C.S. Peirce's "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God" [NA] has always baffled its readers. Its publishing editor needed to ask, "[W]hat, then, precisely, is your neglected argument?", and EP 2's editors observe that "[t]his is one of Peirce's most enigmatic writings". First-time readers will likely concur with the underwhelmed theologian who told Michael Raposa that NA "ought to remain neglected". Early Peirce scholars did neglect the essay, regarding it as an "anomalous sideshow to Peirce's more important concern with (...) the logic and methodology of science". No longer ignored, NA continues to bewilder: "N.... (shrink)

The Dimensions of Spirituality Inventory (DSI) is a 50-item quantitative assessment of spirituality. Whereas “spirituality” has seemed to some to be too vague for research purposes, the DSI follows earlier qualitative research in showing that usage of the word points to an intelligible conceptual structure. Instead of defining spirituality and then operationalizing it, as most extant instruments do, the DSI defines and operationalizes 21 relatively uncontroversial elemental components of spirituality, so the overall interpretation of spirituality can only emerge after factor (...) analysis. Just as an alphabet flexibly expresses words and sentences, so the 21 DSI dimensions permit the discovery of latent constructs corresponding to cultural packages of spirituality at the present time. The DSI avoids culturally parochial formulations of items, thanks to intense multidisciplinary engagement among social scientists, scholars of religion, and psychologists of religion, and thus is suitable for cross-cultural application. This paper reports on a study based on a participant pool recruited for ExploringMyReligion.org, in part from Prolific (N = 820, after culling unreliable responses). The DSI is interpreted and validated in relation to several other relevant measures, and the factor analysis is strongly resonant with prior qualitative studies. The psychometric properties of the DSI make it usable as an overall spirituality scale as well as a sensitive inventory of types and configurations of spirituality. (shrink)

This essay employs Charles Peirce’s triadic semiotics in order to develop a biosemiotic theory of life that is capable of illuminating the function of information in living systems. Specifically, I argue that the relationship between biological information structures , selecting environments, and the adapted bodily processes of living organisms is aptly modelled by the irreducibly triadic relationship between Peirce’s sign, object, and interpretant, respectively. In each instance of information-based semiosis, the information structure is a complex informational sign that represents the (...) informational object ; and the bodily, behavioral, mental, or intellectual processes that are organized by the informational sign to more or less accurately interpret the present environment constitute a complex informational interpretant—a living, interpreting organism. The essay begins by discussing the precise sense in which this biosemiotic theory is based upon Charles Peirce’s semiotic theory. Next, the theory is developed at length in relation to genetic information structures. Finally, I present a brief outline of how the theory applies to neural and linguistic information structures. The essay concludes with a reflection upon the anti-reductionist implications of the theory. (shrink)

C. S. Peirce claimed that the pragmatic method of clarifying ideas is "nothing but a particular application of an older logical rule, 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'"1 While Jesus spoke about discriminating between true and false religious teachers, Peirce was concerned with clarifying our intellectual concepts. Peirce's pragmatism asserts that we clearly understand the meaning of a concept if we can state the potentially practical and empirical consequences that would follow from the truth of a proposition involving that (...) concept. Robert C. Neville's semiotic and pragmatic theory of religious truth unites Jesus's and Peirce's concerns, proposing that religious truth consists in an adaptedness or fit between... (shrink)

Ecstatic Naturalism is the discipline of theology which spirals distinctly out of the work of Robert S. Corrington. This chapter introduces the concept and Corrington’s philosophy, and proposes fruitful intersections for radical theology.

The central thesis of this essay is that the relation imagined to hold between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit corresponds quite closely with the triadic relationship that holds between object, sign, and interpretant, respectively, within C. S. Peirce’s conception of semiosis. Section 1 introduces Peirce’s conception of semiosis. Section 2 supports the main thesis through examination of descriptions of the Trinitarian relations in two classic Christian texts: The New Testament and The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Section 3 reviews (...) two alternative explanations of this surprising correlation: Andrew Robinson’s vestigia Trinitatis explanation and a naturalistic alternative. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce’s semeiotic—his theory about signs, reference, interpretation, meaning, and communication—is applicable with illuminating results to innumerable processes of semeiosis or sign interpretation. Robert C. Neville is the first deep student of Peirce’s semeiotic to have systematically applied that theory to the analysis and theory of theological signs, interpretation, and truth—hereafter, theological semeiotic. The result is easily the deepest and richest theological semeiotic currently available. Being the best, it is also most worthy of critique. In this essay, I argue (...) that Neville misinterprets Peirce’s concept of an index, conceiving an index in terms of the interpreter-object rather than... (shrink)

From the swirling stars above, to the end-directed design of life below, to the perceptions and emotions that color the world within—as more and more phenomena prove susceptible to scientific description, explanation, prediction, and control, the naturalistic metainduction grows increasingly plausible: perhaps nature is self-enclosed, so that everything that makes a difference within the world is itself part of the world; perhaps there are no disembodied agents—neither ghosts nor gods—whose actions influence our shared day-to-day world. Because neither the expansion of (...) science’s adequacy nor the concomitant pressure toward philosophical naturalism show signs of abating, the recent emergence of religious naturalism.. (shrink)

Containing ten original essays by leading philosophers and scholars of religion, this volume is an important resource for anyone interested in the complex, evolving relationship between pragmatism and philosophical naturalism, especially as this bears upon the study and practice of religion. Matthew Bagger's general introduction and his introductions to each section are important contributions in their own right, providing the historical and contextual background needed to weave the volume's disparate essays into a coherent whole. After briefly summarizing each essay, this (...) review provides a critical response to the eclipse of "representationalism" announced in the volume's subtitle.Part 1 explores the naturalisms... (shrink)

J. Caleb Clanton’s excellent new book is a must read for scholars studying the “classical” American philosophical tradition and for philosophers of religion more generally. In each of the six main chapters, Clanton reconstructs and assesses an argument in the philosophy of religion made by one philosophers that belong to the classic American tradition. Clanton’s approach is analytical and precise but not overly technical. His careful reconstructions of each argument constitute an invaluable scholarly contribution, and his insightful criticisms of each (...) argument warrant the close attention of his philosophical peers. Clearly, Clanton’s book is the fruit of long hours spent “thinking with” the... (shrink)