Victoria Welby’s Significs: A Thematic and Methodological Retrospective

This article is focused on the ideas of Victoria, Lady Welby, whose name and works have become the subject of research after almost half a century of  “silence.” Explicit references to the ideas of significs are found only in the works of Peirce and some participants in the significs movement in the Netherlands; her name is mentioned relatively in passing by Russell, Ogden, and some other scientists. There are no translations of Welby’s works in the domestic literature, although there are some informational, commentary, and comparative studies. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate explicit and possible connections between the theory of significs, developed in the works of Lady Welby in different periods of her career, and her later works. The author believes that we can talk about thematic and methodological parallels between Welby’s ideas and the works of C. Morris, L. Wittgenstein, P. Strawson, R. Jakobson. In significs, meaning is considered not only in the referential sense but also in a wide range of factors and dependencies, among which intention, communication, consequences, and values play an important role. Similarly, Morris considered the most important task to be the unification of the general theory of signs and the general theory of values. Parallels are revealed in the understanding of the meaning of a word in significs and in the works by the “late” L. Wittgenstein, as well as by J. Austin and J. Searle. Research into the role of metaphor and the conditions for its adequate use in significs can be successfully integrated with the approach to metaphors in the philosophy of Strawson. The author believes that there are serious parallels in the use of methodological tools, in particular the method of analogy and analysis. In the case of the latter, we mean the similarity of significs as a method and Strawson’s connective analysis; special attention is paid to the analysis of meaning as translation in the semiotic sense, connected with the concept of code, and to the later approach to understanding the translation procedure by Jakobson. From the author’s point of view, the establishment of parallels between the theory of significs and the ways in which they may influence later studies opens new perspectives.