Concetto e significato. Saussure e la natura umana

Abstract

According to traditional theories of language linguistic meanings coincide with mental concepts. From Saussure on, instead, we realized that the "concept" differs from the "meaning". Human beings think with "meanings" and not through "concepts". For Saussure, "meaning" is a purely differential entity: each "meaning" is the sum of its differences from other language's meanings. The "meaning" is only a linguistic entity  (it is not a psychological entity). Through language we can always create new "meanings". We make experience of what is only possible through "meanings". Human nature is exactly  this ability: the human animal is the animal of possibility.