Here are the first two paragraphs of the Thibault article, thanks to Nate.
mike
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The Dialogical Integration of
the Brain in Social Semiosis:
Edelman and the Case for Downward Causation
Paul J. Thibault
Dipartimento di Scienze del Linguaggio
Università degli Studi di Venezia, Italy
1. INTRODUCTION
I explore some questions concerning the relationship between language and Edelman’s biologically
based theory of neuronal group selection. Edelman’s theory provides us with a powerful alternative
account of language and the brain in terms of the dynamics of complex self-organizing
systems. Nevertheless, Edelman’s account remains focused on the neural processes that subtend
linguistic activity in the individual. Beyond an assertion of the importance of socially mediated
transactions for the emergence of language in the individual, Edelman does not indicate how individual
linguistic activity and the biological processes that subtend this emergence are entrained
and shaped by higher-scalar ecosocial relations and processes along an individuating trajectory in
time. Above all, the focus on the individual organism fails to show how the here-now dyads in
which particular individuals interact with not-necessarily-human others are always constrained by
higher order social meaning-making practices, discourse genres, and conventions.
My basic proposal is that it is necessary to specify, following Salthe (1993) and Lemke (2000),
three levels of organization in complex systems along with the dynamic relations among these. In
the absence of a properly worked out account of the higher-scalar ecosocial constraints acting
“from above,” Edelman’s account remains a two level one consisting of (a) the linguistic activity
of the individual organism, and (b) the neural and morphological architecture and dynamics that
support the former. This suggests that Edelman’s account privileges the causal relations that arise
from the lower level of the organism. Consequently, it plays down the fundamental role of downward
causation emanating from the higher scalar level of the ecosocial system (Lemke, 2000). In a
three level system of the kind discussed below, each new emergent level of organization in the dynamics
of the system functions to reorganize variety on the level below as meaning for the level
above (Lemke, 2000). With reference to the work of Bråten, Halliday, Kaye, Trevarthen, and
Vygotsky on early infant semiosis, I consider the kinds of possible relations between levels in this
connection. To do so, I propose a re-reading of Deacon’s (1997/1998) interpretation of Peirce’s
distinction between icon, index, and symbol. I argue that this can be interpreted as dually entailing
an implication hierarchy of the kind proposed by Salthe (1993) and a presupposition hierarchy of
the kind developed by Silverstein (1976).
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