On reading pragmatically: a delayed response to Peter Ochs

Abstract

This essay represents a long-delayed response to comments made by Peter Ochs about my proposal for a Peircean philosophical theology conceived as “theosemiotic.” The outline for that proposal first appeared in 1989, with Ochs’s remarks included in a 1992 article and then in a book published in 1998. More than two decades have passed since the last of these publications, but the recent completion of a long-term project that pursues and develops my earlier proposal in a book-length manuscript makes revisiting Ochs’s comments seem felicitous. Here I try to explore both the affinities and divergences between theosemiotic and Ochs’s own constructive articulation of a “rabbinic pragmatism.” While both perspectives emphasize the theological significance of reading and rereading, they incorporate differing evaluations of these practices.