Volume 2016, Issue 212 - Special Issue: On edusemiotics, Guest Editors: Inna Semetsky, Andrew Stables and Sébastien Pesce

This essay explores the bases for a process theory of learning applicable across the disciplines in today’s academy. First it traces the modern history of process pedagogy beginning with Kant and leading through Cassirer and Whitehead to an array of contemporary approaches that favor the symbiosis of art and science over the lingering Cartesian dichotomy of “subjective” mental processes and “objective” forms of knowledge. Second, it examines the case of science education, specifically as regards habit formation, ethical instruction, and qualitative research. Thinkers as diverse as Whitehead, Bourdieu, Serres, Latour, and Dewey are seen to oppose the neoscholastic myth of scientific objectivity and favor a language of relations that fosters an “anastomosis” between the disciplines. Lastly, the essay examines the pedagogical role played by logical abduction, as articulated by Peirce and developed further by later scholars. Thus the essay’s three sections – starting with the historical discussion, moving to the field-specific problem of science education, and finally the issue of abductive reasoning – reinforce one another and aim to exemplify the dynamic integration of the general and specific, of mind and nature, that is a goal of process pedagogy.

As a branch of theoretical semiotics that aims to contribute to the development of the theory of both semiotics and education, edusemiotics must also problematize the most foundational semiotic conceptions of sign and semiosis. The biosemiotic notion that a sign relation is necessarily dependent on learning restricts semiotics to the biological sphere, to living beings. This fits well with education, which can be seen as transition from the zoosemiotic sphere to the anthroposemiotic sphere. However this radical discontinuity between living and non-living spheres makes it difficult to understand how signs and semiosis are viable at all and what their basic nature is. Ontologically we can imagine that sign relations must also be somehow based on the features of non-living beings. In this article I will analyze how a concept of a sign can be seen as a general model of interaction between any beings. This paper develops the conception of semiosis and signification with regard to the competence (or habits) of the subject experiencing the meaning. Such task requires the explication of the ontological basis of semiosis – a step often perceived as dangerous by semioticians or ignored by educators.

Standard definitions posit the sign as a discrete entity in relation with other signs and standing for an object (either physical or psychological). Thus the sign has two roles, as prompt and as substitutive representation. The latter raises difficult questions about the relationship of the semiotic to the non-semiotic or pre-semiotic, which can be resolved logically (as in Peirce) or rejected as unanswerable (as in Saussure), but which can never be satisfactorily resolved empirically as the phenomenal cannot be divorced from the semiotic. This impasse can be resolved if we drop the assumption that the sign is essentially substitutive. The assumption of discrete entities, at either the phenomenal or the noumenal levels, is a function of discredited substance metaphysics. On a process metaphysical account, the reality of the sign is not attached to the discreteness of any pre-existing entity. The sign remains as prompt and as relational but not (other than sometimes with respect to other signs) substitutive. Rather than defined as standing for an object, the sign can now be regarded much more simply as a feature of an event. This conception of the sign is explored in terms of its implications for teaching and learning.

In his divisions of science, Peirce placed pedagogy in the branch of practical sciences. This means that the profession of teaching can only be meliorated by experience, through practice. However, I argue that a holistic look at Peirce’s semiotics reveals an implicit philosophy of education. The key lies in understanding his account of experience in the context of his theory of evolution. By experience Peirce meant semiosis (action of signs), not the modern empirical notion of experience. The sign, unlike an idea (purely mental entity) does not belong strictly to mental or non-mental phenomena. Experience is a characteristic of the Universe (CP 5.448), understood as a physiology of arguments (Stjernfelt 2007). According to Peirce’s taxonomy of signs, learning is the evolution of signification from the Icon sign type to the Argument sign type, being the Universe’s way of discovering itself through life forms. The Argument sign type is a result of agapasm, evolution due to creative love (CP 6.302). The paper explains how Peirce’s theory of agapistic evolution underpins an educational paradigm.

The theme of pedagogy and more generally education as supplementarity has been all but ignored in critical discussions engaging Jacques Derrida’s of grammatology. By and large, the sustained emphasis of inquiry has instead been on evaluating the epistemological and methodological parameters of deconstruction as a theory of reading and writing and not as a treatise on the ethics of pedagogical praxis. The essay rereads “... That Dangerous Supplement...,” the chapter on Rousseau on writing, while keeping the theme of pedagogy at the forefront of the analysis of supplementarity. Derrida presents for the “science of a new writing” in the “gram” that flourishes within the codic play of differences. But it is as différance that the grammatological conversion of semiology takes place via deconstruction. Such a focus provides new insights into deconstruction that could allow us to effectively gauge the edusemiotic potential of its influence on educational theory, not only as a theoretical departure from classical modes of reading and writing, but as the inaugural steps toward and beyond a theory of education that could ground an ethical praxis.

This paper explores the idea of metaphor as a persuasive device, using as an example a recent OECD publication purporting to be a quality toolbox for early childhood education and care. Leaving aside the problematic notion of quality, we argue that there is a serious problem with the idea of education as something that can be done with a toolbox, particularly in the formative stages of young children’s education. We suggest that the OECD selection of the toolbox as a metaphor is a way of inserting international economic imperatives into local government education policy, in ways that the citizenry is not aware of. As with any metaphor for education, the selection highlights some aspects while hiding others, a concealment that can’t be exposed by intensifying one’s gaze without a change in perspective. To examine the extent of what remains hidden by the toolbox, we engage in creative play with some different metaphors for education, arguing that particular metaphors may serve to obfuscate rather than clarify, an artifice that is not acceptable from a body as influential and far-reaching as the OECD.

Even after the “perestroika” and “glasnostj” in Russia, and increased communication in the interconnected world, the state of contemporary education there remains relatively unknown to Western scholars. This paper aims to ameliorate this problem by examining some of the signs comprising the system of education in Russia against the problematic of the historically American pursuit of happiness. While formal education in the West explicitly focuses on academic disciplines, in Russia there always existed an element of “bringing up” as a sign of the value-dimension infusing, sometimes implicitly, both formal and informal (or cultural) education. The paper intends to demonstrate the ubiquity and the importance of the edusemiotic conception of values-education irreducible to inculcation but oriented to self-formation embedded in human experience. An edusemiotic perspective problematizes the aims of education and emphasizes learning from experience, dialogue, coordination, meaning, and values. Values “reside” in lived experience, and edusemiotics surpasses education reduced to teaching of brute facts. The paper also critically examines education as socialization via social media and affirms spiritual education in contrast to persistent secularization.

Cet article considère la sémiotique de Peirce en appui des thèses historico-culturelles de Vygotski dans le cadre de l’étude du développement psychologique de l’enfant avant le langage. Vygotski, dans ses travaux sur les relations langage-pensée, pose les bases d’une approche sémiotique de la conscience et de sa genèse à partir de l’avènement du langage, et souligne que l’éducation constitue la condition de possibilité de ce même développement, sans toutefois articuler dimensions sémiotique et éducative. Les travaux sur la Pragmatique de l’objet qui permettent d’approcher l’étude sémiotique de la conscience durant la phase préverbale du développement via les objets artefacts et leurs significations publiques, suggèrent une articulation de ces deux dimensions au travers de la sémiotique peircienne. Nous montrerons comment la sémiotique peircienne permet de rendre visible la construction de la signification et du signe. A cet égard, l’apport de l’approche phénoménologique de Heidegger sera également évoqué.

Résumé Les théories de référence de l’édusémiotique offrent un cadre puissant pour repenser l’éducation. Elles nous permettent d’envisager de nouvelles manières d’enseigner, et sont particulièrement heuristiques dans une logique de transfert de la théorie vers la pratique. Mais ce qui est remarquable est la cohérence entre les positions développées par l’édusémiotique et la pensée et les pratiques de certains des “grands pédagogues.” L’hypothèse que je propose d’explorer ici est qu’au travers de l’expérimentation, ces pédagogues ont élaboré des manières d’enseigner cohérentes avec une conception édusémiotique de la cognition, en rupture avec les conceptions transmissives et dualistes.

The semiotic turn and the twentieth century critique of the philosophy of consciousness presented a unique challenge and stressed the problematic status of old binary oppositions such as the subject versus the object, the mind versus the body, and the private versus the public. Karl-Otto Apel has responded to this philosophical occurrence with a theory of transcendental semiotics, a highly original endeavor to avoid mere reversals of older binary oppositions and pernicious consolidations of new hierarchies. This article aims to unravel Apel’s semiotics and to make it relevant to the philosophical-educational themes that preoccupy edusemiotics. After a brief overview of how Apel reworks the theories that influenced him into his own transcendental-semiotic account, the article focuses on some specific points adding more depth to the venture of associating Apel’s theory and edusemiotics.

In this article we examine the educational process and learning from the edusemiotic point of view in terms of meaningful experience and meaningful action. A conception of meaningful experience is central in many branches of educational thinking, from pragmatism to existentialism. We analyze this conception from two traditional and somewhat remote perspectives, utilizing some themes of Kant’s educational philosophy on the one hand and Greimas’ semiotics on the other. Kant’s views of human formative powers – Bildung – will be described as a basic philosophy of learning experience. Kant’s theory is then critiqued from the perspective of existentialist educational philosophy. Concepts of meaningful learning and experience are further clarified utilizing Greimas’ semiotic tools and, specifically, his semiotic square. Finally, the question of meaningful learning experience is related to Kant’s pedagogical paradox and the educator’s role in the pedagogical process.

While edusemiotics emerges as a fresh field of inquiry in the core of semiotic enterprise, the relationship between factual information and imaginative interpretation remains problematic and dualistic. This article proposes a theoretical framework that utilizes design inquiry for advancing edusemiotics. In a Transmodern world, human beings are able to cross over diaphanous boundaries among the real, the true, and the imaginary, transforming what has been in existence by making new representations of that which is yet-to-come. Augmenting edusemiotics with design thinking transcends our assumptions about the ephemeral phenomena of reality and reveals the hidden connection between factual information and imaginative interpretation. Introducing design inquiry into edusemiotics not only encourages scholars to bridge the gap between theoretical investigations and practical applications but, more significantly, also turns their attention to the development of their capacity to becoming andragogical agents of change.

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.

This paper contextualizes the topic of play as an essential aspect of homo ludens (Huizinga 1949, Homo ludens: A study of the play-element in culture . Abingdon: Routledge). I explore play as an abductive, semiotic process and phenomenological event according to Peirce’s categories of experience known as Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. We find that play is an integral aspect of human learning and, in some of its manifestations, can be linked to the sacred dimension of human existence. My method of analysis is to combine the theoretical insights of Charles S. Peirce (particularly his notion of musement as pure play) and communication theorist Gregory Bateson’s ideas about serious play in social interactions. We learn to take play seriously given that it simultaneously brings us to the threshold of both ineffability and intelligibility. We also learn something new about the sacrality of human learning as a reflection of what Peirce calls the absolute mind (2010 [1892], The law of mind. In The Peirce Edition Project (eds.), Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A chronological edition, volume 8 [1890–1892], 135–157. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press). I advocate that play and learning are thus sacred or integral to human growth and evolution.