Sep 4, 2024 1:45 PM
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Compabilities and Tensions between Pragmatism and Structuralism

Compabilities and Tensions between Pragmatism and Structuralism

Panel:
[PA] General Semiotics: Blending Structuralism and Pragmatism (Jamin Pelkey, Tyler James Bennett, Ľudmila Bennett)
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Speaker:
Frederik Stjernfelt
Aalborg University Copenhagen
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Two main schools of semiotics are those emerging from American Pragmatism and European Structuralism, respectively. The latter enjoyed prominence in the 1960-70’s based on linguistic structuralism and its descendants in French structuralism such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, and Algirdas Julien Greimas; the former have grown stronger with the increasing interest in Charles Peirce’s work after WWII. Is it possible to articulate a common ground between the two? This noble aim requires at least two things: to chart the compabilities between the traditions as well as the tensions between them, harder to reconciliate. Structuralism comes about as a further development of linguistics, while pragmatism comes about as a further development of logic – a fact which does not necessarily imply incompability. Comparing Greimas and Peirce, this paper argues that the core ideas of narratology in Greimas’ theory is a strong contender for compability with pragmatism. Tensions between the two, on the other hand, include the anti-realism of much structuralism (studying “worlds of paper”, as Greimas would have it) as against the realism of much pragmatism (extreme Scholastic realism, as Peirce would say). Another tension is the exclusive focus on human semiotics in structuralism vs. the more general approach of pragmatism, opening towards biosemiotics. This paper aims at giving an overview over such compabilities and tensions between the two currents.

Location:
2.158 room, WLS (Dobra 55 street)

Explore Sessions

02
September
9:30
-
10:30
Location:
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
Congress events
Opening Ceremony

September 2, 2024
Congress events
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
02
September
10:30
-
11:30
Location:
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
From Signs of Language to Semioses of Life: Paradigms and Turns in Global Semiotics

September 2, 2024
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
02
September
11:30
-
12:15
Location:
Australia Hall, WLS (Dobra 55 street)
Catering
Coffee break [catering]

September 2, 2024
Catering
Australia Hall, WLS (Dobra 55 street)
Frederik Stjernfelt