Semiotics

The basic scope of the course offered are the philosophical-linguistic theories of the sign, which answer the question regarding the nature of signs. The historical introduction presents the summaries of theories of signs in Plato and Aristotle, in mediaeval logic, grammar and semiotics, as well as in British Empiricism. The semiotics of Ch. S. Peirce is central in the presentation of contemporary theories of sign. Its tenets will be related with linguistic and semiologic theories, such as those of de Saussure and Jakobson. Two traditions of contemporary semiotics will be presented: semiology stemming from de Saussure and bringing attention primarily to the analysis of cultural phenomena, and (empirical) semiotics stemming from Peirce and relating – through Morris and Sebeok – to the analysis of semiotic phenomena in living beings. The latter reached its peak in biosemiotics. Semiotics shall be compared to the tradition of the philosophy of language through both its main strands: logical-philosophical (starting with Frege and reaching one of its peaks in Wittgenstein's Logico-Philosophical Tractatus), and the so-called »ordinary language philosophy« (starting with Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations).