Ancient Semiotics (original) (raw)
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An important chapter in the history of semiotics: inference from signs in Philodemus' De signis
Semiotica, 2023
Philodemus' De signis is one of the classical texts of greatest semiotic interest. It reports the debate which arose between the Epicureans and an opposing school, usually identified as the Stoics, concerning semiotic inference. The Epicureans proposed to construct semiotic inferences based on generalizations resting on similarity, ultimately configuring their method as a form of induction. Their opponents attacked the Epicurean proposal in a twofold way: on the one hand, they argued that the Epicureans' method intrinsically lacked cogency, invalidating their inferences from a logical point of view. On the other, they criticized the notion of similarity, arguing that it is generally a vague notion, and in some cases impossible to implement, as when one is faced with unique cases. The debate is very complex and is divided into replies and rejoinders. The ultimate impression one gets is that the Epicureans were able, for the first time in antiquity, to propose a real method to construct semiotic inferences, even though the latter were subject to fallibility, while their opponents did not propose a method, but a test, "elimination," able only to check the logical soundness of semiotic inferences. In doing so, they placed themselves in a tradition extending back to the theory of signs formulated albeit in a significantly different way by Aristotle.
“On ‘Semiotics’ as Naming the Doctrine of Signs”
This article traces the comparative fortunes of the terms 'semiology' and 'semiotics,' with the associated expressions 'science of signs' and 'doctrine of signs,' from their original appearance in English dictionaries in the 1800s through their adoption in the 1900s as focal points in discussions of signs that flourished after pioneering writings by Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure. The greater popularity of 'semiology' by midcentury was compromised by Thomas Sebeok's seminal proposal of signs at work among all animals, and Umberto Eco's work marked a 'tipping point' where the understanding associated with 'semiotics' came to prevail over the glottocentrism associated with 'semiology.'
Introduction: Semiotics and history revisited
The introductory article offers a general frame for the special issue of Sign Systems Studies, discussing the emergence of semiotics of history as a new discipline or approach in the humanities. It presents an overview on the attempts of joining the history and semiotics in the Western world since the early 1980s, with a special focus on the United States, and examines the contribution of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics to the semiotic study of history, paying the main attention to the work of Juri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij. Finally, a survey of the articles that make up the special issue dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Boris Uspenskij is presented.
2023
The impetus for this research was observing of the geometric characteristics of the ancient Greek capital script from an architect's perspective. The central idea was based on the search for mechanisms utilizing geometric principles as a reference point for forming certain words. These observations, alongside other findings from three years of research, could be practical in creating a new language. This concept also resonates with the Transhumanistic goals of enhancement of the individual. The enhanced intellectual capacities may also create the conditions for a new language with connection points to mathematics and geometry. The results highlight the analogical relationship between the artistic spirit, the interdisciplinary research approach of Greek polymaths, and the multifaceted education of ancient times. In this context, a cultural semiosphere, without strictly distinct and segregated sciences, is observed to have been a source of different meanings and enriched the development of the Language (langue). The placement of letters in certain words seems to have been influenced by the approaches of the arts, architecture, mathematics 1 , and philosophy. Semiotics offers a new dynamic perspective by incorporating interdisciplinary approaches, allowing new connections and meanings to be discovered. Within this framework, an attempt is made to present a point of intersection between abstract design and the linguistic unit of an alphabetical code.
Aristotle and Augustine: The Origin of the Schism Between Semiotics and Semiology
Chinese Semiotic Studies, 2017
The unification of the theory of semiotics has been an ambition of the IASS-AIS since the First World Congress in 1974. In his Preface to the Proceedings, Umberto Eco set the participants with certain fundamental tasks, including “providing the discipline with a unified methodology and a unified objective.” At the Second Congress, however, the multitude of topics and approaches led to the prevailing question of the Closing Session: “Can Semiotics Be Unified?” By the Fifth Congress the organizers would claim that theoretical differences “served to strengthen rather than to divide.” This paper traces the origin of this disunity to the writings of Aristotle and their interpretation by late classical and medieval theologians. Received wisdom tells us that linguistic semiology forms a part of general semiotics – the part dealing with either linguistic or conventional signs. This paper overturns that view, demonstrating that (linguistic) relations of equivalence and (semiotic) relations of implication operate in perpendicular planes of semiosis, intersecting at the point of the thing itself. These two planes of semiosis exist as unconnected theories in Aristotle, but become conflated in Augustine. This paper resolves the relationship between semiotics and semiology and in doing so, provides a unified methodology and objective.