If all knowing comes from semiosis, more concepts should be added to the semiotic toolbox. However, semiotic concepts must be defined via other semiotic concepts. We observe an opportunity to advance the state-of-the-art in semiotics by defining concepts of cognitive processes and phenomena via semiotic terms. In particular, we focus on concepts of relevance for theory of knowledge, such as learning, knowing, affordance, scaffolding, resources, competence, memory, and a few others. For these, we provide preliminary definitions from a semiotic perspective, which also explicates their interrelatedness. Redefining these terms this way helps to avoid both physicalism and psychologism, showcasing the epistemological dimensions of environmental situatedness through the semiotic understanding of organisms’ fittedness with their environments. Following our review and presentation of each concept, we briefly discuss the significance of our embedded redefinitions in contributing to a semiotic theory of knowing that has relevance to both the humanities and the life sciences, while not forgetting their relevance to education and psychology, but also social semiotic and multimodality studies.

This article reviews and discusses some the main aspects of the growing edusemiotic research movement. The authors briefly explore the historical antecedents to educational semiotics in antiquity, before going on to discuss edusemiotic’s fundamental “triadic” (non-dualistic) orientation. They focus on the use of Peirce’s categorical semiotic philosophy to conceptualize educational dynamics; the alignment of edusemiotics with biosemiotics; the relevance of Thomas Sebeok’s modeling theories to education; and the primacy of iconicity in learning. Throughout the article, it is emphasized how edusemiotics doesnotmean semiotics applied to education, as a pedagogical aid or teaching/research tool, but is rather, “thinking” semiotics as the foundation for educational theory and practice at large (cf. Stables and Semetsky, 2015).

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This article describes a notion of learning as adaptive semiotic-growth. In line with the theme of this special issue, learning will be approached on a broad ecological and evolutionary continuum – most generally expressed as a form of adaptation to the environment. Viewing learning through the criterion of signification (semiosis) means that learning is continuous across the entire biological realm. Both the life process and the learning process are expressed through forms of semiotic-engagement and involve continual adaptation and meaning-making. Thus, learning cannot be seen as unique to humans. Learning is more broadly ecological before it is “cultural”. From here we can imagine educational institutions as forms of exaptation, that evolved naturally to channel learning more effectively. Thinking of learning on an ecological continuum means that learning cannot be “located” or pinned down easily in educational research or practice. Rather, learning has a sporadic identity; it is emergent in the specificity of events and must be discerned within the practices that enact it. Realizing learning as something emergently enacted in the educative encounter, and not something that can be determined and implemented, allows us to resist turning learning into an accountability tool that can easily be used towards ideological ends.

Taking influence from Peirce’s phenomenological categories (Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness), a notion of what we call bottom-up modeling has become increasingly significant in research areas interested in learning, cognition, and development. Here, following a particular reading of Peircean semiotics (cf. Deacon, Terrence. 1997. The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. London and New York: W. W. Norton; Sebeok, Thomas and Marcel Danesi. 2000. The forms of meaning: Modelling systems theory and semiotic analysis. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter), modeling, and thus also learning, has mostly been thought of as ascending from simple, basic sign types to complex ones (iconic – indexical – symbolic; Firstness – Secondness – Thirdness). This constitutes the basis of most currently accepted (neo-Peircean) semiotic modeling theories and entails the further acceptance of an unexamined a priori coherence between complexity of cognition and complexity of signification. Following recent readings of Peirce’s post-1900 semiotic, we will present, in abbreviated form, a discussion as to the limits of this theoretical approach for theories of learning that draws upon Peirce’s late semiotic philosophy, in particular his late work on iconicity and propositions. We also explore the corollary conceptions of semiotic resources and competences and affordances to develop an ecological perspective on learning that notably does not impose a linear developmental progression from simple to complex. In conclusion, we address some of the implications of this (post-Peircean) conceptualization for transdisciplinary research into learning.