Four ages of understanding : the first postmodern survey of philosophy from ancient times to the turn of the twenty-first century / John Deely.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Deely, John

Series:

Toronto studies in semiotics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philosophy--History.

Philosophy.

History.

Semiotics--History.

Semiotics.

Postmodernism.

Physical Description:

xxxiii, 1019 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2001]

Contents:

Preface: The Boundary of Time xxix

1 Society and Civilization: The Prelude to Philosophy 3

Part 1 Ancient Philosophy: The Discovery of "Reality" 15

2 Philosophy as Physics 17

Beginning at the Beginning 17

"Monism" 21

Thales of Miletus (c.625-c.545BC) 21

Anaximander (c.610-545BC) and Anaximenes (c.580-500BC) 24

"Pluralism" 25

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (c.500-428BC) 25

Empedocles of Acragas (c.495-c.435BC) 28

"Dualism" 29

Leucippus (c.470-390BC; fl.440-435BC) 29

Democritus (c.460-c.385/362BC) 30

Mathematicism: A Theorem from Pythagoras 32

Pythagoras of Crotona (c.570-495BC) 33

Requirements and Dilemmas for a Philosophy of Being 34

Heraclitus the Obscure, of Ephesus (c.540-c.480BC) 34

Parmenides of Elea (c.515-c.450BC) 37

The Argument with the Sharpest Fang: the Paradoxes of Zeno of Elea (c.495/490-c.430BC) 41

First Framing of the Contrast between Sense and Understanding 40

3 The Golden Age: Philosophy Expands Its Horizon 42

Socrates (469-399BC) 42

The Sophists 43

Founder of Moral Philosophy and of the Search for Definitions 44

The Socratic Method 45

The Lessons of the Square 52

The Gadfly 53

Plato (c.427-347BC) 53

True Being, Eternal and Unchanging 54

Dialectic and Language 55

The Good 58

"Let No One Without Geometry Enter Here" 59

The Relation of Aristotle to Plato 60

Aristotle (384-322BC) 61

What Philosophy Is Primarily Called On to Account For 62

The Datum Explanandum 64

A Scheme of Causality Adequate to the Datum 64

A Lair for Later Nonsense: from Teleology to Teleonomy 65

Chance Events 66

Neither Monism Nor Dualism but "Trialism": The Triad of Act, Potency, and Privation (What Is, What Could Be, and What Should Be Different) 67

Time and Space 70

Transcendental Relativity: Substance and Inherent Accidents 72

The Categories of Aristotle 73

The Category of Relation 73

The Basic Categorial Scheme and Its Details 74

General Purpose of the Scheme of Categories 77

How Mathematics Applies to the Physical Environment 78

Abstraction 78

De-Fanging the Paradoxes of Zeno of Elea 78

Preparing the Way for Galileo and Darwin: Celestial Matter 79

Organizing the Sciences 81

Understanding the Distinction between Speculative and Practical Knowledge 81

"Metaphysics" by Any Other Name ... 82

The "Unmoved Mover": Summit of Being in Aristotle's Speculative Scheme 83

Practical Science 84

Subdivisions of Speculative and Practical Thinking 85

The Goal of Human Life 86

The Instrument of All the Sciences 87

Demonstration, or Proof of a Point 89

The Place of Logic among the Sciences 91

Looking Forward to Latinity, First Aspect 91

4 The Final Greek Centuries and the Overlap of Neoplatonism with Christianity 93

The Founding of Stoicism, and, as Background Thereto, Cynicism 93

Zeno of Citium (c.336-260BC) 94

Cynicism (Antisthenes of Cyrene, 444-365BC) 95

Diogenes the Cynic (c.412-323BC) 95

Stoicism 96

The Stoic Development 96

Stoicism's Main Theoretician, Chrysippus of Soli (c.280-206BC) 96

The Stoic Organization of Life and Knowledge 97

The Quarrel between Stoics and Peripatetics over the Place of Logic among the Sciences 99

Skepticism and Epicureanism 99

The Origins of Skepticism 99

Epicurus of Samos (341-270BC) 100

"Epicure" and Epicurism vs. "Epicurean" and Epicureanism 101

Freedom from Fear the Highest Wisdom 102

Metrodorus (c.330-277BC) and the Belly 103

The Swerve 103

The Role of Sign in Epicurus' Thought 106

The Counterpoint of Stoicism and Epicureanism in the Last Greek Centuries 108

The Stoic vs. Epicurean Polemic over Signs and Inference 108

Neoplatonism 112

The Circumstances of Neoplatonism 113

The Temporary Overlap of Greek and Latin Antiquity 115

Henology vs. Ontology 117

The Question for Neoplatonism: Outward to Things or Inward to the Soul's Source and Origin? The "flight of the alone to the Alone" 119

How to Read Plotinus? 120

How to Interpret Ultimate Potentiality? 122

How to Deal with Contradictions? 125

Intellectual Discourse vs. Mystical Experience 126

Toward the Idea of a Creative God or "Source of Being" 128

Neoplatonic Influences on the Latin Age 129

Pseudo-Dionysius and Other Unknown Authors of Christian Neoplatonism 130

John Scotus Erigena (c.AD810-c.877) 135

Scotus Erigena, Natura Naturans, and Natura Naturata 137

The Finale of Pagan Neoplatonism 140

Proclus (AD410-485) and Pagan Theology 141

A Double Finale 141

The Tree of Porphyry 144

The Roots of Porphyry's Tree 144

The Trunk of Porphyry's Tree 147

An Example of Scholastic Commentary 148

Division and Analysis of the Text 148

Outline of the Isagoge as a Whole 150

Porphyry's Achievement in the Isagoge 153

The Famous "Praeteritio" 154

Looking Forward to Latinity, Second Aspect: The Greek Notion of [characters not reproducible] as "Natural Sign" 154

Part 2 The Latin Age: Philosophy of Being 159

5 The Geography of the Latin Age 161

Political Geography: The Latin Lebenswelt 161

The Separation of Roman Civilization into a Latin West and a Greek East 165

Back to the Future: The First Christian Emperor 165

Forward to the Past: The Last Pagan Emperor 168

The Final Separation of East from West 169

The Dissolution in Some Detail of Imperial Rule over the Latins, AD396-c.479 171

The Onset of the Latin Age 174

The Breaking of Christianity over a Vowel 176

The Further Breaking over a Word 180

Philosophy in the Latin Age 181

The Proposal to Date Events from the Birth of Christ: The "Christian Calendar" 182

The Origin of the Liberal Arts 183

The First Medieval Source: Cassiodorus in Italy 183

The Seven Liberal Arts 184

The Second Medieval Source: Isidore in Spain 185

On the Vitality of Mongrel Strains 185

The Contribution of Islam to Philosophy in the Latin Age 186

Where the Light Was When Europe Went Dark 186

One of the Most Astonishing Events in the History of Thought: The Arab Mediation of Greek Intellectual Freedom to Latin European Civilization 188

Islam Beheads Itself 188

The Role of Mythology in the Shaping of the Latin Age 193

The Mythical Donation of Constantine 195

The "Holy" Roman Empire 196

The Mythical Decretals ("Decretales Pseudoisidorianae") 200

The Fate of the Forgeries 201

A Footnote on the Greek Contribution to Latin Europe as Mainly Mediated by Arabic Islam 202

Intellectual Geography: Seeing Latinity Whole 205

The Hodge-Podge Standard Treatment in Late Modern Times 205

A Proper Outline 207

Anticipating the Two Destinies 209

Language and the Ages of Understanding 210

6 The So-Called Dark Ages 212

Augustine of Hippo (AD354-430) 212

The First Latin Initiative in Philosophy: Sign in General 214

The Illumination Theory of Knowledge 218

The Scope of Signs in Knowing 219

The Original Interest in Signs 220

Book I on Christian Doctrine 221

Book II on Christian Doctrine 221

A Notion Pregnant with Problems 222

The Strength of Augustine's Signum 223

Boethius (c.AD480-524) 224

Boethius On the Trinity and the Division of Speculative Knowledge 225

Boethius' Terminology for Aristotle's Difficulties with Relation 226

Aristotle's Difficulties 227

Transcendental Relation 228

Categorial Relation 229

Purely Objective Relations 229

The Ontological Peculiarity of Relations Anywhere 230

The Tunnel to Latin Scholasticism 232

Lights at the End of the Tunnel: Anselm of Canterbury (c.1033-1109), Peter Abaelard (c.1079-1142), Peter Lombard (c.1095-1160) 232

Medieval Philosophy at Its Christian Extreme 233

The Ontological Argument 234

Peter Abaelard (c.1079-1142) 242

c.1117-1142: Heloise (c.1098-1164) and Abaelard 242

In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time 243

The "Problem of Universals" and the First Florescence of Nominalism 243

The Possible Nominalistic Character of Augustine's Proposal of Signum 247

The Sic et Non (c.1122) of Peter Abaelard and the Sentences (c.1150) of

Peter Lombard 248

Abaelard's Sic et Non 249

Lombard's Sentences 249

7 Cresting a Wave: The Second Stage 251

Albertus Magnus (c.1201-1280) 252

"The Splendor of the Latins" 255

Aquinas vis-a-vis Aristotle and Lombard 255

The Idea of Theology as Sacra Doctrina to Displace "Christian Philosophy" 257

Cosmology in Aquinas 263

The Subject of Theology and the Existence of God; the "Metaphysics of Esse" 266

Quinque Viae: The Reasoning of the "Five Ways" 267

The Divine Names and "Negative Theology": "Of God We Can Know Only That He Is and What He Is Not" 272

Ipsum Esse Subsistens 282

"God Is More Intimate to Created Beings than They Are to Themselves" 284

"After Creation, There Are More Beings But No More Being" 287

A Note on the Distinction between Essence and Existence 290

Theology as a Systematic Exercise of Reason 297

The Human Soul and Mortality 299

The "Preambles to Faith" 304

Free Will and Freedom of Choice 305

The Starting Point of Metaphysics 308

The "Three Degrees of Abstraction" 309

The "Negative Judgment of Separation" 310

The Compatibility of the Two Doctrines 312

The Question of Analogy 313

Analogy in the Texts of St Thomas Aquinas: A Function of Naming 313

Analogy in Thomistic Tradition: A "Concept of Being" 323

Beyond the Analogy of Names and Concept: "Analogy of Being" 328

The Problem of Sign in Aquinas 331

The Problem of Being as First Known 341

The "Formal Object" of Latin Scholasticism (Peirce's "Ground") 343

Why Sensations Do Not Involve Mental Icons 345

Why Perceptions Do Involve Mental Icons 346

Ens Primum Cognitum: Species-Specifically Human Apprehension 347

Nonbeing in Latin Philosophy 350

The Sequence of First or "Primitive Concepts" Consequent upon Being 355

The "Way of Things", the Philosophy of Being, and Single-Issue Thomism 357

Thomism after Thomas 358

Into the Abyss 362

8 The Fate of Sign in the Later Latin Age 364

Roger Bacon (c.1214-1292) 365

The First Attempt to Ground the General Notion 365

A Man of Details 365

Losing Sight of the Type in a Forest of Tokens 367

The Problem of the "Nose of Wax" 369

The Mote in Augustine's Eye and the Beam in Bacon's Own 372

The Uniqueness of Sign Relations 374

Interpretant or Interpreter? 374

The Originality of Bacon's Work on Sign 375

Joannes Duns Scotus (c.1266-1308) 376

In Search of the Fundamental Ground 377

Working on the Beam from Roger Bacon's Eye 378

Intuitive and Abstractive Awareness 378

The Three Meanings of Abstraction 380

The Term "Physical" as Used by the Latins 382

Scotus on the Dynamics of the Sign 382

The Semiotic Web 383

Duns Scotus vis-a-vis Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas 385

William of Ockham (c.1285-1349) 385

The Second Florescence of Nominalism 386

Ockham's Problem with a Doctrine of Signs: There Are No "Generals" 388

"The Only Difficulty There Is in Understanding Ockham" 389

A Terminological Advance Marred by Conceptual Incoherence 390

How Politics Lent to Nominalism a Factitious Following 391

The Thicket (i.1349/1529) 394

A Thicket within the Thicket, 1309-1417: the Papacy, First at Avignon and Then in Schism 395

The Papacy at Avignon, 1309-1377 395

The Papacy in Schism, 1378-1417 400

A Thin Layer of Logic within the Thicket: A New Terminology Migrates from Paris to Iberia ... 402

Criticizing the First Part of Augustine's Definition 404

What the Criticism Accomplished and What It Left to Be Accomplished 406

Out of the Thicket 407

Domingo de Soto (1495-1569) and the Path Beyond the Thicket 408

9 Three Outcomes, Two Destinies 411

The First Outcome: Pedro da Fonseca (1528-1599) 411

An Appearance to the Contrary Notwithstanding ... 412

... Again the Ghost of Nominalism to Haunt Augustine 414

Fonseca Anticipating Modernity: The Reduction of Signification to Representation in the Order of Formal Signs 415

Reversing the Earlier Criticism of Augustine 419

Was the Definition Wrong, or Was It the General Proposal That Was Ill-Conceived? 420

Fonseca's Stratagem 420

Second Outcome: The Conimbricenses (1606, 1607) 422

The Second Part of Augustine's Definition 422

Resuming the Ancient Discussion in Latin Terms 423

Focusing the Controversy over Signum 427

The Vindication of Augustine: John Poinsot (1589-1644) 430

The Standpoint of Semiotic 430

Reaching the Type Constituting Whatever Token 432

A New Definition of Signum 434

One Further Augustinian Heritage: Grammatical Theory and Modistae as a Minor Tradition of Latin Semiotics 435

The Case for a "Science of Signs" in Kilwardby Adscriptus 439

Consequent Clarifications 441

The End of the Story in Latin Times and Its Opening to the Future 443

10 The Road Not Taken 447

Stating the Question 447

Finding a Focus 455

Adjusting the Focus: Understanding What We Have Found 461

The Tractatus de Signis Viewed from within the Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus 461

From Sensation to Intellection: The Scope of the Doctrina Signorum 465

The Foundation of the Perspective Proper to the Doctrina Signorum, i.e., Its Point of Departure 468

The Tractatus de Signis Viewed in Terms of Its Own Requirements for Philosophy 479

Part 3 The Modern Period: The Way of Ideas 485

11 Beyond the Latin Umwelt: Science Comes of Age 487

Questions Only Humans Ask 487

Reasonable Questions Philosophy Cannot Answer 489

How Is Philosophy Different from Science? 490

The Quarrels between Faith and Reason 491

The Condemnation (21 June 1633) of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) 493

How the Latin Age Came to Be as Lost to Modernity as Was Greek Antiquity to the Latin Age 499

The Boethius of Modernity: Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) 500

The Debates around Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and The Origin of Species (1859) 502

"Creationism" vs. "Evolutionism" 506

John Dewey (1859-1952) and "The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy" 507

Science and Academic Freedom: The Achievement of Modernity 509

12 The Founding Fathers: Rene Descartes and John Locke 511

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) 512

The Dreams of Descartes 512

The Methodological Doubt 513

The Proof of God's Existence and the Foundation of Knowledge 513

The "Fundamentum Inconcussum Veritatis": That God Is No Deceiver 517

The Rationalist Tradition 518

John Locke (1632-1704) 520

The Qualities Given in Sensation: A Comparison of Modern and Medieval Treatment 522

What Is at Stake?: Preliminary Statement 524

The Common List of Sense Qualities 524

How Modern and Premodern Treatments Mainly Differ 525

What Is at Stake: The Bottom Line 526

Are the Standpoints Equally Valid? 526

Berkeley (1685-1753) and Hume (1711-1776) Showing the Consequences of the Modern Standpoint 527

Spelling Out the Bottom-Line Consequence of the Modern Standpoint as the Origin of the Problem of the External World 528

Sensation in the Perspective of the Doctrine of Signs 529

Sensation along the Way of Signs vs. Sensation along the Way of Ideas 530

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) Filling the Shoes of the Fool 532

The Semiotics of Sensation 533

Comparative Evaluation of the Modern and Premodern Standpoints 534

Sense and Understanding 535

The Nature of Ideas 536

The Common Heritage of Modern Times (c.1637-1867) 538

13 Synthesis and Successors: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 540

Dr Jekyll Sets Up Shop.

The Scientific Side of Modernity: Coming to Terms with Nature 540

The Copernican Revolution 541

The Darwinian Revolution 541

The Freudian Revolution 542

The Philosophical Side of Modernity: Abandoning the Way of Texts 542

Enter Mr Hyde: The Problem of the External World as the Schizophrenia of Modernity 544

The First Attempt to Prove There Is an External World 545

Locke's Stand on the Problem 547

What to Do with Common Sense? 547

Bishop Berkeley's Idealism and Dr Johnson's Stone 549

The Skepticism of David Hume 549

Immanuel Kant: The Synthesis of Rationalism and Empiricism 553

Newtonian Science 555

From Dogmatic Slumber to Idealist Consciousness 556

Removing Scandal from Philosophy: The "Only Possible Proof" of an External Reality 559

"Second Copernican Revolution" or Vindication of Mr Hyde? 565

Vico's Prognostication 570

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) 572

The Anticipation of Semiotic Consciousness Signaled within Modernity: The Con-Venience ("Coming Together") of Philosophy and History 575

Twilight on the Way of Ideas 578

Journey's End, Journey's Beginning 584

14 Locke Again: The Scheme of Human Knowledge 590

Locke's Modest Proposal Subversive of the Way of Ideas, Its Reception, and Its Bearing on the Resolution of an Ancient and a Modern Controversy in Logic 591

Reception of the Proposal among the Moderns 592

The Text of the Proposal 593

Resolution of the Ancient Quarrel between Stoics and Peripatetics over the Place of Logic among the Sciences and of the Late-Modern Quarrel over the Rationale of Logic as a Liberal Art 595

The Literary Device of Synecdoches in the Text of Locke's Proposal and His Initial Sketch for the Doctrine of Signs 597

"Physics" and "Ethics" as Synecdoches 598

"Logic" as a Synecdoche 599

The Explicit Initial Sketch 599

The Root of the Ancient Dispute in Logic as Unresolved Previously 600

"Words" and "Ideas" as Synecdoches 601

Expanding upon Locke's Initial Sketch 603

From Semiotics as Knowledge of Signs to Semiosis as Action of Signs 603

The Semiotic Web 605

A Distinction Which Unites 606

Part 4 Postmodern Times: The Way of Signs 609

15 Charles Sanders Peirce and the Recovery of Signum 611

The Last of the Moderns ... 611

... and First of the Postmoderns 614

Pragmaticism Is Not Pragmatism 616

Pragmaticism and Metaphysics 617

Pragmaticism and Relations 618

The Purpose of Human Life 622

An Ethics of Thinking as well as an Ethics of Doing 622

The Line Separating Pragmaticism from Modern Philosophy 625

Pragmaticism and the Doctrine of Signs 625

Peirce's Grand Vision 628

Semiotics as the Study of the Possibility of Being Mistaken 636

Categories and the Action of Signs 637

Expanding the Semiotic Frontier 637

Problems in the Latin Terminology 638

Sign-Vehicle as Representamen 640

"Ground" 641

From the Being of Sign to the Action of Sign 643

Infinite Semiosis 644

A New List of Categories 645

The Peculiar Case of Firstness 645

Applying to "Firstness" the Ethics of Terminology 648

Making the Sensible World Intelligible 650

Relations and the Knowledge of Essences 652

Two More Categories 660

The Ethics of Terminology 662

The Rules Themselves 666

16 Semiology: Modernity's Attempt to Treat the Sign 669

The Proposal of Semiology 669

Background of Saussure's Proposal 670

The Proposal Itself 671

Reception of Saussure's Proposal Compared with That of Locke 674

The Essence of Semiology's Proposal 676

A Logic of Similarities and Differences 677

Two Possible Construals of Semiology, One Broad, One Narrow 678

Points of Comparison between the Project of Semiotics and That of Semiology 680

A Foundational or a Subalternate Study? 680

At the Boundary of Modern and Postmodern 681

Signs without Objects 681

Signs Wanted: No Motives Accepted 683

Comparative Summary 684

The Struggle for the Imagination of Popular Culture 685

Genuine versus Bogus Claims for Semiology 685

Positive Contributions from Semiology to the Doctrine of Signs 686

Steps to a Postmodern Doctrine of Signs 686

Up from the Past 686

On to the Future 688

17 At the Turn of the Twenty-first Century 689

Trattato di semiotica generale 689

A Work of Transition 690

The History of Semiotics as It Appears Today (and When and Where Is That?) 693

Theoretical Heart of Trattato di semiotica generale 699

Field or Discipline? 700

Sign or Sign-Function? 705

Eco's Notion of Sign-Function 706

The Classical Notion of Sign 708

Overlaps and Differences in the Two Notions 710

Political or Natural Boundaries? 710

Information Theory vs. Semiotics 711

Eco vs. Peirce 712

Conventional vs. Natural Correlations 713

Illuminations vs. Anomalies 714

Iconism or Indexicality? 715

Conclusions and Basic Problems 719

Mind-Dependent vs. Mind-Independent Relations 720

Sensation vs. Perception 720

Invention vs. Invented 721

Modes of Sign-Production vs. Typologies of Sign 722

Corrections and Subordinations 724

The Theory of Codes and Anthroposemiosis 725

Eco vis-a-vis "Logical Analysis" in Analytic Philosophy and vis-a-vis Generative Grammar in Philosophy of Language 726

Eco's Use of "Interpretant" 729

"Differences of things as things are quite other than the differences of things as objects" 731

The Line of Advance 733

18 Beyond Realism and Idealism: Resume and Envoi 735

Rationale of This Work, in View of All That Could Be Said 735

The Semeiotic Animal 736

Resume 737

Envoi: Beyond Realism and Idealism 740

Gloss on the References 835.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0802047351 :

OCLC:

44906016