Steve,
it's more than tactical that I avoid inflation with system
terminology. One of my major potentials is, I think, to introduce
meaning into fields that are misunderstood if not giving meaning a
central place (biology, psychology, etc.). I develop a notion of
meaning that is neither opposed to matter-energy nor reserved to
human minds. No system theory can do this. In my view, meaning is not
a quality of things, signs, symbols, etc.; meaning rather is a
relational potential. Yet thinking in terms of systems is obviously
my habit. One of my major original parents was/is Kurt Lewin and the
Berlin Gestalt Theory.
I forgot to mention that for similar reasons I avoid to use
information (processing) mechanistics and terminology.
There are certainly some relationships between SemEco and
Marx-Engels' thinking, in particular what concerns sights on the role
of things for humans. But I think, on the whole, the differences
weigh heavier. It will be easier and more fruitful to discuss that
relationship later on. I understand your urge for making comparisons.
I hesitate to say, but my experience is, that comparing SemEco and
traditional thinking on this or that detail level did often hinder
rather than help understanding in early stages of getting involved.
The basics are so entirely different and you cannot mix. I will be
glad to discuss any comparison that may be revealing under fruitful
conditions.
The 19th century developments, especially German idealism and the
materialist reaction thereupon have in my understanding been leading
in the off. Kant has prepared that split. We cannot build on either.
While the 18th century had laid a forgotten foundation: evolutive and
dialogical, avoiding both historicism and necessity, astonishingly
non-dualistic, truly humanistic in a very pervasive sense of
non-separation facts and values, etc., etc. Indeed there were people
like Diderot, Ferguson, Herder and others who had clearly seen that
understanding the human condition, an anthropology based on
observation, is essential to all the rest of understanding and
knowledge. Kant said reason is absolute and given; Herder claimed it
depends on language and language is a human evolvement.
Comprehensive sciences of the human condition could thrive since in
the center of the scientific and educational system, if those people
had not been taken shut out, and all the modern this-or-that sciences
could be done related to humanity, had we followed their lead. Look
e.g. at the fringe position of psychology and the absurdity of its
boom.
And, by the way, I do not think of semiotic ecology as a theory. It
is essentially a set of conceptual tools. These have proven
astonishingly pervasive and in turn allow for the description of
various facts and for drawing inferences as well as for the
construction of theories in various domains and of varying scope and
stringency. Semeco descriptions and the various theories built upon
these have the great advantage of being intrinsically related,
exactly due to those concepts with which they are built and to the
fact that there is only one single assumption at the base of all:
ours is an evolutive world.
Best, Alfred
--Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland http://www.langpapers.net --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 01 2002 - 01:00:07 PST