There's something aboot the water in Toronto that makes people want to study meaning.
Not only are both JBP and Vervaeke from UT, but George Steiner gave his famous Nostalgia for the Absolute Massey lectures there (which arguably marks the beginning of Canadian Meaning Studies)
also wrote his meaning book and then went to Toronto…
And Brian Cantwell Smith’s schtick is “the computer scientists have forgotten about meaning…”
And Charles Taylor’s Massey lectures are more or less about the meaning crisis…
Oh dear…
Canadians have been told since the 90's that we have no culture, that the only real cultures are immigrant cultures. We have championed the 'mosaic' model of culture rather than the American 'melting pot', which is a nice way of saying we want balkanization.
Even Marshall McLuhan studied it, in a way. Media as the extension of man will necessarily interfere with the process of making meaning with the environment.