Seeing the similar in the dissimilar
The semiotics of Philodemus’s De signis

Area 11 – Scienze storiche, filosofiche, pedagogiche e psicologiche

Philodemus of Gadara’s De signis is a highly systematic and detailed analysis of Epicurean semiotics from the first century B.C. The core of the treatise deals with choosing a method for building correct sign inferences, and Philodemus defends the Epicurean method of similarity from the attacks of its opponents. In this book, we analyse this debate in the De signis, and in particular the role that similarity, as a semiotic tool, plays in human knowledge. Indeed, we are focusing on that peculiar capacity of finding similarities between already known and unknown phenomena, connecting them in some way, even if they appear different: in other words, the ability to see the similar in the dissimilar, with all of the resulting semiotic and epistemological implications.

SINTESI