1013 Well, that is close enough to science that a scholar schooled in Slavic languages and literature gets.

I call the resulting interscope, “fundament”, because it takes the inquirer from the mother tongue_2a through the composition of the text_2b, to a model_2c that is based on the nature of signs_3a and on the way that any particular genre, style, fashion, and artistic expression constitutes a system_3b bound by rules_1b.  The fundament applies to a wide range of “languages” in so far as a specific style of artistic expression displays distinct elements, or forms_2b(2a), that correspond to mental thoughts_2a and linguistic matter_2b.

1014 Here is a picture of the fundament interscope.

1015 Perhaps, most striking is the Aristotelian character of the fundament.  The content-level hylomorphe_2a is universal.  The situation-level hylomorphe_2b should be intelligible.  The perspective-level model_2c is a relation that brings the intelligibility of the situation-level hylomorphe_2b into relation with the universality of the content-level hylomorphe_2a.

The fundament seems to be an exercise in aesthetics as much as modern science.

Juri Lotman labels it, “Russian theory”.

1016 Is it any coincidence that Russian Theory spontaneously constellates at the same time as Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology?  Both strive to assess what the noumenon must be, given the phenomena of matter and form.

1017 Phenomenology re-articulates technical achievements (such as a particular style of architecture) as social things, arriving at noumena whose phenomena engage the social sciences.

See the e-book course, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Also see the three part e-work, Biosemiotics as Noumenon.

1018 Russian theory re-articulates literary achievements (as well, all the modern arts) in Slavic civilization as… um… semiological and structural judgments_2c, lingering like Byzantine shadows of Aristotle in the Marxist-illuminated hallways of Moscow and Tartu Universities.

1019 Indeed, the fundament is so… um… profound that Marx’s thing gets entangled in semiotics as matter.

1020 How confounding.

The dangers of this confounding are palpable in the interview with Vyacheslav Ivanov, appearing in Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova (eds.), Sphere of Understanding: Tartu Dialogues with Semioticians (2025, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, pages 47-68).

1021 One can only admire Lotman’s bravado when it comes to the bureaucratic morons, who are both culturally Slavs (having an intuitive Orthodox appreciation of entanglement) and indoctrinated not be be Slavs (by the Marxist insistence that Christian superstition is scientific nonsense) and are therefore already conflicted.

Sometimes, morons can advance science by simply not resolving their conflictions.

1022 But, that is another story.

1023 Here, on page 321 of the text under examination, Torop shifts into the technical details of a literary order.  He offers a table, listing levels for intratextual and extratextual relations.  Intratextual relations concern the text itself.  Extratextual relations concerns what type of text it is.

1024 The actualities of the fundament interscope compare well with Torop’s intratextual relations.

1025 On the content level of word and meaning, Saussure’s dyadic actuality compares to subtextual and lingual meanings.  In short, an author must craft thoughts_2am into words_2af.

1026 On the situation level of the structure of the textual material, the dyad of {language as matter_2bm [substantiates] the literary text as form_2bf} compares to what Torop calls “the structure of material (dominant element or level)”.

1027 What does the term in parentheses imply?

Does “the dominant element or level” represent the normal context of structure (or sign-system)_3b operating on the potential laws of the system_1b?

For example, a text on history may be an epic tale, a historical analysis or a fairy tale.  Each manifests a different structure_3b and lawfulness_1b.

1028 On the perspective level of poetics, a semiological structuralist model_2c compares to textual specificity.  To me, both actualities contain some sort of judgment.

For example, let me propose a thesis in the humanities that consists of concatenating plagiarized passages from various experts on a particular topic.  When the submission is debated by the student’s faculty committee, they may consider the fact that the passages were chosen by the student may represent a unique intellectual advancement offered by the student.  In comparison to the visual arts, the submitted text is a collage.

The problem is obvious.  A submission on say, a Slavic work of literature, cannot be labeled a “thesis” when it is really the textual equivalent to a collage.

1029 So, Torop’s label of “poetics” for the perspective level conveys a certain irony.

1030 When the lazy faculty members vote to award the degree on the basis of this “literary collage”, and after the funds for the college’s endowment are released by a nervous, yet protective donor, a rumor goes out that the nature of the academic thesis in languages and literature has changed.  “Literary collages” are now accepted as original academic work.

1031 Spoken words can be so slippery.

So, actions speak louder than words.

1032 Of course, in order to justify the move, one of those lazy faculty members may be induced to write a defense, in which a semiological structuralist model_2c is constructed in order to portray the student’s submission as a literary text_2afthat emerges from the potential of ‘the meaning of an intellectual accomplishment’_1a in the normal context of… well… a positivist intellect that is more compromised than that of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics_3a.

1033 Here is a picture of the perspective-level of the fundament interscope and the content-level of a derivative interscope, which is not under the umbrella of Russian Theory for this example, because the entire exercise is a scam.

1034 The semiological structuralist model_2c of perspective-level of the fundament interscope stands for the literary text_2af on the content-level of the derivative interscope in regards to a modern intellect_3a operating on the potential of ‘positivist meaning’_1a.

1035 According to Peirce, a sign-vehicle (SV) stands for a sign-object (SO) in regards to a sign-interpretant (SI).  The above diagram expresses what I call “the interventional sign-relation”, as described in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in October, 2023.

In this case, the guilty faculty member’s semiological structuralist model_2c of the “collage thesis_2bf“ (SV_i) stands for literary text as form_2af (SO_i) in regards to the academic institution’s positivist intellect_3a (which is not TMS, for sure) operating on the potential of ‘an acceptable intellectual accomplishment, worthy of an advanced degree’_1a (SI_i).

1036 Recall that the semiological structuralist model_2c brings the intelligibility of the literary text_2b into relation with the universality of language_2a.

So, a semiological structuralist model_2c that that brings the intelligibility of a concatenation of plagiarized texts_2b into relation with the universality of the language of the visual arts_2a (SV_i) stands for the way that {this literary text as a form_2af [entangles] the language of meaning as matter_2am} (SO_i) in the normal context of an obviously compromised academic stance_3a operating on the potential that ‘a literary study may be compared to a visual collage’_1a (SI_i).

1037 Enough of this.

I’m sure the reader has a good idea that this academy engages in sophistry.

Can one build a sensible interscope on an exercise of sophistry?

Well, one can try.

Here is the general sensible construction that anyone with integrity would produce.

1038 I leave it to the reader to produce the sensible construction specific to the scam.

1039 Why?

I am plunging headlong into displaying the derivative interscope, which emerges from and situates the fundament interscope.

Here is a picture.

1040 On the content level, a positivist intellect comparable to that of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, in its 1960s-1980s hey-day_3a, brings the actuality of the dyad of {the fundamentally modeled literary text as form_2af[entangles] a discursive and derivative language as matter_2am} into the relation with the potential of ‘meaning’_1a.

Here, the potential_1a does not refer to subtextuality, but to “functionality”, in the broadest sense of the word.  ‘Meaning’ is not “functional” unless it satisfies the formal requirements of its design_3a and the intentions of its final causality_3a.

1041 On the situation level, the normal context of cultural studies concerning the reception of the work_3b brings the actuality of the dyad, {cognition as matter_2bm [substantiates] social interaction as form_2bf}, into relation with the potential_1b of ‘a presence’ that situates the matter of language_2am.

1042 Returning to the scam, in the next academic year, the department of languages and literature receives many applications by students eager to explore the opportunities offered for constructing a thesis based on plagiarized material cut and pasted into a “literary collage”.

1043 The problem arises when this new style of thesis is compared to theses from other academic institutions.

I suppose this problem figures in the general perspective-level category-based nested form in the above figure.

Perhaps, this is why the perspective level is left empty.

1044 The derivative interscope compares to the table on extratextual relations in Figure 1 on page 321.  The title of Figure 1 is “The construction of text”.

1045 Here is a table comparing the virtual nested form in actuality for the derivative interscope with Torop’s extratextual relations.

While the fundament interscope addresses the text itself.  The derivative interscope assesses the text in relation to other texts.  Such an assessment characterizes extratextual relations for the work.

1046 Are the correspondences sufficient to conclude that this examination’s fundament and derivative interscopes and Torop’s intratextual and extratextual relations are similar… if not identical?

If the answer is “yes”, then this examiner has a clue to the nature of the missing perspective-level actuality_2c.  The perspective-level actuality_2c assesses how a particular text relates to other texts, and in doing so, weighs the intelligibility of the reception of the work_2b against the universality of its functional meaning_2a.

1047 An affirmative answer also brings this examiner to the topic of Bakhtin’s chronotopes.

Figure 2 on page 322 of Torop’s essay presents what may be Bakhtin’s chronotopical system.

In fact, the table in Figure 2 is assembled from a short piece, “Forms of time and of the chronotope in the novel”, written around 1937-1938, along with “concluding remarks” added in 1973.  Plus, there are entries in various notebooks, scribbles on papers that were preserved, and so on, adding clarity… and weirdness… to a distinction between architectonic time (corresponding to the chronotope) and the time when the story or artwork is composed (and, presumably, the author and the author’s cultural scope are alive).

1048 For example, consider a sci-fi author completing a story about “life in the future”, the day before the world ends.  The chronotope must be life in the future.  The time when the story is composed corresponds to the day before an asteroid hits the Earth.

Oh, this is the twist.

The author belongs to a rare breed of dinosaur living 65 million years ago.

The translation occurs when an AI program trained to scan fossilized dinosaur nests suddenly recognizes patterns within the nesting material that correspond… through comparison with patterns in other… what?.. ancient Mesopotamian glyphs, allowing for some sort of translation.

1049 So, what is the title of this unbelievable literary text?

“Actuality to be determined_2c“.

1050 Am I saying that Bakhtin’s chronoscope is the actuality to be determined_2c?

Am I saying that the actuality to be determined_2c is more than intertextual specificity?

It_2c is the time envisioned in a story written the moment before the author, and the author’s cultural scope, vanish into the past.

1051 So, what is this moment in the present, where the past recedes and the future awaits the text itself?

It must be the moment when langue_2am [substantiates] parole_2af.

1052 Just as there is a time-piece within a radioactive atom that determines when the unstable isotope decays into another element, there is a time piece within every author and cultural scope.  That time-piece determines when the time of composition and the chronotope separate into the author and the text.

1053 An academic can study the author and the text in order to produce, using the fundament interscope, a semiologiccal_2a structural_2b model_2c.  This model_2c, when regarded as the noumenon of the text_2af, may entangle key elements within the chronotopical system, as shown in the following figure.

1054 But, there is a problem.

The closer that the semiotician swerves into Bakhtin’s chronotopical system, the more and more the semiological structuralist model_2c looks… well… irrelevant. 

Look at the poetics level.

Surely, a semiological structural model_2c is bland and uninteresting compared to topographic, psychological and metaphysical realities.

No?

1055 Okay, there is another problem.

It is not at all obvious that my one-to-one association with each of Bakhtin’s triads corresponds to content-, situation- and perspective-level actualities.

The chronotope does not seem to match the fundament and derivative interscopes, at least not directly.

Plus, Torop loves Bakhtin as much as he does Lotman and Uspenskij.

The essay makes that obvious.

1056 On top of that, the article itself swerves from the TMS school (olive color) to Bakhtin (orange color) and back (to olive color).

Here is a picture with color-coded section headings.

1057 So, the author goes from the TMS school to Bakhtin and back again.

What does this imply?

The swerve into Bakhtin must be crucial.

1058 Now, about that rumor about AI discovering glyphic writing while examining fossilized dinosaur nests which were dated to 65Myr (millions of years ago), right before the asteroid impact that ended the Epoch of Weird Multicellular Animals (600-65Myr).

1059 The university involved in the incident apologized.

Apparently, over the Easter holidays, the Anthropology Department wheeled the new AI computer in use by the Archaeology Department, which had been examining photos of fossilized dinosaur nests for patterns, to take a look very early pre-cuneiform tablets.  They trained the AI to recognize cuneiform, but when they applied the program to the early tablets, the AI said that this pattern showed that an egg lies here and that pattern is a dinosaur footprint, and so on.

Frustrated, the anthropology team returned the AI computer to the archaeologists, who were surprised when the AI started reporting, around Pentecost, that the nesting material contained intentionally written glyphs that could be interpreted.

1060 It is like the Greimas square.  Train a student on the Greimas square, then every spoken word becomes a focus for the technique.  It is quite remarkable.

I suppose that applies to myself, because it seems that all I see is the TMS fundament and derivative interscopes in every semiotic paper that I examine.

1061 So, maybe I should take a step back and draw a line between the virtual nested form in secondness for the fundament interscope and Torop’s table describing Bakhtin’s chronotopical system (Figure 2).

1062 Uh-oh.

Once I do this, I gestalt the following.

If “gestalt” is a verb, that is.

Reality expands into Peirce’s category of thirdness.

Time and space spins into Peirce’s secondness.

And, phonics associates to Peirce’s firstness.

1063 Surely, this diagram looks like it matches a comparison of the fundament and Torop’s Figure 2.

However, the levels look more and more suspicious.

Do they contain category-based nested forms?

1064 Consider the perspective or “reality” level.

Does a normal context of metaphysical reality_3c bring the actuality of psychological reality_2c into relation with the potential of ‘topographic reality’_1c?

Surely, that looks well… may I use the word, “unrealistic”?

1065 So, what if I switch reality to correspond to three nested normal contexts?

Here is a picture.

1066 Now, that looks more realistic.

Overall, the normal context of reality₃ brings the actuality of space and time₂ into relation with the potential of ‘tone’₁.

For three levels, reality₃ is a normal context operating on the possibility of ‘tone’₁, where ‘tone’ is most clearly expressed in terms of music-related explicit abstractions.  The label corresponding to ‘tone’₁ changes from content, to situation and on to perspective.

1067 Yes, that seems more reasonable.

Here is the resulting interscope.

1068 On the content level, the normal context of topographic reality_3a brings the actuality of concrete (or specific) time and space_2a into relation with the potential of ‘homophony’_1a.  Homophony is like a melody.

On the situation level, the normal context of psychological reality_3b brings the actuality of subjective time and space_2binto relation with the potential of ‘polyphony’_1b.  Polyphony is like harmony and dissonance.  A melody is situated by harmony and dissonance.

On the perspective level, the normal context of metaphysical reality_3c brings the actuality of mythological time and imaginary space_2c into relation with the potential of ‘heterophony’_1c.  Heterophony is like the visual appearance and acoustic character of the venue in which a musical or dance performance occurs.

1069 Now I ask, “Does the above figure look like a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c?”

1070 Torop continues to recount the lessons that come from Bakhtin’s notes.

The next section is titled, “Semiotics of culture and chronotopicality”.

Not only does a chronotopical analysis distinguish three levels in every text, but, for literature, the three levels display narratives and performances.

Is this where semiotics enters into the picture?

1071 The author offers another table correlating levels of the text and the sphere of semiotization.

Here is a picture.

1072 The same principles apply as before.

Chronoscopy goes with Peirce’s category of thirdness.

Narrative and performance associates to secondness.

The world belongs to firstness.

1073 Similar to before, the above figure looks like a semiological_3a model_2c.

On the content level, a topographical homophonic normal context_3a brings the actuality of story and events_2a into relation with the potential of ‘an intertextual storyworld’_1a.

On the situation level, a psychological polyphonic normal context_3b brings the actualities of narration and performance_2b into relation with the potential of ‘a multimodal, innerworld with self and others’_1b.

On the perspective level, a metaphysical heterophonic normal context_3c brings the actualities of verbal and pictorial descriptions_2c into relation with the potential of ‘cohesive principles establishing a conceptual world’_1c.

1074 Now I ask, “Do these arguments add up to a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c?”

1075 By the time that the author finishes this section, he has intimated that Bakhtin’s article and scribbles on the chronotope offers a semiological structuralist model composed of interscopes, rather than category-based nested forms.

Here are the virtual nested forms in the category of thirdness for each interscope.

1076 The author moves on to the topic of “cultural semiotics as semiotics of cultural history”.

I love topics like this.

They almost make my wordplay appear reasonable.

1077 According to Lotman, each generation has a language to describe yesterday.

1078 What does this imply?

Torop has a positivist language_2af, historically developed within the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (on its preparation for a second iteration, this examiner hopes), for translating the somewhat disordered clues left by Bakhtin into a text, consisting of tables.  Each of these tables correspond to an interscope (Peircean constructions, which the author does not have at the time, but are implicit to the tables, themselves).

There are two tables. 

The one dealing with narrative and performance associates to the semiological level of the fundament interscope.

The one dealing with space and time associates to the structural level of the fundament interscope.

These tables correspond to the literary text_2bf as form for the fundament interscope.

1079 In Torop’s language, langue as matter_2am consists in what Bakhtin is thinking, and wondering about, in regards to the way that literature works.  This matter_2am sort of emerges from a signfied_1a in the normal context of Saussure’s semiology_3a.   Parole as form_2af consists in the article that Bakhtin writes and the pages of notes that survive concerning the nature of the “chronotope”.  Indeed, the spoken word, “chronotope_2af” situates the signifier_1a that Bakhtin imagines and Torop uses to tag the article and the pages of notes.

Bakhtin’s works correspond to langue_2am and parole_2af in the fundament interscope.

1080 These associations allow me to apply the fundament interscope, as a semiological structuralist model_2c, to Torop’s tables_2bf.

1081 To me, this application is appealing.

1082 I now move on to the rest of Lotman’s observation.

Each generation, in principle, does not have a language to describe tomorrow.

1083 How does this apply?

In 2017, Torop does not have Peirce’s construction of the interscope.

The basics are presented by Razie Mah’s e-books, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

1084 Despite this lack, Torop successfully communicates that Bakhtin’s parole_2af of the “chronotope” serves as the language_2bm that substantiates two tables_2bf.  The universality of the “chronotope”_2af and the intelligibility of Torop’s two tables_2bf are weighed when one regards them as contributing to a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c.

1085 Here is corresponding interscope.

1086 The above interscope may be compared to the interscopes postulated by this examiner as characteristic of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

1087 But there is more.

0390 Here is a picture of the resulting two-level interscope.

0391 The article begins with a pithy introduction.  Boris Anreevich Uspenskij (1937-present) is a linguist and semiotician from Moscow, one of the leading figures in the Tartu School of Semiotics, and a protege of Juri Lotman.  He is one of the founders of the above nested form, which I label “semiological_3a structuralism_3b“.  But, he has never encountered the diagrammatic formulations portrayed above.

0392 Each row constitutes a category-based nested form where:

Actuality₂ emerges from potential₁.

Actuality₂ situates potential₁.

Normal context₃ contextualizes actuality₂.

Normal context₃ brings actuality₂ into relation with potential₁.

The subscripts, “1, 2, 3”, correspond to Peirce’s categories directly.  The subscripts “a, b, c” correspond to the levels of content, situation and perspective.  The three levels constitute a category-based nested form composed of category-based nested forms.  The relational structure is called an “interscope”.  The above interscope has only two levels, typical for sensible construction.

0393 All this is discussed in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0394 The two-level interscope associates to sensible construction.

So, I ask, “Where in these interviews does the idea of sensible (as opposed to social) construction manifest?”

0395 On page 408, in a question on deixis and language, Uspenskij notes that both parapsychological relations (between mother and infant) and imitation (an innate tendency) play roles in language acquisition.  Mother-infant interactions exhibit the character of signifier (the gestures, facial expressions and sounds) as well as signified (perhaps expressed as a theory of mind).  It is as if each signifier poses the challenge, “Guess what I am thinking.”

However, not only are mother and infant good at guessing, and psychologically supported by their mutual reinforcement, they display an actuality_2a, {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}_2a, that manifests systemic laws.  Each mother tongue is a structure_3b operating on the potential of ‘lawful correspondences’_1b.  Years later, when the child goes to school and learns to write, the content-level actuality_2a will be situated by a similar appearing dyad, {language as matter [substantiates] literary text as form}_2b.

0396 Of course, Uspenskij does not say this directly.

I only suggest that what he does say comports with semiological_3a structuralism_3b as portrayed in the Peirce-inspired diagram above.

0397 On page 409, the discussion turns to one of Uspenskij’s unanticipated discoveries: the first Russian grammar book written in Russian.  At the time, there are Russian grammar books in German, French and other languages. This is the first written in Russian.

Uspenskij tells the story of how his interest in iconic Byzantine painting led to the unexpected treasure.  He originally wanted to appreciate the actuality of Russian iconic painting_2b within a formalized artistic system_3b, with its own laws_1b and its own way of communicating_2a.

0398 Indeed, his original inquiry follows the contours of semiological_2a structuralism_2b.

0399 Of course, the associations may not be as straightforward as that.

0400 But it is a good starting point.

On the content level, the normal context of symbol-rich artistic expression_3a brings the dyadic actuality of {human ideation_2am [substantiates] visual signifiers_2af}_2a into relation with the potential of ‘a signified (the saint) and a signifier (the icon of the saint)’_1a.

On the situation level, the normal context of the Orthodox tradition_3b brings the dyadic actuality of {the icon of the saint (which is also the signifier_1a)_2bm [substantiating] a painting as an artistic production_2bf}_2b into relation with the potential ‘laws of the artistic style of the sacred icon’_1b.

0401 The young Uspenskij formulates a hypothesis.

Byzantine religious icons are meant to be viewed in flickering candlelight.

The rich-unreflective clothes, the serious face staring back at the viewer, and the gold inlay of the background catching the import of every flicker of the flames belong to the laws of the artistic style_1b.  The candlelight assists in drawing the viewer into the visual elements_2bm… the visual matter_2bm… until suddenly… what?

402 The saint in the figure speaks to me.

How weird is that?

403 Eighty years after Uspenskij proposes that Russian icons are designed to be viewed in flickering candlelight, Razie Mah reviews two books in September and October 2025: Looking at Steven Mithen’s Book (2024) The Language Puzzleand Looking at Julian Jaynes’s Book (1976) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. These reviews are combined in the e-book, Synaesthesia and the Bicameral Mind in Human Evolution (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  This e-book justifies Uspenskij’s hypothesis as a characteristic of human practices long before the start of civilization.

404 Here is a picture.

0405 In this case, the structuralist system_2b is a neural adaptation_3b that facilitates the addition of vocal utterances to hand-talk word-gestures under less than ideal visual conditions, such as before a campfire at night.  As it turns out, this neural adaptation_3b also engages a previously established adaptation called the interventional sign-relation (not pictured).  If Julian Jaynes is correct, then this system undergirds what he calls “the bicameral mind”.

0406 After Uspenskij finds the earliest Russian grammar in Russian, his pursuit of the semiotics of history begins in earnest (pages 408-409).

0407 But, before I continue, I would like to focus on the actualities in the above diagram, which do not properly belong to semiological_2a structuralism_2b and add a twist to Aristotle’s hylomorphe, where {matter [substantiates] form}.

0408 As discussed earlier, the inverse of Aristotle’s hylomorphe is {form [entangles] matter}.

Both formulations belong to Peirce’s category of secondness, yet they are different.

0409 How so?

Another way to express Peirce’s secondness, where an inverse appears very problematic, is {cause [accounts for] effect}.

It seems preposterous to propose the inverse, {effect [demands a corresponding and explanatory] cause}.

But, preposterous is what humans do.

0410 So, here is another way to picture the two-level interscope pictured above.

0411 A form is, on the one hand, substantiated by one matter, and, on the other hand, entangling another matter.

0412 In this case, one form, the painting of a religious icon_2af, illuminated by candlelight in a dark room, is substantiated by a believer’s langue_2am and entangles the matter of a neural crossover from visual to auditory modes (what Julian Jaynes calls “an auditory hallucination”)_2bm.

In that hemispheric crossover, which obeys all the laws of neuronal biology, a sudden reversal can take place and the entangled matter_2bm can substantiate a novel form_2af, violating the precission of Peirce’s categories in the process. Situation_b becomes content_a.  Actuality₂ generates its own possibility₁.

0413 And the person flips out.

It makes me wonder about Russian history.

0414 On page 411, Uspenskij reflects.

In retrospect, the semiotics… er… the semiology of historical events is an interest even before his lucky find.

0415 For example, he writes an article about how Russian Old Believers thought (langue as matter_2a) that Peter the Great, a secular-oriented ruler, was the Antichrist (parole as form_2a).  This accusation_2b was in response to Peter the Great officially changing the Russian language.

Encouraged by the success of Western encyclopedists, Peter the Great imposes dictionary definitions on spoken words_2a as forms, and in the process, alters language_2b as matter.  Peter’s sovereign decrees change the structure of the language_3b, as well as the rules_1b, in order to encourage conformity to the expertise of those who construct dictionaries_1c.

0416 In response, many Russians of the time refuse to practice Peter the Great’s reforms, confirming that there is a perspective level involved.  Typically, a perspective level comes into awareness when sensible construction fails.  The tsar’s actions did not seem sensible.

Uspenskij sees a semiotic problem.

Believing Russian folk would not accept language reforms_2bm that would have facilitated scientific texts_2bf.  They did so without realizing that, centuries later,  their own writings_2bf would serve as phenomena to be observed and measured_1c, discussed in a science-affiliated language_3c, and modeled_2c through a semiological_3a structuralist_3bapproach.

0417 I guess that the Old Believers succeed, in a odd sort of way, because, when Russia transforms into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1917-1989), their literature becomes the subject of science-minded historical inquiry.

In this inquiry, the literary text_2bf contains phenomena that can be observed_1c and modeled_2c using a disciplinary language_3c that does not elevate, but definitely does not neglect, Aristotle’s formal and final causalities.  Uspenskij’s model_2c demonstrates that the Old Believer’s misconstrual (Peter the Great was, indeed, not the Antichrist) is a semiotic problem.

0418 Here is the general three-level interscope implicated in this storyline.

0419 On the content level, the normal context of Saussure’s semiology_3a brings the actuality of the dyad, {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}_2a, into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘signified [and] signifier’_1a.

On the situation level, the normal context of a linguistic structure_3b brings the dyadic actuality of {language as matter [substantiating] a literary text as form}_2b into relation with the potential of ‘laws for the language (including grammar, genre and so forth)_1b.

On the perspective level, a scientific language that discreetly admits final and formal causalities_3c bring semiological structural models_2c into relation with the potential of ‘observations of phenomena within the literary text’_1c.

0420 The perspective-level formulation touches base with the empirio-schematic judgment, unfolded into a category-based nested form.

A disciplinary language₃ brings mathematical and mechanical models₂ into relation with the potential of ‘observations and measurements of phenomena’₁.

0421 Of course, there is another way to portray the “Peter the Great is the Antichrist” historical narrative.

0422 On the hylomorphic side, {the langue of the Old Believers as matter [substantiates] the title of “czar” as a sovereign form}_2a.

On the entanglement side, {the Tsar’s decrees on the reform of the Russian language as form [entangles] the matter of a conviction… er… a “hallucination” that the Russian sovereign is the Antichrist}_2b.

0423 Does this imply that the Czar, the designation of an autocratic sovereign ruling in Moscow, the third Rome, parallels the Caesar, the sovereign autocrat that used to rule Constantinople in the name of Christ, rather than in… um… the name of Rome?

Yipes!

What a crazy question.

Where does the substance end and the entanglement begin?

It makes me wonder how far back this “semiotic problem” goes.

0424 There is much that the interview does not cover, including the way that Saussure’s signifier and signified reside outside of the realm of actuality.  The logics of contradiction and noncontradiction do not apply.  {Signified [&] signifier} belongs to firstness, the realm of actuality. The logics of Peirce’s category of firstness are inclusive and allow contradictions.

0425 Thus, the term, “czar”, like “caesar”, seems to be potentiated by one signifier with two signifieds, corresponding tothe name in which the sovereign rules.  The Czar rules in the name of Christ (as does Constantine in Constantinople) or the Czar rules in the name of the Antichrist (as does the secular Peter the Great with his ambitious language reforms).

Can a scholar be any more exact?

0426 On page 419, the discussion dwells on the implications of the following comparison.

The perspective-level of the fundament interscope is a simulacra of the empirio-schematic judgment of the natural sciences.  The Tartu-Moscow School capitalizes on the similarity by adopting the label, “exact methods_3c“.

0427 The comparison reveals why.

The disciplinary languages₃ of the natural sciences satisfy the mandate of the positivist intellect.

The mandate?

Metaphysics is not allowed.

Originally, “metaphysics” indicates Aristotle’s formal and final causes.  Scientific causality consists in truncated material and efficient causations.  Truncated?  Material and efficient causations are shorn of any formal and final causalities.  Otherwise, the scientist cannot formulate purely mechanical or mathematical models.

0428 Of course, the first Russian grammar in Russian need not apply to the position of noumenon in such a schema.  In order to explain this little gem, the scholar must use material and efficient causalities that incorporate formal and final causes, respectively.  Why?  Material and efficient causes are embedded within formal and final causations.

So, by speaking as if causes are material and efficient, one can subtly introduce formal and final causes to a proposed explanation.

Does that sound scientific?

What if I apply the label, “model”?

0429 The young scholars, Boris Uspenskij and Juri Lotman, preceding the establishment of the Tartu-Moscow collaborations in semiology and structuralism, gravitate towards Saussure’s semiology_3a and its sister discipline, structuralism_3b, because they offer apparently material and efficient causalities, while incorporating formal designs and final attributes.

Their semiological and structural researches allow these clever fellows to establish what is now called the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.  The project lasts from the 1960s through the 1980s, a remarkable accomplishment within the ideological framework of the aging Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

0430 The Marxist term, “socialist”, means that material arrangements scientifically account for human conditions.

Yet, during the 1960s through the 1980s, through the suppression of Hungary (in 1956), through the Prague Spring (in 1968) and culminating in the dismantling of the Berlin Wall (in 1989), the so-called “scientific modeling of material arrangements and human conditions” increasingly makes no sense at all.

0431 Here is a picture.

0432 Ah, I see a second reason for why the descriptor, “exact methods”, turns out to be attractive.  Not only does it allow the discrete employment of formal and final causalities, but it keeps people from flipping out.

Exact methods must make sense, otherwise the term would not apply.

0433 A language of exact methods_3c smooths the path of inquiry from Saussure’s scientific definition of language_2a, though the dangerous straits of structuralism_2b and arrives at a semiological structural model_2c capable of objectifying an emergent interscope.

Here is a diagram.

0434 Surely, Uspenskij and Lotman’s invention of the disciplinary language_3c of “exact methods” is as significant, if not more significant, than the material discovery of the first Russian Grammar Book in Russian.

Their invention completes a purely relational structure that… amazingly… the inventors cannot envision, because diagrams of triadic relations using Peirce’s categories do not show up until half a century later.

0435 Nonetheless, Lotman and Uspenskij and all the other players in the Tartu-Moscow School come up with this invention, which proves remarkably valuable.

Necessity is the mother of invention.