Pragmatism and the forms of sense : language, perception, technics / Robert E. Innis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Innis, Robert E.

Series:

American and European philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Meaning (Philosophy).

Language and languages--Philosophy.

Language and languages.

Technology--Philosophy.

Technology.

Perception (Philosophy).

Pragmatism.

Semiotics.

Physical Description:

ix, 265 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press, [2002]

Summary:

Making sense of the world around us is a process involving both semiotic and material mediation -- the use of signs and sign systems (preeminently language) and various kinds of tools (technics). As we use them, we experience them subjectively as extensions of our bodily selves and objectively as instruments for accessing the world with which we interact. Emphasizing this bipolar nature of language and technics, understood as intertwined "forms of sense," Robert Innis studies the multiple ways in which they are rooted in and transform human perceptual structures in both their individual and social dimensions. The book foregrounds and is organized around the notion of "semiotic embodiment." Language and technics are viewed as "probes" upon which we rely, in which we are embodied, and that themselves embody and structure our primary modes of encountering the world. While making an important substantive contribution to present debates about the "biasing" of perception by language and technics, Innis also seeks to provide a methodological model of how complementary analytical resources from American pragmatist and various European traditions can be deployed fruitfully in the pursuit of new insights into the phenomenon of meaning-making.

Contents:

Introduction: Pragmatism and the Forms of Sense 1

Part 1 Framing Language

1 On the Perceptual Roots of Linguistic Meaning 19

2 From Indication to Predication: On Fields and Situations 51

3 Paleo-Pragmatism's Linguistic Turn: Lessons from Giovanni Vailati 99

Part 2 The Senses of Technics

4 Technics and the Bias of Perception: The Tacit Logic of Embodied Meanings 131

5 Pragmatist Aesthetics as Critique of Technology 167

6 Form and Technics: Nature, Semiotics, and the 'Information Revolution' 203.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [239]-252) and index.

ISBN:

027102223X

OCLC:

50422826