Truth, Icons, and Reality in Peirce

Description

This book investigates a number of central problems in the philosophy of Charles Peirce grouped around the realism of his semiotics: the issue of how sign systems are developed and used in the investigation of reality. Thus, it deals with the precise character of Peirce's realism; with Peirce's special notion of propositions as signs which, at the same time, denote and describe the same object. It deals with diagrams as signs which depict more or less abstract states-of-affairs, facilitating reasoning about them; with assertions as public claims about the truth of propositions. It deals with iconicity in logic, the issue of self-control in reasoning, dependences between phenomena in their realist descriptions. A number of chapters deal with applied semiotics: with biosemiotic sign use among pre-human organisms: the multimedia combination of pictorial and linguistic information in human semiotic genres like cartoons, posters, poetry, monuments. All in all, the book makes a strong case for the actual relevance of Peirce's realist semiotics. Preface Contents Introduction I Propositions Chapter 1 Signs Conveying Information On the Range of Peirce’s Notion of Propositions: Dicisigns Chapter 2 Dicisigns and Habits Implicit Propositions and Habit-Taking in Peirce’s Pragmatism Chapter 3 Peirce’s Theories of Assertion Chapter 4 The Identity of Sweet Molly Malone Dicent Indexical Legisigns—A New Element in the Periodic Table of Semiotics? Chapter 5 Co-localization as the Syntax of Multimodal Propositions An Amazing Peircean Idea and Some Implications for the Semiotics of Truth Chapter 6 Sheets in the Wild A First Overview over Types of Propositional Surfaces II Iconicity and Diagrams Chapter 7 How Do Pictures Act? Two Semiotic Aspects of Picture Activity Chapter 8 Dimensions of Peircean Diagrammaticality Chapter 9 Iconicity of Logic—And the Roots of the “Iconicity” Concept Chapter 10 Diagrammatic Problem Solving (with Svend Østergaard) Chapter 11 Schematic Aspects of an Aesthetics of Diagrams III Semiotics and Metaphysics Chapter 12 Peirce as a Truthmaker Realist Propositional Realism as Backbone of Peircean Metaphysics Chapter 13 Phenomenology and Logic in Peirce Chapter 14 A Peirce for the 21 Century Theoretical Development as Key to Peirce’s Semiotics Chapter 15 Blocking Evil Infinites A Note on a Note on a Peircean Strategy Chapter 16 Peirce and Cassirer—The Kroisean Connection Vistas and Open Issues in John Krois’ Philosophical Semiotics Chapter 17 The Riddle of Dependences How to Connect Entities across Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Structuralism Chapter 18 Conscious Self-Control as Criterion for Reasoning Chapter 19 Limited Individuals and Unlimited Aims Peirce’s Philosophical Anthropology Coda Literature Earlier Versions of Chapters of This Book List of Illustrations Notes Name Index