Existential Semiotics [Hardcover]

Existential semiotics involves an a priori state of signs and their fixation into objective entities. These essays define this new philosophical field.

A fascinating series of essays seeking to define the new philosophical dimension of semiotics.

Eero Tarasti holds the Chair of Musicology at the University of Helsinki. One of the world's leading semioticians, he is founder and President of the Semiotic Society of Finland, Director of the International Semiotics Institute at Imatra, and author of numerous articles and books, including A Theory of Musical Semiotics (Indiana University Press).

Tarasti's explanations, analyses and comments of sign processes in art and everyday life might seem amazing at first sight. He is not afraid of heavily speculative and heavily metaphysical thinking. . . . [he] wants to show us that there can be more involved in sign processes than pure conventionality, maybe even something that is beyond the grasp of the Semiotician.34 2004

Contents

Part One: Philosophical Reflections

On the Paths of Existential Semiotics
Signs and Transcendence
Endo-/Exogenic Signs, Fields, and Worlds
Understanding, Misunderstandings, and Self-Understanding
Signs of Anxiety; or the Problem of Semiotic Subject

Part Two: In the Forest of Symbols

From Aesthetics to Ethics
The Structural and Existential Styles in 20th Century Arts
On the Authenticity and Inauthenticity of Art

Part Three: The Social and Cultural Field of Signs

On Post-colonial Semiosis
Semiotics of Landscapes
Poetics of Place
Walt Disney and Americanness
...and you find the right one
Senses, Valuesand Media