Semiosis and the Crisis of Meaning: Continuity and Play in Peirce and Derrida

Abstract

Semiosis and the Crisis of Meaning addresses the difference between continuity and play in Charles Peirce’s and Jacques Derrida’s theory of signs. The main aim is to offer a reply to Derrida’s reading of Peirce in Of Grammatology—a reading which results in a crisis of meaning by redefining the process of semiosis as a limitlessness of play. To furnish a Peircean reply, I draw connections between Peirce’s semiotic and both his categories of being and method of scientific investigation. In doing so, I attempt to circumscribe Derrida’s play by restoring a direction to the movement from sign to sign. In the first chapter, I give an account of Peirce’s early theory of signs in order to set the stage for Derrida’s reading of Peirce. In the second chapter, I turn to Derrida’s work, give a general outline of his project in Of Grammatology, and provide a close reading of his brief encounter with Peirce. In the final chapter, I return to Peirce to show how there is a continuity to the process of semiosis that is missing in Derrida’s reading. This continuity provides us with the means to solve what is at stake in the crisis of meaning.