Summary: The paper will reflect on the semiotic implications of the idea of revelation. What are the characteristics of meaning that is produced, communicated, and received as ‘revealed’? Are there anthropological, or even bio-logical constants in such characteristics, or do they rather vary according to socio-cultural contexts and historical époques? What terms express the idea of revelation in the different natural languages, and with which semantic connotations? What values are attributed to the idea of a revelation of meaning, and what, on the contrary, to a meaning that is non-revealed? What relations of rupture, or tension, obtain between these different valorisations? Through what narratives is the idea of a revealed meaning elaborated? How is the enunciation of this meaning configured, through what dynamics of perceptibility and imperceptibility? What are the characteristics of space, time, and actors in revelation? What figures embody the idea of revelation? What connotations are pragmatically attached to a text that encodes a revealed meaning? What consequences do these connotations bring about as regards how such text is at the origin of production, circulation, and reception of new meaning? What is the semiotic status of discourses and practices, including rites and rituals, based on the meaning of ‘revealed’ texts? Does an aesthetics of revelation exist? How do different religious cultures construe the idea of revelation? What is the role of revelation in the relation between different religious cultures, as well as in the relation between religious and non-religious cultures? How are social orders based on the idea of revelation structured (economy, politics, law, etc.). How much ‘revelation’ exists in non-religious cultures, and in religious orders based on them? The paper will try to answer at least some of these questions by drawing theoretical insights from the classics of the philosophy of revelation (Böhme, Fichte, Jacobi, Schelling, Berdjaev, Jaspers and others), from theology (Tillich, Rosenzweig, Arkoun and others), from semiotics and communication studies.
