[1] Translated to English (my translation - with thanks for valuable assistance to Patrizia Violi): "The constitution of a unitary code can only be a 'regulative hypothesis': the moment a similar code is described, it will already be transformed, not only because of the influence of various historical factors, but because of the critical erosion that the very analysis of it would have produced. Every time meaning structures are described, something happens in the universe of communication, so that they are not completely reliable anymore. Such a condition of instability however is not peculiar to semiotics; it is a methodological condition that is common to other disciplines, such as physics, which are governed by methodological criteria such as the principle of indeterminacy or the principle of complementarity. Semiotics can aim to be a scientific discipline only if it acquires an awareness of its own limitations without attemping to be an absolute system of knowledge."

(I have chosen to translate this passage from the original Italian publication, Trattato di semiotica generale, since the same piece in the English version (A Theory of Semiotics) is presented in a slightly less `compact' form.)

[2] That is to say that I am again indebted to Patrizia Violi for her assistance in translating this particular passage, which appears in The Collected Works in the wider context shown here:

" Pragmatism is the principle that every theoretical judgement expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in the imperative mood.

But the maxim of Pragmatism, as I originally stated it, Revue philosophique VII is as follows:

Considérer quels sont les effets pratiques que nous pensons pouvoir être produits par l'objet de notre conception. la conception de tous ces effets est la conception complète de l'objet. [p. 48]

Pour développer le sens d'une pensée, il faut donc simplement déterminer quelles habitudes elle produit, car le sens d'une chose consiste simplement dan les habitudes qu'elle implique. Le caractère d'une habitude dépend de la façon dont elle peut nous faire agir non pas seulement dans telle circonstance probable, mais dans toute circonstance possible, si improbable qu'elle puisse être. Ce qu'est une habitude dépend de ces deux points: quand et comment elle fait agir. Pour le premier point: quand? tout stimulant àl'action dérive d'une perception; pour le second point: comment? le but de tout action est d'amener au résultat sensible. Nous atteignons ainsi le tangible et le pratique comme base de toute différence de pensée, si subtile qu'elle puisse être. [p. 47]" [CSP 5.18]

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