The Semiotic Range of Philosophy

Abstract

Recent logical, epistemological and value-theoretical contributions to the general field of philosophy seem to confirm the impression that for all of them the ultimate referents of any symbolic or meaning context (of rules, laws or norms) are always those “units of reality” which, traditionally, have been called “particulars” and, more recently, “events”. However otherwise classified, events appear to enter into either one or all three of the following contexts:

• (1) a formal sign-context: as the physical vehicles of symbols in language;

• (2) an empirical sign-context: as the referents of what a language names, i.e. the non-conventional events, designated by the events which are the vehicles of the conventional language-symbols;

• (3) a pragmatic sign-context: as the referents of value-statements; i.e., of such properties of (either conventional or unconventional) events as have bearing upon human concerns.