Related Terms • semiotics • Ferdinand de Saussure

Definition:
The term logocentrism is usually employed by critics to refer to the idea that words have some specific and determinate meaning which does not change (and also the logical conclusion that a text must also have such a single meaning). As part of the critique, it is argued that words have ever shifting meanings which depend more upon the reader than upon the desires (if any) of the author.

Logocentrism can also be used to refer (again, in critiques) to the doctrine that words are simply objects and not representative of social or power relationships. The goal of such a critique is to get people to think more about the words they use and perhaps change them. Critiques of logocentric views usually take place in the context of semiotics.

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What is Aesthetics?
In philosophy, aesthetics is the study of beauty and taste, whether in the form of the comic, the tragic or the sublime. Aesthetics has traditionally been part of other philosophical pursuits like the investigation of epistemology or ethics. However, it started to come into its own and become a more independent pursuit under Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who saw aesthetics as a unitary and self-sufficient type of human experience.

What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? Is there any point in studying philosophy, or is it a useless subject? What are the different branches of philosophy - what's the difference between aestheitcs and ethics? What's the difference between metaphysics and epistemology?