Charles Sanders Peirce and a Religious Metaphysics of Nature

In this enlightening and original study on the cultivation of a religious understanding of nature, Leon Niemoczynski applies Charles Sanders Peirce's thought on metaphysics to 'ecstatic naturalism, ' the philosophical perspective developed by Robert Corrington. Niemoczynski points to Peirce's phenomenological and metaphysical understanding of possibility-the concept of 'Firstness'-as especially critical to understanding how the divine might be meaningfully encountered in religious experience. He goes on to define his own concept of speculative naturalism, offering a new approach to thinking about nature that joins the essence of pragmatism with the heretical boldness of speculative thought.