Abstract

Merrell's task in this work is to transform the Peircean tradition of semiotics in the light of more recent work in such research areas as chaos physics, topological theory, and the newer quantum theories. Relying on the theories of David Bohm, among others, Merrell develops a conventionalist conception of semiotics that stresses the constructive power of signs to shape space, time, and the basic contours of the human process. The approach is an evolutionary one, but it is not confined to the neo-Darwinian biological framework. Evolution is seen in terms of the movement from a primal state of pure firstness to the determinate world of interaction.