On Negative Realism

When approaching directly the ontological issue, however, Eco seems to be more interested in a minimal and negative definition of reality. That is the reason why he leaves imme- diately the metaphor of a core or kernel of reality, and turns himself to the idea of a Limit – a net of lines of resistance that shape and orient our relation to the world by saying some NO to our attempts to know and use reality. For Eco (and for Peirce) Reality is secondness insofar it resists to our attempts to understand it by means of law, i.e. thirdness. By talking of “lines of resistance of Being”, Eco chooses to identify – at least in the first instance – Being with secondess, focusing on the negative dimension of reality, namely, its independence from particular minds. This policy allows to create an ontological approach that involves the heritage of both major semiotic traditions (also exploiting the concept of relevance, in the Trubeckoij-Prieto lineage).