A Brief History of Theosemiotic

This chapter supplies a historical survey of theosemiotic, focused less on demonstrating actual lines of causal influence than on exposing the resonance of certain ideas articulated by thinkers sometimes far removed from each other in space and time. It links Peirce’s thought to that of earlier figures (like Augustine, Duns Scotus, John Poinsot, Jonathan Edwards, and Ralph Waldo Emerson), certain contemporaries (especially William James and Josiah Royce), and later thinkers and developments (most notably, H. Richard Niebuhr, Simone Weil, and Gustavo Gutierrez). The chapter begins with an examination of the religious significance of talk about the “book of nature” and concludes with the observation of a certain natural affinity between a theosemiotic inspired by Peirce’s pragmatism and Latin American liberation theology.

Theology as Inquiry, Therapy, Praxis

In this chapter, theology is portrayed as a form of inquiry, a kind of therapy, and a mode of praxis. These are not perfectly separable roles for theology but can be distinguished for purposes of analysis. Peirce’s theory of inquiry, adapted here for theosemiotic purposes, is shown to be more complex than the standard account, organized around doubt as the stimulus for inquiry, tends to suggest. After a lengthy survey of the links between philosophical pragmatism and certain forms of contemporary psychotherapy, a theosemiotic grounded in pragmatic insights is presented as potentially therapeutic in its strategy and effects. The chapter concludes with an analysis of theology as praxis, as it must be conceived if it is grounded in pragmatism; the resonance of such a conception with liberation theology is also explored here.

Signs, Selves, and Semiosis

This chapter explores the potential significance for theology of Peirce’s characterization of the self as a sign. The chapter begins by exploring that idea as Peirce developed it and continues by comparing his view to those articulated by other thinkers such as Kierkegaard, James, Royce, Mead, and Bhaktin. Extending Peirce’s argument, the claim made here is that the human self is most adequately conceived as a “living legisign,” a bundle of habits giving more or less purpose and shape to the self’s story as it unfolds. The key to understanding the religious significance of the self thus portrayed lies in our recognition of its status both as a text to be read by others and as a reader engaged both in interpreting the world of signs and, meta-cognitively, in continuous acts of self-interpretation.

Love in a Universe of Chance

This chapter begins with an assessment of Peirce’s agapism, and also to some extent of Royce’s talk about love as loyalty, for the purposes of theosemiotic. This leads to an examination of Peirce’s logic of relations, subsequently of his logic vagueness, as key resources for thinking both about the nature of community and the plausibility of theism. Peirce’s anthropomorphism is given serious consideration here, distinguished from anthropocentrism and compared with other attempts to explain the widespread human tendency to perceive nature as personal. Developing these Peircean resources, love is portrayed as a form of semiosis, analogous to gift-giving and perfected in mutuality. In the chapter’s final section, the relationship between love, attention, and volition is explored, illuminated by a consideration of what it might mean to talk about “love of enemies.”

Postlude: The Play of Musement

This postlude represents an attempt to engage in musement rather than simply to describe it. The instructions from Peirce’s Neglected Argument guide this exercise. Augustine and Ignatius of Loyola also help to shape these ruminations

Prolegomena

These introductory comments are intended to provide a sketch of how any theology as theosemiotic should be conceived and to identify the basic ideas and themes most relevant to such a project, all of which will be explored in greater detail in the book’s chapters. Experience is characterized as a form of semiosis, and the world is portrayed as being filled with signs. Questions are raised about what it means to give an interpretation and about the role that habit plays in interpretation. It is suggested here that theosemiotic is always already a theology of hope, of mystery, and of the spiritual life, and also that it is tied to distinctive forms of empiricism and pragmatism. The primacy of praxis for theology is affirmed, with special attention being directed to the practice of reading and rereading.

Communities of Interpretation

Questions are raised in this chapter about how the size of a community might affect the solidarity of its members, about whether communities can be purely virtual, about “who is my neighbour,” and about what makes a community something worth caring about. Peircean and Roycean ideas about love and loyalty are evaluated as crucial to understanding the bonds that form a genuine and potentially universal communities. Communities are portrayed as being governed by both the logic of classes and a logic of systems, the latter helping to explain the phenomenon of “semiotic complementary.” The last section of the chapter evaluates how some of these ideas might be useful for elaborating both a comparative theology and a liberation theology from a theosemiotic perspective.