西方对符号的研究可追溯到古希腊时代。继希波克拉底斯将病人的症状视作符号并创建符号学(Semeiotics)一词后,亚里斯多德及斯多葛学派又从非医学的角度研究符号的构成元素,为后世符号学研究奠定了理论基础。现代意义上的符号学创立于19世纪、20世纪之交,最初的研究领域主要是语言学及逻辑学。随着卡西尔从哲学视域审视符号,将符号活动定义为人的本 Western research on symbols dates back to the ancient Greek era. After Hippocrates treated the symptoms of the patients as symbols and created the word Semeiotics, Aristotle and Stoics studied the constituent elements of symbols from a non-medical point of view for later generations of semiotic studies Laid the theoretical foundation. Semiotics in the modern sense was founded in the 19th century, the turn of the 20th century, the initial research areas mainly linguistics and logic. As Cassire looks at symbols from a philosophical perspective, he defines symbolic activity as the basis of human beings