The Semioethics Interviews III 183MT: At least the global awareness that there are things that are not just our
objects, but things in their own right.
JD: I may not care for mosquitoes – if it was just left up to me, I would have
killed them all. But when you realize that, if you did kill them all – look at
the effect upon the fish – look at the repercussion – domino! You cannot get
that kind of awareness in any other animal. That is why they do not have
responsibility.
MT: I do not think the ethical solution to animal rights issues lies in changes of
laws and regulations at all.
JD: Not at all? It has to be some of that.
MT: I mean, the law is reflecting changes in moral responsibility, and expressing
part of it – but I do not think it sums it up.
JD: I agree with you.
MT: Sometimes you can phrase an ethical issue in terms of how the law should
be changed. If I were to change any subject of law, I would change
regulations on property. Because property, I think, is the idea that we can
split the land of this planet between us – and that is a really anthropocentric
concept. Now, there are various forms of property – private property, public
property and these grey zones where even if you have private property there
are governmental regulations restricting what the owner can do, and what
the public has the right to do. And there are national parks. You have various
concepts. But still, this is the most crucial term of the law – ̳property‘ – and
I would analyze its ethical implications. This issue concerns how we relate
to land, but also the more general idea of ̳ownership‘, which I think is a
remnant of the idea that nature is here for our sake. What is not clear to me,
however, is whether or not we have no choice but to deal with one concept
or another of property, or whether we would be able to reason without a
concept of property.
JD: The Husserlian concept of ̳phenomenology‘ is the one that became the most
popular. The Peircean counterpart, ̳Phaneroscopy‘, has the advantage that it
has a peculiar terminology that is so ugly as to be safe from kidnappers. It
does not have the idealist limitations that phenomenology has come to
acquire. I think it is less effective to try to cast this in terms of ontology and
phenomenology.
MT: Would you accept a term such as ̳semiotic phenomenology‘? How would
that be different from Husserlian phenomenology?
JD: It would not be necessary. Because it would be Phaneroscopy.
MT: But would it necessarily be Peircean?
JD: Yes, I think it would necessarily be Peircean in the sense that after John
Poinsot (1589-1644), Peirce was the first one to really get it clear about the
being proper to signs (cf. Deely 2006). I think the secret of Peirce is
precisely that he was interested in many things, involved in many things, but
the arc that ties it all together – the trajectory that unifies his thought – was
his interest in semiotics. Most of the essential thoughts are based on his
understanding of the being proper to signs, and the being proper to signs is
the triadic relation. And to understand the triadic relation, you first have to