"Arche-writing" (French: archi-écriture) is a term used by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his attempt to re-orient the relationship between speech and writing. Derrida argued that as far back as Plato, the speech had been always given priority over writing. In...
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Architectonic
A term used by Immanuel Kant and adopted by Charles Sanders Peirce, which describes a systematic rather than a random manner in which scientific research should be conducted. It may be suggested that we do not know enough to construct a system of knowledge. But this...
Architecture
The art of building with a preliminary plan is not just to create shelter, but to convey meaning. Very rarely do purely human activities or artifacts serve one purpose or perform one function, they are usually multifunctional. Clothes, cars, houses, and cities -...
Argument
A series of messages in which one or more preconditions are presented as evidence for or in confirmation of another message (conclusion); any thought process whose tendency is to produce belief. In Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of signs, the argument is defined as a...
Argumentation
A term used by Charles S. Peirce to denote a formal or explicit argument. "Argument is any thought process aimed at producing a certain belief. Argumentation is an argument that develops on clearly formulated premises" (CP 6.456). In short, argumentation is the...
Articulation
From Latin articulus, meaning joint or divided. In the most general sense - any process of division or segmentation; in linguistics, articulation usually means double articulation, a feature often attributed to being unique to human speech. Ferdinand de Saussure held...
Assertion
The act of pointing out a proposition as if it were true, i.e., as if it is consistent with belief. Insisting that a proposition contains an answer to an inference if it is false is a kind of statement. Charles Sanders Peirce goes further by suggesting that assertion...
Assertory
A term used by Charles S. Peirce to denote the nature or status of an assertion. According to Peirce, "ordinary words from a set of languages are assertive. They begin to say something as soon as they are attached to an object. If you write "glass" on a chest, one...
Associative
Synonymous with what is now commonly called paradigmatic. Associative and paradigmatic are terms used to denote the way in which words or concepts relate to each other in discourse; Syntagmatic, on the other hand, is used to identify differences between such concepts....
Aufhebung
A German word meaning reconciliation of extremes; moment or phase of mediation; a culmination of the dialectical process. Related: Dialectic
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Adequacy
Three realities or degrees of the theory, moving respectively from one minimum requirement for reporting (observing) adequacy to the ultimate goal of explanatory adequacy through the mediation of descriptive adequacy. This three-threshold difference can best be...
Adequatio
Latin word meaning equivalence, equality, or conformity. Unification is a process in which one thing is done to be the same as another. In medieval thought, the truth was defined in terms of adequatio. According to Thomas Aquinas, truth is adequatio rei et...
Ad Hoc
A Latin term meaning "for this", used as a definition to describe something (such as a committee or hypothesis), specifically intended to solve a particular problem, result, or desire. If an administrator at a university organizes a committee tasked with approving...
Ad Hominem
A Latin expression commonly used as an abbreviation of argumentum ad hominem. One of the meanings is an argument that applies specifically to a person (for example, "If you maintain or assume this, you cannot consistently defend another position"), by which a person...
Adjuvant
A French term, that means helper. The term was used by A.J. Greimas to denote something that originally had an actant role attributed but was later classified as an auxilliant of the same significance.
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A completely and truly free course on Semiology (Semiotics). Learn about the meaning of signs, how and why did the field emerged. What is the relationship between the street signs and the signs that we use every day - words.
