Archaeology of Concepts (original) (raw)

Abstract

This volume is dedicated to the memory of a consummate scholar and thinker: the person from whom this series originated and from whom this year’s title draws its inspiration. John Deely's "archaeology of concepts" is an important but neglected, method—or mandate—one among many contributions earmarked for ongoing development in the broader project of his oeuvre. The method is first articulated in his third book (1982), /Introducing Semiotic/, as “the uncovering of the layers by which concepts ultimately taken for granted in some specific population acquired their illuminative power for human culture” (1982: 2). Notably then, the method works from the assumption that processes of habituation or sedimentation inevitably obscure the meaning or import of conceptual relations. This, in turn, has a tendency to render terms meaningless or sidetrack concepts by stripping them of their original potential—hampering human understanding and diminishing historical consciousness in the process. As a result, one job of the semiotician is to reconstruct such insights, “thus making of history itself an inductive principle of explanation for our present understanding” (Deely 1982: 9). The historical reconstruction undertaken in such projects is not primarily done in order to establish etymological hierarchy or semantic ancestry, nor is it done merely to get the ideological facts straight in order to consolidate control over some domain or population; rather, it is done in-keeping with semiosis writ large: i.e., in order “to change the relevance of past to present via some prospective future” (Deely 2009: 142). The present volume consists of 13 chapters organized into four sections oriented toward this general end: Archaeology of Peircean Concepts, Conceptual Reconstruction in Psychosocial Contexts, Conceptual Reconstruction in Multimodal Contexts, and Archaeology of Cross-Cultural Concepts. [from the Preface] Semiotics 2016 is inclusive of, but not restricted to, a selection of revised, peer-reviewed papers originally presented to the 41st Annual Meeting of the Semiotic Society of America, Del Ray, Florida, 28 September–August 2, 2016. The Semiotic Society of America is an interdisciplinary professional organization that supports innovative scholarship linking analytical and critical approaches to the postmodern world. The SSA Yearbook is an annual peer-reviewed publication series sponsored by the Semiotic Society of America, providing both a timely overview of current developments in Semiotic research and a regular outlet for members of the society to publish aspects of their current work. [Note: this pdf includes title pages, Preface and TOC only]

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References (8)

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