Peirce on semiotics and rhetoric

In our ongoing IPS OOO discussion Balder noted my recent ideas sounded similar to Peirce's semiotics and provided this essay. I also referenced Pierce's entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Some of my posts follows:

This section of the SEP entry is interesting:

"Peirce held that science suggests that the universe has evolved from a condition of maximum freedom and spontaneity into its present condition, in which it has taken on a number of habits, sometimes more entrenched habits and sometimes less entrenched ones. With pure freedom and spontaneity Peirce tended to associate mind, and with firmly entrenched habits he tended to associate matter (or, more generally, the physical). Matter he tended to regard as 'congealed' mind, and mind he tended to regard as 'effete' matter. Thus he tended to see the universe as the end-product-so-far of a process in which mind has acquired habits and has 'congealed' (this is the very word Peirce used) into matter.

Sad day for democracy in Wisconsin

Scott Walker survived the WI recall election and remains Governor. Yes, it was a democratic process that kept him, in that the majority of people voted for him. But there can be no doubt that majority was influenced by the millions of dollars that flooded the campaign ads they saw. Walker outspent his opponent 7.5 to 1, with 66% of his contributions coming from out of State, as opposed to 25% for Barrett. This was a record-setting campaign in terms of money spent, and a lot of that money came from the wealthy 1%, who realized their oligarchy was at stake.

Papers please

Continuing from the last post. Granted I disagree with MT when it comes to her interpretation of this material, where she says things like this: “The still controversial Copenhagen interpretation asserts that at the quantum level, the very act of observation is necessary to materialize that which is observed.” As if there is this consciousness per se, a metaphysical concept, at core creating the material. Whereas Bryant's object ontology defines it much more materially, where the material itself is both observer and observed. Again we see our shentong/rangtong debate. Still, I think MT, like Edwards, is getting at the interface, the media holons, in a way that perhaps others are not.

Yes boundary

The title is a play on Wilber's book No Boundary. Balder and Dial are having an interesting discussion on this page of the OOO thread and following so check it out. Though they are discussing different definitions of rhetoric than to what I'm referring with mhetaoric. My last post explains a bit more.

To reiterate a point made above, for humans mhetaoric is not only the embodied metaphor that is used to translate/transform our basic categories into concepts, it is the basic categories themselves. It is how an object defines its boundary with the world and also how this permeable boundary exchanges with the world. It is at this direct level of body/mind-environment interaction where the boundary-interaction is itself mhetaoric. These basic categories are not just human but an aspect of any object. The boundary is the menu (distinction) and the meal (communion).

I'm reminded of our discussion of Marks-Tarlow in this thread. Some of her opening comments:

The truth behind Republican voter suppression

Republicans are the only one moving legislation across the country to suppress the vote though voter ID laws and massive voter purges. Why is it we don't see this coming from any Democrats? And why is it that these tactics are focused on those that vote Democratic? The ostensible and specious rationale behind the legislation is that we must prevent people from voting who are not eligible, as if this is a significant problem affecting elections. But time and again evidence is to the contrary, that cases of actual voter fraud are so miniscule as to be thousandths of 1% in elections. So what is the real reason behind this agenda?

We already have a (failed) Republican economy

Paul Krugman once again deals a heavy and effective body blow to conservative nonsense about the US economy. While they whine and lie about slashing spending and cutting taxes what they fail to note is they've been getting exactly this under an Obama administration through their own refusal to participate in his policies. Krugman shows that total government spending "has recently been falling at a rate not seen since the demobilization that followed the Korean War" due mostly to Republican legislative obstructionism. As for tax cuts, Republican refusing to cut them one iota has resulted in "federal taxes as a share of G.D.P. are near historic lows — much lower, in particular, than at any point during Ronald Reagan’s presidency." We already see current Republican policies in place and the result on our flagging economic recovery.

+/- of social media

I found Bryant's recent blog post interesting on many levels. One is how SR/OOO is proliferating at such a rapid pace due to social media like blogs, discussions and open access publishing. It bypasses the traditional publishing route which maintains author as master narrator, as well as privileged access to information through generally inaccessible academic or professional journals for only those who can afford it. That is, it challenges many of the hierarchical privileges that grow knowledge in more staid environments that exclude the margins, as well as grow it much more slowly. Granted he also discusses the disadvantages of social media, and there are many.

What's the Word?

Continuing my exploration from the last few posts, recall this post from the TOE v. TOA thread on Edwards. A few excerpts:

Mhetaoric

Continuing from the last post, further dialogue with Balder:

Balder: I had asked what you mean by "more broadly construed."  Can you say more about that?  I don't think the main thrust of my argument in my previous post hinged on the assertion of a pristine acategorical state, but on forms of practice and experience which are not primarily spectative, rational-analytic and/or linguistic.

I'm thinking I may be misunderstanding you, or vice versa, because I don't have an objection to the idea that rhetoric can be poetic, or have similar "effects" as poetry.  My point is that language or rhetoric alone cannot enact all modes of understanding available to human beings, even if language and rhetoric may 'infect' or inform the concomitant understanding that arises when we follow these various other (non-linguistic) injunctions.  Enactive cognition, as embodied, requires the involvement of the body in various exploratory modes, and this body-input cannot be reduced to linguistic input, nor can linguistic input entirely stand in for these other modes of intelligence and engagement.  (I don't imagine you would object to this, but I am emphasizing it because of how you appear to be reading my earlier expressions of reservation or qualification about the 'scope' of the power of rhetoric or rational-analytic cognition).

Radical dissolution of rational-analytic spectator awareness?

Continuing the IPS discussion on rhetoric:

theurj: In our discussion above you [Balder] said my use of rhetoric might border on "the absolutization of one's own preferred mode....since it, being porous, has 'access' to the enactions of all other injunctive modes." But is this not exactly the case for something like an integral, enactive meta-paradigm? So it's ok for the latter but not a rhetoric more broadly construed? Or someone like Bryant (or Varela, Lakoff, Derrida etc.), who incorporates and cross-coordinates various paradigms? (Aka a/crosscorporeal trans(en)actions.)