Bøger i Toronto Studies in Semiotics and Communication serien

This book redraws the intellectual map and sets the agenda in philosophy for the next fifty or so years. By making the theory of signs the dominant theme in Four Ages of Understanding, John Deely has produced a history of philosophy that is innovative, original, and complete. The first full-scale demonstration of the centrality of the theory of signs to the history of philosophy, Four Ages of Understanding provides a new vantage point from which to review and reinterpret the development of intellectual culture at the threshold of "e;globalization"e;.Deely examines the whole movement of past developments in the history of philosophy in relation to the emergence of contemporary semiotics as the defining moment of Postmodernism. Beginning traditionally with the Pre-Socratic thinkers of early Greece, Deely gives an account of the development of the notion of signs and of the general philosophical problems and themes which give that notion a context through four ages: Ancient philosophy, covering initial Greek thought; the Latin age, philosophy in European civilization from Augustine in the 4th century to Poinsot in the 17th; the Modern period, beginning with Descartes and Locke; and the Postmodern period, beginning with Charles Sanders Peirce and continuing to the present. Reading the complete history of philosophy in light of the theory of the sign allows Deely to address the work of thinkers never before included in a general history, and in particular to overcome the gap between Ockham and Descartes which has characterized the standard treatments heretofore. One of the essential features of the book is the way in which it shows how the theme of signs opens a perspective for seeing the Latin Age from its beginning with Augustine to the work of Poinsot as an indigenous development and organic unity under which all the standard themes of ontology and epistemology find a new resolution and place.A magisterial general history of philosophy, Deely's book provides both a strong background to semiotics and a theoretical unity between philosophy's history and its immediate future. With Four Ages of Understanding Deely sets a new agenda for philosophy as a discipline entering the 21st century.

A growing field of inquiry, biosemiotics is a theory of cognition and communication that unites the living and the cultural world. What is missing from this theory, however, is the unification of the information and computational realms of the non-living natural and technical world. Cybersemiotics provides such a framework.By integrating cybernetic information theory into the unique semiotic framework of C.S. Peirce, Soren Brier attempts to find a unified conceptual framework that encompasses the complex area of information, cognition, and communication science. This integration is performed through Niklas Luhmann's autopoietic systems theory of social communication. The link between cybernetics and semiotics is, further, an ethological and evolutionary theory of embodiment combined with Lakoff and Johnson's 'philosophy in the flesh.' This demands the development of a transdisciplinary philosophy of knowledge as much common sense as it is cultured in the humanities and the sciences. Such an epistemological and ontological framework is also developed in this volume.Cybersemiotics not only builds a bridge between science and culture, it provides a framework that encompasses them both. The cybersemiotic framework offers a platform for a new level of global dialogue between knowledge systems, including a view of science that does not compete with religion but offers the possibility for mutual and fruitful exchange.

In The Extended Mind, Robert K. Logan examines the origin, emergence, and co-evolution of language, the human mind, and culture.

Following Sebeok, Merrell reminds us that 'any and all investigation of nature and of the nature of signs and life must ultimately be semiotic in nature.'

Providing a dynamic, forward-looking reorientation towards a new universe of reference, Remodelling Communication makes a significant, productive contribution to communication theory.

Rastier proposes a theoretical framework for the semantic description and typology of texts, establishing a critical debate among various streams of research before arriving at a synthesis of literary semiotics, thematics, and linguistic semantics.

Both detective and reader attempt to solve the crimes in detective novels, relying on the same motifs but employing different narrative interpretations to do so. A unique and lucid examination of a complex genre.

Edwina Taborsky moves semiotics away from being a descriptive tool within the humanities and uses its powers of analysis on the organic and social nature of cognition.

The Primacy of Semiosis provides a semiotic that subverts the opposition between realism and idealism; one in which what have been called 'nature' and 'culture' interpenetrate in an expanding collective of human and non-human.

Grounded in the semiotic thought of Charles Sanders Peirce, America's greatest polymath, Howard A. Smith's Teaching Adolescents addresses topics in educational psychology from a semiotic or sign-based perspective rather than a behavioural one.

This collection of articles by Irmengard Rauch provides a lucid narrative on the nature of semiotics and linguistics, revealing their symbiotic relationship through concrete, data-based application.

Horst Ruthrof argues that the body is an integral part of this hermeneutic activity and proposes that language is no more than a symbolic grid which does not signify at all unless it is brought to life by non-linguistic signs.

The first major work in Sino-Western comparative semiotics, Parallels, Interactions, and Illuminations is a trans-disciplinary and intercultural effort that makes intellectual connections not only across diverse academic fields but also between Chinese and Western theories of the sign.

Based on Peirce's Semiotic and Pragmatism, Ehrat offers a novel approach to cinematic meaning in three central areas: narrative enunciation, cinematic world appropriation, and cinematic perception.

The author of the widely acclaimed Morphology of the Folktale has written an original, comprehensive, and exciting study on how humour works, and on everything you wanted to know about the genre, in a clear, approachable, and insightful manner.

By examining the parallel worlds of media and public opinion, Power of Scandal uses an alternative heuristic for understanding mass communication that is both rigorous and sophisticated.

This updated second edition of Signs combines some of Sebeok?s most important essays with a new general introduction, introductory passages at the outset of each chapter, a glossary, and brief biographies of the major semioticians.

Ubersfeld show how formal analysis can enrich the work of theatre practioners and offers a reading of the symbolic structures of stage space and time as well as opening up mulitple possibilities for interpreting a play's line of action.

Danesi studies the culture, its symbols, myths, and problems of teenage culture as both a serious academic and a parent needing to understand.

Semiotics Unbounded offers a new and original survey of the science of signs, evaluating it in relation to the problems of our time, not only of a scientific order, but also the problems concerning everyday social life.

This compact, practical research manual that will help students, scholars, and general readers alike unlock the significance of the terminology, concepts, and historical movements of semiotics and related fields.

Focusing on analogical sensing, rather than digital reasoning, Merrell argues that human sensation and cognition should be thought of in terms of continually changing signs that can be accounted for in terms of topological forms.

Fusing semiotics, narratology, stylistics, and literary and cultural theory with one of the only English-language studies on Greimas, this important work offers an original and thought-provoking contribution to studies of literature and semiotics.

Based on the premise that deconstruction and demystification are a necessary counterforce to 'shared myths', Tochon offers a provocative assessment of mass educational concepts and teacher education, proposing a rethinking of pedagogy in general.

Using the semiotic theory of American philosopher Charles S. Peirce, Johansen applies psychoanalysis, psychology, literary hermeneutics, literary history, Habermasian communication, and discourse theory to literature, and, in the process, redefines it.

This compact, practical research manual that will help students, scholars, and general readers alike unlock the significance of the terminology, concepts, and historical movements of semiotics and related fields.

Andrews grapples with Lotman's difficult, sometimes contradictory, theories of human language, perception, and memory, offering semioticians the opportunity to read the first sustained study of Lotman's work in English.

The Mysterious Barricades criticizes the misconceptions of post-structuralism and then moves on to the reclamation of criticism as a philosophical activity concerned with how words work.

C.S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was an American philosopher and mathematician whose influence has been enormous on the field of semiotics. Merrell uses Pierce's theories to reply to the all-important question: "What and where is meaning?"