Victoria Welby and the Science of Signs

The 'science of signs, ' semiotics, gained its footing in intellectual culture at large in the latter half of the 20th century, principally under the editorial, organizational, and intellectual leadership of Thomas A. Sebeok, a close colleague of Susan Petrilli. In the 20th century's first half, the flame of interest in semiotics was called 'semiology' in honor of the work and influence of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). Sebeok it was who maneuvered to the center stage Charles Peirce (1839-1914), where Lady Welby (1837-1912) also appeared as Peirce's lonely companion in the larger project of 'semiotic, ' as Peirce called it--in the larger whole of which, Sebeok demonstrated, Saussure's proposal formed only a part. But it was Susan Petrilli's 1,000 page + <em>Signifying and Understanding</em> book of 2009 that for the first time revealed Lady Welby to all as 'not just Peirce's interlocutor' but every bit a 'mother of semiotics' alongside Augustine, Poinsot, and Peirce as 'fathers.' Now, in this book, Susan Petrilli emerges in her own right, alongside Sebeok and alongside Peirce, as 'setting the stage' for the 21st century development of semiotic consciousness--bound to succeed by reason of providing the first and only <em>inherently</em> interdisciplinary perspective on the scientific developments which have brought us to the present stage of university life and the dawn of a global intellectual culture--in showing that <em>Lady Welby along with Peirce</em> needs to be drawn upon for semiotics to realize not only its speculative import but its ethical import as well. Petrilli in this book provides us with a key to the semiotics of the 22nd century. </p> --John N. Deely, University of St. Thomas; managing editor, <em> The American Journal of Semiotics</em></p> Step by step, Susan Petrilli is methodically building an accurate and admirable understanding of the science of signs, as elaborated by Lady Welby through her long scientific dialogue with Charles S. Peirce. Thus, Victoria Welby finds her right place in the Semiotics of the twenty-first century. </p> --Anne Henault, UniversitE de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) France</p>