Lotman, Leibniz, and the semiospheric monad: Lost pages from the archives
-
Pietro Restaneo
Abstract
Throughout his life, Jurij Lotman lived at the crossroad between different worlds, ages, and cultures. The many authors, cultures, and ideas that shaped his thought and influenced his theories are scattered at either side of countless geographical, political, and cultural borders, beginning with the one that separates “Russian culture” from “European culture,” porous and ambiguous as any boundary.
The task of reconstructing how Lotman’s ideas came to being, how they shifted their meaning as their context shifted, is more and more a crucial task not only for the historian. Many Lotmanian concepts, first and foremost that of semiosphere, are acquiring major relevance not only for semiotics itself and its branches, such as the rising political semiotics, but also for many neighboring disciplines, such as cultural studies and political sciences. Therefore, gaining a better understanding of the meaning of Lotman’s ideas could be of value also for the applied semiotician or the political analyst.
The present paper is the result of research started in the Lotman Archives in Tallin, Estonia. Through an analysis of archival material, it aims at reconstructing the origins and meaning of the most political tropes of Lotman’s theories, especially what I will call his theory of the political subject. In the first part, I will argue that, in order to understand this political aspect of Lotman, it is necessary to take into consideration the intellectual debates inside which the author started his intellectual journey in 1930s–1940s Soviet Russia, and how he sought answers to those debates in the works of G. W. Leibniz.
In the final part of the paper, I will try to show how this reconstruction of Lotman’s history could contribute to the contemporary debate in semiotics and other connected disciplines.
References
Barthes, Roland. 1957. Mythologies. Paris: Editions du Seuil.Search in Google Scholar
Cesa, Claudio. 1984. Kuno Fischer e le sue introduzioni alla storia della filosofia moderna [Kuno Fischer and his introductions to the history of modern philosophy]. In: Nicola Badaloni (ed.), La storia della filosofia come sapere critico: Studi offerti a Mario Dal Pra [History of philosophy as a critical knowledge: Studies dedicated to Mario del Pra], 684–670. Milano: Angeli.Search in Google Scholar
Corr, Charles A. 1975. Christian Wolff and Leibniz. Journal of the History of Ideas 36(2). 241–262.10.2307/2708926Search in Google Scholar
Couturat, Louis. 1901. La logique de Leibniz d’après des documents inédits. Paris: Alcan.Search in Google Scholar
Deltcheva, Roumiana & Eduard Vlasov. 1996. Lotman’s culture and explosion: A shift in the paradigm of the semiotics of culture. The Slavic and East European Journal 40(1). 148–152.10.2307/308503Search in Google Scholar
Egorov, Boris. 1999. Žizn i tvorčestvo Ju. M. Lotmana [Life and work of Ju. M. Lotman]. Moskow: Novoe Literaturnoe obozrenie.Search in Google Scholar
Egorov, Boris. 2010. Tri poslednie knigi Ju. M. Lotmana kak trilogija-zaveščanie [The three last books by Ju. M. Lotman as a trilogy-legacy] In: Jurij M. Lotman, Nepredskazuemye mehanizmy kul’tury [The unpredictable workings of culture], 205–219. Tallinn: TLU Press.Search in Google Scholar
Eschbach, Achim & Jürgen Trabant(eds.). 1983. History of semiotics, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/fos.7Search in Google Scholar
Fischer, Kuno. 1905. Lejbnic (Istorija novoj filosofii 3). Saint Petersburg: Idanie D. E. Žukovskago.Search in Google Scholar
Gherlone, Laura. 2013. Semiotics and interdisciplinarity: Lotman’s legacy. Sign System Studies 34(4). 391–403.10.12697/SSS.2013.41.4.01Search in Google Scholar
Gherlone, Laura. 2014. Dopo la semiosfera [After the semiosphere]. Milano: Mimesis.Search in Google Scholar
Ginzburg, Carlo. 1980 [1976]. Introduction. In: The cheese and the worms, xiii-xxvi. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.10.56021/9781421409887Search in Google Scholar
Gukovskij, Grigorij A. 1965. Puškin i russkie romantiki [Puškin and the Russian Romantics]. Moscow: Izd. Hudožestvennaja literatura.Search in Google Scholar
Hall, Alfred Rupert. 1980. Philosophers at war: The quarrel between Newton and Leibniz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511524066Search in Google Scholar
Hay, Colin. 2002. Political analysis: A critical introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave.10.1007/978-0-230-62911-0Search in Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. 1929. Sočinenija v 14-h tomah [Works in 14 volumes]. Moscow: Gos. social’no-ekonomičeskoe izd.Search in Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. 1990. Lectures on the history of philosophy vol. III: Medieval and modern philosophy, Robert F Brown (ed.). Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ingram, David. 1985. Hegel and Leibniz on individuation. Kant-Studien 76(1–4). 420–435.10.1515/kant.1985.76.1-4.420Search in Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1963. Sočinenija v 6-h tomah [Works in 6 volumes]. Moscow: Mysl.Search in Google Scholar
Kim, Soo Hwan. 2014. Lotmanian explosion: From peripheral space to dislocated time. Sign Systems Studies 42(1). 7–30.10.12697/SSS.2014.42.1.01Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1965a [1885]. Essais de Theodicee. In: Die philosophischen Schriften vol. 6, 1–484. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1965b [1885]. Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, fondé en Raison. In: Die philosophischen Schriften vol. 6, 598–606. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1965c [1885]. Monadologie. In: Die philosophischen Schriften vol. 6, 607–623. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1990. Philosophischen Schriften, VI.vi, Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain. Berlin: Akademie Vorlag.Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm & Samuel Clarke. 1960. Polemika G. Lejbnica i S. Klarka po voprosam filosofii estestovoznanija [The controversy of G. Leibniz and S. Clarke on the issue of the philosophy of the natural sciences]. Leningrad: Izd. Leningradskogo universiteta.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1964. Lekcii po strukturalnoe poetike [Lectures on structural poetics]. Trudy po znakovym sistemam 1. http://dspace.ut.ee/bitstream/handle/10062/41631/160_trudy.pdf (accessed 30 September 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1971. Problema “obučenija kul’ture” kak ee tipologičeskaja harakteristika. Trudy po znakovym sistemam 5. 167–176.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1976. Bytovoe povedenie i tipologija kul’tury v Rosii XVIII v. [Daily behavior and typology of culture in eighteenth century Russia]. In Akademia Nauka SSSR, Kul’turnoe nasledie Drevnej Rusi. Istočki, stanovlenie, tradicii, 286–292. Moskow: Nauka.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1977 [1970]. The structure of the artistic text. Ronald Vroon (trans.). Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Contributions.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1981. Mozg – Tekst – Kul’tura – Iskustvennij intellekt [Brain – Text – Culture – Artificial intelligence]. Semiotika i informatika 1. 13–17.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1983. K postroeniju teorii vzaimodejstvija kul’tur (semiotičeskij aspekt) [Towards the construction of a theory of the interactions between cultures (from a semiotic point of view)]. Učen. zap. Tart. gos un-ta 646. 92–113.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1984. O semiosfere [On the semiosphere]. Trudy poznakovym sistemam 17. 5–23. http://dspace.ut.ee/bitstream/handle/10062/48445/trudy_po_znakovym_17.pdf (accessed 30 September 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1990. Universe of the mind: A semiotic theory of culture. London & New York: Tauris Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1992. Slovo i jazyk v kul’ture Prosveščenija [Word and language in the culture of the Enlightenment In Izbrannye stat’i, Vol. 1, 216–223.Tallinn: Alexandra.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1992 [1989]. Kul’tura kak sub “ekt i sama-sebe ob” ekt In: Izbrannye stat’i, Vol. 3, 368–375.Tallinn: Alexandra.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 1997 [1989]. Culture as a subject and an object in itself. Trames 1(51/46). 7–16.10.3176/tr.1997.1.01Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 2005. On the semiosphere. Sign System Studies 33(1). 205–229.10.12697/SSS.2005.33.1.09Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 2009 [1992]. Culture and explosion. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 2010. Nepredskazuemye mehanizmy kul’tury. Tallinn: TLU Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Jurij M. 2013. The unpredictable workings of culture. Tallinn: TLU Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Mihhail. 2000. A few notes on the philosophical background of the Tartu school of semiotics. European Journal for Semiotic Studies 12. 23–46.Search in Google Scholar
Markovič, Vladimir M. 2002. Koncepcija “stadialn’osti literaturnogo razvitija” v rabotah G. A. Gukovskogo 1940-h godov [The conception of “the stadiality of literary evolution” in the works of G. A. Gukosvkij of the 1940s]. NLO 55. http://magazines.russ.ru/nlo/2002/55/mark.html (accessed 4 October 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Mathieu, Vittorio. 1976. Introduzione a Leibniz [Introduction to Leibniz]. Roma & Bari: Laterza.Search in Google Scholar
Nunziante, Antonio-Maria. 2001. Monade e contraddizione: L’interpretazione hegeliana di Leibniz [Monad and contradiction: The Hegelian interpretaion of Leibniz]. Trento: Verifiche.Search in Google Scholar
Restaneo, Pietro. 2013. Il concetto di potere nel pensiero di Ju. M. Lotman [The concept of power in the thought of Ju. M. Lotman]. Studi Filosofici 36. 209–234.Search in Google Scholar
Rosenblueth, Arturo, Norbert Wiener & Julian Bigelow. 1943. Behavior, purpose, and teleology. Philosophy of Science 10. 18–24.10.1086/286788Search in Google Scholar
Rossi-Landi, Ferruccio. 1975. Linguistics and economics. The Hague: Mouton.10.1515/9783110811278-007Search in Google Scholar
Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.Search in Google Scholar
Schönle, Andreas(ed.). 2006. Lotman and cultural studies: Encounters and extensions, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Search in Google Scholar
Segre, Cesare. 1996. L’ultimo Lotman. Slavica Tergestina 4. 43–51.Search in Google Scholar
Sériot, Patrick. 2014. The structure and the whole: East, West and non-Darwinian biology in the origins of structural linguistics. Boston & Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9781614515296Search in Google Scholar
Seyffert, Peter. 1986. Soviet literary structuralism: Background debate issues. Columbus: Slavica.Search in Google Scholar
Sibeon, Roger. 1999. Agency, structure agency, structure, and social chance as cross disciplinary concepts. Politics 19(3). 139–144.10.1111/1467-9256.00097Search in Google Scholar
Ventsel, Andreas & Peeter Selg. 2008. Towards a semiotic theory of hegemony: Naming as hegemonic operation in Lotman and Laclau. Sign System Studies 36(1). 167–183.10.12697/SSS.2008.36.1.09Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Transmedia branding: Brands, narrative worlds, and the mcwhopper peace agreement
- Translating iconicities of classical Chinese poetry
- Lexical trends in Facebook and Twitter texts of selected Nigerian Pentecostal churches: A stylistic inquiry
- Approach to the new videographies analysis: Case study of immigrant representations in the Social Innovation Laboratory videos (SIL UBIQA)
- A report on the reports of the stanford literary lab: A reason why the digital humanities may find it difficult to change literary history
- Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture or Laclau’s political ontology?
- Peirce’s resonances on Deleuze’s concept of sign: Triadic relations, habit and relation as semiotic features
- Iconically modeling a demolition process in the photobook Palast Der Republik
- Rethinking Milton Singer’s semiotic anthropology: A reconnaissance
- Representing indigenous lifeways and beliefs in U.S.-Mexico border indigenous activist discourse
- Legislative exploration of domestic violence in the People’s Republic of China: A sociosemiotic perspective
- A medium-centered model of communication
- “Language” and “discourse”: Two perspectives on linguistic philosophy
- Lotman, Leibniz, and the semiospheric monad: Lost pages from the archives
- Review Article
- Embodied X Figures and Forms of Thought
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Transmedia branding: Brands, narrative worlds, and the mcwhopper peace agreement
- Translating iconicities of classical Chinese poetry
- Lexical trends in Facebook and Twitter texts of selected Nigerian Pentecostal churches: A stylistic inquiry
- Approach to the new videographies analysis: Case study of immigrant representations in the Social Innovation Laboratory videos (SIL UBIQA)
- A report on the reports of the stanford literary lab: A reason why the digital humanities may find it difficult to change literary history
- Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture or Laclau’s political ontology?
- Peirce’s resonances on Deleuze’s concept of sign: Triadic relations, habit and relation as semiotic features
- Iconically modeling a demolition process in the photobook Palast Der Republik
- Rethinking Milton Singer’s semiotic anthropology: A reconnaissance
- Representing indigenous lifeways and beliefs in U.S.-Mexico border indigenous activist discourse
- Legislative exploration of domestic violence in the People’s Republic of China: A sociosemiotic perspective
- A medium-centered model of communication
- “Language” and “discourse”: Two perspectives on linguistic philosophy
- Lotman, Leibniz, and the semiospheric monad: Lost pages from the archives
- Review Article
- Embodied X Figures and Forms of Thought
