Three women in semiotics: Welby, Boole, Langer

Abstract

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.

Significs, Pragmatism and Mother-Sense

“…Her significs is a contribution to pragmatism, a movement she -mother of semiotics (Petrilli 2010b(Petrilli , 2015dSebeok & Petrilli 1998) and of pragmatism alike -prefigured and influenced (Hurley 2022; Petrilli 2022b), as testified by her exchanges with the "founding fathers," figures like Charles Peirce in the USA, Ferdinand Schiller in England, Giovanni Vailati in Italy (Petrilli 1990a: 339-47;Ponzio 1990aPonzio : 94-106, 1990bWelby 2010Welby , 2021. But Welby contacted numerous personalities of the time, all variously fascinated by her investigations.…”