Semiotics of nature: recharging the world with meaning

Abstract

Can the efforts to discover causal relations in nature be combined with the efforts to understand its meaning? Are these two efforts compatible or mutually exclusive? Some answer this question positively while others answer it negatively. For those who answer this question negatively, exploring causal relations to reach an explanation is the only way to study nature. Positivism holds that the issue should be approached in this fashion; this is also a view that prevails in present day academia. Positivists are convinced that there is no meaning in nature. Thus, they believe that any interest in the meaning of nature constitutes heresy in science. The author will challenge this view in this article and argue the opposite: Exploring causal relations and deciphering the meaning inherent in nature are complimentary to each other.