SemEco Glossary of Terms

Alfred Lang University of Bern, Switzerland Alfred Lang—————— University of Bern, Switzerland

				Content Helper Page 2004 (Work in Progress)

				Glossary of Terms used in Semiotic Ecology and Related Fields Including Corresponding Terms in German, Text in English only

				Written for the Website 1998ff. To be used also as an Index to SemEco Essay

First posted 2004.01.20------------------------------ -----------------------------
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				Related to all LangPapers dealing with aspects of Semiotic Ecology and Cultural Psychology.

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				About the Glossary, English und Deutsch

				This glossary of technical terms gives in as compact as possible phrasing the essential meaning of terms used in Semiotic Ecology and related writings. I consider the use of terms to be primary to their definitions; so my circumscriptions should generally not be taken in a definitory sense. For a definition cannot sufficiently take into account the Relations a thing can possibly enter in any future instance.

				In the glossary I mark with * those terms I warn to understand simply in some common or usual sense. I mark with ** terms, including my few neo-logisms, that I use in a rather distinguished way. I capitalize all substantive terms and both words of composite terms that are used in a specific and/or unitary sense. Composite terms appear in the alphabet according to their first part except where their second term is used with more than one qualifier. I mark with ø terms the use of which I avoid except in quotes and paraphrases (for some terms, even in everyday use) and give some reason for this.

				German equivalents are given as I use them to assure consistency with my papers in German and in translations. At this time the Glossary exists only in English.

				Terms within the entries printed in italics refer to other existing Glossary entries (and latin phrases).

				I shall eventually use this Glossary also as an Index to Semiotic Ecology – an Essay on Understanding the Human Condition. The location(s) giving the most comprehensive information there are printed in bold. Also, in the body of that text I mark all terms listed in the Glossary by printing them in italics. Numbers added refer to chapter. paragraph; in bold for the most pertinent passages. Names appearing there will be gathered in a separate List and may include pertinent short descriptions and selected references.

				2004.01.20 For the time being I have marked entries in draft state with a box. This does not mean that I find the non-boxed items definitive.

				2004.01.20 I have transferred the glossary into that outline format which seems most convenient for net use. Unfortunately it will be convenient for printing only when I can eventually add buttons to expand and collapse all.

				The reader may notice some words with initial Capitals. Thus I mark technical terms essential for Semiotic Ecology. Often these terms are used here in some specific sense.

				Über dieses Glossar

				Dieses Glossar technischer Ausdrücke gibt so knapp wie möglich Hinweise auf die Bedeutung in der Semiotischen Oekologie und anderer meiner Schriften verwendeter Begriffe. Ich halte den Gebrauch der Wörter für wichtiger als ihre fixierte Definition; somit sollten diese Umschreiben in aller Regel nicht als Definitionen verstanden werden. Denn Definitionen können die Relationen, die ein Ding in Zukunft eingehen kann, nicht ausreichend berücksichtigen.

				Im Glossar markiere ich alle Ausdrücke mit einem , um davor zu warnen, sie einfach im üblichen Sprachgebrauch zu übernehmen. Mit * bezeichne ich meine wenigen Neologismen, um ihren speziellen Sinn deutlich zu machen. Ich schreibe die wichtigen Begriffe, die in der Semiotischen Oekologie besondere Bedeutung haben, mit einem Grossbuchstaben-Initial. Zusammengesetzt Ausdrücke erscheinen im Alfabet unter dem ersten Term, wenn nur dieser eine Qualifikator möglich ist. Wenn der zweite Term mehrere Qualifikatoren haben kann, erscheinen sie unter dem zweiten mit den Qualifikatoren als Extra-Items.

				Ich bitte um Nachsicht, dass jetzt das Glossar nur in Englisch erscheint. Äquivalente Termini in Deutsch sind in Klammer beigefügt.

				Das Glossar wird auch ein Index für den SemEco Essay sein. Dabei werden die Stellen mit den wichtigsten Informationen fett gedruckt. Stichwörter des Index erscheinen im Text kursiv. Die beigefügten Zahlen verweisen auf Kapitel und Abschnitte. Namen sind in einer separaten Liste gesammelt und mit Lebensdaten und Literaturangaben und Kommentaren ergänzt.

				Abstracting, Abstraction, abstract (Abstrahieren, Abstraktion, abstrakt)

				Abstracting means dealing with a property, quality, attribute, aspect, or relation of something apart from its other characteristics and treating of that facet independently of the entity it is abstracted from. Abstracting can achieve great gains by enabling generalization from singularity and comparison of different kinds of entities in certain respects. The price is great risk in that the abstracted characteristics may unfold their real potential not independently of other properties and are thus different from that character operating in its proper context. Abstractions tend to change linguistic mode from adjective to substantive and are then often reified and treated as another 'thing'. Linguistic habit, unfortunately, does seldom distinguish between abstracting or abstraction as the process and abstraction as the result.

				Abstraction is inevitable in human linguistic operation and is probably present already in immediate experience in that many properties perceived of a concrete something imply such property in general. We are naturally prone not only to categorize but also to transfer and generalize what is impinging. This implies neglecting much and focussing little in kinds of situations. Otherwise something experienced would be with little sequels. This is probably amplified by, but quite independent of whether we create and cultivate a linguistic mark with some experience, no matter whether only internally or socially. That the latter is a prime carrier of social relations shows the eminent role abstraction plays in living together. This can be a mixed blessing as evident in the case of abstractions reified.

				Semiotic-ecologically abstractions are Semions, in the first place IntrA-Semions; but these might be anaformed into ExtrA-Semions which gain another concreteness different from, yet related to the original entity or entities it is abstracted from. The former are obviously largely nominals, and this does not change when they obtain words to mark them, which can (but need not to) become secondary externals. ExtrA-Semions, however, arise from double secondarization and are reals as words and often also as tools. A knife or a hammer, in essence all tools, are embodiments of the capability of some thing to being cut or hit. A related form of abstraction with new concretisation is the metaphor.

				Abstraction Reified * (reifizierte Abstraktion)

				The phrase points to the strategy of abstracting (literally to draw off, to peel away) some aspect from a entity — no matter whether it pertains to some facet or some relation thereof — and then treating of it as if it were a substance itself. Abstraction here is understood broadly; it may even include connotations, attributions, conceptual constructions and models, etc. Examples are plenty in everyday life and in all sciences and in philosophy or theology, from nuclear particles to psychic or social phenomena such as cognition, emotion, the will, a culture (these never occur self-contained, they are rather aspects of one complex process) as well as fictions like heaven, hell, angels, and more. I owe the insight to Herder who in 1769 wrote in a letter to Moses Mendelssohn:

				Nichts in der Welt, glaube ich, hat mehr Meinungen und vielleicht auch mehr Irrtümer erzeugt, als dass man abstrakte Begriffe als individuelle Existenzen betrachtet und realisiert hat. So realisieren wir das Wort Natur, Tugend, Realität, Vollkommenheit. Ursprünglich waren diese Begriffe nichts als Abstraktionen, Verhältnisse von dem auf dies, gleichsam Schatten und Farben von Dingen; wir machen sie zu Dingen selbst, und denken uns also Fertigkeiten, die die Seele wie Geldstücke sammle […]

				Nothing in the world, I believe, has produced more [diversity of] opinion and perhaps more fallacious beliefs than taking abstract conceptions for individual existencies and reifying them. So we reify words like nature, virtue, reality, perfection. Originally such concepts were abstractions, relationships of this to that, shadows or colors of things, as it were; we turn them into things themselves, and then we think them as ready-mades which the soul may collect like coins [...]

				Action, acting, active ** (Handlung, handeln, tätig)

				Actualization * (Aktualisierung)

				A Semiosis may not only result in the emergence of a new Presentance but may also modify, dissolve or actualize either its Reference or Interpretance. Actualization in particular occurs in psychic or neuro-physiological, in socio-cultural and similar systems based on communicative processes between some units of function. Semions in such systems are often structural only as a result of highly stable and repeatable processes (e.g. transmission in neurons or synapses, communication via media etc.). This implies subsystems that can take on several recurring states. The most important general aspect of this is the character of being latent or active or similar modi. Actualization refers in a broad sense to state changes readying some Structure to operate differently than without such preparation.

				Affinity, affine * (Affinität, affin)

				A collective term denoting generically the relational potential of Semions. Semions generated within the same or highly related streams of the Evolutions are affine because they can "know" of each other and are capable of entering semiosic relation more likely than far off ones. Affinity includes both attraction and avoidance relations.

				Agent, Agency * (Agent, Agenz) ??

				In addition to more specific and context bound meanings of this word it is often used as an expression for any instance, i.e. a Semion, capable of acting autonomously. I use it to avoid connotations connected with the word 'subject'.

				Anaformation, anaform, to anaform ** (Anaformation, anaform, anaformieren)

				designates relational qualities of Structure Formation Processes. in Generative Semiosis a Presentant is an Anaform of either its Referent or its Interpretant or of both. That means any Structure formed in Genuine Evolution is apt to retain some quality or qualities of its ancestors. Any series of anaformation, of course, can also change beyond similarity to be recognizable. There are also special cases where no content relation is retained in the first instance such as in symbolic signification whereas iconic and indexical signification are eo ipso cases of anaforms. Anaformation is an important facet of genuine Evolution. It points to a conception of memory broader than usual which includes something retained as such as a limiting rather then the regular case. Affinities may be be founded in anaformative qualitites.

				Analysis, analytical (Analyse, analytisch)

				Used for the conceptual differentiation of Structures or systems into their components or aspects, in distinction to real differentiation. Important in SemEco in respect to causation or Interaction following Peirce's theorem that all higher order relations can be reduced to triads which in turn cannot be reduced to a set of three dyads without loosing the character of being generative.

				Assumption ** (Setzung) see also Presupposition, Postulation, Presumption

				A statement taken as a description of fact while lacking full grounds to be such yet used to build conceptions and guide observations therepupon. Equivalent in the empirical world to what is called an axiom in a purely symbolic world.

				Autonomous System ** (Autonomes System)

				Autonomy, Autonomization ** (Autonomie, Autonomisierung; Eigenheit)

				Together with Integration, Autonomization is an essential precondition for Evolutions. The term points to the process and the state (quite variable for most living entities) of a Structure existing and operating to some degree separate or independent of other Structures because of its proper qualities. That most Structures (again especially the living entities) can only exist as long as the seek and relate to suitable other Structures

				Integration ** (Integration; Zugehörigkeit)

				The degree and kind of relatedness, stable or transient, of a Structure to a particular other Structure. Some integrated Structures have completely lost their Autonomy, some retain relative Autonomization while being integrated in lower or higher degrees. Integration and Autonomy are only exclusive of each other in the extreme. –––

				Integrity and Integration

				To possibly replace the terms Autonomy and Integration, as inspired by James N. Rose: http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/1973.htm and later papers

				Integrity is a state, not an attribute of a Structure. It is a matter of degree (perhaps qualifiable). The same is valid for Integration. Any Structure is inevitably to some degree integer and most structures are to some degree integrated. An atom is quite integer, but integrated when part of a molecule. All small or large molecules that are part of an organism are integrated and have a common fate due to that living organism. Yet insofar as an organism is living due to internal processess, many molecules within are to some degree integer, i.e. they acan interact.

				aware of, Awareness of (gewahr von, erleben Gewahrsein von, Erleben)

				I definitely prefer this term to 'conscious' and 'consciousness' because the latter has largely lost its object: that of what one is aware or conscious. It has even been transmuted into a substance of sorts: the Consciousness (das Bewusstsein, rather than die Bewusstheit, an abstraction embracing aware-being altogether) and an active agency or subject, viz. the Unity of consciousness (die Einheit des Bewusstseins) which often functions also as the epistemic subject. Being aware of something simply means the immediate experiencing of that something, whether it is an external or an internal state of affairs. It does by no means presuppose such special agency. And it is nonsense to say 'I have something in my experience' because being aware of something not at all spatial while that something may well be and both the real entity and its presentation being aware may be located in a spatial relations. Yet experiencing or aware-being is strongly temporal in that it filly only a moment and cannot last though re-arise. Once we have agreed that the semiotic world of the genuine evolutions is thoroughly semionic and semiosic being aware is not at all amazing. For it is sufficient that some some semion takes another up for interpretation and presents it for further presentation with a different interpretances with. That fiction of an Ego or Subject necessary for being aware can easily be given up. Sufficient to think a semiosic IntrA-net elicited by a beginning IntrO-Referent and -Interpretant and leading to an ExtrO-Referent and its -Interpretant initiating some minor change of the environment of the agent.

				Basic Evolutions * (basale Evolutionen)

				The set of evolutions that do not evolve themselves such as the genuine evolutions (see Evolution of Evolutions). Yet the former have enabled the latter and, roughly in their present state, remain their overall precondition. The Basic Evolutions may include (1) the physico-chemical, forming unitary particles with potentials for fusion, fission, and bonding out of the unformed plasma and distributing them spatially and temporally; (2) the cosmical, forming stellar bodies out of spatio-temporal density distributions of physico-chemical particles; and (3) the mineral evolution, forming and changing spatio-temporal conglomerates of various kinds out of elementary particles as exemplified by peri-surface layers of the planet Earth.

				Becoming (Werden)

				Behavior ø (Verhalten)

				Being (Sein)

				biotic, biological * (biotisch, biologisch)

				‘Biotic’ refers to living phenomena as they appear to naive observer resp. points to what is behind these phenomena, i.e. the living world in toto. ‘Biological’ refers to as how the living world appearsin the light of concepts developed by the biologies. The distinction is not clear-cut and changes with the general acceptance of respective scientific parlance. Obviously both terms have no clear-cut unitary meaning. 'Biological' imputes many possible conceptions of which only some are known.

				Biotope –> Ecotope

				Brain-Mind or Mind-Brain ** (Geist-Hirn oder Hirn-Geist)

				Two terms I use on occasions, arbitrarily alternating the two variants, for pointing to the intra-organismic semionic Structure or semiosic Process in toto which is probably carrying the internal psychic Organization, latent or actualized, of an individual of some complexity. The extra-organismic psychic Organisation as in Culturality is not included. In SemEco parlance, the IntrA-System and the near parts of the IntrO- and ExtrO-Systems are the semionic and semiosic equivalent. The reason for this use is to point to the non-dualistic thinking implied. In physiological terms both the neuronal and the humoral systems are thoroughly involved. The Brain-Mind appears to be the most highly condensed realized matter-energy-organisation known.

				Branching (Verzweigung) ⇒ Merging, Evolution, triadic Causation

				One of two possible consequences of the genuinely triadic conception of causation. When two precondition Structures encounter in a topographically Y-shaped triadic Relation resulting in a resulting Structure they not only imply temporal flow of a process andare applicable in both the proto- and the genuine Evolutions; depending the qualitites of the encountering Structures, this can generate all varieties of result Structure: replicates, similar, or new. To the extent that the resulting Structures have never been generated before such processes realize the effect of branching in Evolution or increasing diversity.

				Causation, Cause * (Verursachung, Ursache)

				A basic notion of relation in the sense of something being a necessary condition of some other entity. There are scores of conceptions of that relation. In the Western tradition there is an ideal case of necessary and sufficient causation, meaning that the total of condition of something can be caught and its effect of it is inevitable. For many domains the ideal has to admit a chance component that can lie in our incomplete observation and/or in the subject matter itself. My point is that this dyadic notion of causation is not meaningfully applicable to Evolutive Systems and is better analyzed into the set of generative relations bringing about something. (⇒ Causation, Triadic)

				Causation, linear (Lineare Verursachung) ⇒ Causation, Triadic

				The common notion of causation, many variation in conceptions notwithstanding, is one of A is the cause of B or B follows necessarily and sufficiently from A. This ideally is though independent of how complex A or B may be found to be or whatever chance element my trouble our observation of the clear relation. The major problem with this conception lies in its incapability of treating of Evolution. So all extant theories of evolution were forced to introduce a chance component to save the idea.

				Causation, Triadic * (triadische Verursachung)

				The notion that two entities must interact to achieve any change of (one of) themselves or to generate something third or new. The notion is analytical in that it is claimed that all condition of something can be analyzed into a set of triadic relations but never to the effect that relations of the order of 4 or more are reducible to triads but triadic relations are not reducible to a set of dyadic relations (Peirce). This notion has the advantage that world need not be thought to be a machine

				Therefore triadic causation is not an elaboration of dyadic causation. But triadic causation must be the basic form of causation, dyadic causation thus being a special case of triadic relation rather than the latter an elaboration of former. For no evolution is thinkable under dyadic causation, the postulation of chance being a proto triadic moment. There is both contingency and constriction for triadic causation because encounters for interaction depend on nearness and affinity.

				Chance (absolute or pure) (Zufall, absoluter order reiner) see Contingency

				In the place of an empty concept refuting any specification the introduction of triadic relation at the base of all events and formations allows for understanding the random element in everything occurring in our world in terms of spatio-temporal contingency of analytically two Structures. Contingency can operate upon far-reaching effects such as electromagnetic fields. But in essence, encounters of Structures are the normal case so that the topographic relations among Structures are of major importance such as in Eco-Relationships. This obviates the notion of absolute chance. In view of kinds and degrees of affinities present among Structures having co-evolved and are thus related to all grades from immediate to far-off relations, randomness is reduced greatly. Though still present, in the form fo affinity based relationship, including searching and avoiding, random encounters are still possible, is is esential for any Evolutive Process, but it has a quite restricted range in our world when comparison with the regularities brought about by near replicated Structures of all kinds being abundant.

				Class Logic

				Code * (Kode)

				Cognition ø (Kognition)

				Concept * (Begriff)

				A symbolic presentance of concrete entities, processual or structural, in some systematic cultural symbol system, be it

				Condition (Bedingung, Kondition)

				I use this term in the general sense of something being dependent of, determined by, being influenced by etc. It leaves open the kind of dependence such as causation or reason, necessity or incomplete.

				conscious, Consciousness ø (bewusst, Bewusstsein)

				One of the most consequentially reified abstractions of all is the notion of Consciousness. Being conscious of something is synonymus with being aware of something. There is no being conscious except being conscious of something, among other things oneself in a certain respect. The term consciousness nonetheless does abstract from that necessary relatum and reifies or substantifies the abstraction to something stand-alone. And as if that was not enough nonsense the philosophers were adding additional meaning by turning consciousness into some equivalent of the psychic in general for quite a time and even postulating that consciousness would assure the unity of the soul or psyche. The psychologists have adopted that nonsense in spite of the simple observation anybody can make that nobody can be conscious or aware of more than a few things or ideas at a time, probably for most individuals one thing clearly and two or three additional and related ones vaguely. There is even the notion of “social” or “public consciouness”, the lack of a real brain-mind being collectively aware of something notwithstanding. It is on the other hand easy to experience, immediately or based on inference from many occasions, that one’s psychic organisation is extremely rich, practically of of it latent for most of the time, some of it ready to be actualized at any time, and only the two or three chunks actually experienced immediately. This is a term, adjective and substantive, misused for centuries and thus I avoid it fully. When I want to point of subjects of immediate experience I use the term “aware of …”. When I want to refer to experience gathered and made usable by an individual, I speak of the quality of “experiential” or of the “experience of …”. When I want to refer to the virulent potential of a set of notions in a social system I point to its communicative manifestations.

				Constructive Methodology or Strategy * (konstruktive Methodologie oder Strategie)

				The procedural strategy of inventing a set of basic concepts the combinatorial operations of which result in presentations of actual real events and relationships. Examples are the Euclidean and other geometries, the physics of motion of masses in time and space, the periodic system of chemical elements, etc. This strategy is not yet common in fields like biology, psychology, sociology in spite of its particular if not exclusive suitability to deal with Evolutive Systems. Semiotic Ecology is thoroughly constructive.

				Contingency, contingent * (Kontingenz, kontingent)

				Contrasting Ideas (Ideelle Entgegensetzungen)

				This index mark is here used to point to text passages in which I mention or point to conceptions, concepts, laws etc. which form important parts of the Western history of ideas but which seem to me to be incompatible or in contradiction with semiotic ecological thinking. I am aware that most of theses pointers may be too briefly hinted at and certainly are not in a form to be used as a basis for discussion. My mentions are not made in polemic intention but simply to help the reader to make distinctions the lack of which may leave misunderstandings.

				Creator and Creature (Schöpfer und Geschöpf)

				Herder used this formula to point to the essence of human existence. While using the language of the Bible he was pointing to the fact that humans shape themselves via shaping their cultural Umwelt and so contribute to shaping the world.

				Culturality, cultural * (Kulturalität, kulturell)

				The cultures of the world are not unitary and marked-off entities. They are neither objects nor subjects, but rather Evolutive Processes involved in both continuous innovations and stabilizations to various degrees. Active and passive moments are blending continuously. Any identifiable cultural group is differentiated is both partaking in emergencies of larger groups and differentiated into subgroups. There are common set of conditions thereupon the cultural attainments have evolved in any particular cultural group, each essentially on its own path, whatever horizontal influences from other cultures have contributed. All this points to the fact that cultures cannot be classified or compared without arbitrarily selecting some of their features to the neglect of others.

				This kind of insight has lead me to strive for concepts that compare individual cultures a common conceptuality is required which covers what is common to all. —————

				Culture(s) of the world * (Kultur(en) der Welt)

				Cultures are not substantial entities. Rather they are sets of states of systems that are changing almost continuously while having a potential to take on more or less habitual and typical states. The usual treatment of cultures as objectifiable settings of things is misleading on two points: it forgets————————

				Cultures, “the two” (“Zwei Kulturen, C.P. Snow)

				Culturotope –> Ecotope

				Definition (Definition)

				A procedural strategy in philosophy and the sciences which specifies the meaning of things and the use of terms before understanding of the subject matter is gained. This may be apt for purely constructive systems such as geometry, but it must fail in evolutive systems where relations are prime over things or nodes.

				Dignity ** (Würde)

				discern ** (aussondern)

				Refers to the basis of all observation in that

				Dualisms (Dualismen)

				The assumption of two worlds existing separately such as Matter and Spirit (Geist), Body and Mind, Object and Subject, etc. The idea is pervasive in Western idea history: it is first documented

				Earth, the planet (Planet Erde)

				Ecology, ecological (Oekologie, oekologisch)

				Ecosystem ** (Oekosystem)

				That spatio-temporal system of mostly related structures that is differentiated in an organism or similar complex and its Umwelt. The Umwelt subsystem is not observable at any one point of time; rather it includes numbers of parts in waiting with the possibility of interacting with the organism. In other words, the Umwelt of an organism is not definable; for its temporal extent and its latent possibilities are essential for its understanding. The same is finally true for the organismic subsystem, though to a lesser extent because its parts are mostly interrelated at a higher level than those of the Umwelt subsystem. Still it makes no sense to define an organism in terms of its overall membrane; for without exchange, the organism could not be alive beyond that moment arbitrarily selected. Organisms are precarious structures, highly dependent on almost continuing exchange in respect to stuff, energy and "information" with their Umwelt, i.e. activity of the sensory and executive systems which assure continuity of inflow and prevent problematic intrusions from the environment. In contrast to common parlance I use the term "Ecosystem" strictly on the concrete level of one individual organism and its Umwelt, i.e. the environment it can receive inflow from and can have effects upon. I designate as “Biotope” what is often referred to as "Ecosystem", i.e. the system of many individuals of various species with the common environment they live in.

				Ecotope (Biotope, Culturotope) ** (Oekotop, Biotop, Kulturotop):

				The generalized spatial and temporal setting of a smaller or larger number of interrelated Ecosystems found in a geographical area over a certain time span. Ecotopes imply a hightened probability of spatio-temporal Interaction among the the organisms present with environmental parts including other organisms of high affinity to them.

				Education (Erziehung)

				Effect * (Wirkung)

				What is real is an effect and can have effects. Only what can have effects is real. The German words for reality (\Wirklichkeit) and for effect (Wirkung) allow to say: wirklich ist was wirkt oder wirken kann.

				Ego * (Ich)

				Emergence (Emergenz)

				The basic feat of evolutive systems to bring forth new kinds of structures or processes showing properties which are not given in the structures interacting which are the sole conditions of that innovation. The term may refer to both the process and its result.

				Emotion, Feeling * (Emotion, Gefühl)

				Entity (Sachverhalt)

				A generic term or catch word to refer to anything real whether it is a formation or structure or an event or process, structured or unstructured. Possible but not real entities (i.e. semions which are themselves reals but can refer to entities that are not reals) are marked as possible entities, if it is not evident from context. Equivalent to existing. Since only one kind of existence is accepted, namely that of possibly having effects, no particular theory of being is implied. (see real, Reality)

				Environment (Umgebung)

				Epistemic Correspondence * (EpistemischeEntsprechung)

				Epistemology (Erkenntnistheorie, Erkenntnislehre)

				The prime endeavor of the Western philosophy tradition: to know and to ascertain one's knowledge as true, i.e. to distinguish on formal levels between true and false knowledge. Epistemology is largely based on confounding the subject matter of knowing with a particular form of knowing, viz. its symbolization in linguistic or other symbolic structures. SemEco like American Pragmatism finds this wanting and proposes to close the function cycle connecting any living being to its environment. "Knowledge" is then simply Structures built within individual organisms or in cultural artefacts related to some environmental Structures in such a way that the relation between the organism and its Umwelt is more or less operative. Truth cannot be a matter or correspondence between these two systems incessantly evolving but should be restricted to substructures of symbol systems such as judgments of equivalence. While Peirce thought of Pragmaticism as kind of epistemology, SemEco proposes to definitely balance the IntrO- and the ExtrO- phases of being embedded in some Umwelt and conceive of these relations as evolutive which excludes the possibility of declaring truth or falsity of presentations of reals once and forever.

				Evolution ** (Evolution)

				The open process of Structure Formation or generating new or replicate old Structuresby encounters and Interaction or Transaction of extant Structures. The same process is also maintaining or regulating, modifying and demising existing Structures from encounters among two Structures. Encounters are contingent in that they can just happen; for Structura capable of motion they can be seached and avoided. Each evolutive instance consists in an encounter Interaction or Transaction of (analytically) of two extant Structures determining a third resulting Structure which so obtains and retains for short or long some influence or memory of its predecessors and, when entering further transaction brings some continuity into the stream of events. This constitutes the basic triadic event of causation in general. An Evolutive System can thus be conceived as a net of triadic Relations among Structures, some of which may enter repeatedly; this net is built infiniteley from Triads both within and between Structures.

				By Evolution I understand a process of change in sets of related structures brought about in any of its stages by Interaction of the preexisting Structures. It begins with the formation of certain types of Structures and is open-ended. The Structures emerged may endure or cease at any time later. Evolution is unidirectional in that it cannot repeat itself, local loops notwithstanding. It is systematic as well as random; thus describable in its possible, even probable future course, yet not fully predictable. The Structures involved are and form open systems showing varying degress of closure and integration into larger structures. It appears possible to distinguish in the realm accessible to humans six different types of evolutions, depending on the types of structures involved, three of them basic, three genuine.

				Evolution Logic * (Evolutive Logik).

				A logic concerned with concrete singularities implying triadic relatives based on interaction or transaction, in particular described by Generative Semiotic in genuine Evolutions. A logic to be radically distinguished from all formal logic because Evolutive Systems cannot be covered by form without content.

				Evolution of Evolution (Evolution der Evolution)

				A phrase denoting the idea that the generic evolutive process does not only emerge new Structures or maintains and modifies them, but also has change itself in its course. So far we can make out four major stages of Evolution: the basi or ➞ Proto-Evolutions including the physico-chemical, the cosmic and the mineral phases; and three ➞ genuine Evolutions: the ➞ Bioevolution of living Structure, the ➞ Psychic or Individual Evolutions and the Social or ➞ Cultural Evolutions. All known Evolutions bring about changed conditions instrumental for the evolution of variants of the same kind of structures. The Basic Evolutions condition their proper sequence and in addition, prepare the conditions for the genuine ones. But only the Genuine Evolutions constitute the Evolution of Evolution by introducing furcations, i.e. they change the conditions of evolution at various points of the streams and are thus producing fundamentally new kinds of structures in a variety that formidably exceeds the productions of the basic Evolutions.

				Evolution, biotic

				Evolution, cosmic

				Evolution, cultural

				Evolution, individual

				Evolution, mineral

				Evolutions, basic or Proto-Evolutions

				Evolutions, basic and genuine * (basale und genuine EVolutionen)

				Collective term covering the physico-chemical, the cosmic and the mineral Evolutions. In contrast to the genuine Evolutions the Proto-Evolutions do not branch to generate new kinds of Structures that then embody traces of their history and can transact ————Z

				Evolutions, genuine

				Evolution(s), basic or prebiotic (grundlegende oder präbiotische Evolution(en)) or Proto-Evolution

				Evolution, biotic

				Evolution, cosmic

				Evolution, cultural

				Evolution, genuine

				Evolution, individual or psychic

				Evolution, mineral

				Evolution, physico-chemical

				Evolutionary ø (evolutionär)

				I restrict the use of this term to all Neo-Darwinistic variants of theories of biotic evolution and their highly problematc transfer to other fiels by analogy. My main point is that I need a term for generic Evolution. Minor points refer to problematic features of evolutionary theories.

				evolutive ** (evolutiv)

				I use the adjective “evolutive” to refer to generic evolution and to the kinds of evolution in the semeco perspective. “Evolutionary” is reserved for bioevolution in the Darwinian tradition; it’s use often has a tinge of evolutive progress to the better. The term “evolutive” is not in the dictionaries; it is formed in analogy to native, generative, etc.; nobody says “nationary” or "generationary".

				Evolutive Assumption ** (Evolutive Grundannahme)

				A key notion in Semiotic Ecology. Observation of evolutive processes of all kinds is (a) generalized to the claim that our universe is evolutive all over and (b) supplemented with the Assumption that all Evolution operates by Triadic Interaction of extant Structures. Semiotic Ecology proceeds on the exclusive basis of the Evolutive Assumption by conceiving all observations and conclusions to abide. The generalization component is well documented in scores of instances from the cosmic, the stellar, the mineral, the biotic, the psychic, and the cultural Evolutions; naturally, it is an inductive assumption because we cannot exclude to find something that is outside and has not evolved. Yet is a very plausible generalization from what we understand now. Hhave we something more plausible? The Interaction assumption part is my profference. I have used it since 1990 and find it the most simple I could ever think of. In my conception of a genuine Triad realized topographically in a Y-shaped triple connection of three entities, two precondition factor and the result of their Encounter, can cover both branching and merging of descents in that in the first case two specific precursor Structures encounter for the first time ever, while in the merging case precursors encounter repeatedly and so restrict innovation by generating the same old Structure again and again.

				Evolutive Net, Tree, Chain * (Evolutives Netz, Baum, Kette)

				Looking the the genetic series constituted in triadic relation systems one can follow forward and/or backward in time and find that, like in sexual reproduction and descendance, any given semion has essentially two ancestores (its referent and its interpretant) and none, one or many descendants. So you can look at the former under triadic or dyadically reduced relations. This makes for interrelatednesses in the form of nets, (rooting or branching) trees, or chains.

				Evolutive System * (Evolutives System)

				All systems, large or small, that can change without program or plan but do so upon transactions of pre-existing structures are Evolutive Systems. Characteristic for Evolutive Systems is constitutive Structure Formation, innovative and replicative; regulative maintenance and adaptation; demise of structures by the same process. Preferably used for the domain and subranges of any scope of the genuine evolutions where the process is semiotic, carried by generative semiosis. There are Evolutive Systems that includes parts which develop Structures presenting possible futures of themselves and their evolutive conditions such as for example animals transferring of their earlier experience into present situations or human individuals or groups planning their possible future and let this plan direct their actions. Such facts to not negate my understanding of Evolutive Systems since such plans result from interaction of subsystems that do not themselves have the character of plans.

				Existence (Existenz, Dasein)

				A quality of all matter-energy-forms. What exists is always an entity. No metaphysical claim is implied. In a not necessarily specified way the term also refers to the relation underlaying any kind of causation. Whenever the effects or change of something is is inquired it is on the level of qualities (essence, Sosein). But for the relation to be real there must be an existenial relation between the two or more entities. see Genetic Relations.

				Existence ø (Existenz, Dasein)

				Saying that X exists can either refer to the word ‘X’ or to its meaning. While the former is self-evident, the latter needs to specify what qualitites or potentials of the referent are at stake. Thus term ‘existence’ has no sense in a statement ‘X exists’ beyond what the gradual distinction between real and nominal can convey.

				Experience, immediate Experience (Erfahrung, Erleben)

				There is no simple coordination between word use and modes of being in the world.

				experiential (immediately); experience (immediate) * (erlebt, erfahren; Erlebnis, Erfahrung)

				Extension, Extensionality * (Extension, Extensionalität)

				Extension or Class Logic * (Extensional oder Klassenlogik)

				external ** (external, äusserlich)

				I use this term exclusively from the point of view of an observer external to the individual observed. The term thus refers to some structures or processes which can be observed directly as being or becoming part of the individuals Umwelt and therefore is either a Presentant of an ExtrO-Semiosis of the individual observed or a Structure given in its Environment and usually, but not necessarily also a part of its Umwelt.

				Fact (Fakt, Tatsache)

				notion in Francis Bacon; supposedly the beginning of science

				Figure-Ground-Principle

				Formation

				Function, functional explanation, Teleonomy * (Funktion, funktionale Erklärung, Teleonomy): While explanations of something refering to some consequence rather than some preconditions of an event are avoided in the physico-chemical sciences they seem inevitable in the biological sciences. But insofar the function is an attribution made by an agent outside the system to be explained it is of not expanative value for the system itself but rather for its descriptor. In Semiotic Ecology it appears easy to avoid that trap by pointing to secondary parts of the functional systems which do partially duplicate the system in question within the systems. For example, if an organism has an internal system presenting its knowledge of its umwelt and its needs which also is a part of the system governing the organism’s actions, such secondarization is capable of actualing places and procedures to attain certain desired states. ————

				Generative Semiotic ** (Generative Semiotik)

				A variant elaborating on Peirce and developed since 1990. It emphasizes the potential of semiosis to generate evolutions in the biotic domain, of individuals, and of cultural traditions.

				Generic Evolution * (Generische Evolution)

				The comprehensive notion of evolution covering all types or kinds of evolution, basic and genuine, with their subtypes as well as the evolution of systems of all orders of size.

				Generic evolutive theorizing

				(Great Chain of Being, Herder)

				Gestalt * (Gestalt)

				Habit, Habit Formation (Gewohnheit, Gewohnheitsbildung)

				A notion generalized by Peirce to cover a tendency of systems of any kind to repeat or nearly repeat procedures once attained. Semiotic Ecology allows to reduce habits to Structure replication or Memory multiplication which in turn explains the similarity of the results of interactional processes.

				Horizons * (Horizonte)

				Since Evolutive Systems are both composed of and forming Evolutive Systems their description is inevitably perspectival and their embeddedness and embedding must both be considered. Evolutive Systems display both spatial and temporal extents with I call ”Horizons”. They may extend from micro-Horizons such as molecular to macro-Horizons such as life courses or historical eras in the guinie evolutions with perhaps a dozen or so intermediate Horizons in most Ecosystems. I think it mandatory in any inquiry into the operation of Evolutive Systems to cover at least both adjacent horizons in addition to the one of prime interest in understanding something.

				Human Condition * (Menschliche Kondition)

				The sum-total of what concerns human beings, including all preconditions for human existance and humans insofar they are a condition for other parts of the world also including themselves. ).

				Human Dignity (Menschenwürde)

				Human Rights (Menschenrechte)

				Identity * (Identität)

				Image of Humans (Menschenbild)

				Information ø (Information)

				A term imbibed with a technical meaning that I prefer to avoid while accepting the ordinary language meaning referring to the process of transmitting some content among people. For information should not be considered to be a quality of a thing or Structure but is better restricted to the process of something “in-forming” or bringing to effect of something in forming some other thing.

				90.1. a quality of a thing or structure

				90.2. something different than structures, inherent in structures

				90.3. measurable independent from relations of that thing (which implies to bring that thing in relation with the measuring device and thus not measuring the information but measuring that relation

				90.4. refers to the flow of control in a given system, assuming that it is incorporated in some part of the system and can have its effects in other parts.

				Inner World (Innenwelt)

				Intention, Intentionality * (Intention, Intentionalität)

				Interaction * (Interaktion)

				Interaction is the nature of the elementary evolutive process unit. Interaction is triadic causation in an encounter of (analytically) two Structures where a third is generated, be it a new Structure or one of the two encountering. The third may take on properties of either or both of its precursors or gain new properties. Interaction can take the form of Transaction, if the Structures involved are differentiated into external and internal properties, the former determining the possibility of encounter, the latter effecting Structure Differentiation and herewith Transaction are characteristic of life processes and most to everything basing thereupon such as in the psychic and cultural Evolutions.

				Structure Differentiation ** (Strukturdifferenzierung)

				An evolutive emergence that marks the beginning and is at the base of what is known as life and what builds on it. If Structures such as molecules grow sufficiently complex to differentiate into external or surface properties that interact with suitable properties of other other Structures and thus bring the two complexes together their Interaction may emerge a second phase in which internal Structures become involved I speak of Transaction. One or both Structures of an encounter may be differentiated. What is generally know as sign should in essence be a Differentiated Structure

				internal ** (internal, innerlich)

				I use this term exclusively from the point of view of an observer external to the individual ecosystem observed. It thus refers to some structure or process which can only be observed indirectly, as expressed by ExtrO-Semiosis of the individual in question and therefore refering to the internal entity by mediation of some interpretant.

				A second use of the word pair is in characterizing Differentiated Structures, where external points to surface properties that carry the processe of encounter or avoidance and internal properties that may be hidden or latent and come to

				Interpretant, Interpretance ** (Interpretant, Interpretanz)

				Intrusion * (Intrusion)

				By Intrusion I refer to influences effecting a system although originating from outside of that system proper. In SemEco technical sense two cases of Intrusion are of interest: (A) An Ecosystem normally operates upon dialog between its organismic and Umwelt subsystems. Intrusions can hit, usually damage the normal course of events of, both subsystems or parts thereof, often by brute force such as extensive energy concentration or matter motion, e.g. radiation, fire, earthquake, falling bodies etc. (B) Insofar the six Evolution types are to some extent homogeneous in their change modes events from another type may break in and usually disturb that normal course but in the long run influence that course in certain directions, locally, regionally or globally. At last the genuine evolutions shall run out, perhaps by lack of energy from the sun or by the brute force of a large stellar body or an energy surge hitting the planet. In both cases distinctions between Intrusion and system-immanent influence cannot be made in categorical terms. Intrusion can have both deleterious and favorable effects on the further evolution of a system; the latter may emerge after deeper reorganization of the system.

				Law, lawfulness (Gesetz, Gesetzmässigkeit)

				Lawfulness appears to be given in the form of regularities or fulfilled expectations based on careful observations of states of things. A law or a set of related laws such as many regularities in natural science and many attempts to keep regularity of living together in social systems by instituted regulation is essentially an attempt to bring the essence of such regularities onto as plain as possible formulation. While a mathematical formula in the former or a procedural rule in the former and the latter are quite successful in many domains they also can be seen as attempts to prevent Evolutive Processes to occur. In particular, the natural science laws, however well they succeed in predicting events, are anathema to the nature of Evolution in general. No wonder they are mostly valable in the domain of elementary matter and basic forms of energy; for in these realms basic Structures highly stable and replicate almost perfectly well. Yet even there laws and lawful thinking often contribute to an illusIon to the effect that we really understand things. In Evolutive Systems laws reduced to essential formulas have little place if at all. For laws are conveniently gained in systems under human control and they are usually based in the form of average behavior of some specified system, neglecting the variability observable in most concrete events. Semiotic Ecology proffers a methodology which requires observation of singularities, both in terms of Structures and of Processes. This allows for specifying typical events and the conditions under which they come about, including sets of irregularities and their special conditions at their base. This leads to a more realistic understanding in contrast to the often quite far-reaching idealism with which scientific judgments abound. It is a strange effect of law-related thinking in modern societies that the so-called natural law exerts stronger influence on human living together than social or ethical law. Witness the levels of enslavement attained by machinery ranging from mechanics to information.

				Logic ** (Logik)

				The term has become a mark for rationality. However, there is a logic of feeling, of action, of system becoming organized, disorganized, reorganized. Charles Peirce's Logic as Semeiotic and John Dewey's Logic: a Theory of Inquiry (1938) have opened the ground for a much wider understanding. What I call the Logic of Evolution suggests that natural and systems cannot be reduced to some formula. Logic, in essence, is the sum total of relations. If, in Evolutive Systems, relations are determined by Interaction among concrete Structures, Logic describes in principle how systems evolve and operate.

				Matter-Energy-Formation ** (Materie-Energie-Formation)

				The basic existence of everything. It is generally accepted that matter and energy are aspect of one rather than two separate modes of existence. The same holds for matter-energy and form. Yet there is no unformed matter-energy. Form can exist independently of matter-energy constellation. Evolution is variation of form. While the matter-energy conservation is a reasonable assumption, no such principle holds for form.

				Matter * (Materie)

				Meaning * (Bedeutung)

				In Evolutive Systems meaning should not be considered an attribute of structures, things, substances etc. Meaning is a relation constituted in the transactions of semions: what some given semion does effect together with another affine semion. Meaning is relational, it is not of semions, but related to the potential of semions in Transaction with particular other semions. Thus most structures can be expected to constitute several meanings depending on their transactions.

				Meaning is a word I do not use in Semiotic Ecology in a technical manner although the respective notion is of central standing in it. SemEco is in essence a project of giving mechanics and meaning equal standing in our understanding of the world. But Meaning is usually thought of as being mental in character and is either thought to be a character of entities or thought to be attributed to entities by a mind or subject. Both varieties of understanding imply a separation of a material carrier and a mental or immaterial aspect of meaning proper and thus meaning is thought to belong to another ontological domain than the mechanics carrying it. This has produced scores of difficulties unsolved since the Greek in the Western tradition, both in theoretical and in practical respects. I do not know what "mental" could mean beyond reference to our being aware of something which certainly implies meaning. Also I would prefer not to bring meaning in connection with a thing or an event but look for it in the relation among such. A semion can be seen as an unit of meaning in that it is on the one hand a structure emerging from a relation between semions and so implying its history and on the other hand capable of entering similar relations with other affine structures; but what one might call the meaning of a semion would be (a) its potential to enter a certain set of such relations and refute others, and (b) to actualize such relations in playing a role either of referent or of interpretant in a new semiosis or resulting as referent therefrom.

				Memory * (Gedächtnis)

				Merging (Vereinigung) ⇒ Branching, Evolution, triadic Causation

				One of two possible consequences of the genuinely triadic conception of causation. When two precondition Structures encounter in a topographically Y-shaped triadic Relation resulting in a resulting Structure they not only imply temporal flow of a process andare applicable in both the proto- and the genuine Evolutions; depending the qualitites of the encountering Structures, this can generate all varieties of result Structure: replicates, similar, or new. To the extent that the resulting Structures are encountering repeatedly, be it in originals or in replicates, such processes realize the effect of merging in Evolution or deacreasing diversity, i.e. increasing convergence or order, in that such encounters generate more of already existing Structures..

				⇒

				Metaphor * (Metapher)

				As a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used to denote a thing or idea it spite of its primary use denoting another one is a linguistic anaformation. 'Essay', primarily an effort or attempt, can designate a text aware of limits of comprehension.

				Metaphysics (Metaphysik)

				Method, Methodic, Methodology * (Methode, Methodik, Methodologie)

				Method refers to concrete procedures of inquiry into some state of affairs; Methodic(s) refers to the set of procedures used in some particular endeavor; Methodology refers to the sum total of methodics including the critical reflection of how one proceeds under circumstances in general.

				105.1. Peirce

				1.191 1, Speculative Grammar, 2 Critic, 3 Methodeutic

				1.559 “formal rhetoric, later called speculative rhethoric or methodeutic”

				2.93 “the doctrine of the general conditions of the reference of Symbols and other Signs to the Interpretants which they aim to determine.”

				2.105 ff. “ways of acquiring skill in the art of inquiry [by] the logical study of the theory of inquiry.”

				105. All this brings us close to Methodeutic, or Speculative Rhetoric. The practical want of a good treatment of this subject is acute. It is not expected that any general doctrine shall teach men much about methods of solving problems that are familiar to them. But in problems a little remote from those to which they are accustomed, it is remarkable how not merely common minds, but those of the very highest order, stumble about helplessly. […]

				[…]

				108. […] Nowadays methods alone can arrest attention strongly; and these are coming in such flocks that the next step will surely be to find a method of discovering methods.†1 This can only come from a theory of the method of discovery. In order to cover every possibility, this should be founded on a general doctrine of methods of attaining purposes, in general; and this, in turn, should spring from a still more general doctrine of the nature of teleological action, in general.†2

				109. Although the number of works upon Methodeutic since Bacon's Novum Organum has been large, none has been greatly illuminative. Bacon's work was a total failure, eloquently pointing out some obvious sources of error, and to some minds stimulating, but affording no real help to an earnest inquirer. THE book on this subject remains to be written; and what I am chiefly concerned to do is to make the writing of it more possible.

				110. I do not claim that the part of the present volume which deals with Speculative Rhetoric will approach that ideal. As to the other parts of my book, this prefatory chapter commits me to producing a work of great importance or to being set down a drawler of nonsense. But for the methodeutic part, I only say that since my youth I have associated with strong thinkers and have never ceased to make it a point to study their handling of their problems in all its details. When I was young, no remark was more frequent than that a given method, though excellent in one science, would be disastrous in another. If a mere aping of the externals of a method were meant, the remark might pass. But it was, on the contrary, applied to extensions of methods in their true souls. I early convinced myself that, on the contrary, that was the way in which methods must be improved; and great things have been accomplished during my life-time by such extensions. I mention my early foreseeing that it would be so, because it led me, in studying the methods which I saw pursued by scientific men, mathematicians, and other thinkers, always to seek to generalize my conception of their methods, as far as it could be done without destroying the forcefulness of those methods. This statement will serve to show about how much is to be expected from this part of my work.

				2.207 Methode, Methodic, Methodeutic

				5.440 “a sound methodeutic prescribes that, in adhesion to the appearances, the difference is only relative and the demarcation not precise.”

				Mind, mental * (Geist, geistig)

				Necessity * (Notwendigkeit)

				nominal, Nominalism ** (nominal, Nomalismus)

				Object * (Objekt)

				see Subject, Object …

				Person ** (Person)

				Perspectivity, perspectival * (Perspektivität, perspektivisch)

				Phenomena (Phänomene)

				The relation between a perceptual-cognitive system and some figural entity, structure or process, discerned and elaborated by that system. Phenomena, resp. one phenomenon is what we have to start inquiry with. There is no other way to inquire or research. In fact, phenomena are conceptions, whatever has been claimed to the contrary. Witness the fact that phenomena change with the advance of understanding.

				physico-chemical (physiko-chemisch)

				Often used to point to the related energy and matter perspectives in combination. I regret that language offers no easy way to distinguish phenomena and their conceptual refinements as is possible for —> biotic/biological or psychic/psychological etc.

				Postulation (Forderung) see also Presupposition, Assumption, Presumption

				A placeholder required and invented to make some structure of notions coherent and then taken for granted and used to base inferences upon its supposed but not assured reality. Examples: —————

				Potential * (Potential)

				The sum total of what a semion can possibly effect transacting with any affine semion.

				Presentant, Presentance ** (Präsentant, Präsentanz)

				Presumption (Vermutung) see also Presupposition, Postulation, Assumption, Presumption

				Presupposition (Voraus-Setzung) see also Postulation, Assumption, Presumption

				A presumption taken for granted and thus used to base inferences upon its supposed but not assured reality. see also Postulation. Examples: ——————

				Process * (Prozess)

				The complement to Structure in Structure Formation.

				psychic, psychological * (psychisch, psychologisch)

				By ’psychic’ I want to refer to phenomena of immediate experience in distinction of conceptualizations made in some theoretical perspective, however primitive or sophisticated, acccepted in general or only in particular circles, for which the term ‘psychological’ should be reserved. (see biotic, biological; physico-chemical etc.) The distinction is not clear-cut and changes with the general acceptance of respective scientific parlance.

				Quality (Qualität)

				Realism * (Realismus): see real, Reality

				real, Reality * (wirklich, Wirklichkeit)

				Real is what can have effects independent of whether or how anybody conceives it. (Wirklich ist was wirkt oder wirken kann unabhängig davon, ob oder wie es irgendjemand begreift.) Such conceptions are realities by themselves and should not be confounded with what the may refer to.

				Reason * (Vernunft)

				I cannot see good grounds for a distinction between two kinds of capabilities or forms of cognition (see Cognemot) as lower or higher such as Kant has proposed. If any distinction of two forms is recommendable I would see the point in the role or weight linguistic symbolization is playing. Understanding then includes the whole gamut from factual or cognitive to valuative or emotional facets. Reason or Reasoning is heavily or exclusively based on systematic symbol as they are common in 'clean' language, mathematics of informatics.

				Reconstruction Logic * (Rekonstruktionslogik)

				Inquiring Evolutive Systems has to consider prediction of events or states from past into future as a limiting case: if not totally impossible (say in elementary energy-matter subjects) prediction has to be restrained to distinguishing the possible from the impossible, the likely from the improbable. Attempting to enclose understanding in a formula representing what must happen or can be expected, given specified circumstances, contradicts the Evolutive Assumption in that it cannot cover the contingencies to play in the Encounters among Structures in specified circumstances. SemEco oriented inquiry rather suggests what I call a Reconstruction Logic of science.

				Reconstruction Logic

				Reductionism (Reduktionismus)

				Generally the idea to derive qualities of larger scale structures and events to qualities of their smaller scale constituents. This often relates reductionism to relations between sciences, in particular e.g. the attempt to reduce sociological to psychological phenomena, psychological manifestations to physiological mechanisms, physiological to physico-chemical elementary processes. Reductionism proofs to be an impossible strategy when it is considered that at already the cosmic and the mineral Evolutions are historical processes and that transactions in the biotic, the psychic and the cultural Evolutions must be conceived as based on meaning and thus not reducable to the structural process itself. On the one hand, the object ranges of the respective sciences are conceived in ways that exclude reduction to the behavior of constituents. E.g. a living organism is in matter and energy exchange with its environment and so not definable by matter and energy but by the specific structures built and maintained from matter. Similary a psychic organization of an experience gathering animal is as little constituted by the molecules and their relations as is a house by the aggregation of bricks and mortar. For emergent Structures of any degree of extension and complexity are as real and as fundamental in the transactive interactions possible among their likes as are the interactions of nuclear particles or atomic particles within their order of relations.

				Referent, Reference ** (Referent, Referenz)

				Replication (Replikation)

				Representation * (Repräsentation)

				Research for the people (Forschung für alle)

				Scientific research has changed from an activity supposed to satisfy, in fact to stir, the curiosity of the researcher into a service to the mighty. The return in terms of money and prestige has grown to considerable measures when compared to the early days when money had to be spent for rather than earned by doing research. While the 18th century has seen the contract between the Royals and the Royal Academy enabling the latter to do their research as long as it would not interfere with the former's power, the 19th has made those rich and powerful who could recruit the scientists and their techniques to service their interests. Now the 20th has become the century of technocracy disguised as democracy in which scores of scientist have a key role without taking responsibility. —————— Probably the only way out of this dead end for human existence is to change the sciences into an endeavor that is for everybody rather than for experts and their masters.

				Scientific Method ** (Wissenschaftlicher Methodik)

				There is a long tradition that the sciences and their methods operate in the service of finding truth. Since truth can only be provisional and "objectivity" is a fiction because there is no real Archimedean center in Evolutive Systems, neither for change nor for knowledge, another perspective for the sciences has to be specified. Peirce in his 1877ff. article series Illustrations of the logic of science has opened a promising perspective based on the idea that the scientific method is the best procedure known so far capable of repairing beliefs which have with reality and thus failed in their promise to understand something on the basis of its reality rather than on traditional, authoritarian, or mythical assertion. Science is a method or a set of careful procedures governed by both observation and logic and its findings can only be expected to generate confidence when used in a humane spirit. ——— Obviously, Evolutive Systems require a Logic or Theory of Inquiry that matches the dynamics of their fields of application (Dewey 1938).

				Selectivity, selective ** (Selektivität, selektiv)

				Refers to that portion of all thinkable encounters among Structures that when they actually happen are based on peculiar properties of the interactants. Interactions can and Transactions must be selective. So, e.g. two atoms interact selectively when they are suitable ions and thus combine to form a molecule, but the encounter nonselectively remain unchanged in their substance while their course in space and time can change. Encounters implying at least one biotic, psychic or cultural Structure may also meet with brute force, but their typical Interactions are transactive in that they can recognize each other due to suitable interfaces and thus transact upon their deeper properties. Selectivity refers the poperty based and thus a positive or including way of reducing chance. Another only negative or excluding and thus non-selective reduction arizes from spatial and temporal contingeny.

				Self-Organizationø ø (Selbstorganisation)

				The idea appears appealing. But the notion of Self is so unclear in all cases I know of, that I prefer to not use the term.

				Self ** (Selbst)

				Semeconize, semeconization ** (Semökonomisieren, Semökonisierung)

				Practical neologisms built upon the abbreviation "semeco" to point to some process of reformulating common concepts from various disciplines in terms of Semiotic Ecology. This is of course not more than a game, a strategy, and a probe, since at best it can result in similarities and analogies. For the majority of conventional concepts in the psychological, sociological and cultural sciences are defined in an entirely different way than the constructive procedure of semiotic ecology. Whereas the former are mostly determined each for itself, the latter are thought as resultants of the interplay of a very few basic notions. So the interconnection of all concepts thus constructed is given by the very procedure and the meaning of one node or term lies in the relational net in which it is embedded. The problem of coordination of concepts to observations exists for both approaches.

				Semion, semionic ** (Semion, semionisch)

				A neologism introduced in generative semiotic by Lang in 1990 (cf. from the chronological list of papers Nos. 1991-09, 1992-07 , 1993-04 , 1993-11, 1993-12 = 1998-01) to denote in structural perspective what is involved in semiosis, originally the semiosic structure as a whole, later preferably its part structures dynamically interacting. Semions arise from semioses, can endure over time and later play a role in new Semioses. Semions thus serve the function of memory essential in genuine evolutions and constituting variation or near replication and selection or valuation and thus allow for branching and merging in the diverging and converging trees of genuine evolutions. Semions have not meaning per se but gain it in the relations they arise in or enter to transact. Semion is the term pointing to static meaning generically; symbol is a special case thereof, namely those semions explicitly made in human cultures, usually as a part of conventional symbol systems such as in natural or artificial languages. What distinguishes Semions from Structures in general is their structural differentiation. A Semion has external properties which determine with which other Structures it can interact. Insofar a Semion is like any Structure capable of Interaction. In addition, a Semion has internal properties that come to bearing in complex Interaction or Transaction.

				Semiosis (pl. semioses) semiosic ** (Semiose, semiosisch)

				The name of the basic process conceived by semioticians. It is mostly thought to be a process of interpretation by a mind (subject) of an object (entity existing in the world) in a sign (another part of the world); the sign then exists in two aspects: its material aspect as a carrier, and its mental or spiritual aspect as a meaning. In generative semiotic, elaborating on Peirce, it is a name in process perspective for the transactional encounter of two structures called the referent and the interpretant and resulting in a new or modified third structure called the presentant. Here semiosis becomes a basic kind of causation, in fact more general than the common linear B = f(A) which is a special case of C = f(A;B) where A and B are indepently existing structures encountering contingently. Only the triadic relation can account for Evolutive Processes because it allows for merging or valuation, selection and in near replication allows for branching or variation, innovation.

				Semiotic * (Semiotik)

				The name of a field across many disciplines the main purpose of which is to understand meaning and to propose ways of dealing with meaning. Usually this is narrowed down to explain how it comes that something can stand for something else to somebody (such as a word for a thing, for another word, for an idea etc.). Strange enough few psychologists have cared about semiotic. But is not meaning the essential psychological theme? For whatever we perceive, feel, think, want, or do, it means something to ourselves and to others.

				Semiotics (Semiotik)

				A collective name for various approaches to the semiotic problem. They mostly center around the relation between words or other symbols, things, and meaning (in the sense of what a person thinks, believes, feels, etc.). The idea originated with the Greek; Locke was a major renewer around 1700; Lambert presented excellent insights in the later 18th century. But only towards the end of the 19th century the field gained its contours, mainly by lectures of Ferdinand de Saussure (published in 1916 from notes by his students and in improved versions later) and in various writings of Charles S. Peirce (some published between 1867 and 1905 by himself, some in the 1930s, some only recently or to be printed soon). While the former's approach remained centered in language and was instrumental for the development of various forms of structuralism and of the "linguistic turn", the latter's ideas were oriented towards a foundation of nearly everything. Peirce attempted but did not fully convince most of his followers that semiotic is to reach way beyond the mental processes of humans. Today semiotics are cultivated in sections of most humanities and a few logicists, biologists, estheticists etc. are also interested. There exist today several dozens of semiotic approaches: some center on the sign and often delve in classificatory attempts; others are starting from meaning and investigate how meaning manifests itself; thirds focus en- and decoding of meaning in physical structures such as in communication or information transmission via channels. (cf. my paper in English on Semiotic and Psychology http://www.psy.unibe.ch/ukp/langpapers/pap1994-99/1994_mutual_psysem_p.htm

				Sign ø (Zeichen)

				In modern semiotic the "sign" is the pivotal idea. Common is an understanding that something becomes a sign when it is interpreted. A large number of signs and sign systems such as many gestures, spoken or written language, mathematical constructions, traffic signs, conventions in art, etc. constructed by humans notwithstanding. Peirce, the foremost modern semiotician, wrote the remarkable statement, that the interpretation of a sign results in the production of a new sign in the mind. He has written more than a hundred sign definitions around this idea. But this restrict semiotics to the ingoing or receptive process whereas humans and animals also generate sign characters. I thus think the sign concept is problematic when we start with its definition instead of inquiring occasions where sign characters arise and have effects. Also the idea that a sign stands for some object, can represent it

				Structure Formation ** (Strukturbildung)

				Structures newly arising can either replicate existing structures or introduce innovation. The latter process is essential in Evolutive Systems. Otherwise the world we live in would be finite in its fundus of forms. Observation admits the inference that new structures can arise and such can be more than mere combinations of existing forms; herewith the number of possible formations and structures is infinite.

				Structure(s) ** (Struktur(en))

				Subject, Object, Subjectivity, Objectivity ø (Subjekt, Objekt, Subjektivität, Objektivtität)

				I cannot see how an Object could be constituted except by a Subject. The epistemic Subject is not real. Objects are thus either perspectival or fictional and therefore any notion of Objectivity is contradictory in itself. Subject refers to an entitiy cleary in need of explanation; it should not be posited without reference to something real. Any real Subject, say a person capable of discerning things that are then taken for objects, obviously is becoming through experience. Obviously an man or a woman, a scientist, a layperson, an infant, or an animal do constitute objects differently. Personhood that is at the base of real subject may exist in degrees and depends on changing qualities gained through lifetime. Subjectivity, however one wants to understand it, is obviously unavoidable. It is rightly more certain than objectivity, at least for the beholder and should be taken serious in others, if others are to be taken serious. The notion deserves a better fate than denigration. Objectivity in turn is less certain than faith has it. Intersubjectivity is not a solution because there are collective delusions. The English term “subject matter” reveals my point clearly in that it hints at some matter having been subjected. In sum, both term sets have no good reference and did and do prejudice epistemology. In SemEco the notions and terms are of no need and avoided to no loss.

				Subject * (Subjekt): see Subject, Object …

				Substance and Attribute * (Substanz und Attribut)

				System (System)

				Temporality, Time ** (Zeitlichkeit, Zeit)

				148.1. constituting time and space

				148.2. vertical: time

				148.3. horizontal: space

				148.4. doubt as to time being conceiced as isochronic

				Thing (Ding)

				Transaction ** (Transaktion)

				Triadic Interaction ** (Triadische Interaktion)

				Truth, true ø (Wahrheit, wahr)

				I do not find this term useful outside traditional logic and epistemology for which I see no place in Semiotic Ecology. So I restrict its use to truth tables describing symbol systematics or use the adjective in the simple sense of some statement’s content being the case.

				Umwelt (Umwelt)

				Understanding * (Verständnis, Verstehen)

				I tend to use this word as much as possible as in the phrase “I understand” which is used to communicate: I’ve got it, I’ve integrated that particular thing or idea into my existing understanding as a supplement, a revision, re-weighting, etc. thereof. And I’am ready to make use of that understanding in guiding my comportment, my valuations, decisions, and actions until it shall have to get further revised or improved. This usually also includes the embeddedness of that something in its ordinary environment rather than in the isolated instance or on some abstractive level alone. And it leaves open how deep the understanding may reach while I strive deepen it as much as circumstances allow. Of course, the phrase implies: “believe to understand”; for it can turn out to be a misunderstanding or I may need to further expand or make my understanding more precise etc. So my use of this word has not much to do with the respective philosophical term or even with the Kantian distinction between understanding (Verstand) and reason (Vernunft). The latter may simply boil down to a distinction between processes in a 'natural' symbolizing such as brain-mind and ordinary language or 'artificial' symbolizing such as in highly conventionalized language or machines when it is admitted that reason depends upon rather than precedes language.

				Universal * (universell, Universal)

				Valuation

				Whole, Holism * (Ganzheit, Ganzheitlichkeit)

				Will * (Wille)

				Y-shaped or “fan” typed Temporality * (Y-förmige oder fächerartige Zeitlichkeit)