“I think, therefore we are.”—Gabriel Marcel
Part I: Intro
What has been philosophy’s path so far? And where might it go next?
Philosophy up to now can be divided into two stages, premodern and modern. The former includes both the ancient & medieval periods, and the latter began in the first half of the 1600s with Descartes and continues to the present day. Various post-modern philosophies have been proposed since Descartes, though none have been universally adopted. We are therefore, as a society, still in the modern era—Late Modernity, to be specific. Modern philosophy has run its course, but nothing has truly replaced it—yet!
Part II: A Brief History of Philosophy Up Til Now
The premoderns more or less believed that there is a reality that exists independently of us—a physical reality, yes, but also things such as a moral and aesthetic reality—and that we could with varying degrees of success know this reality directly. Though premoderns had disagreements, sometimes even violent ones, over questions of things such as moral truths, they all agreed that in principle there was such a thing as Truth that existed independently of humans and that we could know this Truth.
When Descartes introduced his famous Dualism, however, separating Mind from Matter—the Self from Reality—he laid the foundation for modern philosophy which came to believe that the Mind could not know reality directly, but only the Mind’s own ideas of reality.
Interestingly, it was here in the modern period where science and philosophy began to diverge. In the premodern era, what we call science today was a subset of philosophy referred to as “natural philosophy”. Though the scientific method is a modern development, the philosophy of modern science is essentially still premodern—we believe that there is an external physical world that exists independently of us, and that we can know this world. The scientific method is best understood, then, as a modern technique applied to a premodern philosophy.
It was in the modern period, therefore, where philosophy began to grow more subjective and relative (to use today’s terms), while science became more objective and absolute.
Part III: Semiotic Philosophy
If premodern philosophers believed we could know reality directly, and modern philosophers believe we can know only our ideas about reality, what, then, might a truly post-modern philosophy look like?
I believe the coming era in philosophy will be one based on the field of semiotics—the study of signs, symbols, language, and meaning. This field has a very long informal history ranging from Aristotle through Ss. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas & beyond, but it was most fully formalized and developed by the American philosopher and scientist Charles Sanders Pierce in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The reason I believe semiotics will be the bedrock of our post-modern philosophy is because Charles Pierce observed that, since all thought is in Signs, we can know reality directly through Signs! This may sound abstract, but let me offer an example here that will hopefully tie this all together.
When I say the word ball, you probably think of a spherical bouncy object. While this is a commonplace thing, it is actually incredibly bizarre that you should do so. The sound that is produced when I say the word ball, in-and-of-itself, has nothing whatsoever to do with a spherical bouncy object. There is no intrinsic reason why the sound ball should make you think of a springy orb. So what is going on?
Here we get to the true nature of what Charles Pierce considers to be a Sign. Modifying his terms slightly for the sake of communication, he defines a Sign as: the relationship between an Object (in this case a spherical bouncy thing), a Symbol (the word ball), and a Self (the entity that couples the Object to the Symbol). The Greek word Symbol literally means “to throw together”, so in a Sign you have the two things that get thrown together (the Object and the Symbol), and the entity that throws them together (one’s Self). There are the two things that get coupled (a spherical object and the word ball), as well as the coupler (one’s Self). A person (one’s Self) can know a thing-in-itself (Object) directly if it is coupled to a Symbol. If one’s Self hears the word ball but has never seen a spherical bouncy object, or if he sees a spherical bouncy object but never couples that thing-in-itself to a Symbol, he will never know the Object. To know is to be in relation with the Symbol-Object.
If all thought occurs in Signs then, as Charles Pierce claims, this is an absolutely revolutionary change from our modern perspective of the world, and in fact lays the foundation for a new era in philosophy, a post-modern era. There are many, many, many implications for this going forward, but one important one is that semiotics can assist in the transcending of Cartesian Dualism.
Whenever Descartes separated Mind from Matter, he in essence laid the groundwork (philosophically at least) to sever all connections between one’s Self and the outside world. This is the philosophical underpinning of the widespread individualism in the West over the past few hundred years. Separated from the rest of Reality, the Modern Self is fundamentally an Individual Self. I think, therefore I am.
Semiotic philosophy helps reconnect Mind to Matter—the Self to Reality—not by rebuilding the premodern bridge, but by constructing a new one: the Sign. Mind can know an external Object if it is accompanied by a Symbol. Knowing is therefore no longer a solitary, internal phenomenon—we are not philosophically trapped in our heads anymore, so to speak. To be a Semiotic Self is to be both an Individual as well as an Individual-in-Relation! As Gabriel Marcel wisely said: I think, therefore we are.