1. Orienting to Reality Brian Kemple’s The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology is an intellectual tour-de-force. Actually, the title is a misnomer… insofar as Kemple’s monograph intersects three, and not two, traditions: phenomenology, semiotics, and Thomism (i.e. philosophy in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas). Kemple’s Thomism can be presented to a layperson as a position of “realism,” as opposed to “nominalism.” Thomism, that is, implies a commitment to the intelligibility of realit...