A Process Philosophy of Signs

What is a sign? We usually think that it is a fixed relation, for instance, when a red light signifies 'Stop'. This book argues that signs are actually processes.

Signs are fundamentally changing relations which we fix temporarily when we take them to be rigid relations. This matters because our behaviour towards signs should be modified once we realise that signs are not only up for negotiation, but that this depends on testing the many ways in which each sign is multiple changing processes. Signs are occasions for creative responses rather than automatic and legitimate actions. Should I stop?

James Williams sets out this new process philosophy of signs through a formal model and a series of case studies in art, science, technology, politics and nature. He develops the philosophy in dialogue with the philosophies of Deleuze and Whitehead, and in critical discussion with contemporary and historical theories of the sign.

James Williams is Professor of European Philosophy at the University of Dundee. He has published widely on Deleuze, including Gilles Deleuze's Logic of Sense: a Critical Introduction and Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), The Transversal Thought of Gilles Deleuze: Encounters and Influences (Manchester: Clinamen, 2005) and Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: a Critical Introduction and Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 2003)