Sign systems studies. 33.1 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Auxier.Eco, Peirce, and the Pragmatic Theory of Signs
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
Auxier argues that the quest for a truly general semiotics is an important point of contact between C.S. Peirce and Umberto Eco. While Peirce was not a philosopher of culture, as Eco was, this difference is superficial when it comes to comparing the operations the posit for signs, insofar as they convey meanings. Auxier shows they are both pragmatists in a similar sense, and Auxier situates Eco's nominalism against a wider backdrop of a process metaphysics Eco did not reject. In the end, Auxier argues that the need for a truly general theory of signs, or unlimited semiosis (as Eco calls it), requires some limitations that can be found in the definition and limits of the sign. It requires that signs be taken in their form of being, not just in their functions in the philosophy of culture. Auxier here provides a philosophical history of philosophy as an exercise in the philosophy of culture.
Gramigna, Remo (2021). Facets of signs: Roman Jakobson's semiotic thought
(Re)considering Jakobson, 2021
was the spiritus movens of several intellectual movements of the twentieth century. He was the promoting actor of the Moscow Linguistic Circle, as well as the Society for the Study of Poetic Language (OPOJAZ), not to mention his involvement in the Prague Linguistic Circle. Moreover, he played a decisive role in the promotion of semiotic research and made untiring e orts to ensure the divulgation of Charles Sander Peirce 's ideas among the academic community of the 1950s and 1960s (Jakobson 1971i[1966]; 1985d[1975]; 1985f[1977]). For Irene Portis-Winner (1981: 3) he was a "focal synthesizer", the rst who "brought together Peircean and Saussurian concepts". Likewise, Umberto Eco (1987: 111) considered him as "the major 'catalyst' in the contemporary 'semiotic reaction'". Although many have criticized Jakobson's interpretation of Peirce's semiotics as being too selective, limited and inaccurate (Short 1998; Waugh , Monville-Burston 2002: xxxvii), there is no reason for denying Jakobson's remarkable role as a promoter of semiotic thought. 2 His achievements in this respect are undeniable and well-documented (Eco 1987; Waugh, Monville-Burston 2002: lviii-lix). In spite of this pivotal role, one cannot help but acknowledge a certain di culty in pinpointing what was Jakobson's speci c theoretical contribution to the 'doctrine of signs' , however. As in the case of some other 1 e earlier version of this paper has been published in Gramigna 2014. 2 "I must confess that for years I felt bitterness at being among linguists perhaps the sole student of Peirce 's views" (Jakobson 1985f[1977]: 250).
Sign Systems Studies 30.1, 2002
2015
Abstract. In the paper an attempt is made to treat the basic concepts of biosemiotics and semiotics of culture in a wide intellectual context. The three leading paradigms of the current intellectual discourse are distinguished, which could be conventionally designated as “classical”, “modern ” and “postmodern”: Peirce’s semiosis stands for the classical, Umwelt for the modern and semiosphere for the postmodern semiotic space. I must start with an apology: although several biological and philo-sophical terms and constructions will be discussed, my paper is related to neither of those fields. One of the reasons is that I am a complete ignoramus in biology and allergic to philosophy. Thus, I will focus on the perspective of cultural semiotics, analysing the mentioned pheno-mena from the aspect which is close to Michel Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge (Foucault 1970, 1972). Before treating Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt, we should briefly consider the intellectual context, where this con...
Toward a Truly Pragmatic Theory of Signs: Reading Peirce's Semeiotic in Light of Dewey's Gloss
Peirce's categories are, thus, heuristic. This is nowhere better seen than in Peirce's investigation of signs in their myriad forms and intertwined functions (Savan -1988. In turn, the use of such a theory of signs, in the immediate foreground of Peirce s most characteristic presentations, is to offer a normative theory of objective inquiry. Beyond this, a general theory of /104/ signs ought to provide conceptual and rhetorical resources for investigating the entire range of semiosis (or sign-action), not just the work of inquirers aiming at truth.<6> It should, for example, contribute as much to the interpretation of literary texts or other cultural artifacts as to the investigation of natural phenomena (cf. Weinsheimer 1983; Short 1998).
Tartu : Tartu University Press eBooks, 2002
Introduction: Re-reading of cultural semiotics 396 P eeter Torop In many disciplines the personality of a scholar and his/her creation as a whole turn into a driving force of a discipline long since a scholar has passed away. There exist scholars the re-reading and rediscovering of whom proves that the future of a science can sometimes wait its time in the past. Julia Kristeva's re-reading of Mikhail Bakhtin created in the 1960s the situation in which Bakhtin's 40 year studies occurred to be as sent from the future. Such re-reading probably waits for several scholars who, due to one reason or another, have not been enough distributed as translations in great languages. Of J. Lotman's predecessors an example of this can be M. Bakhtin's con temporary Juri Tynjanov. A reason for re-reading can be a wish to get rid of the cultural layer and returning to the values of the original text that has turned into hardly comprehensible because of multiple interpretations. So has Jerzy Pelc expressed a wish to return to Charles Sanders Peirce: "I wish to find out what he actually had in mind. I therefore ask questions. And I would very much like to hear competent answers to these questions, but answers that are not formulated according to the rules of Peirce's style and poetics which his followers and commentators sometimes adopt as their own" (Pelc 1990: 4). Roland Barthes can be an example of a recent re-reading; different parts of his legacy occur again innovative in the hands of several researchers. Jonathan Culler, for example, stresses the value of a theoretician and a semiologist in this "back to Barthes" movement: "It seems to me that the essential feature of Barthes's genius is to have discovered the heuristic func tion of systematicity and of the requirement of explicitness. [...] Systematicity is, first and foremost, a means of estrangement, Verfremdung" (Culler 2001: 440). The innovative nature of R. Barthes is condensed in the notion of text. It is this notion that connects R. Barthes and J. Lotman, and J. Culler's fol lowing words might characterise both scholars: "A first consequence of this interdisciplinary reorientation was the positing of the methodological equi valence of different cultural products, whether literary works, fashion captions, advertisements, films, or religious rituals: all can be considered as text" (Culler 2001: 442). Since the concept of text is paired with the notion of work, J. Culler recognises two perspectives for R. Barthes' treatment of text. First, "work and text would be two different concepts of the object of study. [...] Alternatively, work and text could be two different classes of objects (roughly the traditional and the avant-garde)" (Culler 2001: 444). In contem porary methodological searches Barthes thus occupies an important place, although this does not concern all his works: "We may often need to read Barthes against the grain to preserve the theoretical and methodological gains that he himself risks dissipating or concealing in such slides into mystification or nostalgia; but this sort of vigilance is precisely what we can learn when we go "back to Barthes", or rather, back to the early writings of Roland Barthes" (Culler 2001: 445). Re-reading from another viewpoint can take to the equalisation of semio logy and sociology: "Barthesian semiology was inevitably and invariably a Introduction 397 sociology" (Polan 2001: 456). From the side of semiotics, however, an oppo site attitude is possible. An example of that can be John Deely's fear in an argument with Umberto Eco, especially in connection with the bringing close together sign and sign-function: "As we shall see over the course of this discussion, this amounts to proposing the elimination of semiotics in the name of semiotics, or, what amounts to the same thing, the restriction of semiotics to the horizon of semiology" (Deely 2001: 705). J. Deely's re-reading of Eco also takes to reformulation of the famous definition "the possibility of lying is the proprium of semiosis" (Eco 1977: 59): "This is well put, if one sided, since the possibility of expressing any truth is equally the proprium of semiosis. Since the sign is that which every object presupposes, and since semiotics studies the action of signs, perhaps the best definition of semiotics would be: the study of the possibility of being mistaken" (Deely 2001: 733). Viewing semiotics against the background of the distinction of the notions of discipline and field, or the theoretical and the applied aspects, J. Deely tries to defend the notion of the sign for the sake of holistic semiotics: "[...] the notion of signum is broader and more fundamental than Eco's notion of sign-function, and nothing is more important in the long run than a proper clarification and laying of the foundations for the enterprises of semiotics. [...] sign is the universal instrument of communica tion, within oneself or with others equally" (Deely 2001: 733). The disciplinary importance of the problem is indicated by Jerzy Pelc's attempt to re-read works by Ch. S. Peirce and Ch. Morris, and to answer the same questions that bothered J. Deely. Viewing semiosis as sign process and semiotics as the science or knowledge of semiosis, J. Pelc presents an under standing of the object of semiotics: "The object of semiotics, in one meaning of this term, are semiosic activities and the products thereof, i.e., semiosis and signs together with their semiosics" (Pelc 2000: 431). Through re-reading Peirce and Morris J. Pelc also articulates the notion of semiosis: "I treat semiosis as activities which in some cases produce signs together with selec ted semiosic properties or semiosic relations thereof, and sometimes semio sics, i.e., the totality of semiosic properties of these signs or the totality of semiosic relations containing the signs as their elements" (Pelc 2000: 428). From another viewpoint J. Deely, for example, treats the same problems through the concept of intersemiosis: "[...] human understanding finds its operational existence initially in terms of the intersemiosis which perception makes possible as developing around a sensory core" (Deely 2002: 68). These dissimilar re-readings reflect well the dependence of any discus sions on metalanguages that are the means of communication and self communication of those participating in the discussion. Thus science does not depend that much on culture a part of which it is. Even if discussion or dialogue goes on in the framework of one discipline, scholarly multilingua lism is preserved, because the sources of metalanguage, including texts and authors re-read, are very diverse. At the same time (meta)linguistic identity problems emerge inside different traditions. Talking about the semiotics of
2020
This work investigates and reconstructs the historical and theoretical development of the Peircean distinction between Dynamic and Immediate Object. This dichotomy has been too hastily interpreted and adopted by certain contemporary semiotics as the theoretical tool by means of which Peirce explains the difference between representation and reality, although from his writings it clearly emerges that the aims of the dichotomy were others. Through the analysis of some key texts we will then try to reconstruct the internal articulation and the development of this doctrine in the thought of its creator, underlining that it was an instrument for the classification of signs, useful to distinguish them according to their ways of denotation (but not only) and thus highlighting how some of the cornerstones of the "standard interpretation" of such a dichotomy are to be abandoned or, at least, reviewed and problematized. --- Lo scopo di questo lavoro è quello di indagare e ricostruire lo sviluppo storico e teoretico della distinzione peirceana tra Oggetto Dinamico e Oggetto Immediato. Questa dicotomia è stata troppo frettolosamente interpretata e adottata da certa semiotica contemporanea come lo strumento teorico capace di rendere ragione della differenza fra realtà e rappresentazione sebbene dal confronto con gli scritti di Peirce emerga chiaramente come i suoi scopi fossero altri. Attraverso l’analisi di alcuni testi-chiave cercheremo allora di ricostruire l’articolazione interna e lo sviluppo di questa dicotomia nel pensiero del suo ideatore, sottolineando come essa fosse uno strumento per la classificazione dei segni, utile a distinguerli secondo i loro modi della denotazione (ma non solo) ed evidenziando, dunque, come alcuni capisaldi della "interpretazione standard" di questa dottrina siano da abbandonare o, quantomeno, da rivedere e problematizzare.
Tartu : Tartu University Press eBooks, 2008
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was one of the leading scholars who developed semiotics into an academic discipline and gave it intellectual credibility in the latter half of the 20th century. Barthes's theoretical reflection and analytical case-studies covered a vast field. His work on theory was based on Ferdinand de Saussure and Louis Hjelmslev, but his texts refer also to Roman Jakobson, Sigmund Freud, the Ancient philosophers and rhetoricians, and even to Charles S. Peirce. In casestudies, he focused on topics as diverse as, for example, toys, cars, cinema, photography, cities, fashion, and literature, which remained central all through his career. It is fair to say that Barthes's importance for semiotics is matched only by few exceptional figures, such as Juri Lotman, Umberto Eco, and Algirdas J. Greimas. However, Barthes has a peculiar position in the pantheon of semiotics. Firstly, as a criticizer o f myths, he might have wanted to deconstruct evaluations that lift few scholars above others and to show how interpretations are motivated first and foremost by the historical context of reception and the power structures that prevail in it. He argued that there is no privileged metalanguage that could not be superseded by another language, distributing the material according to new distinctions, and this holds also for our contemporary interpreta tion o f his work. In Barthes's analysis, "pantheon" of any science might have turned out to be just another bourgeois myth. Secondly, Barthes was an elusive thinker, not building just one theory and not interested in working out in detail the consequences of his arguments, but rather keen on pursuing theorizing as an open process according to the questions and problems that the empirical cases presented to his critical gaze. As a result, it is not always clear how many Barthes there actually are and how their mutual relation ships should be understood. It has been asked whether Barthes the Compagnon 1998). In teaching semiotics, Barthes's early Mythologies (1957), despite the 51 years that separate the present form their publication, is hardly superseded as an introduction to critical socialsemiotic analysis. The same holds for his essays on images and music. Barthes's signification for today's research is thus strong and varied. Fie is a classic in semiotics and literary studies, read as one of the main historical figures in these fields. But he is also a continuously inspiring, challenging and even provoking thinker whose heritage is far from' being fully elucidated. The articles in this special issue
The semiotic phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Foucault
Sign Systems Studies, 2005
Postmodern methodology in the human sciences and philosophy reverses the Aristotelian laws of thought such that (1) non-contradiction, (2) excluded middle, (3) contradiction, and (4) identity become the ground for analysis. The illustration of the postmodern logic is Peirce's (1) interpretant, (2) symbol, (3) index, and (4) icon. The thesis is illustrated using the work of Merleau-Ponty and Foucault and the le même et l'autre discourse sign where the ratio [Self:Same :: Other:Different] explicates the communicology of Roman Jakobson in the conjunctions and disjunctions, appositions and oppositions of discours, parole, langue, and langage.