102 Agnes Petocz
convergence with semiotics that meets psychology's scientific requirements, and confers both
conceptual and empirical benefits on psychological research in a number of areas.
WHY MAINSTREAM PSYCHOLOGY HAS NEGLECTED SEMIOTICS:
FOUR REASONS
According to Jorna & van Heusden (1998), "for some unclear reason there has hardly
been any interest in semiotics within the different branches of psychology" (p. 758). On the
contrary, I think that the reason - rather, reasons - are not at all unclear. Psychology's neglect
of semiotics has developed from a complex interplay of conceptual, social and historical
factors. In his discussion of ―converging parallels‖ in semiotics and psychology, Bouissac
(1998) examines why the two disciplines, originally much closer, remained apart for most of
the twentieth century, and he points to some of the mistakes and confusions that have kept
theories of meaning out of psychology (such as the behaviourist exclusion of meaning based
on Cartesian assumptions, and the retaliatory hijacking of semiotics by various postmodernist
movements). But now, he argues, the two disciplines are gradually converging under the
impact of the "epistemological restructuration" brought about by the ―return" of Darwin's
evolutionary perspective.
My own treatment of this theme casts the net wider and is more critical of mainstream
psychology. Furthermore, while I agree with Bouissac's views regarding the need for
psychology to reincorporate the evolutionary perspective into its naturalist view of mind and
behaviour, I do not think that a psychology-semiotics integration depends on the Darwinian
perspective; there are more fundamental logical reasons for the integration, and the need for
Darwinism follows from these.
In my view, the main reasons for the neglect of semiotics within psychology can be
summarised in four interrelated points. The first two concern psychology's scientific (or, more
accurately, scientistic) self-understanding. The remaining two concern psychology's
perception (or misperception) of the subject matter and methods of semiotics. In brief, these
reasons are: (1) psychology's subscription to the science/meaning divide; (2) psychology's
combination of scientific practicalism and metatheoretical confusion; (3) the view that
semiotics is inextricably wedded to ideologies opposed to scientific realism; and (4) the view
that semiotics has little concern with the sign user. Let me elaborate a little on each of these.
Psychology's Subscription to the Science/Meaning Divide
There is a trend in the Western intellectual tradition which has set the concepts of symbol
and meaning in opposition to that of science. This trend found its clearest and most influential
expression in the nineteenth century tradition associated mainly with Dilthey and
Windelband, following a line of thought from Vico, which proposed a fundamental division
of subject matter and/or of method between Naturwissenschaften (the natural or physical
sciences) and Geisteswissenschaften (the social or historical sciences).
Twentieth century psychology struggled in the context of this division. In the effort to
extricate psychology from its parent philosophical background and establish the discipline as