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Quantification and Realism: Locating Semiosis in the Description of Biological Systems

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Abstract

What do we quantify when we attempt to quantify semiotic systems and theories? How sound are potential quantifications in terms of interpretive values within some varieties of semiotic theory? We will make a distinction between formalization and quantification in order to understand what to quantify, how to quantify it and why quantification may be a desirable outcome for semiotic theory. The implications of this stance may be relevant and philosophically interesting in light of the naturalized project of biosemiotics. In this paper we will try to understand some ideas behind the rationale of formalizing and quantifying semiotic phenomena and discuss whether this possibility can or should map to functionalized descriptions of semiosis and the sign.

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Notes

  1. Here we can point to Deely (2003) as an example of how semioticians may become aware of this division productively.

  2. Or, as an alternative, a system of explanations for ad-hoc cases.

  3. Take for instance in MS [R] 1339:12 and SS 34—Peirce makes the case multiple times that arguments are types of signs and logic as being equal to some sense of semiotic or as dealing with signs to a large degree.

  4. Bellucci (2018) makes a historical reconstruction about Peirce’s conception of logic and the place of his semiotics in its regard. More broadly, Deely (1981) explores the historical view of logic from the point of view of semiotics and, importantly, how little there seemed to be in common in the work of semioticians and logicians despite their apparent connection.

  5. An example could be trying to quantify the flavor of a dish by correlating it to how hot the dish is.

  6. I am, to a wide degree, conflating quantification with measurement, but these two concepts are not exactly the same. For a more detailed discussion, see Mari et al. (2017)

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Funding

This research was supported by funding from the Czech Ministry of Youth, Education and Sports through the project “Digital Humanities - teorie a aplikace”, reg. n. IGA_FF_2021_046.

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  1. Department of General Linguistics, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czechia

    Claudio J. Rodríguez Higuera

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Correspondence to Claudio J. Rodríguez Higuera.

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Rodríguez Higuera, C.J. Quantification and Realism: Locating Semiosis in the Description of Biological Systems. Biosemiotics 14, 241–252 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-021-09439-7

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