Theosemiotic
Religion, Reading, and the Gift of Meaning

Michael L. Raposa (Author)

9780823289516

Hardback, published 6 October 2020

384 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.628 kg

In Theosemiotic, Michael Raposa uses Charles Peirce's semiotic theory to rethink certain issues in contemporary philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion. He first sketches a history that links Peirce's thought to that of earlier figures (both within the tradition of American religious thought and beyond), as well as to other classical pragmatists and to later thinkers and developments. Drawing on Peirce's ideas, Raposa develops a semiotic conception of persons/selves emphasizing the role that acts of attention play in shaping human inferences and perception. His central Peircean presuppositions are that all human experience takes the form of semiosis and that the universe is "perfused" with signs. Religious meaning emerges out of a process of continually reading and re-reading certain signs.
Theology is explored here in its manifestations as inquiry, therapy, and praxis. By drawing on both Peirce's logic of vagueness and his logic of relations, Raposa makes sense out of how we talk about God as personal, and also how we understand the character of genuine communities. An investigation of what Peirce meant by "musement" illuminates the nature and purpose of prayer. Theosemiotic is portrayed as a form of religious naturalism, broadly conceived. At the same time, the potential links between any philosophical theology conceived as theosemiotic and liberation theology are exposed.

Preface ix
Parenthetical References xv
Prolegomena 1
1 A Brief History of Theosemiotic 15
2 Signs, Selves, and Semiosis 43
3 Love in a Universe of Chance 75
4 Theology as Inquiry, Therapy, Praxis 107
5 Communities of Interpretation 155
6 Rules for Discernment 192
7 On Prayer and the Spirit of Pragmatism 227
Postlude: The Play of Musement 259
Acknowledgments 265
Notes 269
Index 301