Catalysis and Morphogenesis: The Contextual Semiotic Configuration of Form, Function, and Fields of Experience

Abstract

In this work, the catalytic process is discussed as a semiotic process of transformation of the field. This is the precondition that allows the realization of semiotic processes of signification and action (semiotic function of pertinentization). Catalysis is seen as process of field which acts in temporal terms (mediating between continuity and discontinuity) and spatial terms (the relationship between the parts and the whole, and between the inside and the outside). Catalysis in psychological terms is understood as a process of contextual pertinentization triggered and organized by emotional/perceptual relationship of a subject with his relational environment. In this work, we define emotion as a psychophysical process of semiotic activation (symbolopoiesis) and organization of relations according to specific operating modalities (symmetry and generalization), believing that it always works in interaction with the perceptual processes (aimed at identification of differences and asymmetries). Catalysis, in our point of view, creates a contextual activation of a morphogenetic field of semiosis, which regulates the relationship between the parts and the whole (between the signs and their organization) and the development over time of the process of meaning making (in terms of continuity and discontinuity/rupture)

Healthcare Professionals’ Perceptions and Concerns towards Domestic Violence during Pregnancy in Southern Italy

“…(a) Symbolic-structural semiotic analysis. The Symbolic-structural semiotic analysis investigated the underlying framework of the discourse [75,76]. This allowed us to obtain a synthetic representation of the textual content while defining the meaning that our interviewees attribute to domestic violence.…”

Modal articulation: The psychological and semiotic functions of modalities in the sensemaking process

“…up to more articulated, complex, sophisticated forms, linguistically and culturally characterized (Branco & Valsiner, 2010). Such affective processes do not concern individuals and discrete objects but are rather a “field of experience” (as an immediate and embodied experience, in a synthetic rather than analytical way) that guide both the interpretation process (De Luca Picione & Freda, 2014; Matte Blanco, 1975; Salvatore & Freda, 2011) and the agentive process. The affective activation—whose form, intensity, and connotation is constantly changing—contributes to the construction of a scenario (Salvatore, 2016), a version of the mind, a morphogenetic field of semiosis (De Luca Picione & Freda, 2016b, 2016c).…”

The processes of meaning making, starting from the morphogenetic theories of René Thom

“…Such a field consists of many different trajectories of meaning, several epistemic positions, and different idiosyncratic and subjective ways to experience it. We discuss the relevance of the concept of form and its usefulness in order to consider the sign as a form emerging from a “semiotic morphogenetic field”, in which both continuous trajectories of meaning and discontinuous ones are active (De Luca Picione & Freda, 2014, 2012). In this sense, we view the form as the emergence of a dialectical process of semiotic mediation between different temporal (continuous and discontinuous) and spatial (background/foreground, in/out, part/whole) relationships (De Luca Picione & Freda, 2014).…”

“…The morphogenetic field (De Luca Picione & Freda, 2014) is a space/time relationship, in which there is a recursive relationship between discontinuities and the continuity of the phenomena that takes place inside. Only within a field, defined spatially and temporally, the discontinuity is possible, as each possible transformation occurs over time, causing change and movement.…”