PHGA 7256 : Mind, Signs and Ontology  
Professor Claudine Tiercelin 
Fall 2007
Monday, 11.00–1.00

                                                                                                 
Objectives :
The focus of the seminar will be on Peirce’s developed  philosophy of signs, in its logical, epistemological and metaphysical aspects ; but the wider aim of the course will be to present some of the main medieval and classical approaches to signs and signification (which exerted an important influence on Peirce’s own views), through an analysis of some basic texts and themes selected from the medieval tradition  (Augustine, Abailard, Ockham, the Modists) and from modern philosophy (mainly Berkeley and Reid) . If time allows, the course will show in what respect and why Peirce’s logical and ontological approach offers not only a genuine  synthesis of most of the insights present in such  authors, but also a more fruitful approach to the relationships between mind, signs and ontology, than its two main contemporary challengers: 1. the tradition Peirce himself inspired, ranging from C.W. Morris to current projects of naturalistic semantics; 2. the Saussurian (and structuralist) model.


Requirements: Students are expected to participate in class and write a 20- to 25-page research paper at the end of the term.


Main topics:

  1. General introduction.
  2. Augustine, Abailard and the Modists on signs, being and the intellect: From the verbum mentis view  to the oratio mentalis tradition.
  3. Ockham on mental terms, signification and supposition. Terminist logic versus speculative grammar.
  4. George Berkeley on mind, signs and ontology: from the New Theory of Vision to the Siris.
  5. Thomas Reid on (intellective and active) faculties and the semiotics of perception.
  6. Peirce’s project of a philosophical semiotics: logical, epistemological and metaphysical aspects.
  7. The thought-sign theory.
  8. Meaning, action and practice: the meaning of the pragmatic maxim.
  9. Peirce’s triangle: Object, sign, interpretant. Peirce contra Saussure.
  10. The classification of signs: icon, index and symbol.
  11. Mental models. Icons and deduction.
  12. Peirce’s ontological semiotics of vagueness.
  13. Peirce’s inheritance: C.W. Morris on signs and signification.
  14. Peirce’s contemporary relevance for naturalistic semantics (F. Dretske, R. Millikan).
  15. General conclusions.


Texts required for the course:
Most of the texts by Peirce will be selected from:
The Essential Peirce (2 vols.) edited by The Peirce Edition Project, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press (Volume 1: 1992. Volume 2: 1998).
Copies of selected passages from Abailard, Ockham, Berkeley, Reid, Morris, Millikan, Saussure, etc. will be provided.