A Semiotic Theory of Theology and Philosophy by Robert S. Corrington

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November 27, 2000: Robert Corrington's new book, 'A Semiotic Theory of Theology and Philosophy' is a breakthrough book combining the fields of semiotics, theology, and philosophy, as grounded in a new metaphysics of nature. For those who are interested in exploring and examining the metaphysical and semiotic perspectives of a new movement called 'ecstatic naturalism,' this is an important book, especially since it is the culmination of Corrington's six earlier books as they have shaped his unfolding project of ecstatic naturalism. To understand Corrington's ecstatic naturalism - both as a semiotic theoretical method and a metaphysics that probes deeply into the mystery of nature's perennial self-fissuring of 'nature natured' and 'nature naturing,' his semiotic trilogy ('Ecstatic Naturalism: Signs of the World,' 'Nature's Self: Our Journey from Origin to Spirit,' and 'Nature's Religion') is also a must. The author believes that ecstatic naturalism is a viable alternative to traditional analytic and phenomenological forms of philosophy and to supernaturalistic theology. 'A Semiotic Theory of Theology and Philosophy' probes into the ontological difference or into Spinoza's distinction between 'natura naturans' and 'natura naturata' by examining four perspectives of naturalism; namely, descriptive (Dewey, Santayana, Buchler), honorific or spirit (Schelling, Emerson, Heidegger), process (Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, Hartshorne), and ecstatic (Peirce, Tillich, Corrington), semiotic cosmology, the paradoxical relation between nature and psychosemiosis, the dimensions of the pretemporal, temporal, and posttemporal, the ecstatic naturalist concept of spirits, the semiotic horizons of meaning, and the notion of the 'potencies.' In this book, Corrington also presents a form of theistic naturalism or post-Christian universalist perspective in understanding religious traits or divinities in nature. This is a breakthrough book because this kind of metaphysical work, especially the metaphysics of nature, has rarely been as originally and profoundly articulated. This book has succeeded in its ambitious project and indeed offered a major contribution to both philosophy and theology. For those who value the metaphysics of nature and find importance in semiotics, this book is highly recommended.