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.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2004-09-16Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:28:49Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 moraes_scb_me_mar.pdf: 656902 bytes, checksum: a2d26e03862c2aeef3f737035b7a9ea1 (MD5) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / A vida do homem inserido em seu meio ambiente, que (nesse trabalho) é a cidade faz sua atuação dependendo de sua consciência do mundo.As cidades são sistemas dinâmicos onde se pode constatar indícios de auto-organização. O paradigma da auto-organização nos sistemas dinâmicos é desenvolvido nas Ciências Cognitivas, com paralelos na física, biologia, sociologia. A auto-organização nos sistemas dinâmicos caracteriza-se como um processo criativo no qual a estrutura anterior é transformada. Os processos emergentes numa nova forma caracterizam a criação, assim como a formação de interpretantes peirceanos. A semiótica peirceana, fazendo parte de sua extensa arquitetura metafísica, trata da formação de interpretantes numa forma anterior e mais abrangente que a concepções dos processos de auto-organização e emergência A criatividade pode ser constatada na significação de um processo informacional que relaciona signos produzindo crenças. No contínuo da formação de hábitos visto através da semiótica, através da relação interpretante, signo e objeto constatamos um processo evolutivo e criativo que possibilita a mudança de crenças e conseqüente transformação de hábitos. Um entendimento possível da cidade é caracteriza-la enquanto um sistema dinâmico auto-organizado na qual ocorre a transformação da relação entre seus elementos, num processo sígnico criativo e evolutivo, onde existe a possibilidade de continuidade da vida. / Life of man integrated into his environment, which (in this work) is the town, makes his action to depend on his awareness of the world. Towns are dynamic systems where self-organization signs may be found out. In the dynamic systems self-organization paradigm is developed in the cognitive sciences, with parallels in physics, biology and sociology.In the dynamic systems self-organization is characterized as a creative process in which the previous structure is transformed. Emerging processes in a new shape characterize creation just as peircean interpretants constitution. Peircean semiotics, as part of his large metaphysical architecture deals with interpretants construction in a previous and more comprehensive way than concepts of self-organization and emergence processes. Creativity may be found out in the significance of an informational process which relates signs resulting in beliefs.In the continuum of habits shaping seen through semiotics, by means of interpretant, sign and object relationship, an evolutionary and creative process is found out, which may cause changes in beliefs and therefore in habits.A possible way to understand a town is to characterize it as a self-organized dynamic system in which change of relationship among its elements occurs, within a signic process that is creative and evolutionary, where possibility of continuity of life exists.

This dissertation provides a critical and constructive interpretation of “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” [NA], the sole primarily theological essay written by the logician, scientist, and philosopher C. S. Peirce (1839-1914). Despite recent scholarly attention, NA has confused its readers from its publication in 1908 until today. This dissertation interprets NA in light of: (a) Peirce’s philosophy of science and his theory of signs (semeiotic); and (b) a close reading of the published essays and unpublished manuscripts Peirce composed during the decade before NA’s publication and the six years he lived post-publication. These primary materials suggest that the key to understanding the so-called humble argument at the heart of NA is Peirce’s conviction that the universe is a divine sign. The humble argument is a recommendation that one make musement, or the playful contemplation of the universe, a daily habit. Since Peirce believed that the universe is a divine sign, he predicted that anyone who mused for forty to fifty minutes daily would eventually come to believe in God’s reality. Peirce describes the humble argument as the innermost of three nested arguments, the latter two defending the reasonableness of the humble argument. The second argument, which Peirce accuses theologians of neglecting, appeals to the instinctiveness of the idea that God is real as evidence of the truth of that idea. As stated, that argument is flawed, but it can be reformulated as an empirical prediction that intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms will tend to develop conceptions of God or Ultimate Reality. The third argument defends the reasonableness of the humble argument by construing the idea of God as arising, like scientific hypotheses, through abductive inference. Contra Peirce, this dissertation argues that, although analogous to certain abstractions that play important roles in science, the idea of God is not a valid scientific hypothesis because it entails no testable predictions. Given this lack of testable consequences, Peirce’s pragmatic defense of the meaningfulness of the idea of God is inconsistent with his pragmaticism, having more in common with William James’s individualistic interpretation of pragmatism, which Peirce had previously opposed.

Orientador: Lauro F. B. Silveira / Banca: Lucrecia D'Alessio Ferrara / Banca: Mariana C. Broens / Resumo: A vida do homem inserido em seu meio ambiente, que (nesse trabalho) é a cidade faz sua atuação dependendo de sua consciência do mundo.As cidades são sistemas dinâmicos onde se pode constatar indícios de auto-organização. O paradigma da auto-organização nos sistemas dinâmicos é desenvolvido nas Ciências Cognitivas, com paralelos na física, biologia, sociologia. A auto-organização nos sistemas dinâmicos caracteriza-se como um processo criativo no qual a estrutura anterior é transformada. Os processos emergentes numa nova forma caracterizam a criação, assim como a formação de interpretantes peirceanos. A semiótica peirceana, fazendo parte de sua extensa "arquitetura metafísica", trata da formação de interpretantes numa forma anterior e mais abrangente que a concepções dos processos de auto-organização e emergência A criatividade pode ser constatada na significação de um processo informacional que relaciona signos produzindo crenças. No contínuo da formação de hábitos visto através da semiótica, através da relação interpretante, signo e objeto constatamos um processo evolutivo e criativo que possibilita a mudança de crenças e conseqüente transformação de hábitos. Um entendimento possível da cidade é caracteriza-la enquanto um sistema dinâmico auto-organizado na qual ocorre a transformação da relação entre seus elementos, num processo sígnico criativo e evolutivo, onde existe a possibilidade de continuidade da vida. / Abstract: Life of man integrated into his environment, which (in this work) is the town, makes his action to depend on his awareness of the world. Towns are dynamic systems where self-organization signs may be found out. In the dynamic systems self-organization paradigm is developed in the cognitive sciences, with parallels in physics, biology and sociology.In the dynamic systems self-organization is characterized as a creative process in which the previous structure is transformed. Emerging processes in a new shape characterize creation just as peircean interpretants constitution. Peircean semiotics, as part of his large "metaphysical architecture" deals with interpretants construction in a previous and more comprehensive way than concepts of self-organization and emergence processes. Creativity may be found out in the significance of an informational process which relates signs resulting in beliefs.In the continuum of habits shaping seen through semiotics, by means of interpretant, sign and object relationship, an evolutionary and creative process is found out, which may cause changes in beliefs and therefore in habits.A possible way to understand a town is to characterize it as a self-organized dynamic system in which change of relationship among its elements occurs, within a signic process that is creative and evolutionary, where possibility of continuity of life exists. / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:18:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniele Fernandes da Silva.pdf: 3565712 bytes, checksum: 90deebdaa20d854872dc8f672d0a57be (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-10-13 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research has as aim to map/create sign qualities in digital medias in the web, specifically that can make its design becomes into a language capable to induce an aesthetical creation by emerging properties from its own qualities. We define design as desire (of continuity) that do not cease to establish perceptive and conceptual connections with the outside, the other, the caos and the web as a hypermedia, that makes possible the non-linear communication, always unconcluded and interactive. In the construction of this route, we meet the problematic itself, the being of what is not even thought (?-being, for Deleuze). However, we think and communicate by the language. According to peircean theory, perception presumes interaction between thought and outside. Then, interaction was thought as a method, extracted from the peircean theoretical support to connect distinct ways of existence. For Prigogine, complexity creation occurs by interaction between system and its entropic environment. Therefore, we proposed a dilation of present by construction of relations into an unconcluded environment as a basic condition to design creation in general, specifically in digital media, under the point of view of project. Thus, the theoretical study of difference, perception and interaction was made profound by mapping/creating conditions capable to provoke a creative process in design by digital media; this is the investigative importance of our research. Under the empiric point of view, we created a digital environment for real time design experimentation, expecting it can contribute to communication realm by distance education design / Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo equacionar/criar qualidades sígnicas nas mídias digitais na web, especificamente que possam fazer de seu design uma linguagem capaz de induzir à criação estética por meio de propriedades que emanam das próprias qualidades. Definimos aqui design como desígnio, desejo (de continuidade), que não cessa de estabelecer conexões perceptivas e conceituais com o que está fora, o outro, o caos e a web como uma hipermídia que possibilita a comunicação não-linear, sempre inconclusa e interativa. Na construção desse percurso, deparamo-nos com o problemático em si, o ser do que ainda não foi sequer pensado (?-ser, para Deleuze). Entretanto, pensamos e nos comunicamos por meio da linguagem. De acordo com a teoria peirceana, a percepção presume a interação presente do pensamento com aquilo que está fora. A interação foi então pensada como método, extraído do suporte teórico peirceano para conectar formas distintas de existência. Para Prigogine, a criação de complexidade ocorre pela interação do sistema com seu ambiente entrópico. Assim, propusemos a dilatação do presente pela tessitura de relações num ambiente inconcluso como condição básica para a criação do design em geral, especificamente do design de mídias digitais, sob a ótica projetual. Assim, o estudo teórico da diferença, da percepção e da interação foi aprofundado, mapeando/criando condições capazes de desencadear o processo criativo em design pelo meio digital, sendo esta a importância investigativa de nossa pesquisa. Do ponto de vista empírico, criamos um ambiente digital para a experimentação de design em tempo real, na expectativa de que possa contribuir para o campo da comunicação por meio do ensino à distância de design