Symbolophobia and Pragmatomania

Abstract

The article discusses concepts which express desymbolization tendencies in contemporary culture. They postulate abandonment of the notion of symbol or weakening of symbolization relationship. Such an attitude can be called ‘symbolophobia.’ The assumption of these concepts is semiotic nominalism — the rejection of sign-types level in favor of idiosyncratic uses of sign-tokens or physically active series of signals. In this perspective, signs are seen primarily as objects included in the causal relations. Objective aspect of the symbol is considered as more important than representative one. In this sense, one can talk about ‘pragmatomania.’ Both symbolophobia and pragmatomania utilize retrosemiosis processes, which consists in passing from the signs of higher semioticity (symbols) to signs of lower semioticity (signals). Concepts expressing the aforementioned tendencies include: post-symbolic communication project, concept of a-signifying semiotics, some ideas of Stanislaw Lem, who called himself ‘anti-semiote,’ and visions or projections concerning post-information age.