How do things come to stand for something other than themselves?
An understanding of the ontology of relations allows for a
compelling account of the action of signs. The Primacy of Semiosis
is concerned with the ontology of relations and semiosis, the
action of signs. Drawing upon the work of Gilles Deleuze, John
Deely, and John Poinsot, Paul Bains focuses on the claim that
relations are 'external' to their terms, and seeks to give an
ontological account of this purported externality of
relations.
Bains develops the proposition, first made in 1632 by John Poinsot
(John of St. Thomas), that, ontologically, signs are relations
whose whole being is in esse ad ('being-toward'). Furthermore,
relations are found to be univocal in their being as relations.
This univocity of being is antecedent to the division between 'ens
rationis' and 'ens reale'. The ontology of relations Bains presents
is thus neither mind-dependent nor mind-independent insofar as the
rationale of the relation is concerned.
The book includes chapters on Deleuze and Deely on relations, Jacob
von Uexkull and Heidegger on Umwelten (self-worlds), Maturana and
Varela on Autopoieis. It provides the vicarious causality, by way
of the scholastic doctrine of the 'species', that is now being
resuscitated by Graham Harman and the emerging school of 'object
oriented ontology'.
The Primacy of Semiosis provides a semiotic that subverts the
opposition between realism and idealism; one in which what have
been called 'nature' and 'culture' interpenetrate in an expanding
collective of human and non-human. Bains' work promises to be a
touchstone for semiotic discussion for years to come.
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