Walker Percy and the Crisis of Meaning: Communication in the Ruins

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Justin N. Bonanno

— "In this rich and scholarly work, Justin Bonanno demonstrates deep learning by comparatively engaging a wide range of topics and scholars. He shows how Walker Percy's semiotic theory provides invaluable resources for critiquing nominalism and for leading the way to a robust philosophical realism. For anyone interested in grasping Percy's contributions to philosophy and approach toward a meaningful life, this is must read material." — Corey Anton, Grand Valley State University

In this book, Justin N. Bonanno builds off of the recent philosophical work on Walker Percy's writings. While it is valuable to appreciate Percy as a novelist, Bonanno approaches Percy from the perspective of Continental philosophy and the rhetorical tradition. Unpacking the works of several key authors that influenced Percy (e.g. Sartre and Heidegger), Bonanno offers a fresh philosophical account of Percy's ideas concerning the relationship between symbols and existence. In particular, he focuses on how Percy's ideas emerge from the thought of Ernst Cassirer, Susanne Langer, Jacques Maritain, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger, Viktor Shklovsky, Soren Kierkegaard, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Justin N. Bonanno holds a PhD in rhetoric from Duquesne University. He teaches at Ave Maria University.

Publication Date: 2023

Pages: 292