Memes versus signs

On the use of meaning concepts about nature and culture

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4472425
AutoresErkki Kilpinen (autor correspondente)
Ano2008
Volume2008
Fascículo171
Data de publicação2008-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSemiotica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0037-1998 • E-ISSN: 1613-3692
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/semi.2008.075
OpenAlexW2076759817
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas19
Referências citadas10

In recent years, the so-called ‘meme’ concept, originally introduced by Richard Dawkins and modelled analogously after the phenomenon of gene, has aroused much discussion. There have also been attempts to develop a systematic discipline of ‘memetics’ upon this notion, and suggestions that this opens up unforeseen possibilities for studying human culture in a new way, as compatible with biological evolution. This article argues that these attempts are misguided. The meme is a new word but not a new concept, it is only a new version of the traditional semiotic concept of sign. More pointedly, the meme is not merely an old idea in new clothing, it is in all important respects an inferior alternative to the semiotic sign. The consequence of this is that the suggested memetics would leave open the cleavage between the study of nature and culture that semiotics traditionally has attempted to close

Clothing · Epistemology · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Memetics · Phenomenon · Semiotics · Semiotics of culture · Sign (mathematics) · Sign system · Sociology · Communication · History · Language and cultural evolution · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Media, Communication, and Education · Philosophy