Cognitive Semiotics Integrating Signs, Minds, Meaning and Cognition

This volume serves as a reference on the field of cognitive semantics. It offers a systematic and original discussion of the issues at the core of the debate in semiotics and the cognitive sciences. It takes into account the problems of representation, the nature of mind, the structure of perception, beliefs associated with habits, social cognition, autism, intersubjectivity and subjectivity. The chapters in this volume present the foundation of semiotics as a theory of cognition, offer a semiotic model of cognitive integration that combines Enactivism and the Extended Mind Theory, and investigate the role of imagination as the origin of perception. The author develops an account of beliefs that are associated with habits and meaning, grounded in Pragmatism, testing his Narrative Practice Semiotic Hypothesis on persons with autism spectrum disorders.  He also integrates his ideas about the formation of the theory of mind with a theory of subjectivity, understood as self-consciousness which derives from semiotic cognitive abilities.  This text appeals to students, professors and researchers in the field. 

Chapter 1. Cognitive Semiotics. Radical Enactivism, Pragmatism and Material Engagement.- Chapter 2. For a cognitive semiotics of subjectivity.- Chapter 3. The Semiotic Mind. Beliefs, Habits and the Extended Cognition.- Chapter 4. Social Cognition and Autism Spectrum Disorders: from Mindreading to Narratives.- Chapter 5. Perception as controlled hallucination.

Claudio Paolucci is Associate Professor of Semiotics, Philosophy and Theory of Language at the Department of Philosophy and Communication of the University of Bologna, where he is the coordinator of the PhD program in Philosophy, Science, Cognition and Semiotics. He graduated and worked for many years together with Umberto Eco, who was his PhD thesis supervisor. He is now the scientific coordinator of the International Centre for Humanities “Umberto Eco” (University of Bologna). He has been visiting professor in many universities worldwide and he has published four books and more than 90 papers on international peer reviewed journals. He has been the team leader and scientific coordinator of many international grants. Now he is the Principal Investigator of the European Project "NeMo": NEw semiotic MOnitoring of Embodied Interactions between infants and caregivers (Grant No: 2019-1-IT02-KA201-063340).