Dear Francois
Many thanks this is a good question and now I'm myself curious.
I'm not familiar with the Arabs, but I'd venture a guess re the Chinese.
This will need to be checked, but for the Chinese within Daoism there was always the (religious) belief that nature had a certain order that led to various forms of beneficial flourishings especially when not interefered with. They credited all this to the Dao, some creative power behind the scene that was invisible and unknowable. Some scholars argue that the Chinese therefore saw in this a basis for inferring similar ways to act and to behave. The suppressed premise here must be therefore the belief that the Dao is some kind of model for behavior or action; unless we think so we would not bother reading off nature various strategies like wuwei (non-action) for action. So this may be the interpretant we are looking for, but this seems to me a very unstable premise, unlike in the Christian theological framework where God is not only the creative agent but a morally responsible one who is consistent, etc. Also  I'd be hesitant to say that this afforded them the confidence to study nature with a view to discovering speculatively the truth about nature, (in comparison with say an Aristotelian, who might wish to know nature as it is in itself). One reading is to see the Dao as a model to imitate and therefore indicating general practical strategies when dealing with the world : precisely by not over-engaging it.  Hence the talk of wu wei. You'd notice that we can develop general heuristics to guide behavior even if we cannot with certainty know what exactly the world is like.  You can see I'm rambling and do no justice to your question or the topic.  This is a good research to embark on.  Maybe something worth working on. Now I'm interested.  The other thing is that there are complications in deciphering how the Chinese commentators really read the Dao de Jing text.  My own study of WangBi suggests that his reading of the Dao de Jing basically stuffed his own social scientific insights into the text by exploiting the fact that chinese phrases have more than one possible meaning.  So for one commentator at least, he was not at all studying nature or the Dao and informing his practice.  He was simply developing some pragmatic observations about human behavior and using the ancient text as a mouthpiece for his own ideas.  And perhaps one could say that even if one can predict human behavior, one need not know the truth of things in themselves.  My paper appears here: http://www.sunypress.edu/p-4990-philosophy-and-religion-in-earl.aspx.  So the interpretant you are looking may not be easy to locate. I mean the Chinese typically have "models" of processes of nature, but their account of nature (both physics and metaphysics) in itself is almost naive and imagined. 

Jude
________________________________________
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Francois Nsenga [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2012 12:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Galileo and the Church -- a Footnote

Dear Jude

Just as a curious layman.

You close your footnote saying

"...without this theological interpretant, one would not even have the
confidence to embark on the potentially pointless and futile study of
physis." This is an interpretation in the christian perspective.

In comparison, would you by any chance know which was the arabic and
chinese 'interpretant' (s) that gave impetus and 'confidence'  within those
two other intellectual poles to study nature?

Thanks in advance

Francois
Montréal
National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg

DISCLAIMER : The information contained in this email, including any attachments, may contain confidential information. 
This email is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) listed above. Unauthorised sight, dissemination or any other 
use of the information contained in this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email by fault, please 
notify the sender and delete it immediately.