Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (shrink)

: In this paper, we intend to discuss if and in what sense semiosis (meaning process, cf. C. S. Peirce) can be regarded as an "emergent" process in semiotic systems. It is not our problem here to answer when or how semiosis emerged in nature. As a prerequisite for the very formulation of these problems, we are rather interested in discussing the conditions which should be fulfilled for semiosis to be characterized as an emergent process. The first step in this (...) work is to summarize a systematic analysis of the variety of emergence theories and concepts, elaborated by Achim Stephan. Along the summary of this analysis, we pose fundamental questions that have to be answered in order to ascribe a precise meaning to the term "emergence" in the context of an understanding of semiosis. After discussing a model for explaining emergence based on Salthe's hierarchical structuralism, which considers three levels at a time in a semiotic system, we present some tentative answers to those questions. (shrink)

In this paper, we intend to discuss if and in what sense semiosis (meaning process, cf. C. S. Peirce) can be regarded as an "emergent" process in semiotic systems. It is not our problem here to answer when or how semiosis emerged in nature. As a prerequisite for the very formulation of these problems, we are rather interested in discussing the conditions which should be fulfilled for semiosis to be characterized as an emergent process. The first step in this work (...) is to summarize a systematic analysis of the variety of emergence theories and concepts, elaborated by Achim Stephan. Along the summary of this analysis, we pose fundamental questions that have to be answered in order to ascribe a precise meaning to the term "emergence" in the context of an understanding of semiosis. After discussing a model for explaining emergence based on Salthe's hierarchical structuralism, which considers three levels at a time in a semiotic system, we present some tentative answers to those questions. (shrink)

Os signos e as classes dos signos estão entre os tópicos mais importantes do sistema filosófico de Charles S. Peirce. As 10, 28, e 66 classes de signos são classificações desenvolvidas especialmente a partir de 1903 e representam um grande refinamento da divisão fundamental de signos – ícone, índice, símbolo. Nossa abordagem aqui define uma estratégia de visualização das classificações dos signos, com especial atenção para as 10 e 66 classes de signos. O livro está dividido em duas partes: (i) (...) bases teóricas, (ii) diagramas para as classes de signos. Na Parte I (bases teóricas), são apresentadas introdutoriamente as noções fundamentais das categorias fenomenológicas, classes de signos, as tricotomias e diagramas, assim como implicações gerais de nossa abordagem, metodologia e aplicações. Na Parte II (diagramas para as classes de signos), são apresentados e discutidos os modelos das classes, propostos por Peirce e seus comentadores, incluindo uma introdução detalhadamente documental de nossos modelos, 10cubes e 3N3, diagramas dinâmicos para as classes de signos. (shrink)

It has long been known that there exists a relationship between British analytic philosophy and American pragmatism.1 Recently, however, Cheryl Misak gave this story a new twist. Her 2016 book Camb...

This article aims to show that the contribution of Charles Sanders Peirce to communicology is much earlier than the advent of epistemological integration of semiotics in communication studies, being phaneroscopy as a early form of communicology. This reflection is based on the study of the categorical degeneration theorized by Peirce, his influence on communicational thinking (especially on Gilles Deleuze’s cinema theory), as well as the conceptual link between degeneration and phenomenon from the philosophical point of view of quaternions.

In this article, I examine the reconstruction that Peirce does on analytic/synthetic Kantian division, supported by his phenomenology, semiotic and pragmatism. The analysis of Peirce’s writings on mathematic suggests a notion of a posteriori and necessary analytical truths, that is, propositions that express one belief justified in experience, but whose generalization is valid for all the possible worlds. This was a new idea the time that Peirce formulated it, in 19th Century, and it contrasts with semantic-analytical tradition from Frege and (...) was contested by Quine in 1950’s. Peirce’s notion of analyticity is a result of his discovery of the logic of relatives, which led the philosopher to revise the deductive reasoning, dividing it into corollarial and theorematic, which in turn allow us to understand why mathematics is, simultaneously, deductive and non-trivial. (shrink)

In this essay, I reconsider the constitution of democratic freedom in aesthetic terms. My interest is in articulating a conception of aesthetic freedom that can be mapped onto a conception of democratic freedom. For this purpose, I bring together Charles Sanders Peirce’s ontology, which comprises fragments of an aesthetic theory, Friedrich Schiller’s concept of aesthetic play and Stanley Cavell’s democratic perfectionism. By providing a philosophical framework for constructing an aesthetics and politics that supports the recent aesthetic turn in political theory, (...) which urges overcoming political theory’s excessive dependence on an epistemological theory of representation, and by proposing a modification to the turn’s heavy reliance on theories of affect, my reading of Peirce, Schiller and Cavell offers a new way to think about the political significance of the autonomy of aesthetic experience and affect for democratic freedom. (shrink)

How to model meaning processes (semiosis) in artificial semiotic systems? Once all computer simulation becomes tantamount to theoretical simulation, involving epistemological metaphors of world versions, the selection and choice of models will dramatically compromise the nature of all work involving simulation. According to the pragmatic Peircean based approach, semiosis is an interpreter-dependent process that cannot be dissociated from the notion of a situated (and actively distributed) communicational agent. Our approach centers on the consideration of relevant properties and aspects of Peirce’s (...) pragmatic concept of semiotics. Upon developing this approach, we have no pretensions of our being able to present an exhaustive analysis of the differences between Peirce and other theoretical positions. Nevertheless, our contribution will serve to demonstrate how theorists contribute toward revealing certain fundamental ‘semiotic constraints’ that will be of interest and importance. (shrink)

Against the view that symbol-based semiosis is a human cognitive uniqueness, we have argued that non-human primates such as African vervet monkeys possess symbolic competence, as formally defined by Charles S. Peirce. Here I develop this argument by showing that the equivocal role ascribed to symbols by “folk semiotics” stems from an incomplete application of the Peircean logical framework for the classification of signs, which describes three kinds of symbols: rheme, dicent and argument. In an attempt to advance in the (...) classifying semiotic processes, Peirce proposed several typologies, with different degrees of refinement. Around 1903, he developed a division into ten classes. According to this typology, symbols can be further analysed in three subclasses (rheme, dicent, argument). I proceed to demonstrate that vervet monkeys employ dicent symbols. There are remarkable implications of this argument since ‘symbolic species theory’ fails to explore the vast Peircean semiotic philosophy to frame questions regarding the emergence and evolution of symbolic processes. (shrink)

The pragmatic conception of truth, anticipated by Henry David Thoreau and developed by C.S. Peirce and subsequent pragmatists, is proposed as a useful analogy for characterising 'sustainability.' Peirce's definitions of 'truth' provides an attractive approach to sustainability because (a) it re-focuses discussions of truth and objectivity from a search for 'correspondence' to an 'external world' (the 'conform' approach) to a more forward-looking ('transform') approach; and (b) it emphasises the crucial role of an evolving, questioning community in the conduct of inquiry. (...) Any successful definition of sustainability must share these characteristics with Peircean truth. While Peirce and John Dewey never reconciled their disagreements regarding the nature and task of 'inquiry', a pragmatist resolution of their differences is offered, arguing that we need both a logic of management sciences (logica utens) and a logic of pure science (logica docens), which (perhaps among other differences) respond very differently to uncertainty. It is shown that adaptive management – can be understood as a first approximation of a logica utens for social learning in pursuit of solutions to environmental problems, and it is suggested that a pragmatist, transform approach to inquiry such as Dewey's may provide a way around the 'fact-value' gulf. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy in the United States emerged parallel to the demise of idealism. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Josiah Royce had contributed importantly to the predominance of idealist systems and corresponding academic groups. With the rise of pragmatism and new realism, the situation changed dramatically: the idealist movement lost momentum and realism began to dominate the discourse. The present paper argues that the critiques of idealism put forward by the realists during the first two decades of the (...) twentieth century were instrumental to the emergence of analytic philosophy in the United States. As I will explain, Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) was the key figure in the underinvestigated genesis of this movement. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's discussion of rule-following is widely regarded to have identified what Kripke called "the most radical and original sceptical problem that philosophy has seen to date". But does it? This paper examines the problem in the light of Charles Peirce's distinctive "scientific hierarchy". Peirce identifies a phenomenological inquiry which is prior to both logic and metaphysics, whose role is to identify the most fundamental philosophical categories. His third category, particularly salient in this context, pertains to general predication. Rule-following scepticism, the (...) paper suggests, results from running together two questions: "How is it that I can project rules?", and, "What is it for a given usage of a rule to be right?". In Peircean terms the former question, concerning the irreducibility of general predication (to singular reference), must be answered in phenomenology, while the latter, concerning the difference between true and false predication, is answered in logic. A failure to appreciate this distinction, it is argued, has led philosophers to focus exclusively on Wittgenstein's famous public account of rule-following rightness, thus overlooking a private, phenomenological dimension to Wittgenstein's remarks on following a rule which gives the lie to Kripke's reading of him as a sceptic. (shrink)

Argument-forms exist which are valid over finite but not infinite domains. Despite understanding of this by formal logicians, philosophers can be observed treating as valid arguments which are in fact invalid over infinite domains. In support of this claim I will first present an argument against the classical pragmatist theory of truth by Mark Johnston. Then, more ambitiously, I will suggest the fallacy lurks in certain arguments for physicalism taken for granted by many philosophers today.

According to Charles S. Peirce and to Mariano Artigas, science is the collective and cooperative activity of all those whose lives are animated by the desire to discover the truth. The particular sciences are branches of a common tree. The unity of science is not achieved by the reduction of the special sciences to more basic ones: the new name for the unity of the sciences is cross-disciplinarity. This is not a union of the sciences themselves, but rather the unity (...) and dialogue of scientists, the real inquirers into the truth. In the light of Peirce’s and Artigas’s teachings, we can see that philosophers are in just the right place to call for this unity of sciences. This call should not be seen as promoting a return to the old scientism, but seeks a deep dialogue between the particular sciences and philosophy in order to deal with the presuppositions of the scientific enterprise. The key to the cross-disciplinarity of knowledge is not revolution, but rather shared efforts in a unique mixture of continuity and fallibilism, of affection and reason, of the attempt to understand others’ disciplines as well as our own. (shrink)

In his semiotic system Peirce distinguished between two interpretants and two objects of a sign: an immediate and a dynamical interpretant, and an immediate and a dynamical object. It is argued that Peirce’s immediate object can be interpreted a qua-object which has the dynamical object as its basis, and the dynamical interpretant consists of an interpreter’s conception of the object of the sign. Peirce semiotic system is compared with the accounts given by Frege, Husserl, Meinong, and the Stoics.

In an epistemology of contextualism, how robust does consensus need to be for critique to be practically effective? In ‘Relativism and the Critical Potential of Philosophy of Education’ Frieda Heyting proposes a form of contextualism, but her argument raises a number of problems. The kinds of criteria that her version of contextualism will furnish provide, at best, the potential only for an immanent form of critique from within a particular practice, and the possibility that practitioners alone will adopt a general (...) stance of critique. By their nature, the criteria that Heyting endorses will be too transient and ephemeral to assist in any larger project that might be aimed at making effective criticism of the status quo. Further problems are exposed to do with the conditions needed to make critique effective when Heyting’s normative argument is situated in the Realpolitik of contemporary education. Drawing on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, and in a manner intended to be complementary to Heyting’s normative argument, the paper offers some suggestions regarding the role that doubt might play in justifying criticisms of the status quo. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article I propose to interpret Austin's conception of perlocution in light of Peirce's philosophy of signs, through the lens of his notions of thirdness and speculative rhetoric in particular. I suggest that the traditional notion of speech genre, examined within the context of Peirce's semiotic framework, can make sense of the regularities and predictability that are characteristic of a large part of our discursive practices. More specifically, I argue that crystallized “habits of interpretation,” correlated to purposeful speech genres (...) instantiated in given circumstances of enunciation, could be construed as predetermining the range of future interpretive conduct. In that perspective, this process of determination could be thus conceived as relatively predictable, at least for communication situations activating well-defined speech genres. In the end, I suggest that Peirce's conception of rhetoric draws attention to the necessarily constrained interpretive habits of our discursive life, yielding an original perspective on the notion of perlocution. (shrink)

Terms loaded with informational connotations are often employed to refer to genes and their dynamics. Indeed, genes are usually perceived by biologists as basically ‘the carriers of hereditary information.’ Nevertheless, a number of researchers consider such talk as inadequate and ‘just metaphorical,’ thus expressing a skepticism about the use of the term ‘information’ and its derivatives in biology as a natural science. First, because the meaning of that term in biology is not as precise as it is, for instance, in (...) the mathematical theory of communication. Second, because it seems to refer to a purported semantic property of genes without theoretically clarifying if any genuinely intrinsic semantics is involved. Biosemiotics, a field that attempts to analyze biological systems as semiotic systems, makes it possible to advance in the understanding of the concept of information in biology. From the perspective of Peircean biosemiotics, we develop here an account of genes as signs, including a detailed analysis of two fundamental processes in the genetic information system (transcription and protein synthesis) that have not been made so far in this field of research. Furthermore, we propose here an account of information based on Peircean semiotics and apply it to our analysis of transcription and protein synthesis. (shrink)

This article offers an analysis of the cognitive role of diagrammatic movements in the theater. Based on the recognition of a theatrical work’s inherent ability to provide new insights concerning reality, the article concentrates on the way by which actors’ movements on stage create spatial diagrams that can provide new insights into the spectators’ world. The suggested model of theater’s epistemology results from a combination of Charles S. Peirce’s doctrine of diagrammatic reasoning and David Lewis’s theoretical account of the truth (...) value of counterfactual conditionals. I argue that in several theatrical works – in particular those whose central image is dominated by movements – the relation of what Lewis names “comparative overall similarity” between the fictional and the actual world is based on diagrammatic homology. The cognitive process involved in deciphering them is, hence, based on diagrammatic reasoning. The main emphasis of the analysis is on the previously unnoticed but important cognitive role of observation in the theater: the idea that observation takes an active role in the reasoning process that enables the spectators to form new knowledge about their actual world. Samuel Beckett’s plays Quad and Come and Go serve here as case studies. (shrink)

A close reading of Descartes’ works, particularly his Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii, calls into question the common interpretation of Peirce’s ‘Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man’ and ‘Some Consequences of Four Incapacities’ as being anti-Cartesian. In particular, Descartes’ conception of intuition differs from Peirce’s, and on one plausible reading of Descartes his intuitionism actually mirrors Peirce’s inferentialism in key respects. Given these similarities between Descartes and Peirce, the dogmatic status of the anti-Cartesian interpretation of Peirce becomes evident.

This paper takes as a starting point certain notions from Peirce's writings and uses them to propose a picture of the part of mathematical practice that consists of hypothesis formation. In particular, three processes of hypothesis formation are considered: abstraction, generalisation, and an abductive-like inference. In addition Peirce's pragmatic conception of truth and existence in terms of higher-order concepts are used in order to obtain a kind of pragmatic realist picture of mathematics.

Este artículo presenta la interpretación de la Metafísica Hegeliana del Profesor Robert Stern por medio de un énfasis en su lectura holística característica: la tesis fundamental es que este tipo de lectura hace justicia a las propias ideas de Hegel sobre su obra y provee importantes conexiones con la filosofía contemporánea. La propuesta particular del autor es que algunos de los tópicos fundamentales de la interpretación hegeliana emergen con un entendimiento clarificado dada dicha lectura: el concepto de verdad y conocimiento (...) absoluto son reevaluados tras ser mostrada la conexión necesaria entre epistemología y metafísica en el pensamiento de Hegel. La metafísica hegeliana, en consecuencia, aparece como el principio último para una lectura de la filosofía de Hegel en su totalidad e ilumina la naturaleza de la investigación metafísica en general. (shrink)

I articulate Charles S. Peirce’s philosophy of mathematical education as related to his conception of mathematics, the nature of its method of inquiry, and especially, the reasoning abilities required for mathematical inquiry. The main thesis is that Peirce’s philosophy of mathematical education primarily aims at fostering the development of the students’ semeiotic abilities of imagination, concentration, and generalization required for conducting mathematical inquiry by way of experimentation upon diagrams. This involves an emphasis on the relation between theory and practice and (...) between mathematics and other fields including the arts and sciences. For achieving its goals, the article is divided in three sections. First, I expound Peirce’s philosophical account of mathematical reasoning. Second, I illustrate this account by way of a geometrical example, placing special emphasis on its relation to mathematical education. Finally, I put forth some Peircean philosophical principles for mathematical education. (shrink)

While the topic of assertion has recently received a fresh wave of interest from Peirce scholars, to this point no systematic account of Peirce’s view of assertion has been attempted. We think that this is a lacuna that ought to be filled. Doing so will help make better sense of Peirce’s pragmatism; further, what is hidden amongst various fragments is a robust pragmatist theory of assertion with unique characteristics that may have significant contemporary value. Here we aim to uncover this (...) theory, and to show that assertion for Peirce is not a mere corollary of pragmatic conceptions of truth, judgement, and belief, but is rather a central aspect of his philosophy. (shrink)

In the "Introduction" to the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel provides a method of investigation wherein our comprehension of the nature of knowledge is to emerge through a process in which various forms or shapes of consciousness test their own conception of knowledge. For Hegel, this method is legitimated by the thought that each way or manner of cognizing what is must presuppose an idea of what is to count as a successful cognition; hence, each form of consciousness involves both a (...) conception of what knowing is, what cognitive experience is like, and what is presumed to be revealed in experience so understood. For example, if one believes that we learn about the world through perception, as Locke construes it, then one will equally presuppose that, in perceptual experience, we gain knowledge of particulars through the diversity of sensory properties each exhibits. Phenomenological testing involves seeing whether consciousness can deliver the knowledge promised; in the case of perception, the question will be whether direct perceiving can account for the unity of an object whose specificity depends on it exemplifying an array of universal properties. Perceptual consciousness learns it cannot account for the object in this way because its passivity debars it from adequately locating the source or character of a thing's unity; it is thus forced to reconceptualize both itself and its concept of an object. Hegel calls the process in which a new self-understanding and a new concept of an object emerge from the failure of correspondence in the previous form "experience". (shrink)

: In 1878's ‘How to Make Our Ideas Clear’, Peirce states that truth is the predestinate opinion, or that which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate. Later in his life, though, he would claim both that truth is what would be believed if we could figure out the right method of inquiry and that, instead of affirming that truth is the predestinate opinion in 1878, he ought to have affirmed that truth is what would be (...) believed if inquiry were carried sufficiently far. The aim of this paper is to provide an account of why the early Peirce endorses the claim that truth is the predestinate opinion and why the late Peirce is compelled to modify that position. I argue that Peirce's early statement that truth is the predestinate opinion is motivated by his theory that all mental action is of the nature of a valid inference and that the later modification of his view is partly motivated by his rejection of that theory. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Method of Inquiry Doubt, Intuition, and Certainty Peirce's Reconstruction of the “method for guiding one's reason” A Transformed Ontology.

John Cook Wilson (1849–1915) was Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, Oxford and the founder of ‘Oxford Realism’, a philosophical movement that flourished at Oxford during the first decades of the 20th century. Although trained as a classicist and a mathematician, his most important contribution was to the theory of knowledge, where he argued that knowledge is factive and not definable in terms of belief, and he criticized ‘hybrid’ and ‘externalist’ accounts. He also argued for direct realism in perception, (...) criticizing both empiricism and idealism, and argued for a moderate nominalist view of universals as being in rebus and only ‘apprehended’ by their particulars. His influence helped swaying Oxford away from idealism and, through figures such as H. A. Prichard, Gilbert Ryle, or J. L. Austin, his ideas were also to some extent at the origin of ‘moral intuitionism’ and ‘ordinary language philosophy’ which defined much of Oxford philosophy until the second half of the twentieth-century. Nevertheless, his name and legacy were all but forgotten for generations after World War II. Still, his views on knowledge are with us today, being in part at work in the writings of philosophers as diverse as John McDowell, Charles Travis, and Timothy Williamson. (shrink)

Kelly’s work was formed and developed in the context of the American philosophical movement known as pragmatism. The major figures to which this tradition is attributed are Charles S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey. In Personal Construct Psychology, Dewey was acknowledged by Kelly and by subsequent writers as perhaps his most important influence. It has recently become increasingly apparent, however that Peirce was a much more pervasive and crucial influence on James and Dewey than has previously been recognized. Kelly (...) did not mention Peirce but a close reading of the two writers reveals a remarkable correspondence and relationship between their two bodies of work. To set these two thinkers side by side proves to be an interesting and productive exercise. In this paper, after introducing Peirce and examining the relationship between him and Dewey, Kelly’s basic philosophical assumptions, as outlined at the beginning of Volume 1 of the Psychology of Personal Constructs, are used as a framework for exploring their similarities and differences. The result is an enrichment of our understanding of Kelly’s philosophy which allows us to make links with many different subsequent thinkers’ ideas and provides a basis for exploring the psychological aspects of the two men’s work. The latter forms the subject of Part II of this series which is in preparation. (shrink)

Kelly suggested that it was useful to consider anyone as functioning as a scientist, in the business of applying theories, making hypotheses and predictions and testing them out in the practice of everyday life. One of Charles Peirce’s major contributions was to develop the disciplines of logic and the philosophy of science. We can deepen and enrich our understanding of Kelly’s vision by looking at what Peirce has to say about the process of science. For Peirce, the essence of science (...) was the application of the laws of inference. He developed a much broader concept of logic, elaborating the processes of deduction and induction and adding to these the logic of hypothetical inference, or ‘abduction’, even as Kelly broadened it further in his “departure from classical logic”. Examining the implications of these three forms of inference allows us to elaborate the dynamics involved in the process of construing, ordinacy and the cycles of experience, creativity and decision making. This is the second of a three part series examining the relationship between the work of Peirce and Kelly. The third will include a look at phenomenology, bipolarity, the self, dialogical process and sociological considerations. (shrink)

Asserting is the act of claiming that something is the case—for instance, that oranges are citruses, or that there is a traffic congestion on Brooklyn Bridge (at some time). We make assertions to share information, coordinate our actions, defend arguments, and communicate our beliefs and desires. Because of its central role in communication, assertion has been investigated in several disciplines. Linguists, philosophers of language, and logicians rely heavily on the notion of assertion in theorizing about meaning, truth and inference. -/- (...) The nature of assertion and its relation to other speech acts and linguistic phenomena (implicatures, presuppositions, etc.) have been subject to much controversy. This entry will situate assertion within speech act theory and pragmatics more generally, and then go on to present the current main accounts of assertion. (shrink)

An assertion is a speech act in which something is claimed to hold, e.g. that there are infinitely many prime numbers, or, with respect to some time t, that there is a traffic congestion on Brooklyn Bridge at t, or, of some person x with respect to some time t, that x has a tooth ache at t. The concept of assertion has often occupied a central place in the philosophy of language, since it is often thought that making assertions (...) is the use of language most crucial to linguistic meaning, and since assertions are the natural expressions of cognitive attitudes, and hence of importance for theories of knowledge and belief. (shrink)

In this article we approach a case of intersemiotic translation as a paradigmatic example of Boden’s ‘transformational creativity’ category. To develop our argument, we consider Boden’s fundamental notion of ‘conceptual space’ as a regular pattern of semiotic action, or ‘habit’ (sensu Peirce). We exemplify with Gertrude Stein’s intersemiotic translation of Cézanne and Picasso’s proto-cubist and cubist paintings. The results of Stein’s IT transform the conceptual space of modern literature, constraining it towards new patterns of semiosis. Our association of Boden’s framework (...) to describe a cognitive creative phenomenon with a philosophically robust theory of meaning results in a cognitive semiotic account of IT. (shrink)

Within this paper, we utilise a delimited area of philosophy to help make sense of a delimited area of design science as it pertains to a class of contemporary information systems. The philosophy is taken from that of Charles Sanders Peirce; the design science is directed at the construction of visual devices in that area known as visual management. The utilisation of such devices within their wider visual management systems we take to be instances of what we refer to as (...) tangible information systems. Tangible information systems use tangible artefacts, such as whiteboards and magnetic tokens, to accomplish information. We particularly use Peircean semiotics to analyse the use of tangible emoticons articulated upon performance boards within a large-scale manufacturing facility. We infer from our analysis of these informative artefacts that certain integrated aspects of Peircean philosophy offers an alternative way of framing notions of a proper design science, design theory and design artefact for the discipline of information systems. (shrink)

The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.

This essay wants to rescue the concept of phaneroscopy, created by Charles Sanders Peirce, to adapt it in a phenomenological condition of multiple realities. Therefore, in addition to review the reflection of Peirce, we visited the approach of phenomenology of multiple realities proposed by Alfred Schutz in his reading of William James. The idea is to seek a phenomenology that goes beyond the human consciousness to other research subjects.

The concept of empiricism evokes both a historical tradition and a set of philosophical theses. The theses are usually understood to have been developed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. But these figures did not use the term “empiricism,” and they did not see themselves as united by a shared epistemology into one school of thought. My dissertation analyzes the debate that elevated the concept of empiricism (and of an empiricist tradition) to prominence in English-language philosophy. -/- In the 1870s and (...) ’80s a lively debate about psychology emerged. Neo-Kantian idealists criticized the very idea that the mind can be studied scientifically. A group of philosopher-psychologists responded, often in Mind. They were among the first to call themselves “empiricists,” arguing that psychology could provide a scientific basis for philosophical progress. Idealists held that empirical psychology depended on premises developed by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. These premises were allegedly absurd because they rendered ideas of extension, as well as other ideas crucial to natural science, unreal. Those who wanted to advance psychology towards becoming a legitimate science were forced to engage these philosophical attacks, while at the same time to develop empirical theories that could successfully explain some characteristics of experience. I show how James’s theory of space perception accomplished both tasks. -/- In developing this theory, James found he had to reject the Lockean notion that reality is associated with passively-registered sensations. James also abandoned Berkeley and Hume’s claim that ideas are ultimately derived from atomic sensations. Instead, James presented experimental evidence that sensation is a continuous stream. The mind must actively parse this stream if it is to gain a coherent representation of its environment. I argue that James’s stream-of-thought thesis served as a presupposition of his entire psychology. The thesis showed how the labor of investigating the mind could be divided between philosophers and scientists, and in a manner sensitive to the concerns of both. The stream thesis also provided a scientific basis for a new philosophical empiricism that, I argue, has a hidden legacy in the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Na primeira seção, discuto a atitude ambivalente de Peirce para com os pensadores medievais – algumas avaliações elogiosas, algumas críticas duras. Na segunda parte, considero três críticas feitas por Max Fisch ao meu livro Charles Peirce and Scholastic Realism. Meu livro apresentou o realismo de Peirce como se fosse de cabo a rabo uma única posição. E eu quero ajustar isso sob a luz dos argumentos de Fisch. Desejo agora distinguir seu realismo escolástico de seu desenvolvimento contínuo do realismo. Para (...) esse fim, ofereço um significado mais preciso e restrito para “realismo escolástico” – grosso modo, um anti-platonismo no qual a natureza comum é encontrada como um elemento nas coisas. Esse significado, penso, permanece constante para Peirce; embora eu concorde com Fisch, em que isso é somente uma parte do desenvolvimento de seu realismo. Na terceira seção, desenvolvo a conexão entre a noção escolástica de potencialidade e os “would-be’s” [seriam] de Peirce. Ainda que suficientemente interessante (para mim), essa não é uma influência que o próprio Peirce reconheça. Também indico ali que Peirce chega a dispensar a noção escolástica de forma, que ele pensa ser uma perversão da posição mais útil (se não vaga) de Aristóteles. (shrink)

This is a study of a problem in the logic of belief revision. On the assumption of a number of fairly traditional views concerning the relationship between mind and world, the mechanics of perception, and the nature of belief, an argument is made to the effect that revision of extant beliefs is impossible even in the light of new perceptual experience. The argument turns on the ability of a cognitive system to recognize conflict among its thoughts and perceptions. A number (...) of models of the mechanics of perceptual interpretation are explored, all of which are revealed to share a susceptibility to the problem as posed. Certain objections are taken up, the responses to which modify the scope of the original argument; although the problem may yet be said to arise in a number of crucial contexts where its presence is undesirable, some situations are found in which the problem can be dissolved. The problem is then reexamined in light of the epistemological position called fallibilism, with an eye to demonstrating that it arises notwithstanding the highly cautious perspective embodied in that position. A solution to the problem is then offered in the form of a family of model cognitive systems with certain properties. Because the problem is a feature of belief-based cognitive systems, the family of systems offered in arguing for a resolution of the problem is constructed on the notion that cognition, construed as information processing, normally proceeds without any epistemic evaluations being attached either to perceptions in particular or thoughts in general. The non-evaluative propositional attitude employed in normal cognition should, I argue, be what I call acceptance. The propositional attitude of belief, traditionally conceived of as occupying the role now given to acceptance, is accorded an extremely limited scope of application. Epistemic evaluation in general is itself restricted to contexts of decision only, its application arising only. (shrink)

This paper looks at the attack on scientific racism in the 20th century by a group of social and biological scientists. I will utilize the apparatus of my model of emerging truth to show how even in complex socially conditioned argumentation the ultimate virtue is seeking the truth through increasingly powerful logical connections and deeply embedded warrants.