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p A number of objective factors connected with the progress of such scientific disciplines as linguistics, symbolic logic, information theory, cybernetics etc., have led to the prominence of the concept sign and its related concepts “meaning”, “signal”, “symbol”, “language”, “sign system”, etc., in modern scientific thought. However, as Lenin pointed out, reactionary attempts are engendered by the progress of science. In the present instance this is manifested in the emergence in 20th century bourgeois philosophy of a sign (or semantic) idealism, which capitalizes on the problem of the sign.

p Modern bourgeois philosophy and aesthetics are characterized by a semantic orientation. In essence this orientation means that all fundamental philosophical problems of scientific and artistic cognition are resolved through the formulation and idealistic interpretation of semantic problems of the sign, meaning, language, etc. “Historical circumstances are such that in the modern period the problem of the sign has occupied a frontal position in the struggle between materialism and idealism. Although the problem of the sign does not of course constitute the main issue of philosophy it is one of the forms taken by the eternal philosophical problems, and amongst them by its main issue" (1, 17).

p Practically all the main tendencies in bourgeois aesthetic thought have, in some way or other, been drawn into the orbit of the semantic movement. The semantic trend is one of the most prominent in modern western aesthetics, particularly in England and the USA. This is attributable to the 8 close links between the semantic orientation of western philosophy and the pragmatic and neo-positivist tendencies of modern philosophical thought, which have received particularly wide currency in the English-speaking world. For a number of reasons neo-positivism and pragmatism have not become very developed in such European countries as France, Germany and Italy.

p The present book is an analysis of the semantically-oriented philosophical conceptions of art, which were formulated by American (C. Peirce, C. Morris, S. Langer) and English (I. A. Richards, the analysts, A. Whitehead, R. Collingwood) philosophers, as well as those of other nationalities who lived in England and America, and worked there for many years (E. Cassirer, L. Wittgenstein). One exception is the analysis of the linguistic conception of art of the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, for without this it would be impossible to understand and evaluate the conception of art as language formulated by Croce’s pupil Collingwood.

p In the 20th century, as we have already stated, the linguistic, symbol and sign (semiotic) approaches to art are closely connected with the entire semantic orientation of western philosophy, largely concentrated in neo-positivism and pragmatism. This semantic orientation also affected, although to a lesser extent, other philosophical schools, in particular neo-thomism (J. Maritain) and phenomenology (M. Dufresne).

p In the mid-60’s structuralism emerged as the most influential of the philosophical movements in France. This is reflected in aesthetics in the prominence acquired by the problem of “art and structure”. This problem, although it has its own specific features, is none the less closely connected with the semantic problems discussed in the present book: “art and language”, “art and symbol”, and “art and sign".

p The philosophical and ideological kinship of French structuralism and the semantic philosophy of art cannot be called into question. But, in contrast to French structuralism, the semantic conceptions of art of the English and American authors reviewed in the present study have a more explicit 9 idealistic and metaphysical philosophic orientation and a more tangible social essence.

The author will be deeply gratified if his book helps shed any light for the English-speaking reader on the discussions and controversies around present-day English and American semiotics.