0134 The English word, “education”, arises from two Latin terms, meaning “to train” and “to lead out”.
Perhaps, German is superior to English in simultaneously evoking more than one kernel in a single word. In German, word-elements concatenate effortlessly. There could be a German word for “the relation of arbitrariness between langueand parole” or for “the impossibility of phenomena fully objectifying their noumenon“.
0135 Does German-speaking Martin Heidegger hold an advantage?
Maybe, maybe not. After all, he could not concatenate dasSein (Being) and des Seienden (beings). Oh, what am I saying? That is what he did, more or less. So, when I place Heidegger’s not-fully melded concatenation against what isfor science, I get the following juxtaposition.
Figure 38
0136 How curious.
Am I suggesting that Heidegger’s phrase, das Sein des Seienden (the Being of beings), conceals a contiguity, and that contiguity is the same as the one that applies to all scientific things?
0137 Recall, the noumenon is the thing itself. Its phenomena are its observable and measurable facets. Plus, according to Kant’s slogan, a noumenon cannot be fully objectified as its phenomena. This applies to all things in the natural sciences. Empirio-schematic inquiry observes and measures phenomena. Their noumenon is ignored.
By juxtaposition, das Sein is Being itself. Des Seienden are beings that we encounter in our daily lives. Plus, according to the implicit contiguity between these two real elements,Being cannot be fully objectified as beings that we encounter in our daily lives. This applies to all modern things.
0138 Plus, as discussed in the prior blog, during the early 20th century, hylomorphic structures that juxtapose with ‘what is’ in the Positivist’s judgment seem to be in style. The ground-breaking linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, comes up with a similar structure, allowing me to say the following.
By juxtaposition, langue is language itself. Parole are spoken words that we encounter in our daily lives. Plus, according to the arbitrary relation between langue and parole, language cannot be fully objectified by speech acts. This applies to everything we say.
0140 What is the meaning, presence and message underlying a spoken word?
That is the question addressed in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0106 The category-based nested form allows an answer. The normal context of definition3 brings the actuality of a spoken word2 into relation with the potentials of meaning, presence and message1.
0141 How does this answer apply to the topic at hand?
To me, Martin Heidegger (and Charles Peirce, for that matter) wrestle with meaning. Social construction corresponds to the meaning underlying the word, “religion”. Social construction is what happens when one encounters a thing or event that does not make sense. A social construction2c is a perspective-level reference2c constructed on a content-level reference2a.
0142 In addition to How to Define, the following three-level interscope is developed in Comments on Religious Experience (1985) by Wayne Proudfoot.
I start with a content-level category-based nested form. The normal context of what is happening3a brings the actuality of a real encounter2a into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘something’ happening1a.
Such an encounter would be processed on the situation level within the normal context of sensible construction3b. But, what if sensible construction3b fails? Then the failure of sensible construction3b brings the actuality that the experience cannot be situated2b into relation with the potential of situating the content-level encounter1b.
0143 When sensible construction fails, most people freak out, but not Kant or Peirce or Heidegger or Saussure or other brave souls who wrestle with meaning. They ask themselves, “What makes sense?”, where “sense” means “a recovery from a lack of composure in the face of something that is not experienced as sensible”.
On the perspective level, the normal context of what makes sense3c brings the actuality of a social construction2c into relation with the potential of contextualizing the unsettling situation1c.
0144 Thus, I arrive at a three-level interscope that touches base with the hylomorphic structures introduced earlier in this examination of appendix 2 of Kemple’s book.
Figure 39
The virtual nested form in the realm of actuality contracts into the following hylomorphe.
Figure 40
A key feature of this hylomorphic structure is that the contiguity contains a negation.
0145 So far, so good.
The three-level interscope depicted above describes what Schleiermacher realizes (around 1800 AD) and what Proudfoot tries to dismantle (186 years later) in his rebuttal, entitled Religious Experience.
But, I wonder.
Is Proudfoot arguing against the interscope or the contracted hylomorphic slogan?
Plus… is there a label for a transition from a three-level interscope to a corresponding hylomorphe?
Consolidation? Reduction? Reification?
0146 Does the same whatever this transition is called apply to the slogan attributed to Immanuel Kant (who also wrote around 1800 AD)?
Kant reflects upon the mechanical revolution and the expansion of science. The revolution starts rolling with the mechanical philosophers of the 1600s. The roll is undeniable with mechanization, starting in the 1700s.
Plus, how about those crazy political revolutions in the late 1700s?
Western civilization embraces the empirio-schematic judgment. This judgment contains three elements: well-defined specialized terms, mathematical and mechanical models, and observations and measurements of phenomena. So, everyone (that is, those enjoying the pretensions of science) focuses on phenomena.
0147 But, phenomena alone cannot account for the thing that is being studied!
Kant (more or less) points out that a noumenon (the thing itself) cannot be fully accounted for by its phenomena (that is, the thing’s observable and measurable facets).
0148 Here is a picture of Kant’s insight within the format of this three-level interscope.
Figure 41
0149 Now, over time, this insight, which consists of perspective-level, situation-level and content-level actualities, is taken for more and more for granted. A slogan appears. The slogan expresses a hylomorphic structure, so it is seems like a thing. But, it is not a thing. What is it? A contraction? An idea? Maybe I can call it an “idealism”.
Figure 42
0150 The slogan goes like this, “A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.”
The slogan has the character of a hylomorphic thing that should belong to secondness. But, the positivist intellect regards it as what is and imbues it with firstness. What does the positivist intellect regard as what ought to be and imbue with the category of secondness? What ought to be is the empirio-schematic judgment, where a disciplinary language (relation) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be) into relation with observations and measurements (what is).
0151 After a century, Kant’s insights are reified into a slogan.
Figure 43
0152 At this time, Peirce considers the nature of sign-relations. The story is told in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues). Peirce knows that Kant’s categories are considered necessary for science, but he cannot situate Kant’s categories using his understanding of sign-relations.
So, Peirce’s social construction follows the same pattern.
Figure 44
0155 Heidegger walks on stage around three decades later. At the time, only a few academics are familiar with Peirce’s (re)discovery of the causality inherent in signs and his proposal of three categories of existence.
0156 Heidegger starts as a student of philosophy. During this time, he reads a book on speculative grammar by the medieval scholastic, Scotus. But, the treatise is only attributed to Scotus. The real author is Thomas of Erfurt.
Then, Heidegger becomes a student of Husserl. Husserl’s phenomenology wrestles with the nature of science. Husserl proposes phenomenology (which is named after phenomena) in order to return to the noumenon, the thing itself, because science was on the verge of fixating on phenomena to the exclusion of its noumenon.
0157 I suppose that Heidegger realizes that what Husserl is dealing with (the Positivist’s judgment) does not extend to what Scotus (er… Thomas of Erfurt) discusses with his speculative grammar.
Eventually, Heidegger produces a social construction that bears the imprint of the hylomorphic structure that Husserl wrestles with.
0158 So, how do these comments apply to what Kemple writes about language?
Okay, I plead “guilty”.
Perhaps, there is no application.
0159 Oh, I have an excuse.
I got distracted by the normal context of definition3 bringing the actuality of a spoken word2 into relation with the potential of meaning, presence and message1.
Then, I realized that Saussure’s definition of spoken language, as an arbitrary relation between two systems of differences, parole and langue, can be expressed with the same hylomorphic structure as ‘what is’ for the positivist intellect. So does Heidegger’s das Sein des Seienden.
Then, I connected this hylomorphic structure to the actualities native to social construction.
0160 So why am I so easily distracted?
Surely, speech-alone talk is at the crux of the intersection between Peirce and Heidegger.
Why do I say, “speech-alone talk”, instead of “language”?
Perhaps, there is another story to be told.
See An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0161 What about Appendix 3, titled “Synechism and semiosis”?
0162 Well, I best look into Appendix 4, which presents a helpful list of definitions.
“Synechism” is a principle of continuity. There are no hard and fast distinctions between possibilities, because firstness is monadic. In the empirio-schematic judgment, the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena, exists in the realm of possibility and obeys this principle. There are no phenomena without their noumenon. There is no noumenon without its phenomena. The hazards of synechism are yet to be deeply appreciated. For scientific inquiry, what happens when certain actors claim to be observing the phenomena of a noumenon which is not… um… obvious to other people?
“Tychism” is a corollary of synechism. Peirce envisions chance (er… possibility) as universal. Without possibility, there is no actuality or normal context. If there is an actuality that appears out of nowhere, in such a fashion that it has no normal context, then we are back to phenomena of a noumenon which is not… um… subject to understanding.
“Semiosis” is the action of signs. Signs are triadic relations. Triadic relations constitute the human niche.
0163 For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, our ancestors adapt to an ultimate niche as well as many proximate niches. This means that hominin evolution is both convergent, with respect to our ultimate niche, and divergent, with respect to many proximate niches. The ultimate niche is the potential of triadic relations. The proximate niches are regional ecologies and environments.
Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. Hand talk relies on the semiotic qualities of icons and indexes to motivate a relation between parole (hand talk) and langue (mental processing). As this motivated relation becomes more and more conventional (that is, habitual within hominin social circles), hand-talk gestures become more and more like signs in an arbitrary system of differences (that is, symbols). Grammar consists of symbolic operations within a finite set of symbols. By the time anatomically modern humans appear, hand talk is fully linguistic.
0164 Speech is added to hand talk with the appearance of our own species, Homo sapiens.
Humans practice hand-speech talk for around 200,000 years, with great success.
0165 Around 7,800 years ago, the end of the previous ice age raises sea-levels, flooding shallow geological basins such as what is now the Persian Gulf. In the process, two hand-speech talking cultures, one settled on the basin and one settled along the coast and river gorge, are forced into proximity. A pidgin and then a creole ensues. The creole is the Sumerian language (unrelated to the nearby Semitic languages). But, more importantly, this creole is the first instance of speech-alone talk.
At its inception, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only culture in the world practicing speech-alone talk.
It is no coincidence that the world’s earliest civilization arises in southern Mesopotamia.
Speech-alone talk potentiates civilization.
0166 Our current Lebenswelt is marked by speech-alone talk. Speech-alone talk spreads from the Ubaid to the four-corners of the world, potentiating unconstrained social complexity wherever it goes.
7800 years ago, the world population may have been as many as seven million.
Today, it is seven billion.
Such is the significance of the first singularity, the transition from hand-speech talk to speech-alone talk.
0167 Heidegger is a German philosopher who strives to restart Western philosophy after it fumbles its founding charisma.
Peirce is a precocious American post-modern who becomes fascinated with one of the crucial questions asked by scholastic philosophers, “What is the causality inherent to the sign-relation?”
0168 Both these philosophers propose ideas that address a single question, “What is the nature of our current Lebenswelt?”
Their answers apply to a single actuality.
0169 I do not know the name of this actuality, but I do appreciate the significance of Kemple’s attempt to delineate an intersection (without being aware that the term, “intersection”, might have a technical definition that supports his inquiry).
An intersection is an actuality composed of two actualities, each of which has its own nested form.
0170 For these reasons, Brian Kemple’s book, The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue, deserves interest. While my examinations, so far, covering the term, “intersection”, and the appendices, are sparse, they are suggestive. There is a lot at play within the pages of this book.
0001 The book before me is Dr. Glenn Diesen’s contribution to Routledge’s Series, Rethinking Asia and International Relations. The text carries the full title of The Decay of Western Civilization and the Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. The series editor is Emilian Kavalski, the Li Dak Sum Chair in China-Eurasia Relations and International Studies at the University of Nottingham in Ningho, China. At the time of publication, Dr. Diesen is a Visiting Scholar at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Adjunct Research Fellow at Western Sydney University. Diesen’s research interests are in international relations, political science, international political economy and Russian studies. Say nothing of history.
0002 So… um… how does this book overlap with my interests?
I am interested in civilization. The persistent question that arises in Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall,is, “What potentiates civilisation?”
0003 Consider the hypothesis of the first singularity.
The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Our capacities for language evolve in the milieu of hand talk. The ancestor to our own species practices fully linguistic hand talk. Very successfully, I might add. The voice is recruited to assist in synchronizing large groups (plus, a little sexual selection gets thrown in). Once the vocal tract is under voluntary neural control, speech is added to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.
Homo sapiens practices a dual-mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for over 200,000 years before the first singularity. The first singularity starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.
As the ocean levels rise at the start of our current interglacial, two hand-speech talking cultures in the then dry Persian Gulf are forced into the same territory. One is a Mesolithic fishing culture occupying the river ravines and coast. The other is a Developed Neolithic culture (agriculture mixed in with stockbreeding). These two cultures meld, forming a pidgin then a creole language. That creole language turns out to be the first instance of speech-alone talk.
0004 The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk are significantly different than hand-speech talk (and hand-talk). I won’t get into the details, but the consequences are enormous.
Hand-speech talk facilitates constrained social complexity (which, to me, calls to mind Diesen’s term, “gemeinschaft”, literally translated into the “rod of generality”, coinciding with tradition, intuition and, what modern scientists deride as “irrational thought”).
Speech-alone talk permits unconstrained social complexity. Spoken words can be used to label things that cannot be pictured at pointed to, such as the term, “gesellschaft” (another one of Diesen’s key terms, literally translated into the “rod of the journeyman”, coinciding with specialization, analysis and, what scientists misleadingly call “rational thought”).
0005 The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia starts, say, 7800 years ago, which I label 0 Ubaid Zero Prime (0 U0′ or “zero uh-oh prime”, with “uh-oh” expressed as if reacting to an accident or a mishap).
At 0 U0′, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only culture in the world practicing speech-alone talk. All the other Neolithic, Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic cultures of the time practice hand-speech talk.
Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk. The only (now dying) cultures that remember their hand-speech traditions are the Australian Aborigines and the North American Plains Indians. Both are losing the hand-component of their hand-speech talk, due to exposure to speech-alone talking cultures and civilizations. The receding of original justice, when all social circles work in harmony towards human flourishing in a world of signification, is nearly complete.
0006 Weirdly, that recession lies beneath the surface of recently examined books in anthropology.
Consider the following reviews, appearing in the Razie Mah blog.
Looking at Ian Hodder’s Book (2018) “Where Are We Heading?” (June 2023)Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origins” (March 2023)
0007 Diesen builds his theory on two key terms, gemeinschaft and gesellschaft. These terms are distinct. These terms are separate. Both terms rely on the capacity of speech-alone talk to apply labels.
These terms cannot exist in the world of hand-speech talk. What is there to picture or point to in hand talk? Oh, the most elder woman in the band can carry the rod of tradition. The smartest young man in the band can carry the rod of complexity. Okay, but how does hand talk image and indicate the qualifiers, “tradition” and “complexity”? These terms cannot be articulated in hand talk, the semiotic foundation of hand-speech talk.
0008 So, what am I asking?
Does the distinction between these two terms precede the first singularity? Is the distinction present before our current Lebenswelt? How does the distinction express itself in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
0009 May I suggest that the distinction is built into the unity of hand-speech talk? One language manifests in two modalities. Here is way to appreciate hand-speech talk as it was most likely practiced by Homo sapiens before the first singularity.
Figure 01
0010 Hand talk pictures and points to its referents. In this way, the relation between parole (gesture) and langue (mental processing of signification) is motivated by the semiotic qualities of icons and indexes. Hand talk has been evolving since before the start of the Homo genus. Hand talk becomes linguistic when the semiotic qualities of symbols start to operate beneath the surface of the iconicity and indexality of hand talk. Language involves automatic symbolic sign processing.
Speech, in hand-speech talk, relies on the innate semiotic properties of hand talk. When speech talk is added to hand talk, it pairs with manual-brachial gestures as an adornment. A sing-along, so to speak, which Neanderthals and Denisovans can appreciate but not perform well. Slowly, but surely, since the advent of our species, speech talk becomes more and more independent of its manual-brachial counterpart. Spoken words start to take on a lives of their own, while remaining grounded in hand talk. Consider the paleolithic art of the Lascaux caves and tell me that the artists were not singing as well as gesturing, as they spit paint upon the fat-lamp lit walls?
Speech does not replace hand talk. Rather, the speech component of hand-speech talk expresses hand talk in a different register, conveying the situation in addition to word-content. It adds a musical accompaniment. It adds… how shall I say it?.. a variety of tones.
0011 The hand-talk component of hand-speech talk associates with content, tradition, and the physical presence of people in community.
The speech-talk component of hand-speech talk associates with situation, adornment, and the relational presence of people in community.
0012 Consequently, certain ironies about our current Lebenswelt become obvious when I draw the following associations.
Figure 02
0012 At present, gesellschaft is called, “rational” and gemeinschaft is called, “irrational”.
Yet, as Diesen points out over and over again, whenever the rational orders the irrational without appreciation of the irrational, a civilization enters its autumn season.
0013 Already, the hypothesis of the first singularity enriches Diesen’s theory that civilization generates, maintains, distorts and loses balance between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft. The distinction between hand talk and speech talk is built into the unity of hand-speech talk. Distinction within a unity is natural to us. But, it is impossible to convey using speech-alone talk. Once both elements of a distinction are labeled, one has difficulty visualizing the unity.
For example, in Razie Mah’s May 2023 blog, Looking at Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein’s Book (2020) A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century, Diesen’s distinction is described as between culture (gemeinschaft) and consciousness (gesellschaft), rather than irrational tradition and rational bureaucracy.
0014 Why is it so easy to attach labels to two sides of a distinction, then forget the unity?
Our kind adapts to a distinction within unity, not to each separate element.
Yet, only the distinct elements are labeled using speech-alone talk. Subsequent explicit abstraction in our current Lebenswelt takes only the separate, labeled elements into account.
The unity is no longer apparent.
0015 The hypothesis of the first singularity proposes that hand-speech talk characterizes the Lebenswelt that we evolved inand that speech-alone talk associates to our current Lebenswelt.
Here is a picture of talk, before and after the first singularity.
Figure 03
0016 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the technical terms, “gemeinschaft” and “gesellschaft” could not be imaged or indicated using hand talk. Yet, the distinction between them are built into to the nature of a dual-mode for talking. The hand-talk component primarily delivers meaningful content, but also conveys emotion and personal presence. The speech-talk delivers the same content as hand talk, but adds something that is um… like a message. The message concerns intention. Hear me as well as see me.
Hand-talk may say, “OLAF BOAR GORE”, and the utterer may appear shaken. But, the reply, in speech talk, “Olaf boar gore.” transubstantiates the content, without distortion, to a musical register, singing of an alignment, which must be accepted. A boar has gored Olaf. The One Who Gives, Without Us Knowing Why, is also The One Who Determines What Cannot Be Imaged Or Pointed To. That is our “fate”.
The term, “fate”, cannot be pictured or pointed to in hand talk.
Our kind adapts to ‘something’ in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
We label that ‘something’, “fate”, in our current Lebenswelt.
0017 Likewise, in our current Lebenswelt, the technical terms, “gemeinschaft” and “gesellschaft” seem to image and indicate their referents. But, those references really exist in the realm of possibility, rather than actuality. In hand talk, an actual referent precedes the manual-brachial word-gesture. Not so in speech-alone talk, where speech-alone words are purely symbolic. They can label anything. But, that reference is not guaranteed. It always remains in the realm of possibility.
0018 A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form allows me to depict the the nature of spoken words as a triadic relation. This particular depiction stands in the introduction of Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”. These works are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
Figure 04
0019 When Diesen writes these technical terms, it seems to me that, in his mind, he actualizes the possibilities. He knows what “gemeinschaft” and “gesellschaft” mean. And, I wonder, “Do they mean what I am suggesting here? Are these labels attached to something that cannot be pictured and pointed to?”
Well, no… and… yes.
Gemeinschaft is not like hand-talk. Gemeinschaft is primal, body-oriented, directly connected to emotions, working and looking at others… well, maybe gemeinschaft is like the gestural-component of hand talk.
Gesellschaft is not like speech-talk. Gesellschaft is adornment, song-oriented, directly connected to the congregation… er, social circle, breathing and sounding in unison… well, maybe gesellschaft is like the spoken aspect to hand-speech talk.
0020 Speech-alone talk changes our Lebenswelt.
Gemeinschaft includes people who work with their hands, people who walk and eat and live together, and people who worship the same God, the God Who Gives, Without Us Knowing Why and the God Who Establishes My Fate. This God has a spoken name. In our current Lebenswelt, this God can turn to you or me and ask, “Who do people say that I am?”
Gesellschaft includes people who work with their… tongues?… well, how about this?… people who work with their minds, such as inventors and bureaucrats, entrepreneurs and accountants, honest brokers and lawyers, pastors and politicians, mentors and professors and on and on. The range of specializations, both labor and social, boggle the mind. These professionals are educated. They are often very interested in controlling the language, because spoken words order reality. Plus, the experts are fully capable of destroying tradition, community and solidarity on the basis of their “rational” theoretical schemes. Today, in 2023, Russians know all about that. Americans are just learning.
0021 Here is a picture of the actuality2 and potential1 for Diesen’s key terms.
Figure 05
0022 Diesen describes civilization as a balancing act between the potentials underlying these two spoken words.
0023 What is the difference between irrational and rational?
Irrational thoughts are hard to put into speech-alone talk, because our evolved mental modules are adaptations realized in the milieu of hand talk. They are spontaneous, yet responsive to training. Character-building cannot be brought about by someone speaking precepts. Instead, character-building relies on implicit abstraction, which may involving imagining how to live the precepts. Good habits build character.
Rational thoughts rely on speech-alone talk. Speech-alone words can label all the parts of a whole, then name relations among the parts, then be used to build mathematical and mechanical models. Diesen defines the words, “gemeinschaft” and “gesellschaft”, as part of his sociological modeling of civilizational trends. Yes, Diesen builds a model using the specialized terminology of German Sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies, who publishes Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft in 1887. The book is translated into English as Community and Society.
0024 Remember, the full title of Diesen’s book is The Decay of Western Civilization and Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
0025 What about the potentiation of civilization by the first singularity? How does that enter the picture.
Speech-alone talk spreads, through mimesis, from the Ubaid to neighboring hand-speech talking cultures. Why? Talk about gesellschaft. Speech-alone talk facilitates labor and social specializations. So, the Ubaid quickly becomes wealthier and more powerful than surrounding hand-speech talking cultures. When the Ubaid sends their emissaries, the difference must be obvious. The neighboring cultures realize that all they have to do to become wealthier and more powerful is to drop their hand talk. After some adjustments (like getting rid of the old shamans who resist progress and predict disaster if the people follow the ways of the Ubaid), neighboring cultures are soon practicing speech-alone talk and enjoying a strange blossoming of what gesellschaft can deliver. They enter our current Lebenswelt of unconstrained social complexity.
0026 Social and labor specialization complexity adds more vocabulary to speech-alone talk. Each specializationgenerates its own particular vocabulary. Diverse specialized languages reside within each “mother tongue“.
How do specialized terms work?
0027 At the turn of the 1900s (AD, or should I say, the 7700s U0′?), the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure comes up with a new definition of spoken language. Spoken language consists of two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole(talk) and langue (what goes on in our minds when we talk). Saussure’s new definition implies that each spoken word is merely a placeholder in two arbitrarily-related systems of differences. So, spoken words have no intrinsic meaning, presence or message. Decades later, “deconstruction” is the latest academic fashion to capitalize on this misinterpretation.
0028 Why do I say, “misinterpretation”?
Well, I already noted that we have an innate expectation that words (in hand talk) picture and point to their referents. But, spoken words cannot picture or point to anything. So, the question of how a spoken word works becomes significant.
Already, in point 0018, I showed one approach. Each spoken word may be considered an actuality2 within the normal context of definition3. The potential1 describes the meaning, presence and message that is projected into the actuality2. This approach is similar to a dictionary’s approach, but nonetheless different. How so? Each actuality2 is undergirded by elements corresponding to Peirce’s categories of thirdness (meaning), secondness (presence) and firstness (message).
0029 Another approach uses the Greimas square. Algridas Greimas (1917-1992 AD) is a French-Lithuanian semiotician concerned with how people conceptualize their world. To me, that sounds like Diesen’s “gesellschaft”. Conceptualization brings order. The Greimas square is valuable because it is a purely relational structure that illuminates spoken-words that occupy positions of similar meaning, presence and message, and are essential to a focal word’s place in the economy of a system of differences.
Remember, when discoursing in a specialized language, one must choose the right words.
0030 The general Greimas square is a purely relational structure expressing a geometry built on four rules.
Here is a picture.
Figure 06
0031 Here are are the four rules, along with their application to the topic at hand.
0032 A is the focal term. For Diesen, the focal term concerns civilization and its attributes (including international relations, political systems, historical changes and so forth).
0033 B is a term that contrasts with A. For Diesen, gesellschaft and its attributes occupies this slot. When I think of civilization, I conjure images of bureaucracies and politicians, temples and palaces, the transportation of goods, and so on. All these images associate with gesellschaft.
One should never say, “civilization”, when one means politics, economics, philosophy, the arts and sciences (that is, “gesellschaft”). The contrast is palpable.
0034 C is a term that contradicts B and complements A. For Diesen, gemeinschaft and its attributes occupies this slot. When I think of the people who live in a civilization, I conjure images of artists and their patrons, the architecture of temples and the solidity of palaces, how people cook and how they dress, and so on. In this imagery, gemeinschaft (C) contradicts gesellschaft (B) and complements civilization (A).
0036 D is a term that contrasts with C, contradicts A and complements B. This is the hardest term to locate in Diesen’s theory. But, take a look at what Diesen asserts:
Civilization is a balancing act between the potentials of the spoken words, “gesellschaft” and “gemeinschaft”.
D must have something to do with “balance”.
0037 Here is a picture.
Figure 07
0038 Diesen does not stop there.
In chapter two, Diesen discusses the cyclical rise, decline and rebirth of civilizations.
He uses the metaphor of seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter.
If I take a look at the above figure, where would the cycle turn?
To be, it turns on D, the foundational balance, and manifests in A, the attribute of civilization. The other elements, B and C, operate as two independent poles within the unity of the Greimas square. B and C adjust to the season.
0039 Here is a diagram of the Greimas Square version of Diesen’s approach to theorizing civilisation, presented in part one (chapters one and two) of his book.
0040 In chapter two, Diesen offers several applications.
One paragraph catches my eye.
This paragraph demonstrates that Diesen’s Greimas square has relevance to our current Lebenswelt, all the way back to the first singularity.
How so?
The paragraph recounts one of the written origin stories of the ancient Near East. Since Marduk is the primary actor, I associate this story to the Babylonians, who flourish thousands of years after the start of civilization in Mesopotamia.
Here is Diesen’s Greimas square, once again.
Figure 09
Allow me to recapitulate Diesen’s telling, adding a postmodern flavor.
0041 In the spring, Absu the father (representing order) and Tiamat the mother (representing chaos) comingle. Any adult knows what that means. Children may inquire and get the general impression that the two somehow get mixed up and offspring arise from the confusion.
Figure 10
0042 In the summer, the offspring conjure their own self-anointed revolution and murder the primal order, Absu, who is also their father. They build a house upon his grave. But, since it is summer, this is not any old house. This construction is a party palace. Without the old order to inhibit the offspring, the party house has many chambers. Tiamat, absent Absu, changes from the chaos typical of nature to an induced chaos. Soon, she wearies of all the racket.
Figure 11
0043 In the autumn, the house is assaulted. I presume from within as well as without. Who will impose order over Absu’s dead body? An answer comes from within every chamber. Every party room offers a replacement for Absu’s primal offspring-spawning order.
While everyone is busy naming their substitutes for Absu, a monster, Kino, arises from the tradition that… um… conspired to murder in the first place. This monster (C) contradicts the naming of the one who will impose order over Absu’s dead body (B), while at the same time complements the fact that every offspring in every chamber in the party house screams their substitute in the echo-chamber of their own room (A).
Tiamat, the offspring’s mother, weighs in on the assault upon (and within) the offspring’s party palace (A). Tiamat becomes Chaos Incarnate (D), which may be a harsh way of describing a total control freak.
Think of the second law of thermodynamics and ask the question, “What do control freaks accomplish?” The answer? They create a bubble of anti-entropic perfection (a complex and apparently crystalline order) at the cost of dramatically increasing entropy outside the system (that is, producing disorder that is greater than the energy required to maintain the intended order).
Each chamber of the party house is ruled by a busy-body control freak…
…who is totally weirded out by Tiamat, the control freak of control freakdom, outraged by the clatter of the little busy-bodies.
Kino’s job is to tell the little control freaks to shut up.
Figure 12
0044 In the winter, a god, Marduk, answers the question of who will restore order.
Figure 13
0045 Marduk fights Kino and wins. Then, Marduk makes humans from the undead blood of the monster.
Marduk restores the temple (the home for the gods) and the palace (ah, is that the architectural structure that goes over Absu’s grave?).
At the end of winter, Tiamat has been transformed into an enclosure of her former self.
Figure 14
0046 What does this imply?
Diesen’s Greimas square offers snapshots of civilisational cycles. Plus, some of the written origin myths of the ancient Near East depict civilizational cycles.
His two keywords, “gesellschaft” (rational analytical order) and “gemeinschaft” (irrational traditional community) command slots B and C, respectively.
The concept of civilizational cycles clarifies A (the manifestation of a civilizational balance) and D (the fulcrum, the balance point that dwells beneath the manifestation).
