Open AccessLotman's semiosphere, Peirce's categories, and cultural forms of life
Author(s) -
Floyd Μerrell
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
sign systems studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.17
H-Index - 7
eISSN - 1736-7409
pISSN - 1406-4243
DOI - 10.12697/sss.2001.29.2.01
Subject(s) - semiotics , interpretation (philosophy) , epistemology , overdetermination , vagueness , generality , context (archaeology) , philosophy , sociology , linguistics , psychology , history , archaeology , psychotherapist , fuzzy logic
This paper brings Lotman's semiotic space to bear on Pierce's categories of the universe's processes. Particular manifestations of cultural semiotic space within the semiosphere are qualified as inconsistent and/or incomplete, depending upon the cultural context. Inconsistency and incompleteness are of the nature of vagueness and generality respectively, that are themselves qualified in terms of overdetermination and underdetermination, the first being of the nature of the category of Firstness and the second of the nature of Thirdness. The role of Secondness is unfolded by acts of distinguishing the possibilities of Firstness into this and that, here and there, there and then, and all the distinctions that follow. Secondness, then, with respect to cultural semiotic space, gives ride to hegemony, to dominance and subservience, superordination and subordination. Commensurate with this interpretation of Secondness, the realms of overdetermination and underdetermination are labeled homogeny and heterogeny respectively. These theoretical assumptions will then be used as a modeling device providing an interpretation for various key aspects of Latin American cultures.