“The distinction on which all philosophy is based is between Images of Reason and Images of Sense. The distinction on which all Psychology is based is between Images of the Inner Sense and Images of the Outer Sense. The distinction on which Metaphysics is based is between Images as Images and Images as Representation.”  -- Peirce, 1860 June 30, in: His Glassy Essence (Ketner).

The crisis in which science and philosophy have been involved for the past two hundred years stands out in no other feature as clearly as in the relation between the science of nature and the science of culture. Natural sciences have progressively widened their sphere and have created entirely new instruments of knowledge. As for the sciences of culture they faced an even greater task. For them it was primarily a question of finding that genuine scientific attitude that even Kant and Hegel believed to be reserved only for mathematics and mathematical science of nature. Despite this dominance of disciplinary confrontation the epoch also includes essential attempts to overcome this gap. Charles S. Peirce belonged to those thinkers who strongly criticized disciplinary isolation and vigorously argued for an interdisciplinary approach of pure scientific observation. His science of semeiotic was designed as the science of interdisciplinary thought.

According to Peirce human beings acquire and produce culture through a triadic event. He explains human beings as sign creatures, creating words, names and objects among which the most complex are considered to be visual representations. This lecture discusses strong relevance of the Peircean approach in contemporary scientific discourse, and applies its analytical method to explore the universe of meaning in complex visual representations such as art works.