{"id":9980,"date":"2026-01-28T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9980"},"modified":"2025-10-10T17:35:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T17:35:45","slug":"looking-at-ekaterina-velmezova-and-kalevi-kulls-article-2017-boris-uspenskij-part-4-of-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9980","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Ekaterina Velmezova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (Part 4 of 19)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

0421 Of course, there is another way to portray the “Peter the Great is the Antichrist” historical narrativ<\/em>e.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

0422 On the hylomorphic side, {the langue of the Old Believers as matter [substantiates] the title of “czar” as a sovereign form}2a<\/sub>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/sub>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yipes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a crazy question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where does the substance end and the entanglement begin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes me wonder how far back this “semiotic problem” goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em> do not apply.  {Signified [&] signifier} belongs to firstness, the realm of actuality. The logics of Peirce’s category of firstness<\/em> are inclusive and allow contradictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Can a scholar be any more exact?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0426 On page 419, the discussion dwells on the implications of the following comparison<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The perspective-level of the fundament interscope<\/em> is a simulacra<\/em> of the empirio-schematic judgment of the natural sciences<\/em>.  The Tartu-Moscow School<\/em> capitalizes on the similarity by adopting the label, “exact methods3c<\/sub>“.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0427 The comparison reveals why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disciplinary languages3<\/sub> of the natural sciences<\/em> satisfy the mandate of the positivist intellect<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mandate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metaphysics is not allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

0428 Of course, the first Russian grammar in Russian<\/em> need not apply to the position of noumenon<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, by speaking as if causes are material and efficient, one can subtly introduce formal and final causes to a proposed explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does that sound scientific?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if I apply the label, “model”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 semiology3a<\/sub> and its sister discipline, structuralism3b<\/sub>, because they offer apparently material and efficient causalities, while incorporating formal designs and final attributes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

0430 The Marxist term, “socialist”, means that material arrangements<\/em> scientifically account for human conditions<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0431 Here is a picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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,<\/em> but it keeps people from flipping out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exact methods<\/em> must make sense, otherwise the term would not apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0433 A language of exact methods3c<\/sub> smooths the path of inquiry from Saussure’s scientific definition of language2a<\/sub>, though the dangerous straits of structuralism2b<\/sub> and arrives at a semiological structural model2c<\/sub> capable of objectifying an emergent interscope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a diagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

0434 Surely, Uspenskij and Lotman’s invention of the disciplinary language3c<\/sub> of “exact methods”<\/em> is as significant, if not more significant, than the material discovery of the first Russian Grammar Book in Russian<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

Necessity is the mother of invention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[418],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-review"],"yoast_head":"\nLooking at Ekaterina Velmezova and Kalevi Kull's Article (2017) "Boris Uspenskij..." 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