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Lucia Santaella

The contributions of Peirce's philosophical disciplines to literary studies

It is well-known that Peirce developed a broad classification of the sciences, which are interconnected by hierarchically interdependent and non-linear relations. The higher the level of a science in the hierarchy, the more abstract that science is and, as such, it provides the less abstract sciences with general concepts and principles. At the same time, the empirical sciences provide the abstract ones with new problems and questions. At the core of Peirce's classification is his architecture of philosophical disciplines. It was his endeavor that these disciplines should display the general concepts and principles for all the idioscopic or special sciences. Considering that literary studies can be understood as an idioscopic science, the aim of this paper is to discuss the place of literature in Peirce's classificatory diagram and to suggest the possible relations that literary studies may entertain with the philosophical disciplines, that is, phenomenology, the normative sciences, and metaphysics.

Semiotica, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0037-1998
Volume: 2007, 06/2007
Pages: 57 - 66

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