The Semiotic Metaxic Field…
Intelligent Contingent Being: Categories as Boundary Constraints
“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors”…
― William Blake
Refer — The Square of Opposition [ LINK ]
Metaxu
between
middle-ground
Metaxy
Voegelin refers to the permanent place where man is in-between two poles of existence
In the A Copernicus 2.0 Moment — The Triangulation of Modes of Being the prevailing philosophical and metaphysical foundations of Modernity and Post-Modernity were being questioned and challenged to their very core.
The rationalism of Leibniz & Descartes and the emergence of Idealism.
The empiricism of Locke and Hume and the emergence of Materialism.
Kant’s Synthesis — Idealism and Materialism
“The Copernican revolution brought about by Kant was, I think, the most important single turning point in the history of philosophy”…
— Bryan Magee
Kant attempts to resolve this Idealism with Materialism by developing Transcendental Idealism — a position that recognises both the role of sensory experiences and the role of the a-priori properties of the Human Mind.
“Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason”…
— Immanuel Kant
In other words, the conditions that make knowledge possible are shaped by a-priori categories and mental structures of the Mind.
We are empirically realists about phenomena but idealists about their conditions (actualisation) of possibility and understanding.
“Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind”…
— Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Kant’s synthesis attempts to:
- Preserves the objectivity of science and empirical inquiry;
- Recognises the active role of the perceiving subject’s mind in constituting experience & understanding; and
- Establish the limits of metaphysics (i.e. a Boundary Constraint) by distinguishing between what we can know (phenomena) and what lies beyond (noumena).
Metaxu — In-Between
We occupy the space between two poles of Extreme Dogma (i.e. Believe in Anything) and Extreme Skepticism (i.e.Believe in Nothing) and at the same time can recognise the limits of what we know ( a Negative Capability).
“One thing we can do is drown ourselves in a sea of ideas, mostly false ones, in the hope that we find that one insightful nugget of wisdom we wouldn’t otherwise find if we were too cautious. If we did that, we end up believing more true things but a lot of false things as well as being credulous.
Or we could build a very strong border wall and do extreme vetting of ideas to keep out all the false ones so that only the true ones get in and we are never duped or harmed. If we did that, we would be sceptical, we are not going to be wrong very much, but we might not have much to believe either”…
— Barry Lam’s Hi-Phi Nation (Episode Seven)
[ LINK ]
A state of Being (a Dasein) that reflects the central role of the Conscious Self — Ego in bringing meaning and an understanding to Reality (an Idealism) and at the same time recognises our embodiment and entanglement in the World (a Materialism).
“Dasein is a being that does not simply occur among other beings. Rather, it is ontically distinguished by the fact that in its Being, this Being is concerned about its very Being. Thus, it is constitutive of the being of Dasein to have, in its very being, a relation of being to this being”…
— Martin Heidegger
Our ideas (Idealism) can have material consequences and the material consequences can in turn shape our ideas (Materialism).
Descartes concluded that Idealism and our capacity for conscious thought alone can confirm our existence — the idea of Materialism requires conscious thought (an Idealism).
In other words, Idealism and Materialism are entangled in a Conscious Being.
A Conscious Being. that is entangled in relationships with other Beings where:
- Meaning emerges from the relationship (Peirce) of this Being (Dasein) to Being (Sein) (Heidegger);
- Being becomes relationally self-evident (Heidegger — pre-conceptual lived experience, Husserl — Intentional Consciousness, Peirce — Semiotic Triadic); and
- Knowing brings an understanding and alignment of the abstract concept of the Mind with Being.
The Semiotic Metaxic Field: Categories as Boundary Constraints
“Well, it’s important to first recognise that the data are not the phenomena. They are a representation of the phenomena. Also, we must recognise that God did not create data; any piece of data you or I have ever encountered was created by a human being. Unable to fully capture this wonderfully complex world, we human beings use our bounded rationality to make “decisions” about what aspects of the phenomena to include, and which to exclude, in our data. These decisions become embedded in the tools we use to create and process data. By definition, these decisions reflect our preexisting ways of thinking about the world. These ways of thinking are sometimes good and reliable — guided by known causal relationships. But often, they are not. No quantity, velocity, or granularity of data can solve this fundamental problem”…
— Clayton Christensen
What enables us to move from a high-dimensional infinite realm of possibility to bringing an actuality and intelligibility to Reality via our Human Consciousness?
Aristotle’s Ontological Categories of Being
Aristotle’s Ontological Categories of Being was an attempt to bring together a set of first-order categories and a systematic account of what it means to be — to exist (act of Being) — and the different ways in which things can be said to be.
Categories that assist us in understanding what exists (necessity and possibility) and how we describe it.
Basic types of Beings that can be predicated ontologically.
These ontological categories (substance (primary), quantity, qualification, relatives, location, time, position, state, action, affected), provide the foundational axioms to the structures and propositions of Term Logic.
For example, in logic, you might say “All humans are mortal” — the subject and predicate both belong to categories (substance, quality, etc).
Understanding what kind of being a term refers to is crucial for correct logical inference and for avoiding equivocation.
The categories are a framework for understanding what the terms refer to in the World.
In other words, the saliency of Term Logic as a tool for Reasoning operates via Semiotics (i.e. language) and these semiotic signs in turn map onto a Reality in a meaningful and structured way.
In doing so, the possibility of what might exist (i.e. ontology — act of Being) collapses from the infinite ( extreme Dogma) or nothing ( extreme Skepticism ) to Aristotle’s Categories thereby providing a Boundary Constraint to the Semiotic Metaxic Field.
Kant’s Epistemological Categories of Knowing
Similarly, Kant’s Epistemological Categories of Knowing was an attempt to bring together a set of first-order categories and a systematic account of what it means to know and the different ways in which things can be said to be known.
Basic modes in which knowing can be understood (Epistemological Predicates) explains how the mind structures experiences and beliefs of the World.
“But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises from experience. For it is quite possible that even our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we perceive through impressions, and of that which our own faculty of knowledge (incited by sense impressions) supplies from itself, a supplement which we do not distinguish from that raw material until long practice and rendered us capable of separating one from the other”…
— Immanuel Kant
Kant’s ideas reflect a middle-path between Rationalism (e.g. Descartes, Liebniz etc) which believed in innate ideas and a-priori knowledge and Empiricism (e.g. Locke, Hume etc) which argued that all knowledge comes from sensory experience.
Kant was particularly critical of Hume’s scepticism, which challenged the rational basis of causality and other necessary connections.
This led him to the idea that the mind contributes something a-priori to experience.
“It is, rather, solely an act of the understanding, which itself is nothing but the faculty of combining “a priori” and of bringing the manifold of given representations under the unity of apperception; and the principle of this unity is, in fact, the supreme principle of all human knowledge”…
— Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues that for any experience to be intelligible, it must be structured not only by sensibility (what we perceive) but also by understanding (how we think) to enable a cognitive synthesis.
The Categories are the pure concepts that shape our understanding — the fundamental modes of thinking that the mind brings to experience.
These include:
- Quantity (Unity, Plurality, Totality);
- Quality (Reality, Negation, Limitation);
- Relation (Substance & Accident, Causality & Dependence, Community (Reciprocity)); and
- Modality (Possibility, Existence, Necessity).
Kant developed these Categories to:
- Ground Objective Knowledge — Kant wanted to explain how objective judgments are possible — universally valid judgments (a Universality of Reason) and necessity;
- Reinvigorate Metaphysics — Restore the legitimacy of Metaphysics that had been eroded as Modernity progressed; and
- Articulate the Unity of Apperception — Kant viewed his theory of the transcendental unity of apperception as the supreme principle of Human Knowledge. It was dependent on the Categories that unify the manifold of experience with the structure of self-consciousness to make self-awareness and coherent experience possible.
“It is, rather, solely an act of the understanding, which itself is nothing but the faculty of combining “a priori” and of bringing the manifold of given representations under the unity of apperception; and the principle of this unity is, in fact, the supreme principle of all human knowledge”…
— Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
In doing so, the possibility of what can we know (i.e. epistemology) collapses from the infinite ( extreme Dogma) or nothing ( extreme Skepticism ) to Kant’s Categories thereby providing another Boundary Constraint to the Semiotic Metaxic Field.
Peirce’s Phenomenological Categories of Meaning
“Let me remind you of the distinction … between dynamical, or dyadic action; and intelligent, or triadic action”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
Peirce’s Phenomenological Categories of Meaning, his triadic system of categories (Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness) was not merely a classificatory scheme for modes of Being — it was a comprehensive philosophical framework designed to unify the mind & world, abstraction & embodiment, subjectivity & objectivity through a dynamic theory of signification, or semiosis.
Peirce’s philosophical project can be interpreted as seeking a unity of Being through Meaning — a mediated relation between:
- Mental abstraction (conceptual, logical, symbolic); and
- Embodied existence (practical, experiential, brute reality)
through a semiotic participatory process that mediates them.
“If the sign were not related to its object except by the mind thinking of them separately, it would not fulfil the function of a sign at all”…
– Charles Sanders Peirce
He explicitly rejects Cartesian dualism (i.e. an epistemology that focuses on the solitary individual subject as an interpreter of objects is misleading) favouring a non-reductive realism where :
- Mind is not a separate substance, but a function of semiotic processes embedded in nature; and
- Meaning is not subjective but emerges through communal, embodied inquiry into real things and their practical consequences.
“in order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception, one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception, and the sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
In doing so, the possibility of what does it mean and the intelligibility of Reality (i.e. Semiotics of Life) collapses (via the Semiotic Triadic & Pragmatic Maxim) from the infinite (extreme Dogma) or nothing (extreme Skepticism ) to a semiosis mediated by Man’s embodied phenomenological participation in Reality via Peirce’s Categories and modes of Being. In doing so, it provides a third Boundary Constraint to the Semiotic Metaxic Field.
“Life itself consists of phases in which the organism falls out of step with the march of surrounding things and then recovers unison with it — either through effort or by some happy chance. And, in a growing life, the recovery is never mere return to a prior state, for it is enriched by the state of disparity and resistance through which it has successfully passed. If the gap between organism and environment is too wide, the creature dies. If its activity is not enhanced by the temporary alienation, it merely subsists. Life grows when a temporary falling out is a transition to a more extensive balance of the energies of the organism with those of the conditions under which it lives”…
- John Dewey
Intelligent Contingent Being and Categories as Boundary Constraints to the Semiotic Metaxic Field
“by form I mean the essence of each thing and the primary substance”… and …“by the substance without matter I mean the essence”…
— Aristotle
Just as substance (matter, form, and essence) grounds the physical being (Rosmini: Real Being) of things in materialism, so too do the categories of Being, Knowing, and Meaning ground the intelligible being of phenomena in a broader theological, metaphysical, and phenomenological framework grounded in Semiotics.
They are not physical substrates, but conscious structural conditions — not what things are made of, but what things can mean (meaning — Peirce), exist (being — Aristotle), and be known ( knowing — Kant).
They form the metaphysical scaffolding of intelligibility that reflects three distinct modes of Being (Being in the World — this Being’s (Dasein) relationship to Being (Sein) (Heidegger) (an Embodied & Entangled Being), Property Dualism of Conscious Self & Being (a Presence & Difference) (a distinction between an Embodied Entangled Being & Bringing to the Mind & Abstraction), and a Bringing to the Mind (a Cognition & Abstraction)).
A triadic metaphysical architecture that enables entities to signify (Peirce), to appear (Aristotle), and to be known & understood (Kant).
If we take intelligibility to be the precondition of all cognition and rational discourse, then:
- The categories of Being, Knowing, and Meaning function as a-priori metaphysical boundary constraints — just as physical laws constrain physical processes; and
- These are not merely abstract concepts but are the conditions of possibility for any semiotic, ontological, and epistemological coherence ( sense of coherence).
Intelligibility is not a by-product of material complexity alone, but the result of a triadic metaphysical relational scaffolding that enables entities to signify, appear, and be understood.
Whereas material substance makes an object physically real ( Real Being — Rosmini), the triadic categories of Meaning-Being–Knowing make a phenomenon intelligibly real (Ideal Being — Rosmini).
This represents a Semiotic Metaxic elevation from the ontology of composition to the ontology of disclosure — from substance as being-in-itself to categories as being-for-intelligence and interpretation.
Intelligibility is not just the structure of physical things, but the structure of how things become available to us as intelligible.
These categories are not reducible to physics — they are necessary conditions that shape the boundary constraints of the Semiotic Metaxic field.
The a-priori conditions enable the actualisation of the realm of possibility of anything being understood or disclosed at all.
They form the metaphysical framework within which:
- Being gives presence (Aristotle);
- Knowing gives structure & universality( Kant); and
- Meaning gives coherence (Peirce).
Conclusions
The Semiotic Metaxic Field is shaped by our first-order categories of thought that emerged from the ideas of Aristotle, Kant and Peirce.
These categories provide the boundary constraints to the infinite horizon of the possibility of Reality grounded in Being.
They are a-priori constraints to the intelligibility of the Universe and our capacity for good reason.
“Bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible; and this fact is the foundation of the practical side of logic”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
New potential relational possibilities of meaning emerge from our Being in the World via this Being’s ( Dasein) relationship to Being ( Sein) — Heidegger.
“Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea; for induction does nothing but determine a value and deduction merely evolves the necessary consequences of a pure hypothesis”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
It reflects the adjacent possible (Prof Stuart Kauffman) and the potential to expand the Metaxic Semiotic Field of Meaning, Being and Knowing.
“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions”…
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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