American father
of semiotics.
More to come. Pierce was interested in how signs signify
meaning.
Pierce is well known for creating a model (see left TO BE
INSERTED) that explains his concept of meaning in signs and sign
systems.
See
also special
topics section on semiotics.
~~~~~~~~~~
Ancient
Greek philospher whose ideas -- both his own and those of his teacher
Socrates that he relates to us through his dialogues -- about
The Meaning Of Life have had a huge impact on Western thinking. They
still have resonance in today's cultural and critical theory.
One of Plato's
Big Things (there were many) was the distinction he made between
reality and surface appearance. Plato thought that "reality" resided
in his Eternal "Forms" -- Truth, Justice, Beauty, Piety, for
example -- and everything on earth -- law, government, beautiful
people, pious observances, etc. -- were just pale imitations of these
Forms. Thus, for example, every dog in the world had something
definitely "doggy/doggish" about it (which helped us to recognize it
as a dog) but all such dogs were only imperfect impressions of the
perfect "dogness" of a dog which existed beyond our reach or ken.
Plato's Republic, which was ruled by the guardians, or
philosopher-kings, was essentially some sort of heavenly home for
these perfect Forms, which provided the initial causes for everything
that happened on earth.
One of the
clearest explications of Plato's Theory of Forms is in "The
Allegory of the Cave", a chapter in The Republic.
The allegory features a number of prisoners in a cave who spend their
entire lives trapped underground, and who can only see shadows of
themselves cast on the walls opposite them (they can't turn their
heads even to see the source of light). Not surprisingly, these
prisoners end up believing that their shadows are reality. In a
nutshell, this allegory is meant to highlight the nature of human
knowledge and experience, in that what we see around us ever day are
but "shadows" -- to be contrasted with the eternal forms (as
above) of the intelligible world, that lies beyond our direct
experience but which contains "true"
knowledge.
The difference
between Plato's and Aristotle's views of reality is one of the
major fault-lines which still divides fundamental Western concepts of
the natures of Being, Truth, and Reality. Plato's emphasis on the
importance of form and surface representations provides the basis for
most of Western art and Romanticism. Aristotle's emphasis on
underlying mechanisms and content over form, on how things
worked, provides the philosophical basis for Western science and
technology. However, this dichotomy is not quite as simple as all
that. Plato also emphasized the importance of setting up demonstrable
proof, i.e., proof that something is real instead of just made
up, as one of mankind's highest goals. This orientation toward the
real is a major facet of Western science. Scientists -- whether
involved in space travel, oceonography, subatomic physics or whatever
-- like to think they're in pursuit of the absolute, universal truth.
Plato helped to put that idea into their heads.
CT.
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