Semiotics and Phenomenology: Preface

Below is the (current draft) preface I wrote for my soon-to-be (please, I hope) accepted Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter). --- This book presents a complex argument.  It will likely not convince all who read it.  It probably will not even convince many who read it.  But it …

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Causality: a Rough Draft

In an extended (and sometimes heated) discussion with colleagues at the Center for the Study of Digital Life, it was determined that one of the key things needed to advance in our work is a clear understanding of causality.  I have, consequently, been at work in attempting to provide a stripped-down, simplified explanation of what …

Modes: essendi, intelligendi, significandi

Modes: a mode is not a "what", but a "how".  Something could exist in different modes without changing its "whats"; for instance, what exists in itself can exist also in the mind while identical in its "what". Esse (existence/modus essendi): this is the mode in which some "what" exists in itself independently of any foreign …

Signs and Culture

Bear with me, audience... I'm working out some ideas. --- Humanity, among all animal species, possesses unique social relations.  That is, while seemingly all highly-developed animals interact socially, only humans interact socio-culturally.  What exactly does this mean, though?  We are all familiar, on some level or another, with the idea of culture, and even with many …