Peirce and Education, an Overview

Abstract

Experience and EducationPeirce places phenomenology as the primary and initial branch of philosophy, since philosophy "does not busy itself with gathering facts, but merely with learning what can be learned from

A semiotic model of learning

“…A sign is concurrently a medium and a mediator, a representation which itself is "an element of the Phenomenon" (Peirce 1903: 160). Its most characteristic feature is its triadic structure that, drawing on Peirce's key notion of Thirdness as "transaction," identifies every sign as a medium of both communication and creation (Strand and Legg 2019).…”

“…To Peirce, thoughts are in the flow of signs, and like a flow of signs, a thought refers to other thoughts and to objects in a world of change: We understand the world through signs; signs are our means of thinking about relations and objects. Signs give access to the local/global semeiosphere in which we live and work; to the historically produced knowledge repertoire of our culture; and to the fast flows of information and communication distributed through social media and virtual networks (Lotman 1991;Strand 2014;Strand and Legg 2019). Our understanding of the world is therefore always mediated through historically based and virtual signs, and thus by the referential domain they bring about between our mind and our local/global semeiosphere.…”

“…Contemporary Peirce scholars clearly demonstrate how Peirce's new rhetoric carries prospects of a fresh outlook on the paradoxical attributions of knowledge and learning (Bergman 2007;Colapietro 2007;Freadman 2004;Kevelson 1984;Liszka 2000;Midtgarden 2005;Santaella-Braga 1999;Short 2007;Strand 2013aStrand , 2013b. Moreover, Peirce's later philosophy appeals to the concerns of contemporary philosophers of education, since it emphasizes the semiotic production of knowledge (Anderson 2005;Bergman 2005Bergman , 2013Chiasson 2001Chiasson , 2005Colapietro 2005Colapietro , 2013Garrison 2005;Hoffman 2006Hoffman , 2007Legg 2017, Liszka 2013Midtgarden 2005;Paavola and Hakkarainen 2005;Nöth 2010;Pesce 2013;Prawat 1999;Semetsky 2005Semetsky , 2010Semetsky , 2017Stables 2005Stables , 2010Strand 2005a, 2005b, Strand 2013a, 2013bStrand and Legg 2019;Ventimiglia 2005). My modest ambition here, however, is just to illustrate how Peirce portrays lived experience in relation to a semiotic model of learning.…”