This dissertation deals with the problems and the opportunities of a semiotic approach to
perception. Is perception, seen as the ability to detect and articulate an coherent picture of the
surrounding environment, describable in semiotic terms? Is it possibile, for a discipline wary of any
attempt to reduce semiotic meaning to a psychological and naturalized issue, to come to terms with
the cognitive, automatic and genetically hard-wired specifics of our perceptive systems? In order to
deal with perceptive signs, is it necessary to modify basic assumptions in semiotics, or can we
simply extend the range of our conceptual instruments and definitions? And what if perception is a
wholly different semiotic machinery, to be considered as sui generis, but nonetheless interesting for
a general theory of semiotics?
By exposing the major ideas put forward by the main thinkers in the semiotic field, Mattia de
Bernardis gives a comprehensive picture of the theoretical situation, adding to the classical
dichotomy between structuralist and interpretative semiotics another distinction, that between
homogeneist and etherogeneist theories of perception. Homogeneist semioticians see perception as
one of many semiotic means of sign production, totally similar to the other ones, while
heterogeneist semioticians consider perceptive meaning as essentially different from normal
semiotic meaning, so much so that it requires new methods and ideas to be analyzed.
The main example of etherogeneist approach to perception in semiotic literature, Umberto Eco’s
“primary semiosis” is then presented, critically examined and eventually rejected and the
homogeneist stance is affirmed as the most promising path towards a semiotic theory of perception.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unibo.it/oai:amsdottorato.cib.unibo.it:1091 |
| Date | 16 April 2008 |
| Creators | De Bernardis, Mattia <1977> |
| Contributors | Violi, Maria Patrizia, Marmo, Costantino |
| Publisher | Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna |
| Source Sets | Università di Bologna |
| Language | Italian |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral Thesis, PeerReviewed |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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