Abstract
Giambattista Vico’s philosophy foresaw a very postmodern sense of language, first as the underlying logical capacity for what Peirce called the symbolic argument, and second as a communication system per se. And in our view, much of these higher sign processes, especially in the everyday symbol use of human communication, is based in metaphor, very much in Vico’s notion of the term. This essay explores the dynamics of sign ordinary process through poetry, referencing also Vico’s synthesis of understanding and creativity, and the connection of poetry to the earliest Western philosophies.
References
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