UDC

164.02:“652”+1(091)

Authors

Konstantin D. Skripnik
Institute of Philosophy and Social and Political Studies, Southern Federal University
116 per. Dnepropetrovskiy, Rostov-on-Don, 344065, Russian Federation;
e-mail: skd53@mail.ru

Abstract

In spite of the fact that semiotic research is widespread, semiotics is still looking for its identity. Considering that semiotic ideas are much older than semiotics itself, this article studies the emergence of semiotic ideas in ancient philosophy. It is known that such philosophers as Philo, Zeno, Theophrastus and Philodemus wrote special treatises on signs. The semiotic ideas of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Epicureans are in the focus of this article. For Plato, the key question is the possibility of knowledge of things through naming (or signification in the wide sense of the word). In Aristotle’s works, the analysis of the role of sign occupies an intermediate place between logic and rhetoric; for him the sign plays an instrumental role in discourses and cognitive processes. Aristotle gives a functional definition of the sign, supported by the Stoics. The sign relation is understood by the Stoics as a triad including two material matters and an incorporeal component, known as λεϰτóν and acting as the antecedent of the conditional. The Stoics consider the sign relation as sign-inference and divide signs into two types according to their role in the process of cognition. For the Epicureans, signs play an essential role in transforming the known and obvious into the unknown, the sign being of dyadic nature. The Stoic and the Epicurean interpretations of sign are roots of the two models of sign in contemporary semiotics. The author of this article asserts that an adequate reconstruction of the history of semiotic ideas is possible only in the framework of the history of philosophy.

Keywords

semiotics, sign relation, naming, sign classification, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, Epicurean school

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