Concept of Invention in Semiotics of Technology

The technology is regarded as a materialization of the human reflection in the certain period of history. The invention, being the driving power of technology, is the embodiment of the new, the shift of the subject's boundaries of cognition and/or potential. In line with the development of the concept of invention in philosophy, the technology was understood in different ways by Platonic, Constructivist and transcendental-semiotic systems. This article speculates on the opposition of the notions “discovery” and “invention” in the philosophy of I. Kant, P.K. Engelmeyer, Fr. Dessauer, I.I. Lapshin. The invention is analysed with the “triact” approach that includes the new idea genesis; its manifestation in a plan, drawing or scheme; production of the new object as a result. The process of invention is the sequential performance of the three human abilities for form-creation: the homo investigator creates the idea, the homo inventor designs the form, the homo faber embodies the object. The method of semiotic modeling used in this research is based on Ch.S. Pierce' and Ch.W. Morris' ideas, describing the invention process as an interaction of quality, relation and expression or semantic, syntactic and pragmatic rules. As a result, the invention process is presented as the transcendental-semiotic scheme consisting of nine types of the rules, each with the potential for boundary shift. Two types of semiotic representation of the invention process are distinguished. The schematic representation is a non-critical implication of Pierce' ontological categories in the transcendental concept of knowledge and action. The complex representation includes the modeling of each stage of “triact”, both in receptive and projective aspects, based on the notions of the “firstness”, “secondness” and “thirdness”, and their analysis as the sum of their quality, relation and expression.