Abstract
Two semiotic regions of importance are opened for legal semiotic approaches: person and personhood, or: legal subjectand legal person; individual and corporation. They are keys to modern politics in relation (as the CLS movement correctly understood) with the understanding of an engenderment of the self, as Kant, Hobbes and others initiated, and with the understanding of personhood as a politico-socio-juridical issue of modern globalizing culture. The latter item leads to an extensive and critical view on the US “Citizens United” judgment, which not only influences major regions of the political landscape and the election of the Presidency in the US, but also profiles a new politics paradigm on the basis of a “semiotics of manipulation” supported by law.
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See the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, since 1988 comprising until March 2012 a total of 25 Volumes.
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John E. Joseph: “Meaning in the Margins. Victoria Lady Welby and significs” in: Times Literary Supplement, March 23, 2012, p. 14/15.
- 3.
See the foundational study of Susan Petrilli: Signifying and Understanding. Reading the Works of Victoria Welby and the Signific Movement. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin 2009, p. 288 “Significs and Semiotics: Giovanni Vailati and Charles S. Peirce” and p. 748: “The Signific Movement in The Netherlands”.
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Irwin C. Lieb (Ed.): Charles S. Peirce’s letters to Lady Welby, New Haven, Conn. 1953. Charles S. Hardwick/James Cook (Ed.): Semiotic and Significs. The Correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby. Indiana UP 1977. See also: Max Fisch, Peirce, Op. cit., p. 142.; and: G. Deledalle: Vistoria Lady Welby and Charles Sanders Peirce: Meaning and Signification” in: H. Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Essays on Significs, J. Benjamins, Amsterdam 1990, p. 134.
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M. Fisch: Peirce, Semeiotic, and Pragmatism, Indiana UP 1986, Ch. 17, p. 321, 342.
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Subtle differences can be found in representations of signific viewpoints, in particular in the Dutch movements, for instance about the communicative component in speech act research, the system character and the reference to logic (as in Peirce’s philosophy) admitted in analyzing understanding or in the communicative orientation of Peirce’s semiotics. See H. Walter Schmitz: De Hollandse Significa. Een reconstructie van de geschiedenis van 1892 tot 1926. Assen 1990, p. 356 f., which is a Dutch translantion of his originally German “Habilitationsschrift”, 1985: Verständigungshandlungen-eine wissenschaftshistorische Rekonstruktion der Anfänge der signifischen Bewegung in den Niederlanden (1892–1926). Petrilli writes in two contexts that “In contrast to… ‘semiotics’, ‘significs’ was free from technical associations, thus making it suitable to signal the connection between meanings and value in all its aspects”: in: P. Cobley (Ed.): The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics”, London/New York 2001, p. 264 and Petrilli: Signifying and Understanding, Op. Cit., p. 255 without precisely determining those “technical associations”.
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Studies in Dutch and English on Significs in The Netherlands written in Dutch language are scarce, see the outstanding publications of H. Walter Schmitz: De Hollandse Significa. Op. Cit., and H. Walter Schmitz: “Frederik van Eeden and the Introduction of Significs into the Netherlands: From Lady Welby to Mannoury” in: H. Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Essays on Significs, Op. Cit., p. 219 f. as well as Susan Petrilli: Signifying and Understanding, Op. Cit. p. 829–885 with short texts of van Eeden, Mannoury, Brouwer and Vuysje, giving an English language impression of the issues discussed in Dutch language in The Netherlands from 1892–1951. The section concludes with a special “Significs in the Netherlands. A General Survey” by David Vuysje, pp 883 f. See also H. Walter Schmitz & E. Heijerman (Ed.): Significs, Mathematics and Semiotics. The Signific Movement in the Netherlands. Münster 1986.
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The Dutch legal historian Govaert C.J.J. van den Bergh wrote the only English article on De Haan in a semiotic context, the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Vol. IX, 25 (1996) entitled: “Jacob Israel de Haan’s Legal Significs”, and motivated his text exclusively with the remark: “I believe that this work, with all its flaws, is still of interest today” (p. 81); the same is the case for his: G.C.J.J. van den Bergh (Ed.): De taal zegt meer dan zij verantwoorden kan, Ars Aequi Libri, Nijmegen 1994. Both publications do not position De Haan as the first legal semiotician. See also: G.C.J.J. van den Bergh & Jan M. Broekman: Recht en Taal, Kluwer/Deventer 1979. p. 55 f.
- 9.
Susan Petrilli, Signifying and Understanding,Op. Cit., p. 757.
- 10.
H. Walter Schmitz: “Frederik van Eeden and the introduction of significs….” In: Essays on Significs,Op. Cit., p. 225
- 11.
J.I. de Haan: Wezen en taak der rechtskundige significa, Amsterdam, Van Kampen 1916, p. 5.
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J.I. de Haan: Rechtskundige Significa en hare toepassing op de begrippen:“aansprakelijk, verantwoordelijk, toerekeningsvatbaar” [Legal Siginifics and her application on the concepts liable, responsible, accountable] Amsterdam, Versluys 1916. See also: Jan M. Broekman: “Betere taal is beter recht” in Wijsgerig Perspectief op maatschappij en wetenschap, Vol. 20, No. 2. 1979/80, p. 49.
- 13.
De Haan: Rechtskundige Significa, Op. Cit. p. 69.
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A. Janik & St. E. Toulmin: Wittgenstein’s Vienna, Chicago 1996.
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“Signifisch Taalonderzoek”, published in Mededeelingen van het Internationaal Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte te Amsterdam, No. 2, Amsterdam Maart 1919, p. 5 f. p. 30 f., signed by Mannoury, Brouwer, Borel and Frederik van Eeden. See H. Walter Schmitz: De Hollandse Significa, Op. Cit., p. 415.
- 16.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Erfundene Gespräche und Briefe, in:, B. Schoeller & R. Hirsch (Ed.) Gesammelte Werke, Bd VII, Fischer Verlag 1979 p. 461.
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Broekman, J.M., Backer, L.C. (2013). Legal Theory and Semiotics: On The Origins of Legal Semiotics. In: Lawyers Making Meaning. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5458-4_8
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