0854 According to the Trunin, various reviewers conclude that Uspenskij proposes that history, as a species of semiotics, is analogous to the linguistic act of communication, that is, spoken language.  Indeed, for the fundament interscope, history can be viewed as a literary text_2bf substantiated by written language_2bm.  So, the reviewers are not off base.  Spoken and written language as matter_2bm substantiates history in the form of a literary text_2bf.

0855 On the content level, history already enters into the picture as past historic thoughts_2am and historic words_2af.  What is spoken_2af can be written_2af.  Many scholars claim that history only begins with the invention of writing, because written texts provide evidence that spoken words cannot.

However, what is the nature of the written… or spoken word?

Well, if the word involves an explicit abstraction, the signifier is a label.  The signified may be called a “definition”, because the label operates on the potential of ‘something’, and that something… um… must be plausible enough to conjure a “definition”.

Did I say that correctly?

0856 Remember the historical moment when nouns were subjugated by verbs?

Well, I guess it was a prehistorical moment that is imagined by an archaeologist who never read Razie Mah.

This archaeologist proposes that the first spoken words are nouns, because things can be associated to sounds through synaesthesia.  That is “cross-modal cognition”. 

Then, verbs come along because, once nouns are spoken, verbs are necessary to validate the nouns as relevant, that is, capable of doing something.

0857 Here, the noun is the historic thought_2am that emerges from and situates the potential of definition (reference) and label (utterance)_1a.  An utterance_2af labels_1a a definite thing_1a (er… a signified_1a) and voila!  The form is the spoken word_2af in the normal context of definition_3a.

Then, the verb subjugates the noun, producing statements_1b that serve as artifacts_2bm that validate the relevance of nouns_2c.

0858 The archaeologist’s own written words_2bm emerge from (and situate) the possibility of a prehistoric era where nouns arise through synaesthesia and verbs appear in order to provide relevance to the nouns_1b.

And, that is a little confusing because the archaeologist’s written words_2bm are about spoken words_2af that arise during a postulated prehistoric era when statements become possible_1b. 

0859 So, these prehistoric folk construct statements as artifacts_1b, but cannot produce written words because writing has not been invented.

The archaeologist constructs the artifact of prehistoric statements_1b as as a way to write about_2bm the previous statement_2af.

Plus, the archaeologist’s written words_2am go into a literary text_2bf titled, Talk to Me: The Prehistory of Simple Statements.

0860 Of course, Uspenskij’s claims are also theoretical.  Theory carries implications.

However, the article bearing the title, “Historia sub species semitiotica”, consists of an application. Uspenskij makes a detailed case study for how the reformer, Peter the Great, ended being regarded as the antichrist.

0861 Nonetheless, I pause and reflect on the implications appearing in bright green in the preceding figure.

0862 On the content level, I substitute “label” for signifier_1a and “historic speech” for parole_2af, implying that the efficient cause of a spoken word_2af is the potential of a label_1a.

Furthermore, I substitute “definition” for signified_1a and “historic thought” for langue_2am, intimating a final causality.  Saussure’s semiology_3a intends to bring langue as matter_2am into relation with the potential of definition as the signified_1a. 

0863 But, there is a problem.

“Definition_1a” cannot be a signified_1a.

Why?

Definition₃ is a normal context that brings the actuality of a spoken word₂ into relation with the potentials of meaning, presence and message₁.

0864 Does that mean that a word’s meaning, presence and message₁ may be labeled, “definition_1a“?

0865 Well, why don’t I replace the term, “definition_1a” with the term, “reference_1a“.

A spoken word_2af cannot picture or point to its referent_1a.

So, how can I assume that my label_1a for the signifier_1a potentiates a signified_1a that pictures or pointes to its referent_1a, especially when that referent_1a is an explicit abstraction?

0866 I suppose that when definition_1a replaces the signified_1a in Saussure’s semiology_3a, the constellation₂ of meaning, presence and message₁ is deferred in favor of the construction of a situation-level artifact_1b.

0867 Definition_1a as signified_1a is definition₃ as normal context deferred.

Notably, the content-level of the adjacent higher interscope reproduces the category-based nested form for how to define a spoken word.  So technically, definition_1a is deferred in the fundament interscope and manifested in the derivative interscope of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics_3a.

The content-level of the derivative interscope mimics the unfolded Positivist’s judgment and expresses (however imperfectly) the category-based form for defining a spoken word.

0868 Back to the fundament interscope, here is a picture of the content level.

0869 Label_1a replaces the signifier_1a.  The label as potential_1a is the efficient cause for the spoken word (parole) as form_2af.

0870 Definition_1a replaces signified_1a, implying explicit abstraction.  Definition as potential_1a is the final cause for historic thought (langue) as matter_2am, because that is the intention behind replacing the signified_1a with an explicit abstraction… er definition_1a… hmmm… how about referent_1a?

Definition should belong to thirdness.  But, definition (as thirdness) is deferred in Saussure’s semiology_3a because language is scientifically characterized as two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole_2a and langue_2a.  There is no substance, so to speak.  Okay, the substance is a completely habitual association.  Consequently, the scientist does not know the final cause for why a particular {langue as matter [substantiates] spoken word as form}_2a exists.

0871 In contrast, the formal cause is obvious.

Saussure’s semiology_3a contextualizes the above dyad_2a as a material being_2a.  The actuality of a spoken (and written) word_2af  justifies the scholar regarding it_2af as a thing_2a that is subject to natural inquiry, of which Aristotle’s hylomorphe is the first abstraction.  An encountered thing_2a consists in two contiguous real elements, matter_2am and form_2af.  The spoken (or written) word_2a is situated as an encountered thing_2a.

Is there another way to say that?

0872 The spoken word is the encountered form_2af that corresponds to a label_1a.  The matter of langue_2am is presumed to emerge from um… the potential (and deferral) of definition_1a.

0873 Somehow, that_1a must have ‘something’ to do with reference_1a.

But, one cannot picture or point to that referent_1a unless an artifact_1b is constructed to validate the spoken word_2af.

0874 On the situation level, the formal cause is also obvious.

The structure (or system) of spoken words_3b contextualizes {written words as matter_2bm, as they substantiate history as a literary form_2bf}_2b.  Spoken words_2af are forms on the content level.  They_2af become matter_2bm on the situation level,as they fit into the sensible (or material) construction of history (as a literary text)_2bf.

0875 The efficient cause must be the sensible construction of artifacts_1b that will validate the definitions_1a underlying the langue_2am that Saussure’s semiology associates to historic explicit abstractions, as if to veil the fact that “definition” is the normal context₃ for the potential of meaning, presence and message₁ for a spoken word₂.  Yes, definition_1a in firstness is definition₃ in thirdness deferred.

0876 So where do these artifacts_1b, these sensible constructions that validate the forms of the spoken words_2af, come from?

0877 Consider a historical event.  During the event itself, people may give the ongoing event one name.  Later, the historian may assign a different label.

0878 For example, the European War of 1914-1918 is called, during the conflict, The Great War.

One hundred years later, my label is The First Battle Among The Enlightenment Gods, The Tragic War Among Naive Mercantilists (who, on second thought, may have been not so naive).

The written words of the time plus the constructions of the historian certify each composition of thought_2am and word_2affor use as matter_2bm in the substantiation of history in the form of a literary text_2bf.

0879 So, why the difference in definition_1a and labels_1a for the same historical event?

Perhaps, it comes from the perspective-level potential_1c.

0880 The perspective-level potential_1c should read, the possibility of ‘observations of literary phenonema’_1c.  But, now that “history_2bf” stands in the place of “the literary text_2bf“, the transformation is breath-taking.  

Every literary text_1c is a semiological and structural noumenon, manifesting literary phenomena_1c.  Now, history_2bfstands in the place of the literary text_2bf.

0881 If this is the case, the Uspenskij is on target.  History is a species of semiotics.

0882 The author raises an impressive option in the section of semiotics as a meta-discipline. 

Should academic research in the humanities require conceptual frameworks or hermeneutical subtlety?

The answer becomes obvious once the author concedes that most contemporary researchers working with Uspenskij’s paradigms concentrate on applications.

0883 The author suggests that the determination of a semiological_3a structural_3b model_2c of a clearly demarked historical moment (such as Peter the Great attempting to move the mountain of Slavic indolence) or movement (such as indolent Slavs convincing themselves that, if the Czar Peter the Great acts like he is divine, then he must be the Antichrist) freezes the dynamics of history.  This is correct…

…until the historian’s Zeitgeist melts.

0884 Perhaps, a fixation about the difference between synchrony and diachrony distracts attention from a more foundational point.

0885 What value does the fundament interscope offer over and above what a historian is already doing?

The historian already constructs history as a literary text_2bf, using spoken words_2af, based on observations of historical phenomena_1c as if these are the observable and measurable facets of a historical noumenon, a thing itself.

In doing so, the historian intellectually freezes the dynamics of history.

0886 Does the historian generate the equivalent of a semiological_3a structural_3b historical_2af model_2c?

Here is a picture of the fundament interscope.

0887 Yes and no.

Yes, the historian treats history as a literary form_2bf because the historian writes a text, a literary form about a historical moment or movement.

No, the historian does not treat history as a literary form_2bf because the historian does not construct a semiological_3astructural_3b model_2c that serves as an interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) that stands for an interventional sign-object(SO_i), constituting a content-level actuality_2a in a derivative (and open to the future) interscope.

Rather, the historian imposes present-day divisions of time and place onto the past, using labels such as “era”, “movement”, “dynasty” and so forth.

0888 Say what?

An interventional sign-relation bridges from the perspective-level actuality_2c of the fundament (or “loquens”) interscope to the content-level actuality_2a of the derivative (or “ego”) interscope in the same way that a sign-vehicle(SV) stands for a sign-object (SO) in regards to a sign-interpretant (SI).  In this instance, the SI is the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a.

08891 Here is a picture of the interventional sign-relation relevant to this article.

0890 A semiological structuralist model_2c (SV_i, virtually contextualizing the situation-level dyad of {written words_2bm[substantiate] history as a literary form_2bf}) stands for the entanglement, {history as form_2af [entangles] language as matter_2am} (SO_i), in regards to the normal context of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics_3a operating on the potential of ‘meaning’_1a (SI_i).

0891 At this point, a discussion about the difference between synchrony and diachrony draws attention to a crucial point.

0892 Necessarily, history must be segmented into moments and movements (whatever way a scholar wants to slice it) in order to arrive at a model_2c that allows the scholar to draw contemporary meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c, (depending on how far the intellect wants to go into the derivative interscope).

0893 According to the author, Juri Lotman argues that the diachronic aspect of history may be captured by stringing synchronic models_1c in sequence, like pearls on a necklace.

The key point is that each pearl involves the past coming into the present through the interventional sign-relation.  The historian-semiotician uses the positivist intellect of the Tartu-Moscow School_3a to manifest contemporary meaning_1a(SI_i), whereby a model_2c of a past moment or movement (SV_i) stands for {history as a form_2af [entangling] present-day language as matter_2am}(SO_i).

0894 This brings me back to the question, “Does the historian generate the equivalent of a semiological_3a structural_3bhistorical_2af  model_2c?”

0895 While some historians claim authenticity by writing out historical events as they sequentially and perhaps, instrumentally, occur, the reader of these highly dense volumes often gets lost in the details.  In short, the lack of a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c results in the reader wondering, “What does this intricate detailing of eventsstand for?”

0896 Is it necessary that the loquens (“speaking”) interscope entangles the ego (“me”) interscope?

0897 Here is a difficulty.

0898 On one hand, the perspective-level of the fundament (or loquens) interscope mimics the unfolded empirio-schematic judgment and the content-level of the derivative (or ego) interscope recapitulates the unfolded Positivist’s judgment.

On the other hand, the content-level of the derivative (or ego) interscope coincides with something that looks like the normal context of definition₃ (such as the TMS school_3a) bringing the actuality of a spoken word₂ (the dyad where {history as form_2af [entangles] language as matter_2am} into relation with the potential of meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c.

0899 In other words, the pearls on a string, and even the pearl-alone approach, touches base with scientific detachment(ego, in Descartes’ use of the term) and connects with me (ego, in the classic Latin use of the term), in a way that a tabulation of happenstance and intrigues does not.

0900 Lotman and Uspenskij pursue independent approaches once this interventional sign-relation comes into play.  Lotman continues a scientific path and enters discussions on how semiological structuralist models_2c can overcome the distinction between synchrony and diachrony.  Uspenskij orients his path toward semiotics as an adjunct to the work that historians do.  Each historical text is about ‘something_1a‘ and all these ‘somethings_1a‘ have one feature in common: semiotics (or semiological structuralist models).

I suppose that both paths suggest that, if a history is to be about ‘anything’, that ‘that thing’ must take the form of a literary text_2bf.

Such a suggestion is very different than what some label, “historical determinism”.

0901 Juri Lotman argues against Soviet academic attempts at historical determinism in the late 1920s.

Historical determinism?

Material arrangements [substantiate] human conditions?

If history as form_2af entangles language as matter_2am arising from the potential of ‘meaning’_1a, then ‘meaning’ cannot be constrained to economics, sociology, communication systems, and other material-oriented disciplines that do not include linguistics (that is Saussure’s semiology_3a).

0902 Eventually, Lotman settles on Ilya Prigogine’s characterization of self-organizing systems, which achieve states that cannot be deduced from their initial conditions.

Yeah, I mean, like the growth of mushrooms or ideas or cities or civilizations.

Each dyadic aspect of such growth may be modeled deterministically.  The relationality among the dyadic actualitiescannot be deterministically modeled.  But, that does not mean that models of relationality are worthless.  Science does not end when each linear cause and effect₂ is contextualized by a normal context₃ and potentiated by multiple possibilities₁.  Or does it?

0903 Remember that Juri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij are scholars of Slavic literature and languages.  The Slavic narod is baptized into the Byzantine Orthodox tradition, which maintains an unbroken historic thread to both Jesus, and before him, Plato and Aristotle.  In the West, the thread to Aristotle is cut.  Aristotle’s philosophy is re-discovered when the Crusades (which sacked Constantinople) return home with Greek and Arabic translations of Aristotle.

So what does an unbroken chain of tradition from the present, through St. Cyril and St. Methodius, through Jesus, to Aristotle imply?

0904 Comments on Alexander Dugin’s Book (2012) The Fourth Political Theory offers an image.  This sequence of four elements corresponds to the four corners of a Greimas square.  The sequence can also be configured as labels for a periods of Russian history.

0905 The closest that the Slavs get to their ethnos is the migration of speech-alone talking tribes from northern Mesopotamia over the Caucasus mountains and onto the steppes, where they tame horses, make wheeled carts, build very large settlements, are ruled by their own chiefs, then eventually invade into the Indian and European subcontinents, spreading proto-Indo-European languages.

The next historical moment starts with the conversion of the Slavs to Orthodoxy by brothers Cyril (826-869 AD) and Methodius (815-885).  Plus, a (Scandanavian-originating? Slav-assimilating?) kingship starts with Oleg the Wise (879-912).  These traditional folk and clerics and kings may be called, “narod”, using Dugin’s terminology.

0906 Remember Machiavelli (1469-1527)?

Well, Ivan the Great (1440-1505) unites the principalities around Moscow, centralizes the Russian state, and fashions the title, “tsar” (which harkens back to the Roman title, “Caesar”).  He champions the idea that Moscow is the third Rome.

Constantinople falls to the Ottomans in 1453, ending the Byzantine polity.

In 1452, Johannes Gutenberg prints 180 copies of the Bible using a mechanical press.

Sailing from Spain, Columbus discovers a new continent to the west of Europe that is not India in 1492.

0907 All this happens before the Luther posts his 95 theses on the church doors in Wittgenstein (1517), inadvertently launching the so-called “Reformation”.  Inadvertently?  Luther’s arguments are available to all literate folk because of the new-fangled printing press.  The Gutenbergs are not the only ones with a movable-type printing press.

Was Martin Luther (1483-1546) a political theorist?

John Calvin (1509-1564)?

0908 It seems that, currently, most moderns regard them as theologians.

But, if history is a species of semiotics, then I suspect that they may also be political theorists, because theoretical political models_2c (SV_i) can stand for the dyad_2a, {church and salvation history as form_2af [entangles] the language of reform_2am} (SO_i) in regards to a school that is focused on the semiotics of plain reading_3a operating on potential ‘meanings of institutional decadence and renewal’_1a (SI_i).

0909 Say what?

How about the following interventional sign-relation?

0910 Surely, this is not a model_2c of prayer, sacraments and mystical union with the Son of the Father_2c.

Political theorists love to point out hypocrisy.  All they do is criticize.  At least, that is what the bishops of Christendom say when they hear news of Martin Luther’s critical theory.

0911 So, what am I saying?

Do the sixteenth-century reformers engage the same relational structure that this examination of the publications of Tartu-Moscow School brings to consciousness?

How weird is that?

0912 Is this a case of historical determinism?

Or do the fundament and the derivative interscopes serve as semiotic templates?

According to the author, Juri Lotman argues against sociological or economic determinism.  He adopts Ilya Prigogine’s ideas about self-organization, such as the “explosion” that occurs when a seed germinates, a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, a flock of geese begin their migration, as well all sorts of spontaneous moments.  That includes political and religious movements in civilization.

0913 What does Lotman intuitively sense from all his inquireies into the literature produced by Russian civilization?

Somehow, an explosion occurs when a text as form_2af entangles semiotic meaning as matter_2am.

Indeed, semiological and structural matters in the mother-tongue and literary style_2bm substantiate a literary text_2bfthat is modeled_2c according to a disciplinary langauge_3c operating on the potential of ‘observing related and relevant phenomena’_1c.

0914 And, in German history, Martin Luther is exemplar in this regard.

The matter of the people’s ability to read the Bible in their own tongue_2bm substantiates the 95 theses_2bf  that are modeled_2c as a declarations that identify the contradictions in scholastic interpretations_3c and the hypocrisy of the Church_1c.  Surely, the clerics debate in Latin and not in common vernacular.  The little (and now, literate) people want to hear what they are saying.

The 95 theses_2af  entangles the language of reform_2am, in the normal context of a literate people being able to read a translated Bible_3a operating on the potential of ‘decadence and renewal of the Church’_1a.

0915 Here is a picture of the resulting content-level of the derivative interscope.

The astute reader may wonder, “What is the literary text_2af?  Luther’s theses?  The Bible in Latin?  The Bible in vernacular?  Church and salvation history?”

0916 May I say that, in the above actuality_2a, a model_2c stands for the thing itself_2a, the noumenon of a historical moment or movement?

Also, may I say that, in the above figure, the actuality of church and salvation history as form_2af has emerged from the matter of history as a literary text_2bm and now entangles the matter of a novel language of reform_2am?

How confounding.

0917 Plus, what about Aristotle’s four causalities?

Material causes comport with economic (the lowered cost of printing due to the innovation of the Gutenberg press) and sociological (the outrageous selling of ‘indulgences’ in order for aristocrats to purchase absolution for their excessive conduct and their excessive wealth) causations.

But, these are like soil analysis to a plant biologist.  They are conditions, more than formal causes.

0918 The formal cause is the germination of the seed of general literacy_3a (also made possible by the printing press, but also by the success of priests in spreading the gospel) in the soil of a rigid aristocracy and clergy who are the only ones who used to be able to read_2a.  Oh, the newly self-minted bourgeoisie probably play an important role in that germination, because they hatch all sorts of plans to reform everything that the aristocracy and the clergy use for self-promotion.

0919 The final cause harmonizes (3) the idea that the Bible is open to a plain reading_3a, (2) an impasse in church and salvation history_2af, where illiterate folk are excluded from theological debates but are expected to purchase theologically-suspect indulgences and to pay the costs of building a more magnificent cathedral than a neighboring diocese_2am, and (1) the potential of ‘renewal after demanding an end to the decadence’_1a.

0920 The efficient cause brings the language of reform_2am into relation with the potential… the hope… of an end to decadence and the birth of a renewal_1a.

The results are explosive.

The Reformation produces a civilizational blow-out that lasts all the way to the present day.

0921 The author provides two case studies.  I will cover the first, concerning the history of science.

Vladimir Vernadskij (1863-1945), a Russian-Ukrainian geochemist, formulates a law that living matter will occupy every niche that is available, whether environmentally (geologically) or ecologically (biologically).  Plus, that occupation may create novel environmental and ecological possibilities.  He called the propensity, “the pressure of life”.

0922 How about an example?

0923 The early Earth’s atmosphere is composed of hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen.

The atmosphere is translucent, because ultraviolet radiation from the sun is absorbed by hydrocarbons, producing colored complex molecules that give the atmosphere the appearance of a global smog.

0924 Prokaryotes conduct photosynthesis and find ways to live in almost any area wet enough to support its life-forms.  Photosynthesis uses the energy of light to build carbon-based biomolecules and simply releases oxygen gas as a waste-product.  Over time, the accumulating atmospheric oxygen reacts with the hydrocarbon gases, reacts with the soluble iron in the oceans (precipitating the huge iron-band formations), and so on.  Later, in the Precambrian, oxygen-dependent eukaryotic cells appear.  Eukaryotic cells build into the multi-cellular organisms of the Cambrian Era.

The atmosphere is now transparent.

0925 The law of “life pressure” is like an observation, or rather, an understanding.

0926 How does understanding work?

First, one encounters an actuality₂.

Then, one finds an appropriate normal context₃ and potential₁.

0927 In other words, understanding associates to a category-based nested form where all the slots are filled in, in a manner that comports with Aristotle’s four causes.

0928 Here is a picture of Vernadskij’s formulation.

0929 The normal context of Vernadskij’s observations of geology and chemistry_3a brings the dyadic actuality of {natural history of life as form_2af [entangles] a language of aspiration as matter_2am} into relation with the potential of ‘the meaning of what life is doing, trying to occupy every available niche through adaptation’_1a.

0930 Vernadskij’s law_2am does not arise from a mathematical or mechanical model, based on truncated material and efficient causation (that is, material without formal and efficient without final causes).

Plus, the natural history of life forms_2bf is very much like a literary text_2bf put into perspective by semiological_3astructuralist_3b models_2c.

0931 According to the interventional sign relation, a biological parallel to a semiological_3a structuralist model_3a (SV_i) stands for the literary text_2af (again, the natural history of life forms_2af), along with its entangled language_2am (SO_i) in regards to Vernadskij’s geochemical positivist intellect_3a operating on the potential of ‘meaning’_1a (SI_i).  The meaning_1aof what Vernadskij observes_3a supports the aspirational term, “life pressure”_2am.

0932 The author reports that, in the early 1960s, Vyacheslav Ivanov (1929-2017), a philologist and one of the members of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiology, is the first to situate the language of life-pressure_2am in terms of the potential of ‘presence’_1b within the normal context of cultural relevance_3b.

0933 Say what?

The presence of an (entangled) language of meaning_1b undergirds the dyadic actuality of {cognition as matter_2bm[substantiating] social interactions as form_2bf} in the normal context of cultural processes_3b.

Here is a picture of a general version of the derivative or “ego” interscope.

0934 Here is the history.

Lotman, following Ivanov’s intuition, grasps Vernadskij’s language of “life pressure_2am” as a metaphor for the way that the intellect of the Tartu-Moscow School_3a operates on the potential of meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c.  Then, he finds himself situating the metaphor_2am with the presence of meaning_1b, cognition_2am, and social interactions_2af, under the umbrella of cultural studies_3b.