The biological basis of Victoria Welby’s significs

Petrilli, Susan

doi:10.1515/semi.1999.127.1-4.23

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…In our opinion -and in accordance with Peirce who reformulated the classic notion of substitution in the medieval expression aliquid stat pro aliquo in terms of interpretationthe sign is fi rstly an interpretant (see Petrilli 2001Petrilli [1998: I.1).…”

Section: Dialogism and Semiosis More Insightssupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Charles Sanders Peirce, Mikhail Bakhtin and Th omas Sebeok each develop original research itineraries around the sign and, despite important diff erences in their work, they are easily related precisely on the basis of the concept of dialogism (Petrilli 1999a(Petrilli , 2005(Petrilli , 2010a(Petrilli , 2012. Also, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll's concept of "functional cycle" is another model for semiosic processes and it, too, is closely connected to the problem of dialogism and communication.…”

Section: Conditions and Aspects Of Communication: Modelling Dialogism...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our terminology, the fundamental terms that constitute a sign include the interpreted, and the interpretant, in a relationship where the interpretant makes the interpreted possible (Ponzio 1990). For a sign to subsist there must be an interpreted sign and an interpretant sign, in other words, an object that acts as the interpreted of an interpretant (see Petrilli 2001Petrilli [1998: Ch. 1; Ponzio 2006).…”

Section: Dialogism and Semiosis More Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like the biologist J. von Uexküll who m he mentions in this text, Bakhtin evidences a close relation between biology and the study of signs at a very early stage in his studies. What varies is the starting point: in Uexküll's case, an interest in biology; in Bakhtin's case, a focus on the study of signs (on the relation between life sciences and sign sciences, see Petrilli 1999bPetrilli , 1999cPetrilli , 2008Petrilli, Ponzio, 2001, 2002.…”

Section: Bakhtinian Architectonics and Umweltmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modelling, dialogism and the functional cycle: biosemiotic and philosophical insights

Petrilli

Ponzio

2013

SSS

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Charles Peirce, Mikhail Bakhtin and Thomas Sebeok all develop original research itineraries around the sign and, despite terminological differences, can be related with reference to the concept of dialogism and modelling. Jakob von Uexküll's biosemiosic "functional cycle", a model for semiosic processes, is also implied in the relation between dialogue and communication. Biological models which describe communication as a self-referential, autopoietic and semiotically closed system (e.g., the models proposed by Maturana, Varela, and Thure von Uexküll) contrast with both the linear (Shannon and Weaver) and the circular (Saussure) paradigms. The theory of autopoietic systems is only incompatible with dialogism if reference is to a linear causal model which describes communication as developing from source to destination, or to the conversation model governed by the turning around together rule. Dialogism understood in biosemiotic terms overlaps with the concepts of interconnectivity, interrelation, intercorporeity and presupposes the otherness relation. As Uexküll says, the relation with the umwelt in nonhuman living beings is stable and concerns the species; on the contrary, in human beings it is, changeable and concerns the single individual, which is at once an advantage and a disadvantage. Thanks to "syntactics", human beings can construct, deconstruct and reconstruct an infinite number of worlds from a finite number of elements. This distinguishes human beings from other animals and determines their capacity for posing problems and asking questions. The human being not only produces his or her own world, but can also endanger it, and even destroy it to the point of causing the extinction of all other life forms on Earth. The unique capacity for reflection on signs makes human beings responsible for life across the planet, both human and nonhuman. Such reflections shift semiotic research in the direction of semioethics.

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Section: Dialogism and Semiosis More Insightssupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Conditions and Aspects Of Communication: Modelling Dialogism...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dialogism and Semiosis More Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bakhtinian Architectonics and Umweltmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modelling, dialogism and the functional cycle: biosemiotic and philosophical insights

Petrilli

Ponzio

2013

SSS

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“…In delineating this trend in research on signs and meaning, it is also important to remember that Victoria Welby also kept account of biological research and in fact considered biology as foundational for an understanding of signifying processes with any claim to adequacy (cf. Petrilli 1999).…”

Section: On Meaning Symbolism and Understanding Interpretationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three women in semiotics: Welby, Boole, Langer

Petrilli¹

2010

Semiotica

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Victoria Lady Welby, Mary Everest Boole, and Susanne K. Langer, three original thinkers from different chronotopic backgrounds and with different sociocultural profiles who come together (ideally in the case of Langer, in real life in the case of the former two) on the basis of their common interest in signs, meaning, and understanding. This essay highlights significant aspects in the research itineraries of each of these three women in semiotics: Welby with her proposal of significs and concept of mother-sense, or primal sense; Boole who with Welby works on the problem of subjectivity and explores the realm of logic in relation to love, passion, and desire, beyond conventional boundaries in the order of discourse; and Langer who proposes philosophy in a new key with a special focus on signs, symbols, and signification.

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A Tribute to Thomas A. Sebeok

Petrilli

Ponzio

2008

Biosemiotics

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According to the approach developed by Thomas A. Sebeok (1921 and his 'global semiotics,' semiosis and life converge. This leads to his cardinal axiom: 'semiosis is the criterial attribute of life.' His global approach to sign life presupposes his critique of anthropocentrism and glottocentrism. Global semiotics is open to zoosemiotics, indeed, even more broadly, biosemiotics which extends its gaze to semiosis in the whole living universe to include the realms of macro-and microorganisms. In Sebeok's conception, the sign science is not only the study of communication in culture, but of communicative behaviour from a biosemiotic perspective.

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The biological basis of Victoria Welby’s significs

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Modelling, dialogism and the functional cycle: biosemiotic and philosophical insights

Modelling, dialogism and the functional cycle: biosemiotic and philosophical insights

Three women in semiotics: Welby, Boole, Langer

A Tribute to Thomas A. Sebeok

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