Signs, Science, and Religion: A Biosemiotic Mediation

Abstract

Following on the pragmatic notion of belief as propensity to action, this essay argues that science, philosophy, and religion form a Peircian triad. As with all such triads, no single part ‘has’ ontological status – each is a process that exists only as a function of the other parts. And so, Religion represents the ‘reading’ that generates a mental map; Philosophy, checking such a ‘map’ against itself for functionality, consistency of signage, etc.; and Science, checking it against some actual situation. Thus, religion (or, religare) is ubiquitous to life as it represents the core binding (Jamesian Pure Experience, and Peircian Thirdness become Firstness) that is the consequent of semiotic interaction (an interpretant consequential to an organism ‘minding’ its environment). As Santayana argued, this ‘animal faith’ defines life; it includes but is not limited to, self-knowing life. Yet also, as per C. I. Lewis’s inversion of idealism, structures of knowing consist of (and bear upon the world) a priori behavior and consequent need. And so, our methods ‘mind’ their business – often better than we do. They pull behind them a train of institutions, ‘jointly held stock’ replete with historically contrived symbolisms and other such tools of self-generative function, and ‘act’ in their ‘perceived’ interest, rather than that of their practitioners. The rub is that in order to either know or be all this must proceed on its terms, not ours. The upshot is that religion can be done ill or well, but cannot simply be abandoned. For even in the rare instances that result in self-knowing beings, religion (as heterarchically binding function within semiosis) is distinct from the objects we call ‘religions’. Moreover, every religion that ever existed (function and object alike) is prone to dysfunction. Whether limited to a single living thing or widely practiced and culturally ensconced, the binding of interpretation into being is more likely to result in a more successful interpreter when bound by philosophy and science. This becomes particularly significant when the process of religion is abstracted, set apart from its biological function and instituted within human society. In praxis, this analysis of psychogenetic semiosis demands that we ‘read again’ (relegere) the creative morality of Alan Watts.

A sign is something which stands for another thing to a mind.

(Peirce et al. 1998 : 82)