Abstract
Where particles are observed, is partitioning active. The latter is not merely a form of our thinking but it is in essence our thinking itself, which seems here ‘naïve-natural’. A major issue of the partitioning process is its emphasis on the “I”, which is not identical to the classical category of the subject. Husserl explained that a partitioning of the ‘I’ is also a power in our knowledge making and thus in meaning. In other words: partition is the key for an all-important attitude-change to be reconsidered in view of the layered character of language and the seemingly unlimited multiplicity of meaning—far beyond a single word, a single expression, articulation, or even a single whole. Bohmian holism meaning in quantum theories are in this chapter not understood as a single act or an independent particle, but as a constellation. An elaborate summary on semiotics in law closes the chapter on the basis of the above observations. They illustrate that the lawyer should properly understand the layered character of language and its many possibilities/dangers of abuse. The level of semiotic insights unfolds from everyday language and the language of the law, that is: from ‘naïve-natural’, to ‘non-naïve natural’ layers, which need to be mastered by the law student and the practicing lawyer alike.
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Notes
- 1.
As L. Wittgenstein wrote in view of the boundaries of logic, in a sense remarkably near to Ch. S. Peirce: “We want to understand something that is already in plain view. For this is what we seem in some sense not to understand” in: Philosophical Investigations, 1953, Par. 89. Peirce formulated: “… that rare faculty, the faculty of seeing what stares one in the face, just as it presents itself, unreplaced by any interpretation, unsophisticated by any allowance for this or for that supposed modifying circumstance”. In: 2nd Harvard Lecture 1903, The Essential Peirce, Vol. II, Op. Cit, p 147.
- 2.
The often-quoted original German expression “Einstellungsänderung” is intended here.
- 3.
Read a consideration of the Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879–1940) in which he underpins the basics of his painting activity: Exercise on Monday, July 3, 1922, [German-English transl. JMB]: “Die Organisierung der Verschiedenheiten zur Einheit”: “The organization of differences into a unity, the unification of organs into an organism was, in all its variations, always the purpose of our theoretical research.
For instance: we see everyday, every hour, human bodies, and perceive them either as a totality (for short: a human) or as a composition of head, torso, arm, leg.
As a totality one calls this a synthetic view, as organization, an analytical. The final result is the same: simply human—only the attitude is different.
The analytical attitude is profitable because it enables us to know the parts as they are, and their coherence. Each work is, however, not a priori a product, not a work that is, but in the first place genesis, a work that is becoming. No work is a priori determined, but each work begins somewhere amidst motives and grows beyond the various organs towards an organism.”
See: Paul Klee: Das Bildnerische Denken, [Pictorial Thinking] Basel/Stuttgart 1964, p. 449.
- 4.
See Christopher Booker : The Seven Basic Plots. Why we Tell Stories. Continuum, London/New York 2004.
- 5.
See above, Chap. 3.
- 6.
L. Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations, Op. Cit., Par. 43.
- 7.
H. Jackman: “Meaning Holism” in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, © <hjackman@yorku.ca> 2014.
- 8.
L. Wittgenstein has given this issue many thoughts. See his Philosophical Investigations, Op. Cit., Par. 120: “You say: the point isn’t the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning. The money, and the cow that you can buy with it. (But contrast: money, and its use.)”
- 9.
H. Jackman: “Meaning Holism” in: SEP, Op. Cit., at hjackman@yorku.ca 2014.
- 10.
Jenann Ismael: “Quantum Mechanics” in: SEP, 2000/2015, Op. Cit. at jtismael@U.Arizona.EDU.
- 11.
For instance those maintained in most of the SEP contributions. The article written by Jackman <hjackman@yorku.ca> 2014 must decidedly be completed by a relevant social philosophy and a philosophy of language, including semiotics.
- 12.
This should block a purely technical understanding of Wittgenstein’s idea pertaining to a ‘meaning-in-the-use’ approach in his Philosophical Investigations, Par. 43.
- 13.
For the distinction between phases A through D, see Chap. 1.
- 14.
As accentuated in the cosmic fazes A through D in Chap. 1.
- 15.
David Bohm: Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London 1980, pp. 173, 11, 81.
- 16.
David Bohm: Wholeness, Op. Cit., p. 191.
- 17.
D. Bohm: “A New Theory of the Relationship of Mind and Matter”, in: Philosophical Psychology, Op. Cit., p. 272.
- 18.
Lady V. Welby: What is Meaning? Studies in the Development of Significance, London 1903, Ed. Bibliolife 2012, p. 50 ff.
- 19.
Consider an example: a syndrome in medicine suggests wholeness and identity. And it suggests a natural ontology: it is as if the syndrome is a natural entity, specific for the state of health of the patient. That state of health has, according to our daily experiences and patterns of thought, only to be determined by medical investigations. But any observer of the dialogue between the medical practitioner and his patient can easily come to the conclusion that the patient is regarded as the ‘owner’, that is the ‘bearer’ of a syndrome. Those two components of meaning might precede as well as determine the application of the concept. The holistic notion of ‘the totality of human life’ remains present in this concept, but has already been given a reductionist meaning. That meaning is the subject of a semantic transformation, which does not appear at the surface structure of medical terminology. The conclusion is that a medical scientist, or even a general practitioner, does not refer to ‘human life as a whole’.
See: Jan M. Broekman: Intertwinements of Law and Medicine, Leuven UP 1996, p. 173ff, Ch. IV;—Id.: “Holism, Law, and the Principle of Expressibility” in Rechtstheorie, Vol. 21,4. 1990, p. 419.
- 20.
J. C. Smuts: Holism and Evolution, New York 1946.
- 21.
See already E. Husserl : Logische Untersuchungen, 1900/01, II, Op. Cit., Par. 22–25, on Parts and Wholes.
- 22.
David Bohm: Quantum Theory, New Jersey 1951, pp. 132–134.
- 23.
Bohm: Quantum Theory, Op. Cit., p. 175.
- 24.
Bohm: Quantum Theory, Op. Cit., p. 385 ff, 609.
- 25.
Bohm: Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London/New York 1980, p. xvi.
- 26.
The master—master-discourse also pretends to create holistic powers. One of the examples it produced is the inclusion of the Cartesian way of thinking. But that pretension is very limited, although it is a basic element in Occidental culture and is currently spreading all over the globe.
- 27.
Bohm: Wholeness, Op. Cit., p. 43.
- 28.
Bohm: Wholeness, Op. Cit., p. 51 ff.
- 29.
See Chap. 2: Attitude as Phenomenological Issue. Peirce experienced this change has when he became aware of the social and epistemological dimensions of the train whistle, and spoke of a ‘breach’ introducing a ‘first’.
- 30.
A discourse evolving in the naïve-natural attitude is never purely or exclusively naïve, but the naïve-natural dominates for example expressions of scientific, professional or other character. Each naïveté of meaning is and will remain being witness of a natural attitude.
- 31.
K. Lewin: “Frontiers in Group Dynamics” in: Human Relations, 1947. Vol. I, 1. p. 5 ff.;—id.: Field Theory in Social Science, Harper 1951, and:—id.: A Dynamic Theory of Personality, New York/London 1935. That is a stimulating approach of the naïve-natural attitude and the level of meaning connected with it—but there is a double problem: on the one hand, it seems correct to view the naïveté of naturalness in terms of folk-life in as far as directness of knowledge and emotion is concerned; it characterizes the surface structure of the everyday-life sign pool we already mentioned. On the other hand, we cannot accept any forcing in the line of naïveté and folk-life because of its possible racist connotations.
- 32.
Even Lady V. Welby could not liberate her thoughts from the ‘word’ as the basic unit of linguistic expressiveness: “Let us beware in sense, meaning and significance of allowing the old antithesis ‘matter and mind’ to coerce us”, she writes 1903, “This (…) cannot yet be adequately formulated in our present terminology, which is cramped on every side by the outgrown shells of controversy once protective, now mere sources of danger to intellectual and moral life.” See: Lady V. Welby: What is Meaning? Op. Cit., 2012, p. 50, 51 ff.
- 33.
See Friedemann Pulvermüller c.s.: “Brain Signatures of Meaning Access in Action Word Recognition” in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Vol. 17, No. 6, 2005, p. 884ff.; M. Garagnani and F. Pulvermüller: “Neuronal Correlates of Decisions to Speak and Act” in: Brain and Language, 2013 [at: www.mg421@cam.ac.uk] See also Fr. Pulvermüller, M. Garagnani, Th. Wennekers: “Thinking in circuits: toward neurobiological explanation in cognitive neuroscience” in: Biological Cybernetics 2014, Vol. 108, 5, pp. 573–593.
- 34.
Various meanings involved in a process of change between language layers are important to observe. The expression (or ‘word’) Bmb refers to what at a naïve-natural level would be indicated as body in relation to mind and to brain. This reference is only partially valid, because there is in the first place reference to the body being a totality with the mind and the brain (Bmb). That remains intact for a variation of the viewpoint, whereby the mind forms a totality with the body and the brain (Mbb). The same is true for the brain in totality with the body and the mind (Bbb). And there is the meaning to be distinguished of a further differentiated attitude level, in which the body forms a unity with the Mindbrain (or, in other words, the Brainmind ), which is a different meaning-character from the body just correlated with mind and brain, and would be expressed as BMb.
- 35.
M. Buber: Ich und Du, 1923; see also: Jan M. Broekman: “Bubers grondwoord—een collegefragment” in: Wijsgerig Perspectief op Maatschappij en Wetenschap, XVIII,3, 1978 p. 51 ff.
- 36.
Bohm proceeds: “However if there is a generalized kind of meaning intrinsic to the universe, including our own bodies and minds, then the way may be opened to understanding the whole as self-referential through its ‘meaning for itself’—in other words, by whatever reality is. And the universe as we now conceive it may not be the whole thing.” See David Bohm: “Soma-Significance and the Activity of Meaning”, 1985, in: L. Nichol (Ed.) The Essential David Bohm, London/New York 2003, p. 176.
- 37.
Judith Shklar: Legalism. Law, Morals, and Political Trials. Harvard UP 1964, 1986[2], p. 3. See parallel experiences of Law Students in: Jan M. Broekman and William A. Pencak (Eds): International Journal for the Semiotics of Law,Vol. 23, No 1, March 2010 Special Issue “Signs of Law”, p. 3 ff.
- 38.
No wonder that theology and jurisprudence are in the context of hermeneutics treated as neighbors.
- 39.
Notice that the word “deep” has been mentioned many times. In Chapter 3, linguists, semioticians and philosophers are quoted: Peirce, Lady Welby, Greimas , Kristeva all mentioned it; in Chapter 1, Wittgenstein was mentioned exploring the concept. See his Philosophical Investigations Op. Cit., Par. 583: “As if what were happening now had no deep significance.—What does it mean to say: “What is happening now has significance” or “has deep significance”? What is a deep feeling?”
- 40.
Ch. S. Peirce: Collected Papers Op. Cit. 6. 568.
- 41.
Victoria Lady Welby: What is Meaning? Op. Cit., p. 50 f.
- 42.
Ch. S. Peirce: Coll. Papers Op. Cit., 1.615.
- 43.
This remark has far-reaching political and juridical consequences. Soros wrote in a recent article: “While the US is founded on the principle of individual freedom, China has no significant tradition of such freedom. It has had a hierarchical structure since time immemorial and it has been an empire throughout most of its history. In recent years the US has led the world in the innovative development of social media, while China has led the world in finding means to control it. … This is best seen by looking at the way information is distributed.” G. Soros: “A Partnership with China to Avoid World War” in: The New York Review of Books, LXII, No. 12, 2015. p. 7.
- 44.
See Jan M. Broekman & Larry Catà Backer : Signs in Law, 2015, Op. Cit., Part II.
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Broekman, J.M. (2016). Partitions. In: Meaning, Narrativity, and the Real. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28175-9_5
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