: This paper articulates a view of the relation between cognition and being in Peirce's thought, especially derived from his early papers of 1868–69. Based on the rejection of intuitions, I argue that Peirce realized an isomorphic relation between cognition and being that functions as a semiotic foundation. I consider several challenges to these notions in the literature, including doubts about pansemioticism, foundationalism, and realism. In the end, I suggest that the semiotic foundation be thought of as a kind of (...) transcendental, in several senses of that term. (shrink)

The purpose of this work is to propose Charles Peirce's semiotic idealism as an acceptable middle way between skeptical anti-realism and contemporary mind independent realism. The present debate appears stagnant and entrenched in the rigid dualism of either scientific realism or relativism. It will be argued that this dualism constitutes a false dichotomy, and that idealism offers a coherent solution to this impasse. ;Much of the trouble engendering the present debate begins with the correspondence theory of truth. The correspondence theory (...) is habitually aligned with the claim that the referent of a true statement is mind-independent reality. In other words, even if there were no minds there to verify its truth, that statement would still be true and its referent would be real. ;The view of this work is that Peirce's idealism can acceptably qualify the correspondence theory by proposing an idealistic framework in which mind and reality are not seen as two opposing and alien entities. ;The dissertation contains six chapters. Chapter one begins with Peirce's critique of Cartesian and Modern epistemology. It rejects certain modern notions about intuitions, the locus of certitude, and raises general issues about methodology and argumentation. In chapter two, the critique of intuitions develops into an analysis and exposition of Peirce's semiotic, or theory of signs. This chapter pays special attention to Peirce's semiotic interpretation of mind and cognition. Chapter three is a continuation of Peirce's semiotic and unfolds his theory of Synechism, the evolutionary cosmology of a progressively and continually ordered reality. Chapter four helps the reader to place Peirce's theory by comparing it to other movements in 19th and 20th century idealism and realism. Chapter five continues in the same vein by considering Peirce's semiotic idealism as a viable middle way between contemporary mind-independent realism and skeptical anti-realism. Chapter six provides a brief summary and encapsulation of some major points of the work. (shrink)

This essay explores the underlying connections, through reversals and doubling, in Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth. The film utilizes more than just similar cinematic techniques across its five episodes, it embeds conceptual connections that result in a strong location-expression conveying to the viewer the unique ‘flavor’ of each of the five cities. The essay explores the concepts of reversal, doubling, location-expression, and spectatorship. It elucidates the filmic expressions of place by gesturing toward expression theory and rasa theory. Ultimately, the film’s (...) unity, like that of a rock band’s LP, holds together enough to suggest the peculiar awareness of the filmgoer’s tourist spectatorship. (shrink)

Thomism and hierarchical metaphysical systems generally have rejected the moral status of animals. This paper demonstrates that a commitment to a hierarchical system involves the twin claim of being and goodness. This implies that grades of goodness perfuse the created order and also implies the proportional goodness of animals and other living beings. These implications have been consistently overlooked in traditional treatments of our moral relations to animals, yet such hierarchical systems provide an optimal grounding for such evaluations. An application (...) is made to the practice of killing animals for food and a prescription for vegetarianism is advocated. (shrink)

In the layered and deeply modernist approach, this chapter explores the tension between Westworld as an entertainment commodity and Westworld as “high art” utilizing the kind of self‐reference that typifies aesthetic modernism. To do this, elements of the series are connected to classic works of aesthetic theory by Immanuel Kant, Clement Greenberg, Theodor Adorno, and Arthur Danto. Michael Crichton's original Westworld film of 1973 selected the Western as the prime focus of the amusement park, grounding the story in the very (...) notion of kitsch consumerism and heteronomous commodification. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's reworking of The Original, the first episode of Westworld, presents further layers ‐ a developed production team, engineers, “narrative and design department”, and corporate executives. Thus the show explicitly draws on the kitsch elements of the Western to highlight entertainment art as commodity. (shrink)

The British Idealists were a force to be reckoned with in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, until they appeared as the philosophical casualty of the Great War. This volume, part of the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, reproduces selections dealing with social and political philosophy from ten different authors of that tradition. Leading political theorist Bernard Bosanquet has three separate selections totaling fifty-three pages. T. H. Green has only one passage included here since there exists a (...) Cambridge published selection of his work put out in 1986. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce wore many hats during his brilliant and controversial life: mathematician, logician, scientist, philosopher; thus one difficulty for mid-twentieth century work on Peirce had been the apparent lack of systematic unity in his diverse researches. For decades, Peirce studies focused only on aspects of his thought: semeiotic, epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics. Today, however, scholarship has mapped out many connections among the various aspects of Peirce’s work— squelching the mistaken notion that his thought lacked unity. This new work, (...) intended as an in-depth introduction to Peirce, stands as testimony to the advanced state of scholarship in Peirce studies. It not only introduces the reader to Peirce’s thought through his systematic unity, but accomplishes this task through the thematic use of the core concept of “continuity.” Thus the title’s double meaning suggests that the continuity of Peirce’s thought was the continuity in his thought. (shrink)