Les paradoxes de l’arbitraire Le négatif, la différence, l’opposition dans le signe saussurien

Abstract

This paper focuses on the articulation of three constitutive notion of the ‘first primordial principle’ of semiology, the arbitrary. I will attempt to exploit its epistemological as well as its ontological potential. The challenge an integration one: to coordinate this potential in order to elaborate of an acceptable philosophical concept of signification. After some consideration relative to the linguistic epistemology of Saussure (§0), I draw out the consequences for the insertion of the sign in the language system (§1) and for the theory value (§2) in order to clarify the articulation of the sign arbitrary with the linearity of the signifier (§3) – second principle of semiology. On the base of this, I rearticulate the three concepts that characterize the arbitrary (negativity, difference, oppositivity) to systematize as far as possible the saussurean semiology (§4-6), i.e. a theory of signification whose logical paradox consists of defining the unities by relations, which moreover are relations of inequality. Since the abolition of a paradox necessitate either a change of principle (modification of the axiomatic system) or of perspective (modification of the dérivation rules), I propose to do both: thus, the arbitrary is no longer a principle but rather founded by a reason (§5), and the world of the references will no longer be excluded as pathologies of signification (§7).