The Hidden God: A Posthumanist Genealogy of Pragmatism

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dc.contributor.advisorWolfe, Caryen_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberRoof, Judithen_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberFaubion, James D.en_US
dc.creatorWhite, Ryanen_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-06-05T15:58:41Zen_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-06-05T15:58:44Zen_US
dc.date.available2013-06-05T15:58:41Zen_US
dc.date.available2013-06-05T15:58:44Zen_US
dc.date.created2012-12en_US
dc.date.issued2013-06-05en_US
dc.date.submittedDecember 2012en_US
dc.date.updated2013-06-05T15:58:45Zen_US
dc.description.abstractDeparting from humanist models of American intellectual history, this dissertation proposes an alternative posthumanist approach to the thought of Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Beginning with Perry Miller’s influential scholarship, American thought is often cast as a search for “face to face” encounters with the unaccountable God of Calvinism, a figure that eventually evolves to encompass Romantic notions of the aesthetic, imagination, or, most predominately, individual human feeling. This narrative typically culminates in the pragmatism of William James, a philosophy in which human feeling attains priority at the expense of impersonal metaphysical systems. However, alongside and against these trends runs a tradition that derives from the Calvinist distinction between a fallen material world and a transcendent God possessed of absolute sovereignty, a tradition that also anticipates posthumanist theory, particularly the self-referential distinction between system and environment that occupies the central position in Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. After systems theory, the possibility for “face to face” encounters is replaced with the necessary self-reference of communication and observation, an attribute expressed in Edwards, Emerson, and Peirce through, respectively, the figures of “true virtue,” an absent and inexpressible grief and, in its most abstract form, Peirce’s concept of a sign. In conclusion, Edwards, Emerson, and Peirce represent an alternative posthumanist genealogy of pragmatism that displaces human consciousness as the foundational ground of meaning, communication, or semiosis.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationWhite, Ryan. "The Hidden God: A Posthumanist Genealogy of Pragmatism." (2013) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/71302">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/71302</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.slug123456789/ETD-2012-12-207en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/71302en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectPragmatismen_US
dc.subjectPosthumanismen_US
dc.subjectSystems theoryen_US
dc.subjectCyberneticsen_US
dc.subjectAmerican philosophyen_US
dc.subjectJonathan Edwardsen_US
dc.subjectRalph Waldo Emersonen_US
dc.subjectCharles Sanders Peirceen_US
dc.subjectAmerican literatureen_US
dc.titleThe Hidden God: A Posthumanist Genealogy of Pragmatismen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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