Andy,
I think whether or not signs have a material substrate is irrelevant to Peirce, as to Pragmatists in general. Why argue about when you can never really know one way or the other anyway. The only thing we actually engage with in human action are the signs. Sort of a Willie Sutton type thing - "Why do you rob banks - because that's where the money is" "Why do you concentrate on signs and not argue about where they come from - because that's where human action is."
This use to drive realists like Russell nuts (and actually still does if you raise the point to any realists or positivists).
Michael
________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
Sent: Fri 9/25/2009 11:49 AM
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [POSSIBLE SPAM] Re: [xmca] Consciousness: Ilyenkov
You are pointing to the form/matter distinction, is that
right, Tony? I suspect that there may be a trap in this. Not
sure. But the form/matter distinction is a different one
from the consciousness/matter distinction.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slessenc.htm#SL129
The idea is that we can describe something as a distinct
form of matter because although made of the same stuff, it
is put together differently. OR, we can say the two things
are made of different stuff.
EG the different types of Carbon are all made of carbon
atoms, likewise ice and water; but oxygen cannot be turned
into carbon.
I think this is a slightly different question. Cs rests on
certain forms and not a distinct matter, but it is not
itself a form of matter.
CS Peirce has that all signs have to have a material
substrate, doesn't he, whatever the form.
Andy
Tony Whitson wrote:
On Fri, 25 Sep 2009, Martin Packer wrote:
<We agree with Spinoza, who considered thinking to be a capability of
certain kinds of material bodies. Bodies with this capacity can adjust
their activities with respect to other material bodies. This is to say
that one of the attributes of substance (matter) is thinking.>
I think it would help a lot to recognize the formal determinations of
things (substances?) as well as their material determinations.
What is reproduced in the mirror is not the matter, but the form.
Thought is the activity of sign-relations in*formed by physical and
semiosic relations within and among the objects of thinking.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
Ilyenkov $20 ea
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca