Departing from humanist models of American intellectual history, this dissertation proposes an alternative posthumanist approach to the thought of Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Beginning with Perry Miller’s influential scholarship, American thought is often cast as a search for “face to face” encounters with the unaccountable God of Calvinism, a figure that eventually evolves to encompass Romantic notions of the aesthetic, imagination, or, most predominately, individual human feeling. This narrative typically culminates in the pragmatism of William James, a philosophy in which human feeling attains priority at the expense of impersonal metaphysical systems. However, alongside and against these trends runs a tradition that derives from the Calvinist distinction between a fallen material world and a transcendent God possessed of absolute sovereignty, a tradition that also anticipates posthumanist theory, particularly the self-referential distinction between system and environment that occupies the central position in Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. After systems theory, the possibility for “face to face” encounters is replaced with the necessary self-reference of communication and observation, an attribute expressed in Edwards, Emerson, and Peirce through, respectively, the figures of “true virtue,” an absent and inexpressible grief and, in its most abstract form, Peirce’s concept of a sign. In conclusion, Edwards, Emerson, and Peirce represent an alternative posthumanist genealogy of pragmatism that displaces human consciousness as the foundational ground of meaning, communication, or semiosis.

Walker Percy thought a paradigm for the modern age, human beings, and life does not exist, and no paradigm vying for supremacy (religion, scientism, new age physics and philosophies) succeeds. He sought to create a “radical anthropology” to describe human beings and life. His anthropology has existential roots and culminates in the philosophy and semeiotic of American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce. Unlike any other creature, humans have symbolic capacity, first manifested in a child’s naming and demonstrated in human being’s unique language ability, the ability to communicate through symbol and not just sign. Percy conveyed his anthropology in his last three novels through a number symbolism corresponding to the theme of each novel based on Peirce’s Cenopythagoreanism, viewing the world through the paradigm of number. In Lancelot, Percy uses the symbol of the inverted three to illustrate Lancelot’s inverted search for evil. In The Second Coming, he uses diamonds and squares and fours to illustrate community and authentic communication in the novel. In The Thanatos Syndrome, he uses twos and sixes to represent the search for dyadic solutions to triadic problems. Percy sees a synechistic and synchronistic interconnected “fabric of life” to the universe, enabled by human symbolic capacity, or Peirce’s concept of relations.

Le but de ce mémoire est de déterminer quelle pourrait être la portée de la sémiotique philosophique de Charles Sanders Peirce sur la théorie de l'écriture, en prenant pour cas d'étude le système d'écriture japonais. Le mémoire questionne ainsi la légitimité de l'application de la sémiotique comme théorie générale des signes aux sciences spéciales, tout en éclairant, par converse, l'étude de l'écriture japonaise en tant que système graphique. Il est structuré en deux chapitres principaux, portant sur: 1) les principes de la sémiotique philosophique, et 2) le lien entre la sémiotique et la théorie de l'écriture. Dans le premier chapitre, la méthodologie du mémoire est tout d'abord établie par l'examen du pragmatisme de Peirce, considéré comme une doctrine méthodeutique ayant pour principe directeur la croissance. La sémiotique et la logique, de même que la linguistique et l'étude de l'écriture, sont situées dans le système piercéen des sciences. Les principes de la phanéroscopie et de la sémiotique sont également exposés. La philosophie de la notation logique de l'auteur est ensuite prise comme point de départ pour une étude de l'écriture du point de vue sémiotique. Dans le second chapitre, une synthèse des théories linguistiques de l'écriture japonaise est proposée, puis une théorie générale de l'écriture comme signe est élaborée à partir de la sémiotique peircéenne. La théorie sémiotique est appliquée plus spécifiquement au système d'écriture japonais et à l'analyse de ses transformations actuelles. Le retour réflexif et critique sur l'analyse effectuée permet par la suite de juger de l'adéquation des concepts sémiotiques dans leur application à l'étude de l'écriture japonaise. Le mémoire se conclut par une considération des liens que la sémiotique de l'écriture entretient avec les autres sciences philosophiques normatives, soit l'éthique et l'esthétique. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Sémiotique, Philosophie du langage, Philosophie des sciences, Écriture (système graphique), Japonais (Langue), Charles S. Peirce (Charles Sanders, 1839-1914).

Dissertation--Bern, 2006.

Thèse de doctorat : Philosophie : Paris Est : 2008. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre.

Not available / text

Thesis (M.A.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 1995. / Abstract. Nomos appears on title page in Greek letters. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [71]-75).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Capital Bible Seminary, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-101).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Capital Bible Seminary, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-101).

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:31:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-10-21Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:42:34Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 trevisan_md_dr_mar.pdf: 611808 bytes, checksum: 860b1d4c33a2885ebfff51a6ec182cc5 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta pesquisa, Lógica pragmática e educação: experiência e linguagem em Dewey e Peirce, é uma análise da filosofia pragmatista, com destaque aos aspectos enunciados no título, concernentes ao legado de Dewey e às relações de aproximação e contraste que este mantém com os escritos de Peirce. O percurso investigativo, ao buscar contribuir para as pesquisas sobre os fundamentos teóricos do pragmatismo deweyano, poderá auxiliar o profissional de educação, no sentido de subsidiá-lo em uma reflexão acerca dos alicerces de uma filosofia da experiência, como a pragmática, o que poderá levá-lo a rever posturas tradicionais, tais como a supervalorização dos conteúdos e da memória, frente à rotina escolar. Nosso problema de pesquisa diz respeito à notável ausência de estudos concernentes à influência da filosofia de Peirce sobre a descrição do processo de conhecer em Dewey; inquietação que, ao ordenar nossa investigação, fê-la revelar-se um aporte teórico que pode nos socorrer com relação à indiferença do estudante frente ao processo educativo. Nas análises empreendidas, procuramos descrever de que modo a linguagem viabiliza a experiência (e vice-versa), cujo ambiente se constitui física e culturalmente. As relações entre a lógica e o pensamento reflexivo foram enunciadas em diversos aspectos, capitaneadas pela inferência – núcleo de toda ação inteligente, segundo o autor –. O símbolo revelou-se um operador cognitivo central neste processo, em consonância com a descrição semiótica de Peirce, que concebia aquele signo como realização de terceiridade, em sua tríade mais importante: ícone / índice / símbolo. Embora não tenhamos analisado a teoria peirceana com a mesma amplitude da lógica de Dewey... / This research, Pragmatic logics and education: experience and language, according to Dewey and Peirce, is an analysis of the pragmatic philosophy, highlighting the enunciated aspects in the title, concerning to the legacy of Dewey and the relations of approximation and contrast that Dewey maintains with the papers of Peirce. The investigative route, when searching to contribute for the researches about the theoretical basis of deweyan pragmatism, might help the education professional, referring to supporting him on a reflection about the basis of a philosophy of experience, as the pragmatic, which will lead him to rethink about traditional attitudes, such as the super valorization of the contents and memory in relation to the scholastic routine. Our problem of research refers to the notable absence of studies concerning the influence of the philosophy of Peirce about the description of the process of knowledge according to Dewey; inquietation, that, when directing our investigation, made it be revealed as an theoretical apport, which can help us, referring to the indifference of the student concerning the educational process. On the analyses elaborated, we tried to describe how the language enables the experience (and vice versa), whose environment is constituted physically and culturally. The relations between logics and the reflexive thought were enunciated in several aspects, conducted by the inference – nucleus of all the intelligent action, according to the author –. The symbol demonstrated to be a central cognitive operator in this process, in accordance with the semiotic description of Peirce, which conceived that sign as the realization of the thirdness, in his most important tryad: icon / index / symbol. Although we have not analyzed the theory of Peirce with the same amplitude of the logics of Dewey... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)