This article is a semiotics-based attempt to explain artistic creativity of traditional East Asia and the Romantic West. Invoking the Greimas-Tarasti model, in which the modalities of “will,” “must,” “can,” and “know” are considered as a semiotic system, the author tries to examine how these modalities are manifested in discourses that define artistic subjectivities and actions. The concepts of the sublime and yūgen, authenticity and kokoro, formal communicational standards and kata, conventional beauty and hana are discussed side by side (...) from a comparative perspective. However, the article tries to reveal cultural creative patterns not so much in terms of qualitative difference as in terms of a particular configuration of a universal system. In the subject–object conjunction-oriented metaphysics of Buddhism and Confucianism, the immanent subjectivity is treated as constituted through the body and social mediation. For this reason, as we will see from the analysis of Nō theater performance principles, individual kokoro can hardly be distinguished from impersonal kata. In the Romantic paradigm, longing for an initial (or final) subject–object conjunction is expressed in the ideal of organic synthesis, and artistic creation is considered as the best manifestation of such synthesis. However, this conjunction functions in most cases as an immanent aesthetic vision, and symbols can hardly become the “complete representation of true spiritual life.”. (shrink)

The intricate appearances produced by various lineages of biota have long been viewed as calling for a rational explanation. Biologists are capable of interpreting still just a relatively small part of the overall range of organismal forms and patterns. In fact, we can explain only those for which we find a functional role. Kalevi Kull’s current initiative, which aims at establishing biosemiotic foundations of aesthetics and introduction of concepts such as semiotic fitting, may help us elucidate various hitherto largely neglected (...) aspects of self-expressive domains of life. Given that organisms are active autonomous agents, I suggest that some cases of semiotic fitting may be facilitated by semiotic co-option, a process where a trait is newly interpreted as meaningful within the umwelt of a living being and further adopted for a particular role. Clarification of connections between semiotic co-option and semiotic fitting may aid our attempts to better understand the role of meaning-attributive processes via which the aesthetic faculties of animate things come into existence. (shrink)

The Archaeology of Semiotics and the social order of things is edited by George Nash and George Children and brings together 15 thought-provoking chapters from contributors around the world. A sequel to an earlier volume published in 1997, it tackles the problem of understanding how complex communities interact with landscape and shows how the rules concerning landscape constitute a recognised and readable grammar. The mechanisms underlying landscape grammar are both physical and mental, being based in part on the mindset (...) of the individual; the same landscape can thus evoke different meanings for different people and at different times. People's perception has greatly influenced the construction of landscapes over millennia but, until recently, the potential of this area has been largely untapped. Apart from chapters focusing solely upon human interaction with landscape, there are several which skilfully integrate artefacts and place with landscape (e.g. Gheorghiu and Sognnes). Other chapters look at the way people have marked the landscape through such mechanisms as rock-art (e.g. Clegg, Devereux, Estévez, Fossati, Kelleher and Skier). Rock-art establishes personal and communal identity in relation to landscape and it is clear that other forms of visual expression were in place which distinctively created special places within the landscape. Landscape constructs can bind cultures together; bringing the old ways of reading the landscape into contemporary life (e.g. Smiseth). Defining early and late prehistoric landscapes and segregating these into, say, mundane domestic and ritualised spaces rely on both clear and subtle archaeologies and in this volume distinct monument clustering and ritualised linearity are considered (e.g. Mason and Nash). A volume such as this cannot escape the influence of New World approaches, such as anthropology, and in many respects chapters by Bender, Muller and Merritt give context to other chapters within the book. Finally, one must consider text as a means of constructing landscape and this is considered by Heyd, who eloquently deconstructs the travel diary of a 17th century Japanese poet. This will be an important volume for archaeologists, landscape scholars and students. The many approaches used are tried and tested, forming an invaluable resource and not just another edited book. (shrink)

The present paper is divided into two parts. Part one is an attempt to reconstruct the semiotic models of Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis, in which conceptsfrom De Saussure, C. S. Peirce, Jakobson, Lotman, Eco are drawn for mutual illumination and synthesis. Psychoanalytic semiotics is considered a particular areaand discipline in semiotics, aiming at the unconscious dimension of the subject. Lacan could be considered a post-structuralist revision and extension of Freud. Part two is an application of psychoanalytic semiotics to the (...) interpretation of dream painting, focusing on the Dali example. Essential issues in psychoanalytic semiotics of dream painting are explored in the Dali example, such as dream indexes, dream mechanisms, self-portraits as imago and icon, and psychoanalytic Nirvana as a recovery and memory of a non-alienated subject. My reading of Dali demonstrates the possibility of a convergence of semiotics, psychoanalysis, and art criticism. (shrink)

Introduction. Flesh and its reversibility ; Defining the baroque ; 'Good looking' ; A cinema of baroque flesh -- 1. Flesh, cinema and the baroque : the aesthetics of reversibility. Baroque vision and painting the flesh ; Baroque flesh ; Analogous embodiments : the film's body ; Baroque vision and cinema ; Summation : face to face-feeling baroque deixis -- 2. Knots of sensation : co-extensive space and a cinema of the passions. Synaesthesia, phenomenology, and the senses ; Cinesthesia and (...) the Bel composto ; A passionate baroque : emotion, excess, and co-extensive space ; Assault and absorption : cruel baroque ; Summation : beside oneself -- 3. Baroque skin/semiotics. Chiasm : language and experience ; Baroque poetic language and the seventeenth-century infinite ; Baroque luxury ; Skin-deep : baroque texturology ; Tickles : baroque wit ; Summation : cine-mimesis -- 4. One hand films the other : baroque haptics. Touching-touched ; Haptic visuality and the baroque ; Baroque haptics and cinema ; Analogical assemblages : Baroque databases ; Summation: TEXXTURE -- Conclusion : or the baroque 'Beauty of the act'. (shrink)

Drawing on Charles Peirce’s descriptions of his correspondence course on the “Art of Reasoning,” I argue that Peirce believed that the study of logic stands at the center of a liberal arts education. However, Peirce’s notion of logic included much more than the traditional accounts of deduction and syllogistic reasoning. He believed that the art of reasoning required a study of both abductive and inductive inference as well the practice of observation and imagination. Employing these other features of logic, his (...) course foreshadowed a number of developments in twentieth century educational theory: the belief that non-traditional students should be educated, the claim that the art of reasoning was important to all theoretical practices, and that the art of reasoning was important to the overall growth of a person. The upshot is that Peirce’s course in the art of reasoning should make us reconsider making logic courses, under Peirce’s broad conception of logic, required courses in high school and higher education. (shrink)

This paper argues that Hegel attempts to appropriate the irreversible aspects of Romantic aesthetics in four ways: (i) Hegel radicalizes Kantian aesthetics on the basis of a basically textual approach to sublime experience that opens up the question of community as a philosophical one; (ii) without demoting classical conceptions of art, Hegel privileges Romantic conceptions that demonstrate the ascendancy of sign over symbol in a spiraling chain; (iii) Hegel laments the fate of art in the triumph of Romantic subjectivism but (...) also suggests how communities can reconstitute themselves on the horizon of aesthetic dissolution; so that, finally, (iv) art can be reconceived as a emancipatory adventure that redefines metaphysics through its historical unfolding as an unending series of semiotic transformations. (shrink)

This book analyses various examples of the imaginative semiotisation of the Fall of Man and the Church's semiotic perception of the Divine plan for Redemption. Based on a close reading of primary sources, it analyses the meaning-making inherent in these ideas, which are filtered through and given material representation by the semiotic paradigms of various cultural fields, including philology, verbal arts and science.

In hindsight, it is primarily Susanne K. Langer’s theory of act, and only secondarily her theory of art, that is central to the conception of Vitality Semiotics. It focuses on affective, semiotically relevant forms that constitute our world experience, human social interaction, and ultimately art experience. Thus, this somewhat unusual distinction between these two aspects of Langer’s work is not only important for art and our understanding of the world, but can also be seen as fundamental to social interaction (...) and, furthermore, to the universal formation of culture(s). It is, as the article suggests, to be regarded as the basis of the conditio humana. (shrink)

This study analyses the emergence of aesthetic theory in eighteenth-century Germany in relation to contemporary theories of the nature of language and signs. As well as being extremely relevant to the discussion of literary theory, this perspective casts much light on Enlightenment aesthetics. The central text under consideration shows that the extended comparison of poetry and the plastic arts contained in that major work of aesthetic criticism rests upon a theory of signs and constitutes a complex and global theory of (...) aesthetic signification. His analysis of Laocoon is preceded by chapters which establish the underlying structure and influence of the Enlightenment metasemiotic - that is, the place and function of the sign concept in the culture of the early eighteenth century. As an important reinterpretation of Lessing's Laocoon and of the development of German aesthetic theory, this book will be of special interest to students and scholars of German literature. Moreover, as a significant chapter in the history of semiotics, it will be read with profit by all those concerned with the history of literary criticism and aesthetic theory. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 216 Seiten: 201-224.

Philipp Otto Runge (1777-1810) was a leading German Romantic artist whose iconography represents a transition from the Neoclassical iconography of classical mythology and allegory to an abstract semiotic system of signs based on a mystical interpretation of nature. An admirer of Herder's theory of language, Runge's iconography was representative of a trend among Romantic artists to promote nationalism and cultural values through the implementation of formal epistemological systems in the medium of art. Runge's individual iconography reveals a synthesis of rational (...) and mystical systems of knowledge that emphasizes Herder's concept of the German Volk as a unique cultural identity, and presents an analogy between the creation of the cosmos, the organic origins of language, and the conception of the German Volk. Runge's iconography expresses the nationalist sentiments and linguistic theory of Herder that formed the basis of German propaganda movements during the Wars of Liberation, 1807-1815. (shrink)

The trade-offs of “meaning-making” between East and West may be regarded as an aggiornamento for any culture in contact. But since aggiornamento entails a wide range of subjects, the essay situates the meaning-making within the scope of masterpieces in diverse formats, from the printed literary text to the painted image. Specifically, the essay offers a rethinking of the cross-cultural semiotic dialogue, paving the way for recognizing the homo significans. However, the customary framing of the Spoliarium does not seem to warrant (...) its conscious knowledge and understanding as a text and a visual art. For this reason, the essay endorses its reframing and its aggiornamento, which is induced by the rapid advancement of science and technology. (shrink)

​This book investigates the nature of aesthetic experience and aesthetic objects. Written by leading philosophers, psychologists, literary scholars and semioticians, the book addresses two intertwined issues. The first is related to the phenomenology of aesthetic experience: The understanding of how human beings respond to artworks, how we process linguistic or visual information, and what properties in artworks trigger aesthetic experiences. The examination of the properties of aesthetic experience reveals essential aspects of our perceptual, cognitive, and semiotic capacities. The second issue (...) studied in this volume is related to the ontology of the work of art: Written or visual artworks are a specific type of objects, containing particular kinds of representation which elicit a particular kind of experience. The research question explored is: What properties in artful objects trigger this type of experience, and what characterizes representation in written and visual artworks? The volume sets the scene for state-of-the-art inquiries in the intersection between the psychology and ontology of art. The investigations of the relation between the properties of artworks and the characteristics of aesthetic experience increase our insight into what art is. In addition, they shed light on essential properties of human meaning-making in general. (shrink)

Having shown previously how a culture type can be given a unitary description in terms of a semiotic “lens” constrained by one of the Peircean Categories (“Shamanic” culture, by Firstness), we apply this methodology to a more “fine-grained” level of analysis, by comparing the Tamil and Sinhalese cultures under the assumption that one of them (Sinhalese) is in fact a “hybrid” culture-sign. Having shown in previous work that the greater South Asian microculture may be characterized as a Firstness of Thirdness (...) (13), in this paper we provide evidence from a variety of semiotic contexts, including language, art, and religion, that the novel or “intrusive” sign in Sinhalese culture is Firstness of Secondness (12), resulting in a hybrid culture sign that may be described as 12 × 13. (shrink)

Be aware... and you will be mindful of a notable ambiguity in semiotics as well as of those who have masterfully strived to transcend it. This event, commented on by Elize Bisanz (Texas Tech University) and chaired by William Passarini (Institute for Philosophical Studies), is part of the activities of the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics: a Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing, cooperatively organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the (...) Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the International Center for Semiotics and Intercultural Dialogue, Moscow State Academic University for the Humanities and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project. *** Ionut Untea is currently a fellow-in-residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, in Stuttgart, where he is researching on the semioethic and aesthetic coordinates of the “social compact” and intercorporeal relationships. In 2021, he has taught a course entitled “Intercultural Philosophy: Semiotic Approaches and Aesthetic Themes” as a Visiting Professor at Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro. Since 2016, he has been teaching History of Western Philosophy and Semiotics at Southeast University, Nanjing. He previously taught at the University of La Rochelle, and was a postdoctoral fellow of the Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue (FIIRD) at the University of Geneva. He obtained his doctorate in 2013 at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), in Paris. He holds Romanian citizenship, having obtained his first degrees in philosophy and theology at the University of Bucharest. His focus is on the modern and contemporary intersections between semiotic, moral, political and religious thought. He has published recently “Peircean and Confucian Interpretations of Self-Development: Semiotic, Normative and Aesthetic Aspects,” Philosophy East and West 72.1: January 2022: 188–209. His recent work has appeared in academic journals such as The American Journal of Semiotics (2021), Semiotica (2021), Ethical Perspectives (2021, 2019), Philosophical Forum (2019), Journal of Aesthetic Education (2020), Politics and Religion (2019), The Monist (2018). *** Dr. Bisanz's education includes an MA (Philosophy) from the University of Lüneburg in Germany; Graduate Studies in Jacques Derrida's philosophy Seminars at l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris; a Ph.D. (History of Communication Sciences) from the Technische University of Berlin; and a post-doc Habilitation Degree (Image Studies), from the University of Lüneburg. Bisanz has published several interdisciplinary books reflecting her educational background; these include a major European edition of Peirce's writings The Logic of Interdisciplinarity: Charles S. Peirce, The Monist Series (Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 2009), which was realized with the aid of research and publication grants from State and private endowments; Prolegomena to a Science of Reasoning: Phaneroscopy, Semeiotic, Logic, which is a collection of manuscripts by Peirce on reasoning (Peter Lang Publishers, Berlin, 2016); Overcoming the Iconic Turn: Cultural Concepts of Images [in German: Die Überwindung des Ikonischen: Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven der Bildwissenschaft] (transcript Verlag, Hamburg, 2010). Bisanz is a member of the advising board of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Semiotik and chair of the society's subdivision for Cultural Studies. Since her Fulbright scholarship in 2006 at Texas Tech University, Bisanz has been an active member of the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism. She has organized several international congresses dedicated to Peirce and interdisciplinary research. *** Homepage: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s Auditorium: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s/auditorium *** Technical support assured by Robert Junqueira. The cover image for the video was designed by Zahra Soltani. (shrink)

This essay discusses the semiotic scaffolding of modern science, the roots of which lie in the Protestant Reformation and the latter’s repudiation of the “semiotics of nature” upon which medieval theology depended. Taking the fourteenth-century battles between realism and nominalism as the semiotic scaffolding of the Reformation which was subsequently built on nominalist principles, and the Reformation as what made possible the development of early modern science, this essay argues that nominalism, Protestantism, and early modern science were all infected (...) by the gnostic influences which had always accompanied Christianity from the start. Indicating that forms of creative discovery, in the arts, humanities and sciences, are closer to poetic forms than they are to the Baconian model which informed modern science, the essay goes on to link the latter gnostic-influenced metaphysics, motivated by a Reformation anxiety about sin and error, to the development of the modern “megamachine” as described by Lewis Mumford in The Myth of the Machine volumes 1 and 2. Finally the essay suggests that semiotically revivified life sciences might be capable of resolving some of the systemic and ecological problems which Mumford identifies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Semiotics and Pragmatism: Theoretical Interfaces by Ivo Assad IbriRobert E. InnisIvo Assad Ibri Semiotics and Pragmatism: Theoretical Interfaces Springer, 2022, xxvii + 341 pp., incl. indexIn the chapter on 'The Heuristic Power of Agapism in Peirce's Philosophy' in his recent book, Semiotics and Pragmatism: Theoretical Interfaces, Ivo Ibri points out that access to Peirce's work requires something on the part of the reader that is (...) "not readily available in everyone's spirit: a sense of poetry, an aesthetic sensitivity that will, ultimately, become the sharpest and strongest tool to penetrate the deepest meaning of his philosophy" (116). Such a sensitivity is manifested in Ibri's own responsiveness to Peirce's accounts of the permeating qualities of things in a dynamic universe of emerging novel orders and patterns. Ibri's book presents the record, indeed the culmination, of a well-known and wide-ranging long-term engagement with the work of Peirce. It makes available in English translation the contents of the two-volume [End Page 257] collection of his papers in Portuguese published in 2020 and 2021, although a number of them were originally published in English. The title of the book indicates the dynamic triadic nature of Ibri's central Peircean themes: semiotics and pragmatism and their theoretical as well as historical 'interfaces.'Paradoxically, taken alone, the book's main title, 'Semiotics and Pragmatism,' gives no indication that it is principally about Peirce. The reason, I think, is that there is an interwoven duality of, or tension between, the tasks that Ibri has taken upon himself to accomplish in the intellectual journey manifested in the book's contents: (a) Thinking about Peirce, on the one hand, and (b) Thinking with and through Peirce, on the other. This duality of tasks accounts both for the expository and argumentative richness of Peircean themes and the accompanying sense of intellectual engagement and exploration as they are taken up in the various parts of the book: art as an articulated realm of 'nameless things,' the presence of a poetic ground and its links to Schelling in Peirce's philosophy, the nature of abduction and of agapism as heuristic principles, the scope of Peirce's theory of signs and interpretants, the theory of beliefs and the intellectual dangers and poverty of dogmatism, the nature of habits and rational conduct, the centrality of the categories for Peircean pragmatism and objective idealism, the relations between pragmatism, pragmaticism, and neopragmatism, and other technical and subsidiary topics of current social and political importance. The discussion of these themes involves wide-ranging and generous linkages to other parallel discussions that support or expand Ibri's own positions and existential commitments.Ibri frames in a variety of ways the inextricably intertwined strands of semiotics and pragmatism (or pragmaticism) in Peirce's work and argues forcefully in other chapters for Peirce's metaphysical vision of an emergent creative universe marked by the "infinite faces of chance" (122), a vision rooted in Schelling's objective idealism and in scientific discoveries of the 19th century. The organization of the book is thematic and does not develop in linear fashion as a treatise. It can be seen as sequence of engagements or as a series of analytical spirals in which the topics and issues of the book, focused on Peirce's heuristic fertility, are taken up in a kind of dialectical dance of 'retrievals and continuations,' leading inevitably, as Ibri points out, to a high number of repetitions and recapitulations. This is partially due to each chapter in the book, while free standing, functioning as a heuristic device for exploring and arguing for the nature and power of Peirce's interlocking main positions and their shared conceptual underpinnings.In a stimulating chapter on 'The Poetics of Nameless things,' Ibri writes that the Peircean claim of a "correspondence between external and internal worlds" is the "deepest root of pragmatism" (60). This root gives rise to a system of spiraling tendrils marking the growth of the [End Page 258] Peircean philosophical project. We can think of the chapters of Ibri's book as themselves spiraling, and at times entangled, analytical tendrils that support the growth of our... (shrink)

The neutrality of the art and architecture of courtrooms and courthouses has dominated the public perception in the Indian context. The courtroom design and the visual artistic elements present within these judicial places have very often been considered to be insignificant to the notions of law and justice that they reflect. As art and architecture present certain historical narratives, reflect political allegories and have significant impact on the perceptions of their viewers, they have critical socio-political ramifications. This makes it pertinent (...) to explore them and investigate the paradox of their deployment and interpretation in today’s increasingly mediatized world. Through an ethnographic study of the Supreme Court of India, this paper interprets its art and architecture, and, the symbolism and semiotics reflected through them. Arguing against their neutrality and insignificance, the paper demonstrates how they reflect nationalism, certain ideologies and power-space dynamics. It further argues that they act as evidence of political metaphors related to justice, power and democracy. With a conversation between law, architecture and semiotics, the paper investigates the historical and spatial dimensions of its architecture and artistic elements. Mapping the Court’s architectural elements, I examine how the visual representation of ‘justice as virtue’ finds translation in its design through transfer of certain images, including the image of the ‘scales of justice’, into it, while absenting the notion of ‘justice as struggle’—to contemplate on how legal architecture gives evidence to the vexed relationship between law and justice and also of the break from the colonial past. (shrink)

This essay has two aims. The first is to offer an explanation concerning the problem of form in Umberto Eco’s philosophical research, showing that he deals with it while admitting that form can be a temporary element connected to a system of relationships which may be subject to variability. Namely, his reflection is open to the issue of structure. The second aim is to identify some principles that, according to this theoretical approach, may be considered a basis for a positive (...) philosophy of the arts whose adoption might also lead to the understanding of their most recent evolutions. Focusing above all on the work Eco carried out in the years preceding the elaboration of his semiotic theory, I will pursue the following two objectives. After introducing some aspects of Eco’s philosophical methodology, I will focus on the theme of form, considering it in meta-operative terms in light of Luigi Pareyson’s ‘theory of formativity’ and in relation to the issue of structure. In the final part of the essay, I will then show how this theoretical approach provides significant resources for a positive philosophy that can successfully address the evolution of the arts. (shrink)

In this original work of psychoanalytic theory, John Muller explores the formative power of signs and their impact on the mind, the body and subjectivity, giving special attention to work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. Muller explores how Lacan's way of understanding experience through three dimensions--the real, the imaginary and the symbolic--can be useful both for thinking about cultural phenomena and for understanding the complexities involved in treating psychotic patients. Muller develops Lacan's (...) perspective gradually, presenting it as distinctive approaches to data from a variety of sources, such as cognitive, social and developmental psychology, literature, history, art, and psychoanalytic treatment. The book's first four chapters present Muller's reading of selected data from child development research, psychology and linguistics, approximating a semiotic model of "normal" development. The following three chapters examine in a Lacanian framework the structural basis of psychotic stages as indicative of massive semiotic failure in development. The final chapters on human narcissism suggest reasons that "normal" development may be impossible. (shrink)

This collection brings together eighteen of the author's original papers, previously published in a variety of academic journals and edited collections over the last three decades, on the process of interpretation in literature and the visual arts in one comprehensive volume. The volume highlights the centrality of artistic texts to the study of multimodality, organized into six sections each representing a different modality or semiotic system, including literature, television, film, painting, sculpture, and architecture. A new introduction lays the foundation for (...) the theoretically based method of analysis running through each of the chapters, one that emphasizes the interplay of textual details and larger thematic purposes to create an open-ended and continuous approach to the interpretation of artistic texts, otherwise known as the "hermeneutic spiral". Showcasing Michael O'Toole's extensive contributions to the field of multimodality and in his research on interpretation in literature and the visual arts, this book is essential reading for students and scholars in multimodality, visual arts, art history, film studies, and comparative literature. (shrink)

Drawing on Vilm Flusser's view of the relationship between humans and the computer (machines), I explore a new ontological framework for our beingin-the-world. I begin by raising critical questions regarding our endeavours and efforts to create endlessly expanding semiotic knowledge spaces based on technological innovation (e.g. Wikipedia or the Universal Electronic Library) in order to reflect on this development from a Flusserian perspective, i.e. as an anthropological challenge to designing interhuman relations. By searching for new ontological conditions for humans, technology (...) and knowledge, I want to probe into responses and new perspectives/models of knowledge sharing. How would we have to rethink the relation between semiotic telematic knowledge spaces and their structure/architecture, and the concrete given (our relationships, intersubjectivity, etc.)? What are the consequences of these findings for the macrosocial structures of encounter where knowledge exchange is a key element? Which are the epistemic models most suited to articulating a productive interdisciplinary knowledge exchange? My approach intends to weave knowledge and space, memory, technology and lived experience into an ontological fabric, and, in so doing, place humans and their communicative needs at the centre of my considerations. (shrink)

The paper follows the thesis, that the perception of real or virtual media shares the anthropological state of "Ausdruckswahrnehmung" or perception of expression (Ernst Cassirer). This kind of perception does not represent a distant, neutral point of view, but one that is guided by feelings or "vitality affects" (Daniel N. Stern). The prerequisites, however, for triggering these feelings/"vitality affects" are not recognizable objects or motifs, but rather their sensually evaluable “abstract representations” or their formal logical structures. In contrast to aesthetic (...) feelings, however, they affect not only our feelings of lust or unlust or our knowledge (formal aesthetics) but also our actions (semiotics). So, when I extend aesthetic experiences to semiotic effects, I will talk about vitality semiotics. This new concept is of consequence, because the thesis of the responsibility of the producer is based on these effects. This is to be carried out by analyzing and presenting the approach of the Bauhaus master Josef Albers. (shrink)

Information entities are used in ontologies to represent engineering technical specifications, health records, pictures or librarian data about, e.g., narrative fictions, among others. The literature in applied ontology lacks a comparison of the state of the art, and foundational questions on the nature of information entities remain open for research. The purpose of the paper is twofold. First, to compare existing ontologies with both each other and theories proposed in philosophy, semiotics, librarianship, and literary studies in order to understand (...) how the ontologies conceive and model information entities. Second, to discuss some open research challenges that can lead to principled approaches for the treatment of information entities, possibly by getting into account the variety of information entity types found in the literature. (shrink)

Is there a major international crime that the general public has never heard of or even thought about? The answer to this question might be surprising—it is the illicit art trade. The purpose of this article is to analyse the criminal aspect of the global art trade with a special focus on the region of South East Asia. In the first part of the paper, which acts as a backdrop for the rest of the article, the author explains the history (...) and general issues regarding the trade of cultural artefacts, briefly explaining the stages in the illicit antiquities trade, with a special focus on the question of international law regulations, of which he provides a critical overview. The second and third parts of the paper are devoted to a more profound analysis of the antiquities journey from illicit to licit. In the second part of the paper the author provides a case study of the first part of the voyage of Cambodian, Vietnamese and Indian antiquities, i.e. from the source country to the port of first shipment, examining the places and the middlemen they pass on their way. The third part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of legal provisions regulating the art trade in Hong Kong—a global art hub—notably the ‘market overt exception’, which allows buyers in good faith to keep the illicitly obtained cultural objects in spite of any claims made by the previous owners. In the fourth part of the paper the author shows why restitution of looted antiquities is so difficult, analysing a number of successful and unsuccessful attempts. The concluding part of the paper is devoted to the author’s critical overview of the various attempts and suggestions on the curtailing of the illicit international art trade. In the coda the author provides a case study of the journey undertaken by Cambodian antiquities. (shrink)

This article poses the hypothesis that the problem of the intrinsic value of nature that stems from the work of G. E. Moore and is widely discussed in environmental philosophy, bas a parallel in a contemporary discussion in semiotics on the existence of semiosis in nature. From a semiotic point of view. value can be defined as an intentional dimension of sign. This is concordant with a biological interpretation of value that relates to biological needs. Thus. a semiotic approach (...) in biology may provide a useful tool for further analysis of the intrinsic value problem in the biological realm. From an ecosemiotic point of view, the problem is also related to the concepts of bioart and ecoart. Ecoart viz environmental art is that which encompasses the human ambience, e.g., landscape or its components. Bioart call be defined as the art whose material ("clay") is a living body, living matter or communication of organisms (which may include, e.g., genetic engineering). It is concluded that the acceptance of biosemiotic view has implications for a large area of ecological philosophy. (shrink)

This carefully crafted volume concludes the series of works that began with Cultural Thematics. Seung's primary aim is to go beyond the malaise of post-New Critical studies and to reinstate the centrality of contextual understanding in the interpretation of the structure and meaning of a text. In his introductory discussion of "Text and Context" the author undermines the claims of the objectivity of a text, textual solipsism and textual agnosticism in a manner that recalls the previous arguments in philosophy concerning (...) our knowledge of the external world. Starting with an analysis of textual indeterminacy, Seung ranges over a variety of relevant conceptions of the interpretation of a text, touching upon the works of E. D. Hirsch, Schleiermacher, Cleanth Brooks, Dilthey, Gadamer, and others. In a fairly technical chapter, "Semantics and Pragmatics," the distinctions between formal semantics and informal pragmatics are clearly discussed. An analysis of the pragmatic use of language leads to detailed and informative discussions of pragmatic norms, pragmatic functions, and the relevance of authorial intention for an understanding of a given text. Simplifying Seung's lucid and disciplined arguments, it is shown that a proper understanding of a text requires a grasp of the holistic culture in which it is presented, as well as an understanding of regnant cultural themes. Enriched by interpretations of the Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, the Aeneid, Dante's Commedia, and other literary works, Seung displays the art of contextual interpretation in accordance with his own principles. Of special interest is the presentation of the importance of textual coherence for significant textual interpretations. The various analyses of the role of thematics in the understanding of literature in historical context lead to sympathetic appraisals of Gadamer's hermeneutic program and a brief defence of Gadamer against the charge of falling into an historicist relativity. Finally, Seung concludes his illuminating study with a sketch of a cultural morphology that resembles, in embryo, Hegel's phenomenology of culture. This is no accident, insofar as Seung presents, in his concluding outline of the interaction of cultural themes, an admitted variation on Hegel's dialectical theme. By even finding a place for the "existential dimension of thematic dialectic," the author manages to negate and preserve the solipsism of the reader and give recognition virtually to every relevant aspect of a complex hermeneutic process.--G. J. Stack, SUNY College at Brockport. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to adapt Peirce’s semiotics to the study of media and arts. While some Peircean notions are criticized and rejected, constructive ways of understanding Peirce’s ideas are suggested, and a number of new notions, which are intended to highlight crucial aspects of semiosis, are then introduced. All these ideas and notions are systematically related to one another within the frames of a consistent terminology. The article starts with an investigation of Peirce’s three sign constituents (...) and their interrelations: the representamen, the object, and the interpretant. A new approach to the interrelations of these three sign constituents is then suggested and manifested in a distinction between representation and neopresentation. This is followed by a critical discussion of Peirce’s three types of representation—iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity—and their interrelations, which sets the stage for a presentation of what is referred to as the material and mental representation model. This model aims to illuminate the problematic relation between material and mental facets of signification triggered by media and art products, and other material things and phenomena. (shrink)

This exploration of the works of various authors and artists will bring us to a philosophical contemplation of the portrait as a heterotopic space. On one hand, a portrait represents the faces of the self and others, embodying both individuality and collectivity. On the other hand, the space within the conventional frame of a portrait transforms from a mere representation of documented reality to a co-constructed and reified form of expression. The article is divided in three parts. The first part (...) sinks into Lotman’s epistemic groundwork on culture, space, and especially art as a founding philosophical and analytical reference and will also outline the relationship and difference between the semiophere and the facesphere. The second part focuses on establishing a relationship between the facesphere and the heterotopic idea of space and portrait genre. Here the article explores Michael Foucault’s thought in relation to heterotopic space, later proposed in association with the space of the portrait. The third part is devoted to establishing relationships between the theoretical background and the analysis of case studies belonging to the portrait genre selected from photographic works in “Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia,” an exhibition at the National Gallery in Singapore. I will conclude with some brief considerations to summarize the path taken. (shrink)

This paper looks at rescue-at-sea practices and their aftermath as portrayed in a number of European films. In this World, Malta Radio, Bon Voyage, Welcome, Terraferma, 4.1 Miles and Man at Sea address maritime migration, States’ omission in complying with their international obligations, and how the latter obliges individuals to make difficult choices against the backdrop of the law of the sea. The focus of these stories is on the saviours and their conflicts of interests while migrants are allocated a (...) secondary role and one in which they are usually portrayed as victims. Although this is in line with the humanitarian response that these films primarily seek to trigger, it deprives migrants of their rights. As victims, migrants are at the mercy of saviours and rescuing them or not is an act of compassion, and not one legally compulsory. The paper finally argues that a holistic rights-based approach to the migration challenge is needed, with equality as the key word. (shrink)

It is difficult to make sense of the notion of postmodernity, because “modernity” is clearly a shifter, in the sense of Jespersen and Jakobson: a term dependent for its meaning on its moment of enunciation. It is true that, from the Middle Ages onwards, several meanings of modernity have received an objectified reference. But in the arts, particularly in the visual arts, this is not true. Modernity has been defined as the ever-new transgression of norms established by the period coming (...) immediately before. In another sense, modernity is connected to urbanity, as it first took place (or at least was observed) in the coffeehouses of the seventeenth century and the boulevards of the nineteenth century. This meant a close connection of individuals having nothing to do with each other from the point of view of family relationships. At the same time as this concept of modernity is overhauled by the perpetual presence of the mobile phones, it is confirmed and extended by the Internet. A third kind of modernity, perhaps closely connected to the second one ( but essentially opposed to the first kind) is that of thinking, as initiated during the Enlightenment, striving to go beyond the divergent doxa of different cultures to some kind of rational understanding. Taking into account the standing of rationality in the history of humanity, postmodern philosophy really amounts to some kind of mobbing of the poorest and most feeble members of the crowd. (shrink)

Despite, or perhaps as a form of resistance to contemporary globalization tendencies, the Central Asia region has chosen a way of life that combines modernconditions with deeply ingrained ancient customs and traditions. The gap between the by-gone glorious nomadic past in the communities of the Great Steppe and the socio-cultural and economic setup of the independent countries in this region, for instance Russia and Kazakhstan, is huge, and without access to modern structures of knowledge dissemination, the cultural heritage of these (...) ancient nomadic communities remains largely unexplored. This paper seeks to present some of the hidden cultural treasures of these peoples. In order to do so, the study focuses on the semiotic implications of ornaments as intercultural signs amidst the nomadic cultures of Eurasia. (shrink)

Based on the observations of Brazilian theorists of Communication, this article purports to give an overview of the contemporary experience in terms of communicational phenomena and their relationship with art, technology, science and language from the broad standpoint of a Charles S. Peirce-based view of semiotic.

The starting point for any understanding of Jean Baudrillard's media theory is his concept of `communication'. This is heavily indebted to his theory of symbolic exchange, drawn from the Durkheimian tradition running through Durkheim, Mauss, Caillois and Bataille. Common to all these authors is s specific view of human relations, derived from their anthropology, as involving both a communication and a confrontation. Baudrillard, therefore, sees the modern semiotic order as based on the destruction of these symbolic relations, and its media (...) accordingly as founded on a `non-communication'. In symbolic exchange, however, Baudrillard presents a complete and coherent theory of power, and his theory of communication illustrates the possibilities of transformation and reversal of established power and the system of non-communication which the reinstitution of symbolic relations can bring about. (shrink)

Collecting ethnographic items for the Estonian National Museum has been linked to the practice of buying objects during fieldwork. Often we can find metaphors or expressions connected with trading in the Komi fieldwork diaries. Comparing ethnographers with merchants is a stereotypical way of describing the activities of Estonian researchers in the field. If ethnographers use, in their diaries, metaphors and expressions connected to trading, it may be just a spontaneous phrasing or inter-textual play of words. Inside the community of Estonian (...) ethnologists there exists some kind of discourse style, which is followed in the fieldwork diaries, more or less consciously. This style of narration is also connected to the specific social and historical context in which ethnographers act. At the same time, even satiric inter-textual quotations do not exclude the possibility that some of this discourse is related to a deeper level of human consciousness. (shrink)