SaH0043 The Baroque scholastics of southern and central Europe live at the same time as the mechanical philosophers of northern and western Europe. The latter give rise to the Age of Fiction, with Cervantes publishing Don Quixote in the early 1600s. The former give rise to the Age of Ideas, with the birth of modern science.
Of course, it is not as neat as that.
Consequently, an examination of an article by Novotny serves as a capstone for Razie Mah’s online course on Baroque Scholasticism and as an introduction to an online course in Early Modernism.
Baroque Scholasticism consists of Looking atDaniel Novotny’s Book (2013) Ens Rationis from Suarez to Caramuel (and appears in Razie Mah’s blog in May, 2026).
The capstone for Baroque Scholasticism and the introduction to …and Early Modernism consists of Looking at Daniel Novotny’s Article (2017) Izquierdo on Universals
Baroque Scholasticism and Early Modernism consist of a review of Eric Santner’s Book (2016) The Weight of All Flesh.
SaH0044 Both are strands in the course: Semiotics and History.
In the Spring 2017 issue of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (vol. 91(2) pages 227-249), Daniel Novotny examines Disputation 17 of the Baroque scholastic treatise, The Lighthouse of the Sciences (1659). The title of Novotny’s article is Sebastian Izquierdo on Universals: A Way Beyond Realism and Nominalism. These comments intend to demonstrate the postmodern relevance of this work using the category-based nested form.
The student should obtain the article from online.
0268 Oh, back to the starting questions.
Some things are similar to one another. Universals grow out of this impression. Various things can share in certain universals, to the exclusion of other things. In this very brief paper, Daniel Novotny reviews and summarizes the theory of universals proposed by the Spanish Baroque scholastic, Sebastian Izquierdo, SJ (1600-1681 AD).
Izquierdo’s life overlaps with the northern European authors who mark the dawn of the Age of Ideas, including Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Rene Descartes (1596-1650). His life also overlaps with theorists marking the twilight of the Latin Age, including Francisco Suarexz (1548-1617) and John Poinsot (1589-1644). Our current age is born at this time. This is the moment to which we must return in order to come to terms with our era.
0269 Daniel Novotny is not unfamiliar with the Baroque philosophers. I commented on his full-length book, Ens Rationis: From Suarez to Caramuel, published in 2013. Novotny’s exposition is so clear that constructing (inevitably messy) category-based nested forms came easy.
My comments wove a story into his presentation, starting with the dichotomy of fact versus fiction and ending with an intimation of postmodern social construction. This narrative adds value by connecting Baroque scholasticism and our present, postmodern, world.
0270 As for the article under examination, Novotny begins with a caveat. Baroque philosophy and theology is a complex tapestry, filled with commentary and references. One can easily get lost in this forest of questions and answers. Typically, an entire text must be examined in order to configure an author’s opinion, if distinct from all others. Since such effort is very difficult and time consuming, Novotny limits this publication to a careful examination of Disputation 17 of Izquierdo’s major philosophical work, The Lighthouse of the Sciences.
Disputation 17 presents Izquierdo’s theory of universals.
0271 The table of contents for The Lighthouse of the Sciences is organized in a novel way, portending substantial differences from traditional doctrines and methods. In Disputation 17, Izquierdo considers three questions. To me, these questions sound postmodern.
Q1. What are universals?
Q2. Are some universals independent of the intellect?
Q3. If universals are intellect dependent, what is their nature?
0272 To the first question, Izquierdo offers four meanings:
0273 Let me supply an example from Eric Santner’s (2016) book, The Weight of All Flesh.
0274 During late medieval and early modern times, political theologians proposed that the king had two bodies. One was mortal. The other was glorious.
When a king died, his mortal body was quickly buried. An effigy (representing the king’s glorious body) was manufactured and placed on the throne until the coronation of a new king. Then, the effigy was buried in a separate funeral.
0275 The glorious body of the king is a universal with four meanings.
0276 The last meaning is particularly twisted. The universal, in its proper sense, cannot be a particular. Yet, here is a particular effigy that becomes a symbol of the king’s glorious body.
According to C. S. Peirce, a symbol is a sign based on tradition, convention, law, consensus and so on. Here, a political and theological consensus connects a sign-object (the king’s glorious body) to a sign-vehicle (an effigy of the deceased king).
0277 In Peirce’s semiotic terminology, the scholastic term “objective concept” portrays the union of a sign-vehicle and sign-object. The term “objective precision” reflects the operation of a sign-interpretant.
0278 In the terminology of the nested form, “objective concept” belongs to secondness, the realm of actuality. “Objective precision” belongs thirdness and firstness, the realms of normal context and possibility, respectively. An objective concept is a mind-dependent being. Objective precision is a formal act of the intellect.
0279 For example, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a murderous uncle gains the throne and becomes king (objective concept). Unfortunately, the ghost of Hamlet’s father (the glorious body of the deceased king) appears, calling Hamlet to reject his uncle’s claims (through objective precision). Hamlet’s uncle has no nobility. Therefore, his uncle is not king (and does not have a glorious body, since the glorious body of Hamlet’s father haunts the world).
0280 This dramatic call to judgment may be depicted as a relation between what is and what ought to be. Indeed, I define the actuality of judgment as this triadic relation.
0350 Next, the fourth proposition (P4) comes up for consideration.
0351 What is the disposition of the universal to each of Aristotle’s definitions?
According to the working model, both definitions are in play in the primal triad. They are not independent. How can this be? This model supports further philosophical inquiry.
0352 Propositions P2 and P3 pertain to the interscope of the individual in community.
0353 P3 points to the fact that the normal context for judgment2c is reason3c.
0354 P2 suggests that what is and what ought to be may not be labeled. Instead, phantasmsandimpressions substitute for these intersubjective unities. The resulting judgment is called an intrinsic abstraction. This is the type of judgmentrendered in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0355 The Christian sacrament of the Eucharist serves as an example.
What is appears as a piece of bread2a. What ought to be is the phantasm of the body of Christ2b. Thomas Aquinas discovered the relation, twelve hundred years after the commissioning of the Last Supper. Transubstantiation2c (as the universal, relation) brings the appearance of bread2a->2c (as the universal, what is) into relation with the body of Christ2b->2c (as the universal, what ought to be).
0356 What is emerges from the potency of the material and physical. What ought to be emerges from the potency of the formal and logical. What brings these into relation is a mystical operation emerging from the potency of human understanding.
0357 Of course, I will never hear the word “transubstantiation” on television in this era of big government (il)liberalism.
Instead, I will see a commercial for a Czech beer, starting with the image of an amber bottle, glistening with condensate. Music starts. The word “you” appears as a hand grasps the bottle. “Can”, another hand pops the cap. “Be”, one hand lifts the bottle. “The King”, the hand pours the beer. “Of Bohemia”, the cascading brew fills an image of a throne.
The music swells as the honey-colored throne morphs into a glistening glass of beer.
The voice-over intones, “You can be the King of Bohemia.”
0358 Has the glorious body of the king transubstantiated into a commodity, a regal libation?
0359 I raise my glass to Ceske Budejovice in the Czech Republic, the home of the University of South Bohemia.
0360 Daniel Novotny lists the consequences of Baroque Scholastic Sebastian Izquierdo’s Disputation 17 in The Lighthouse of the Sciences. He concludes with an impression: Izquierdo is close to modern empiricism.
0361 Izquierdo rejects the extra-mental features of universals and avoids the projection of universals into the realm of the mundane. He avoids nominalism by insisting on objective concepts.
0362 Novotny suggests that Izquierdo’s rejection of Aristotle’s act-potency distinction draws him into the same errors that plague contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of mathematics. The middle way between nominalism and Platonism must be grounded in the metaphysical structure of reality. But, Izquierdo cannot lock onto that relational structure.
0363 Charles S. Peirce gave me a gift.
0364 His three categories point to the ground that Izquierdo intimated. Izquierdo’s third way may have failed, but with the category-based nested form, I can look across the turbulent seas of the Age of Ideas and say, “I see what you mean.”
0365 The Lighthouse of the Sciences still beacons.
SandH0366 This concludes this strand on Baroque Scholasticism in the rope of Semiotics and History.
0001 The book before me is published by Intervarsity Press. The subtitle is “Advances in the Origins Debate”. This work is the latest in the “Lost World Series” that delves into how Genesis should be regarded in light of the archaeological discoveries of the past three centuries.
Of course, “new explorations” implies “advances”. Advances adjust previous positions. The reader is advised to consult the conclusion immediately after the introduction, and before the section on methodology.
An examination of a prior work can be found in Looking at John Walton’s Book (2015) “The Lost World of Adam and Eve” appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in August 2022. The review is updated and fashioned as the first and fifth chapters in Razie Mah’s 2024 e-book, Exercises In Artistic Concordism, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0002 The term, “literature of the ancient Near East” is somewhat awkward, because the writings of the ancient Near East were buried in the ruins of royal libraries throughout Egypt and the Levant. The writings are in cuneiform, wedge impressions on clay tablets. The clay fires into brick when the royal library burns, along with the rest of the royal city. Then, the ruins get buried in vegetation, and later human settlements, and so on. Then, the tells (or hills) are excavated by modern archaeologists. Archaeologists discover thousands of cuneiform tablets and learn how to translate them. These translations constitute “the literature of the ancient Near East”.
0003 Of course, this story sounds implausible.
However, God tends to manifest the implausible.
0004 In fact, if God only performs sensible… what is the correct term?… “interventions”, then no one would notice. If anyone could turn water into wine, then the miracle at Cana would be ho-hum.
The Uruk culture invents writing by impressing tokens onto the surface of clay balls (which then contain the impressed tokens). That seems sensible. Centuries later, a Sumerians scribe uses a reed stylus to create impressions on a clay surface that is curved, like the surface of a ball. That seems sensible, also. Then, stylus impressions on a clay tablet become so routine that cuneiform is used for centuries to record transactions and inventories. Eventually, the same writing is used to record the civilization’s origin myths.
0005 Okay, each of these steps is sensible, although unlikely.
How many unlikely, yet sensible, developments can be strung together before the results may be declared “miraculous”?
0006 So, what is miraculous with respect to Walton’s lost-world propositions?
God provides eighteen centuries of biblical interpretation by Christians before creating the conditions where a challenge to traditional reference and affirmation occurs.
The archaeology of the ancient Near East unearths literature that is (more or less) contemporaneous with the Old Testament.
That is the challenge.
0007 The Old and New Testaments are no longer subject to plain reading as the sole foundation of interpretation.
Why?
How can one conduct an honest reading of the Old and New Testaments and not accommodate the literature of the ancient Near East?
0008 Okay, replace the word, “honest”, with the word, “literal”.
It seems that figurative and allegorical readings are not challenged.
0218 Chapters seven and eight cover the Fall and God’s pronouncements in Genesis 3.
These are more results of Walton’s scientific explorations.
I leave the application of hylomorphe, entanglement, confounding and resolution to the reader.
0219 Recall, a scientific paper contains five elements: introduction, methodology, results, discussion and conclusion.
So does Walton’s book.
0220 Chapter nine offers a discussion on Genesis and science.
At no point in the discussion does Dr. Walton touch base with the following hylomorphes.
0221 In regards to the Creation Story, Razie Mah’s Looking at Hugh Ross’s Book (2023) “Rescuing Inerrancy” reviews what Walton is trying to avoid. Walton imagines that the entanglement of a moderate or an artistic concordism will turn out to be… um… dangerous.
Didn’t I say that confoundings are dangerous?
Hugh Ross’s version of moderate concordism cannot rescue the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, because it offers only a miraculous coincidence between what the Genesis text for each day appears to be describing and a corresponding evolutionary epoch.
Razie Mah’s version of artistic concordism changes the character of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, because it offers a method for showing that each Genesis day offers natural signs of a corresponding epoch. There are three types of natural signs: icons, indexes and symbols.
0222 If the Bible is supposed to be plainly read, then why would an author write the Creation Story as a vision that depicts the evolution of the Earth on the basis of natural signs? The author could not possibly had known the natural history of the Earth, unless having been presented with a series of visions. The text breaks down into natural signsbundled for each day, as images, indicators and symbols.
0223 It is enough to make John H. Walton swoon.
There is no way that Genesis 1-11 can entangle the modern… now… postmodern age.
There is no way… except… for… that ever-churning Christian imagination.
See Razie Mah’s e-book, Exercises in Artistic Concordism.
0224 In regards to the Primeval History,all the written origin stories of the ANE (except for the Creation Story) depict a recent creation of humans, by newly differentiated gods, according to their designs and purposes.
The question is, “Why?”
The civilizations of the ANE cannot see past a theoretical time point corresponding to the start of the Ubaid archaeological period in southern Mesopotamia. They cannot see from our current Lebenswelt into the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0225 The first singularity is currently a hypothesis.
As further research is conducted with this hypothesis in mind, we may eventually feel confident that the Ubaid is the first culture in human evolution to practice speech-alone talk. 8800 years ago, all other cultures practice hand-speech talk, in continuity with the founding of our species 300,000 years ago.
Over a period of a few thousand years, these hand-speech talking cultures convert to speech-alone talk, after being exposed to speech-alone talking cultures. Why do they adopt the new way of talking? Hand-speech talk promotes constrained social complexity. Speech-alone talk removes the constraints. The semiotic qualities of hand-speech talk and speech-alone talk are hugely different.
0226 The above hylomorphes are resolutions in favor of the entanglement.
Against this prospect, Walton configures his own confounding.
0227 Will this be sufficient to stop the goofy, science-loving impulses of the Christian imagination?
I don’t think so, because even if Walton’s confounding resolves in favor of his entanglement, the form of the resulting hylomorphe will entangle the Christian imagination.
0228 The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics pulls up a fish from the depths of the Christian Slavic civilization.
They open the mouth of the fish.
What do they find?
The golden coin of entanglement.
0229 Welcome to the Fourth Age of Understanding, The Age of Triadic Relations.
0230 I thank John H. Walton for publishing this advance in the origins debate and I wish J. Harvey Walton the best.
0001 The full title of the article before me is “The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology”. The work is published in Current Anthropology (volume 57, supplement 13, June 2016, pages S13-S26; DOI: 10.1086/685684). At the time of publication, the author is a Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He has since been scooped up by Princeton.
Scooped?
Ask anyone in Human Resources what that term means.
0002 The material for this thought-piece is developed at the Center for Theological Inquiry in 2012-13, in a collaborative titled, “Inquiry on Human Nature”, and presented to a Wenner-Gren symposium in 2014.
0003 This is the time when the much-vaunted program of “niche construction” is in the Zeitgeist… er… air. The author seeks to capitalize on this extension of the evolutionary synthesis. The first extension, starting fifty years earlier, is from natural history into genetics, and is now called “Neodarwinism”.
And what does he want to invest that capital in?
An integrated anthropology.
0004 Integrated anthropology?
I suppose that anthropology is to integrate with evolutionary science.
This is precisely an interest of Razie Mah, as witnessed in his three masterworks: The Human Niche (2018), An Archaeology of the Fall (2012), and How To Define the Word “Religion” (2015).
0005 But, that is not the references that I really should be pointing to.
I should be indicating two primers, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues. These are A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
0006 Why?
The terms in the title of the work under examination associate to elements in a category-based nested form.
I associate “integration” to the normal context3.
I associate “anthropology” to the actuality2.
I associate “evolutionary science” to the potential1.
0007 The category-based nested form derives from the philosophy of Charles Peirce. It consists in four statements. The fourth is paradigmatic. A triadic normal context3 brings a dyadic actuality2 into relation with the monadic possibility of ‘something’1. The subscripts correspond to Peirce’s three categories.
0008 Here is a picture of my associations, along with how each element gets specified by the title of this article.
0009 What do these associations imply?
The human niche3 is the “integration3” of an “integrated anthropology”.
As such, the human niche3 should contextualize ethnography2 (as a specific application of anthropology2).
0010 The formal causation in these statements seems reasonable.
But, does the efficient causation seem plausible?
Does anthropology2 emerge from the potential of evolutionary science1?
Can ethnography2 situate the potential of ‘niche construction (as a case-study for an extended evolutionary synthesis)’1?
0011 The following figure distills the author’s challenge.
0163 Consequently, a pattern of domestication and entanglement is an appropriate darwinian model for the adaptations involved in discipline of ethnography.
0164 On one hand, the ethnographer is an emissary from a society with wealth and power and serves as an actuality independent of the adapting narod-folk2a.
The potential of intergroup competition1b says that fear should be the appropriate adaptation2b, in the course of natural and cultural selection3b.
0165 But this does not happen. Instead, the narod-folk3b,1b adapt by losing their fear of the ethnographer’s society2b. This is the nature of domestication.
0166 On the other hand, the narod-folk2a are the actuality independent of the adapting species for anthropologists within Western academies3b who are trained by (and train) ethnographers on the methods of mapping the cognitive spaces of narod-folk1b. The very act of mapping the cognitive spaces of a narod (whether historically given or spontaneously generated) exhibits the anthropology of substantiation and entanglement.
0167 I conclude by returning to the snarky comment at point 119 and apologizing.
Yeah, semioticians have teeth.
0168 The author notes, in the final paragraph, that the human niche is a basal framework that enables the inquirer to include the salient features, forces and processes at multiple levels of… um… organization. Surely, that description fits the idea of using the purely relational structure of the category-based nested form as a tool for inquiry. All that this examiner has done is transpose elements from the author’s argument into the empty slots of a category-based nested form.
This suggests that category-based nested forms satisfy Bourdieu’s enigmatic phrase, of “structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures”. Category-based nested forms are purely relational (triadic) structures that gather material through the intuitive use of association, followed by an exploration of the implications.
0169 My thanks go to the author of this article, who undoubtedly has published more academic literature since this work from 2016, without the value that this examination adds. Perhaps, this 2026 review may add to a re-illustration of the envisioned integrated anthropology.
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 ofSemiotics 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.
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).
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
