Dear All
I am really sorry for not having had the time to participate in this
discussion that is so central to my work. Allow me to point out that my use
of Peirce's philosophy is a way to solve the externalist-internalist
problem, which Peirce does with his triadic philosophy and ontology that
introduces the pure feeling in Firstness and see it as something internal to
matter as it manifests in Secondness and turning into dynamic stabilities in
Thirdness.(My Peirce interpretation seem here to differ from John's). My
paper in the first issue of the electronic journal of TripleC
(http://triplec.uti.at/home.php) try to explain this
discussion and why I do
not think that the objective information processing paradigm, cybernetics
and systems theory - not even in Luhmann's sophisticated version - can solve
this problem. This is why I have semiotized Luhmann (in the electronic
http://www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/Journal/dentro.html
Journal of
Sociocybernetics V.3 ,N. 2). Therefore I with Wolfgang Hofkirchner and
Christian Fuchs believe that we have to start our ideas of Consilience with
embodied, semiotic, communicative, conscious human systems in social praxis
and co-operation (cognition, communication and co-operation) in a historical
and evolutionary frame work with a theory of self-organization and
emergence.( We just finished the long version of our report from the group
work conference in Fuschl this year and will soon put it up at the FIS home
page to have your feedback, and we will probably touch on these results in
the Paris conference this summer. Standard and general system science with
information science in it does do the trick in itself. You have to add an
internalist point of view also (I use this concept here different from
Koichiro as I think of the world from within our mind and life world). This
is possible through Peirce's semiotics that is also phenomenological. We
have to start in the middle of the human social life world where knowledge
is created and later cultivated to science. All the critical social studies
of science shows us that it is very difficult to get behind that social
prerequisite for science and get to a truth of a world beyond; be it the
social reality, the real nature, the pure consciousness or the core of life
and body hood. As Bruno Latour point out, we produce quasi-objects of
knowledge and technology that are true and functioning always under special
network, cognitive and technological conditions. Thus to evaluate our
knowledge and the possibility of transdisciplinary common frames of
understanding and knowledge building we always have to reflect on it both
from a social, natural, living and first person conscious or
phenomenological point of view if we want to avoid the positivistic
reductionist conception of the unity of knowledge with physics as the model
science. A view that Wilson and researchers like Dawkins and Dennett have
only moved a little away from by a more refined version of evolution based
on selfish genes.
Full text papers can also be found on
http://www.flec.kvl.dk/personalprofile.asp?id=sbr&p=engelsk
-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es] P�
vegne af John Collier
Sendt: 2. december 2004 23:06
Til: Stanley N. Salthe; fis@listas.unizar.es
Emne: RE: [Fis] Consilience: Writing on the Clouds
At 05:07 PM 12/2/2004, Stanley N. Salthe wrote:
>Pedro referred to:
>
> > a new view uniting the God's view needed for the intracloud
phenomena
> >(analytical philosophy, theoretical >structures and developments)
with
the
> >terrestrial processes of ascent and descent,
>
> >the whole intellective limitations that surround our actions and
> >perceptions (not our idealized
> >concepts)
>
> >operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
>
> >Some of the essence of information belongs to the boundaries with
which
we
> >have to surround it.
>
> >the social problem of knowledge
>
>It seems to me he is calling for some bridge between externalist
discourses
>(e.g., traditional natural science, analytical philosophy) and internalist
>ones (e.g., Goethe's botany, existentialism, endophysics, etc.) . At
>present I see these as incommensrable viewpoints, which could complement
>each other. Of course, there is no reason not to be concerned about how
>this complementation might be accomplished.
Yeh, that is what brought me into philosophy (my first undergrad paper was
on the topic). I started studying information theory in 1971 because I
thought it was the key to the problem. I still think so. The biggest
obstacle I see at this point is that proponents of both sides seem to feel
that they are giving something up by any unification (e.g., the
externalists think that they have surrendered to the mystics, and the
internalists think that they have surrendered to objectivists, or something
like that). The bits I had a chance to see of this discussion were quite
interesting, and some of the intemperate and almost religious assumption of
subjective or objective perspectives made my blood boil. I hope people will
learn to curb their dogma on this forum. At least try to be as neutral as
you can so some agreement is possible. You'd think some of you were taking
lessons from George Bush. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on
incommensurability, and I argued that it was a pragmatic problem, not a
logical one. One solves it by finding a larger perspective. So, away with
narrow minded subjective constructivism and narrow minded objective
empiricism! They are both wrong, wrong, wrong.
John, who will not respond to any remarks on my tirade above.
----------
"The most obvious lesson from Sodom is that when you're attacked by an
angry mob, the holy thing to do is to offer up your virgin daughters." --
Columnist Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, Oct. 23.
Professor John Collier
collierj@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Cybernetics & Human Knowing http://www.imprint-academic.com/C&HK
Subscriptions sandra@imprint.co.uk
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Received on Fri Dec 3 00:35:45 2004
