Semiological Investigations, or Topics Pertaining to the General Theory of Signs

Semiological Investigations, or Topics Pertaining to the General Theory of Signs
Author: Johann Cristoph Hoffbauer
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 150
Release: 1991-10-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9027277818

Reprint of the original Latin text Tentamina semiologica, sive quaedam generalem theoriam signorum spectantia (1789), edited, translated and with an Introduction by Robert E. Innis The 33 sections of this classic text by Hoffbauer have a twofold focus: a descriptive inventory of signs, and a comparison of the expressive and cognitive powers of different sign systems. Using his sign typology as a point of departure, Hoffbauer inquires into the elements of matter and form both necessary and adequate to arrive at a definition of the sign. His purpose in doing so is to present his own version of a general sign theory after pointing out significant errors and weaknesses in the characteristicae universalis of Leibniz, Becher, Toennis, Kalmar, etc. Against the background of criticism of the contemporary deductive sign theories of Lambert, Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, Daries, Wilkins, Kircher and others, Hoffbauer's general semiology gives shape to an outline of a deductive-hypothetical theory of signs. In this historical perspective, Hoffbauer's semiology is of outstanding importance and provides the opportunity to think through once again central and permanent problems of the general science of signs.

On the Medieval Theory of Signs

On the Medieval Theory of Signs
Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1989-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027221081

In the course of the long debate on the nature and the classification of signs, from Boethius to Ockham, there are at least three lines of thought: the Stoic heritage, that influences Augustine, Abelard, Francis Bacon; the Aristotelian tradition, stemming from the commentaries on De Interpretatione; the discussion of the grammarians, from Priscian to the Modistae. Modern interpreters are frequently misled by the fact that the various authors regularly used the same terms. Such a homogeneous terminology, however, covers profound theoretical differences. The aim of these essays is to show that the medieval theory of signs does not represent a unique body of semiotic notions: there are diverse and frequently alternative semiotic theories. This book thus represents an attempt to encourage further research on the still unrecognized variety of the semiotic approaches offered by the medieval philosophies of language.

The Empire of Signs

The Empire of Signs
Author: Yoshihiko Ikegami
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 348
Release: 1991-04-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9027285934

Like Roland Barthes' well-known book, L’Empire des signes, from which the title of the present collection is taken, this volume contains essays dealing with certain aspects of Japanese culture.

Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence

Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence
Author: Jeffrey Barnouw
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2004
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780761830269

In dramatic representations and narrative reports of inner deliberation the Odyssey displays the workings of the human mind and its hero's practical intelligence, epitomized by anticipating consequences and controlling his actions accordingly. Once his hope of returning home as husband, father and king is renewed on Calypso's isle, Odysseus shows a consistent will to focus on this purpose and subordinate other impulses to it. His fabled cleverness is now fully engaged in a gradually emerging plan, as he thinks back from that final goal through a network of means to achieve it. He relies on "signs"--inferences in the form "if this, then that" as defined by the Stoic Chrysippus--and the nature of his intelligence is thematically underscored through contrast with others' recklessness, that is, failure to heed signs or reckon consequences. In Homeric deliberation, the mind is torn between competing options or intentions, not between "reason" and "desire." The lack of distinct opposing faculties and hierarchical organization in the Homeric mind, far from archaic simplicity, prefigures the psychology of Chrysippus, who cites deliberation scenes from the Odyssey against Plato's hierarchical tri-partite model. From the Stoics, there follows a psychological tradition leading through Hobbes and Leibniz, to Peirce and Dewey. These thinkers are drawn upon to show the significance of the conception of "thinking" first articulated in the Odyssey. Homer's work inaugurates an approach that has provoked philosophical conflict persisting into the present, and opposition to pragmatism and Pragmatism can be discerned in prominent critiques of Homer and his hero which are analyzed and countered in this study.

The Relevance of Romanticism

The Relevance of Romanticism
Author: Dalia Nassar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2014-03-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199976228

Since the early 1990s, there has been a resurgence of interest in philosophy between Kant and Hegel, and in early German romanticism in particular. Philosophers have come to recognize that, in spite of significant differences between the contemporary and romantic contexts, romanticism continues to persist, and the questions which the romantics raised remain relevant today. The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on Early German Romantic Philosophy is the first collection of essays that offers an in-depth analysis of the reasons why philosophers are (and should be) concerned with romanticism. Through historical and systematic reconstructions, the collection offers a deeper understanding and more encompassing picture of romanticism as a philosophical movement than has been presented thus far, and explicates the role that romanticism plays -- or can play -- in contemporary philosophical debates. The volume includes essays by a number of preeminent international scholars and philosophers -- Karl Ameriks, Frederick Beiser, Richard Eldridge, Michael Forster, Manfred Frank, Jane Kneller, and Paul Redding -- who discuss the nature of philosophical romanticism and its potential to address contemporary questions and concerns. Through contributions from established and emerging philosophers, discussing key romantic themes and concerns, the volume highlights the diversity both within romantic thought and its contemporary reception. Part One consists of the first published encounter between Manfred Frank and Frederick Beiser, in which the two major scholars directly discuss their vastly differing interpretations of philosophical romanticism. Part Two draws significant connections between romantic conceptions of history, sociability, hermeneutics and education and explores the ways in which these views can illuminate pressing questions in contemporary social-political philosophy and theories of interpretation. Part Three consists in some of the most innovative takes on romantic aesthetics, which seek to bring romantic thought into dialogue, with, for instance, contemporary Analytic aesthetics and theories of cognition/mind. The final part offers one of the few rigorous engagements with romantic conceptions science, and demonstrates ways in which the romantic views of nature, scientific experimentation and mathematics need not be relegated to historical curiosities.

Home Grown

Home Grown
Author: Isaac Campos
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2012-04-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807882682

Historian Isaac Campos combines wide-ranging archival research with the latest scholarship on the social and cultural dimensions of drug-related behavior in this telling of marijuana's remarkable history in Mexico. Introduced in the sixteenth century by the Spanish, cannabis came to Mexico as an industrial fiber and symbol of European empire. But, Campos demonstrates, as it gradually spread to indigenous pharmacopoeias, then prisons and soldiers' barracks, it took on both a Mexican name--marijuana--and identity as a quintessentially "Mexican" drug. A century ago, Mexicans believed that marijuana could instantly trigger madness and violence in its users, and the drug was outlawed nationwide in 1920. Home Grown thus traces the deep roots of the antidrug ideology and prohibitionist policies that anchor the drug-war violence that engulfs Mexico today. Campos also counters the standard narrative of modern drug wars, which casts global drug prohibition as a sort of informal American cultural colonization. Instead, he argues, Mexican ideas were the foundation for notions of "reefer madness" in the United States. This book is an indispensable guide for anyone who hopes to understand the deep and complex origins of marijuana's controversial place in North American history.

The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers

The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers
Author: Heiner F. Klemme
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 939
Release: 2016-06-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1474256007

The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers is a landmark work. Covering one of the most innovative centuries for philosophical investigation, it features more than 650 entries on the eighteenth-century philosophers, theologians, jurists, physicians, scholars, writers, literary critics and historians whose work has had lasting philosophical significance. Alongside well-known German philosophers of that era-Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel-the Dictionary provides rare insights into the lives and minds of lesser-known individuals who influenced the shape of philosophy. Each entry discusses a particular philosopher's life, contributions to the world of thought, and later influences, focusing not only on their most important published writings, but on relevant minor works as well. Bibliographical references to primary and secondary source material are included at the end of entries to encourage further reading, while extensive cross-referencing allows comparisons to be easily made between different thinkers' ideas and practices. For anyone looking to understand more about the century when enlightenment thinking arrived in Germany and established conceits were challenged, The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers is a valuable, unparalleled resource.

Semiotica

Semiotica
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 400
Release: 1995
Genre: Language and languages
ISBN:

Consciousness and the Play of Signs

Consciousness and the Play of Signs
Author: Robert E. Innis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1994
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

In Consciousness and the Play of Signs, Robert E. Innis offers a brilliant study of the relationship between philosophy and semiotics. Taking up the problem as foregrounded by Eco, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Goodman, and Rorty, Innis reformulates and reconfigures the philosophical and semiotic premises and frameworks of a descriptively adequate theory of knowledge. In so doing he opens the way to a cultural and historical epistemology of embodied knowledge forms. Innis bases his analysis primarily, though by no means exclusively, on conceptual tools derived from deep and sophisticated readings of Peirce, Polanyi, Dewey, Buhler, Husserl, and Cassirer. He explores the variety of contexts - including the motoric, the perceptual, the aesthetic, the linguistic, and the theoretical - in which semiotic and nonsemiotic factors in consciousness and world building can be related without blurring their crucial differences or irreconcilably opposing them to one another. This book heightens our understanding of ourselves and intersects with all those disciplines concerned with the production and interpretation of meaning.