The “spatial turn” and semiotics: an alternative proposal to the binary thinking

Abstract

This paper seeks, from Peirce’s semiotics, an epistemological alternative to the binary approach that has characterized the understanding of space, especially the dichotomy “space” and “place”. We will show how Charles Peirce’s semiotics and its articulation with Jacob Von Uexküll’s Umwelt theory, can be useful tools to avoid the traps, not always obvious, of this form of thinking in terms of relations of opposition. Our hypothesis is that the triadic notion of sign supported by idea of continuity, allows pointing out how the space can be thought as semiosis.