Dissertation Abstract
Towards a Peircean Aesthetic
by
Andrew Cameron Sergienko
Degree: Ph.D.
Year: 2001
Pages: 00193
Institution:
Advisor: Director John Lachs
Source: DAI, 62, no. 02A (2001): p. 607
Standard
No: ISBN: 0-493-14454-4
This dissertation uses the resources of Peirce's
philosophy to develop a framework for approaching several interrelated problems
in aesthetics thereby developing what may reasonably be called Peirce's
aesthetics. Drawing on his phenomenology, normative sciences, and semiotic, I
develop distinctly Peircean accounts of aesthetic experience, aesthetic norms
and aesthetic signs.
The place of aesthetics in
Peirce's philosophy has generally been neglected by his commentators. This
shift of focus from logic and the theory of inquiry to aesthetics has two philosophically significant results.
First, though Peirce is
generally regarded as the founder of pragmatism, the only distinctly American
intellectual tradition, his philosophy has been interpreted in ways which
distance Peirce from his intellectual progeny. By examining the role of
aesthetics in Peirce's thought, some points of contact between Peirce's version
of pragmatism and Dewey's and James' are made clear. I also develop a pluralism inherent in Peirce's thought in an effort to
show its distinctly American flavor. While this pluralistic aspect of Peirce
has been discussed in relation to his philosophy of science, here it receives
its first treatment in relation to value theory.
Second, I stress the
centrality of cosmology and the sometimes ambivalent relation between Peirce
and German Idealism. Of particular interest to my work is Peirce's conception
of the infinitely distant future. The role of this conception in Peirce's
thought establishes in no uncertain terms the connections between normativity,
cosmology and aesthetic values. The interpretation I give of Peirce's
infinitely distant future recognizes his debt to the speculative thinkers of
the nineteenth century, but also shows how he has decisively improved upon
their insights.
In the first three chapters
I develop Peirce's phenomenological categories of first, second and third and
their application to various modes of aesthetic function and appreciation. In
the second group of three chapters, I develop Peirce's normative sciences
(aesthetics, ethics and logic) and their relation to the aesthetic values
implicit in Peirce's theory of inquiry and cosmology. The final trio of
chapters develops some of the possibilities for art-interpretation to be found
in Peirce's semiotic.
I have endeavored
throughout to make my development of the thoughts of this bona fide genius both
systematic and open-ended. I believe that my work not only shows the relative
import of aesthetics in understanding Peirce's philosophy, but also provides a
sound starting point for further research in this field.
SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: PHILOSOPHY
Accession
No: AAI3005335
Provider: OCLC
Database: Dissertations