Scarcity and meaning: Towards a semiotics of economic transaction
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Kristian Bankov
Abstract
The semiotics of economic transaction is here presented as a new approach to the mechanisms of the transaction of economic value. After analyzing the nature of the main semiotic device for value transactions - the money sign - we identify, at its core, the trust in the future of the economic system of exchange and the scarcity of its availability as a condition for its value and meaning. Such characteristics lead us to search for theoretical support in the existential analytics of temporality devised by Heidegger, where we find a homology between economic scarcity and the thesis of the primordial finitude of temporality, which is a scarcity of time. Thus, we distinguish between two levels of semiotic analysis of transactions: a deep/authentic level of the primordial formation of value and a superficial level of commercial practices of market exchange. From this point of view, the new digital economy seems to bring closer the two levels, transforming the availability of time for each person into the major economical resource. The study ends with some critical remarks from a semiotic perspective on neoliberal financial excesses.
Abstract
The semiotics of economic transaction is here presented as a new approach to the mechanisms of the transaction of economic value. After analyzing the nature of the main semiotic device for value transactions - the money sign - we identify, at its core, the trust in the future of the economic system of exchange and the scarcity of its availability as a condition for its value and meaning. Such characteristics lead us to search for theoretical support in the existential analytics of temporality devised by Heidegger, where we find a homology between economic scarcity and the thesis of the primordial finitude of temporality, which is a scarcity of time. Thus, we distinguish between two levels of semiotic analysis of transactions: a deep/authentic level of the primordial formation of value and a superficial level of commercial practices of market exchange. From this point of view, the new digital economy seems to bring closer the two levels, transforming the availability of time for each person into the major economical resource. The study ends with some critical remarks from a semiotic perspective on neoliberal financial excesses.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents XIII
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Section 1: Semiotic epistemologies
- Welcome to Semiosistan! 1
- Beyond teleonomy: Towards a biology of semiotic realism 13
- Risky heuristics 39
- The semiotic inquirer and the practice of empirical inquiry 59
- Transdisciplinarity as a solution to the challenges of the contemporary world 75
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Section 2: Contemporary schools of theoretical semiotics
- Notes towards a semiotic theory of learning 87
- Scarcity and meaning: Towards a semiotics of economic transaction 111
- Applied ecosemiotics: Ontological basis and conceptual models 129
- The anthropological dimension of Greimas’ narrative semiotics 151
- What happens? The Zemic model in existential semiotics 169
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Section 3: Applications and practical discussions
- Intermedial narrative as communication media: Imagination, narrative, and selfhood from Peirce’s semiotic perspective 205
- Icons of modernity in belle époque Bucharest 227
- Glimpses into Peircean event imaging: Episode-simulation as a scaffold for right-guessing 249
- Development of agency as semiotic empowerment: A Peircean analysis 273
- On the corposphere: Body, eroticism and pornography 299
- Natural and cultural layers in the discursive becoming of language as a semiotic system 311
- Index 337
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents XIII
-
Section 1: Semiotic epistemologies
- Welcome to Semiosistan! 1
- Beyond teleonomy: Towards a biology of semiotic realism 13
- Risky heuristics 39
- The semiotic inquirer and the practice of empirical inquiry 59
- Transdisciplinarity as a solution to the challenges of the contemporary world 75
-
Section 2: Contemporary schools of theoretical semiotics
- Notes towards a semiotic theory of learning 87
- Scarcity and meaning: Towards a semiotics of economic transaction 111
- Applied ecosemiotics: Ontological basis and conceptual models 129
- The anthropological dimension of Greimas’ narrative semiotics 151
- What happens? The Zemic model in existential semiotics 169
-
Section 3: Applications and practical discussions
- Intermedial narrative as communication media: Imagination, narrative, and selfhood from Peirce’s semiotic perspective 205
- Icons of modernity in belle époque Bucharest 227
- Glimpses into Peircean event imaging: Episode-simulation as a scaffold for right-guessing 249
- Development of agency as semiotic empowerment: A Peircean analysis 273
- On the corposphere: Body, eroticism and pornography 299
- Natural and cultural layers in the discursive becoming of language as a semiotic system 311
- Index 337
