Welcome to my new blog, everyone. Let me start off right here by saying that I think Danny Kaye is a genius of humor. Today, of course, is Independence Day, and as part of our celebrations, Katie and Margo and I watched The Court Jester (with none other than the delightful Danny Kaye), and I was just amazed. Now, this was not the first time that I've watched this movie, but it never ceases to amaze me how he can make his voice crack on command, pull the perfect facial or otherwise physical expressions at exactly the right moment, or spout off tongue twisters like nobody's business.

In other news, my application is almost complete. Correction, it is complete, and now it just needs to be mailed off. I just graduated with a BA in Linguistics, and I'm trying to decide what to do with myself now. I have a great job developing content for a computer-based language teaching program, and that's great. But eventually, I want to finish my PhD in Linguistics and teach at a university. So until then, I'm trying to figure out the best way of getting there. I am greatly interested in text analysis and writing, so I'm applying to the University of Nottingham in England, where they have an MA in Literary Linguistics. It is mostly about text analysis and discourse analysis, and that sounds great to me. But when I actually think about it, I start wondering if I can really do it. I guess the future just scares me. I have thought about going directly to a PhD program, and I'm still planning to apply to some, but I don't think I'm ready for that kind of research yet. I guess I don't feel like a real linguist yet, after just a BA. I've also thought of staying at my alma mater and doing an MA here, which sounds really good sometimes. In many ways, I just feel like it's time to move on, but then I also know that I love at this university, and I'm familiar already with a lot of the faculty and their research interests and teaching styles. And it would be possible to work with AM, one of the most influential teachers I've ever had. In fact, it's mostly from him that I have learned about the great Charles S. Peirce, after whom this blog is partially named (and about whom I will do a lot of writing in the future). I get nervous looking at the U of Nottingham because I'm not sure what kind of wacky theories they may be teaching out there, and I really haven't taken the time to find out yet. But it would probably also be very good for me to get a completely different kind of perspective like that so that I could learn to defend my own beliefs and views in a stronger way.

Brief (and Basic) Explanation of the Peircean Categories

I guess I ought to explain a little bit about Peirce, huh? The first thing you really need to know about Peirce is that he was all aout logic. The second thing you need to know is that he's also all about triangles. See, he wanted to develop a system for categorizing virtually anything conceivable, and he did it by creating three "universal categories." These are explained, in the most basic way, as the following. FIRSTNESS is the raw perception of a thing, without reaction to it or thought about it. For example, when we look at a fire, we see that it is yellow-orange-reddish, and we feel that it emits heat. SECONDNESS is a physical reaction to something; it's all about resistance, opposition, and conflict, and it is very much concerned with the real world. To continue the fire example, we have a physical reaction to its color and its warmth: it might make us feel happy to look at the bright flames, or they might hurt our eyes with their intensity; if we stick a hand in the fire, it hurts us, so that we jerk our hand back out. THIRDNESS is the habitual connection of these first two categores so that we think about them in connection with one another. So, after a certain amount of time, we learn to associate bright, warm flames and pleasure or pain with a fire. When we experience these things in the future, then we know that they are fire.

Now, you might argue that these things are not what makes a fire unique from other objects, but the fact is that I have only listed a few of their qualities, and a few of our physical reactions to fire. When we take the whole fire in context and are aware of each of its unique qualities, we know (subconsciously, usually) that they make a fire. According to Peirce, these three elements (firstness, secondness, and thirdness) must be present in anything for it to have meaning for us.

If you're interested, you might try reading a book called A Thief of Peirce, edited by Patrick H. Samway. It's not by Peirce, but it is the correspondence between two scholars, who explain Peirce to one another. It's a good introduction to Peircean theory. Another good "primer" is a novel entitled Supposition Error, by A. D. Manning, although it is slightly more difficult to read. You can also just continue to wade through my blog day by day and read my personal thoughts on Peirce, although they are very likely to be less cohesive, or coherent, or even both.