A Shock to Thought brings together essays that explore Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy of expression in a number of contemporary contexts. It will be of interest to all those in philosophy, cultural studies and art theory. The volume also contains an interview with Guattari which clearly restates the 'aesthetic paradigm' that organizes both his and Deleuze's work.

How do things come to stand for something other than themselves? An understanding of the ontology of relations allows for a compelling account of the action of signs. The Primacy of Semiosis is concerned with the ontology of relations and semiosis, the action of signs. Drawing upon the work of Gilles Deleuze, John Deely, and John Poinsot, Paul Bains focuses on the claim that relations are 'external' to their terms, and seeks to give an ontological account of this purported externality (...) of relations. Bains develops the proposition, first made in 1632 by John Poinsot (John of St. Thomas), that, ontologically, signs are relations whose whole being is in esse ad ('being-toward'). Furthermore, relations are found to be univocal in their being as relations. This univocity of being is antecedent to the division between 'ens rationis' and 'ens reale'. The ontology of relations Bains presents is thus neither mind-dependent nor mind-independent insofar as the rationale of the relation is concerned. The book includes chapters on Deleuze and Deely on relations, Jacob von Uexkull and Heidegger on Umwelten (self-worlds), Maturana and Varela on Autopoiesis. It provides a form of vicarious causality, by way of the scholastic doctrine of the 'species', that complements the emerging school of 'object oriented ontology'. The Primacy of Semiosis provides a semiotic that subverts the opposition between realism and idealism; one in which what have been called 'nature' and 'culture' interpenetrate in an expanding collective of human and non-human. Bains' work promises to be a touchstone for semiotic discussion for years to come. (shrink)

Peirce's Sign Theory, or Semiotic, is an account of signification, representation, reference and meaning. Although sign theories have a long history, Peirce's accounts are distinctive and innovative for their breadth and complexity, and for capturing the importance of interpretation to signification. For Peirce, developing a thoroughgoing theory of signs was a central philosophical and intellectual preoccupation. The importance of semiotic for Peirce is wide ranging. As he himself said, “[…] it has never been in my power to study anything,—mathematics, ethics, (...) metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economics, the history of science, whist, men and women, wine, metrology, except as a study of semiotic”. (SS 1977, 85–6). Peirce also treated sign theory as central to his work on logic, as the medium for inquiry and the process of scientific discovery, and even as one possible means for 'proving' his pragmatism. Its importance in Peirce's philosophy, then, cannot be underestimated. -/- Across the course of his intellectual life, Peirce continually returned to and developed his ideas about signs and semiotic and there are three broadly delineable accounts: a concise Early Account from the 1860s; a complete and relatively neat Interim Account developed through the 1880s and 1890s and presented in 1903; and his speculative, rambling, and incomplete Final Account developed between 1906 and 1910. The following entry examines these three accounts, and traces the changes that led Peirce to develop earlier accounts and generate new, more complex, sign theories. However, despite these changes, Peirce's ideas on the basic structure of signs and signification remain largely uniform throughout his developments. Consequently, it is useful to begin with an account of the basic structure of signs according to Peirce. (shrink)

Rocco Gangle addresses the methodological questions raised by a commitment to immanence in terms of how diagrams may be used both as tools and as objects of philosophical investigation. Gangle integrates insights from Spinoza, Pierce and Deleuze in conjunction with the formal operations of category theory.

In this extraordinary work Gilles Deleuze reflects on one of the figures of the past who has most influenced his own sweeping reconfiguration of the tasks of philosophy.

Suggests an open system of psychological exploration to cut through accepted norms of morality, language, and politics.

Signs and things -- How Shall a Sign be Called? -- Peirce -- Modes of Representation -- Medium Matters -- The Mute Poem -- Rhetoric of the image.

A criticism of the book "a la recherche du temps perdu".

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Examines the philosophical foundations of Foucault's writings and discusses his views on knowledge, punishment, power, and subjectivation.

Explains how the work of Deleuze and Guattari speaks to feminism and other progressive movements.

This book offers a new interpretation of the metaphysics of Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism and one of America's greatest philosophers. Robert Lane begins by examining Peirce's basic realism, his belief in a world that is independent of how anyone believes it to be. Lane argues that this realism is the basis for Peirce's account of truth, according to which a true belief is one that would be settled by investigation and that also represents the real world. He then (...) explores Peirce's application of his Pragmatic Maxim to clarify the idea of reality, his two forms of idealism, and his realism about generality and vagueness. This rich study will provide readers with a clear understanding of Peirce's thoughts on reality and truth and how they intersect, and of his views on the relation between the mind and the external world. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 212 Seiten: 239-258.