Date of Award
5-2017
Call Number
LD3175.H6 L527 2017
Document Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Undergraduate
Department
Honors
First Advisor
Jason Read, PhD
Second Advisor
William J. Gavin, PhD
Third Advisor
Robert Louden, PhD
Keywords
Charles Sanders Pierce, American Philosphy
Abstract
American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce pioneered the concept of a community of inquiry as a superior method of investigation to the approaches of any one individual. Within Pierce’s philosophy, accounts of developmental subjectivity appear alongside their connections to community. Peirce grounded the application of the community of inquiry in the social. Here the application of the community of inquiry extends to the level of the individual, as a conceptual illustration of thought within the human psyche. Within this reading, haunted emerges through memory as a central condition of the individual. The term significant has here been used to represent the positions, arguments, and ideals personified in the memory of a person. As such, the following project visualizes Peirce’s individual as a haunted animal—a being fashioned over time through the personal inclusions of influential significants. In addition, this reading offers further continuity within Peirce’s system, redefining the formation of the individual though the community of inquiry. Overall, the haunted animal serves to signify a sentimental foundation of individual identity and thought as an ongoing synthesis of one’s memories of others.
Recommended Citation
Librizzi, Jacob, "The Haunted Animal: Peirce's Community of Inquiry and the Formation of the Self" (2017). All Student Scholarship. 317.
https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/etd/317
