Category Archives: Our current Lebenswelt

02/20/26

Looking at Mihhail Lotman’s Article (2017) “History as Geography”  (Part 8 of 8)

0827 The next section of the essay is titled, “Russian space”.

Consider the contrasts (B) to Russian identity3a (A) that have appeared in this examination.

Each of these dyads embody an Aristotelian thing.  We encounter things.  Things are composed of matter and form.  Things can serve as matter for other things.  Things can serve as form for other things.  

0828 Perhaps, it is no surprise that geography is a thing that serves as matter, allowing me to form the way that I orient myself in Russian space.  At the same time, geography is implicated in what I say, especially when I say, “Moscow is first of all, a tsardom, not a city, and that tsardom is oriented to Constantinople, that is Byzantium.”  Geography, as a matter of cognition, substantiates “Russian space”, in the form of historic belongings.

No wonder the author describes Russian geography as a mystical historiosophy.

0829 Nothing is quite fixed, because directions are confounded with historical processes and so are… um… borders.  Russia, is a form, with an expanse without borders as originating matter.  Yet, Russia, as a form, is regarded as a nation.

Here is the geography of Russia, writ-large.

0830 The original thing is Russian space.  An expanse without borders [substantiates] Russian space.

From page 274 to 279, the author dwells on the way that Russia, as a civilization, wrestles with Russia, as a nation.

The reason is clear.  The Russian space, as form, entangles (through alliances and conflicts) the matter of borders.

Confoundings are dangerous.

0831 In the author’s historical telling, in its infancy, Russian civilization does not so much worry or fixate on borders.  East and West offer principles that can be adopted or rejected.  The West is logical, blabbering and deceitful.  The East is none of these, because the East does not speak, and that can be sort of scary.

0832 The author does not detect a resolution of the entanglement in favor of the Western formulation of nations with borders.  And yet, a particular closure is anticipated.

0833 Here is a picture.

0834 What is the promise?

Russia will join the West.

0835 What is the problem?

A nation-child is born at the same time as the mechanical philosophers of the 1600s.  This child of the British Empirereaches adolescence.  This adolescent breaks free.  One orbit of Pluto later, the adult-nation is now a cacophonous grasping, manipulative and technologically savvy minion of oligarchs.  The financial manipulators demand total submission as the price of being rewarded as promised.  The USCB is now the Union of Socialist-Capitalist Bigilibs.

Please, conform to our empirio-normative domination.

AI guides iron hands within velvet gloves.

0836 So, now Russia, acting as a nation with borders is entangled in another matter, the need to become a nation without borders2a, through alliances, rather than through lines on a map.

0837 Yes, something is different.

The Russians are now a people.

And, the people advocate for Eurasian convergence (D).

See Comments on Alexander Dugin’s Book (2012) The Fourth Political Theory, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0838 Accordingly, Lotman’s typology of relations of cultural betweenness, depicted in the purely relational structure of the Greimas square, conjures an opportunity.

0839 Take a look at D in the last two figures and wonder, “What type of matter is thus entangled?”

0840 My thanks to the author, Mihhail Lotman, for publishing this article, whose full title is “History as geography: In search of Russian identity”.

02/19/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 1 of 11)

0953 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 317-334) by Peeter Torop in the Department of Semiotics at Tartu University, Estonia. This particular volume is dedicated to semiotics and history.

0002 Amazingly, this article has no subtitle.

Perhaps, I may add one: An Inquiry into the Chronotope.

0954 At first, I thought that the word, “chronotope”, coined by Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975 AD), was “chronotrope”, where “trope” is a label for a rhetorical trick that belies the complexity of things.  Tropes change over time.

0955 For example, the Latin trope, “ens reale“, has been translated as “being that is real”, as well as “mind-independent being”.  Add time, and the parole of the chronotrope stays the same, but the matter, the langue, shifts.  “Ens reale” migrates from what the scholastics pursue in their philosophical discourses to what?… a being that is mind-independent?  Does mind independence (as matter) somehow substantiate a form (that is the elusive goal of philosophical inquiry)?

0956 If I use Aristotle’s hylomorphe as an exemplar of Peirce’s secondness, I can diagram the following “chronotrope”.

0957 Peirce’s category of secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the real elements are matter and form.  The contiguity, placed in brackets for proper notation, is [substance] or [substantiates].  Either noun or verb is appropriate, because the contiguity can be construed as either.

0958 Does Aristotle’s hylomorphe transmogrify, over time, into mind-independence as a real element and the term, “ens reale” as another real element?

Perhaps, mind-independence could work as matter that substantiates ens reale as form.

Or, maybe, mind-independence could associate to langue and ens reale could go with parole.

0959 I suppose that tropes can shift (in time) in awkward ways.

0960 That leaves me with Bakhtin’s term, “chronotope”.

In chemistry, the nucleus of an element contains protons and neutrons.  The word, “element”, precisely labels a fixed number of protons in its nucleus.  The number of neutrons may vary, resulting in different atomic masses for two different isotopes of the same element.  The word, “isotope” labels a fixed number of protons (characterizing the element) and neutrons (contributing to the isotopic mass).  Some isotopes have too few or too many neutrons, making the nucleus unstable and subject to radioactive decay.

0961 Here is a picture.

0962 By analogy, a “chronotope” is the same element, but its placement in time may vary.

Is that correct?

0963 Is time neutronic?

Maybe the analogy of radioactive decay can introduce time into the elemental thing by producing a confounding, in the following manner.

Yes, a confounding labels one form associated with two matters, one originating and one entangled.

0964 The problem is that radioactive decay as matter cannot resolve into a substantiation of the element as form, since it changes the elemental form by altering the miox of neutrons and protons in the atom.

Well, certainly the elemental thing, {protons and neutrons as matter [substantiate] a radioactive isotope}, is subject to decay.  But, does decay itself constitute an entangled matter, especially when the occasion of radioactive decay changes the original element into another element plus a radioactive emission?

0965 In other words, if radioactive decay occupies the slot for entangled matter, then the original elemental thingchanges form upon resolution of the confounding.

0966 What a weird analogy.

Nevertheless, allow me to continue.

02/7/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 11 of 11)

1088 The final section, on cultural semiotics as semiotics of cultural history offers the trope… er… slogan… saying, “Culture is memory.”

On the fundament, the literary text2bf offers something to remember, if for no other reason than it is encoded as a text. Texts may survive to be available to the future.  Parole2af is often not so lucky.

Time is cruel

So many texts have been lost.  Precious few oral traditions remain intact.

The issue is twofold.  The text or the oral tradition needs to survive.  Also, a code for translation must be retained… or… recoverable.

This is one of the problems with the writing of ancient Mesopotamia, where there are few texts that have more than one script in a single document.

1089 Lotman spends many hours reflecting on text and code.

Some of his reflections end up in his book, Universe of the Mind.

1090 The author presents a table on Lotman and Uspenskij’s views of the temporal aspect of chronotopical analysis.

1091 Of course, the above table does not correspond to Torop’s original table2bf (fundament and derivative, Figure 1).

Perhaps, this table further develops and refines Bakhtin’s semiological structuralist model2c (Figure 2).  

However, it is hard not to imagine that the above figure translates into an interscope.

1092 Say what?

1093 The Tartu-Moscow School expresses two interscopes, the fundament culminates in the semiological structuralist model2c and the derivative rises to a yet-to-be-determined perspective-level actuality2c.

1094 Bakhtin’s notes and scribbles express two interscopes as well.  These two interscopes constitute two adjacent tiers within a model more expansive than the semiological2a structuralist2b model2c.  The construction of Torop’s article intimates that this expanse is well worth investigating.

1095 The way that Lotman’s thing includes time shows how Torop’s tables2af entangle a language2am of presence1b (as well as meaning1a).  Lotman recognizes2bm time2af as a formal requirement of the chronotope2am and forces Torop to construct his own table (Figure 4 on page 330) as a way to situate2bf that entanglement2a.

1096 Here is a juxtaposition of the virtual nested form in the category of secondness for the derivative interscope and Torop’s reconstruction of Lotman’s approach.

1097 A virtual nested form proceeds down a column in a three-level interscope.

Here are the columns in the realm of actuality2.

1098 In the general form of the derivative interscope, a perspective-level actuality2c (to be determined) brings the situation-level actuality of {cognition2bm [substantiates] social interaction2bf} into relation with the possibility of {a literary text2af [entangling] a language2am of meaning1a, presence1b and message1c}.

1099 For Torop’s table addressing Lotman (Figure 4), the perspective-level actuality2c of {semiotic arrangements2cm[substantiate] human conditions2cf} virtually brings the situation-level actuality of {Lotman’s recognition of time2bm[substantiates] Lotman’s thing with respect to time (as a three-level table)2bf} into relation with the content-level possibility that {Torop’s tables as text2af [entangle] the chronotope’s formal requirements2am of the normal context of the Tartu-Moscow School3a}.

1100 Oh yeah, that makes sense.

Cultural history manifests in the framework of the semiotics of the text, where the text is a representation of culture.

Bakhtin’s culture, that is.

Lotman’s culture, too.

1101 If Bakhtin’s insights are formalized as text by Torop’s tables, then Torop’s tables constitute a semiological structuralist model2c of Bakhtin’s insights2af and support the entanglement of a language2am that sounds very much like any language of interpretation.

What is the meaning1a, presence1b and message1c of the chronotope?

Lotman’s thing focuses on time and produces a variation of the fundament interscope.

Torop’s table of Lotman’s consideration of time produces a categorical stairway to a perspective-level actuality2c in the derivative interscope.

1102 Once again, what is Lotman’s thing?

Oh, yes, it is the archaeological recovery of an insight that is present… at least in potential… since the very origins of Slavic civilization.

In the beginning is the Word, and the Word as matter substantiates the human condition as form.

1103 Here is a picture.

Such is the resolution, of the confounding where history substantiates culture and culture entangles semiotics.

1104 My thanks to Peeter Torop, for putting pen to paper and for building the tables that demonstrate the fecundity and the surprising beauty of the first iteration of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.  May a second iteration follow.

02/6/26

Looking at Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova’s Book (2025) “Sphere of Understanding” (Part 1 of 3)

SaH 0001 The full title of the book before me is Sphere of Understanding: Tartu Dialogues with Semioticians.  The book is volume 23 of the series, Semiotics, Communication and Cognition, edited by Paul Cobley and Kalevi Kull, published in 2025, by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.  

Kalevi Kull is a biologist who joined the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu in 1997.  Ekaterina Velmezova is a linguist and historian who graduated from Moscow State University.  Each, in their own way, represents the two poles of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

0002 The question is: Does this book mark the end of the first ascent or the beginning of the second ascent for the Tartu Moscow School of Semiotics.

0003 After the introductory chapter, extolling the virtues of dialogue, the authors offer a brief history of semiotics in Estonia.  The arrival of Juri Lotman, a scholar of Slavic literature, initiates a transnational collaboration within the old USSR.  The summer school at Tartu University proves seductive.  Here is a place where scholars in Slavic literature are free to play.

0004 So, one aspect of the sphere that the authors desire to understand is a historical conception, sired from the intellectual loins of Juri Lotman, that has taken a life of its own.  The only question is: Who is she?

0005 Kalevi Kull wrestles with emergence in biological systems.  What about this semiotically inclined child of history?

0006 Ekaterina Velmezova performs translation into English, as well as, I imagine, editing in Russian.  After all, these are times when Estonians may want to hedge their bets.

0007 Who knows?

Can the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics be born again?

The interviews provide clues.  They are gems framed in their historical moments.

0008 So how do I, a crypto semiotician, respond?

0009 First, I look at back issues of the journal that Juri Lotman founded, Sign System Studies, and find a special issue in 2017 bearing the title: Semiotics and History.

Second, I review several of the articles, plus one from 2016, in order to produce my contribution to the book’s dialogue.

Third, I package the results into an online independent mini-course, the first in a series titled, “Semiotics and History”, by Razie Mah, starting in December, 2025.

0010 The editors of the journal, Sign System Studies, have permission to scrape the blogs of this mini-course for a special on-line issue, as well as permission translate the blogs into other languages.  After all, time is cruel.  If the blog goes off-line, then the editors will retain a response that addresses what the authors seek.

0011 What do the authors seek?

0012 First, they seek a “sphere”.  Shall I add… “of influence”?  Or, shall I be satisfied with “of understanding”.

The interviewers ask semioticians questions.  After the year, 2008, these queries include how the semiotician came into contact or awareness of the (first ascent of) the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (1960s-1980s).  The authors want to appreciate the school’s sphere of influence.

0013 Second, they seek understanding.

Here is where the discrepancy between Saussure and Peirce comes in.  Today, practitioners of both traditions are called, “semioticians”.   But, Saussure called his path of inquiry, “semiology”.  And structuralism?  Structuralism virtually situates semiology.  Structuralism is semiology as matter substantiating aesthetics as form.

0014 So, what am I doing?

I follow the path of Peirce, into the labyrinth of triadic relations, and attempt to identify the normal contexts (thirdness) and potentials (firstness) of the actualities (secondness) of semiology and structuralism.

0015 What do I find?

I find that “she” is Slavic civilization, herself.

0016 My examination of articles in the 2017 special issue of Sign System Studies, titled “Semiotics and History”, pays tribute to the authors’ search, embodied in the title, and provides a way to understand the Tartu-Moscow School’s sphere of influence, for both the first iteration in the old USSR and its second iteration in the upcoming Eurasian convergence.

02/5/26

Looking at Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova’s Book (2025) “Sphere of Understanding” (Part 2 of 3)

SaH 0017 The authors quest for a sphere of understanding.  They seek the egg, so to speak, impregnated by Juri Lotman’s genius.  In the interviews in chapter 2.1, Lotman is spent, although still alive.  He is old.  The interviewer is a youth, a personification of the metaphysical love-child born after Slavic civilization reveals herself to Lotman’s circumspection.

0018 The miracle of Lotman’s arrival in Estonia is, weirdly, recounted in the last interview (2.14) with psychologist and cultural theorist, Jaan Valsiner.  As it turns out, Valsiner’s step-father was instrumental in getting Juri Lotman to Estonia after the Second World War.

0019 Jaan Valsiner demonstrates that the Tartu-Moscow’s sphere of influence is diffuse.  His testimony is seconded by Paul Cobley (2.13), Terrence Deacon (2.12), Jesper Hoffmeyer (2.11) and Stuart Kauffman (2.10).

0020 The sphere becomes less diffuse in interviews with Roland Posner (2.9), Gunther Kress (2.8) and Wilfred Noth (2.7).

Notably, Noth conducts a discourse on the crucial potential of truth, as opposed to the potential of will.  Indeed, the contrast between truth and will turns out to be integral to my examination of a 2017 article on Russian identity.

0021 Finally, the sphere becomes tangible with interviews with American anthropologist, Myrdene Anderson (2.6), who researched indigenous people in Sweden, Italian semiotician Paolo Fabbri (2.5), who railed against the wooly thinking that passes for “models” in contemporary humanities, and the Italian know-it-all Umberto Eco, who noted the importance of iconicity in semiotic humanity.

What?

“Semiotic humanity”?

What about semiology?

0022 Contemporary academic discourse is currently conducted with expert-coined spoken words, but these utterancescannot picture or point to their referents.  Academics swim in a pool of differences… er… two arbitrarily related pools of differences.  No one can tell where he or she flotates.

Flotates?

This is what happens when spoken words are placeholders in two arbitrarily related systems of differences.

0023 Finally, the interviews engage a still-living member of the original Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, Boris Uspenskij (2.2).  This interview gets a full examination in the course on Semiotics and History.  Uspenskij stands within the sphere that the authors aspire to understand.

0024 So, what does Razie Mah’s contribution under the banner of Semiotics and History offer?

0025 For the diffuse sphere, these examinations will present a historical narrative of ideas in the style of diagrams of purely relational structures.  In short, Peirce-inspired diagrams offer a new way to narrate intellectual history.

0026 For the almost tangible sphere, these examinations practice a method of association, followed by a discussion of the implications.  The articles provide material to fill in the empty slots of relational structures.  When associations are made, implications become apparent.

0027 For the sphere itself, one unexpected insight is that, as the first ascendant of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics struggles to fulfill the political mandate of the USSR (to make all fields of inquiry “scientific”), the researchers excavate the recently-buried remains of the civilization that is their subject of inquiry.

Imagine a scientific investigation of Russian language, history and literature, as a archaeological excavation into the being of Slavic civilization.

0028 Is that the same “she” that… um… you know… captured the attention of Juri Lotman?

How confounding.

0029 The next blog offers an introduction to Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

02/4/26

Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (Part 3 of 3)

SaH 0030 This course is a fully on-line study that appears in Razie Mah’s blog.

The course should be conducted (ideally) by a mature reader along with one novice or more, (less ideally) by two novices in collaboration and (perhaps, heroically) by a novice reader working alone.

0031 The field of home-schooling is exploding (a term associated with Juri Lotman) in America, but a wary public wants to taste the products, before committing to purchase.  This online course is the first of many, I suppose, but the import for this particular exposition is obvious when considering current events.

0031 Estonia is awkwardly situated (along with the other Baltic states) between the Slavic civilization of Russia (to the east), and the Swedish, German and Polish civilizations (to the west).  Estonia was part of the USSR, during the cold war; part of the West, during the American Empire’s unipolar moment; and now is about to be nudged into a Eurasian convergence, as predicted by political theologian, Alexander Dugin.

A nudge is both a danger and an opportunity, especially for the University of Tartu, with its department of semiotics, and for the University of Moscow, with its unique constellation of intellects.

0032 One of the questions asked in almost every interview in Kull’s and Velmezova’s book goes like this, “What needs to be researched by semioticians?  Or, what topics of inquiry need exploration by newly certified semioticians?”

This course offer a number of suggestions, several in connection with a stunning post-scholastic discovery that may be attributed to the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

Discovery?

Look and see.

The original articles are available online.

0033 Here is the list of examinations.

Go to the month in Razie Mah’s blog and scroll down.

0034 (1.) Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”  (December 2025, 27 blogs, points 1-376)

0035 (2.) Looking at Ekaterina Velmesova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (January 31-10, 2026, 19 blogs, points 377-641)

0036 (3.) Looking at Boris Uspenskij’s Article (2017) “Semiotics and Culture” (January 9-2, 2026, 8 blogs, points 642-743)

0037 (4.) Looking at Mihhail Lotman’s Article (2017) “History as Geography” (late February 2026, 8 blogs, points 744-840)

0038 (5.) Looking at Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2017) “Semiosphere and history” (late March 2026, 8 blogs, points 841-952)

0039 (6.) Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics as Cultural History” (early February 2026, 11 blogs, points 953-1104)

0040 In a little over 1000 steps, the home- or guided-schooler can find out where the Tartu-Moscow School as been (in its first ascent) and where it may be going (in its second).

02/3/26

A Course on Semiotics and History: A List of Online Contributions

SaH0001 Razie Mah offers three foundational courses that cover human evolution.

These are:

The Human Niche

(also see the four accompanying commentaries as well as the three-part Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019))

An Archaeology of the Fall

(also see the three part Instructor’s Guide, as well as The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace and Original Sin and Original Death: Romans 5:12-19)

How To Define the Word “Religion”

(also see the ten primers, starting with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction)

These courses are on sale by various electronic booksellers.

The texts are designed to be read and discussed in a seminar setting.

0002 For inquirers. educators and students would who like to try their hands at Razie Mah’s approach, Semiotics and History offers a path.  This is one course consisting of many strands.  Like a fiber in a rope, each strand strengthens the entire conceptual apparatus.  With few execptions, each course completely appears in the blog.  Some strands will have an electronic e-book component.  So, don’t be afraid to make a purchase.  You will find that the costs of Mah’s electronic works are reasonable.

In the following list, the date corresponds to the cover page of each strand.  A strand typically covers a month.

0003 The following list extends into the future, because more strands will be added over time.

Feb 6,5, 2026

Looking at Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova’s Book (2025) “Sphere of Understanding” (Part 1 and 2 of 3)

Feb 4, 2026

Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (Part 3 of 3)

May 30. 2026

Semiotics and History: Baroque Scholasticism

May 7, 2026

Semiotics and History: Baroque Scholasticism and Early Modernism

June 30, 2026

Semiotics and History: Early Modernism

July 31, 2026 Semiotics and History: Gnosticism in Modern America

01/31/26

Looking at Ekaterina Velmezova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (Part 1 of 19)

0377 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 404-448) by two well-regarded semioticians.  The full title is “Boris Uspenskij on history, linguistics and semiotics”.  Kalevi Kull conducts the interviews.  Ekaterina Velmezova performs translation.

The article consists of two sit-downs.  The first takes place at the end of a eighth session of the Tartu Summer School of Semiotics, in August 25, 2011.  The topic of the Summer School was Semiotic Modelling.  The second takes place at Uspenskij’s home in Rome on May 27, 2012.  The questions are based on his book, Ego Loquens: Language and the Communicative Space (2007).

0378 This examination seeks to appreciate how one of the leading figures of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, which flourished from the 1960s to the 1980s, weaves Saussure’s definition of spoken language as two arbitrarily related systems of differences, into a science-friendly inquiry into the literature of the Slavic civilization.

0379 Two arbitrarily related system of differences?

Parole (speech talk) also corresponds to the written word as well as symbolic artifacts.  Parole can be observed and measured.

Langue (the machinations that automatically decode and encode speech talk) cannot be directly observed in the same way as parole.  Yet, langue is there.  It must be.  Otherwise there is no way that someone can think before speaking, should that person choose to do so.

0380 Parole and langue are two contiguous real elements.  The continuity, if placed in brackets is [arbitrarily related].

This configuration satisfies the definition of Peirce’s category of secondness, where one real element [is contiguous with] another real element.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the two real elements are matter and form.  I label the contiguity, [substance] or [substantiates], but it also could be [entangles].  Substance is typical.  Entanglement is tricky.

0381 Here is a picture of the comparison between Aristotle’s hylomorphe and Saussure’s definition of language.

0382 Saussure’s definition of language appears to be scientific, because there is no substance.  That is, there is no metaphysical reason for why what we think comes to be associated to what we say.  So, the arbitrary relation is simply a conditioned response.  A conditioned response conforms to truncated material and efficient causalities.

Another term for “conditioned response”?

How about “code” and “decode”?

0383 Okay, if that is the case, then what?

What if what we think (langue) is like matter?  What if what we say (parole) is like form?

Then, the contiguity, [arbitrary relation], seems to say that we can attach any word to any thought, without structure.  So, something structural would need to situate the content of a spoken word, even if that structure is a habit or a convention.  Once that happens, then the hylomorphe, {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a, occupies the actuality2a on the content-level of a two-level interscope.  Language2bm is the situation-level matter that induces a constellation of the content-level hylomorphe.

0384 Okay, if language2b is (by Saussure’s definition) the dyad, {langue2am [arbitrary relation] parole2af}, then how can language2b situate itself2a?

This can only happen if language2b is already participating as a situation-level category-based nested form involved in the production of statements2b.

0385 Here is a picture.

0386 It is as if the content-level actuality2a is immediately situated by a demand to substantiate a statement, as if language2b is matter and a statement2b is form.

0387 But, obviously, there is more.

The content-level actuality2a is accompanied by a normal context3a and potential1a.

So is the situation level actuality2b.

0388 For the content level, the normal context of Saussure’s semiology3a brings the dyadic actuality of {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a into relation with the potential of ‘a signified and its signifier’1a.

0389 For the situation level, the normal context of a linguistic structure (or genre or system)3b brings the dyadic actuality of {language as matter [substantiates] statements as form}2b into relation with the potential of ‘the laws of the system’1b.

01/10/26

Looking at Ekaterina Velmezova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (Part 19 of 19)

0627 Today, we no longer are who we evolved to be.

What does this imply?

We can no longer be who we evolved to be.

Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0628 Today, the general ego interscope presents a purely relational structure (a suite of triadic relations) that may be processed implicitly.  This is the configuration of langue, as opposed to parole.

Here is a picture.

0629 Almost all of the elements of the interscope are filled with explicit abstractions.

A trace of Aristotle’s philosophy resides in the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics. Upwellings from deep within Slavic civilization breathe into explicit abstractions. 

An archaeology can be seen in the structure of the content- and situation-level actualities.  According to Aristotle’s hylomorphe, matter [substantiates] form.  But, this Christianized pagan civilization realizes the inverse is also a thing.  Form [entangles] matter.

0630 In the example, the form of a small bird entangles the matter of a young initiate.

The claim coheres with the crucial claim of Razie Mah’s book on hominin evolution, The Human Niche.  Our niche is the potential of triadic relations. 

The lesson appears like a banner on the perspective level.

0631 This brings me to the joke about Juri Lotman’s soulful encounter with St. Methodius.

During the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School in the USSR, structural3b semiological3a models2c are on the scientific side of the fence.  The fence demarks the academic turfs of science (Marxist theory) and superstition (Christian faith, in all its diversity).

Now, the second ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School occurs as the USSA, the maven of technology without meaning,claims the mantle of science (psychometric theory) as opposed to superstition (still Christian faith, in all its diversity).

0632 Does the second ascent of TMS forgo occupation of the science side of the fence?

Or does it straddle the fence?

0633 It may sound uncomfortable, but take a look at the following sequence of perspective level nested forms.

0634 In regards to the universe of signs, Lotman challenges Marx’s paradigm.

Do material arrangements [substantiate] the human condition2cf?

Lotman begs to differ.

0635 In regards to the evolution of humanity, Peircean diagrams turn out to be useful for depicting the relational beings inherent in implicit abstraction.  

Consider Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0636 In regards to the human as a semiotic animal, one must not forget that both exemplar and interventional signs intercalate in the perspective level of an interscope.

The specifying, exemplar and interventional signs appear in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”.  This sequence of blogs appears in Razie Mah’s website in October 2023.

0637 What wonderful opportunities for the second ascendance of the TMS!

0638 But, that is not the only challenge that comes from this examination of the interview with Boris Uspenskij in the early 2010s and published in Sign Systems Studies in 2017.

I suppose that there is more than one way to denote primary, secondary and tertiary modeling systems, so why not advance one more?

0639 Here is another proposal.

Consider three tiers of interscopes, with the perspective-level of each tier displaying the following nested forms.

0640 To me, this sequence of primary, secondary and tertiary modeling systems suggest that Peirce’s diagrams may assist in knitting biosemiotics and TMS together into one overarching theoretical framework.

Three tiers of interscopes works well in the chapter on presence in Razie Mah’s How To Define The Word “Religion”.  So, this might be a diagram worth mulling over.

0641 I thank the interviewer, Kaveli Kull, and Boris Uspenskij for engagements worthy of examination.  I thank Ekaterina Velmezova for the translation into English. 

01/9/26

Looking at Boris Uspenskij’s Article (2017) “Semiotics and Culture”  (Part 1 of 8)

0642 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 230-248) by Boris Uspenskij (1937-present), one of the members of the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, in the 1960s through the 1980s.  The full title is “Semiotics and culture: The perception of time as a semiotic problem”.  The paper was originally presented as a lecture held in Madrid in 2010.  Plus, the paper is based on a two-part article published under the title “History and Semiotics (the perception of time as a semiotic problem)” in 1988 and 1989.

0643 The first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics builds a fundament of semiology3a, structuralism3b and disciplinary languages3c that retain formal and final causations along with material and efficient causalities (called “exact methods3c“).  The result is an actuality2c, a semiological structural model2c (SVi), that stands for a dyadic actuality2a where {the literary text2af (SOi) [entangles] a language2am of meaning, presence and message1a}.

0644 Here is a diagram of the fundament interscope.

0645 Exact methods3c?

Think of it3c as flying a probe2bm into a cloud of phenomena1c that cannot fully objectify the noumenon of a literary text2bf.  This scholarly data-collector2bm extracts observations and measurements1c that will be evaluated (using exact methods) on the basis of signification3a(1a) and structure3b(1b).

0646 Semiological structural model2c?

According to the empirio-schematic judgment, a disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings a mechanical or mathematical model (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).  

A parallel construction follows.

A disciplinary language of exact methods3c (relation, thirdness) brings a semiological structuralist model2c (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena1c within a literary text2bf (what is,firstness).

0647 Phenomena1c?

Phenomena are observable and measurable facets of a noumenon, a thing itself.

According to Kant’s slogan, a phrase that Kant may have never uttered but which is attributed to him in the same way that the entire Pentateuch is attributed to Moses, a noumenon cannot be fully objectified as its phenomena.  A thing itself cannot be reduced to its observable and measurable facets.

0648 Language2bm?

Language2bm is the situation-level matter (as opposed to form) constituted by Saussure’s definition of language2aentering into a structure (or system)3b, such as a mother tongue3b, a genre3b, a style3b, an artistic community3b, a tradition3b, and other civilizational beings3b.

0649 Clearly, the semiological3a structuralist3b model2c aims to capture an Aristotelian expression of how language as matter2bm substantiates a literary text as form2bf.

Without the literary text2bf, a semiological structural model2c cannot coalesce because there is nothing to delimit free-floating, unanchored language from the phenomena that an inquirer is interested in.  It is like matter without a form to substantiate.  It’s useless.

0650 So, in the fundament interscope, language as matter2bm gives substance to the literary text as form2bf.

At the same time, the literary text as form2bf allows the entire situation-level hylomorphe2b to take a shape where language2bm may be regarded as phenomena.

0651 Say what?

Language2bm substantiates the literary form2bf and, at the same time, may be regarded as phenomena of the literary form2bf.

It2bm is substantiating matter2bm (esse_ce) because it virtually situates the content-level actuality2a, {langue2am[substantiates] parole2af}.

It2bm is regarded as literary phenomena by the perspective-level potential1c.

0652 The substantiated form2bf (essence) is like a noumenon and its2bf substantiating matter2bm (esse_ce) serves as its2bf observable and measurable facets (that is, its phenomena).