Dear IASS friends,

Since the end of Nanjing IASS Congress 2012 Chinese semiotic activities have been progressing along the two separate directions represented respectively by the departmental-semiotics  as a professionally defined discipline that has been officially organized on one hand (semiotics-1) and by the spontaneous-creative devotion about promoting  the multiply interdisciplinary-theoretical dialogues among the different main disciplines of the humanities on the other (semiotics-2). I’d like to introduce the second line of semiotics to IASS friends who are not so much familiar with the Chinese academic affairs. By the end of the letter two examples are given to indicate the reality of our separate efforts outside IASS. Please find the open letter attached here.

With Regards of mine as a former member

Youzheng Li, former vice-President of IASS

An Open Letter to IASS Friends (2018-2-25): On the Idea of Chinese Semiotics-2

                               Youzheng Li

As a former vice-president of IASS in charge of Asian, especially Chinese, semiotics promotions, I should have given a conclusive report on what I had done for the past 10 yearsat the 2014 Sofia Congress, but unfortunately I and other vice-presidents didn’tgeta chance forexpressing our prepared reports. In my opinion, all vice-presidents, who had done a lot of concrete jobs concerning IASS activities promotion in respective areas, should give reports on general situations, problems and perspectives in relation to their responsible areas, followed by open discussions and questionings. That was what we should have done in the congresses at the end of the old board and the beginning of the new one. Since joining the board in Lyon 2004 I immediately suggested to the new board toset up a website for publishing different opinions and ideasabout semiotics business, namely to stimulate and encouragethe free, criticaldiscussions among members in order to strengthen the democracy and freedom of speech within IASS family. However, eventuallynothing similar had happened(by contrast, during this 10 years I published so much critical comments in Chinese websites). During my almost 30 years’ experience in IASS it seemed to undertakemainly two major tasks: to find the fund for congresses and to increase the number of membership with an ever more flexible eligibility. In my opinion IASS and its board should function mainly as the organizer for providing conditions for free and open exchange of divergent ideas;the aim of IASS should be far from being to build up some professionalhierarchy supported bydifferent academic powers.

As a Sophia professor explained to me in 2014 that few students today still take a serious interest in any advanced theoretical projects. This statement is true in consideration of semiotic ecology all over world. Accordingly, since my first encounter with IASS activities at theToronto Summer School1982,I have gradually known that the main achievements of IASS activities have been actually realized in various fields of departmental semiotics, whichhave alsotoestablish themselves on various regularexistingdisciplines. Since my experience in BerkeliyCongress1994 I have found the so-called “general semiotics  ”, which pretends to provide members with a “general theoretical foundation”universally valid or usefulfor different departmental semiotics, has not been true because of it’s keeping a distance from the highlycomplicated realities of the entire social/human sciences in the worldtoday. Moreover, there have appeared a lot of strenuous attempts for this theoreticalpurposeon basis of different existing philosophical schools since 1960’s,but nothing of them could be justly named the general semiotics that can present a general intellectual orientation or foundation either for the semiotic movement or for the humanities in general. The first reason for this failure proves to be due to an implicit misunderstanding that there could be a new independent-single discipline called “Semiotics” containing its common theoretical elements. And the second one is caused by a more serious wrong judgment: the general semiotic theory should be based on some important philosophical schools because some semiotic theoreticians forgets that the essence of the semiotic lies in its interdisciplinary approach that is contrary to the single-disciplinary-centrism of any philosophy.

As a result, the general-theoretical discussions can only separately be held in congress sessions without any substantial influence on departmental semioticson one hand and no any serious influence on the major theoretical trends of the humanities either.Thusthe important phenomenon implies several significant consequenceslike the following: 1) our modern semiotic-founding fathers, earlier and later, have not provided any readymaturefoundations fortheoretical continuation to be straightforwardly performed by  followers; 2) the main energetic body of the current global semiotic movementis displayed invarious departmental semiotics that we may nominate as “semiotics-1”(see my article in Semiotica); and its players must be firstly trained in one of the regular disciplines; 3) the traditional general semiotics should befirstlyseparated from semiotics-1 in its operational channels and turn its attention to the general theoretical strategic exploration concerning the entire humanities.If what inferred true ,on one hand it means asimilar  “withdrawal” from the existing semiotic movement mainlyprogressedby semiotics-1, but on the other hand it means aactual“intrusion” into the main theoretical streams of the global humanities. I temporarily name this as “semiotics-2” that could be roughly characterized by an epistemological/methodological combination between the traditional general semiotics and the newly interdisciplinary-directed theoretical reflections regarding the entire social-human sciences. 4) Based on our one hundred years’ scientific experience of the global semiotic movement we may finally further redefine the identity of the semiotic-theoretical inspiration by dint of leading its pan-interdisciplinary-directed theoretical practices into the whole field of human sciences, namely extensively widening the scope and scale of the task of the semiotic-theorization.

The above double operations expressed in the separation (semiotics-1/ semiotics-2) and the interfusion (into the academic domain much larger than that of semiotics-1)  alike can only reemphasize the original signification of the earlier founders for general semiotic-directed thinking (Saussure, Peirce, Freud, Husserland others). Every past modern semiotic master attained his/her own achievements that are related to merely one aspect of thedesirablesemiotic-directed ways of thinking. The greatly changed intellectual-scientific conditions today have urged us to reformulate/reorganize the general strategy of original “semiotics” in terms of the expanded context of the global humanities. Accordingly, there will be much more scholars working in various main fields of social/human sciences outside the organizing institutions of semiotics. In accordance with the successful interdisciplinary experiences of semiotics-1, the scholars of semiotics-2 should be engaged in organizing a deeper and wider theoretical dialogue between semiotics-2 and the theoreticians in various major disciplines, especially those in philosophy and history. Such a difficult and important scholarly task cannot be easily realized by self-claimed professional “pure semioticians” who lack deep enough training in anyregular disciplines.

As a matter of fact,when I designed the general outline of programs for Nanjing IASS Congress 2012 the above idea was already cherishedin my mind. Beside the traditional IASS programs I especially arranged two special sections in the congress: the one is a dialogue between the semiotic and the Husserlian phenomenologyand the other is a dialogue between the semiotic and the traditional Chinese classics. The former is intended to start a new stage for a theoretical practices of semiotics-2  thatintends tohandle the most crucial issueconcerning rational/irrational confrontation in phenomenological movement, namely the basic epistemological/axiological separation between Husserl and Heidegger to reaffirm the necessity of rationalism against irrationalism, whichis just contradictory to the spirit of the scientific orientation of the semiotic. The second roundtable was intended to indicate another necessity for establishing a newset of cross-cultural semiotic/hermeneutic researchesregarding the 3000 years’ traditional Chinese spiritual(in contrast with the materialist)civilization characterized by the huge treasure of its constant literary/historian creations. For this great task formodernizing the studies of the traditional Chinese classic scholarship (called popularly the State-Learning) the present semiotic players working in professional institutions, (most of them  come from fields of the foreign-language education, the Chinese literature and the newly formed media studies), are far from being experienced in both Chinese classics and the advanced modern western theories. These two characteristic roundtables cansymbolize the two desirablescientificdirections for Chinese semiotics-2 outside theinstitutionallyorganized semiotic practices. This really advanced (in terms of true scientific ideas rather than of any institutional preferringgrade) semiotic studies focus on the two working grounds at present: to promote the genuinely interdisciplinary analyses about contemporary western philosophy and the more profound structural anatomy of the traditional Chinese ethics.

According to what explained above we should understand that these two types of semiotic studies (S-1 and S-2) should be performed separately. That means not every type of semiotic activities should becarried out within IASS, especially when the emergence of the cross-cultural semiotics has come out in the world. In this sense I hope IASS should keep anopen-minded attitude towards different types of semiotic scholarship avoiding being misled by a professional guild-consciousnessthat would neglect other important theoretical horizons outside the organized circle. Just as many French structuralists and American analytical-philosophers do their independent semiotic-directed studies outside IASS circle, the same thing would naturally occur in Chinese academiaas well.Being inserted in or not in the organized institutions, all semiotics scholars, as the most liberal thinkers, should share the same devotion to the semiotic idealism as such directed towards the modernization of the entire humanities rather than merely towards the occupational-interest. This has been also my constant warning given to all Chinese semiotics-interested scholars during my lasting semiotic career to introduce modern western theories to Chinese new academic generations. In fact I have frequently advised the leaders of semiotics groups to function firstly as a qualified and fair organizer to honestly serve all colleagues avoiding any attempt for forming monopoly bases. No semiotician should conceive himself as an academic “leader” or quasi-power-holder once he succeeds in getting together a group of participants. The power/fame-searching passion in semiotic academia can only deteriorate the energetic potential of semiotics. Moreover, such a vanity passion is to be eventually reduced to bubble.

The semiotic activity shouldn’t be reduced to the utilitarian pursuits for collective professional profits; instead the modern semiotic movement has entered in the new double-track developing stage covering both semiotics-1 and semiotics-2. We may state that the Nanjing IASS Congress 2012 became a milestone in modern semiotic history. The event can symbolizeimplicitlythe “official birth”of semiotics-2 when the cross-cultural theoretical semiotics substantially strengthensthe potential and momentum of the interdisciplinary orientation ofthemodern semiotic movement. Whileboth types of semiotic waysof thinking must be based on the collaborative practices between the semiotic-ways and the regular disciplinary-theoretical ways in an extensivescale. Regarding the task of semiotics-2 it should be creatively engaged in the closer dialogues between the semiotic/hermeneutic and the major theoretical schools in all social/human sciences. Far from being a professional discipline, semiotics-2 functions only as the active organizer of all-theorizing practices in social/human sciences. Semiotics-2 must live in the humanitiesrather than in a professionally defined semiotic autonomy. In this sense maybe we should understand a semiotic idealism shouldn’t be bound by the professional-institutionalsystems. Thus, semiotics-2 must bebravelyfaced with more serious challenge of the traditional scientific Establishment. In my understanding the spirit of the theoretical semiotician should be a voluntaryself-devoted theoreticaladventurer, as Roland Barthes said.

By the end of this open letter let me introduce the two projects of mine just finished early this year 2018to indicate what I mean with respect to Chinese semiotics-2 in its enterprise of modernizing the current Chinese humanities that covers two parts: one is the traditional Chinese scholarship and another is modern western humanities theories.

1) A monograph called“A Hermeneutic Analysis of Confucian Analects and the New Ren-Humanist Ethics”(in Chinese)

This almost published project is one of my own long-timeperformedresearch projectsaboutmodernizing the scholarship of traditional Chinese humanities. Only thanks to the modern western semiotic/hermeneutic inspiration I could firstly in modern Chinese intellectual history give such anoriginal analysisofthatChinese quasi-“Bible” in order to liberate this ancient rational-tended humanist ethics from its historical misuse and misinterpretation manipulatedby the ancient feudalist powers over2000 years. This ancient Asian positivist-humanist ethics can be amazinglyconsisting with modern western social-human sciencesat epistemological level.

2) The translation and introduction of the 8-vulume Husserl’s masterpieces.

This month I just finished the last volume of this selection of masterpieces to mark a full stop ofmyjob about moderntheoretical translation plans lasting exactly 40 years immediately after the end of the Cultural Revolution. (including the works of Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Cristian Metz, Richard Rorty, Paul Ricoeur, Umberto Eco, Bernhard Waldenfels, Rudolf Bernet, Demot Moran) My interpretation of the Husserlian thought is focusing on his “psychological-logical positivism” or even its “positive ethical subjectivism”regardless of its metaphysical/ontological involvement. According to my strategy of semiotics-2 , three pragmaticsteps regarding the semiotic/philosophical communications should be adopted as the following: a) selecting the genuine rational-scientific-directed philosophies as the relevant partners in dialogueswith semiotics-2; b) promoting the dialogues between the philosophical and other disciplinary-theoreticalfrontiers in various disciplines of the humanities; c) pertinently creating theheterogeneousdialogues between a/b and the traditional Chinese intellectual thoughts.

**               **                    **                  **

The following are the contents of the two projects completely finished which are published by one of the leading Chinese Uni. Presses:

1）A Hermeneutic Analysis of Confucian Analects and the New Ren-Humanist Ethics(in Chinese, two volumes, over 900 pages)

       Author: Li Youzheng      

           （The Associated Senior Fellow, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences）

    (published by The Press of The Chinese national Ren-Min University, Beijing , March. 2018)

The Abstract of the Book

Confucian Analectsand its ren-humanist ethics formulated over two thousand years ago has continuously played a double kind of divergent influences with respect either to the ren-ethical-directed intellectual creations or to the Confucianist-feudal-despotism during the lasting Chinese history. This first ethical Classics in Chinese history, because of its worldly humanist-ethical spirit, has been disclosed by the author to be so much consistent with all kinds of modern scientific mentalities, especially with current human sciences. With a long introduction to the backgrounds and principles in the first part the book gives the systematic as well as detailed discussions of the original texts of Confucian Analects sentence by sentence by dint of the both linguistic-exegetical and ethical-semantic analyses. Besides, the author raises a new discipline called the New ren-Learning mainly on basis of rereading the original ren-learning with a hermeneutic-semiotic focus on its possible ethical-guiding role in helping modernize theoretical studies in cross-cultural/interdisciplinary-directed human sciences today 

Contents

Preface

Part One  The Prolegomena: Backgrounds and Principles of this Project

1.      The historical backgrounds of the formation of Confucian Analects and the ren-learning

1.1   Linguistic problems concerning traditional thought and its modern intelligibility

1.2   The birth of moral consciousness in ancient China

1.3   The epoch-making emerging appearance of the ren-idea in history

1.4   The ren-learning, the Legalist technique, the Confucianist scholarship and the Confucianist political system

1.5   Confucian Analectsand theren-learning

2.      Constitutive characters of Confucian Analects and the ren-learning

2.1   Constitution and nature of the originalren-learning

2.1.1        The basic axiological principles of ren-learning and formation of subject-will

2.1.2        The system of ethical beliefs and practicing methods in ren-learning

2.2   The presenting ways of the precepts in the text of Confucian Analects

2.3 Function and Expression of the ren-spirit in Chinese cultural/scholarly history

2.3.1        Different meaning effects of reading Confucian Analects and different reading attitudes of theren-Confucian or the Confucianist principles

2.3.2   The ren-learning as a-religious system of ethical beliefs

2.3.3   The different historical periods concerning the emergence, the maturation, the lasting influences of the ren-learning

2.4   Ren-ethical spirit and its historical existence within the Confucianist political system

2.5   The authorship ofConfucian Analects and its textual-formative processes

2.6   A short exegetic notes of key Chinese characters used inConfucian Analects

3.      Confucian Analectsandren-ethics

3.1   Elements of theren-ethics

3.2   The double function of the character “ren” : understanding and believing

3.3   The double orientation of the praxis of ren-learning: for good and against evil

3.4   The inner praxis of ren-ethics and classification of its objects: the relational structure of the basic trio-virtues

4.      Ren-learning in the Confucianist-political history

4.1   Historical interaction betweenren-learning and Confucianist system 

4.2   The mixed physical-existence and the functional separation of ren-learning and Confucianst scholarship in Chinese historical reality

5.      The real historical contexts and the spiritual praxis of ren-learning

6.      Originalren-learning and the New ren-learning: retrospect and prospect

6.1   The ever-lasting historical subsistence of the original ren-learning and the transformed new mission of its external praxis in the new historical era

6.1.1        The inner praxis of ren-learning has been eternally established yet in history

6.1.2   The Confucianist scholarship as an academic ideology and the ren-learning as a purely ethical thought

6.2 Historical predicament facing the future developments of The New ren-Learning

6.2.1   The new reflection on ren-learning and the new practices of ren-learning

6.2.2   The rationalist orientation of the New ren-Learning and the ren-humanist theory of ethical beliefs

6.3The prospect of the New ren-Learning

6.3.1   The New ren-Learning and contemporary human sciences

6.3.2   The parallel/separate tracks of historical progresses: the material reconstruction and the spiritual elaboration

Part Two The Exegetic-Semantic Analyses and the Ethical hermeneutics about the Texts of Confucian Analects

Section One

  Book 1

  Book 2

  Book 3

  Book 4

  Book 5

  Book 6

  Book 7

  Book 8

  Book 9

  Book 10

Section Two

      Book 11

      Book 12

      Book 13

      Book 14

      Book 15

      Book 16

      Book 17

      Book 18

      Book 19

      Book 20

The Supplements

1.  The selections of essential ren-ethical sentences in Confucian Analects and The Mencius

2.  The critical comments selected from some past works about studies of Confucian Analects

Bibliography

2)  The Chinese Translation of A Selection of Edmund Husserl’s

 8-Works

        (Translated，Introduced, 4 language-terminology-made by Youzheng Li)

 (by The Press of The Chinese national Ren-Min University, Beijing)

(1-5 volumes are already published and 6-8 volumes finished are to be published in 2018)

1. Formale und Transzendentale Logik

2. Allgemeine Einführung in die Reine Phänomenologie (Ideen I)

3. Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution (Ideen II)

4. Die Phänomenologie und die Fundamente der Wissenschaften (Ideen III)

5. Phänomenologische Psychologie

6. Erfahrung und Urteil

7. Logische Untersuchungen(V,VI)

8. Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein