Takaharu Oda Semiotics against transubstantiation: Peirce’s reception of Berkeley 1 Introduction This article argues that George Berkeley’s (1685 – 1753) interpretation of scientific and religious language was significantly received in C.S. Peirce’s (1839 – 1914) pragmatist semiotic. ¹ To this end, their similar views against transubstantiation in the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion) will be considered. Berkeley being an Anglican bishop and Peirce’s life being linked to the Episcopal Church,² a chief emphasis will be placed upon Peirce’s deriving his pragmatic method from Berkeley’s philosophy of language. At least three times, Peirce reviewed Berkeley’s works, including Manuscript Introduction (to the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710), in which he identified his version of Berkeleyan nom- inalism. Berkeley’s original Manuscript Introduction (1708) reads: “whatsoever prop- osition is made up of terms standing for general notions or ideas, the same is to me, so far forth, [absolutely] unintelligible” (1901 III, 370; MI 27).³ If terms do not  “I am, as far as I know, a pioneer, or rather a backwoodsman, in the work of clearing and opening up what I call semiotic [emphasis in the original], that is, the doctrine of the essential nature and fundamental varieties of possible semiosis” (1907, CP 5.488; MS 318, 96). The abbre- viations of Peirce’s œuvre are found in the references at the end.  According to Peirce’s draft letter (24 April 1892) to the Rev John Wesley Brown (Rector of St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, in New York City), he had a “mystical” experience of the Eucha- rist: “no sooner had I got into the church than I seemed to receive the direct permission of the Master to come. […] But when the instant [of the communion] came, I found myself carried up to the altar rail, almost without my own volition” (MS L482). Also, drafting “The First of Six Les- sons in Elocution for Episcopalian Ministers” (MS 1570), Peirce intended to apply for a vacant post at the Episcopal Church’s theological seminary but in vain. Peirce was born to a devout Uni- tarian father Benjamin Peirce (Harvard professor of mathematics) but converted to the Episcopal Church in 1863 when he married the first wife Zina Fay,who partly influenced him to espouse Trinitarianism. We have no evidence that Peirce apostatized from Christianity. See Johnson (2006, 552 – 562); Slater (2015, 46, 134, 160 – 162); Raposa (1989, 167, n. 7).The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Anglican Communion (as the Church of Ireland, to which Berkeley belonged, is the Irish branch).  As to Berkeley’s œuvre, see the following abbreviations: A Defence of Free-thinking in Math- ematics, section x = Defence x; Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher , dialogue x, section y = Al- ciphron x.y; An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, section x = NTV x; De motu, sive de motus https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-010