The Semiotic Revolution: Signs as Construction
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Ferdinand de Saussure: The Posthumous Influence
Ferdinand de Saussure died in 1913; his Cours de linguistique générale was reconstructed in 1916 from lecture notes. But his influence unfolds only in the 1960s, when structuralism becomes the dominant intellectual current.
Saussure’s first revolutionary thesis: the sign is arbitrary. The traditional view was that words “name” things, as Adam gave names to the animals. Saussure shows that the relation between the sound-image (signifier) and the concept (signified) is conventional, not natural.
The same concept - say, the tree - is called “Baum” in German, “tree” in English, “ki” in Japanese. Completely different sounds, the same concept. There is no “natural” connection between sound and meaning. Meaning is not discovered but constructed - through social convention.
Saussure’s second thesis: language is a system of differences. Meaning arises not through positive properties but through distinctions. The word “tree” does not mean through some intrinsic quality but because it differs from “shrub,” “flower,” “stone.”
This is especially visible with color words. The physical spectrum is a continuum of wavelengths. But language cuts this continuum into discrete categories: red, orange, yellow. Different languages cut it differently: Russian has two fundamentally distinct words for light blue (goluboj) and dark blue (sinij) - two different colors, not shades of the same one. Language constructs categories rather than depicting them.
Saussure’s third thesis: synchrony before diachrony. Traditional linguistics was historical: how do languages develop? Saussure says: structure matters more. How does language function as a system? The relations between elements are more important than their origin.
The proximity to Hegel is obvious. Hegel says in the Logic: “Something is only through its other” - determination is negation. Saussure says: a sign means only through difference from other signs. But there is also a difference: in Hegel, difference is sublated into a higher unity. In Saussure, the difference remains - no synthesis, only structural relations.
Roman Jakobson: The Six Functions of Language
Roman Jakobson, a Russian émigré in the United States, developed Saussure further. His analysis of the six language functions is fundamental for understanding communication.
The referential function relates to the world: “It’s raining” describes a state of affairs. The emotive function expresses feelings: “Oh, how beautiful!” The conative function appeals to the listener: “Come here!” The phatic function maintains contact: “Can you hear me?” The metalinguistic function reflects on language itself: “‘Tree’ is a noun.” The poetic function focuses on form: rhyme, rhythm, sound.
The point: reference is only one function among many. Much communication is not referential - it builds relationships, expresses emotions, maintains contact. The idea that language “depicts the world” is far too narrow.
This differentiation corresponds to Heinrichs’ levels of reflection: the referential function corresponds to object-reference (level 1), the emotive and conative to self-reference and other-reference (levels 2-3), the metalinguistic to metacommunicative reference (level 4). What Jakobson observes, Heinrichs systematizes.
Charles Sanders Peirce: The Triadic Theory of Signs
Peirce, an American philosopher of the nineteenth century, was rediscovered in the 1960s. His theory of signs is more complex than Saussure’s.
Saussure thinks dyadically: sign = signifier + signified. Peirce thinks triadically: sign = representamen + object + interpretant. What is decisive is the interpretant: the sign does not mean “in itself” but for someone. Meaning is processual - it arises in the process of interpretation.
Peirce’s three sign types have become famous. The index is a sign as trace: smoke indicates fire because both are physically connected. The icon is a sign as resemblance: the photograph resembles the person depicted. The symbol is a sign as convention: the word “tree” means tree through cultural agreement.
Peirce is a pragmatist: meaning is action-related. What we do with signs determines what they mean. And meaning is fallibilistic: interpretation can change, can turn out to be wrong. “Unlimited semiosis” - signs generating new signs, which generate further signs - has no definitive end.