Syllabus for Roster(s):
- 14F RELG 7559-001 (CGAS)
Signs of Salvation: Pragmatic Semiotics from Augustine to Peirce
RELG. 7559 Fall 2014
Signs of Salvation: Semiotics, Pragmatism, and Theology
Mo 7:00-9:30pm New Cabell Hall 068
Instructor: Professor Peter Ochs
A study of the sources of semiotics and pragmatism from Augustine to Peirce and beyond. The course examines the place of contemporary sign theory (semiotics) and reparative reasoning (pragmatism) in the history of philosophic theology in the west, with particular attention to the Abrahamic (Muslim, Jewish, Christian) scriptural traditions. Careful, detailed textual and formal (logical) studies in philosophy, scriptural interpretation, and theology, including Aristotle; the Stoics; early rabbinic and patristic sources; medieval Muslim, Jewish and Christian philosophies; modern, postmodern, and postliberal theorists. By student request, this semester's course (Fall 2014) will focus more than usual on the instructor's approach to these materials.
COURSE SYLLABUS
(Please see required reading bibliography listed below – students should begin to purchase texts online)
Session 1: Sept 1: Introduction and overview
Read: P. Ochs, “The Society of Scriptural Reasoning: The Rules of Scriptural Reasoning,” in Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 2.1 (May 2002), [ http://jsr.lib.virginia.edu/volume-2-no-1-may-2002-the-rules-of-scriptural-reasoning/ of Virginia]: Read: Ochs lead essay and read as much as you can of the intros and responses published with the essay. Read (Opt): "An Introduction to Scriptural Reasoning" (For Session 12, but helpful now if you have time)
Session 2: Sept 8: Peirce: Introduction and brief overview
Read:
(a) P. Ochs, “Charles Peirce as Postmodern Philosopher,” 43-87. (Read to approx.. p. 40 of the ms = p. 80).
(b) P. Ochs, Peirce, Pragmatism, and the Logic of Scripture: Intro (at least 10pp to get an intro to Peirce-- and then read until it gets too difficult --then stop—read that difficult stuff later in the term).
(c) Advanced students only: Peirce, Pragmatism, and the Logic of Scripture…. Ch 3.
(d) Everyone: CS Peirce, Collected Papers (CP): Vol 5:
[http://library.nlx.com/xtf/view?docId=peirce/peirce.05.xml;chunk.id=div.peirce.cp5.10000;toc.id=;brand=default;query-prox= ]
· Paper 1: Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed For Man
· Paper 2: Some Consequences Of Four Incapacities
· Paper 4: The Fixation Of Belief
· Paper 5: How To Make Our Ideas Clear
Session 3: Sept 15: Genealogy of pragmatism and pragmatic semiotic, Part I: Aristotle to Stoa to Augustine
Read:
(a) Ochs, “Hellenistic Prototypes…”
(b) Stoic Logic, “A Reader” (tba)
(c) Mark James, “Augustine Reader.” (tba)
(d) Robert Markus: “St Augustine on Signs”
Session 3b: Sept. 17: Sip Seminar: Mark James on Origen on Semiotics
Read: Mark James on Origen (chap)
Session 4: Sept 22: Genealogy of pragmatism and pragmatic semiotic, Part II: The Augustinian-Cartesian pragmatic tradition.
Read: (a) Seuren, Western Linguistics: selections from Part 1:
1. Linguistics from Antiquity till the Seventeenth-Century
2. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Centuries.
Read: (b) Ochs, “Reparative Reasoning: Augustine to Peirce” (Advanced Students only)
Session 5: Sept 29: Peirce I: Peirce on Descartes, Kant, Doubt-Belief, Early Pragmatism, Semiotics
Read:
(a) CSP: Review readings from Class #2, plus: Vol. 5. Paper 6: What Pragmatism Is” (#1,2,3); Paper 7: “Issues Of Pragmaticism: Six Characteristics Of Critical Common-Sensism”
(b) John Deely, New Beginnings (tba)
(c) Ochs, Opt: Peirce Pragmatism: Ch 4, 5.
Session 6: Oct 6: Peirce II: Pragmaticism, God and Mathematics
Read:
(a) CSP: Vol.5.Bk3.Chap1: A Survey of Pragmaticism
(b) Advanced Students: CSP Vol.4 Bk. 2 Chap 6 “Chap 6: Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism”
(c) CSP Vol 6.Bk.2 Chap 3: “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God”
* (d) Opt: Ochs, Peirce, Pragmatism Ch.7. (optional reading)
Session 7: Oct 20: Dewey’s Logic of Inquiry and Morris’ pragmatics
a) Dewey’s Pragmatic Experimentalism
Read: Dewey, Logic of Inquiry (tba)
b) Charles Morris: pragmatics and a kind of hermeneutics of suspicion
Read. Morris, Foundations of the theory of signs Vol. 1 (tba)
Session 7b: Conference on Scripture and Philosophy: Metaphysics, Logic, Pragmatism
Monday, Oct 20th: 7 – 9:30pm: Speakers join our seminar to discuss pragmatism and philosophy in the work of John Dewey and John Morris. (While the conference begins on Tuesday, interested visitors are welcome to the seminar).
Tuesday, Oct 21st:
8:30 – 10:00am: Gary Slater, “A Peircean Philosophic Theology: Scriptural Reasoning, Axiology of Thinking, and Nested Continua” (Breakfast available during this session) Respondent: Nick Adams
10:30 – 12:00pm: Randi Rashkover, “Hegel and Scripture” Respondent: Gary Slater
12:00 – 1:30pm: Break for lunch
1:30 – 3:00pm: Nicholas Adams, “Eclipse of Grace: Divine and Human Action in Hegel” Respondent: Randi Rashkover
Session 8: Oct 27: Reparative reasoning in Adams
Read:
(a) N. Adams, “Reparative Reasoning”
(b) N. Adams, “Long-Term Disagreement: Philosophical Models in Scriptural Reasoning and Receptive
Ecumenism”
(c) N. Adams, “Eclipse of Grace: Divine and Human Action in Hegel”
Session 9: Nov 3: Pragmatism and Ethics: Tradition, Pragmatism, Reparative Reasoning: Willis Jenkins
Read: Willis Jenkins, Future of Ethics
Session 10: Nov 10: What this direction in pragmatic semiotics is NOT…
IT IS NOT Saussurian or structuralist
IT IS NOT communitarian or individualist, not liberal per se or conservative per se, not traditionalist or foundationalist or relativist
Our scriptural pragmatic semiotic is not a relativist or dogmatic kind of Postliberalism, but what one might call a pragmatic-critical type of pluralist Postliberalism.
Read:
(a) Ochs, Another Reformation, tba
Session 11: Nov 17: IT IS NEITHER scientistic NOR anti-science:
Science and Scripture: Logic of reparative reasoning = quantum logic + logic of scripture
Read:
(a) Ochs, “Judaism and Post-Newtonian Science”
(b) Ochs, “Judaism and Physics”
Session 12: Dec 1: Scriptural Reasoning as a Pragmatic Repair of Modern Philosophy
Read: (in this order)
Ochs, “An Introduction to Scriptural Reasoning: From Practice to Theory”
“From Two to Three: To Know is also To Know the Context of Knowing”
“Scripture and Text”
“Textual Reasoning as a Model for Jewish Thought after Shoah”
“The Bible’s Wounded Authority”
“Philosophic Warrants for Scriptural Reasoning”
“A Relational (non-binary) Semeiotic for Scriptural Reasoning” (advanced students only)
Opt: Yang H Hui-Lin, “Scriptural Reasoning” and “Hermeneutical Circle” and
“Reasoning” in the Reading of Scriptures
Session 13: Dec (TBA): Hearth to Hearth Peace-building: A Pragmatic and Linguistic Model
Read:
(a) Ochs on SR and H2H; Language intensities and Values; Global Covenant (tba)
(b) Ochs, “Reasoning from ‘Hearth to Hearth’: Reasoning across the Borders of Competing Religions.”
Readings
(required for weekly reading)
St. Augustine
Selections from: Confessions, On Christian Doctrine, On the Trinity
Nicholas Adams
“Reparative Reasoning,” in Modern Theology, July 2008, pp.447-457
“Long-Term Disagreement: Philosophical Models in Scriptural Reasoning and Receptive Ecumenism,” in Modern Theology, October 2013, pp.154-171
John Deely
New Beginnings (buy this used)
The Impact on Philosophy of Semiotics (selections)
John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry
David Ford, (ed), Promise of Scriptural Reasoning
Mark James: tba, Chapters on Origen
Willis Jenkins, The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity
Robert Markus
"St. Augustine on Signs,” in R.A Markus, Augustine (Garden City, 1972): 61-91.
St. Augustine on Signs R. A. Markus Phronesis Vol. 2, No. 1 (1957), pp. 60-83.
Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 146. (Selections for optional reading)
Charles Morris, Foundations of the theory of signs (International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol 1)
Peter Ochs
Another Reformation (selections)
Peirce, Pragmatism, and the Logic of Scripture
“Charles Peirce as Postmodern Philosopher,” in David Ray Griffin et. al., Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy: Peirce, James, Bergson, Whitehead and Hartshorne (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992): 43-87.
“The Bible’s Wounded Authority,” in ed. William Brown, Engaging Biblical Authority (Westminster JohnKnox Press, 2007): 113-121.
“From Two to Three: To Know is also To Know the Context of Knowing,” in S. Kepnes and B. Koshul, eds., Scripture, Reason and the Contemporary Islam-West Encounter: Studying the "Other," Understanding the "Self" (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007): 177-200.
“Hellenistic (Patristic/Rabbinic) Prototypes of Peirce's Pragmatic Semeiotic,” Center of Theological Inquiry, 1990
“An Introduction to Scriptural Reasoning: From Practice to Theory,” ed. Yang Huilin, Journal of Renmin University of China (2012) Vol.26.5 :16-22 http://xsqks.ruc.edu.cn/Jweb_rdxb/EN/abstract/abstract12135.shtml
“Judaism and Physics,” in “Judaism and Science,” eds. Philip Cohen and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Special Issue of CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly (Winter 2012): pp. 58-71.
“Philosophic Warrants for Scriptural Reasoning,” in The Promise Of Scriptural Reasoning, eds. David Ford and Chad Pecknold (Oxford: Blackwell Pub.,2006): 121-138. Repr. of Modern Theology Vol. 22 No. 3 (July 2006).
“Reasoning from “Hearth to Hearth”: Reasoning across the Borders of Competing Religions,” in The Oxford Handbook in Religion, Peace, and Conflict Resolutions, eds. Scott Appleby et. al. (Oxford, 2014). (forthcoming): pp 32.ms.
“Reparative Reasoning: From Peirce’s Pragmatism to Augustine’s Scriptural Semiotic,” in Modern Theology Vol. 25 No. 2 (April 2009): 187-215 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122211944/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
“The Rules of Scriptural Reasoning,” in The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 2 No. 1 (May, 2002) (Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia): 1-20. http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/ssr/issues/volume2/number2/ssr02-02-r06.html
“Scripture and Text,” in The Cambridge History of Modern Jewish Philosophy, eds. David Novak and Martin Kavka (Cambridge U Press, 2012): 191-223.
“Textual Reasoning as a Model for Jewish Thought After Shoah,” in eds. P. Amodio, G. Giannini, and G.Lissa, Filosofia E Critica Della Filisofia Nel Pensiero Ebraico (Napoli: Giannini, 2004):233-272
Charles Peirce
The Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce, vols. 1-6, ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss; vols. 7-8, ed Burks, (Cambridge: Harvard, 1931-58)
Selections:
Classification of the Sciences. Phenomenology, Semiotics, Letters to Lady Welby, How to Make Our Ideas Clear. Questions Concerning Certain Faculties. What Pragmatism Is, Issues of Pragmaticism. A Survey of Pragmaticism. Consequences of Common-Sensism. Neglected Argument.
Consult: Past Masters Database @ UVA Library: (available when you are on grounds or via uvaanywhere) http://library.nlx.com/xtf/view?docId=peirce/peirce.00.xml;chunk.id=div.peirce.pmpreface.1;toc.depth=2;toc.id=div.peirce.pmpreface.1;hit.rank=0;brand=default
Ben Quash, Found Theology: History, Imagination, and the Holy Spirit (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
Randi Rashkover
Essays: tba : Selections from Revelation and Theopolitics: Barth, Rosenzweig and the Politics of Praise; Freedom and Law: A Jewish-Christian Apologetics)
Peter Seuren, Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction
Stoic Logic (tba)
Gary Slater, Trajectories of Peircean Philosophical Theology: Scriptural Reasoning, Axiology of Thinking, and Nested Continua (Oxford University, forthcoming).
Optional Reading
Nicholas Adams
' Faith and Reason’ in The Impact of Idealism: Religion (ed. Adams, CUP, 2013)
Eclipse of Grace: Divine and Human Action in Hegel (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), pp.17-116
Habermas and Theology (Cambridge, CUP: 2006), pp.234-255
“Schelling's Turn to Scripture,” in The Persistence of the Sacred in Modern Thought (ed. Jacob and Firestone, Notre Dame, 2012)
“Rahner's reception in twentieth century Protestant theology,” The Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner, (ed. Marmion and Hines, Cambridge: CUP, 2005)
Richard Bernstein
The Pragmatic Turn (Chap 5)
Beyond Objectivism and Relativism
John Dewey
Art as Experience
Experience and Nature
Reconstruction in Philosophy
The Quest for Certainty
Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics
David Ford, Christian Wisdom
Yang Hui-Lin
“Scriptural Reasoning” and “Hermeneutical Circle” [J]. Journal of Renmin University of China, 2012, 26(5): 8-15
“Reasoning” in the Reading of Scriptures, Foreword, Special Issue on Historical Practice & Modern Value of Scriptural Reasoning between China and the West, ed.Huilin, Journal of Renmin University of China (2012) Vol. 26.5: 16-22.
William James
Pragmatism and Other Essays
Varieties of Religious Experience
Principles of Psychology (selections will be used)
Stephen Levinson, Pragmatics
Peter Ochs,
“The Logic of Indignity and the Logic of Redemption,” in eds. K. Soulen and L Moorehead, Theological Anthropology (Eerdmans Press, 2005): 143-160.
“Michael Signer’s Philosophical Theology of Plain Sense,” in Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians throughout History In Honor of Michael S. Signer edited by Franklin T. Harkins (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009).
“Morning Prayer as Redemptive Thinking,” in Liturgy, Time, and the Politics of Redemption, eds. Chad Pecknold and Randi Rashkover (Eerdmans Pub, 2006): 50-90
“Rabbinic Semiotics,” in The American Journal of Semiotics 10 Nos. 1-2 (1993): 35-66.
“Saints and the Heterological Historian,” in Saintly Influence: Texts for Edith Wyschogrod, ed. Martin Kavka, Stephen Hood and Eric Boynton (Fordham University Press, 2009): 219-237.
Michael Raposa, Peirce's Philosophy of Religion (on theosemiotics)
John Smith, Purpose and thought: the meaning of pragmatism
Susannah Ticciati, A New Apophaticism: Augustine and the Redemption of Signs
JJ Zeman, “Peirce’s Theory of Signs”, in A Perfusion of Signs, ed. T. Sebeok (1977) 22-39.
Additional (for advanced scholarship):
John Boler, "Peirce, Ockham and Scholastic Realism," Monist 63 (1980): 290-303
B. Darrell Jackson, "The Theory of Signs in De Doctrina Christiana," in R.A Markus, Augustine (Garden City,
1972): 92-148
Emily Michael, "Peirce's Earliest Contact with Scholastic Logic," Transactions of the CS Peirce Soc. 12 (Winter,
1976): 46-55.
R. A. Markus (1972). Augustine; a Collection of Critical Essays. Garden City, N.Y.,Anchor Books.
R. A. Markus (1957). St. Augustine on Signs. Phronesis 2 (1):60 - 83.
Charles W. Morris (1972). Writings on the General Theory of Signs. The Hague,Mouton.
James Jacobs. Theological Sources for Augustine's Theory of Signs. Semiotics:87-100.
Donald E. Daniels (1977). The Argument of the De Trinitate and Augustine's Theory of Signs. Augustinian
Studies 8:33-54.
Winfried Nöth (2003). Semiotic Foundations of the Study of Pictures. Sign Systems Studies 31 (2):377-391.
Phillip Cary (1997). Augustine, Philosopher and Saint. Teaching Co..
Charles Morris (1948). Signs About Signs About Signs. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 9 (1):115-
133.
John Deely (2000). Semiotics as a Postmodern Recovery of the Cultural Unconscious. Sign Systems
Studies 28:15-47.
Robert A. Markus (1984). The Saint Augustine Lectures. The Saint Augustine Lecture Series:43-46.
Ruth G. Millikan, On Reading Signs.
Ruth Garrett Millikan, On Reading Signs; Some Differences Between Us and The Others.
Ralph Austin Powell. Dicent Signs as Signs of Mechanist Causality in a Totally Intelligible Cosmos. Semiotics:354-361.
Paul D. Wienpahl (1949). Are All Signs Signs? Philosophical Review 58 (3):243-256.
Risto Hilpinen (2007). On the Objects and Interpretants of Signs: Comments on T. L. Short's Peirce's Theory of Signs. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 43 (4):610 - 618.
Coursework
Students to write every week: descriptive analytic papers throughout until the end
Plus: student teams of 2 prepare opening claim for each next class
Plus: term paper