Peirce's Theory of Signs

Peirce's Theory of Signs
Author: T. L. Short
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 13
Release: 2007-02-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139461915

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism is not verificationism; rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science.

Peirce, Signs, and Meaning

Peirce, Signs, and Meaning
Author: Floyd Merrell
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780802079824

C.S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was an American philosopher and mathematician whose influence has been enormous on the field of semiotics. Merrell uses Pierce's theories to reply to the all-important question: "What and where is meaning?"

Peirce on Signs

Peirce on Signs
Author: James Hoopes
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2014-02-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1469616815

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is rapidly becoming recognized as the greatest American philosopher. At the center of his philosophy was a revolutionary model of the way human beings think. Peirce, a logician, challenged traditional models by describing thoughts not as "ideas" but as "signs," external to the self and without meaning unless interpreted by a subsequent thought. His general theory of signs -- or semiotic -- is especially pertinent to methodologies currently being debated in many disciplines. This anthology, the first one-volume work devoted to Peirce's writings on semiotic, provides a much-needed, basic introduction to a complex aspect of his work. James Hoopes has selected the most authoritative texts and supplemented them with informative headnotes. His introduction explains the place of Peirce's semiotic in the history of philosophy and compares Peirce's theory of signs to theories developed in literature and linguistics.

New Testament Semiotics

New Testament Semiotics
Author: Timo Eskola
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2021-08-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004465766

Navigating through different realist and nominalist traditions, Timo Eskola suggests that signs are about conditions and functions and participate in a web of relations. Questioning Derridean poststructuralism, the author reinstates Benveniste’s hermeneutics of enunciation and suggests a new approach to metatheology.

Peirce

Peirce
Author: Albert Atkin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2015-06-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 131744583X

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is generally regarded as the founder of pragmatism, and one of the greatest ever American philosophers. Peirce is also widely known for his work on truth, his foundational work in mathematical logic, and an influential theory of signs, or semiotics. Albert Atkin introduces the full spectrum of Peirce’s thought for those coming to his work for the first time. The book begins with an overview of Peirce’s life and work, considering his early and long-standing interest in logic and science, and highlighting important views on the structure of philosophical thought. Atkin then explains Peirce’s accounts of pragmatism and truth examining important later developments to these theories. He then introduces Peirce’s full accounts of semiotics, examines his foundational work on formal and graphical logic, and introduces Peirce’s account of metaphysics, the least understood aspect of his philosophy. The final chapter considers Peirce’s legacy and influence on the thought of philosophers such as John Dewey and Richard Rorty, as well as highlighting areas where Peirce’s ideas could still provide important insights for contemporary philosophers. Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, this invaluable introduction and guide to Peirce’s philosophy is essential reading for those new to his work.

Consciousness and the Philosophy of Signs

Consciousness and the Philosophy of Signs
Author: Marc Champagne
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2018-03-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319733389

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.

Changing Signs of Truth

Changing Signs of Truth
Author: Crystal L. Downing
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 083086685X

Crystal Downing brings the postmodern theory of semiotics within reach for today's evangelists. Following the idea of the sign through Scripture, church history and the academy, Downing shows you how signs work and how sensitivity to their dynamics can make or break an attempt to communicate truth.

Peirce’s Speculative Grammar

Peirce’s Speculative Grammar
Author: Francesco Bellucci
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2017-11-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351811371

Peirce’s Speculative Grammar: Logic as Semiotics offers a comprehensive, philologically accurate, and exegetically ambitious developmental account of Peirce’s theory of speculative grammar. The book traces the evolution of Peirce’s grammatical writings from his early research on the classification of arguments in the 1860s up to the complex semiotic taxonomies elaborated in the first decade of the twentieth century. It will be of interest to academic specialists working on Peirce, the history of American philosophy and pragmatism, the philosophy of language, the history of logic, and semiotics.

Semiotics and the Problem of Translation

Semiotics and the Problem of Translation
Author: Dinda L. Gorlée
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2022-10-04
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004454756

Here is a radically interdisciplinary account of how Charles S. Peirce's theory of signs can be made to interact meaningfully with translation theory. In the separate chapters of this book on semiotranslation, the author shows that the various phenomena we commonly refer to as translation are different forms of genuine and degenerate semiosis. Also drawing on insights from Ludwig Wittgenstein and Walter Benjamin (and drawing analogies between their work and Peirce's) it is argued that through the kaleidoscopic, evolutionary process of unlimited translation, signs deploy their meaning-potentialities. This enables the author to throw novel light upon Roman Jakobson's three kinds of translation - intralingual, interlingual, and intersemiotic translation. Gorlée's pioneering study will entice translation specialists, semioticians, and (language) philosophers into expanding their views upon translation and, hopefully, into cooperative research projects.

Signs and Society

Signs and Society
Author: Richard J. Parmentier
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2016-10-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253025141

A major voice in contemporary semiotic theory offers a new perspective on potent intersections of semiotic and linguistic anthropology. In Signs and Society, noted anthropologist Richard J. Parmentier demonstrates how an appreciation of signs helps us better understand human agency, meaning, and creativity. Inspired by the foundational work of C. S. Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure, and drawing upon key insights from neighboring scholarly fields, Parmentier develops an array of innovative conceptual tools for ethnographic, historical, and literary research. Parmentier’s concepts of “transactional value,” “metapragmatic interpretant,” and “circle of semiosis,” for example, illuminate the foundations and effects of such diverse cultural forms and practices as economic exchanges on the Pacific island of Palau, Pindar’s Victory Odes in ancient Greece, and material representations of transcendence in ancient Egypt and medieval Christianity. Other studies complicate the separation of emic and etic analytical models for such cultural domains as religion, economic value, and semiotic ideology. Provocative and absorbing, these fifteen pioneering essays blaze a trail into anthropology’s future while remaining firmly rooted in its celebrated past.