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Reassessing the Foundations of Semiotics: Preliminaries

Reassessing the Foundations of Semiotics: Preliminaries

Mihai Nadin
Copyright: © 2012 |Volume: 2 |Issue: 1 |Pages: 31
ISSN: 2155-5028|EISSN: 2155-5036|EISBN13: 9781466614055|DOI: 10.4018/ijsss.2012010101
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MLA

Nadin, Mihai. "Reassessing the Foundations of Semiotics: Preliminaries." IJSSS vol.2, no.1 2012: pp.1-31. http://doi.org/10.4018/ijsss.2012010101

APA

Nadin, M. (2012). Reassessing the Foundations of Semiotics: Preliminaries. International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems (IJSSS), 2(1), 1-31. http://doi.org/10.4018/ijsss.2012010101

Chicago

Nadin, Mihai. "Reassessing the Foundations of Semiotics: Preliminaries," International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems (IJSSS) 2, no.1: 1-31. http://doi.org/10.4018/ijsss.2012010101

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Abstract

What justifies a discipline is its grounding in practical activities. Documentary evidence is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for viability. This applies to semiotics as it applies to mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, and all other forms of questioning the world. While all forms of knowledge testify to the circularity of the epistemological effort, semiotics knowledge is doubly cursed. There is no knowledge that can be expressed otherwise than in semiotic form; knowledge of semiotics is itself expressed semiotically. Semiotics defined around the notion of the sign bears the burden of unsettled questions prompted by the never-ending attempt to define signs. This indeterminate condition is characteristic of all epistemological constructs, whether in reference to specific knowledge domains or semiotics. The alternative is to associate the knowledge domain of semiotics with the meta-level, i.e., inquiry of what makes semiotics necessary. In a world of action-reaction, corresponding to a rather poor form of causality, semiotics is not necessary. Only in acknowledging the anticipatory condition of the living can grounding for semiotics be found. This perspective becomes critical in the context of a semiotized civilization in which the object level of human effort is progressively replaced by representations (and their associated interpretations).

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