Roy Rappaport’s attempted semiotic schematization of the logic of ritual, relying on analytical tools from C. S. Peirce’s philosophical semiotics, is examined in terms of both its conceptual coherence and its relation to other schematizations of ritual, especially Michael Polanyi’s thematization of a ‘tacit logic’ of meaning-making. The Peircean foregrounding of sign types (icons, indices, symbols) is compared to Polanyi’s delineation of an irreducible from-to structure of consciousness, rooted in the distinction between focal and subsidiary awareness, and to his further distinction between indication and symbolization as ways of relating to and effecting symbolic complexes, such as rituals. One of the startling upshots of this comparison is that the distinctions between ‘thick ritual’ and ‘thin ritual,’ and between art and ritual, become extremely labile. Examples from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philip Larkin, and Simone Weil illustrate this last point.
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The Tacit Logic of Ritual Embodiments
Rappaport and Polanyi between Thick and Thin
Robert E. Innis
In Social Analysis
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2004
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 195–212 (18 total)
Theorizing about Democracy
Michael Saward
experimentation, reflection, and an openness to revision. In this respect it is a form of abductive reasoning. In the words of C. S. Peirce: “Deduction proves that something must be; induction shows that something actually is operative; abduction suggests
In Democratic Theory
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 1–11 (11 total)
Introduction
(De)materializing Kinship—Holding Together Mutuality and Difference
Kathryn E. Goldfarb and Caroline E. Schuster
its own theorization of kinship, independent of Schneider’s persistent influence. Tusinski and Goldfarb situate their articles in conversation with anthropological scholarship rooted in the semiotic framework of C. S. Peirce, much of which has focused