Dr Cathy Legg discusses: Discursive Habits: Peirce and Cognitive Semiotics
International Centre for Enactivism and Discursive Semiotics, Deakin University, Australia
March 1, 10PM-00AM (CET)
March 2, 8 a.m. Melbourne time.
Enactivism has greatly benefitted contemporary philosophy by demonstrating that the traditional intellectualist ‘act-content’ model of intentionality is simply insufficient, and showing how minds may be built from world-involving bodily habits. Many enactivists have assumed that this must entail non-representationalism concerning at least basic minds. Here I argue that such anti-intellectualism is overly constraining, and not necessary. I sketch an alternative enactivism which draws on Peirce’s pragmatic semiotics, and understands signs as habits whose connections with rich schemas of possible experience render them subject to increasing degrees of self-control. The talk’s key innovation is to align this cyclical process of habit cultivation with Peirce’s representationalist icon-index-symbol distinction, in a manner which I will explain.
For details and to link to the meeting go to : Cathy Legg_March1st