The book is the first comprehensive encyclopedia of Western ideograms ever published, unique in its search systems, that allows the reader to locate a symbol by defining just four of its visual characteristics. It is about our graphic cultural heritage as expressed in subway graffiti, fighter jets' signs and emergency exit symbols. It contains 2,300 symbols, 1,600 articles and streamlined reference functions. Ideogram scarved in mammoth teeth by Cro-Magnon men 25,000 years ago, put on modern household appliances by their manufacturers or sprayed on walls by political activists, are all presented in dictionary form for easy reference. Symbols cover current designs used in advertising, logotyping, architecture, design, decoration, religion, politics and astrology.

Why was Leibniz so deeply interested in signs and language? What role does this interest play in his philosophical system? In the essays here collected, Marcello Dascal attempts to tackle these questions from different angles. They bring to light aspects of Leibniz's work on these and related issues which have been so far neglected. As a rule they take as their starting point Leibniz's early writings (some unpublished, some only available in Latin) on characters and cognition, on definition, on truth, on memory, on grammar, on the specific problems of religious discourse, and so on. An effort has been made to relate the views expressed in these writings both to Leibniz' more mature views, and to the conceptions prevailing in his time, as well as in preceding and following periods. The common thread running through all the essays is to what extent language and signs, in their most varied forms, are related to cognitive processes, according to Leibniz and his contemporaries.

"Laura Lynne Jackson is a psychic medium and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Light Between Us. She possesses an incredible gift--the ability to communicate with loved ones who have passed, convey messages of love and healing, and impart a greater understanding of our interconnectedness. Though her abilities are exceptional, they are not unique, and that is the message at the core of this book. Understanding "the secret language of the universe" is a gift available to all. As we learn to ask for and recognize signs from the other side, we will start to find meaning where before there was only confusion, we will see light in the darkness. We may decide to change paths, push toward love, pursue joy, and engage with life in a whole new way. In Signs, Jackson is able to bring the mystical into the everyday. She relates stories of people who have experienced these uncanny revelations and instances of unexplained synchronicity, as well as those drawn from her own experience. There's the producer whose lost child appears to her as a deer that approaches her unhesitatingly at a highway rest stop; the name tag of an ER nurse that lets a terrified wife know that her husband will be okay; the Elvis Presley song that arrives at the exact time of her own father's passing; and many others. This is a book that is both inspiring and practical, deeply comforting and wonderfully motivational in asking us to see beyond ourselves to a more magnificent universal design"--

C.S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was an American philosopher and mathematician whose influence has been enormous on the field of semiotics. Merrell uses Pierce's theories to reply to the all-important question: "What and where is meaning?"

[Note: Picture of Peirce available] Charles S. Peirce's Philosophy of Signs Essays in Comparative Semiotics Gérard Deledalle Peirce's semiotics and metaphysics compared to the thought of other leading philosophers. "This is essential reading for anyone who wants to find common ground between the best of American semiotics and better-known European theories. Deledalle has done more than anyone else to introduce Peirce to European audiences, and now he sends Peirce home with some new flare." -- Nathan Houser, Director, Peirce Edition Project Charles S. Peirce's Philosophy of Signs examines Peirce's philosophy and semiotic thought from a European perspective, comparing the American's unique views with a wide variety of work by thinkers from the ancients to moderns. Parts I and II deal with the philosophical paradigms which are at the root of Peirce's new theory of signs, pragmatic and social. The main concepts analyzed are those of "sign" and "semiosis" and their respective trichotomies; formally in the case of "sign," in time in the case of semiosis. Part III is devoted to comparing Peirce's theory of semiotics as a form of logic to the work of other philosophers, including Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Frege, Philodemus, Lady Welby, Saussure, Morris, Jakobson, and Marshall McLuhan. Part IV compares Peirce's "scientific metaphysics" with European metaphysics. Gérard Deledalle holds the Doctorate in Philosophy from the Sorbonne. A research scholar at Columbia University and Attaché at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, he has also been Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Philosophy Department of the universities of Tunis, Perpignan, and Libreville. In 1990 he received the Herbert W. Schneider Award "for distinguished contributions to the understanding and development of American philosophy. In 2001, he was appointed vice-president of the Charles S. Peirce Society. Contents Introduction -- Peirce Compared: Directions for Use Part I -- Semeiotic as Philosophy Peirce's New Philosophical Paradigms Peirce's Philosophy of Semeiotic Peirce's First Pragmatic Papers (1877-1878) The Postscriptum of 1893 Part II -- Semeiotic as Semiotics Sign: Semiosis and Representamen -- Semiosis and Time Sign: The Concept and Its Use -- Reading as Translation Part III -- Comparative Semiotics Semiotics and Logic: A Reply to Jerzy Pelc Semeiotic and Greek Logic: Peirce and Philodemus Semeiotic and Significs: Peirce and Lady Welby Semeiotic and Semiology: Peirce and Saussure Semeiotic and Semiotics: Peirce and Morris Semeiotic and Linguistics: Peirce and Jakobson Semeiotic and Communication: Peirce and McLuhan Semeiotic and Epistemology: Peirce, Frege, and Wittgenstein Part IV -- Comparative Metaphysics Gnoseology -- Perceiving and Knowing: Peirce, Wittgenstein, and Gestalttheorie Ontology -- Transcendentals "of" or "without" Being: Peirce versus Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas Cosmology -- Chaos and Chance within Order and Continuity: Peirce between Plato and Darwin Theology -- The Reality of God: Peirce's Triune God and the Church's Trinity Conclusion -- Peirce: A Lateral View

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism is not verificationism; rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science.

The book presents a new science of semiotic linguistics. The goal of semiotic linguistics is to discover what characterizes language as an intermediary between the mind and reality so that language creates the picture of reality we perceive. The cornerstone of semiotic linguistics is the discovery and resolution of language antinomies ­-contradictions between two apparently reasonable principles or laws. Language antinomies constitute the essence of language, and hence must be studied from both linguistic and philosophical points of view. The basic language antinomy which underlies all other antinomies is the antinomy between meaning and information. Both generative and classical linguistic theories are unaware of the need to distinguish between meaning and information. By confounding these notions they are unable to discover language antinomies and confine their research to naturalistic description of superficial language phenomena rather than the quest for the essence of language.(Series A)