-
321Mnemonics as signs of memory: semiotics and agencyCognitive Semiotics 2023. 2023.This paper engages the question of the extended mind hypothesis, specifically in terms of memory and mnemonics. I use the case of an external object which is set to trigger a memory internally, but is not the memory, to explore the idea of extension versus distribution. I use the example of tzitzit, which is a garment worn by observant Jewish men, where is states in scripture that seeing the tassels attached to the garment are supposed to trigger a specific memory. The point of the essay is that…Read more
-
16The Selfish Meme: Dawkins, Peirce, FreudSemiotica 2020 (236-237): 199-213. 2020.Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” by which he meant a unit of culture. Dan Dennett continued by defining a meme as a bunch of bits of information. This paper explores the “meme” and how it is semiotic, both in its technical sense and in its popular sense and explores how memes signify both in terms of classical semiotics and also in terms of post-structuralist thought.
-
481Say Nothing, Do Nothing Get Things Done: A Short Exposition of taoist Epistemology in the light of abrahamic teleology and ontologyLanguage and Semiotic Studies 2 (5). 2019.The Western idea of religion is of something that one does, aside from what one believes. We separate belief from action. This paper examines the Abrahamic idea of belief and the need for historicity and compares this to the Taoist belief in Lao Tzu and the lack of a need for a historical founder in terms of practice and belief.
-
222The Joker both fascinates and repels us. From his origin in Detective Comics in 1940, he has committed obscene crimes, some of the worst the Batman universe has ever known, and, conversely, fans have made him the topic of erotic and pornographic “fan fiction.” Speculation about the Joker abounds, where some fans have even claimed that the Joker is “queer coded.” This work explores various popular claims about the Joker, and delves into the history of comic books, and of other popular media from …Read more
-
325Historically Judaism has been called both a nation and a religion, yet there are those Jews who eschew the religious and national definitions for a cultural one. For example, while TV’s Mrs. Maisel is ostensibly a Jew, the actor playing her is not, and Mrs. Maisel’s actions are not always Jewish. In The Fractured Jew Joel West separates Judaism into phenomenological and performative, starting with popular portrayals of Jews and Judaism, in today’s media, as a jumping-off point to understand Juda…Read more
-
25The ontology of Yentl: Umberto Eco, semiosis, mimesis, closets and existence, and how to read “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy”Semiotica 2019 (226): 209-224. 2019.Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy”.) needs to be read in the light of traditional Jewish sources. The question is, how does it stand up to modern hypotheses of gender construction? Yentl was originally published in Yiddish and was translated to English in the latter half of the twentieth century. We will see that the context within which to understand the story properly is encoded in the story itself, as Umberto Eco explains in his The Role of the Reader and The Limits o…Read more
-
11Practical Esotericism and Tikkun Olam: two modern renditions of a medieval mystical ideaSemiotica 2021 (242): 203-227. 2021.In this paper I look at a specific Hebrew religious term, Tikkun Olam, to examine the manner in which it signifies differently in two specific cases. While we understand that meaning is carried in both denotation and connotation, and while a genealogy of meaning is often useful to understand the manner in which meaning has changed across time, this paper recounts the manner in which a single word may signify differently synchronically, at a single point in history.
-
16Models as signs of the imaginary: Peirce, Pierce, Langer, and the non-discursive signSemiotica 2022 (245): 63-78. 2022.It is common for us to see models as exemplars of things that exist. Models, instead, are merely Peircean indexes, in that they only point to their objects, objects which may in themselves not exist. This is to say that these examples may only exist as thoughts that point to other thoughts or even ideas that point to objects that may not exist because they are paradoxical.
-
University of Toronto, St. George CampusInstitute for the History and Philosophy of ScienceDoctoral student
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphysics of Mind |
Philosophy of Consciousness |
Aesthetics and Cognitive Science |