Origins Of Semiosis

Morana Alac, Introduction; Patrizia Violi, In the Beginning: The Voice of God and the Voice of the World. Two Stories about Origins; Umberto Eco, Origins of Semiosis; Jurgen Trabant, From Semiogenesis to Gottogenesis in the 18th Century Debate; Howard Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies: History, Words, and the World; Winfried Noth, Semiogenesis in the Evolution from Nature to Culture; Thomas Sebeok, Origins: Semiosis the Domain vs. Semiosis the Field; Maxine Sheets- Jonhstone, On Bacteria, Corporeal Representation, Neanderthals, and Marta Graham: Steps toward an Evolutionary Semantics; Sherman Wilcox, Hands and Bodies, Minds and Souls: What Can Signed Languages Tell Us about the Origin of Signs?; Alex Martin, The Neural Basis of Semantic Knowledge; Philip Lieberman, Subcortical Brain Circuits, Speech and the Evolution of Semeosis

This volume brings together a collection of papers on the general theoretical and methodological problems in the historiography of semiotics. It is not a history in the conventional sense, even though the main periods and figures in the development of semiotics are given due prominence. Nevertheless, it should offer the reader stimulation and food for thought in the critical approach to even the least questioned facts of semiotic history and the emphasis given to hitherto neglected problems and persons.

This comprehensive survey of semiotics examines its development from pre-Socratic philosophy to Peirce’s Sign Theory and beyond. In Introducing Semiotics, renowned philosopher and semiotician John Deely provides a conceptual overview of the field, covering its development across centuries of Western philosophical thought. It delineates the foundations of contemporary semiotics and concretely reveals just how integral and fundamental the semiotic point of view really is to Western culture. In particular, the book bridges the gap from St. Augustine in the fifth century to John Locke in the seventeenth. The appeal of semiotics lies in its apparent ability to establish a common framework for all disciplines, a framework rooted in the understanding of the sign as the universal means of communication. With its clarity of exposition and careful use of primary sources, Introducing Semiotics is an essential text for newcomers to the subject and an ideal textbook for semiotics courses.

Bloomsbury Semiotics offers a state-of-the-art overview of the entire field of semiotics by revealing its influence on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. With four volumes spanning theory, method and practice across the disciplines, this definitive reference work emphasizes and strengthens common bonds shared across intellectual cultures, and facilitates the discovery and recovery of meaning across fields. It comprises: Volume 1: History and Semiosis Volume 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical Sciences Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences Volume 4: Semiotic Movements Written by leading international experts, the chapters provide comprehensive overviews of the history and status of semiotic inquiry across a diverse range of traditions and disciplines. Together, they highlight key contemporary developments and debates along with ongoing research priorities. Providing the most comprehensive and united overview of the field, Bloomsbury Semiotics enables anyone, from students to seasoned practitioners, to better understand and benefit from semiotic insight and how it relates to their own area of study or research. Volume 1: History and Semiosis provides a general and historical orientation to semiotic traditions and their methodologies, followed by an in-depth overview of critical issues in the study of sign systems and semiosis. It ends with an exploration of issues of sign classification and practical application, setting the scene for the remaining volumes.

In this regard, semiotics is of relevance to a wide spectrum of scholars and professionals, including social scientists, psychologists, artists, graphic designers, and students of literature.".

No detailed description available for "The Semiotic Web 1990: Recent Developments in Theory and History".

This book is designed to usher the reader into the realm of semiotic studies. It analyzes the most important approaches to semiotics as they have developed over the last hundred years out of philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and biology. As a science of sign processes, semiotics investigates all types of com munication and information exchange among human beings, animals, plants, internal systems of organisms, and machines. Thus it encompasses most of the subject areas of the arts and the social sciences, as well as those of biology and medicine. Semiotic inquiry into the conditions, functions, and structures of sign processes is older than anyone scientific discipline. As a result, it is able to make the underlying unity of these disciplines apparent once again without impairing their function as specializations. Semiotics is, above all, research into the theoretical foundations of sign oriented disciplines: that is, it is General Semiotics. Under the name of Zei chenlehre, it has been pursued in the German-speaking countries since the age of the Enlightenment. During the nineteenth century, the systematic inquiry into the functioning of signs was superseded by historical investigations into the origins of signs. This opposition was overcome in the first half of the twentieth century by American Semiotic as well as by various directions of European structuralism working in the tradition of Semiology. Present-day General Semiot ics builds on all these developments.