Dr. Christopher S. Morrissey

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

My interest is in the most fundamental discoverable structures of reality: i.e., in discovering the often absolutely necessary essences and the states of affairs rooted in them. I wrote my M.A. thesis on Studies in Aristotle's Physics and my Ph.D. dissertation on René Girard's mimetic theory of the origins of culture. 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 and of the International Association for Jungian Studies, in order to present my psychological and philosophical studies of Biblical texts that are rooted in phenomenological method. I have served as Managing Editor (2012-2019) and Associate Editor (2020-2021) of The American Journal of Semiotics. My logical investigations into TFL (Term Functor Logic) and C. S. Peirce's EGs (Existential Graphs) are guided by my interest in realist phenomenology: i.e., the effort to discern absolutely necessary eidetic structures, whether timeless or embodied in existents, whose intelligibility makes possible the knowledge of intrinsic necessities that are transcendent to human minds. Mimetic theory has also opened up access to necessary eidetic structures (in desire, depth psychology, ethics, aesthetics, natural theology, and natural science) that can be explored by realist phenomenology.