https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301799684_Measuring_the_Aesthetic_Value_of_Historical_Urban_Skylines

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301799684_Measuring_the_Aesthetic_Value_of_Historical_Urban_Skylines

Hi. This is a good question. A provocative one. But I have to ask: what do you mean by dimension? And which semiotics are you referring to?

Hi, thanks for the question. I am referring to semiotics as a whole because of the way I connect it to aesthetics. I am rather interested in the aesthetics of "everyday life". Thus, multiple kinds of semiotics may connect with aesthetics in everyday life settings, depending on context. When I talk about "dimension" I would rather understand the idea of "semiosphere". Any suggestion might help. Thanks!

I think that the answer to your question mainly depends on what you call "semiotics".

In my own view, a semiotic system is some sort of language and semiotics, as a discipline, is the study of the signification of that language. I don't quite believe in "natural" semiotics, because they ain't languages properly speaking. If a landscape, for instance, is said to have a "signification", this must be understood in an extremely metaphoric way -- among others because in the case of a landscape, there is no intention of communication, and the signification, if any, is produced by the observer, not by the landscape itself.

The case of urban skylines has been mentioned above. This indeed may be more than a mere landscape, because it is human made: there may be some intentionality involved.

In any case, if a semiotic system is a language of some sort, your question boils down to whether this language has an aesthetic value, some would say whether it has style -- or, one might say, whether it involves art.

Semiotics evolved from a consideration of verbal language, with the explicit purpose of taking account of other forms of language. But the question that you ask could be asked also about verbal language exclusively: are there usages of verbal language without aesthetic or stylistic value? Announcements in train stations may be a case in point, but one might argue that even then, the person speaking tries to speak with some style. (The case may be different if the voice is a synthetized one.)

But the fact remains that the most important semiotic systems that form a general semiotics are artistic systems: not only litterature, but also music, painting, sculpture, architecture, etc. And all these, of course, are concerned by aesthetics.

It could be shown that some of the 19th-century discourse about aesthetics (e.g. Hegel) already is somewhat semiotic in essence.

Hi Ionut,

sorry about my delay in answering. This is due to the complexity of your question and my wish to address to it in the most precise way I can.

I agree with the answer of Mr. Meeus and would add a few points to it.

There are, indeed, many different sign systems and they have different scopes, distinct functions, and serve distinct purposes. For instance: semiotics based on structural linguistics, as in the tradition of Ferdinand de Saussure, the search for a semiological all-encompassing theory of Louis Hjelmslev, also a follower of Saussure, the semiotics of Algirdas Julien Greimas, which is very different from other semiotic systems, for it is also linguistic-structuralistic based, but is reduced to a discourse semiotics; then we have the Russian semioticians - also based on linguistics, at least at the beginning of their researches - such as Yuri Lotman (semiotics of culture) and Roman Ossipovich Jakobson -, then we have the behavioral-pragmatistic based on the Meads' theory of action, such as the semiotics of Charles Morris.

The 1960's saw the programmatic tendency of structuralism to try to explain every form human manifestation with semiological means, like we can see from the critical analysis of Roland Barthes and A.J. Greimas. At the same time, there has been the tendency of Post-Structuralism, to try to dismantle this systemic "semiologization" of everything.

The point I would add is the following: we have also forms of semiotics that are not based upon linguistics or human codified language, but appearing as a form of Logic within philosophical systems. We have, for instance, the concept of sémeiötiké, such as used by John Locke in his work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - that is, his treaty of logic (here the quote is from an edition of 1825, pp. 550). In this part of his book, he contends that the knowledge of things as they are in themselves, as well as in their manner of operation should occupy the first branch of his logic. The second branch should comprise human voluntary and rational conduct. The third branch, as he states it,

"(…) may be called Σημειωτική (sémeiötiké), or the doctrine of signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also λογική, logic; the business whereof is to consider the nature of signs the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others. For since the things the mind contemplates, are none of them, besides itself, present to the understanding, it is necessary that something else, as a sign or representation of the thing it considers, should be present to it: and these are ideas (Locke, 1825: 550)."

Whether this is outdated or not is not the question - although I myself tend to disagree with the form in which perception and formation of ideas are here announced by Locke; the high point of Locke's quote is that he recognizes the value of a theory of signs as part of his philosophical logic.

Charles S. Peirce is another example that considers semiotics - at this time he called it semeiotic - as a theory of signs which is his logic within his system of philosophy. In a quote from the Collected Papers (the first significative compendium for publishing Peirce's work, which still has many flaws), Peirce states:

"The term “logic” is unscientifically by me employed in two distinct senses. In its narrower sense, it is the science of the necessary conditions of the attainment of truth. In its broader sense, it is the science of the necessary laws of thought, or, still better (thought always taking place by means of signs), it is general semeiotic, treating not merely of truth, but also of the general conditions of signs being signs (…), also of the laws of the evolution of thought, which since it coincides with the study of the necessary conditions of the transmission of meaning by signs from mind to mind, and from one state of mind to another (…) (CP 1.444, italics are mine)."

Now, the point I am trying to make here is the following: aesthetics is, since Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten has formalized it as such, a philosophical discipline that deals with the sense-perception and inquiries upon it in the same proportion as the logic is required to survey demonstrative logical forms of inferences. In this sense, they, aesthetics and logic (as semiotic), may be systemically connected - such as in the most philosophical systems of the German Idealism, of which Georg Hegel, Friedrich Schelling, Johann G. Fichte und auch Immanuel Kant are part. Baumgarten himself has identified a semiotical treat to aesthetics, as he writes in his first book of Aesthetica (1750). However, it is necessary to investigate the objects of inquiry of both philosophical disciplines. In a systemic philosophical architectonic, it is necessary to bear in mind that the objects of inquiry of phenomenology, of aesthetics, of ethics, of logic, and metaphysics - albeit systemically connected and correlating with each other on the basis of principle and data dependency -, have different approaches, observations, generalizations towards - and conduce different inquiries upon - their respective objects of inquiry.

A semiosphere is already a research object of a discipline that would focus on the sign-relations available. Therefore, even if aesthetic deals with apparition to the sense-perception (aesthetics has a strong phenomenological trait - but is not reducible to phenomenology) and to diverse mediatic and natural manifestations (which can be surveyed through the scope of phenomenology, semiotics, and also aesthetics alike), semiotics - or, for that matter the semiosphere as a valid object of semiotic inquiry, cannot be reduced to aesthetics.

There are aesthetic relations that will eventually be available to be studied by semiotics, but it does not mean that aesthetics amounts to a higher dimension of semiotical study.

I hope I could contribute to the discussion!

All the best,

Tiago

Thank you for your detailed and informed answer.

Hi guys, thank you for your great answers. If I understand well, whether it deals with a form of language, architecture, or in general with relations between signifiers and signified, the semiotic approach is ultimately (and inescapably?) aesthetic. And yet, semiotics is not a part of aesthetics, although if one pursues (let's say for one's own pleasure, although not "naively") the effort of discovering one's own "semioticness" (Lotman) , semiotic consciousness may become indistinguishable from the aesthetic approach to everyday life. Am I right? Sorry if I deliberately or undeliberately ignore some of your suggestions in my effort to put some parts of your answers together. Further opinions welcome...

Dear Ionut,

I have been thinking about your question and, because I am still feeling provoked by it, I would add some more comments. Maybe, I will be able to contribute a bit more to the discussion and to the question.

Now, I must say, I am feeling also provoked by your latest reply and I will try to express my thoughts here and hereby share with the community.

In my previous answer, I had stated that there is not only one Semiotics - there are many, and they have different objects of research, research foci, they observe different things and study them through distinct aspects of sign systems or phenomena. The vast majority of modern semioticians and semiologists, like Barthes, Jakobson, Greimas, Hjelmslev, Lotman, and so on, belong to the linguistic and structuralist based movements of sign-theories. Saussure, the inaugurator of semiology, was actually searching for this science, but always stated that he himself was not initiating it with his Cours de Linguistique Génerale, for he understood that this science, semiology, needed a more general base than linguistics (despite what Roland Barthes says in the 60s).

There are forms of semiotics that are philosophical disciplines or sections of philosophical logics - like that of John Locke and that of Charles S. Peirce. These are by no means linguistic or structuralist based, because they are based upon something more fundamental, that is, upon some form of phenomenology, treated from a logical and philosophical standpoint. How much these points are mixed with psychology (in terms of Locke), and how phenomenologically based semiotics, as a philosophical logic, exactly is (in case of Peirce), is a matter for further investigations.

Now, I would like to ask you some more questions related to your reply (to which I am replying now). You stated that semiotics deals with a "a form of language, architecture, or in general with relations between signifiers and signified, the semiotic approach is ultimately (and inescapably?) aesthetic" (sic). Well, I must here ask: what do you mean here by 'inescapably aesthetic'? Is it because something must be embodied into some medium, in order to function as a sign, a vehicle that conveys information to a perceiving mind? And by appearing in a medium, will it then become perceivable - that is, opened to scrutiny? By becoming perceivable, it touches the realm of αἴσθησις aísthēsis, that is, the sense-perception. Is this what you mean?

A second question that I must ask: you said you regard the "semiotic approach" as being inescapably aesthetic. Is this from a psychological perspective? Or a philosophical one that includes phenomenology? If you could give an example of how this works, that would clarify things a lot.

But I also suggest here a bit of caution, if I may. The reason for that is the confusion between aísthēsis (a sense-perception) characteristics of the philosophical aesthetics and philosophical phenomenology.

Aesthetics, as I wrote earlier, was founded in the 18th century by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. Baumgarten, taken his lead from Leibniz, theorized that aesthetics was supposed to do for sensate knowledge what logic does for rational demonstrative knowledge. But there is a sense of intention already in aesthetics: the sense perception (aísthēsis) is not the whole functionality of aesthetics, since aesthetics, as a philosophical discipline, emits judgments, calls for an aesthetic direction rather than other, provides generalizations (not logically but aesthetic-based); that is to say, aesthetics has already in it, as a discipline, something of the nature of intentionality, not in a logical manner, but in an aesthetic one, where the nature of appearances and first contacts with something become qualified as aesthetic. There are as many systems of aesthetics with many different ways of operating as there are philosophical systems themselves. This must be also be taken into consideration: from which perspective are you considering the qualification "aesthetic" as such?

Now, the difficult part: when you say that "semiotic consciousness may become indistinguishable from the aesthetic approach to everyday life" (sic), you might ask yourself, from which perspective you are speaking about semiotics (sign-systemic, sign-theoric, semiological, behaviorist-psychological, logical?) and about aesthetics (Lessing, Baumgarten, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and so on...). It seem to me that you are leveling semiotics - at least the "approach" of it which is the form of conveying information by means of a sign-vehicle that will reach eventually the consciousness of a perceiver - with the perception of the sign by a perceiver (aísthēsis), and that with the apparition of this something in the mind of the perceiver. But then again, this poses more difficulties, because there are many things here involved. First, the mediative quality of a sign functioning as a medium, a middle between a reference or of an object and the upcoming meaning disclosed in the mind of a perceiver. Then we have the appearing qualities of something embodied in a medium at the level of the appearances. And then, the appearing thing in the mind. Now, it must be understood that the concept of φανερός (phanerós) is related to the simplest expression in Greek for manifestation, that is, in the sense of appearing to a perceiving mind in any way, or being brought to light, becoming open to public inspection throughout.

We have here, thus, at least three philosophical disciplines - if we consider semiotics also to be a philosophical discipline in the sense I am here considering it - in a close dialogue with each other, but none of them gets to be predominant over the other. They reveal three levels of relationality: the first, the appearance, then the judgment of the appearance (to classify it as aesthetic, for instance), and the semiotic, as a rational process of signification in general terms.

With this, it should be interesting to reflect upon the collocation that "the semiotic approach is ultimately (and inescapably?) aesthetic". I do't think it is, because the disciplines of sign-theories have other study parameters in comparison to those of aesthetics; and in thinking about apparitions in the mind, there is a more basic level of experience connected to it, that is, the phenomenological, which precedes the aesthetic level, for the latter level implies already some form of judgement; and the semiotical level lying on the grounds of rationality and communication by conveying meaning through a medium between an emission and a signification.

I hope, I could contribute further with the reflection in this matters and will be glad to exchange further ideas.

All the best,

Tiago