There is an apparent tension between two familiar platitudes about the meaning of life: (i) that 'meaning' in this context means 'value', and (ii) that such meaning might be ineffable. I suggest a way of trying to bring these two claims together by focusing on an ideal of a meaningful life that fuses both the axiological and semantic senses of 'significant'. This in turn allows for the possibility that the full significance of a life might be ineffable not because its (...) axiological significance is ineffable, but because its semantic significance is ineffable in virtue of the signification relation itself being unsignifiable. I then explore to what degree this claim about signification can be adequately defended. (shrink)

In this article I bring to light a group of scientific and philosophical ideas and intellectual currents from the early era of the significs movement, contemporaneous with the origins of early analytic philosophy. Significs was a strong candidate for the science of language, meaning, and communication during the new century. Its heyday coincided with the forums of the Vienna Circle, yet its intellectual and cultural climate persisted until fading in the turmoil of the mid-century's analytic thought.

Le langage est le lieu de tous les possibles et de tous les impossibles. Par le langage l'homme exprime la realite, la depasse et la nie au niveau de l'imaginaire. Par quels chemins a-t-il pris conscience de ce pouvoir des mots sur les choses, sur son intelligence et sur sa sensibilite? La theorie de la signification s'est d'abord construite a partir d'une presupposition selon laquelle les mots postulent les choses. Mais le sens d'un enonce se revele bien souvent a (...) partir de la negation d'une telle relation, car l'usage que l'homme fait de son langage repose frequemment sur la liberte qu'il experimente a partir des mots de recreer un imaginaire qui s'oppose aux donnees du reel. C'est dans l'espace historique et dans celui, actuel, des theories linguistiques qu'il convient de proposer une interpretation des relations complexes de l'homme avec son langage. Le probleme du sens est actuellement au cur des preoccupations de la linguistique. Cet ouvrage de reflexion s'efforce d'eclairer le probleme du sens a la fois dans ses aspects diachroniques et synchroniques, tout en faisant siens les cadres theoriques herites de Saussure et de Guillaume. La demarche suivie bouscule bien des barrieres et se limite volontairement a l'esquisse d'une theorie de la signification integrant les dimensions convergentes d'une systematique de la langue, de la pragmatique du discours et d'une ontogenie du sens qui se construit d'abord dans le champ clos de toute conscience individuelle. La cle de toute theorie linguistique, depassant la langue saisie comme un objet, se trouve dans une approche neurolinguistique qui replace le sujet parlant au cur du debat. Si cet ouvrage heurte quelques principes et peut susciter de violentes reactions, sinon des contestations, conduisant a poser les problemes sous des jours nouveaux, il aura atteint son but essentiel. (shrink)

In recent years, speech-act theory has mooted the possibility that one utterance can signify a number of different things. This pluralist conception of signification lies at the heart of Thomas Bradwardine’s solution to the insolubles, logical puzzles such as the semantic paradoxes, presented in Oxford in the early 1320s. His leading assumption was that signification is closed under consequence, that is, that a proposition signifies everything which follows from what it signifies. Then any proposition signifying its own falsity, (...) he showed, also signifies its own truth and so, since it signifies things which cannot both obtain, it is simply false. Bradwardine himself, and his contemporaries, did not elaborate this pluralist theory, or say much in its defence. It can be shown to accord closely, however, with the prevailing conception of logical consequence in England in the fourteenth century. Recent pluralist theories of signification, such as Grice’s, also endorse Bradwardine’s closure postulate as a plausible constraint on signification, and so his analysis of the semantic paradoxes is seen to be both well-grounded and plausible. (shrink)

The notion of signification is an important part of Hobbes's philosophy of language. It also has broader relevance, as Hobbes argues that key terms used by his opponents are insignificant. However Hobbes's talk about names' signification is puzzling, as he appears to have advocated conflicting views. This paper argues that Hobbes endorsed two different views of names' signification in two different contexts. When stating his theoretical views about signification, Hobbes claimed that names signify ideas. Elsewhere he (...) talked as if words signified the things they named. Seeing this does not just resolve a puzzle about Hobbes's statements about signification. It also helps us to understand how Hobbes's arguments about insignificant speech work. With one important exception, they depend on the view that names signify things, not on Hobbes's stated theory that words signify ideas. The paper concludes by discussing whether arguments about insignificant speech can provide independent support for Hobbes's views about other issues, such as materialism. (shrink)

For several decades, Dr. Morris has worked primarily with twoproblems: the development of a general theory of signs, and thedevelopment of a general theory of value. He approached both problemsin terms of George Mead's theory of action or behavior. This bookbrings together these two lines of development. For several decades, Dr. Morris has worked primarily with two problems: the development of a general theory of signs, and the development of a general theory of value. He approached both problems in terms (...) of George Mead's theory of action or behavior. This book brings together these two lines of development. In many languages there is a term like the English "meaning" which has two poles: that which something signifies and the value or significance of what is signified. The nature of signification and significance, as well as their relations within human behavior, is the subject matter of this book. This book is addressed to philosophers and to students of the behavioral sciences, but it will also appeal to anyone seriously interested in the study of human communication. (shrink)

Locke is what present-day aestheticians, critics, and historians call an intentionalist. He believes that when we interpret speech and writing, we aim—in large part and perhaps even for the most part—to recover the intentions, or intended meanings, of the speaker or writer. Berkeley and Hume shared Locke’s commitment to intentionalism, but it is a theme that recent philosophical interpreters of all three writers have left largely unexplored. In this paper I discuss the bearing of intentionalism on more familiar themes in (...) empiricist reflections on language, among them the signification of things (as opposed to ideas); the signifying role of whole propositions; and the possibility of reference to an “external” world. (shrink)

According to David Charles, in the Meno Socrates fleetingly distinguishes the signification from the essence question, but, in the end, he conflates them. Doing so, Charles thinks, both leads to Meno's paradox and prevents Socrates from answering it satisfactorily. I argue that Socrates doesn't conflate the two questions, and that his reply to Meno's paradox is more satisfactory than Charles allows.

La manière dont Jacob Klein rend compte de l’historicité propre aux unités de base de la signification dans la pensée de la Grèce ancienne ainsi que de l’Europe moderne est présentée et étudiée en relation au « sens de l'être » dans la pensée phénoménologique heideggerienne et à la conception husserlienne de la signification ontologique instrumentale du calcul symbolique. Sur le fond des reconstructions kleiniennes des nombres éidétiques dans le Sophiste de Platon et de l’ontologie cartésienne des objets (...) mathématiques indéterminés, deux affirmations se trouvent avancées, à savoir (1) que la composition « artithmologique » de l'être dans le Sophiste de Platon représente un défi par rapport au caractère prétendument fondamental du « sens » dans l’historicité heideggerienne de l’être et (2) que la constitution de la conceptualité propre aux unités de base du calcul symbolique excède celle de la conception husserlienne de leur « simple » instrumentalité. (shrink)

Riassunto : L’obiettivo di questo lavoro è di analizzare le prime riflessioni di Merleau-Ponty sul tema dell'animalità, in riferimento particolare alla sua prima opera, La struttura del comportamento. L'articolo – attraverso un’ampia introduzione sulla rielaborazione merleau-pontyana delle nozioni di “comportamento” e di “gestalt”, seguita da un’analisi specifica della tripartizione delle forme di comportamento animale – farà emergere la ricchezza e insieme l’ambiguità del primo lavoro di Merleau-Ponty: se da una parte il fenomenologo francese rintraccia fin da subito una continuità ontologica (...) tra animale e umano, d'altra parte essa rimane ancorata in una visione “privativa” dell’animalità. Parole chiave : Maurice Merleau-Ponty; Animalità; Comportamento; Gestalt; Relazioni uomo/animale Une signification nouvelle. Merleau-Ponty's Early Analysis on Animality: The purpose of this article is to examine Merleau-Ponty’s early analysis on animality, particularly referring to his first work The Structure of Behaviour. The article focuses on the review of notions like “behaviour” and “gestalt” and on the analysis of the tripartition of the forms of animal behaviour. It will be underlined both the richness and the ambiguity of Merleau-Ponty’s first reflection. Indeed on the one hand, the French philosopher immediately discovers an ontological continuity between animals and humans but, on the other hand, his point of view on animality is still “privative”. Keywords : Maurice Merleau-Ponty; Animality; Behaviour; Gestalt; Human/Animal Relationships. (shrink)

Le langage, la signification, la référence ont fait l’objet d’une grande attention au Moyen Âge, de la part des spécialistes des arts du langage. Pourtant, ils n’ont quasiment pas lu Augustin. Les théologiens, par contre, ont tiré grand profit des analyses augustiniennes. Henri de Gand a lu le De dialectica, en articulant autour de ce petit traité les autres textes d’Augustin portant sur le langage et les signes, afin d’élaborer une théorie du « langage vocal », préliminaire à toute (...) réflexion sur les noms divins, l’ineffabilité, l’analogie ou la propriété des noms. Ces textes forment également le socle des analyses élaborées par les théologiens sur le « parler des anges ». Par ailleurs, les chapitres sur les signes sacramentels doivent à la pensée augustinienne une analyse du signe, tirée du De doctrina christiana. Les théologiens insistent sur le caractère doublement relationnel du signe : signe de quelque chose, signe pour quelqu’un. Le caractère intentionnel de la prononciation de la formule du baptême ou du mariage est traité à partir des opuscules consacrés au mensonge ( De mendacio, Contra mendacium ). L’analyse de la causalité sacramentelle, et particulièrement celle de la causalité conventionnelle fondée sur le pacte, se construit sur la notion augustinienne de consensus, repensée dans le cadre d’une réflexion sur les signes magiques par Guillaume d’Auvergne, mais également sur la théorie de la relation telle qu’elle est élaborée dans le De Trinitate. Roger Bacon, qui fut maître ès arts avant de devenir franciscain, saura lire ces analyses des théologiens, et, en articulant les sources augustiniennes avec les sources logico-grammaticales utilisées par les Artistae, produire une théorie générale des signes. (shrink)

For several decades, Dr. Morris has worked primarily with twoproblems: the development of a general theory of signs, and thedevelopment of a general theory of value. He approached both problemsin terms of George Mead's theory of action or behavior. This bookbrings together these two lines of development. For several decades, Dr. Morris has worked primarily with two problems: the development of a general theory of signs, and the development of a general theory of value. He approached both problems in terms (...) of George Mead's theory of action or behavior. This book brings together these two lines of development. In many languages there is a term like the English "meaning" which has two poles: that which something signifies and the value or significance of what is signified. The nature of signification and significance, as well as their relations within human behavior, is the subject matter of this book. This book is addressed to philosophers and to students of the behavioral sciences, but it will also appeal to anyone seriously interested in the study of human communication. (shrink)

... significs and the signific movement in the Netherlands which derived from it from the standpoint of the history of science stems from my esteemed ...

Je prends ici comme prétexte la parution aux éditions Nijhoff des Leçons professées par E. Husserl durant le semestre d'été 1908 à Göttingen sur sa doctrine de la signification, Vorlesungen ueber Bedeutungslehre Sommersemester 1908 (1987), afin de faire le point sur les changements qui interviennent durant cette période concernant sa conception de la signification. L'importance du contenu de ces Leçons a déjà été signalée par quelques phénoménologues dont G. Küng (1973), R. Bernet (1979). D. W. Smith et R. (...) McIntyre (1982) et par Husserl (1968) lui-même dans une lettre à R. Ingarden. Il semble que ces Leçons marquent ce qu'on pourrait appeler un «tournant frégéen» dans la conception husserlienne de la signification et qu'elles préparent le sol sur lequel s'édifie la théorie de l'intentionalité des Idées directrices. (shrink)

Wittgenstein écrit dans les Recherches philosophiques: «Pour une large part des cas d'emploi du mot “signification” — bien que ce ne soit pas pour tous les cas — on peut l'expliquer ainsi: la signification d'un mot est son usage dans le langage». Le slogan «La signification, c'est l'usage» a servi de signe de ralliement à toute une génération de philosophes, mais la question de savoir quel sens lui donne Wittgenstein — mise à part celle de savoir quel (...) sens il avait pour ces philosophes — pose encore un problème aujourd'hui. (shrink)

Etude de la théorie de la supposition développée par Saint Thomas d'Aquin dans le cadre de ses réflexions sur les universaux. Distinguant les différents types de supposition et leur relation avec la signification, l'A. montre que la théorie thomiste de la supposition illustre la position théologique et métaphysique de Saint Thomas concernant l'unité du divin.

The fourth choral ode in Seneca's tragedyTroadesends thus :tum puer matri genetrixque natoTroia qua iaceat regione monstransdicet et longe digito notabit:‘Ilium est illic, ubi fumus alteserpit in caelum nebulaeque turpes.’Troes hoc signo patriam uidebunt.This ending provides a powerful conclusion to the Chorus’ Epicurean-inspired philosophizing in the ode. The image of the Trojan women ‘seeing’ the ‘smoke and squalid clouds creep[ing] high into the heavens’ recalls the Lucretian description of the soul, atomic in nature, leaving the dead body: compare especiallyet nebula (...) ac fumus quoniam discedit in auras,|crede animam quoque diffundi … andergo dissolui quoque conuenit omnem animai|naturam, ceu fumus, in altas aeris auras. The image and the Lucretian resonance also create an intratextual link with the second ode ofTroades. In that ode, the Chorus set out to develop a philosophical position about the question of death and the possibility of an afterlife. Their philosophizing is aided by Lucretian language and imagery, and the clear verbal echoes of Lucretius include the soul escaping into air like vapour: ‘the spirit, with fleeing breath, has mingled with the clouds and passed away into air’, which recalls the Lucretian lines above. At the end of the fourth ode, the Lucretian intertext of the smoke image is linked to another startling element that may point to philosophizing: Seneca's use ofsignum. (shrink)

The fourth choral ode in Seneca's tragedyTroadesends thus :tum puer matri genetrixque natoTroia qua iaceat regione monstransdicet et longe digito notabit:‘Ilium est illic, ubi fumus alteserpit in caelum nebulaeque turpes.’Troes hoc signo patriam uidebunt.This ending provides a powerful conclusion to the Chorus’ Epicurean-inspired philosophizing in the ode. The image of the Trojan women ‘seeing’ the ‘smoke and squalid clouds creep[ing] high into the heavens’ recalls the Lucretian description of the soul, atomic in nature, leaving the dead body: compare especiallyet nebula (...) ac fumus quoniam discedit in auras,|crede animam quoque diffundi … andergo dissolui quoque conuenit omnem animai|naturam, ceu fumus, in altas aeris auras. The image and the Lucretian resonance also create an intratextual link with the second ode ofTroades. In that ode, the Chorus set out to develop a philosophical position about the question of death and the possibility of an afterlife. Their philosophizing is aided by Lucretian language and imagery, and the clear verbal echoes of Lucretius include the soul escaping into air like vapour: ‘the spirit, with fleeing breath, has mingled with the clouds and passed away into air’, which recalls the Lucretian lines above. At the end of the fourth ode, the Lucretian intertext of the smoke image is linked to another startling element that may point to philosophizing: Seneca's use ofsignum. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION The following is a study of Boethius' thought on signification which attempts to situate that thought historically and to evaluate it ...

The conceptual gambit of this article is to propose that the notion of anti-entropy should be complemented by that of exergy investment or destruction, a term first proposed by Zoran Rant in 1956. It argues that one of Bernard Stiegler’s most important interventions into deconstruction is the thermodynamic reformulation of Derridean différance. I argue that we should view the idea of anti-entropy as likewise the displacement of entropy to an external system. With the notion of exergy, it becomes possible to (...) outline an economics of exergy expenditure and investment that considers this displacement. Having argued for the necessity of exergy as a concept that may complement anti-entropy, I demonstrate that this economy of exergy expenditure, through transductive analogy, can be applied to signification. An economics of exergy may give crucial insight into the transcendental problem of signification; that which Derrida’s notion of différance first responded to. I ask the question: can a trace-like logic of sense be understood energetically if trace itself is understood to be materially inscribed into the world? Having explored this question, I then outline how education might be understood as both the means through with traditional significations are energetically maintained as well as the means through which metastable significations can be disrupted. I use the recent banning of anti-capitalist literature in the UK as an example of what I call logomachics, a conflict of significative exergetic investment and disinvestment. (shrink)

Vladimir Fock est un scientifique russo-soviétique connu pour diverses contributions à la physique moderne. Il en fut aussi un interprète, développant une position critique face à l’orthodoxie incarnée par Niels Bohr en mécanique quantique et Albert Einstein en relativité générale. Fock ayant adhéré au matérialisme dialectique, l’historiographie sur ses contributions aux débats d’interprétation met généralement l’accent sur sa défense d’une position réaliste, en faveur de l’objectivité du monde extérieur. Le présent article complète cette observation en s’appuyant sur un texte du (...) physicien soviétique jusqu’alors peu connu : « La signification fondamentale des méthodes d’approximation en physique théorique ». En effet, il révèle une forme d’antiréductionnisme essentielle à la compréhension du discours de Fock sur l’interprétation des théories de la physique moderne. (shrink)

Thomas Bradwardine's solution to the semantic paradoxes, presented in his Insolubilia written in Oxford in the early 1320s, turns on two main principles: that a proposition is true only if things are wholly as it signifies; and that signification is closed under consequence. After exploring the background in Walter Burley's account of the signification of propositions, the question is considered of the extent to which Bradwardine's theory is compatible with the distribution of truth over conjunction, disjunction, negation and (...) the conditional. (shrink)

Wittgenstein, selon R. Rorty, accepte dans ses Recherches philosophiques une variété d' « antireprésentationnalisme » en ce sens qu 'il refuse la distinction entre certaines représentations envers lesquelles on devrait adopter une attitude réaliste et d'autres envers lesquelles il faudrait adopter une attitude non réaliste . Je soutiens dans cet article que le contraire est vrai. Wittgenstein adhère en particulier à une forme de non-réalisme quant au concept de signification et certains concepts d'états et de processus mentaux. L'expression « (...) la signification de M » n 'a pas selon lui une fonction reférentielle . Une expression du vocabulaire mental telle que « savoir réciter l'alphabet» ne désigne pas un état interne de l'individu sachant réciter l'alphabet. « Savoir réciter l'alphabet » et « la signification de M » ne sont pas des expressions employées pour « parler de » quelque chose ou s'y référer.R. Rorty daims that Wittgenstein agrees in the Philosophical Investigations with "antirepresentationalism " in that he rejects the distinction between representations toward which we should have a realist attitude and those toward which we should have the opposite, nonrealist, attitude. The aim of this paper is to show that this reading is incorrect. Wittgenstein accepts antirealist views in particular with respect to meaning and some mentalconcepts. The expression "the meaning of W", he holds, is not a referential expression . Expressions from our mental vocabulary such as "knowing the ABC" do not refer to internal states . "The meaning of W" and "knowing the ABC" are not expressions used to refer to or "talk about" anything. (shrink)

Paul Spade argues that there is a tension between Ockham’s descriptions of the various types of supposition at Summa Logicae I.64 and a rule he provides at sl I.65. In later papers, Spade proposes a solution: a term supposits significatively just in case it supposits for everything it signifies. I evaluate Spade’s proposal and explore some of its implications. I show that it successfully resolves the tension and that it suggests a way to more precisely describe material and simple supposition. (...) I argue furthermore that Ockham is committed to the proposal by showing that uncontroversial features of his theory imply it. In doing so, I raise and refute three potential objections. Finally, I highlight and discuss a controversial result: self-signifying conventional terms can supposit materially. I argue that this result makes for a more satisfying theory. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 53, Issue 2-4, pp 405 - 423 This article deals with a brief _difficultas_ in the _Tractatus de compositione propositionis mentalis_ by Fernando de Enzinas: _qualiter copule significent tempus et an copule de presenti et preterito sint synonime_. A progressive determination of the signification of the copula is analysed: first, Enzinas defines his position about the principal syncategorematic signification of the copula; then, he analyses the sense of the consignification of time traditionally attributed to the (...) copula. The originality of Enzinas’ position is highlighted, given the fact that he gives preference to the question as to _how_ the copulae signify time rather than the question as to _which_ time the copulae signify. (shrink)

Résumé — L’interprétation de la sémantique modale bidimensionnelle fait aujourd’hui l’objet de nombreuses discussions et confrontations. En remontant à Signification et nécessité et en rappelant les bases de l’analyse de Carnap, on peut montrer que les deux dimensions de l’intension forment un développement naturel de son fonctionnalisme. Mais Carnap était sensible à l’engagement théorique des propriétés. Ce type d’engagement, établi à partir d’un exemple simple, offre un argument général en faveur de l’interprétation métasémantique du cadre bidimensionnel.— The interpretation of (...) 2-dimensional modal semantics has given rise to much controversy over the last couple of decades. By reverting to the main lines of Carnap’s analysis in Meaning and Necessity, it can be shown that the distinction between two dimensions of intension can be regarded as a natural outcome of Carnap’s functionalism. However, Carnap was not unconcerned about theoretical commitment of properties. The inevitability of such a commitment, which can be demonstrated with the help of a simple example, provides an overall argument in favour of the so-called « meta-semantic » interpretation of the 2-dimensional framework. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je cherche à expliquer la définition de la philosophie ricœurienne en examinant deux de ses conditions les plus fondamentales: la signification, qui en constitue en quelque sorte le matériau, et la réflexivité, qui est le principe de son articulation dynamique. Je procède en deux temps. J’étudie d’abord les cinq différents niveaux du discours, en soulignant l’originalité de chacun d’eux: descriptif, transphrastique, auto-compréhensif, anthropologique, métaphysique. J’explique ensuite le rôle que joue la réflexivité, dans sa dimension intra- et (...) inter-sémiotique, pour à la fois délimiter ces différents niveaux et permettre un passage de l’un à l’autre. Je conclus en montrant que toute la philosophie de Ricœur se caractérise par une confiance accordée au langage: à son effort obstiné et prudent pour “éclairer l’existence” en repoussant les limites de ce qui le borde. (shrink)

Les philosophes de l'école contemporaine d'Oxford1 ont identifié la notion de signification avec celle d'usage: selon eux, le sens de l'expression A serait l'usage qu'il est fait de A.

This paper examines the temporality of agency in Judith Butler's and Saba Mahmood's writing. I argue that Mahmood moves away from a performative understanding of agency, which focuses on relations of signification, to a corporeal understanding, which focuses on desire and sensation. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze's reading of Henri Bergson, I show how this move involves a changed model of becoming: whereas Butler imagines movement as a series of discontinuous beings, in Mahmood's case, we get an understanding of becoming.

Humpty-Dumpty affirmait que les mots signifiaient exactement ce qu'il lui plaisait qu'ils signifient, «ni plus, ni moins». Il a parfois des défenseurs chez les chercheurs qui se sont penchés sur le problème de la non-littéralité. On peut cependant affirmer qu'ur locuteur, s'il utilise non littéralement des expressions qui ont ure signification conventionnelle, ne peut en changer à volonté la signification pour leur faire signifier exactement ce qu'il a l'intention de signifier. Par exemple, quelqu'un qui fait une métaphore ne (...) peut changer la signification des expressions qu'il utilise. C'est la thèse que je défendrai au cours des prochaines pages. On verra aussi quelles intentions devrait avoir un locuteur qui signifierait non littéralement quelque chose. (shrink)

This article is about the conception of truth and signification in Augustine's early philosophical writings. In the first, semantic-linguistic part, the gradual shift of Augustine's position towards the Academics is treated closely. It reveals that Augustine develops a notion of sign which, by integrating elements of Stoic epistemology, is suited to function as a transmitter of true knowledge through linguistic expressions. In the second part, both the ontological structure of signified (sensible) things and Augustine's solution to the apparent tautologies (...) of mathematical truths are examined. Again his notion of sign turns out to be the keystone; this time, however, the natural in contrast to the conventional sign of linguistic expressions. In their complementarity, both parts show how Augustine intensely struggles with and (partially) overcomes the skepticism of the sensible world through his conception of sign and signification. (shrink)

In European philosophical psychology, the work of Jacques Lacan has exerted a great deal of influence but it has received little attention from analytic philosophers. He is famous for the view that the unconscious is a repository of influences arising from language and the meanings it captures, but the presentation of his ideas is sometimes perplexing and impenetrable and its conceptual links with analytic philosophers like Frege and Wittgenstein are not easily discerned. In fact, there are a number of such (...) links and they are worth pursuing for those interested in language, mind, and the unconscious. If we explore Lacan's claim about the link between signification and the tuchè (the encounter with the real) we find that the mental content of the subject is essentially tied to the external world both causally and linguistically. The means of tying the two together arise in the context of human interactions and therefore are charged with personal and emotive content as well as the semantic content with which we are normally concerned in philosophy of language. When we pursue the implications of his view it becomes plausible both that the unconscious is structured like a language and that language borrows much of its meaning and significance to a subject from the interpersonal medium through which it has been inscribed on that subject. His approach is therefore illuminating both for linguistics (especially psycholinguistics) and for the psychology of the unconscious. (shrink)

Charles Groulier | : La question de savoir si la signification est normative et comment préciser l’idée de normativité sémantique fait l’objet de nombreux débats actuels. Nous proposons de partir de l’hypothèse qu’un langage est un système de règles, et qu’apprendre un langage c’est apprendre à obéir à des règles qui régissent l’usage de ses expressions. Nous distinguons d’abord entre différentes notions de signification et de normativité. Puis nous examinons de façon critique deux objections à l’idée d’une normativité (...) sémantique : la première réduit la normativité sémantique au « doit » instrumental, l’autre à la normativité épistémique. Nous proposons ensuite une conception alternative de la normativité sémantique fondée sur le concept d’acte locutionnaire. | : There are many ongoing debates over whether meaning is normative or about how the idea of semantic normativity is to be fleshed out. We suggest to start from the assumption that language is a system of rules, and learning a language is learning to obey the rules for the use of its expressions. We first distinguish between different notions of meaning and of normativity. Then we critically examine and reject two objections to the idea of semantic normativity : one reducing semantic normativity to instrumental “ought”, the other to epistemic normativity. We then propose an alternative conception of semantic normativity based on the speech-acts theorists’ concept of locutionary act. (shrink)

Welby’s correspondence with Peirce began with his review of What is Meaning? (1903), a contribution not only to spreading Peirce’s later thinking, but also to reproposing Welby’s “significs.” This is encounter between the pragmatist Peirce’s approach to semiotic and Welby’s significs oriented by mother-sense. A dialogue between two conceptions of meaning which, notwithstanding differences, meet in a participative contribution to constructing the sign sciences – from Peirce to semiotics, from Welby to significs. Their focus does not only concern signs but (...) also values which are inextricably interconnected. In this encounter, significs doubtlessly exerts a non-negligible influence on semiotics. If with (Peirce’s) “play of musement” we are endowed to imagine different worlds from the present, a male-dominated world, to resist the world as-it-is and construct new worlds presupposes what Welby calls mother-sense. In human signifying processes the epistemological dimension is clearly not separable from the axiological, aesthetic or ideological-political. (shrink)

Returning to my monograph of 1996, Subjectivité et alterité dans la philosophie de Emmanuel Lévinas, I intend to illustrate an issue that is central in life and thought in today's world: the possibility that self has of justifying itself before the other. This possibility subtends the constitution of identity in relation to the individual, class, nation, and community. As regards Western thought, all its culture is a justification towards others. Peoples inhabiting the so-called developed world (15% of the world population) (...) still succeed in justifying themselves in the face of peoples inhabiting the underdeveloped world (85% of the world population), with all necessary means. The reason of identity is reason against the other. But for how long can this situation last? At a certain point it will be necessary to answer to the other not only for self but also for the other him/herself. (shrink)

Discussion of Berkeley ’s theory of language has largely ignored what he says about the ‘meaning’ of a general word. Berkeley distinguishes the meaning of a general word both from the extension of the word and from what the word might suggest in the mind of the language user. D. Flage has argued that Berkeley has an ‘extensional’ theory of meaning, but this is based on passages where Berkeley does not speak of word meaning. When Berkeley explicitly discusses the meaning (...) of particular words he does so with a view to explicating the sense in which a word is to be understood. Berkeley made a series of insightful distinctions when discussing words and their use, and these distinctions are of contemporary interest. (shrink)

Quoique l'on ne trouve qu'un nombre limité de références à Nicod dans les manuscrits de la période dite « intermédiaire » de Wittgenstein, une lecture attentive de La Géométrie dans le monde sensible s'avère pourtant décisive pour comprendre la nature du projet phénoménologique de Wittgenstein de la fin des années vingt. Nous nous proposons de montrer que la prise en compte ainsi que la reformulation du problème posé par Nicod en 1924, celui de la nature de la relation d'inclusion spatiale, (...) conduit Wittgenstein à remplacer dès 1929 l'ancien critère logique du simple et du complexe (celui du Tractatus logico-philosophicus) par un critère phénoménologico-grammatical inédit et désabsolutisé applicable à toute donnée visuelle quelle qu'elle soit. Plus généralement, la priorité donnée par Wittgenstein au visuel dans son « investigation phénoménologique des impressions sensorielles » trouve sa meilleure justification dans l'esquisse par Nicod d'une géométrie de la vision à la fois complète et indépendante. Nous montrons en particulier que les propriétés structurales du champ visuel mises au jour par Nicod dans sa construction (diversité et simultanéité des places sensibles, coloréité) sont tacitement utilisées par Wittgenstein pour justifier la possibilité d'une description phénoménologique conçue, précisément, comme description des places ou « localités » constitutives de cet espace perceptif. (shrink)

Résumé Cette recherche porte sur le rôle joué par les différents éléments d’une image dans l’interprétation de cette image et dans les émotions qu’elle induit. A partir de l’approche structurale de la théorie des représentations sociales on suppose que certains des éléments d’une image seraient centraux tandis que d’autres seraient périphériques. Pour explorer cette piste on a retouché trois photographies originales afin de supprimer certains des éléments qu’elles montraient. Les photographies originales et les photographies retouchées ont été présentées à trois (...) groupes de participants qui devaient, pour chaque photographie, produire trois associations verbales puis évaluer le niveau d’activation des émotions ressenties. Les résultats montrent que certains des éléments d’une image en déterminent à la fois le sens et les émotions qu’elle induit, d’autres n’en déterminent que les émotions, d’autres enfin ne déterminent ni la signification, ni les émotions induites. Ces résultats suggèrent que dans le cadre de la théorie des représentations sociales, l’analyse des images en termes d’éléments centraux et périphériques pourrait être très utile pour mieux comprendre comment fonctionnent ces images en tant que systèmes sémiotiques. (shrink)