Colloquium - Dr. Chung-ying Cheng

February 16, 2:30pm - 4:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Sakamaki Hall C-308

Truth in Peirce and Chinese Philosophy As a philosopher of science and a metaphysician of pragmatism, Peirce has approached truth through his well-known maxim of pragmatism. But his pragmatism need not to be the ground for his realism. I argue that it is through his underlying intuitive perception and his logic of reasoning that he arrives at his abductive/ semiotic realism by way of what I call onto-interpretation. We can thus see his trichotomy of signs, objects and interpretant minds as embodying an endless process of truth-making through firstness, secondness and thirdness. Thus we can find an onto-hermeneutic circle of understanding and being at work which illustrates truth as a matter of tripartite relationship to the sign. By means of this Peircian approach to truth, we may see how truth in Chinese philosophy of yi 易 (change)， dao道 (the way) and benti 本体 (root-body) becomes easily understood in reference to xiang 象 （image-form），wu物 (things or concrete qi 气) and li 理 （principle or reason）through a system of yi-symbols . Conversely, we can see how Chinese philosophy of yi provides a clue to understanding the semiotic philosophy of Peirce.


Ticket Information
Free

Event Sponsor
Philosophy, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Jenna Saito, (808) 956-8649, philo@hawaii.edu, http://hawaii.edu/phil/

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