Introduction

First published in 1987, this book is an attempt to re-establish semiotic on the basis of principles consistent with its past history, rather than the cultural semiotics of the European tradition, and especially with the guiding ideas of Peirce and Morris.

The book is divided into two parts, with the first two chapters providing the background for the more systematic discussions of signs at different levels taken up in the last three.

In the final chapter, issues that have become the focus of recent philosophy of language regarding the reference, meaning, and truth of sentences are discussed in light of the analogies to more primitive signs developed in the preceding two chapters.