For several decades, Dr. Morris has worked primarily with twoproblems: the development of a general theory of signs, and thedevelopment of a general theory of value. He approached both problemsin terms of George Mead's theory of action or behavior. This bookbrings together these two lines of development. For several decades, Dr. Morris has worked primarily with two problems: the development of a general theory of signs, and the development of a general theory of value. He approached both problems in terms (...) of George Mead's theory of action or behavior. This book brings together these two lines of development. In many languages there is a term like the English "meaning" which has two poles: that which something signifies and the value or significance of what is signified. The nature of signification and significance, as well as their relations within human behavior, is the subject matter of this book. This book is addressed to philosophers and to students of the behavioral sciences, but it will also appeal to anyone seriously interested in the study of human communication. (shrink)

For several decades, Dr. Morris has worked primarily with twoproblems: the development of a general theory of signs, and thedevelopment of a general theory of value. He approached both problemsin terms of George Mead's theory of action or behavior. This bookbrings together these two lines of development. For several decades, Dr. Morris has worked primarily with two problems: the development of a general theory of signs, and the development of a general theory of value. He approached both problems in terms (...) of George Mead's theory of action or behavior. This book brings together these two lines of development. In many languages there is a term like the English "meaning" which has two poles: that which something signifies and the value or significance of what is signified. The nature of signification and significance, as well as their relations within human behavior, is the subject matter of this book. This book is addressed to philosophers and to students of the behavioral sciences, but it will also appeal to anyone seriously interested in the study of human communication. (shrink)

Burke approaches man in terms of human actions. His key concepts--elucidated at length in A Grammar of Motives --are act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. Men are viewed as agents acting in a scene and using some agency for the accomplishment of some purpose. This is a "field" orientation of the sort found in George H. Mead's "philosophy of the act," in Edward C. Tolman's "purposive behaviorism," and in Talcott Parson's concept of "action-system." Burke makes many references to Mead, and (...) his approach to man is very similar to Mead's in its stress upon the act, upon man as a symbol-using agent, and upon the forms of "identification" which role-taking makes possible. The focus of Burke's attention is, however, upon man's literary products as a mirror in which to behold the forms and complexity of human motivation. He is in effect telling us--and showing us--the importance of the study of man's most complex symbolic acts as a way of enriching our understanding of human nature. In the Rhetoric, humanistic material is penetratingly analysed in a way which supplements and broadens the conception of man gained from more narrowly scientific studies. In his discussion of the range and the principles of rhetoric Burke considers Cicero, Aristotle, Augustine, Bacon, Bentham, Marx, Carlyle, Empson, Veblen, Diderot, La Rochefoucauld, De Gourmont, Pascal, Ovid, Machiavelli, and Dante. Of his analyses of literary works the pages on Castiglione, Shakespere, Kafka, and Kierkegaard are very fine. That no student of man should neglect this humanistic material or this mode of linguistic analysis is convincingly attested by Burke's achievements. (shrink)

Mr. Thomas Storer does not believe that a science of signs is of basic importance to philosophy, for philosophy, he holds, is not a formal or a factual science but an activity of clarifying meaning and building linguistic systems. I should like to defend the relevance to philosophy of a science of signs even when philosophy is so conceived, and then to question this conception of philosophy itself.

The major interest and the significant results of the unity of science movement have so far centered in logic, mathematics, and the physical sciences. A number of inquiries from various quarters make insistent the question as to what disposal the movement is to make of that conglomeration of psychological, social, and humanistic studies which the Germans have called the Geisteswissenschaften, and which will here be referred to as the socio-humanistic sciences. These inquiries must be met without evasion. It is a (...) frequent claim that the socio-humanistic sciences are concerned basically with meaning and value, and that these cannot be known by the methods operative in the natural sciences, but must be known by a special method of insight. The unity of science movement will remain a torso — though a significant torso — if it cannot give a full and convincing account of the whole domain of human cultural activities. (shrink)

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