From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Sat 09 Aug 2003 - 01:41:59 GMT
PHENOMENOLOGY, GENETIC EPISTEMOLOGY,
COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND SEMIOTICS: AN OVERVIEW
AND PROSPECTUS FOR FUTURE SYNTHESIS
Constructivism has had as its major focus of study the
development of the mind/world interrelation. The eminent
philosopher Henri Bergson (1903) distinguished two ways in
which things may be investigated. One may study them
perspectivally and externally, by means of symbols, or
nonperspectivally and internally, without symbolic mediation. The
first method results in relative knowledge, and the second in
absolute knowledge. he goes on to state that the only possible
object of study by the second method is the enduring self. I agree
with Bergson that there are these two ways, but disagree that only
the self may be studied via the second method. Perhaps the world
(including other people) can only be studied perspectivally, and
one's own mind can only be studied introspectively (although with
biofeedback tis, too, is in doubt). Bergson state that the results of
such an introspection are inexpressible symbolically, in any event.
However, I propose that the mind may also be indirectly
investigated, by means of an exploration of the structures of the
mind/world interrelation, and a deduction of what the discovered
parameters of this interrealtion's structures might entail
concerning the structure of the mind.The structures of the
mind/world interrelation are assumed to be dependent upon the
structures of the poles - mind and world - of the system. From this
we may infer that the structure of this interrelation may serve as a
semiologic, informing us as to the characters of the relata so
mediated. These structures may be investigated from both the
internal perspective, by means of the structures of perception, and
externally, by means of the structures of action, including
communication (although there is an interpaly at work here, since
every action involves a change in one's perceptual gestalt and
every perception involves an action to fix one's focus within or
alter one's focus between perceptual modalities). The first way is
the way of phenomenology, the way of Gurwitsch, and the second
is the way of genetic epistemology, the way of Piaget.
Neither way offers absolute knowledge of its object, in the sense
of complete, nor do they together; the first offers knowledge of an
apodictic, or self-evident, anture, the second offers data of a
statistical neture, from which may be deduced likely
consequences.
Nevertheless, taken together, they provide more evidence than
either can alone. For instance, phenomenology cannot offer
apodictic knowledge concerning the genesis and evolution of
mind's reflection on the structures of the mind/world interrelation,
for it is by means of this reflection that phenomenology proceeds.
It may begin only when one may reflect upon the structures of
perception, extract invariants, and represent them to some extent
in a common symbol system. In other words, the phenomenologist
must be at the Piagetian level of formal or abstract operations in
order to philosophize (notice that our proposed experiments offer
a THAT, but not a WHAT; they indicate the presence of
recognition, but can offer nothing as to its character as
experienced by the child). Genetic epistemology, on the other
hand, can offer us likelihoods concerning this genesis and
evolution, but nowhere can it offer the apodictic certainty which
phenomenology can in the cases of reflective descriptions of self,
soma, world and society. The contributions of these two
investigative methods demonstrate a kind of complementarity;
phenomenology is a synchronic and symbolic description of the
invariant structures preceptible to the reflective mind, and genetic
epistemology is a diachronic extrapolation, from observed action,
of the evolution of mind to reflective and symbolic capacity.
Phenomenology has discovered many structures whose
ontogeneses have yet to be explored. Genetic epistemology is well
suited for this exploration, especially when (as in the proposed
experiments) it is sharpened by semiotics.
Semiotics is not a method, but a doctrine. It is composed of a set
of principles concerning the nature of symbolic apprehension and
behavior and the structure of signification itself. For instance, one
principle is that the relations between signs within a sign system
and the relations of signs to their respective referents impose
mutual constraints. Although its adherents tend to resemble
carnivores, attempting to consume every other discipline as a
semiotic branch, I view semiotics more as the mistletoe which can
grow on any methodological tree, helping each discipline by
sharpening its awareness of its own practices, options, and
directional choices, much as the mistletoe logic helps
methodological disciplines sharpen procedural precision,
concision, evidentiary soundness, validity, and closure.
All these disciplines and doctrines can do, however, is to draw the
wide parameters of the possible, and suggest questions to ask of
the organ itself, the answers to which may narrow the parameters
asymptotically closer and closer to singularity. The bundles and
connections to which these questions must be addressed are the
purview of cognitive science. Surely many nonexistent designs
might have served as substrates for human function, and many
nonexistent functions might have utilized the cerebral design. But
there is only one actual spectrum of match - structure to function -
and that rainbow needle is hiding in a quickly shrinking haystack
of alternatives. I believe that the usage of the disciplines of
phenomenology and genetic epistemology and the doctrine of
semiotics can assist cognitive psychology in speeding its
winnowing along.
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