The Semioethics Interviews III 181JD: It is a great idea.
MT: It would not work.
JD: Because the fish would all starve to death.
MT: You have this domino effect.
JD: Yes, exactly, the domino effect, that is it. And there is no way to become
aware of the domino effect except through science. So we need to develop
science, we need the education of young people, and we need an awareness
of the framework within which to talk about these topics – and that is where
semioethics comes in.
TO CONCEPTUALIZE REALITY APPROPRIATELY
MT: I have prepared 40 questions that I will one day ask Susan Petrilli. Here are
some of those I would like you to comment on. She states – this was in an
article she had in Sign Systems Studies (Petrilli 2003) – that ―the approach
adopted by global semiotics is predominantly of an ontological order.‖ This
concerns ontology and phenomenology, and could be taken to mean, say,
that it – global semiotics – points to the true range of semiosis, and to the
ontological, rather than phenomenological or ontic status of semiosis.
Further, she portrays Charles Sanders Peirce as a phenomenologist within
the realm of semiotics, but Thomas A. Sebeok as an ontologist – thus hinting
that it is Sebeok that makes the leap from phenomenology to ontology. Here
I will bring in Jakob von Uexküll, who claims that all reality is subjective
appearance. Uexküll, in other words, claims that phenomenology is ontology
in the sense that the appearances are the actual reality – true reality consists
of appearances. In that sense, you could claim that Uexküll was introducing
a global phenomenology. But that is left out of Susan‘s tale as she contrasts
Peirce‘s account with that of Sebeok, and portrays the leap from
phenomenology to ontology. But Sebeok‘s reading of Uexküll played a
decisive role in his development toward global semiotics. What role would
you give to Uexküll in this story of how semiotics relates to ontology, and to
phenomenology?
JD: To begin with, it is important to realize that this distinction between
ontology and what you call phenomenology – epistemology, is a rather late
modern invention. The understanding of semiosis basically undermines it.
We necessarily have to start our understanding of semiosis with our own
experience with signs. And our own experience with signs turns out in the
analysis to be of sign relations that do not fit the divide between ontology
and epistemology. They are prior to it.
MT: Phenomenology and epistemology...
JD: Phenomenology as it came out of Husserl is an epistemology, and it is a very
modern idealism. You could be a phenomenologist and not necessarily be an
idealist, but as a matter of fact Husserl was an idealist. And as a matter of
fact, within phenomenology you do not have the means to make a decision