Peirce's Theory of Communication and Its Contemporary Relevance
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Notes on Peirce's Semiotics and Epistemology
DIAGRAMMATIC THINKING: NOTES ON PEIRCE’S SEMIOTICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY Luis Radford In this paper, I discuss the role of diagrammatic thinking within the larger context of cognitive activity as framed by Peirce’s semiotic theory of and its underpinning realistic ontology. After a short overview of Kant’s scepticism in its historical context, I examine Peirce’s attempt to rescue perception as a way to reconceptualize the Kantian “manifold of senses”. I argue that Peirce’s redemption of perception led him to a se- ries of problems that are as fundamental as those that Kant encountered. I contend that the understanding of the difficulties of Peirce’s epistemol- ogy allows us to better grasp the limits and possibilities of diagrammatic thinking. Keywords: Culture; Diagrammatic thinking; Kant; Peirce; Perception; Semiotics Pensamiento Diagramático: Notas sobre la Semiótica y la Epistemología de Peirce En este artículo se discute el papel que desempeña el concepto de pen- samiento diagramático en el contexto de la actividad cognitiva, tal y como es concebida dentro del marco de la teoría semiótica de Peirce y su subyacente ontología realista. Luego de presentar una visión general del escepticismo kantiano en su contexto histórico, se examina el esfuer- zo de Peirce por rescatar la percepción, esfuerzo que lo lleva a indagar de manera innovadora el “multiespacio de los sentidos” del que habla- ba Kant. Se mantiene que este esfuerzo lleva a Peirce a una serie de problemas que son tan fundamentales como los que Kant encontró en su propio itinerario epistemológico. Se sostiene que la comprensión de las dificultades intrínsecas a la epistemología de Peirce nos permite cernir mejor los límites y posibilidades de su pensamiento diagramático. -
Ethical Reasoning
9781405170987_4_001.qxd 8/8/08 7:18 PM Page 9 PART I ETHICAL REASONING 1 A Brief Overview of Basic Ethical Theory David R. Keller 2 A Framework for Moral Reasoning Eric H. Gampel 9781405170987_4_001.qxd 8/8/08 7:18 PM Page 10 9781405170987_4_001.qxd 8/8/08 7:18 PM Page 11 1 A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF BASIC ETHICAL THEORY David R. Keller Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. Although we use the words syn- onymously in everyday discourse, in philosophy it is important to distinguish the two. Morality is the behavior of making value judgments regarding how we should best live our lives. Two points follow. First, judgments presuppose freedom of choice; the entire edifice of ethics is erected on the assumption that value judg- ments are made by moral agents voluntarily, who therefore are responsible for those choices. This assumption leads into a whole debate about determinism versus free will that I cannot address here.1 Second, value judgments differ from judgments of ordinary preference, such as how spicy we like our food or what color of clothing we prefer to wear. Moral judgments involve interconnected conceptions of goodness, rightness, the class of beings worthy of moral consid- eration, and virtue. Moral judgments presuppose the acceptance of some highest moral good (summum bonum). This might be obedience to God, acting in accordance with duty, realizing one’s unique individual potential, affirming relationships based on care and empathy, or maximizing overall collective happiness. Humans live their lives and make daily choices with an eye to some ideal of moral goodness. -
Human Beings and the Moral Law: Moral Precariousness in Kant's Ethical Philosophy
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2014 Human Beings and the Moral Law: Moral Precariousness in Kant's Ethical Philosophy Bradley Taylor University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Taylor, Bradley, "Human Beings and the Moral Law: Moral Precariousness in Kant's Ethical Philosophy" (2014). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1468. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1468 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1468 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Human Beings and the Moral Law: Moral Precariousness in Kant's Ethical Philosophy Abstract ABSTRACT HUMAN BEINGS AND THE MORAL LAW: MORAL PRECARIOUSNESS IN KANT'S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY Bradley M. Taylor Dr. Paul Guyer This dissertation is an examination of human moral precariousness in Kant's ethics. Human beings are in a state of moral precariousness insofar as they are ever-capable of transgressing the moral law and are often uncertain of the moral worth of their actions. Put another way, in this dissertation I argue that the basic relationship between human beings and the moral law, in Kant's moral philosophy, is, most fundamentally, one of tenuousness and vacillation. This relation is the fundamental characteristic of the human moral condition because such a relation is built into Kant's account of human moral agency. We have a tenuous relation to the moral law because we always have at least the possibility of conflict between our desire for happiness (i.e. the satisfaction of our inclinations) and the requirements of the moral law. -
A Semiotic Theory of Music: According to a Peircean Rationale
A SEMIOTIC THEORY OF MUSIC: ACCORDING TO A PEIRCEAN RATIONALE The Sixth International Conference on Musical Signification University of Helsinki Université de Provence (Aix-Marselle I) Aix-en-Provence, December 1-5, 1998 José Luiz Martinez (Ph.D.) [1] The recent growth of musical applications of Peirce’s general theory of signs, such as in the works of David Lidov (1986), Robert Hatten (1994), William Dougherty (1993, 1994), shows that this approach, once set properly in both musical and semiotic contexts, has great analytical power on questions of musical signification. In this paper I will present the structure of a semiotic theory of music, as demonstrated in my doctoral dissertation, Semiosis in Hindustani Music (Imatra: International Semiotics Institute), submitted and approved by the University of Helsinki in 1997. [2] Peirce, in his studies of semiotics, concluded that thought is only possible by means of signs (vide CP 1.538, 4.551, 5.253). Music is a species of thought; and thus, the idea that music is sign and depends on significative processes, or semiosis, is obviously true. A musical sign can be a system, a composition or its performance, a musical form, a style, a composer, a musician, hers or his instrument, and so on. According to Peirce, signification occurs in a triadic relation of a sign and the object it stands for to an interpretant (CP 6.347), which - in music - is another sign developed in the mind of a listener, musician, composer, analyst or critic. [3] In Peirce’s classification of the sciences, semiotics (or semeiotic) has three branches: Speculative Grammar, Critic and Methodeutic (or Speculative Rhetoric) (CP 1.192). -
Qualia NICHOLAS HARKNESS Harvard University, USA
Qualia NICHOLAS HARKNESS Harvard University, USA Qualia (singular, quale) are cultural emergents that manifest phenomenally as sensuous features or qualities. The anthropological challenge presented by qualia is to theorize elements of experience that are semiotically generated but apperceived as non-signs. Qualia are not reducible to a psychology of individual perceptions of sensory data, to a cultural ontology of “materiality,” or to philosophical intuitions about the subjective properties of consciousness. The analytical solution to the challenge of qualia is to con- sider tone in relation to the familiar linguistic anthropological categories of token and type. This solution has been made methodologically practical by conceptualizing qualia, in Peircean terms, as “facts of firstness” or firstness “under its form of secondness.” Inthephilosophyofmind,theterm“qualia”hasbeenusedtodescribetheineffable, intrinsic, private, and directly or immediately apprehensible experiences of “the way things seem,” which have been taken to constitute the atomic subjective properties of consciousness. This concept was challenged in an influential paper by Daniel Dennett, who argued that qualia “is a philosophers’ term which fosters nothing but confusion, and refers in the end to no properties or features at all” (Dennett 1988, 387). Dennett concluded, correctly, that these diverse elements of feeling, made sensuously present atvariouslevelsofattention,wereactuallyidiosyncraticresponsestoapperceptions of “public, relational” qualities. Qualia were, in effect, -
Aristotle's Subject Matter Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of
Aristotle’s Subject Matter Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University Keren Wilson Shatalov, MLitt Graduate Program in Philosophy The Ohio State University 2019 Dissertation Committee: Allan Silverman, Adviser Tamar Rudavsky Lisa Downing ii Copyright by Keren Wilson Shatalov 2019 iii Abstract In my dissertation I examine Aristotle’s concept of matter by highlighting the tools from his Organon which he uses to introduce matter in his Physics. I make use of logical concepts Aristotle develops in his work on explanation in Posterior Analytics, especially his concept of subject or ὑποκείμενον, to argue that matter, for Aristotle, must be understood not as a distinct ontological category but as a term of art denoting a part of an explanation in natural philosophy. By presenting an analysis of Aristotle’s concept of ὑποκείμενον from his logical works, I show how Aristotle uses it to spell out just what explanatory role matter plays, and what this means for what it is to be matter. I argue that when Aristotle uses the term “ὑποκείμενον” to name a principle of change in Physics A, he is employing the logical concept which he had made use of and developed in his logical works, contra prominent readings which argue instead that the term in Physics is a distinct technical term, homonymous with the logical term. Further, I offer a new reading of the concept of ὑποκείμενον in the logical works. On my reading, a genuine ὑποκείμενον is something which, just by being what it is or ὅπερ x τι, is what is presupposed by something else, y, and which grounds and partially explains the presence of that y. -
Title Peirce's General Theory of Signs Author(S)
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Kyoto University Research Information Repository Title Peirce's General Theory of Signs Author(s) Clare Thornbury Finding Meaning, Cultures Across Borders: International Citation Dialogue between Philosophy and Psychology (2011): 49-57 Issue Date 2011-03-31 URL http://hdl.handle.net/2433/143046 The copyright of papers included in this paper belongs to each Right author. Type Article Textversion publisher Kyoto University 49 Peirce's General Theory of Signs CLARE THORNBURY Institute of Education, University of London Charles. S Peirce was one ofthe founders ofPragmatism, alongside William James and John Dewey. This paper looks at Peirce's later work on his theory of signs, or semiotic. Peirce's semiotic is a broad one, including as signs things that other semioticians may reject. Peirce's semiotic includes a key division ofsigns into the three categories ofIcon, Index and Symbol. This trichotomy and the breadth ofPeirce's semiotic makes it well suited to, for example, a semiology of cinema. The basic structure ofthe sign in Peirce is also triadic, being a relation between sign-object-interpretant, and this brings us to a further appreciation of the sign as sign-action: a move from semiotic to semiosis. Peirce's approach to the philosophy of language goes beyond language to a theory of signs in general, and this 'semiotic' is deeply embedded within his broader systematic philosophical works. To understand it therefore, it is helpful to do two things: 1) to understand the breadth of Peirce's semiotic and 2) to differentiate it from other philosophical theories in the field. -
Redalyc.Intersemiotic Translation from Rural/Biological to Urban
Razón y Palabra ISSN: 1605-4806 [email protected] Universidad de los Hemisferios Ecuador Sánchez Guevara, Graciela; Cortés Zorrilla, José Intersemiotic Translation from Rural/Biological to Urban/Sociocultural/Artistic; The Case of Maguey and Other Cacti as Public/Urban Decorative Plants.” Razón y Palabra, núm. 86, abril-junio, 2014 Universidad de los Hemisferios Quito, Ecuador Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=199530728032 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative RAZÓN Y PALABRA Primera Revista Electrónica en Iberoamerica Especializada en Comunicación. www.razonypalabra.org.mx Intersemiotic Translation from Rural/Biological to Urban/Sociocultural/Artistic; The Case of Maguey and Other Cacti as Public/Urban Decorative Plants.” Graciela Sánchez Guevara/ José Cortés Zorrilla.1 Abstract. This paper proposes, from a semiotic perspective on cognition and working towards a cognitive perspective on semiosis, an analysis of the inter-semiotic translation processes (Torop, 2002) surrounding the maguey and other cacti, ancestral plants that now decorate public spaces in Mexico City. The analysis involves three semiotics, Peircean semiotics, bio-semiotics, and cultural semiotics, and draws from other disciplines, such as Biology, Anthropology, and Sociology, in order to construct a dialogue on a trans- disciplinary continuum. The maguey and other cactus plants are resources that have a variety of uses in different spaces. In rural spaces, they are used for their fibers (as thread in gunny sacks, floor mats, and such), for their leaves (as roof tiles, as support beams, and in fences), for their spines (as nails and sewing needles), and their juice is drunk fresh (known as aguamiel or neutli), fermented (a ritual beverage known as pulque or octli), or distilled (to produce mescal, tequila, or bacanora). -
Albert the Great on the Subject of Metaphysics and Demonstrating the Existence of God TIMOTHY B
Albert the Great on the Subject of Metaphysics and Demonstrating the Existence of God TIMOTHY B. NOONE In his comprehensive study of Thomas Aquinas's Sen* tentia super Metaphysicam, James Doig introduces Albert the Great as one of the commentators whose interpretation of Aristotle's Meta- physics Thomas intended to challenge. In particular, Doig alleges that Albert's understanding of the formal object (or, in other terminology, the subject) of metaphysics is heavily indebted to the writings of Averroes, although the modern scholar acknowledges that Albert does not follow the Averroistic interpretation in all respects.1 Furthermore, Doig contends that Albert's own Metaphysics following Averroes's schema of metaphysical knowledge, contains no proof of the existence of God as the cause of being but simply relies on the proof of God as the cause of motion, as was developed in Aristotle's Physics.2 1. James C. Doig, Aquinas on Metaphysics: A Histσrico*Doctrinal Study of the Commentary on the Metaphysics (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), pp. 53-54, 125-152. The present paper originated as part of the author's licentiate thesis at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. I would like to dedicate the paper to the late James A. Weisheipl, who directed the thesis, even as I acknowledge that he would have disagreed heartily with its conclusions. 2. For example, Doig, Aquinas on Metaphysics, pp. 202, 204. 31 32 TIMOTHY B. NOONE In marked contrast to Doig's interpretation, Albert Zimmermann, in a monograph devoted to medieval conceptions -
Kant's Doctrine of Schemata
Kant’s Doctrine of Schemata By Joseph L. Hunter Thesis submitted to the faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTERS OF ARTS IN PHILOSOPHY APPROVED: _______________________________ Eric Watkins, Chair _______________________________ _______________________________ Roger Ariew Joseph C. Pitt August 25, 1999 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Kant, Schemata, Experience, Knowledge, Categories, Construction, Mathematics. i Kant’s Doctrine of Shemata Joseph L. Hunter (ABSTRACT) The following is a study of what may be the most puzzling and yet, at the same time, most significant aspect of Kant’s system: his theory of schemata. I will argue that Kant’s commentators have failed to make sense of this aspect of Kant’s philosophy. A host of questions have been left unanswered, and the doctrine remains a puzzle. While this study is not an attempt to construct a complete, satisfying account of the doctrine, it should be seen as a step somewhere on the road of doing so, leaving much work to be done. I will contend that one way that we may shed light on Kant’s doctrine of schemata is to reconsider the manner in which Kant employs schemata in his mathematics. His use of the schemata there may provide some inkling into the nature of transcendental schemata and, in doing so, provide some hints at how the transcendental schemata allow our representations of objects to be subsumed under the pure concepts of the understanding. In many ways, then, the aims of the study are modest: instead of a grand- scale interpretation of Kant's philosophy, a detailed textual analysis and interpretation are presented of his doctrine of schemata. -
The Critique of Judgment
Properly, therefore, it was understanding-which, so far as The Critique of Judgment it contains constitutive a priori cognitive principles, has First Part — Critique of its special realm, and one, moreover, in our faculty of knowledge-that the Critique, called in a general way that Aesthetic Judgment of pure reason was intended to establish in secure but particular possession against all other competitors. In the Immanuel Kant same way reason, which contains constitutive a priori 1790. Translation, James Creed Meredith, Kant’s principles solely in respect of the faculty of desire, gets its Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, 1911, Oxford: holding assigned to it by The Critique of Practical Clarendon Press (“Second Part — Critique of Reason. Teleological Judgment,” published in 1928; first and But now comes judgement, which in the order of our second parts published in 1952, with the above title; cognitive faculties forms a middle term between original footnotes included selectively) understanding and reason. Has it also got independent a priori principles? If so, are they constitutive, or are they merely regulative, thus indicating no special realm? And Preface to the First Edition 1790 do they give a rule a priori to the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, as the middle term between the faculties of The faculty of knowledge from a priori principles may be cognition and desire, just as understanding prescribes called pure reason, and the general investigation into its laws a priori for the former and reason for the latter? This possibility and bounds the Critique of Pure Reason. This is the topic to which the present Critique is devoted. -
On the Semiosphere, Revisited
Yorgos Marinakis On the Semiosphere, Revisited Abstract The semiosphere is frequently described as a topos of complexification, namely discontinuous or heterogeneous, recursive or self-reflexive, stochastic, radically subjective, and capable of simultaneous multiple perspectives. While the topos of complexification describes the gross morphology of a model, it is not a model adequate for explaining phenomena or making predictions. The ecological theory of dual hierarchies is proposed as a framework for developing models of the semiosphere that are appropriately limited in scope and scale. In particular the semiosphere is modeled as a dual hierarchy of semiotic spaces, the dual hierarchies corresponding to the semiosis that is occurring within the dual hierarchies of ecological organization. This framework immediately solves several theoretical problems, such as clearing up conceptual inconsistencies in Lotman's concept of semiosphere. Keywords: semiotics, semiosphere, ecosystem, hierarchy theory, category theory, semiotic triad Introduction Juri Lotman's (2005) On the semiosphere, first published in 1984, introduced the concept of the semiosphere and attempted to describe its gross structural features in broad terms. The semiosphere is defined as the semiotic space outside of which semiosis cannot exist, where semiosis is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs. On its face, the structure of Lotman's concept of semiosphere has difficulties, but by focusing on these difficulties one loses sight of the value of the concept. Lotman's conceives of the semiosphere as a space that carries an abstract character and possessing signs, which space he asserts is not metaphorical (therefore not abstract?) but specific (therefore material and not abstract?).