Pain, Pleasure, and the Human Condition in Peirce and Levinas: A Comparative Inquiry into Phenomenology, Gnosticism, and Ethics

This paper offers an analysis of Peirce’s phenomenology in relation to classical metaphysical and religious traditions as well as contemporary philosophical perspectives, such as Kant, Heidegger, and Levinas. By engaging Gnostic, Christian, and Platonic accounts of the divine and of evil, the study situates Peirce’s categories within a broader metaphysical conversation. Particular attention is given to the phenomena of pain and pleasure, understood as elemental structures of Firstness that, when developed within lived existence, disclose a vision of the human condition that bears striking affinities to Gnostic interpretations. Through this reading, Peirce emerges as a thinker whose phenomenology, though pragmatist in orientation, opens onto an almost Gnostic apprehension of human suffering, finitude, and the possibility of transcendence.