Cognitive and cathectic dimensions of semiosis
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John Deely (b.1942) is “Philosopher in Residence” at Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, USA, and holder of the Rudman Chair in Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas. He is the author of a complete history of philosophy from Thales to the Present,
Four Ages of Understanding (University of Toronto Press, 2001), defining the term “postmodern” by tracing the development of semiotics within the whole of philosophy from its ancient beginnings to the twenty-first century. Together with Thomas A. Sebeok, he was a founding member of the Semiotic Society of America, for which he developed the “historical layering” SSA Style Sheet (i.e. requiring use of “source dates” from within an author’s lifetime, in contrast to – though together with – “access dates” from posthumously published editions), used in the SSA Annual Proceedings volumes andThe American Journal of Semiotics (TAJS) . Deely served two terms as Vice-President of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS), and two terms as IASS Vice-Treasurer. Deely’s many publications cover contemporary problem-areas in philosophy and the history of philosophy, particularly the development of the doctrine of signs or “semiotics.” The corrected 2nd edition of Deely’s bi-lingual presentation of Poinsot’s 1632Tractatus de Signis: The Semiotic of John Poinsot , which was the featured volume in the New York Time Book Review of 30 March 1986, is now published by St. Augustine’s Press (South Bend, IN; Spring 2013).
Abstract
It has been clear for some time – particularly since Krampen’s pioneering introduction of phytosemiotics in 1981 – that semiosis extends beyond the animal world. Indeed, since at least the 1990 proposal of the notion of a physiosemiosis prior to and independent of life in the universe, in a work that Sebeok deemed at the time “the only successful introduction to semiotics in English,” the question of the full extent of the action of signs has remained both open and pressing. In this essay, however, my aim is to situate as clearly as possible zoösemiosis and anthroposemiosis within semiosis understood in its full extent, both to show how the former permeates the latter and how the latter transcends at the level of Innenwelt the communicative extent or limitations of the former. Finally, my aim is to show that the affective states of animal life – cathexis – along with the cognitive states together provenate the relations which in particular make of the animal surroundings a “wold” (Umwelt) meaningful to the animal and irreducible to the subjectivities and intersubjectivities that constitute the environment in its awareness-independent dimension as physical.
About the author
John Deely (b.1942) is “Philosopher in Residence” at Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, USA, and holder of the Rudman Chair in Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas. He is the author of a complete history of philosophy from Thales to the Present, Four Ages of Understanding (University of Toronto Press, 2001), defining the term “postmodern” by tracing the development of semiotics within the whole of philosophy from its ancient beginnings to the twenty-first century. Together with Thomas A. Sebeok, he was a founding member of the Semiotic Society of America, for which he developed the “historical layering” SSA Style Sheet (i.e. requiring use of “source dates” from within an author’s lifetime, in contrast to – though together with – “access dates” from posthumously published editions), used in the SSA Annual Proceedings volumes and The American Journal of Semiotics (TAJS). Deely served two terms as Vice-President of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS), and two terms as IASS Vice-Treasurer. Deely’s many publications cover contemporary problem-areas in philosophy and the history of philosophy, particularly the development of the doctrine of signs or “semiotics.” The corrected 2nd edition of Deely’s bi-lingual presentation of Poinsot’s 1632 Tractatus de Signis: The Semiotic of John Poinsot, which was the featured volume in the New York Time Book Review of 30 March 1986, is now published by St. Augustine’s Press (South Bend, IN; Spring 2013).
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Note
From the closing plenary 14:30–15:30 Sunday 8 May 2011 for the 7th Conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies and the Swedish Society for Semiotic Studies “Towards Cognitive Semiotics” under the organization of Göran Sonnesson, Lund University Centre for Language and Literature.
©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- From Action-Oriented Perception to Language
- Cognitive and cathectic dimensions of semiosis
- The impact of an embodied theory of meaning on the epistemology of semiotics
- Do natural pictures mean natural tastes? Assessing visual semantics experimentally
- Book Reviews
- Roberta Trites: Literary Conceptualizations of Growth. Metaphors and Cognition in Adolescent Literature
- Esther Pascual: Fictive Interaction: The Conversation Frame in Thought, Language and Discourse
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- From Action-Oriented Perception to Language
- Cognitive and cathectic dimensions of semiosis
- The impact of an embodied theory of meaning on the epistemology of semiotics
- Do natural pictures mean natural tastes? Assessing visual semantics experimentally
- Book Reviews
- Roberta Trites: Literary Conceptualizations of Growth. Metaphors and Cognition in Adolescent Literature
- Esther Pascual: Fictive Interaction: The Conversation Frame in Thought, Language and Discourse
