Jean Petitot, Semiotician

Our tribute to Jean Petitot begins with the historical reminder of our meeting and the circumstances of our collaboration, in the glorious period of triumphant structuralism and the advent of semiotics of our common master, Greimas. But, for the semiotician, the central contribution of Jean Petitot’s work was to dare to build a bridge between the exact sciences and the human sciences, by attempting and succeeding in a mathematization of semiotic concepts using the theory of René Thom who, himself, praised this pioneering bypass operation. Jean Petitot, during his seminar at EHESS, introduced the concept of non-genericity by developing its applications: the result was an upheaval in the perception and reception of the pictorial work of art. That said, finally, we present an example of analysis of a work by Cranach the Elder which owes everything to the teaching and publications of Jean Petitot.