences: Steps toward a New Paradigm. In: Favareau, Donald (ed.), //Essential Readings in Biosemiotics. Anthology and Commentary//. Dordrecht: Springer. Barbieri, Marcello 2015. //Code Biology: A New Science of Life//. Dordrecht: Springer. Hoffmeyer, Jesper 2008. //Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs//. Scranton: University of Scranton Press. Kant, Immanuel 1993. //Critique of Pure Reason//. Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn. London: J. M. Dent. Kull, Kalevi 2009. Vegetative, Animal, and Cultural Semiosis: The Semiotic Threshold Zones. //Cognitive Semiotics 4//: 8-27 Pietarinen, Ahti-Veiko 2015. Signs Systematically Studied: Invitation to Peirce’s Theory. //Sign Systems Studies 43 (4)//: 372-398 Stjernfelt, Frederik 2007. //Diagrammatology: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology, and Semiotics.// Dordrecht: Springer. Vehkavaara, Tommi 2007. Limitations on Applying Peircean Semeiotic Biosemiotics as Applied Objective Ethics and Esthetics Rather than Semeiotic. In: Barbieri, Marcello (ed.), //Biosemiotics Research Trends//. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 17-56. [[Back|PEIRCE AND BIOSEMIOTICS]]