Nebulae of discourse

About this book

Nebulae of Discourse takes its inspiration from Peirce's philosophy, but merges its horizon with that of current critical theory, as well as confronts certain issues posed by post-Heideggerian hermeneutics. Its principal themes include the nebular nature of texts and of human subjectivity, questions of textual boundaries and limits, and interpretation construed as an ontological category. The book proposes a methodology which explores terrain feared by hermeneutics, but at the same time advocates a need for methodological rigour defied by deconstructive trends in post-structuralism. Unlike hermeneutics, this methodology recognizes the fact that there is no non-discursive reality; unlike deconstruction, it refuses to rely on the innocence of praxis without theory. The conditions of possibility of contemporary discourse themselves require conditions of possibility: an infrastructure of discursive mechanisms, of signs and semioses that allow specific practices to take place and to be meaningful. It is this fundamental, rudimentary infrastructure that constitutes the book's main focus.