This paper explores the possibility of a standard legal language (e.g. English) for a principled evolution of law in line with technological development. In doing so, reference is made to blockchain networks and smart contracts to emphasise the discontinuity with the liberal legal tradition when it comes to decentralisation and binary code language. Methodologically, the argument is built on the underlying relation between law, semiotics and new forms of media adding to natural language; namely: code and symbols. In what follows, (...) I will concentrate on the study of factors that explain why such approach can be fruitful for the future of law and innovation. I have three reasons for selecting this topic. The first is a more pragmatic reason, based on my current research of law as a linguistic phenomenon. Secondly, the topic does also touch the matter on binary code language, rivalrous to legal alphabetic language. Lastly, the study aims at emphasizing the pivotal role of the jurist as an interpreter in a changing society accommodating diverging realms of reality. The study is structured as follows. Firstly, a quick exam of the traits of blockchain networks would provide the contextual link to establish the arguments in support of the need of a standard legal language. Secondly, a comparison between liberal legal institutions and theory of semiotics is set to perceive their functioning and ascertain their limits in the light of todays unprecedented changes. Thirdly, a summary on blockchain networks’ legal features would constitute the thrust behind the idea of a uniform legal language. Methodologically, the argument does also establish some relations with classical laws of physics and philosophy of media. Its aim is to demonstrate how the suggested legal interpretation and semiotic-based approach can contribute to overcome existing stumbling blocks including, but not limited to, the lack of cooperation at the international level as well as the gap in State norms when it comes to innovation. In this sense, the proposed strategies do not intend to replace current advances in the legal thought. In contrast, it seeks to harmonise their results providing a methodical approach that can concur to inform a new technique to address new controversial issues. In practice, the proposed method regarding the adoption of a uniform legal language would lower transactive costs in terms of normative coordination in the matter of international cooperation and in the definition of applicable law among different legal systems. Alternatively, it might contribute to the convergence of legal systems and/or their underlying concepts. Differently put, article’s contribution can be envisaged in fostering juridical consistency with regards to different forms of languages’ coexistence. (shrink)

This essay comprises a first phenomenological semiotics of ChatGPT. I analyse how we experience the language signs generated by that AI. This task is accomplished in two steps. First, I introduce a conceptual scaffolding for the project, by introducing core tenets of Husserl's semiotics. Second, I mould Husserl's theory to develop my phenomenology of the passive and active consciousness of the language signs composed by ChatGPT. On the one hand, by discussing temporality, I demonstrate that ChatGPT can passively demand me (...) to understand its signs. On the other hand, I show that a conflict arises between active and passive consciousness when reading ChatGPT. While I actively know that there is no communicating subject, I still passively experience these signs as made by another. I argue that it is this conflict which lends ChatGPT its 'magical' character. I conclude by showing how these observations can inform future regulation of AI models. (shrink)

Being built on the ground of mutual effect, facing the current state-isolation, international law is losing its grip on efficiency. This makes some of us to question (1) If law is not working, do we still need law? If we would say no, the history shows that such is the path to the state-suicide. As Smithian mutual benefits is the assurance of the individual benefits, we need international relationships to create the benefits for the individual states, hence international law, Yet (...) the current one is certainly not working, then, the question, (2) What should the international law be? The enforcement of the international law could be accomplished through the blockchain. As blockchain “went bypass” the national law, and simply negated it, yet it is still not immune to the scope of international jurisdiction. We also argue that the blockchain’ smart contract is not sufficient enough to operate smoothly. Human brain is structured as the mirror rather than a glass and transferring the law interpretation to the machine would not work, hence, we designed the formula of langue and parole, blockchain multiseg operating under the semiotics of the international law. Here the language learning is modelled with the supervisory and reinforcing algorithms, with supervisory predetermined with bias X,Y towards the values of law. Sort of form of constant repetends of Heidegger’s hermeneutics circle. The most important part in this paper is written with the purpose to explain that international law is at the same struggle that Kafka had. Carrying the weight of both, the clothed façade and true self, first being the morality guide and later the states will, and not being neither, international law is self-isolated from the real world, as Gregor Samsa was. Hence, this is not the paper of secularization, no customs, no higher purpose, nothing except the will of states, that can be constantly renewed with the signifier and signified being linked and re-linked. (shrink)

Through an analysis of the European Court of Human Rights’ decisions concerning the practice of veiling, this article problematises the semiotics-architectural structure of article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights (Freedom of thought, conscience and religion), questioning which representation of the human and the female subject is recognised and therefore protected by secular/liberal and Human Rights law. It argues that the semiotics-architectural structure of article 9, which is based on the distinction between faith and its manifestation, not only (...) relies on a particular ontological understanding of the religious subject as well as a specific notion of religion, but it also reveals a distinct relationship between the individual and sovereign power through the division between the public and the private spheres. In light of this, the western debate surrounding the women’s veiling overlooks how liberal secularism perceives and defines the religious and legal gendered subject in the modern world, and how this understanding is embedded in and reproduced through the law, which emerges as an instrument for regulating minority religious communities. (shrink)

Deleuze (1925–1995), in the early 1980s, adopts Peirce’s (1839–1914) semiotics in order to classify the signs that the images of the cinema display. Aiming at insufflating the Peircean principles with the movement that animates the images of cinema, he provides Peirce’s triadic logic with a new category – Zeroness – which stands for the semiotic movement of cinematic images. Deleuze’s new category has impacts on the main domains of Peirce’s philosophy. Accordingly, our inquiry will focus on the irradiation of Zeroness (...) over the (a) system of categories, the (b) Peircean phenomenology (phaneroscopy), the (c) generative categorial role, the (d) semiotic effectiveness, the (e) doctrine of continuity, and the (f) logic of relatives. This article will show that for Deleuze nearly like more recent Peircean scholarship: (a) zeroth state holds a categorial status, (b) some phenomenon instantiates zeroth state, (c) zeroth state plays a generative role regarding Peirce's categories, (d) zeroth state as a phenomenological category is semiotically effective, (e) zeroth state and the doctrine of continuity, and (f) zeroth state is a “medad.” In order to assess these topics, we recover Deleuze’s advances on Peirce’s philosophy and confront them with the Peircean studies on the zeroth state. Finally, we will see that Deleuze, far from being a Peircean scholar, developed the importance of the zeroth state for Peirce’s semiotics in advance to the subsequent Peircean scholarship. Reciprocally, most of Deleuzian scholars understimate the importance of Peirce for Deleuze’s semiotics. (shrink)

The use of facial recognition systems in concerts provides a perfect pretext to semiotically discuss the role of the face in contemporary culture, identifying different strategies and axiologies (systems of values). In his visionary essay Bruits (“noises”) from 1977, the French thinker Jacques Attali establishes a close connection between music and power and locates it in the site of the collective unfolding of music: the concert hall. Following this hint, the article reconstructs the current debate on facial recognition systems in (...) the music business, with a particular focus on concerts and festivals. The different positions (of musicians, authorities, and professionals) are outlined (some are openly in favor, others openly against), key moments are identified (Beyoncé’s concert in Cardiff, 2017; Jacky Cheung’s in Nanchang, 2018; Taylor Swift’s at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, 2018; the “banfacialrecognition.com” campaign launched in 2019; the case of Barbara Hart at Brandi Carlile’s show at the Madison Square Garden, 2022) and, finally, the issue is framed within the broader debate about the face as an indexical marker of presence, identity, and humanity (the contrast between Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and American sociologist and design theorist Benjamin Bratton is addressed). (shrink)

The paper explores the role and meaning of maṣlaḥa and its possible appropriation in the field of Islamic legal and economic thought, as laid down by various medieval and contemporary Muslim scholars. Questions that are pertinent to the research are the following: how has maṣlaḥa been incorporated in legal reasoning and what kind of meaning does it convey; what type of economic reading does it presuppose; do ethics, law, and scriptural sources play equally important role as reference in developing the (...) concept in economic terms, are some of the questions that this paper will try to provide answer to. Further, as there is a tendency to believe that Islamic economic thought cannot be equated only with legal and juridical underpinnings, it is pertinent to pose a question if economic ideas have flourished independently from its legal framework. Maṣlaḥa in its capacity has always remained part and parcel of Islamic legal theory, and has been rarely addressed within the frame of economic thought; therefore a new reading is required to deal with the position of economic teachings within Islamic tradition. The paper consists of three sections, whereby the contributions made by Muslim medieval scholars on Islamic economics will be presented. The first chapter provides a historical overview of Islamic law and the concept of maṣlaḥa in relation to the field of Islamic economics, including Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s monumental Iḥya ‘ulūm al dīn, which presents a milestone in converging Sufi ethical teachings of Islam in accordance with the legal methodology of Islamic law. The second part aims to discern and examine the economic jurisprudence and economic theory in Islam as it is understood by some of the mainstream theoreticians of Islamic studies, advocating the view that Islamic economics is inextricably related to the gist of Islamic legal reasoning. In this section the ideas of Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr will be presented as he proposes a new reading of Islamic economics as a doctrine and not a science. The third part questions Islamic legal establishment and its normativity, the claim that legal norms have always been part of the Islamic economic reasoning. This claim rests upon the idea that Islamic legal patterns were also socially constructed, including some aspects of Islamic economic reasoning. Concluding remarks will draw upon the idea that despite the fact that Islamic legal and economic literature are based upon the religious scriptures of Islam, the Qur’an and Tradition, it is more appropriate to claim that they rest upon the ethical cosmology that surpasses purely theological concerns. (shrink)

The paper explores the role and meaning of maṣlaḥa and its possible appropriation in the field of Islamic legal and economic thought, as laid down by various medieval and contemporary Muslim scholars. Questions that are pertinent to the research are the following: how has maṣlaḥa been incorporated in legal reasoning and what kind of meaning does it convey; what type of economic reading does it presuppose; do ethics, law, and scriptural sources play equally important role as reference in developing the (...) concept in economic terms, are some of the questions that this paper will try to provide answer to. Further, as there is a tendency to believe that Islamic economic thought cannot be equated only with legal and juridical underpinnings, it is pertinent to pose a question if economic ideas have flourished independently from its legal framework. Maṣlaḥa in its capacity has always remained part and parcel of Islamic legal theory, and has been rarely addressed within the frame of economic thought; therefore a new reading is required to deal with the position of economic teachings within Islamic tradition. The paper consists of three sections, whereby the contributions made by Muslim medieval scholars on Islamic economics will be presented. The first chapter provides a historical overview of Islamic law and the concept of maṣlaḥa in relation to the field of Islamic economics, including Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s monumental Iḥya ‘ulūm al dīn, which presents a milestone in converging Sufi ethical teachings of Islam in accordance with the legal methodology of Islamic law. The second part aims to discern and examine the economic jurisprudence and economic theory in Islam as it is understood by some of the mainstream theoreticians of Islamic studies, advocating the view that Islamic economics is inextricably related to the gist of Islamic legal reasoning. In this section the ideas of Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr will be presented as he proposes a new reading of Islamic economics as a doctrine and not a science. The third part questions Islamic legal establishment and its normativity, the claim that legal norms have always been part of the Islamic economic reasoning. This claim rests upon the idea that Islamic legal patterns were also socially constructed, including some aspects of Islamic economic reasoning. Concluding remarks will draw upon the idea that despite the fact that Islamic legal and economic literature are based upon the religious scriptures of Islam, the Qur’an and Tradition, it is more appropriate to claim that they rest upon the ethical cosmology that surpasses purely theological concerns. (shrink)

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – (...) its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward. (shrink)

A pioneer in the field, Christian Metz applies insights of structural linguistics to the language of film. "The semiology of film . . . can be held to date from the publication in 1964 of the famous essay by Christian Metz, 'Le cinema: langue ou langage?'"--Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Times Literary Supplement "Modern film theory begins with Metz."--Constance Penley, coeditor of Camera Obscura "Any consideration of semiology in relation to the particular field signifying practice of film passes inevitably through a reference to (...) the work of Christian Metz. . . . The first book to be written in this field, [ Film Language ] is important not merely because of this primacy but also because of the issues it raises . . . issues that have become crucial to the contemporary argument."--Stephen Heath, Screen. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary approach to the semiotics of emotion offers insights on emotion as a semantic category organising an array of feelings, thoughts and sensations into meaningful (communicable) terms. This is achieved via an exploration of the role of perspective-taking in making meanings that are felt rather than expressly articulated through words. Forming a semiotic system based on embodied experiences and their contexts, emotions, as semantic categories, are the first stage in processes of expression and communication. I lay the groundwork for (...) an interdisciplinary semiotics of emotion in accordance with findings and stances taken in the fields of literary and cultural studies, neuroscience, and cognitive and comparative psychology. Narrative empathy (sometimes called narrative emotion), like emotion per se, stands upon processes of communication involving the interpretive capacities of feeling, cognitive processes of identification, and perspective-taking. Feeling, beginning as an interpretation of sensorial and neurologically driven values, intensifies through the cognitive-affectual interpretative processes of perspective-taking. With recursive (multi-perspectival) feeling resulting in intensifications of feeling we recognise as emotion, I define emotion as a complex recursive pattern of feeling and affect that calls attention to itself in terms that are readily identifiable with semantic categories such as love, hate, shame, sadness, and anger. (shrink)

This handbook for advanced students explains the various applications to music of methods derived from linguistics and semiotics. The book is aimed at musicians familiar with the ordinary range of aesthetic and theoretical ideas in music; no specialized knowledge of linguistic or semiotic terminology is necessary. In the two introductory chapters, semiotics is related to the tradition of music aesthetics and to well-known works like Deryck Cooke's The Language of Music, and the methods of linguistics are explained in language intelligible (...) to musicians. There is no limitation to one school or tradition; linguistic applications not avowedly semiotic, and semiotic theories not connected with linguistics, are all included. The book gives clear and simple descriptions with ample diagrams and music examples of the 'neutral level', 'semiotic analysis', transformation and generation, structural semantics and narrative grammar, intonation theory, the ideas of C.S. Peirce, and applications in ethnomusicology. (shrink)

In this article, we offer an overview of the philosophical and psychological literatures on expertise. Work so far has failed to engage with recent work in embodied and encultured cognition--in particular the notions of interactivity and semiosis. We suggest how bringing these concepts on board reveals new areas of research concerning the philosophy and psychology of expertise. We conclude with a brief synopsis of each paper.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings on Semiotics 1894–1912 ed. by Francesco BellucciCornelis de WaalEdited by Francesco BellucciCharles S. Peirce: Selected Writings on Semiotics 1894–1912 Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020; no index.With Francesco Bellucci's Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings on Semiotics 1894–1912 and the Peirceana series, which Bellucci co-edits with Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen, the center of gravity in Peirce studies has dramatically shifted to Europe. The powerhouses of old, such as (...) the Peirce Edition Project at Indiana University and the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism at Texas Tech University, appear pretty much dead in the water. And this new center of gravity is by no means limited to secondary literature. Bellucci's edition of Peirce's writings on semiotics and Pietarinen's multi-volume Logic of the Future present us with well-thought-out and responsibly edited volumes of primary literature that will leave their mark on Peirce scholarship for decades to come. And there are other volumes on the way.Bellucci's volume spans almost two decades of Peirce's life—a period during which Peirce had retreated to Milford, Pennsylvania, spending most of his time with his pen on paper. The main purpose of Bellucci's volume is to give us better access to material that has not yet been published—material that is, as Bellucci contends, "essential to understand Peirce's views about signs, their classification, and the relations between semiotics and logical inquiry" (p.1).In line with this, Bellucci starts off where the Writings break off. The last volume of the Writings, which appeared well over a decade ago, ends midway 1892, and Bellucci's volume opens with the sixth chapter of Peirce's 1894 logic book How to Reason, "The Essence of Reasoning." Bellucci thereby skips the second chapter of that same logic book, even though it deals directly with the question "What is a Sign?" He does this on the ground that that chapter is already published in the second [End Page 265] volume of The Essential Peirce (p.3). Bellucci's Selected Writings on Semiotics is thus best considered a professional tool aimed at filling gaps in the literature for Peirce scholars who are already familiar with, or knowledgeable of, what is already out there. Making these texts available is especially important since the manuscripts they are based on are not widely accessible and are in various states of disarray.Each text in Bellucci's volume comes with a (sometimes-extensive) editorial note that is largely bibliographical and, like the Writings, explains which manuscript sheets constitute the text by supplementing the Robin Catalogue designation with the page reference system devised by the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism. The headnote is followed by explanatory annotations, emendations, and alterations, not unlike the system used for the Writings. In this way the reader can easily ascertain where Bellucci made corrections to the original text and what changes Peirce made himself when he was in the process of writing. Putting the apparatus immediately following each text is a much better choice than hiding everything in the back of the volume, as was done in the Writings. Given the nature of this edition, however, it would have been better to have the editorial note precede the text, as is done, for instance in The Essential Peirce, rather than follow it (or use two notes), as that would have made it easier for the reader to position the text within Peirce's oeuvre before beginning to read it (for instance, by reading "What is a Sign?" before starting "The Essence of Reasoning").Bellucci's Selected Writings on Semiotics includes eighteen selections in total, each of which is described briefly in the volume's Introduction with a rationale for including it. As with the Writings, titles not given by Peirce are printed in italic square brackets. At times a more forceful editorial hand in establishing the titles themselves would have been helpful. Selection 10, for instance, "The Basis of Pragmaticism," suggests that it would include two pieces already found in The Essential Peirce, namely "The Basis of Pragmaticism in Phaneroscopy," and "The Basis of Pragmaticism in the... (shrink)

This paper offers a more comprehensive and accurate picture of Edmund Husserl’s semiotics. I not only clarify, as many have already done, Husserl’s theory of signs from the 1901 Logical Investigations, but also examine how he transforms that element of his philosophy in the 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth Logical Investigation. Specifically, the paper examines the evolution of two central tenets of Husserl’s semiotics. I first look at how he modifies his classification of signs. I disclose why he revised his (...) 1901 distinction between indicators and expressions, instead claiming in 1913/14 that the divisions should be drawn between indicators, signals, and categorial signs. Second, I elucidate why Husserl overturned his conclusion from the Investigations, that signs execute their signitive operations in three steps, because he recognizes that categorial signs and their meant object are experienced all at once. By exploring the transformation of these two tenets of Husserl’s semiotics, we will see that he conceived of the First Investigation only as a starting or jumping off point for future analyses of signitive experience, rather than as his final account. This analysis will further reveal novel insights about Husserl’s understanding of intersubjectivity, passivity, and temporality. (shrink)

The journal Biosemiotics was envisioned by its founding editor, Marcello Barbieri, as a major periodical for interdisciplinary papers that integrate biology and semiotics. Since 2008 the journal has published 21 issues, including special issues on crucial problems such as the semiotics of perception, origins of mind, code biology, biohermeneutics, biosemiotic analysis of information and chance. The impact factor of the journal does not fully describe the significance of this journal, because the discipline of biosemiotics is young and remains in its (...) early phase of growth. As the new editorial team of Biosemiotics, we would like to express our gratitude to Dr. Barbieri for his excellent job as an editor, and ensure the readers that we are equally committed to maintain high standards and the scientific rigor of published papers. At the end of 2014 we reorganized the editorial board of the journal based on the credential and former activity of prospective members. The cu .. (shrink)

What is the relationship between consciousness and semiosis? This article attempts to provide some clues to answer this question. For doing it, we explore the application of the Integral model to semiotics; that is to say, the metatheory that integrates the inside, the outside, the individual, and the collective dimension, on one hand and, on the other hand, the levels of development, states and types of consciousness. Our principal hypothesis is that the semiosis depends on the “subjectal” form where the (...) self is located temporarily or permanently. To validate it, we analyze the way in which the universe of meaning changes between the self located below the subject (as a form), and the self located beyond of it. According to the Integral semiotics point of view outlined here, the relationship between consciousness and the meaning has to do with the reduction or expansion of the subjectal spectrum, and the trajectory of the self along of it. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

The core of what we call transmodern turn is sustained by the shaping of an ontological model of the “Essentials Unity”, in which Human Being, the World and God should be in a non-conflictual relationship of togetherness, by a resonant / holographic mechanism of light. cognizing that the world-object and metalanguage have an objective interface, religion, philosophy and modern sciences harmonise their specific assertions through a semiotics of the "loving light” capable of proving that: syntactically, the world is governed by (...) unifying patterns which contain the semantic meanings of an objective human “language of light”; from a pragmatic point of view, biophotonically assumed, the fundamental values of human being / history can be traced in the ontologic act of signification which foregrounds the becoming of universal resonance into love. (shrink)

By examining the evolution of Husserl’s philosophy from 1901 to 1914, this essay reveals that he possessed a more robust philosophy of gestures than has been accounted for. This study is executed in two stages. First, I explore how Husserl analyzed gestures through the lens of his semiotics in the 1901 Logical Investigations. Although he there presents a simple account of gestures as kinds of indicative signs, he does uncover rich insights about the role that gestures play in communication. Second, (...) I examine how Husserl augmented his theory of gestures in his 1914 Revisions to the Sixth Logical Investigation. Husserl describes some gestures as signals, which are experienced as intersubjective communication, as having a temporally diachronic structure, and as possessing an obliging tendency. Husserl also contrasts gestures to language by showing how language habitually leaves traces on us. (shrink)

_Peirce’s Speculative Grammar: Logic as Semiotics _offers a comprehensive, philologically accurate, and exegetically ambitious developmental account of Peirce’s theory of speculative grammar. The book traces the evolution of Peirce’s grammatical writings from his early research on the classification of arguments in the 1860s up to the complex semiotic taxonomies elaborated in the first decade of the twentieth century. It will be of interest to academic specialists working on Peirce, the history of American philosophy and pragmatism, the philosophy of language, the (...) history of logic, and semiotics. (shrink)

More than ever do people seem entrenched in their intellectual positions despite a dearth of concerted and honest reflection upon them. This obstinacy presents a moral and rhetorical challenge—attempting persuasion through naked rational argumentation alone will prove fruitless. But we should not discount the role of the intellect in the fixation of even the least-reflectively formed beliefs. From the perspective of cognition, this fixation is proximately the result of interpretation. In the language of Thomism, this interpretive adherence to falsity consists (...) in a perverse process of discursive reasoning. To exposit the constitution of adherence to false interpretation, here we will draw on the traditions of Thomism, phenomenology, and semiotics. With the insights of these traditions, we will proceed: first, examining the process of interpretation itself; second, considering two different modes of interpretation; and third, situating interpretation in the context of the twofold movement of resolution. Through analyzing interpretation and resolution, we will demonstrate that obstinate intellectual insistence consists in two intellectual errors: adoption of the vague as sufficient for understanding; and reflexive confusions. In both cases, the error persists through the failure to pursue the twofold movement of resolution. (shrink)

A semiótica de Peirce, por sua abrangência e rigor lógico, guarda possibilidades de aplicação que vão além da linguagem e dos processos comunicativos, estendendo-se à ciência como um todo, o que possibilita a organização de uma nova epistemologia. O presente artigo visa analisar as bases dessa proposta epistemológica, verificando seus pressupostos e seu impacto na constituição de uma ciência aberta e voltada para a complexidade.: Peirce's semiotics, in scope and logical rigor, guard application possibilities that go beyond the language and (...) communicative processes, extending to science as a whole, which enables the organization of a new epistemology. This article aims to analyze the basis of this epistemological proposal, checking their assumptions and their impact on the creation of an open and focused science to the complexity. Keywords: sign, science, paradigm. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 207 Seiten: 657-673.

Most contemporary approaches to meaning presume the limitation of semiotics (Didi-Huberman, Gumbrecht, Belting). The question of what kind of “semiotics” is required has not been asked. However, without some general science of meaning it is impossible to reform theory without committing past errors or ignoring progress. In the interest of reconnecting contemporary interests in “presence” to long-evolving needs, I review the ossification and decline of one theory of semiotics that serves as the tacit model rejected today. I return to problems (...) of the nature of the sign – whether it is “digital” or “analog” and conceived as “communication” or merely “meaning.” I then reconstitute a workable visual cognitive semiotics based on phenomenological premises. (shrink)

Peirce is the father of semiotics. However, his theory was developed long before the developments in information theory. The codification procedures studied by the latter turn out to be crucial also for biology. At the root of both information and semiosis there are equivalence classes. In the case of biological systems, we speak of functional equivalence classes. Equivalence classes represent the grid that organism impose on biochemical processes and signals of the external or internal environment. The whole feedback circuit that (...) is built in this way allows information control. Symbolic systems represent another kind of dealing-with-information as far as they deal with the matching of our concepts with the world. (shrink)

Despite the proliferation of studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is a lack of consensus and a cardinal methodological base for research on the quality of CSR communication. Over the decades, studies in this space have remained conflicting, unintegrated, and sometimes overlapping. Drawing on semiotics—a linguistic-based theoretical and analytical tool, our article explores an alternative perspective to evaluating the quality and reliability of sustainability reports. Our article advances CSR communication research by introducing a theoretical-cum-methodological perspective which provides unique insights (...) into how to evaluate the quality of CSR communication. Particularly, we illustrate the application of our proposed methodology on selected U.K. FTSE 100 companies. Our two-phased analysis employed the Greimas Canonical Narrative Schema and the Semiotic Square of Veridiction in drawing meanings from selected sustainability/csr reports. In addition, we present a distinctive CSR report quality model capable of guiding policy makers and firms in designing sustainability/csr reporting standards. (shrink)