title: Some reflections on Rosen's conceptions of semantics and finality.
abstract: The present contribution departs from Rosen's idea that the semantics of a natural language cannot be fully reduced to syntactical rules. In the first place, this surplus value can be found in the relational organization of living beings as well as in intuitive observational descriptions of them. Second, to recognize meaning and to ascribe sense and intentionality to a living being, we observers take recourse to the notion of finality, which is considered here as the upshot of a bifurcation between logical levels of processes. Finally, a particular class of geometrical constructions is proposed as a domain in which the origination of such bifurcations can be visualized.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, NL-6200 MD Maastricht. goudsmit@operamail.com
authors.forename: Arno L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Goudsmit
mesh_terms: D008962:Models, Theoretical; D049490:Systems Biology