Semiology Glossary

Illocutionary Act - a sentence that contains the performance of an action, usually recognized institutionally or socially (in the very act of pronouncing the relevant words in appropriate circumstances - "I baptize you Peter", the priest performs the ritual of...

Imaginary Order or Register is a term used by Jacques Lacan to denote one of the three orders (or domains) of human subjective experience. The other two orders are the symbolic and the real order. The imaginary order (often called simply imaginary) is pre-Oedipal,...

Immediate Knowledge is a term often used as a synonym for intuitive knowledge;  knowledge, not mediated by any factor (e.g. signs). In a colloquial sense, intuition is a reminder, an instruction. But after the great influence exerted by Charles Peirce and some others,...

The use established by Charles Peirce is widely accepted by modern semioticians to denote a specific type of sign or sign function in which the sign vehicle provides its object through an actual or physical connection. For example, the wind vane is an indexical sign,...

Individual is a term often used in opposition to a subject; likewise, a term used by Charles Peirce in a sense too close to the etymology of the word individual, singular (that which is indivisible or which cannot be decomposed into anything simpler or less). Let's...

Induction is probabilistic inference. In an inductive argument (syllogism), the premise or proof leads to a conclusion more likely, while the deductive argument presuppositions come to the fore, presenting the conclusion as true by necessity. Charles Peirce emphasizes...

Infelicitous, Infelicity is a term used by John L. Austin to denote the way in which a sentence other than a constative one (a sentence that makes sense to ask whether it is true or false) is inappropriate, undirected, or absurd. If I say that Thomas Jefferson was the...

Inference is the process by which a statement is derived from one or more statements; the form in accordance with which such a process arises. If you know that A is older than B and in turn, B is older than C, you can conclude that A is older than C. The process of...

Inquiry is a process undertaken to discover the truth; conversation, an exchange undertaken for its own purposes, refusing to acknowledge any with "non-conversational tensions." Peirce defines Inquiry as broadly as any project in which doubt is overcome and a state of...

Intentionality is a term used to denote the fact that consciousness in all its manifestations is always described as consciousness or awareness of something. This sign of the essence of consciousness is emphasized by all phenomenologists.