In this dissertation, I argue for the necessity of viewing Charles Sanders Peirce's religious writings as an integral part of his architectonic, endeavoring to show that the concepts of his "esthetic theism" can consistently be employed as an interpretive framework by means of which to grasp the full significance of his philosophical system. I seek to demonstrate this by taking Peirce seriously when he claims that the universe is God's work of literature. On the basis of Peirce's suggestion, I a…
Read moreIn this dissertation, I argue for the necessity of viewing Charles Sanders Peirce's religious writings as an integral part of his architectonic, endeavoring to show that the concepts of his "esthetic theism" can consistently be employed as an interpretive framework by means of which to grasp the full significance of his philosophical system. I seek to demonstrate this by taking Peirce seriously when he claims that the universe is God's work of literature. On the basis of Peirce's suggestion, I appeal to philosophers of literature, literary critics, and novelists, using their interpretations of the nature of literature and literary creativity as lenses through which to view Peirce's writings on the normative sciences, metaphysics, and religion. This project begins with an overview of the relevant aspects of Peirce's corpus, including the categories, the normative sciences, and his central metaphysical views: synechism, tychism, objective idealism, scholastic realism, and agapasticism. The remaining chapters develop the speculative thesis that for Peirce, the universe should be understood as a divine work of art. Chapters 4 and 5 put forward an idealist account of God's authorial relation to the universe, concluding that Peirce's account of creative evolution, according to which the cosmos evolves according to the law of mind, can best be understood when seen in the context of his claim that the universe is God's work of literature. Chapter 6 takes up an examination of the place of humans as characters within the cosmic work of literature. In this chapter, key aspects of Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the polyphonic dialogical novel are shown to have corollaries in Peirce's metaphysics. Chapter 7 undertakes an examination of the aesthetic observer, drawing a parallel between Umberto Eco's semiotic account of the relation between the model reader and the model author, and Peirce's normative concept of the "fully developed superman." These ideas help to explain how humans, as characters in God's novel, could at the same time interpret that very text. Throughout, the literary analogy is used to interpret Peirce's position on topics in the philosophy of religion, such as God's omniscience, free will, and the problem of evil