Semiotics as methodology and ontology

The article formulates the categories of general semiotics: sign, meaning, semiosis, layer and vector of semiosis. The purpose of the reasoning is to show the methodology of semiotic research as such, and general semiotics as ontology. The result of the reasoning is to demonstrate the semiotic circle of cognition and activity, which includes objects of perception as signs of sensory perception, objects of mind as signs of language and concepts of reason as complexly organized signs of reflexivity. The receptive and projective vectors of semiosis are introduced as direct cognition and reflexive activity respectively. The transition from cognition to activity - as intuition, organized via the models of aphorism, dialogue or system as philosophical inventions in the sense of I.I. Lapshin. The problem of the new that arises in intuition is considered as a question of the transformation of a specific semantic, syntactic or pragmatic rule in the layer of perception, mind or reason. The ontological thesis supported in the reasoning is that objects, subjects or concepts are not entities, but the rules of semiosis from the standpoint of general semiotics. By virtue of the fact that the conditions for the possibility of sign activity are the rules, by virtue of the rules constitute an objective unsigned meaning extracted by semiotic reflexivity, insofar as they objectively exist in the interaction of the environment and the subject.