Semiotics
General concepts Biosemiotics · Code Computational semiotics Connotation · Decode Denotation · Encode · Lexical Literary semiotics · Modality Representation (arts) · Salience Semeiotic · Semiosis · Semiosphere Semiotic elements & sign classes Sign · Sign relational complex Sign relation · Umwelt · Value
Methods Commutation test Paradigmatic analysis Syntagmatic analysis
Semioticians Charles Peirce · Thomas Sebeok Ferdinand de Saussure Mikhail Bakhtin · Jakob von Uexküll Umberto Eco · Louis Hjelmslev Algirdas Julien Greimas Roman Jakobson · Juri Lotman Roland Barthes · Marcel Danesi John Deely · Roberta Kevelson Eero Tarasti · Kalevi Kull Michael Silverstein
Related topics Structuralism Aestheticization Postmodernity
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Semeiotic is a spelling variant of a word used by Charles Sanders Peirce, likewise as "Semiotic," "Semiotics", and "Semeotic", to refer to his philosophical logic, which he cast as the study of signs, or semiotic. Some, not all, Peircean scholars have used "semeiotic" to refer to distinctly Peircean semiotic; and it is seldom if ever used in reference to semiotics more broadly. For more on Peirce's theory, see the first two links above. The remainder of this article is on the scholarly issue of the spelling of the word and on how that issue has become connected to the question of how strongly the Peircean semiotic theory should be distinguished from the rest of that which is currently called "semiotics".

[edit] The smaller and larger issues

The Peirce scholar and editor Max H. Fisch^[1] claimed in 1978^[2] that "Semeiotic" was Peirce's own preferred rendering of Locke’s Σημιωτική. That spelling has been used by some Peirce scholars to distinguish Peirce's semiotic from others, especially from those more in the "dyadic" Saussurian tradition (signifier, signified), formerly called "Semiology", with its foundation in linguistics and its emphasis on language and symbol. Peircean semiotic is triadic (sign, object, interpretant), and is conceived of as philosophical logic studied in terms of signs that are not always linguistic or artificial, and sign processes, modes of inference, and the inquiry process in general, with emphases not only on symbols but also on signs that are semblances (icons) and signs that are signs by being factually connected (indices) to their objects.

Thomas L. Short in his 2007 book Peirce's Theory of Signs^[3], says in a footnote on p. xi in the Preface, "I use ‘semeiotic’, in Peirce’s occasional spelling, for his theory or theories of signs, and the more usual ‘semiotic’ for that movement which originated in Europe ... independently of Peirce and that later appropriated him, with confusion all around."

John Deely has argued against Fisch's claim about Peirce's preference for the spelling and singular form "Semeiotic"^[4]. Deely cites Peirce's use not only of "Semeiotic" but also "Semeiotics", "Semiotic", and "Semeotic", which last Peirce once stated might be the best rendering. (The spelling "semeiotic" gained some currency as a result of Fisch's use of it, but Short does not cite Fisch's claim as justification.)

Short aims not only to distinguish Peircean semiotic from Saussure's semiology but, furthermore, to separate it from much of current semiotics. Short's 2007 preface begins: "Peirce’s theory of signs, or semeiotic, misunderstood by so many, has gotten in amongst the wrong crowd. It has been taken up by an interdisciplinary army of ‘semioticians’ whose views and aims are antithetical to Peirce’s own, and meanwhile it has been shunned by those philosophers who are working in Peirce’s own spirit on the very problems to which his semeiotic was addressed." Short means philosophers in the analytic tradition. Short continues, "Those problems are two: to construct a naturalistic but nonreductive account of the human mind, and to explain and defend the claim that the sciences are objective in their mode of inquiry and in fact yield knowledge of an independently existing reality."

Deely, in his paper cited above, responds that Peirce wrote in 1908 of hoping for his semiotics to have "future explorers" — by whom, says Deely, Peirce couldn't have meant the pioneers of philosophy's analytic school who already surrounded Peirce. Deely adds that they could hardly be today's analytic philosophers, to whom he ascribes tendencies against philosophical realism and toward a reduction of sign action to animals' purposive behaviors (he may be accusing Short himself of that reduction), whereas Peirce was a Scholastic realist and moreover saw (a) logic as (formal) semiotics, (b) semiosis as sign action (the irreducibly tri-relative influence from object through sign to interpretant sign), and (c) semiotics (logic) as proving pragmaticism, "not the reverse". Deely: "With Fisch, in originally creating the myth that Peirce preferred 'Semeiotic', the claim for the preference was innocuous. But as Short takes up and extends the myth, the motivation ... [is] aimed ... from the start to cut Peirce off from those very 'future explorers' who take up the doctrine of signs centered on semeiosis as Peirce understood it to be: the action of signs, not the behavior of animals when using signs."

It is not yet clear whether many other scholars intend to join the argument.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Max Fisch compiled Peirce-related bibliographical supplements in 1952, 1964, 1966, 1974; was consulting editor on the 1977 microfilm of Peirce's published works and on the Comprehensive Bibliography associated with it; was among the main editors of the first five volumes (published 1981-1993) Writings of Charles S. Peirce; and wrote a number of published articles on Peirce, many collected in 1986 in Peirce, Semeiotic, and Pragmatism, Ketner and Kloesel, eds., Indiana University Press: catalog page, Bloomington, IN, 480 pages. See Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography.
2. ^ Fisch, Max H. (1978), “Peirce’s General Theory of Signs” in Sight, Sound, and Sense, ed. T.A. Sebeok. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 31-70.
3. ^ Short, T.L. (2007), Peirce's Theory of Signs, Cambridge University Press: catalog page. See publisher's description, edition information, table of contents, and Short's preface at Cambridge PDF Eprint.
4. ^ Deely, John (October 2008 draft), "Clearing the Mists of a Terminological Mythology concerning Peirce", Arisbe PDF Eprint.

[edit] Literature

• Deely, John
  • (2000), The Red Book: The Beginning of Postmodern Times or: Charles Sanders Peirce and the Recovery of Signum, 79 pages, text prepared for the Metaphysical Club of the University of Helsinki. U Helsinki Commens EprintPDF (578 KiB).
  • (2000), The Green Book: The Impact of Semiotics on Philosophy, 65 pages, prepared for the First Annual Hommage à Oscar Parland at the University of Helsinki, U Helsinki Commens EprintPDF (571 KiB).
  • (2003), "On the Word Semiotics, Formation and Origins", Semiotica 146.1/4, 1–50.
  • (2004a), Why Semiotics?, Legas: catalog page, Ottawa, Canada.
  • (2004b), "'Σημειον' to 'Sign' by Way of 'Signum': On the Interplay of Translation and Interpretation in the Establishment of Semiotics", Semiotica 148–1/4, 187–227.
  • (2006), "On 'Semiotics' as Naming the Doctrine of Signs", Semiotica 158.1/4 (2006), 1–33.
  • (2008 draft), "Clearing the Mists of a Terminological Mythology concerning Peirce", Arisbe PDF Eprint.

• Peirce, C.S., Bergman, Mats (ed.) & Paavola, Sami (ed.), Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms, University of Helsinki, Finland. Peirce's own definitions and characterizations, often many per term across the decades. Eprint
  • Semeiotic, Semiotic, Semeotic, Semeiotics

• Romeo, Luigi (1977), "The Derivation of 'Semiotics' through the History of the Discipline", Semiosis, v. 6 pp. 37–50. Retraces evolution and usage of term "Semiotics" from antiquity to Locke and on up to the late 1800s when Peirce first employed it.

• Sebeok, T.A. (1976), Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN. Continues the story (see Romeo, Luigi, above) into the 20th Century.

• Short, T.L. (2007), Peirce's Theory of Signs, Cambridge University Press: catalog page. See publisher's description, edition information, table of contents, and Short's preface at Cambridge PDF Eprint.
  • List of Short's articles on Peirce.
  • Google search on all variants of T. L. Short's name in connection with Peirce.