Article published in:
Distributed LanguageEdited by Stephen J. Cowley
[Pragmatics & Cognition 17:3] 2009
► pp. 611–627
Semiotic cognition and the logic of culture
Barend van Heusden | University of Groningen
In this paper I argue that semiotic cognition is a distinctive form of cognition, which must have evolved out of earlier forms of non-semiotic cognition. Semiotic cognition depends on the use of signs. Signs are understood in terms of a specific organization, or structure, of the cognitive process. Semiotic cognition is a unique form of cognition. Once this form of cognition was available to humans, the semiotic provided the ground structure for an evolutionary development that was no longer strictly Darwinian, but followed its own — semiotic — logic. In the increasingly abstract ways in which the ubiquitous difference is dealt with, we discover this logic of cultural evolution, which determines the course of long term cultural change.
Keywords: cultural evolution, semiotic cognition, cognition, meaning
Published online: 02 December 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.17.3.07van
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.17.3.07van
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