Current issues in pictorial semiotics. Lecture two: The Psychology and Archaeology of Semiosis.

In this lecture, we will discuss the emergence of the semiotic function, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, and we will consider the part played by the picture sign in this development. In order to demonstrate that pictures are indeed signs, we will explore the basic elements of the sign presupposed but never put into focus neither by Saussure nor by Peirce. Indeed, explorations in the psychology and phenomenology of perception will turn out to be necessary, in order to characterise the sign in opposition to more elementary meanings, such as those given to us in the common sense world, variously characterized as the “lifeworld”, the “natural world”, or the world of “ecological physics”.