Converging parallels - Semiotics and psychology in evolutionary perspective

This paper examines the interface between semiotics and psychology, first f rom the historical point of view of their parallel developments originating in late 18th-century philosophy, then from the theoretical perspective of contemporary evolutionary thinking. Undifferentiated within the speculation s of the French 'Ideologues', such as Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836), semioti cs and psychology progressively acquired distinct epistemological and insti tutional status with minimal mutual interactions. However, the emergence of cognitive psychology during the second half of the 20th century provided n ew theoretical grounds for a potential dialogue. As the Darwinian revolutio n eventually recast many problems common to both semiotics and psychology i n evolutionary terms, it is argued that these two parallel approaches to th e study of mind, symbolic behaviour and meaning are bound to merge in the f oreseeable future. The example of a recent work by Terrence Deacon (1997) i s cited in the conclusion of the paper as a symptom of this epistemological restructuration that is currently taking shape.