CC BY
0DOI: 10.31249/metodquarterly/02.01.05
The Second Centenary Debate of February 2nd.
For citation: The Second Centenary Debate of February 2nd. (2022). METHOD: Moscow Quarterly Journal of Social Studies, 2(1), P. 45-61. http://www.doi.org/10.31249/ metodquarterly/02.01.05
Mikhail Ilyin: We start now our second centenary debate. The first to speak is Valery Demyankov. The floor is yours.
Valery Demyankov: Thank you. What I am going to present here is not quite a paper but rather an annotation or a sketch of a future project.
Juri Lotman, for an average reader of Russian literature was, first and foremost, a serious author of interesting and insightful comment on Pushkin's texts. His hermeneutic talent made it possible both for schoolchildren and for adult teachers to understand actual, sometimes unexpected, senses of classical Russian literary texts which otherwise seemed hermetic. Lotman's comment is especially useful since there is no other way to see how the everyday life of the 'classical Russian world' looked like.
As it's usual in philology, Lotman's literary-semiotic theorizing roots in this philologically founded applied hermeneutics, stimulated Lotman himself and his disciples to look for explanations and generalizations concerning discourse production and interpretation.
Such interpretive practice does not only presuppose semiotics of verbal signs, but it also presupposes a broader anthropocentric attitude: it does not suffice to explore properties of sign systems in themselves, in vacuum, but one should also look at this system and its parts on behalf of humans using them. This means giving up the strictly structuralist point of view on language, the structuralism to any price proclaimed in the 1970s evolves and transforms into an anthropocentric approach.
This, not purely structuralist, 'human' perspective consists in finding out what and how verbal and non-verbal signs direct human interpretation of discourse and human behavior as a whole. Reconstructing the cultural climate of the bygone days, scholars also take into consideration accessible cultural phenomena. Arguing for this or that solution in their cultural reconstruction, they rely both on universal and on culture-specific postulates, previously discovered in their cultural research, in their cultural archaeology. Such widening of philological empirical horizons makes it necessary to look at non-linguistic 38
elements as no less relevant and pertinent parameters of communication. That is, visual arts, everyday-life rites, even hair color may play a crucial role in phenomena explanation, especially when discourse contains non-literary figures of speech, such as metaphors, empathy, and direct and indirect perspective in writings by Boris Uspensky, Vladimir Toporov, Vyacheslav Ivanov. Taking into account these and other non-linguistic cultural regularities in the discourse, interpretation converts these cultural objects into linguistic ones: interpreters assign them significance in the framework of a cultural discourse interpretation. Citing and 'intertextuality' in general are instances of signs of practically infinite length constructed of discourses.
That is, explaining figurative sense is another important task of culturally-based discourse interpretations. Metaphors in discourse may grow obsolete and incomprehensible for new generations of native speakers, let alone for non-native speakers. A corpus-statistical investigation of some English and Russian lexical items such as 'prejudice', 'possibility', 'probability', etc. is an important heuristic means for describing variable relevance of different parts of the frame of interpretation in the ways people talk about sociologically relevant features of cognitive and emotional involvement. Such involvement aiming at epistemic solidarity resembles epidemic spread. The bulk of prejudices ever observed in the epistemic history supplies cultural and cognitive archaeologists with additional empirical materials for studying epistemic evolution in the cultural context of the mankind.
Explaining the ways contemporaries of Pushkin and later generations understood his writings, we observe people interpreting signs. This perspective may be termed meta-human interpretation. Observing Lotman himself making guesses as to how meta-human interpretation functions, we have to do with meta-meta-human interpretation, and so on.
Thank you.
Mikhail Ilyin: Thank you, Valery.
Ivan Fomin, could you continue?
Ivan Fomin: Thank you. What I want to focus on, is the idea behind Lotman's project of "cultural semiotics", and relate it to the project of social semiotics. So, usually, when we discuss the Lotmanean tradition of semiotics, it is labeled as "cultural semiotics" (or "semiotics of culture"). But what does it mean? And what is the meaning of the distinction between "social" semiotics and "cultural" semiotics? Is there a way to use this distinction productively?
I guess that there can be different approaches to how we deal with this issue. The first possible solution will probably be to say that the "cultural" and the "social" are the same thing, so these are merely two different labels for the same subject and the same discipline. As far as I understand, this is how M.A.K. Halliday saw it, we often see Halliday talking about "socio-cultural" phenomena, not distinguishing the "social" and the "cultural" in them. So, this is the first possible way to deal with this social-cultural dichotomy.
The second way to perceive this idea of cultural semiotics is to say that there is a distinct semiotics perspective that is inherent in cultural semiotics and it is not
identical to other semiotic traditions. I guess what can be useful here is to contrast the focus on the ideology that is more inherent in social semiotics and the focus on culture which is inherent in Lotman's semiotics. If we explore how ideology is seen in social semiotics and how culture is seen in the semiotics of culture, we can notice some similarities, as both concepts capture some stable semiotic structure, some rules of communication, some socially devised constants.
However, culture is not identical to ideology in the Lotmanean tradition. Lotman does not reduce culture to ideological constructs and does not focus his "cultural semiotic" studies on the analysis of ideological systems and relations of power. What he often focuses on are the processes of translation and understanding. So, I would say that the Lotmanean tradition explores the enabling function of stable semiotic structures instead of criticizing the relations of power behind them (as a Social Semiotics often does). So, this is the second way to see this cultural-social divide.
Finally, we can also say that social semiotics is a part of cultural semiotics. As Suren Zolyan (who unfortunately was unable to join us today) has shown, Lotman himself seems to refer to "social semiotic" this way, as an aspect of semiotics of culture.
So, if we develop this approach what is the meaning of this sociosemiotic aspect of cultural semiotics? I suppose that one of the ways to think about it is to say that "social semiotics" can be seen as something similar to interpersonal (in Halliday's sense) function of semiosis. Alternatively, we can use the label "social semiotics" in order to refer to the semiotics of logonomic systems (i.e. systems of constraints of a special kind, the ones that work on intersubjective level and thus make social semiosis possible).
Certainly, there can be more ways to approach this distinction of cultural semiotics and social semiotics, but I believe these three can serve as a good starting point to begin the conversation about how Lotman's heritage of "cultural semiotics" fits into a broader field of different kinds of semiotics or aspects of semiosis.
Mikhail Ilyin: Thank you, Ivan.
I apologize for the misuse of my role of a chairman and give the floor to myself.
And I would like to start with confession. When I first read the book on culture and explosion a while ago (probably in 1992 or 1993 at the latest), I overlooked two fundamental ideas that are resonant with my current research interests. Lotmanean notion of explosion is often interpreted as a revolutionary development or something like Schumpeter's 'gale of creative destruction' (Schumpeter, 1942, p. 81ff). True. Even lexically the notions are similar, but still different. While Lotman uses the word explosion ("взрыв ", [vzryv]), Schumpeter prefers gale. It is a natural meteorological phenomenon. According to the Beaufort scale, the gale refers to the grade 8. So, it is the strongest wind with dangerous gusts, but not reaching the storm gradation of 9 or more.
Schumpeter contrasts the gale of creative destruction with a lull, "It (organic process of industrial mutation - cf. p. 83) must be seen in its role in the 40
perennial gale of creative destruction; it cannot be understood irrespective of it or. in fact, on the hypothesis that there is a perennial lull" (Schumpeter, 1942, p. 84). Lotman use no similar organic contrasts explicitly but for an early post-Soviet reader this contrast was easily associated with stagnation ("застой", [zastoy]).
Anyway, my interpretation of both Lotman and Schumpeter (I read both books about the same time in early 1990s) was quite narrow and inhibited by instantaneous associations, mainly political, like stagnation and breakthrough to new thinking. Probably, Lotman was also motivated by similar kinds of connotations at the time of writing his book. So, I overlooked far more substantial Lotmanean stance in the first couple of sentences of the book. Lotman formulates two key problems in that couple of sentences. I shall read it out in Russian first and then translate it: «Коренными вопросами всякой семиотической системы являются, во-первых, отношение к вне-системе, к миру, лежащему за ее пределами, и, во-вторых, отношение статики к динамике. Последний вопрос можно было бы сформулировать так: каким образом система, оставаясь собой, может развиваться. Оба эти вопроса принадлежат к наиболее коренным и одновременно наиболее сложным» (Лотман, Культура и взрыв, 1992, с. 7).
Here is my translation: "The fundamental questions of any semiotic system are, firstly, the relation of the system to its outside or out-of-the-system ("вне-системе", literally "out-system"), to the world lying outside it, and, secondly, the relation of statics to dynamics. The last question could be formulated as follows: how the system can develop, remaining itself. Both questions belong to the most fundamental and at the same time the most complex ones". It differs slightly from the one published in 2009 (Lotman, 2009, p.1).
This is a citation from the book on page 7 in the publication of 1992, but it is the first page of the text. And these are the very first three sentences of the entire book. They are very important.
And those three sentences are important not just for this specific book on culture and explosion and not only for Lotman's work. I think they are central to scientific investigation as such. They are, as Lotman puts it, "Most fundamental and at the same time the most complex ones for all of us". So, I would like to address those problems in my later communications. Probably I shall speak on each separately and very briefly to show that they are semiotically and methodologically essential.
At this juncture I stop and pass the floor to Bob Hodge.
Bob Hodge: Thank you, I feel very much like continuing your case, Misha. Unfortunately, not in Russian words, but you read them beautifully and I assume that the English translation is accurate.
I wanted to enter a difficult relationship with or raise the possibility of a different relationship with Lotman. The idea of intervention as an explosion in his terms. That means, as I understand, it's an intervention that may leave lots of cherished bits of Lotman's idea scattered under the rubble of the roof that is being blown off. However, I think that is what he asks from us, so I suggest that the shading of the explosion is a strong word shown in Russian and in English.
It is inevitably destructive and connects with revolutions so extreme that the whole infrastructure of ideas is toned down and the hope is something new will be out in its place. As I read the book, I see a much more peaceful program. I can't remember any reference to the guns on the street or stringing up rival semioticians or something like that, he is a cool intellectual. We are trying to be uncool by going into exactly the point of intersection that isn't.
My proposal is through multi-scalar analysis, something I explained in my account of "social semiotics complex world". What I am proposing in the talk is that multi-scalar theory is as important and [inaudible] in both semiotics and writing fields as in physical fields. And there is a great deal being understood recently about this topic in both fields, which I think semiotics can draw on. I see the connection of his theme with semiotics withstanding traditions of interesting species with hypothetic structures and they are multi-scalar structures. Theories of level and legal index, that have to do with multi-scalar forms from the world of physics especially interested in the fractal. Fractal is a device that produces infinite scaled structures, microscopically small beyond the reach of human senses. In science, there is a scene of heuristic device that is understood the following way: when you apply fractal analysis, say, to the common one, they follow a fractal series up to a certain point when you reach a leaf or part of a leaf you finally find things to further develop. These structures reach the limits of reality. However, until they reach those limits, they have been marvelously heuristic, a beautiful instrument of discovery.
What I want to do with Lotman is to say that exactly that prohibition is fundamental to Lotman, fundamental to semiotics as well, and I think the idea of an absolute boundary between internal, or inside-the-system and external as he puts it, the same discovery has a lone history. In western thought that is well known as Cartesian Split. I think Saussure is a powerful entry point of his idea.
In a way, there is too many semiotics, and, in this respect, I will say that Lotman simply saw some diminish and retransmit this extreme damage. I am going to explore the extent to which it's possible to look at key statements by Lotman and instead of the taken for granted assumption there are these boundaries to try out heuristically the possibility of semiotics that those boundaries did not exist.
So, one point I found interesting, was his definition in the English book "The Universe of the Mind". In the earlier version he defines the semiosphere in strictly limited semiotic terms (whether "as ...", or "in ... terms"). First of all, what I want to do with that definition is to say: "Do we need, or why will we need to distinguish the semiosphere, as described in that way, from the biosphere, and the biosphere from the semiosphere, and the structures of spheres, regarded by scientist as an illuminating way of saying more complex interconnection between everything possible with that notion?
So, I put the question: "Why do we need to assume that semiosphere is constituted in any different way. In the cartesian split, we will not include that side, that is a metaphysical principle that needs to be asserted outside the side. So, if within science which includes semiotics, social semiotics is radically interconnected to all other processes in the universe, why not to explore how well 42
Lotman's initial description of a semiosphere fits and whether there is anything in that description which can equally learn from the formulation of scientists as against a comparison going both ways.
I recognize, Ivan, that I am doing something quite opposite of yours. You are putting everything together and I am putting them apart. I see there is a good place in semiotics for both of those things to happen. This radical lamping that I am doing and precisely the one I want to propose as one of the laws which emerge to the discoveries of all these spheres, there is endless differentiation and endless crossovers. And if you have a phenomenal, I suppose to be different, you will find the same principles applying to them. When you discover a more powerful and general form of a very fundamental principle, indeed that is what I am proposing.
I could not find the quotation, but it is Lotman on heterogeneity, and he proposes that a semiosphere is full of discontinuities. And his description of the semiosphere's state constitutes an equally valid inscription of a microstructure of a biosphere level as it applies to any individual consciousness like his. So, this is remarkable [inaudible] across very great scales between the semiosphere within a particular mind and a semiosphere at the grand scale of a multi-scalar theory will see many different levels.
The heterogeneity of synchronic. Let us say, if the Russians' sphere of thought is concerned, we need to use multi-scalar approach to come up with empirical knowledge about how big any sphere, you are looking at, can be. And for me, the genius of Lotman is so regularly apparent that I find the deposit of radical boundaries between Russians thinking and my thinking just pointless. I feel that this disposition defies certain effects; the commonalities between Lotman and myself and many other figures in the West are so great and so important. I think it is an intellectual offense and academic offense to properly say "he's Russian from early 20th century", "I am Anglo-American, living 50 years later". There is a huge gulf between us. I think gulfs and connections are empirical facts that need to be demonstrated. That is what I will hope to do when juxtaposing Lotman's interestingly contradictory heterogeneous ideas on the semiosphere with the materials that come from the multi-scalar analysis that I commonly work with. I'm interested to exercise the above-mentioned in my articles or papers or presentation for these papers.
Mikhail Ilyin: Thank you.
Now it is your turn, Sergey Viktorovich. You suggested two topics, one on translation, another on organisma and biocenoses as text-like phenomena. Which would you like to start with? The first or the second?
Sergey Chebanov: In my opinion on the legacy of Lotman, there are two important ideas; the idea about permanent translation of the untranslatable and the idea of the cultural monument as an object created using many languages. These two ideas are related to Lotman's idea of many languages, functioning in any culture simultaneously. Any pair of these languages is mutually untranslatable. However, there are permanent translation processes from language to language and such translations are obviously inadequate, but this inadequacy is precisely what is the source of novelty.
Both of his ideas are directly applicable to biology and can be used in the biosemiotics. Into a living body there are many languages: the language of genome, the language of neurotransmitters, the language of hormones, and so on. Organisms interact with each other through touches, chemicals (pheromones, telergons), colors, sound signals, body postures, etc. All of these make organisms a kind of text, created by many languages and other semiotic means, i.e. organisms appear as some kind of pasigraphy or supertext.
Such supertext is very reminiscent of what culturologists call a cultural monument.
Therefore, organisms should be studied in semiotics context which is exactly what Juri Lotman did. Thus, one can study the life of bacteria or the life of higher animals. In this case it turns out that the culture of higher animals is in many respects indistinguishable from the culture of humans. In my opinion this constitutes the significance of Lotman's ideas for the development of biology in semiotic and especially biosemiotic contexts. Thank you for your attention!
Mikhail: Thank you, Sergey Viktorovich. You were very concise and stressed a very clear point for the discussion. Just a small remark. The problem of coexisting, but still not fully translatable languages may be now reconsidered in the context of languaging.
We continue our discussion. Let me take the floor for just a couple of minutes and comment on the second problem which was formulated by Lotman. It is a problem of statics and dynamics and even better as a question: "How can the system develop and change but still remain essentially the same?". And I've said I did not notice this question when reading the book. It was only later that I came to realize the problem, two decades after first reading the book.
While re-reading Lotman's "Culture and explosion", I was shocked to notice that his core question exactly coincided with a question, I formulated myself in 2008. I will tell you a story, a very personal story. In summer 2008 I discussed my approaching 60th anniversary with Yuri Povovarov in his study in INION. He asked me a question, "Look, Misha, can you formulate some guiding ideas that somehow move you throughout your life". I quickly responded, saying that I cannot, since never thought about it. Yuri insisted I should think about it. Then I tried and the next day came to tell him that now I know. My question was (and still is) how it was (and would be) possible to change and remain oneself. This question how I can remain the same and still develop motivated me from my adolescent days and throughout my life when I started to study literature, switched then to study polities and discourses, concepts and regional developments. Now in my studies of cognitive abilities and scientific methodologies I am equally concerned with change and development, emergence and evolution.
Shakespeare's style and manner changed a lot. His plays are often very different, but and still remain distinctly Shakespearean. The English language change all the time and still remain English - with all its remarkable changes from Chaucerian times till present times. How can a political movement develop and retain its core principles? How can a nation, that constant plebiscite, remain the same? 44
I am very fond of giving this example to my students. Look! You are discussing France, but consider a very short period from the revolution till now. There are five republics, two empires and a couple of kingdoms to say nothing of regimes and other minor crisis development stages. They are all different, but France is the same.
Take our own Russia - Muscovite Russia, Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, the present-day Russia. The country is the same, but changing dramatically. How is this possible?
I told all that to my good old friend and concluded, "I am very thankful that you compelled me to think of the fundamental research question of my life. Now I better understand myself and my research motives". Yuri immediately responded, "I suggest now that we create a center where you will be trying to answer this question in our institute". So that is how our center for advanced methods has been created. Thus, our present debate comes about as a continuation of the same story.
Ideas developed by Yuri Mikhailovich in his milieu remain Lotmanean, whatever new refinements or developments have been introduced by the followers or opponents. They are the core of our enterprise. I implore you to continue, be it translation or logonomic systems, textual analysis, or Russian cultural heritage.
Bob Hodge: Can I respond?
Mikhail Ilyin: Yes, sure.
Bob Hodge: I agree with you, Misha. It was my focus too, but the idea of heterogeneity to me is a kind of explosion which means we need to recognize that it was the same at different times, it was always different at any given time. So that if you recognize you will likely squeeze him into a box, making him homogenous.
Each stage hopes to morph it into another, which can be generally different because it was always to itself as you were. I'm sure even before and after your birthday. I think you understand how much variety there was in you as a 16-year-old or whatever you were. You were always a contradiction, I am sure, Misha. You still are, and the contradiction stays the same but what it generates is change, which I think can be real and I would like to hold out the idea that change can also be real.
I like a theory of continuity because there is so much truth in it, but difference is, change is not just fear of change, so we don't fool ourselves into thinking that we come up with new ideas that are still the same old ones. I like to think that everyone contributing to this will be able to say something not new but interesting for them, as well as, of course, continuity itself that has been producing ideas for so many years. Agreeing and disagreeing with you [laughter].
Mikhail Ilyin: Great, I like this trick of yours to agree to disagree. That is a good tweak [laughter]. Who will be the next? Sergey, please.
Sergey Chebanov: Unfortunately, I kind of disagree with Mikhail. There are two levels of my disagreement.
On the theoretical level we are inclined to use notions of stability and dynamics, but they are connected. We must distinguish four points: geometry,
kinematics, statics and dynamics. And if we speak about what is a unit, we have to distinguish these four types of categories.
On the practical level of my disagreement, we have to remember Aristotle. He believed that animals and human beings change souls. Since we have different souls throughout life, we are not responsible at the present moment for the actions that we did when we had another soul in us. So, if someone, being a child of 1-2 years old, accidentally had killed someone, then he couldn't be in responsibility for this when he is 25 years old. Aristotle would say that these people had different souls. And if it had been done (killing someone) by a person at the age of 17, then would he be responsible for this at the age of 25? Or at 45? Or at 65? Does he have the same soul in these ages, or different souls?
This is an actual problem for me and there are special views of the subject in biology too. For example, Willi Hennig in the middle of the 20th century created a special notion "semophoront" [Hennig, 1950; Hennig, 1966]. This is the state of a living being at the current moment, which differs from the state at another moment by means of a given set of features. After changing the set of features inherent in the organism, it will fall into another semophoront.
Mikhail Ilyin: I find that your disagreement is a kind of agreement. It is just like what Bob did. It is what I was trying to do. I was trying to demonstrate the problematic nature of relations. Probably, when doing this, I somehow - that strictly opposing thing I was - try to demonstrate that there is no opposition, which is wrong because there is an opposition. But I was trying to say that despite all the differences there is a kind of link and not a contingent but a kind of fundamentally essential link between all those differences. So, there is no essential disagreement between us. The thing is how we try to resolve the problem. Whether the problem will be resolved - well of course it's not going to be resolved thematically. To say that either this solution or that is correct would be premature. The problem may be resolved when we find some way of transition or interrelating between the two contrasting aspects of our existence or existence of an organism, or existence of a text or utterances or whatever, speaking semiotically. Our talk, as it started an hour ago and as it is now, is two different things. Five minutes ago, it was one talk, and when we finish it will be another talk. And in 30 or 40 minutes, probably, it will be another thing. But it's one talk. Interrelated talk, speaking semiotically. How do we deal with this problem?
Sergey Chebanov: Maybe we will talk about the unity of the dialogue, the unity of a separate participant in the dialogue, the unity of a separate part of the unity of a participant, a separate remark, etc. and consider each such unity as belonging to its semophoront?
Mikhail Ilyin: And there is also a very, I would say, important but very troubling thing that we all die.
Sergey Chebanov: No-no, our soul does not die completely without a trace.
Mikhail Ilyin: Everything finishes. Even our talk will finish sometime.
Sergey Chebanov: I think our talk will develop, for example, many millennia. 46
Mikhail Ilyin: Yes, but only if we make efforts to extend it, and METHOD works properly and proves effective. Let us try (laughs). But there is another trick. We can travel in time. We can think of the past or future. We are very free. We are not that free. Now, to go see Bob, I will have to pass great distance, to spend a lot of time in airplanes. But I could easily open his book or just remember him and start to debate. All those miles away to Australia would not stop me. I can even debate with Aristotle just like Sergey suggested on different souls of a person. Good idea; we can further debate this - Sergey, Aristotle and myself. Others are invited to join, of course.
Sergey Chebanov: In fact, we can communicate using physical, acoustic sounds too. Actually, we can speak about some acoustic phenomena in the interplanet space too.
Mikhail Ilyin: Interesting. Further comments?
Ivan Fomin: I think I can add a couple of words here. I think that if we ask what makes Lotman relevant for this discussion, it would be his ideas on "staying the same". I think in this respect, his semiotic account of memory, his ideas on the semiotic mechanisms that enable the preservation of culture are important. These ideas are important for social semiotics and for semiotic theory in general.
For example, let us consider the concept of semiotic work that, as far as I remember, was introduced by Gunther Kress. This concept assumes that communication has happened whenever some semiotic work has been done, i.e. whenever a new meaning has been produced by an individual. So, this concept emphasizes that semiosis is always an ongoing process in which meanings change and new meanings are produced all the time. But I guess it can be insightful if we consider that there are in fact two different kinds of semiotic work.
One of them is the semiotic work that is aimed at producing new meanings. And another one is the semiotic work that is aimed at preserving the existing meanings, keeping them the same. A theory that can account for these two kinds of semiotic work seems more accurate.
Change doesn't always require any effort, any work. In particular, when the change is regenerative. But what requires effort is staying the same. Staying the same is what we will have to do some work for. We see this in the most fundamental models of life, of living selves. What is life? Minimally, life is staying the same, it's about preserving oneself. But on the other side, to preserve oneself one has to change all the time. So, both aspects of semiotic work are essential.
Lotman's account of the mechanisms of culture preservation and reproduction can be quite insightful in this context. He formulated many important ideas that are related to the "preserving" kind of semiotic work that is aimed at retention, reproduction, keeping the same.
Mikhail Ilyin: Valery said that a good way to preserve Pushkin's heritage is to interpret it.
Valery Demyankov: I think one of the issues connected to your primary problem is the notion of self-identity. Your starting point is that it is allowed for me to talk about myself as about changing no less than other things in this world.
One of the rules of the game in logic is giving up concepts that bring you to a paradox. And here, we have several questionable axioms to be reinterpreted. One of them has to do with the concept of self-identity. A different one is the axiom of the ever-changing world. The third axiom is that 'I' is logically equivalent to other speaking subjects, i.e., the axiom that 'I' and 'you' and 'she' belong to the same semantic field. These are but three points. If we follow these three different lines of logical reasoning, we find different solutions to this paradox, several additional lines of thoughts. One of the main causes of the paradox is the axiom that I am the same all the time since. Thus, I talk about the same 'myself' at any age, be it the age of 5 or 20. This is one of the several points to be tackled if you want to draw a conclusion from the root point. And how do we know that we are we? The fact that 'my' judgment P is true now doesn't mean 'my' judgment P remains true in the next moment and that it belongs to the same 'me'. This view may be termed 'logical-I' schizophrenia. Such 'I' has the right to doubt that I am/is 'I'. A copy of mine does not always coincide with 'myself'. Remember Wittgenstein's advice "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent", which becomes self-evident because of the ever-changing 'I'. Now everything changes, and 'I', as a logical subject, changes too, just like other things in this world.
Sergey Chebanov: Valery, do you have one «I» or several «I»s?
Bob Hodge: There is quite a lot of logical issues that come out of this. Each of us could come up with different articles. There will be something similar to them but there will be real differences. And emphasizing difference and originality. I could be instructed by the group I belong to, to cut down on any potential difference, to make no claims that this group has got anything to say. We are all safely boring, and if you think, you are about to say something, shut up and delete it. We, as a collective, in our very fragile boat, and we don't want it to rock us, and we, as a collective, can discuss what variation of instructions we will give ourselves. There are other things that we will say. Do we want to emphasize the ranges of things in making a strong contribution to the discussion on Lotman which, I think, is necessarily different from what people thought? Because if we say it's the same as everyone thought, it doesn't excite people. I'm sure, we can emphasize the most striking or the more conservative among the claims we can make. It's useful to discuss among us what is the outcome. Could and would it be more heterogenous in these terms? Some people will be less pushy than others. And the ones who do not push may well provide a must well solidity. It is not that one or the other is the way to go. I just like to hear the other people's discussion of whether we say. It's something that we'd like to be a high-profile contribution to the basics of Lotman to Russia or do we say it's better to emphasize a kind of middle of the roadblock and it's more or less the same as people think. The trouble with pushing both apps is that both might finish up anyway, whereas if we aim to produce some very solid useful propositions about Lotman's inspiration, then we might write a different article. What do people think?
Mikhail Ilyin: I would like to refer to what Valery has said before. He produced several axioms and I think each axiom can be developed as a different kind of discourse or speech act. For example, I can say "I am I" or "I am Mikhail", 48
and these are different statements. One thing is when we are using personal pronouns, these are indicators of a pragmatic function, but when we are using a name, it's an indication of an object, so it's different worlds. From this point of view, the question you asked could be formulated in different ways. It could be formulated "Who is Lotman?" and "What is Lotman?", just to use this famous distinction in the English Language which I thought about in my first year of studies in the University. Even behind those "Who are Lotman?" and "What is Lotman?", there is a variety of other ways of reformulating Grammar. And here we have transformative grammar and all those exercises we can transform in so many ways to dozens of alternatives. And I think that's really what makes it fruitful and Juristic, and let's try to exercise this.
Valery Demyankov: In a mental hospital we may have a patient who says "I am Lotman", but yesterday "I was the Pope".
Mikhail Ilyin: "I am Lotman", yeah, in a way I am Lotman. I opened the book, I read his questions, and felt that I think like Lotman. I discovered that I'm Lotman while reading this question.
Valery Demyankov: Paradoxes originate from empirical discourses and counterevidence every now and then.
Sergey Chebanov: In this connection I sometimes say that there is no philosophy by Hegel, but there is a philosophy of the Absolute Spirit, transmitted through the body of Hegel.
Mikhail: OK, guys, we already have an hour and a half of the bass, and I think that we are on a good track, seems that there is some kind of substance, and we can find it for transforming in the future, and it will be called method. I suggest that we shouldn't stop but probably have a quick round of some second thoughts. Some additional things pop in our minds, but we don't express them. Let's do it in the same order. Valery, could you? Have you got any second thoughts?
Valery: Not quite so many different things. I think we should concentrate on the topic which is censored to this jam and try to write on it. Two or three topics will do. Better is better than good which means that we have a choice. As to myself (or 'myself', once more?), I think the collection of writings which grows out of this discussion may be stimulating for further research.
Mikhail: My idea when I was speaking about second thoughts was not just to change the topic of our contributions but of course to find some points of resonance where each of us has their subject matter. It could be different. It could be Pushkin's heritage, economic systems, it could be a multicolor approach or anything, but we can somehow stress sensitive points which resonate with the same sensitive points in the contributions of our counterparts. I think that will make our giant production or publication very interesting. Ivan, would you like to add something?
Ivan Fomin: I guess I can notice the general principle behind today's discussion. Our work with Lotman's heritage kind of follows the principle of the de-contextualization and re-contextualization. New meanings start to appear as we contextualize Lotman in new ways. For example, we can contextualize Lotman in contemporary biosemiotics, and we start to see one side of Lotman's
thoughts and some new meanings of his work. Or we can see Lotman's heritage in the context of social semiotics, and then we have a different "projection" of Lotman, we start to notice some new things about both Lotman's cultural semiotics and social semiotics.
Mikhail Ilyin: Thanks. Ivan, I like that you spoke about de-contextualization and re-contextualization. I would be even happier if you spoke about de-contextualizating and re-contextualizating as ongoing processes. I would claim, there are no separate 'things' like texts and contexts. There are phenomena of ongoing communication in space-time with their chronotopes as the mirror copies of the respective space-time. Printed messages are just material residues of processual phenomena. Just another example from Tartu academic tradition. If you take Uexkull's idea of organism and Umwelt, then organism is nothing like just a material object. It is a living being. Mind the way we speak - living and being. There are no three 'things' - body, Umwelt and Innenwelt -but one integral phenomenon. Coming back to texts. They have horizontal and vertical contexts of their chronotopes within the texts, reflecting and grasping their ongoing extension (or evolution?) in phenomenal space-time.
Bob Hodge: I found all the presentations interesting. All the time I was thinking how these presentations are consciously using the differences, magnifying those differences around something which will give a unity of purpose, not a semantic view but a unity of purpose for the totality. And that is just the generic question I was asking. I thought, they were very useful puts of context between what I have seen in people into Lotman and what you will do, and we both have a key phrase for Lotman at a safer point. Having heard what you say, I wouldn't particularly change my picks to agree with you or to prioritize position. But I think any difference between the two papers must be pointing to something more profound. So, I think that point of context, conscious with you, I would like to bring that out. I wonder if there is an order. I wonder if it would be useful if you also thought of us as the opening that will make it feel more like the maker that its actually is. It will enrich the book. If it was there, it would be a positive thing. And there are different things I found interesting and will need more time to think about them; it will include interaction between different points of view. Will that be okay?
Mikhail Ilyin: Bob, you shouldn't ask me, you should ask yourself. Whatever we think. We are in a kind of resonance with each other. Let us react to each other's comments. We can take some tension or harmonious similarity as kind of an incentive to make our own text. In this way to make a footnote or write an additional paragraph or to dramatically change the whole structure of your talk, it's your choice. You decide.
Valery Demyankov: Nonetheless it's quite evident that the talk has left visible traces in our minds. And from this point of view of yours I could formulate the proposal of yours in the following words. Your inner voice must ask either itself or you. You are free to choose.
