The Sources and Formation of Significs: Victoria Welby’s Early Works
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37482/2227-6564-V057Keywords:
Victoria Lady Welby, significs, science of meaning, dynamic theory of meaningAbstract
The interest in the ideas, works and personality of Victoria Lady Welby, which are practically unknown to Russian scholars, was first generated in commentaries and studies as late as fifty years after her death. Meanwhile, Lady Welby was not only the founder of a new science of meaning, which she called significs, but also played an important role in connecting different scholars and philosophers of her time as well as influenced the development of many of them, including C. Ogden and C. Peirce and members of the Signific Movement in the Netherlands. Although the fundamental ideas of significs are fully presented in her books published in the 20th century, this paper focuses on Welby’s early articles in the journals Mind and The Monist. Noteworthy, it is not hard to see the influence of Darwin’s evolutionary theory in the development of significs as well as to find the traces of preceding linguistic and philosophical considerations of the nature of language in it. Significs defines meaning in the evolutionary dynamics as a three-part structure that includes three stages or phases: sense, meaning and significance. Sense is defined as a pre-rational, pre-verbal or instinctive stage, while meaning as intentional or volitional stage. At the third stage, it includes sense, meaning and value. Thus, significs combines organismic,
psychological, linguistic, practical, as well as moral and axiological aspects.
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References
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