The semiotic inquirer and the practice of empirical inquiry
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Gary Shank
Abstract
Peirce often changed his ideas but he never deviated from his description of post-Cartesian inquiry introduced in his early work. He saw the task of inquiry was to pursue a search for meaning, most often in the face of genuine doubt, that would be ultimately validated through the world of experience. He turned from the Cartesian ‘cogito’ toward a collective model of understanding that leads to truth. I hope to build on these notions of semiotic inquiry to explore just how revolutionary Peirce’s turn from Descartes was. In particular, Descartes’s project of reducing duality to unity is shifted in the exact opposite direction. Instead of moving from two to one, Peirce showed the way to move from two to three. By understanding the almost fractal nature of triads in our empirical world, Peirce’s ideas move us from reductionism toward an expansive type of triadic understanding that, by its nature, provides stability.
Abstract
Peirce often changed his ideas but he never deviated from his description of post-Cartesian inquiry introduced in his early work. He saw the task of inquiry was to pursue a search for meaning, most often in the face of genuine doubt, that would be ultimately validated through the world of experience. He turned from the Cartesian ‘cogito’ toward a collective model of understanding that leads to truth. I hope to build on these notions of semiotic inquiry to explore just how revolutionary Peirce’s turn from Descartes was. In particular, Descartes’s project of reducing duality to unity is shifted in the exact opposite direction. Instead of moving from two to one, Peirce showed the way to move from two to three. By understanding the almost fractal nature of triads in our empirical world, Peirce’s ideas move us from reductionism toward an expansive type of triadic understanding that, by its nature, provides stability.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents XIII
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Section 1: Semiotic epistemologies
- Welcome to Semiosistan! 1
- Beyond teleonomy: Towards a biology of semiotic realism 13
- Risky heuristics 39
- The semiotic inquirer and the practice of empirical inquiry 59
- Transdisciplinarity as a solution to the challenges of the contemporary world 75
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Section 2: Contemporary schools of theoretical semiotics
- Notes towards a semiotic theory of learning 87
- Scarcity and meaning: Towards a semiotics of economic transaction 111
- Applied ecosemiotics: Ontological basis and conceptual models 129
- The anthropological dimension of Greimas’ narrative semiotics 151
- What happens? The Zemic model in existential semiotics 169
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Section 3: Applications and practical discussions
- Intermedial narrative as communication media: Imagination, narrative, and selfhood from Peirce’s semiotic perspective 205
- Icons of modernity in belle époque Bucharest 227
- Glimpses into Peircean event imaging: Episode-simulation as a scaffold for right-guessing 249
- Development of agency as semiotic empowerment: A Peircean analysis 273
- On the corposphere: Body, eroticism and pornography 299
- Natural and cultural layers in the discursive becoming of language as a semiotic system 311
- Index 337
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents XIII
-
Section 1: Semiotic epistemologies
- Welcome to Semiosistan! 1
- Beyond teleonomy: Towards a biology of semiotic realism 13
- Risky heuristics 39
- The semiotic inquirer and the practice of empirical inquiry 59
- Transdisciplinarity as a solution to the challenges of the contemporary world 75
-
Section 2: Contemporary schools of theoretical semiotics
- Notes towards a semiotic theory of learning 87
- Scarcity and meaning: Towards a semiotics of economic transaction 111
- Applied ecosemiotics: Ontological basis and conceptual models 129
- The anthropological dimension of Greimas’ narrative semiotics 151
- What happens? The Zemic model in existential semiotics 169
-
Section 3: Applications and practical discussions
- Intermedial narrative as communication media: Imagination, narrative, and selfhood from Peirce’s semiotic perspective 205
- Icons of modernity in belle époque Bucharest 227
- Glimpses into Peircean event imaging: Episode-simulation as a scaffold for right-guessing 249
- Development of agency as semiotic empowerment: A Peircean analysis 273
- On the corposphere: Body, eroticism and pornography 299
- Natural and cultural layers in the discursive becoming of language as a semiotic system 311
- Index 337
