Sel nädalal annab semiootika osakonnas külalisloengud professor Ivan Mladenov teemal "Animating Peirce: Conceptions in Action"

Course Syllabus 

 

 

Overall objectives

 

The primary goal of the course is teaching on the topic of pragmatism and semiotics. One might be confident in saying that the worthiest contribution of American philosophy is the doctrine of Pragmatism. Therefore, the focus of this teaching will be on pragmatism, and the ideas of its founder, Charles S. Peirce (1839 – 1914). The American polymath and prolific scientist, considered by many as the greatest American philosopher, Peirce devised pragmatism as a concept in 1870. He is also the founder of American semiotics, which is simply a terminological portmanteau wrap for its philosophy. In sum, pragmatism is for Peirce a method for determining or fixing the meaning of concepts, ideas, beliefs, claims, propositions, etc., of anything that can act as a sign. It serves to derive meaning from every art- or thinking act. In other words, pragmatism is a meaning theory for self-correcting and decision making in the world of ideas. 

 

Expected outcomes and impact:

 

The students will receive a glimpse at the latest trends in theory and methodology of pragmatism and semiotics. They will develop their own competence on what is substantial in contemporary semiotics. This will increase their abilities to orient themselves in the realm of ideas, thus improving their skills in creating concepts. The later will strengthen their orientation skills in any area of interests.

 

Part One

 

·        Charles Peirce – just another archaic philosopher or, what is at stake?

 

·        The Thing as Substance/Matter. Aristotle.

·         “The road not taken” – knowing in signs vs. knowing in categories.

·        The Sign-revenge. British empiricists and the follow-ups. Semiotic doctrine.

·        Re-examining the foundations.

·        The Self and the Sign.

 

·        Peirce’s Phaneroscopy (Phenomenology).

 

·        Real vs. Existing.

 

·        Abduction.

 

·        Analysis vs. synthesis. Intuition vs. logical causation.   

 

 

 

 

 

Semiotic Trajectories

 

Peirce – Wittgenstein

·        Thinking Thing-ness.

 

 

 

Part Two

 

·        Peirce and Semiotics. Representations and Conceptions.

 

·        A Sign as a Triad.

 

·        Peirce’s categories, the notion of the “Ground” and the causality.

 

·        Evolutionary Cosmology and the Concept of the Effete Mind.

 

·        Language: A Metonym of Thought.

 

·        Peirce and the Method of Conceptualizing.

 

·        Pragmatism and pragmaticism’ concepts and economy of thought.

 

·        Basic relations among all things in the universe.  

 

·        Is conceptualizing helping in everyday life situations?

 

 

Semiotic Trajectories

 

Peirce on Cognition of representation

·        Motion and Thought. A  Generic Metaphor.

 

 

Final tasks:

 

How would you characterize the society you lived in from a semiotic point of view? How – from a pragmatist perspective? Can you “pragmatize” your major-study? 

 

 

 

Assigned Readings:

 

Nathan Houser and Christian Kloesel eds. (1992) The Essential Peirce vol.1, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis.

 

De Waal, Cornelis, On Peirce, Wadsworth Philosophical Topics, 2001.

 

  

Recommended Bibliography:

 

Brent, Joseph (1993) Charles Sanders Peirce. A Life, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis.

 

Charles S. Peirce’s Letters to Lady Welby (1953) Ed. by Irwin C. Lieb, Whitlock’s, Inc. New Haven, Connecticut.

 

De Waal, Cornelis, On Pragmatism, Wadsworth Philosophical Topics, 2005.

 

Hookway, Christopher (1985) Peirce, Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.

 

Mounce, H.O. (1997) The Two Pragmatisms, From Peirce to Rorty, Routledge: London and New York.

 

Murphey Murray G. (1961) The Development of Peirce’s Philosophy, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

 

Peirce, Charles S. (1931-1966) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 1-6 edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931-1935. Vols. 7-8 edited by Arthur W. Burks. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958.

 

Short, Thomas L. (2007) Peirce’s Theory of signs, Cambridge University Press.

 

The Essential Peirce vol.2. (1998) ed. by Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis (general look).

 

Readers and Dictionaries:

 

Deely, John, Basics of Semiotics, IU-Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1990 (or any more recent edition).   

 

Against Theory, Literary Studies and the New Pragmatism, ed. by W.J. Mitchell, The U-ty of Chicago Press, 1982.

 

Critical Dictionary of Postmodern Thought, ed. Stuart Sim, Routledge, New York, 1999.

 

Pragmatism, A Reader, ed. by Louis Menand, Vintage Books, 1997.

 

Vincent M. Colapietro, Glossary of Semiotics, Paragon House, New York, 1993.

Everyone is welcome!

More information from Tyler Bennett, tyler.bennett1984@gmail.com