René Thom’s topological theory of meaning and semiotics

• Autor(a) principal: Araujo, Arthur
• Data de Publicação: 2024
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Cognitio (São Paulo. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/cognitiofilosofia/article/view/65590
• topic: Meaning; René Thom; Semiotics; Topology; René Thom; Semiótica; Significação; Topologia

This paper represents a second step of my research on the work of the French mathematician René Thom. I primarily focus on two papers by Thom’s theory of the sign: From icon to symbol (De l’icône au symbole), 1973, and Space and Signs (L’espace et les signes), 1980b. In this paper, exploring Thom’s topological conception of meaning, I expound on his idea that all forms of semiosis (as meaning processes) develop a spatial form. It is from his working on the reconstruction of global forms in topology that Thom sets his semiotic program. In particular, as I will show, Thom converts Charles S. Peirce’s triadic classification of signs (icons, indexes and symbols) into a space-vector interpretation. Advancing my study of René Thom’s work (Araujo, 2022), I explore his topological theory of meaning according to which semiosis can be understood as a topological space. In parallel with his work on morphodynamics in biology, Thom redefines the dynamics of sign, object and interpretant (according to their mutual interconnections) that topologically configure the very space of semiosis.