Victoria Welby (1837–1912) dedicated her research to the relationship between signs and values. She exchanged ideas with important exponents of the language and sign sciences, such as Charles S. Peirce and Charles S. Ogden. She examined themes she believed crucially important both in the use of signs and in reflection on signs. But Welby's research can also be understood in ideal dialogue with authors she could never have met in real life, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Susanne Langer, and Genevieve Vaughan. Welby contends that signifying cannot be constrained to any one system, type of sign, language, field of discourse, or area of experience. On the contrary, it is ever more developed, enhanced, and rigorous, the more it develops across different fields, disciplines, and areas of experience. For example, to understand meaning, Welby evidences the advantage of translating it into another word even from the same language or resorting to metaphor to express what would otherwise be difficult to conceive. Welby aims for full awareness of the expressive potential of signifying resources. Her reflections make an important contribution to problems connected with communication, expression, interpretation, translation, and creativity.

Explains terms and concepts in philosophy, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, cinema, and women's studies, and identifies important individuals in the field.

This book introduces and provides commentary on a selection of published and unpublished works by Victoria Welby and exponents of the Signific Movement in the Netherlands. Beyond offering an important contribution to the reconstruction of a neglected phase in the history of ideas, it evidences the theoretical topicality of significs, in particular the focus on the relation of signs to value, meaning, and understanding, on verbal and nonverbal behavior, and on language and communication.

Peirce Society.ContentsIntroduction--Peirce Compared: Directions for UsePart I--Semeiotic as PhilosophyPeirce's New Philosophical ParadigmsPeirce's Philosophy of SemeioticPeirce's First Pragmatic Papers (1877-1878)The Postscriptum of 1893Part II--Semeiotic as SemioticsSign: Semiosis and Representamen--Semiosis and TimeSign: The Concept and Its Use--Reading as TranslationPart III--Comparative SemioticsSemiotics and Logic: A Reply to Jerzy PelcSemeiotic and Greek Logic: Peirce and PhilodemusSemeiotic and Significs: Peirce and Lady WelbySemeiotic and Semiology: Peirce and SaussureSemeiotic and Semiotics: Peirce and MorrisSemeiotic and Linguistics: Peirce and JakobsonSemeiotic and Communication: Peirce and McLuhanSemeiotic and Epistemology: Peirce, Frege, and WittgensteinPart IV--Comparative MetaphysicsGnoseology--Perceiving and Knowing: Peirce, Wittgenstein, and GestalttheorieOntology--Transcendentals "ofor "withoutBeing: Peirce versus Aristotle and Thomas AquinasCosmology--Chaos and Chance within Order and Continuity: Peirce between Plato and DarwinTheology--The Reality of God: Peirce's Triune God and the Church's TrinityConclusion--Peirce: A Lateral View

"" --Thomas Sebeok""Nöth's handbook is an outstanding encyclopedia that provides first-rate information on many facets of sign-related studies, research results, and applications."" --Social Sciences in General.