Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: C.S. Peirce

  • Death and the Icon

    E. John Winner ___ Let us begin with a technical clarification, by way of a discussion of the semiotic status of icons. An icon is a powerful representation, not only of an object or a person, but of the concept of that object or person; a reminder of what it is the perceiver of the…

  • In Defense of Philosophy: Analytic, Pragmatist, and Transcendental

    by Preston Stovall ____ [1] In a recent essay that got some attention in online circles in philosophy, Liam Kofi Bright foretold the end of analytic philosophy – characterizing it as a degenerating research program – and the exhaustion of a Kripkean understanding of what analytic philosophy has been up to. While reading Liam’s essay,…

  • The Many Cups of Coffee

    E. John Winner 1. Semiotic interpretation is important, and yet it is somewhat variable and changeable, depending on the context in which it occurs. Consider the crucifix: if found in a Catholic church we interpret it one way; in a vampire movie another; and hanging around the neck of a Hell’s Angel motorcyclist something else…

  • Experiencing Nature, Naturally Experienced

    by E. John Winner 1. John Dewey was one of America’s most important philosophers.  He’ll be better remembered in the future than he is today.  With philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic fascinated with the ambiguities of language and otherwise unsure of what they are expected to explain – is that science or ethics…