In order to posit an alternative to Cartesian introspection as a form of privileged access to self-knowledge, the paper argues for a communicative embodied self which does not jeopardize human agency. Based on classical pragmatism, namely on Peirce's triadic semiotic, the text posits a non-reductionist alternative to the dualistic Cartesian cogito. Our goal is to advance the solution to an age-old paradox: how to understand the multiplicity of identities that constitute the self as well as our sense of unity and consistency across time. The triadic sign is considered a valuable theoretical tool to account for the unity of the self and for the diversity in human identity, without favoring either of the two terms. The self is construed as a sign in continuous growth through a reflexive, interpretive dialogue that aims to integrate multiple particular identities into the unity of a generative process.

This work aims to re-evaluate the importance of the human imagination in the semiotic of C. S. Peirce. Based on a selection of texts from the Collected Papers (from 1878 to 1903), it attempts to describe the formal relationship between imagination and the controversial notion of semiotic ground. This account of the imagination as a prerequisite for the creation of new beliefs and habits also draws from the Aristotelian notion of "ascending mimesis" and the Peircean normative science of esthetics.

In this text, the phenomenological categorial analysis at the basis of Peircean semiotic is used to explore the working of iconic signs and their relationship to the self as an ongoing interpretative process as well as to the manifold of identities that human beings adopt in the different circumstances they go through. A film was chosen to describe the relevance of iconicity for the evolving self-interpretative process that serves to adapt us to life changes. The plot of The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen, von Donnersmarck 2006) brings out in exemplary fashion the epistemic function of iconicity to account for spontaneity as the origin of the new and unexpected in the lifeworld. Peirce’s triadic analysis of the imagination elucidates how change is introduced even in a most authoritarian sociopolitical system, whose main goal is to avoid the irruption of the freewheeling possibilism of iconicity.

We propose a theoretical convergence between Dialogical Self Theory and Semiotic Self Theory by using C. S. Peirce’s phenomenology as a metatheoretical framework. Peirce’s categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness account for all kinds of experience; they are distinct but intertwined. Our hypothesis is that this theoretical umbrella can combine complementary aspects of both theories, such as space and time, and the multivoicedness and integrative tendencies of the self. We apply the categories to analyze the externalization of the internal conversation of a participant in a qualitative study. The dialogue was elicited through a psychodramatic instrument that is based on J. L. Moreno’s empty-chair technique. In the resulting discourse, we observed aspects of Firstness: the fluctuating multiplicity of the I; of Secondness: the dyadic relation between pairs of I-positions; and of Thirdness: the self construed as a developing sign process that generates interpretants/voiced positions, and tends towards unity.

O artigo estuda os efeitos comunicacionais e imaginários produzidos pelos vlogs, quer autênticos, quer falsos, no YouTube através de alguns casos célebres na história desse site para carregar e compartilhar vídeos. Em muitas dessas produções audiovisuais há um predomínio dos signos indiciaisa classe de significação que surge do contato do signo com seu objeto, como as pegadas ou os sintomas. Na época atual, estes signos são muito procurados pelos públicos para satisfazer o interesse coletivo por um corpo a corpo com os realizadores amadores-ou aqueles que se apresentam assim-de vlogs autobiográficos. A abordagem teórica da semiótica triádica de Peirce é usada para a análise da identidade humana na era da internet, e também para uma análise da dúvida sobre o autêntico e seu oposto, o simulado, um elemento inseparável dessa experiência midiática.