Paolo Fabbri, semiotics as life

Abstract

This postface reflects on Paolo Fabbri’s intellectual legacy, highlighting his distinctive contribution to contemporary semiotics. It portrays Fabbri as a rigorous yet inventive thinker who combined structuralist methodology with a deep sensitivity to the affective, cultural, and political dimensions of meaning. Moving beyond rigid theoretical orthodoxy, Fabbri treated semiotic models as flexible analytical tools - always open to revision and reinterpretation - rather than fixed doctrines. The text emphasizes his role as both a faithful collaborator and a critical innovator within the Greimasian tradition, capable of renewing semiotic inquiry from within. Ultimately, the postface presents Fabbri’s work as an invitation to practice semiotics as a dynamic, ethically engaged, and intellectually adventurous discipline.