As signifying creatures, we fear the false creation 'signifying nothing' because, like Macbeth, we think of them as daggers of the mind that raise questions about the reality of our signs, about signs as tools of creation and power, about the dark terrors (and lighter joys) that exist in human desire, and about the signs and the mind. This text argues that signs are, at base, generative things creating as much as they refer.

A List of Diagrams and Tables - Preface - Introduction: The Terrific Sign - PART 1: DYADIC SIGNS - The Nature of Signs and the Naturalness of Objects - Numerous Signs and Natural Objects - The Myth of Polarity: A Perennial Problem of Semiotics - PART 2: TRICHOTOMOUS SIGNS - Triadic Integration of Polarities - Peirce, Pragmatics and Pyramids - Peirce's Demon Abduction: How to Charm the Truth out of Quark - PART 3: MARGINAL SIGNS - Semiotic Approaches to Higher States of Consciousness - A Semiotic of Dreams: Pragmatic Forks in the Royal Road - Semiosis as Trickster: The Laughter of Signs - Notes - Bibliography - Index