The dissertation investigates the evolution of the concept of the sign from the early modern period to the present, emphasizing two key paradigms represented by John Locke and Charles Peirce. The author argues that the understanding of the sign reflects broader shifts in philosophical views on reality, cognition, and humanity, illustrating a transition from an instrumental to a constitutive approach to language.
The sign is regarded as a transdisciplinary category, integrating philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, anthropology, and cognitive sciences. It plays a critical role in representing reality, making it a vital object of philosophical study.
The research highlights key characteristics of the modern sign: representationalism, referentiality, transparency, instrumentality, atomism, dyadicity, and mentalism. In contemporary philosophy, these have been succeeded by new traits: systematicity, pragmatism, anti-representationalism, mediality, sociality, and triadicity, reflecting a move toward a dynamic and contextual understanding of the sign.
John Locke was the first modern philosopher to address the philosophy of language and introduce the concept of semiotics. The study traces the impact of his ideas on subsequent philosophy, particularly on George Berkeley and Gottfried Leibniz. Berkeley critiqued Locke’s notions of abstract ideas and material substances, proposing a functional theory of signs where they do not represent reality but constitute it through experiential connections. His doctrine of esse est percipi underscores the sign-based nature of being. Leibniz countered Locke’s empiricism with a rationalist approach, asserting that signs reflect the objective structure of reality through a pre-established harmony. These ideas laid the groundwork for the shift from representationalism to functional and structural conceptions of language.
Charles Peirce played a pivotal role in transforming modern philosophy, positioning the sign as a central tool for understanding reality, knowledge, and human experience. He developed a comprehensive semiotic system integrating logic, phenomenology, and pragmatism, ensuring the relevance of his ideas for contemporary discussions. Peirce’s semiotics critiques Locke’s mentalism and atomism, where words are seen as expressions of private ideas, proposing instead a holistic approach where meaning is formed within the context of community and practice. For Peirce, language is a process of semiosis, where words acquire meaning through interpretants and practical consequences, playing a constitutive role in cognition. In the philosophy of science, Peirce advances fallibilism, viewing knowledge as probable and continuously refined by experience. Truth, in Peirce’s philosophy, is not merely correspondence to facts but a dynamic consensus achieved by the research community through an ongoing process of semiosis and fallibilism. Peirce critiques modern philosophy for its dualism, psychologism, and foundationalism, proposing a semiotic approach with syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in place of Kantian apperception, and social semiosis instead of Lockean mentalism. The study shows how Peirce’s semiotics influences cognitive sciences, anthropology, and biosemiotics, offering a universal tool for understanding life and culture.
The novelty of the research lies in its analysis of linguistic holism as the methodological foundation of Peirce’s philosophy of language. In contrast to Locke’s atomism, Peirce views meaning as a product of a system of beliefs, social practices, and interpretants. His concept of truth as a dynamic consensus achieved through fallibilism opposes relativism, offering a normative ideal grounded in the continuous process of semiosis. Peirce’s approach to intentionality transcends mentalism, treating it as a semiotic process where meaning is formed through the interaction of sign, object, and interpretant within social practice. Peirce’s logic of relations, particularly through his theory of predicates as “chemical atoms with unsaturated bonds,” anticipates the systematicity and contextuality of meaning, influencing modern holistic theories, notably in the works of Donald Davidson and Willard Quine. The dissertation emphasizes that Peirce’s linguistic holism not only reinterprets philosophical concepts but also opens new avenues for interdisciplinary research in cognitive sciences, anthropology, and biosemiotics, providing a universal tool for analyzing meaning-making across various domains of human experience.
The research contributes to introducing Peirce’s semiotics into the Ukrainian intellectual context, where it remains underexplored. The dissertation’s materials can be applied in academic research, teaching philosophy and cultural studies, and cultural-educational activities.
