Dr. Christopher S. Morrissey

Academic Interests: Term Logic / Peircean Semiotics / Speculative Metaphysics / Philosophy of Nature / Mimetic Theory

I wrote my M.A. thesis on Studies in Aristotle's Physics and my Ph.D. dissertation on René Girard's hominization hypothesis. My book of adaptations of Hesiod’s poetry, Hesiod: Theogony / Works and Days, has been published by Talonbooks. I am also a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, in order to present my philosophical studies of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew texts to the scholarly community. I have served as Managing Editor (2012-2019) and Associate Editor (2020-2021) of The American Journal of Semiotics. My current research studies the relationship to semiotics of TFL (Traditional Formal Logic / Term Functor Logic): "While post-Fregean logicians tend to ignore or even denigrate the traditional logic of Aristotle and the Scholastics, new work in recent years has shown the viability of a renewed, extended, and strengthened logic of terms that shares fundamental features of the old syllogistic. A number of logicians, following the lead of Fred Sommers, have built just such a term logic. It is a system of formal logic that not only matches the expressive and inferential powers of today’s standard logic, but surpasses it and is far simpler and more natural," observes George Englebretsen. As part of this project, I am investigating the extensive tradition of medieval logic, especially the work of John of St. Thomas in his Cursus Philosophicus. In metaphysics and natural theology, I am investigating how advanced computational formalizations of Aquinas' Five Ways and of various ontological arguments (e.g., Anselm, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Gödel) can improve our understanding of metaphysics, mimetic theory, and the philosophy of nature (especially physiosemiosis). In semiotics and philosophical logic, by building on TFL (Term Functor Logic), I am developing a formal pedagogical system called ATL (Aristotelian Term Logic) to serve as an elegant complement for the currently dominant paradigm of modern predicate logic. Most recently, this has involved integrating the insights of Ludlow and Zivanovic's DDS into extensions of my formal system known as ATL* and ATL**. I am also working on a new design of a linguistic system for interstellar communication based on logic: LC** (Lingua Cosmica Nova). All these interests come together in my current investigations into Schelling and the philosophy of nature.