The Joke of Reality

Tristan Burt addresses an apparently problematic semiotic insight shared by structuralism, poststructuralism, and Peircean semiotics: words—linguistic representations—ultimately mean nothing. The author first investigates the different approaches taken by these schools. He then situates “nothing” within these various semiotic theories and demonstrates that, whichever approach to representation we might favor, “nothing” is an ironic word. Semiotically speaking, “nothing” always represents something, be it concept, object, or further signification. Ultimately, Burt argues that the apparently problematic semiotic insight that words mean nothing is really a cause for celebration, because nothing is an amusing word, which functions to resolve the instinctual fear of death which haunts us so long as the meaning of nothing is not understood.