Home Edusemiotics and Karl-Otto Apel’s transcendental semiotics
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Edusemiotics and Karl-Otto Apel’s transcendental semiotics

  • Marianna Papastephanou EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 2, 2016
Semiotica
From the journal Semiotica Volume 2016 Issue 212

Abstract

The semiotic turn and the twentieth century critique of the philosophy of consciousness presented a unique challenge and stressed the problematic status of old binary oppositions such as the subject versus the object, the mind versus the body, and the private versus the public. Karl-Otto Apel has responded to this philosophical occurrence with a theory of transcendental semiotics, a highly original endeavor to avoid mere reversals of older binary oppositions and pernicious consolidations of new hierarchies. This article aims to unravel Apel’s semiotics and to make it relevant to the philosophical-educational themes that preoccupy edusemiotics. After a brief overview of how Apel reworks the theories that influenced him into his own transcendental-semiotic account, the article focuses on some specific points adding more depth to the venture of associating Apel’s theory and edusemiotics.

Keywords: dualism; positivism; consensus; communication; classroom dialogue

References

Apel, K.-O. 1975. The problem of philosophical fundamental grounding in light of a transcendental-pragmatic of language. Man and World 8(3). 239–275.10.1007/BF01255646Search in Google Scholar

Apel, K.-O. 1980. Transformation of philosophy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Search in Google Scholar

Apel, K.-O. 1984. Understanding and explanation, G. Warnke (trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Apel, K.-O. 1993. Challenge of a totalizing critique of reason and the program of a philosophical theory of rationality types. In D. Freundlieb & W. Hudson (eds.), Reason and its other: Rationality in modern German philosophy and culture, 23–48. Providence & Oxford: Berg.Search in Google Scholar

Apel, K.-O. 1994. Karl-Otto Apel: Selected essays. Vol. 1: Towards a transcendental semiotics. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.Search in Google Scholar

Apel, K.-O. 1998a. The impact of analytic philosophy on my intellectual biography. In M. Papastephanou (ed.), Karl-Otto Apel: From a transcendental-semiotic point of view, 9–42. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Apel, K.-O. 1998b. Transcendental semiotics and the paradigms of first philosophy. In M. Papastephanou (ed.), Karl-Otto Apel: From a transcendental-semiotic point of view, 43–63. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Apel, K.-O. 1998c. Transcendental semiotics and truth: The relevance of a Peircean consensus theory of truth in the present debate about truth theories. In M. Papastephanou (ed.), Karl-Otto Apel: From a transcendental-semiotic point of view, 64–80. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Apel, K.-O. 2001. The response of discourse ethics. Leuven: Peeters.Search in Google Scholar

Barber, M. D. 1998. Ethical hermeneutics: Rationality in Enrique Dussel’s philosophy of liberation. New York: Fordham Press.Search in Google Scholar

Biesta, G. 1998. The right to philosophy of education: From critique to deconstruction. In S. Tozer (ed.), Philosophy of education 1998, 476–484. Urbana-Champaign: Philosophy of Education Society.Search in Google Scholar

Cooke, E. F. 2010. The function of error in knowledge and meaning: Peirce, Apel, Davidson. In M., Bergman, S. Paavola, A.-V. Pietarinen & H. Rydenfelt, (eds.), Nordic studies in pragmatism 1, 38–47. Helsinki: Nordic Pragmatism Network.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, G. 1994. Difference and repetition, P. Patton (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Derrida, J. 1981. Spurs: Nietzsche’s styles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Jay, M. 1992. The debate over performative contradiction. In Axel Honneth, Thomas A. McCarthy, Claus Offe & Albrecht Wellmer (eds.), Philosophical interventions in the unfinished project of enlightenment, 261–279. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Ketner, K. L. (ed.). 1995. Peirce and contemporary thought: Philosophical inquiries. New York: Fordham University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kettner, M. 1999. Discourse ethics: A novel approach to moral decision making. International Journal of Bioethics 10(3). 29–36.Search in Google Scholar

Kettner, M. 2006. Discourse ethics: Apel, Habermas and beyond. In C. Rehmann-Sutter, M. Düwell, & D. Mieth (eds.), Bioethics in cultural contexts, 299–318. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/1-4020-4241-8_21Search in Google Scholar

Mendieta, E. 2002. The adventures of transcendental philosophy: Karl-Otto Apel’s semiotics and discourse ethics. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar

Nöth, W. 2014. The semiotics of learning new words. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(3). 446–456.10.1111/1467-9752.12076Search in Google Scholar

Olteanu, A. 2014. The semiosic evolution of education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(3). 457–473.10.1111/1467-9752.12077Search in Google Scholar

Papastephanou, M. 1997. Communicative action and philosophical foundations: Comments on the Apel-Habermas debate. Philosophy & Social Criticism 23(4). 41–69.10.1177/019145379702300403Search in Google Scholar

Pesce, S. 2014. Teachers’ educational gestures and habits of practical action: Edusemiotics as a framework for teachers’ education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(3). 474–489.10.1111/1467-9752.12078Search in Google Scholar

Pigrum, D. 2014. Deixis and desire: Transitional notation and semiotic philosophy of education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(4). 574–590.10.1111/1467-9752.12079Search in Google Scholar

Pikkarainen, E. 2014. Competence as a key concept of educational theory: A semiotic point of view. Journal of Philosophy of Education. 48(3). 621–636.10.1111/1467-9752.12080Search in Google Scholar

Rorty, R. 1998. Truth and progress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511625404Search in Google Scholar

Rutten, K. & R. Soetaert. 2014. A rhetoric of turns: Signs and symbols in education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(4). 604–620.10.1111/1467-9752.12081Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, I. 2013. The edusemiotics of images. Rotterdam: Sense.10.1007/978-94-6209-055-2Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, I. 2014a. Taking the edusemiotic turn: A body∼mind approach to education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(3). 490–506.10.1111/1467-9752.12082Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, I. 2014b. Response to Bogue. Studies in Philosophy and Education 33(3). 571–574.10.1007/s11217-014-9430-7Search in Google Scholar

Sikka, T. 2012. Karl-Otto Apel and the study of communication. Journal of Communication Inquiry 36(6). 6–23.10.1177/0196859911426619Search in Google Scholar

Stables, A. & S. Gough. 2006. Toward a semiotic theory of choice and of learning. Educational Theory 56(3). 271–285.10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00226.xSearch in Google Scholar

Stables, A. 2014a. Response to Inna Semetsky’s Review of Be(com)ing human: Semiosis and the myth of reason. Studies in Philosophy and Education 33(1). 223–225.10.1007/s11217-013-9384-1Search in Google Scholar

Stables, A. 2014b. Editor’s Introduction. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(3). 428–432.10.1111/1467-9752.12085Search in Google Scholar

Stables, A. 2014c. Peirce and rationalism: Is Peirce a fully semiotic philosopher? Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(3). 591–603.10.1111/1467-9752.12083Search in Google Scholar

Strand, T. 2014. “Experience is our great and only teacher”: A Peircean reading of Wim Wender’s Wings of desire. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(3). 433–445.10.1111/1467-9752.12084Search in Google Scholar

Teobaldelli, P. 1998. The semiotic turn in Karl-Otto Apel’s philosophy. Applied Semiotics 2(5). 139–154.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-7-2
Published in Print: 2016-9-1

©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  3. Editorial
  4. Contemporary approaches to a pedagogy of process
  5. Signs as functions: Edusemiotic and ontological foundations for a semiotic concept of a sign
  6. Edusemiotics as process semiotics: Towards a new model of semiosis for teaching and learning
  7. The implications for education of Peirce’s agapist principle
  8. Writing and Différance
  9. Seeing through the metaphor: The OECD quality toolbox for early childhood
  10. Values, edusemiotics, and intercultural dialogue: From Russia with questions
  11. Usage de l’objet, signification et émergence de la conscience à l’étape préverbale du développement: Une perspective édusémiotique
  12. Les intuitions édusémiotiques des grands pédagogues : Engagement sémiotique, théorie de l’enquête et narrativité
  13. Edusemiotics and Karl-Otto Apel’s transcendental semiotics
  14. Edusemiotics of meaningful learning experience: Revisiting Kant’s pedagogical paradox and Greimas’ semiotic square
  15. Can design inquiry advance edusemiotics? Rethinking factual information and imaginative interpretation
  16. Monstrous hermeneutics: Learning from diagrams
  17. Learning to take play seriously: Peirce, Bateson, and Huizinga on the sacrality of play
https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2016-0131
Keywords for this article
dualism; positivism; consensus; communication; classroom dialogue

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  3. Editorial
  4. Contemporary approaches to a pedagogy of process
  5. Signs as functions: Edusemiotic and ontological foundations for a semiotic concept of a sign
  6. Edusemiotics as process semiotics: Towards a new model of semiosis for teaching and learning
  7. The implications for education of Peirce’s agapist principle
  8. Writing and Différance
  9. Seeing through the metaphor: The OECD quality toolbox for early childhood
  10. Values, edusemiotics, and intercultural dialogue: From Russia with questions
  11. Usage de l’objet, signification et émergence de la conscience à l’étape préverbale du développement: Une perspective édusémiotique
  12. Les intuitions édusémiotiques des grands pédagogues : Engagement sémiotique, théorie de l’enquête et narrativité
  13. Edusemiotics and Karl-Otto Apel’s transcendental semiotics
  14. Edusemiotics of meaningful learning experience: Revisiting Kant’s pedagogical paradox and Greimas’ semiotic square
  15. Can design inquiry advance edusemiotics? Rethinking factual information and imaginative interpretation
  16. Monstrous hermeneutics: Learning from diagrams
  17. Learning to take play seriously: Peirce, Bateson, and Huizinga on the sacrality of play
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 15.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2016-0131/html
Scroll to top button