Beyond Hermeneutics: Peirce’s Semiology as a Trinitarian Metaphysics of Communication

Abstract

Bradley contends that the semiology of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), the founder of pragmatism, is a standing challenge as much to Gadamerian hermeneutics as to Saussure’s structuralism and its deconstructionist progeny. For Peirce physical matter itself is one specific mode of the activity of semiosis or sign interpretation. The paper outlines the central point and purpose of Peirce’s general metaphysics and describe the basic features of his theory of signs.