Semiosis in the Postmodern Age

Book excerpt: "Who are we to suppose we are capable of comprehending the world of which we are a part, and what is the world to suppose it can be understood by us, minuscule and insignificant spatiotemporal warps contained within it?" This provocative question opens Floyd Merrell's study of postmodernism and the thought of Charles Sanders Peirce, part of the author's ongoing effort to understand our contemporary cultural and intellectual environment. The specific focus in this interdisciplinary study is the modernism/postmodernism dichotomy and Peirce's precocious realization that the world does not lend itself to the simplistic binarism of modernist thought. In Merrell's examination of postmodern phenomena, the reader is taken through various facets of the cognitive sciences, philosophy of science, mathematics, and literary theory. Merrell's consideration of Peirce's complex and inadequately understood concept of the sign is enhanced through numerous charts and figures. Theories, hypotheses, and speculation in the physical sciences are then brought to bear on Peircean semiotics. The final chapter critiques the often undiscriminating acceptance of postmodern practices in today's academic world.