Il potere di fare eco. Una prospettiva semiotica sulla coscienza a partire ed intorno all'opera di Daniel C. Dennett

Consciousness, one of the main topics in philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences, was never thematized as an object of study by semiotics, a discipline yet charged with 'imperialism'. The aim of the thesis is to build a bridge between them, in order to ascertain whether they can shed some light on each other. I identify a possible link in the work of Daniel Dennett, one of the leading and most controversial thinkers on consciousness. The first chapter is devoted to a survey of the interdisciplinary field of consciousness studies: we will consider the growing consensus that is emerging, the most debated issues, and see that the origins of consciousness are probably tied to the needs of associative learning, a kind of learning which is ruled by the semiotic logic of “if... then...”. In the second one, after a tentative answer to the semiotics' lack of concern for consciousness, I search the semiotic litterature for hints about it. The right place to search will appear the theory of enunciation, that is where semiotics can deal with the issue of subjectivity. But the only author where we will find a comprehensive reflection on consciousness is Charles S. Peirce. The third chapter focuses on Dennett's work, which is based on a crucial connection between the theory of content – characterized by a pivotal role of indeterminacy – and the theory of consciousness – developed in a full narrative model. We will explore the semiotic implications of his thinking, and see how they can help in making his claims less paradoxical. In the last chapter I face, with some advanced tools of semiotic theory, the “Unconscious Meaning Hypothesis”. Relations between thought, language and personality will be considered, and we will have a look at some conscious creatures that are very distant from us.