Home Monstrous hermeneutics: Learning from diagrams
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Monstrous hermeneutics: Learning from diagrams

  • Inna Semetsky EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: June 28, 2016

Abstract

This paper addresses a theory/practice nexus represented by a semiotic system of Tarot pictures as iconic signs. Tarot will be analyzed from the perspective of Charles S. Peirce’s and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophies. Tarot functions as a diagram or the included third between “self” and “other,” which are traditionally taken as binary opposites. It thus partakes of the “monster” as a grotesque and ambiguous category that betrays a strict boundary between habitual dualisms, such as mind and world, consciousness and the unconscious, human and divine. While Tarot is usually perceived as irrational and illogical if not altogether “monstrous,” it is the logic of the included middle that enables its functioning. Genuine signs have a triadic structure that includes interpretants crossing over human and non-human natures. The process of reading and interpreting Tarot signs represents specific hermeneutics and constitutes exopedagogy as an alternative form of education partaking of a posthuman dimension. As indices, Tarot pictures refer to the whole gamut of human experiences, and the hermeneutics of Tarot allows us to evaluate experience and to learn from it.

References

Anonymous. 2002. Meditations on the Tarot: A journey into Christian hermeticism, Robert Powell (trans.). New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.Search in Google Scholar

Bohm, David. 1980. Wholeness and the implicate order. London & New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 1986. Cinema 1: The movement-image. Hugh Tomlinson & Barbara Habberjam (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.10.5040/9781350251977Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 1988a. Foucault, Seán Hand (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.10.5040/9781350252004Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 1988b. Spinoza: Practical philosophy, R. Hurley (trans.). San Francisco: City Lights.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 1989. Cinema 2: The time-image. Hugh Tomlinson & R. Galeta (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 1990. The logic of sense, Mark Lester & Charles J. Stivale (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 1993. The fold: Leibniz and the baroque, Tom Conley (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 1994. Difference and repetition, Paul Patton (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 1995. Negotiations, 1972–1990, Martin Joughin (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles. 2003. Francis Bacon: The logic of sensation, Daniel W. Smith (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles & Felix Guattari. 1983a. On the line, John Johnston (trans.). New York: Semiotext(e).Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles & Félix Guattari. 1983b. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, R. Hurley, M. Seem & H. R. Lane (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.10.5040/9781350251984Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles & Félix Guattari. 1987. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, Brian Massumi (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles & Félix Guattari. 1994. What is philosophy? Hugh Tomlinson & Graham Burchell (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Deleuze, Gilles & Claire Parnet. 1987. Dialogues, Hugh Tomlinson & Barbara Habberjam (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Faivre, Antoine. 1994. Access to Western esotericism. Albany: State University of New York Press.Search in Google Scholar

Goddard, M. 2001. The scattering of time crystals: Deleuze, mysticism, and cinema. In M. Bryden (ed.), Deleuze and religion, 53–64. London & New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Guattari, Félix. 1995. Chaosmosis: An ethico-aesthetic paradigm, P. Bains & J. Pefanis (trans.). Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hacking, Ian. 1990. The taming of chance. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511819766Search in Google Scholar

Kevelson, Roberta. 1999. Peirce and the mark of the gryphon. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kristeva, Julia. 1987. Tales of love, L. S. Roudiez (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Lewis, T. & R. Kahn. 2010. Education out of bounds: Reimagining cultural studies for a posthuman age. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230117358Search in Google Scholar

Merrell, Floyd. 1992. Signs, textuality, world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Merrell, Floyd. 2002. Learning living, living learning: Signs, between East and West. New York, Toronto: Legas.Search in Google Scholar

Nöth, Winfried. 1995. Handbook of semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Nöth, Winfried. 2014. Signs as educators: Peircean insights. In Inna Semetsky & Andrew Stables (eds.), Pedagogy and edusemiotics: Theoretical challenges/practical opportunities, 7–18. Rotterdam: Sense.10.1007/978-94-6209-857-2_3Search in Google Scholar

Ouspensky, Peter D. 2008. Symbolism of the Tarot: Philosophy of occultism in pictures and numbers (First Samhain Song edn), Samhain Song Press.Search in Google Scholar

Peirce, Charles S. 1931–1966. The collected papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols., C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss & A. W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Reference to Peirce’s papers will be designated CP followed by volume and paragraph number.]Search in Google Scholar

Sebeok, Thomas A. (ed.) 1994. Encyclopedic dictionary of semiotics, vol. 1 (Approaches to semiotics 73). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, Inna. 2000. The end of a semiotic fallacy. Semiotica 130(1/4). 283–300.10.1515/semi.2000.130.3-4.283Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, Inna. 2001a. The adventures of a postmodern fool, or the semiotics of learning. In C. W. Spinks (ed.), Trickster and ambivalence: The dance of differentiation, 57–70. Madison, WI: Atwood.Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, Inna. 2001b. Signs in action: Tarot as a self-organized system. Special issue, Cybernetics & Human Knowing 8. 111–132.Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, Inna. 2005. Learning by abduction: A geometrical interpretation. Semiotica 157(1/4). 199–212.10.1515/semi.2005.2005.157.1-4.199Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, Inna. 2009. Reading signs: Semiotics and depth psychology. Semiotica 176(1/4). 47–63.10.1515/semi.2009.060Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, Inna. 2011. Re-symbolization of the self: Human development and Tarot hermeneutic. Rotterdam: Sense.10.1007/978-94-6091-421-8Search in Google Scholar

Semetsky, Inna. 2013. The edusemiotics of images: Essays on the art~science of Tarot. Rotterdam: Sense.10.1007/978-94-6209-055-2Search in Google Scholar

Sheriff, John K. 1994. Charles Peirce’s guess at the riddle. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Stivale, Charles J. 1998. The two-fold thought of Deleuze and Guattari: Intersections and animations. New York & London: Guilford Press.Search in Google Scholar

Tarasti, Eero. 2001. Existential semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.10.2307/j.ctt20060dhSearch in Google Scholar

Tracy, David. 1981. The analogical imagination: Christian theology and the culture of pluralism. New York: Crossroad.10.1017/S0360966900018983Search in Google Scholar

Watts, Alan W. 1958. Nature, man and woman. London: Thames and Hudson.Search in Google Scholar

Williams, James. 2008. Gilles Deleuze’s logic of sense: A critical introduction and guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.10.1515/9780748631384Search in Google Scholar

Williams, James. 2010. Immanence and transcendence as inseparable processes: On the relevance of arguments from Whitehead to Deleuze interpretation. Deleuze Studies 4. 94–106.10.3366/E1750224110000851Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-6-28
Published in Print: 2016-9-1

©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton

Downloaded on 16.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2016-0121/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button