Mother Sense, Language and Logic. On Victoria Welby, Inventor of Significs

Victoria Welby conceived a special approach to the theory of meaning which she designated with the expression Significs. A central concept in her works is what she names “mother sense” which she discusses in her correspondence with such figures as the English philosopher Ferdinand C. S. Schiller and the American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce, among others. Beyond her contribution to questions of the linguistic, semiotic, practical-ethical and pedagogical orders, the implications of her theory of meaning are particularly interesting for the “woman question” and for feminist discourse generally.