182 Morten Tønnessen
between realism and idealism. So the whole problem of idealism versus
realism is a creation of modern philosophy, and it is the problem that
semiotics moves beyond (cf. Deely 2009b). I think it is counterproductive to
try to recast semiotics in terms of epistemology and ontology. Peirce, under
the moniker Phaneroscopy, developed ideas similar to Husserl‘s
phenomenology, but Peirce never was an idealist in the modern sense
divorced from what Peirce termed ―scholastic realism‖ and deemed essential
to semiotics. Peirce was raised on Kant, and he knew Kant inside-out. So
when he turned his back on Kant, it was extremely significant.
JD: The notion of Umwelt is an incredibly seminal notion.^4 But if you were to
confine yourself to von Uexküll‘s understanding of it, you would go
nowhere – you are right back to modern philosophy. In the functional circle,
the way Jakob‘s son Thure von Uexküll presented it – and I think this is also
in line with Jakob von Uexküll – the plus and the minus are the real objects.
The zero objects are the things.^5 But that is not actually the case. The zero
object is the thing that Uexküll thought the animal has no awareness of. The
animal does have awareness of it – it just is not interested in certain objects
or aspects thereof, and ―0‖ in this sense of ―safe to ignore‖ is the actual
meaning of zero (0) in the animal classification of plus (+) and minus (-).
MT: Well, these concepts are sometimes context-dependent – in one situation an
Umwelt object that would otherwise be neutral would have significance.
JD: But in the animal world, in the animal awareness, there is no distinction
between objects and things. So the zero does not represent things as opposed
to objects, zero represents the lack of interest of the animal at a given time in
a given aspect of its awareness. The whole animal Umwelt is in terms of the
interest of the animal.
MT: I would agree that it does not represent things – because that is a separate
distinction.
JD: When you get into the human case – that is where you begin to be aware that
these objects, regardless of your interest in them, have a being of their own.
And it is the investigation of that which makes possible to make better use of
the objects, or simply to understand them. Did I tell you the story about the
time when I was asking my class: ―How many of you think the Sun goes
around the Earth?‖ No one. ―How many of you think the Earth goes around
the Sun?‖ About a third. And then I realized the next question: ―How many
do not care?‖ – That is the animal side.
MT: We have preserved that side – we still have that side in us.
JD: Yes, absolutely. But it is the human openness to the difference between
objects and things that gives the possibility of science, and that is also where
the unique human responsibility comes from.(^4) For Deely‘s treatment of the concept, see Deely 2001, 2002 and 2004. Cf. also Deely 2007.
(^5) Here, ‘plus‘ and ‘minus‘ refers to the positive or negative functional value respectively of perceptual objects in
an animal‘s Umwelt. Since according to Jakob von Uexküll all animal (and human) lifeworlds are constituted
by what has a meaning (i.e., a relevant function) for the living being in question, ̳objects with no function‘
( ̳zero objects‘) are, in Deely‘s interpretation, mistakenly deemed by some to represent an empty category. But
―not interested in this or that now‖, he holds, hardly makes the zero an ―empty category‖.