Human Perception and the Symbolic Universe

The Qualitative Leap into a Symbolic Universe

The qualitative leap represents a different way of confronting reality. The symbolic universe is truly new, endowed with unique qualities and properties. The world is not a mere presentation or copy of objective reality, but a recreation of a world seen through human eyes—a humanized universe.

Symbols and Shared Significance

Symbols are shared tools of significance that permit us to enrich each other in a dramatically effective way. These are organized into codes, with the linguistic code being the most relevant for us.

Characteristics of Signs

Signs possess two main characteristics:

• The use of elements to represent and convey something different from themselves.
• The progressive conventionality chosen for what the different elements mean.

Clues, Icons, and Arbitrary Symbols

A clue is a trail, an effect, or an outcome that reveals the presence of a prior causal element. An icon enters full communicative intentionality and the fundamental idea of convention. The icon takes its character as a sign through a relationship of similarity with what it represents.

The step toward symbols and signs, which are conventional and arbitrary, constitutes a big jump. Being able to decide on meanings allows anyone to use them to evoke anything. A world without symbols is limited to what is present; there would be no possibility of expressing what is not seen, nor of science or history.

Language as a Unique Human Power

Language is an acquisition that serves as the unique power underlying the rest of our capabilities. The referential function guides us back to another thing. A dictionary represents the knowledge of codes that we have agreed upon for every word.

Linguistic Agreements and Semantic Movement

Linguistic agreements change over time, and it is essential to prevent confusion caused by such semantic movement. Philosophy is truly interested in the correct determination of the structures of thought and language.

Propositions and Philosophical Conceptions

A proposition is a statement that affirms or denies something and may, therefore, be true or false. There are different schools of thought regarding this:

• Referentialists: They emphasize the ability of language to refer to reality.
• Logicists: They argue that constructive errors violate the rules of language and thought.

To verify is to check the truth of a statement or proposition. Language is a multipurpose tool; words do not only describe—language says much, but does even more.

The Referentialist Design

Regarding conceptions of language, the referentialist design suggests that the basic function of words is to take the place of objects and evoke them in the mind of our partner.