Epistemic feelings and the making of the statement as a meaningful linguistic structure. Revisiting Heinrich Gomperz’s psychoaffective model of semantics and semiotics and its significance today

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the present article, I revisit the feeling-based model of semantics and semiotics proposed in 1908 by the Austrian philosopher Heinrich Gomperz (1873–1942) within the framework of his “semasiology” (Semasiologie). I discuss how Gomperz regarded epistemic (“intellectual”) feelings as the foundations of both conceptual and grammatical meanings, but also of the “semiotization” of the statement (Aussage). Special emphasis is placed on how, for him, affective states help make the statement a global meaningful structure. An analysis of Gomperz’s psychoaffective model leads me to wonder about the soundness of the provocative view that epistemic feelings may be the core psychological components of linguistic meaning.