Inferenze come segni, segni come inferenze: da Peirce al dopo Peirce

Abstract

The idea that the relation between sign and inference is very tight and, for some aspect, they can be identified. The idea of this strong relation is traceable from Aristotle, through the Epicureans and Stoics until up the Middle Ages (Augustine), and then it reemerges in Modern Era with the work of Peirce. In several passages of his writings, Peirce suggested a correspondence between Indices and Deduction, Icons and Abductions, Symbols and Induction. In this paper I try to explore some philosophical aspects, implications, and ‘projections’ of this parallelism between the three inferential schemes and the semiotic trichotomy. Indeed, in a broad theoretical context, in modern linguistics, semantics as well as pragmatics, it can be observed a permanence of the idea that sign and inference are strictly correlated: linguistic meaning comprehension is based on deduction, utterances contextual interpretation is based on abduction, language acquisition is based on induction