Cognitive Semiotics
October 16, 2026
Yi Yuxi
Abstract Contemporary embodied cognition theories often assume the existence of a mental representation of bodily experience, without explaining how this representation emerges from pre-reflective bodily processes. This paper turns to Alfred North Whitehead’s theory of symbolic reference, developed in Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect. Whitehead distinguishes two modes of perception: causal...
Cognitive Semiotics
June 2, 2026
Francesco Verde
Abstract Investigating the semantic specificity of inner speech means addressing one of the most elusive and underexplored sides of language studies: the irreducible mark of subjectivity, long marginalised in 19th- and 20th-century comparative and structuralist approaches as a non-formalisable residue of analysis (Bergounioux. 2010. Les trois sources de la théorie de l’endophasie: phonologie,...
Cognitive Semiotics
July 14, 2021
Donna E. West
Abstract: This collection of articles by noted Peirce scholars stands at the frontiers of the discipline in expressing a primary issue which runs through Peirce’s semiotic, logic, and metaphysics – how his more mature semiotic is inextricably linked with questions of consciousness. As such, Peirce’s concept of consciousness is augmented in the following ways: intelligent agency, temporal...
Cognitive Semiotics
July 14, 2021
Donna E. West
Abstract: This account augments Peirce's concept of consciousness in two ways: 1) it highlights its double nature and 2) it explores how this two-sided consciousness advances modal logic. Double consciousness facilitates inferencing in that differences between old information and new information are noticed; logical conflicts between the two can then be explored and resolved expeditiously. This...
Cognitive Semiotics
May 1, 2018
Jordan Zlatev
63 citations
Abstract The paper rethinks a proposal for a unified cognitive semiotic framework, The Semiotic Hierarchy, in explicitly phenomenological terms, following above all the work of Merleau-Ponty. The main changes to the earlier formulation of the theory are the following. First, the claim that a general concept of meaning can be understood as the value-based relationship between the subject and the...
Cognitive Semiotics
April 1, 2009
Leon De Bruin, Sanneke De Haan
11 citations
Abstract Although the enactive approach has been very successful in explaining many basic social interactions in terms of embodied practices, there is still much work to be done when it comes to higher forms of social cognition. In this article, we discuss and evaluate two recent proposals by Shaun Gallagher and Daniel Hutto that try to bridge this ‘cognitive gap’ by appealing to the notion of...
Cognitive Semiotics
2009
Jordan Zlatev
75 citations
The Semiodc Hierarchy: Life, consciousness, signs and languageUlis article oudines a general theory of meaning, T6e SemiofU Hierardij, distiaguishes between four major levels in the otganizaäon of meanijDg: consäousness, siffi fitnction and langfuff, ^tdiete eadi of tfaese, in this Order, both rests on the previous level, and makes possible the attainment of the next This is shown to be one...
Cognitive Semiotics
September 1, 2007
Per Aage Brandt
6 citations
On Consciousness and SemiosisI will here sketch out, using a basic intuitive model, the contours of a theory of the elementary content of animal and human consciousness.This model targets consciousness as it evolved from mammals to primates to Cro-Magnons, and develops accounts of content structure in basic consciousness from simple being-awake to higher and more specifically human notions of...