Very little in the wild, wooly world of the web arouses my ire quite so much as the misapplication of “science” visa vis “philosophy.” It is common in this era for the socially-indoctrinated habit of leaning heavily upon all that is labeled “scientific.” The S-word lends an air of legitimacy to a topic that discourages criticism from those who do not consider themselves to be “scientists.” I feel that this is intellectually disingenuous in regards to public understanding of a subject, and ultimately leads to (or stems from, but certainly co-occurs with) self-deception.
The “science of signs” or Semiology is one such topic. It consists largely of attempts to create systems (some orderly, some not-so-much) around language. By definition this is philology, and one would expect a scientist concerned with the workings of language would heed such things. Semiology aggrandizes itself by dipping a little deeper into what has typically been regarded as the domain of philosophy by expanding philology into what has been (since the late 1800’s) a popular subject for philosophers: signs.
By a “sign” here we mean something that represents something (widely thought of as something other than the sign itself). As an example, the word “cat” would be a sign, with signifies an actual “thing” out there (the nature of the word “cat” and the “thing” represented is highly debatable). The signifier is not necessarily the thing signified, and frequently is not. An excellent example would be a very literal one: A sign that reads “restroom” is not, itself a restroom. Instead it indicates something when interpreted by an observer, namely that there is a restroom nearby (the sign may feature an indication of direction towards the restroom, or may be mounted on the door to the restroom). When one feels the need to use a restroom, such signs can be most helpful in avoiding discomfort or embarrassment.
How does one apply science to the relationships between the signifier, the signified, and the sign itself? Empirically? Mathematically? Direct observation and mathematical logic are typically inferred when one claims “science” as the nature of his endeavor. Yet the science of signs relies upon the same mechanisms that philosophers have used for thousands of years: reference to prior literary works, a touch of abstraction, hopes for a dash of inspiration, and a lot of long-windedness.
This article will likely not influence many (if any at all), but please, if you consider yourself to be engaged in a “science,” either in the development or application of it, do not take too seriously the supposed facts and laws that govern things. Science remains a realm of theories, though we’ve been conditioned to believe otherwise.
As a footnote, you can blame boxesandarrows.com for this outburst on my part. The introduction to their recent upselling of semiotics was worded in such as was as to infuriate a small, noisy part of my personality. The primary culprit was the following sentence: “The disciplines involved in semiotics include linguistics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, literature, aesthetic and media theory, psychoanalysis and education.” Each of the disciplines listed in that assertion (with the exception of aethetics which is itself a philosophical discipline) spinoffs of philosophical disciplines, as are most sciences. Ever wonder why we would assign the “Ph.D.” to the name of somebody of great learning in a given field?