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Existential semiotics is a new paradigm in the studies of signs, signification, and communication. This book develops its theory further, applying the notions of being, doing, and appearing to crucial social problems of the contemporary world, and to various so-called 'lesser arts' like performance and gastronomy.

Music intrudes to our most intimate subjectivity, thus making it a privileged field to which so-called 'existential semiotics', a new theory and philosophy developed by the author himself, may be applied. Using new semiotic methods and analyses as the fulcrum of its approaches, the volume aims to clarify why great classical composers from Mozart and Beethoven to Brahms and Wagner fascinate music listeners and lovers from all cultures of the world. Eero Tarasti, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Abstract
Metaphor is one of the key concepts of semiotics. This essay has been written with the aim in mind of defining a new application of the field of semiotics, namely what I call 'future studies'. The paper deals with three issues: (i) the theory of metaphors as such, much discussed in the semiotic literature; (ii) what semiotics says about the future; and (iii) what kind of semiotics we are considering here. I propose to explore the problem of metaphors and the future of semiotics in the light of my own new theory, which I call 'existential semiotics'. Existential semiotics is a combination of the continental philosophy and the semiotic tradition. It investigates sign phenomena in our living world i.e. Dasein in the light of transcendence and its appearance. This new semiotic theory stems from the Paris school and maintains many of its central notions.

Abstract
Whether the aesthetic is something we actively make or whether it just appears to us, can be formulated as the distinction between notions of act and event-as defined by the Finnish philosopher Georg Henrik v. Wright. Moreover, the concepts of geno- and phenosign refer to this crucial foundation of any aesthetic treatise, i. e. genosigns carrying along all the phases of its production aiming for such a goal, i. e. Kantian Zweck, and phenosigns as a kind of phenomenal, immediate qualities. However, insofar as the aesthetic manifests a value, we can consider it a sign of such an abstract entity. Such transcendental values gradually get dense and concretized, become 'beings' when they arrive at Dasein via modalities. So, values become modalities, certain modal constellations, and at the end signs. Analogously, aesthetic values become aesthetic experiences when they are 'modalized', and then manifest as artworks, as aesthetic signs.