An important chapter in the history of semiotics: inference from signs in Philodemus’ De signis
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Giovanni Manetti
Abstract
Philodemus’ De signis is one of the classical texts of greatest semiotic interest. It reports the debate which arose between the Epicureans and an opposing school, usually identified as the Stoics, concerning semiotic inference. The Epicureans proposed to construct semiotic inferences based on generalizations resting on similarity, ultimately configuring their method as a form of induction. Their opponents attacked the Epicurean proposal in a twofold way: on the one hand, they argued that the Epicureans’ method intrinsically lacked cogency, invalidating their inferences from a logical point of view. On the other, they criticized the notion of similarity, arguing that it is generally a vague notion, and in some cases impossible to implement, as when one is faced with unique cases. The debate is very complex and is divided into replies and rejoinders. The ultimate impression one gets is that the Epicureans were able, for the first time in antiquity, to propose a real method to construct semiotic inferences, even though the latter were subject to fallibility, while their opponents did not propose a method, but a test, “elimination,” able only to check the logical soundness of semiotic inferences. In doing so, they placed themselves in a tradition extending back to the theory of signs formulated – albeit in a significantly different way – by Aristotle.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- A pragmatic view of the poetic function of language
- “Little music” or “rough music”?: Ishion Hutchinson, modernist poet
- How binding and bonding communicate interpersonal meanings in a children’s museum to address Jordan’s energy and water challenges
- Autocommunication in crib speech and private speech
- From action to performative gesture: the Slapping movement used by children at the age of four to six
- An important chapter in the history of semiotics: inference from signs in Philodemus’ De signis
- Meaning and the evolution of signification and objectivity
- Shielding the learned body: a semiotic analysis of school badges in New South Wales, Australia
- The primordiality of representation
- The existential signs through the works of Alev Ebuzziya Siesbye
- Paratexts and the reframing of a classic: Korean translations of the Japanese Women’s Analects
