Several Points about reconstructing theoretical semiotics

Contents

1. Problems of crises in the humanities and theoretical semiotics

2. The professional theorist looks like the game player operating in fixed procedures

3. The distinction between the thinking and the operative ways of the thinking

4. The faith supported by rational reasoning and the pragmatic utility of the faith

5. The professional-institutional conditioning and the requested subjective spontaneity

1. Problems of crises in the humanities and theoretical semiotics

We human beings exist in an unprecedentedly crucial double crisis today. Crisis-1 refers to the social-political-religious challenges that are universally understood belonging to the traditional category; crisis-2 refers to the spiritual/intellectual-axiological disorders that function actively but the related kernel part —real knowledge of meaning and values; or the theoretical part of the humanities —remaining structurally deactivated. Crisis-1, being of empirical-practical and technological nature, has little to do with the humanities, that is not our topic here; while crisis-2, namely that of the human-theoretical thought, is our right subject matter although it is almost unsolvable, that’s why we call it a “crisis”。No individual thinkers could or should be the cause of it; instead the crisis-2, the spiritual/theoretical one, must be the logical product of the historical development. In the intellectual history we had frequently experienced moving stories concerning the interactions between intellectual/spiritual crises and the related revolutionary turning points for overcoming. Such kind of great intellectual events still prevailing in our present-day textbooks can hardly be imagined in this century despite that our humanities world has become ever-increasingly institutionalized profitably and obtains its persisting professional feasibility/utility. The professional institutionalization in general and the unification between theoretical researches and stabilized procedures in particular have successfully led to the segregation between the proceeding of the theoretical humanities and their actual impacts on scientific truths. The reason is so evidently indicated that the criteria of the theoretical-scholarly efforts in the humanities are almost exclusively defined within their strictly institutionalized realm without any a genuine reference to the social/historical reality, if the latter doesn’t merely refer to the so-called reality inserted in texts. The current epistemological separation between verbal texts and true world becomes part of the external causation of crisis-2. Owing to the institutionalized separation between the two the theoretical humanities, including its central part—philosophy, the so-called “thinkers” have lost their historical ideal: becoming the “intellectual heroes” to help cope with the intellectual-spiritual crises of their times. The symptom of this unhappy judgment can be clearly indicated that almost no great philosophers over the past century had ever played such an intellectual-heroic role, if some of them had not exerted so much negative influences on the growth of human sciences. As the author points out before, this historical phenomenon is essentially also caused by the structural evolution of the humanities as such: the philosophical as well as all kinds of theoretical practices in the humanities have been faced with a basic revolutionary phase in history, namely the comprehensive interdisciplinary-theoretical reorganization, that is on the other side in sharp conflict with the strong professional institutionalization movements pushed forward and controlled by the pro-materialist-directed globalization drive. Exactly in terms of the above-mentioned context the semiotic spirit is to be grasped. In other words, why does the semiotic-spirit, rather than any activities using this academic mark in the community life, could implicitly and explicitly appear for the past century. Its essence lies in the critical focus on the interdisciplinary-scientific-directed theoretical reflections on all contemporary theoretical achievements in the humanities. Because of the same reasons, however, the current semiotic practices have obviously losing its original theoretical-renovation impulses becoming more and more popularized and commercialized. This tendency has led us to divide the contemporary semiotic movement into the two categories: semiotics-1, as the currently predominant professional main streams, and semiotics-2, as a generic ideal index for continuing and further modernizing the original conceptions of modern theoretical semiotic founders. Once again, after a second thought, we should point out that the division of semiotic conceptions is also made by the natural tendency formed within modern intellectual history as such. Still, the concept semiotics-2, in spite of its being a mere ideal model, has become an implicative index today that can, more clearly than any philosophy, present the basic situations and horizons concerning crisis-2. The significance or connotation of  “the semiotic proper”, rather than the fact of any related products achieved in academia with this title today, is, far from being a problem of the professional achievements, connected with the spiritual future of human beings. Thus so-called semiotics-2 shouldn’t be recognized as the part of the semiotic profession whose main body consists of semiotics-1.  As a theoretical ideal model it should be the central part of the entire theoretical humanities. In fact, it should also be a general symbol of the intellectual/theoretical/spiritual desideratum implicitly cherished by mankind for elaborating its rational-existential level. Nevertheless, because of the actual historical involvements of contemporary semiotic movement, we’d like to point out that semiotics-1 (departmental semiotic studies) still partly present an ready epistemological window from which we could more easily feel the spirit of the semiotics-2, so long as the latter is able to get rid of any out-of-date philosophy-fundamentalist bias.

2. The professional theorist looks like the game player operating in fixed procedures

There have been two kinds of conceptual composition of the term semiotics over the past decades: its actual reality as a social-academic movement (semiotics-1) 1and its theoretical ideal implied in its relevantly theoretical-explosive history (semiotics-2). The actual professional semiotics has been organized according to a rather flexible principle: any kind of self-claimed studies of signs and meanings in the humanities are eligible participants or members without any truly strict scientific-evaluative restrictions. 1  It is true that for the past century there have appeared a lot of great theoreticians, including several great founders of modern semiotic-theoretical trends and later creative successors after the World War II , who have attained important achievements along the genuine semiotic orientation and became the true movers of the current semiotic movement. Nevertheless, the exclusive pan-materialist-oriented globalization begins to re-orient the axiological/epistemological directions of all kinds of intellectual practices during the same period. The semiotic movement has more and more lived in the heterogeneous tension of divergent forces. Obviously, the pan-materialist spirit today becomes the uniquely predominant trend and its stronger impact on the humanities is realized in the ever-increasingly strengthening of the academic-market and its system of multi-institutionalization. As a result, accordingly, semiotic profession can only exist and act in the multiply institutionalized realm following the fixed sets of criteria, rules and channels which are systematically reorganized and controlled by the new academic-sociological logic based on the pan-materialist/commercialist principles.

One of the results of the pan-institutionalizational development has developed two kinds of the scientific operations in semiotic professions: the traditional one following the typical-scientific spirit/norms and the post-modernist/opportunist one following the dominant-procedural regularities co-determined by various institutional forces. The latter has become more and more the predominant in the academic field today. By doing research the scholars take account of the related factors and exactly follow the institutional procedures that could really lead to the successful results. Thus the professional scholars must exactly obey the fixed norms and rules, paying a close attention to their operative precisions in scholarly practice. Far from being a free and creative thinker he or she becomes today a game player who’s active steps as such must be self-restricted within the objective game system. The theoretical humanities look like a multiply game system that is under governing and control of sets of the authorities or powers that maintain the general orientation of the game-playing and final aims in co-ordination with the orientation and style of the general Globalization. Being an educated procedural operators a scholar has already chosen to be obedient to the objective game logic and given up essentially his or her own creative spontaneity in practices. It is not difficult to see that even the artistic-styled scholarly theorists are also similar to the game player within the fixed chessboard, just like any modernist/postmodernist artists who still need to follow some implicitly formed workable norms/rules and the valid “fashions” decided by the art-market and customer’s tastes for the artistic commodity. So the most serious loss of a pan-post-modernist scholar is disclosed by his losing his own independent will/self-decision in his creation. His creative freedom is naturally restricted by the professional-institutionalizing models accepted/authorized by his collective community. Accordingly, the humanity-theories no longer attempt to scientifically explain and analyze realities of various objects but are applied for professional-pragmatic purposes.

3. The distinction between the thinking and the operative ways of the thinking

What is the essential part of the theoretical thinking about human affairs in history? Customarily, we take the accumulation of related knowledge or intellectual message as the substantial embodying of thinking; especially, in terms of intellectual history the substantial body of scholarly life is embodied in education and transition of knowledge that is exactly reflected in passing on intelligent messages among people. So the very central part of intellectual activities is expressed in the passing on of accumulated knowledge that has been generally accepted by the learning authorities. Regarding the humanities it is characterized by the obvious fact that the acknowledged knowledge or results of thinking in the related fields indicates the two aspects: it’s timely establishment and it’s temporary popularity. The thoughts on the human affairs or in the humanities present themselves as successive fashions of ideas multiply and disorderly formulated; that means the very intelligent medium or message of the related knowledge, as the solid composition of thought, are only the historical and spiritual material to be handled sociologically within historical frameworks. These compositions or media are to be operated to gain social-intellectual recognition. Then what is the essential part of thinking or thought regarding the humanities now: the message as material-media as such or the way to handle them? If the former can be reduced to certain solid part of intelligent media with fixed contents and forms (knowledge as such), the latter is more complicatedly formulated. While it is the latter that is the determinative part, in comparison with the former, for carrying out the formulation/function of the humanities thought although it’s capability, potential and effect can hardly be understood and described clearly. Traditionally, thinkers in the humanities are encouraged to be creatively original in their scholarly practices but on the other side the very key term “originality” or “talent genies” in history have been so ambiguously and arbitrarily grasped too. So-called original thoughts in intellectual history concerning humanity, in contrast with those about natural and social worlds, are similar to some intellectual entertainments purely arbitrarily defined or accepted. Nevertheless, the accumulated knowledge in the fields can become the important spiritual wealth or treasure habitually appreciated in human societies.

Their effective existence and productive function today can be further confirmed and strengthened in the highly institutionalized academia and culture; and the substantial body of them is the historically accumulated knowledge, including the “material-content” and “ways to handle the material-content”. The latter as the past effective ways of handling or operating the former are also reduced to the category of material-plan at a functional sense. These two parts taken from historical sources can form the currently workable materials and channels carrying out actual learning, teaching and studying. But what about the essence and its definition of the new handling ways for all kinds of intellectual materials remains to be unclear; they are the matter to be practically employed but still not to be scientifically defined and examined.

In a popular term we may simplify the epistemological division between the traditional type of the humanities and the new-century type of the human sciences by dint of the new understanding of the orderly relationship between the material-content (embodied in all historical masterpieces embodied in their textuality) and the way to handle the material. If you only effectively pass on the accumulated material (textual masterpieces) that can hardly be named as the “thinking” meaningfully today. The thought or thinking about human affairs in our new era can no more be expressed in mastering and conveying the accumulated knowledge as such; the term “thinking” will be no longer defined by the memory and keeping the fixed texts but must be redefined by the more meaningful way of the thinking in dealing with the textualities and their complicated structures. This added connotational semantic elements are just semiotic in nature. Thus the thinking doesn’t only refer to the text-material but also to the way to handle the text-material. We may broadly say that the traditional-scholarly way in the humanities is the textual-memorizing in style while the modern scholarly way in human sciences are the textual-reinterpreting in style. The latter refers to a priority focused on the operative aspect of thinking with a purpose to enrich the creative energy and to advance the practical efficiency.

The “thinking” or “theoretical thinking” is not completely contained in the related texts or results of earlier thinking-finished texts; in other words the past wisdom is not limited in the finished texts accumulated individually. And all such historically transmitted texts, far from being different “units of the complete valuable thought ”, are similar to the mere material to be continuously reorganized by the later-coming thinkers in their new contexts; the historical material units consist of related experiences, contents, methods, positions and historical contexts. In essence the historically accumulated and transmitted thoughtful texts play only the role as data-material to be used by the successive thinkers through their new subjective/objective conditions. So, facing the rich treasure of historical texts we cannot think that we have already possessed a fixedly attained intellectual values; what they acquire from the historical heritage are merely the material or date for continuously processing according to the changed valid operative conditions.

If we regard the historical texts as satisfactorily finished or complete “thought units” or the pragmatic-feasible “intellectual entirety”, rather than as the organizable material, we would be restricted in advance by the historically formed epistemological/ methodological frames. Then we would not feel the necessity and possibility to tackle the historically transmitted text-material in an interdisciplinary term. In fact, we should anatomy those historical textual entireties at first and make all of them as the sources of material or datum to be reorganized according to completely new strategic/tactic channels accepted today. 

4. The faith supported by rational reasoning and the pragmatic utility of the faith

Although the humanities are generally taken as useless in their materialist-productions, if we keep a mind about what we distinct above about the faith problem, they could even obtain a quasi-materialist utility as the instrument for providing pleasure/comfort. Far from being taken as the genuine ways for exploring scientific truths, the materially useless humanities can play instead a significant role about so-called theoretical-psychological satisfaction. Scholars or thinkers are engaged in miscellaneous contents of theorization and imagination resulting various historical texts that can certainly undertake a function to offer some actually effective “spiritual medications” for solving the psychological worries/pains in human life: such as the dread for death and the wishes for everlasting life; or functioning a kind of medicine to release various life-pains. We can easily remember a great number of such examples in philosophical history.

The scientific and the psychological-satisfying purposes are of essentially divergent sorts but they can hardly be distinguished in the theoretical humanities. As matter of fact, at present the both have been widely and deeply mixed together; or, the quasi-scientific practices have been self-deceptively taken as the true-scientific ones. The “scientific” or “scholarly” becomes a beautifying way to play such a intentionally misleading role in the professional fields. In terms of this explanation we can further understand why the traditional disorderly conceptions about the humanities or at least theoretical humanities could have been so constantly exist in human civilizations. If any kind of practicable combinations of historical texts can be so much easily accepted as the important scholarly achievements, the remaining task may lie in the art of how to create attractive tricks to allure the audience or followers to be really satisfied by the artificial textual devices.

A comparative explanation can be made from the history of manipulative arts for creating faith in masses. As well known, if the more illiterate masses of people are, the firmer their life faith could be. The Firmness of faith among populace could be so easily invented or produced by smart “masters” in different historical generations. So the successful establishments of faith-systems have nothing to do with rational knowledge or thought but with the efficiency of the art and technique of stimulating rhetoric embodied in the affirmable effect/solacing quality of the faiths created. The similar pragmatic logic, in a rough comparison, holds in the ecology of theoretical rhetoric technique in the theoretical humanities too. If the confirmable criterion is not defined by the simple firm faith in the theoretical truth the formalist-rhetoric sophistication and supernatural-speculative complicity as such could be misjudged as the quasi-logical proofs. 

5. The professional-institutional conditioning and the requested subjective spontaneity

The historically unprecedented and even uniquely presented challenging question facing the humanity-theoretician today is about the essential confusion or mixture of the truth-concern and the career-concern regarding life view of humanities scholars. As we point out at the outset, in general almost all scholars in the field are exclusively concerned about their own professional careers as well as the related academic achievements whose evaluation or judgment is systematically rooted in the social and academic institutions all over the world. There are seemingly no longer independent concerns about pure humanity-scientific truths in exception that the latter happen to be profitable in academic practices. The basic loss of truth-concern in mentality makes people blind to the essential and crucial shortcomings and problematics of the theoretical humanities in contrast with natural, technological and social scientific sciences. The scholarship of the humanities is almost universally reduced to the self-contained campus functioning as the practical means for self-literary-cultivation and related professional processing. Accordingly, because of the concomitant loss of the ethical spontaneity, scholars just neglect the scientific necessity for the revolutionary reconstruction of the theoretical humanities inspired by the general scientific progresses of the new world. On the other hand, this epistemological negligence leads to three related consequences in our era: the existence of the sharp crisis; the potentiality of the scientific-spiritual revival; and the sincere pragmatic engagement.

The term Humanism as “a life philosophy” today contains two basic added aspects: the epistemological and the pragmatic.

1)     The epistemological dimension: the scientific inclination of any kind in this world is implicative of a universal semantic consistence or at least coherently mutual-communicability regarding meaning, valuation, purposes among all people existing on the single community. All oppositional positions are in fact contrary to the scientific spirit that must be in essence consistent with all kinds of scientific practices, especially natural and social sciences. By contrast the humanities, especially their theoretical practices, are characterized by their general semantic disorder and mutual divergence. This lasting historical fact has been always interpreted as the natural indication of artistic-spiritual style but people constantly neglect its evil historical consequences: struggles, cruelty, violence, wars as well as possible self-destruction. All such negative phenomena in history have not been due to so-called conflicts among different civilizations but actually to the conflicts concerning meanings, values, belief or faiths at the mental level of human nature expressed in different historical traditions. Those mental elements concerning the universal human nature are the objects of scientific investigations of human sciences. Therefore the ideal of human sciences should be carried out at this general dimension common to all human being; for only genuinely scientific attempts about humanity affairs can establish the basic semantic domain on which different human beings can attain reasonably mutual-restricted agreements for a more desirable existence of entire humanity. The human sciences are directed to help establish such a more feasible epistemological frame for reconstructing the humanities. By contrast, all religious, ontological, metaphysical elaborations, despite their respective social/cultural utility, should be disconnected with the rational/scientific business of human sciences with respect to problems about meaning, value and faith. Simply speaking, we’d better distinguish between the traditional humanities and the modern human sciences in our conceptual designs.

2)     The pragmatic dimension: either for carrying out human sciences or applying them to different human projects we have to insist in the truly human-scientific direction and methods based on the ever-renewed achievements of all sorts of recent sciences. As we point out frequently, any workable and mutual-consistent humanist projects must be guided by commonly accepted principles and methods that must be based on the suitable scientific approaches. But just in the current world of the theoretical humanities their scholarly tendencies are indicative of widely divergent orientations and purposes. The so-called intellectual pluralism and creative freedom characteristic of the humanities are only the term of epistemological and pragmatic disorderly alternatives lacking in requested workability. As a matter of fact, the so-called workability of the humanities and their theoretical practices can only be performed within professionalized disciplinary systems and pre-regulated educational procedures. Different from natural and social sciences, which must be workable and objectively examinable, the humanities and their so-called theoretical elaborations are never asked to be workable or applicable outside of campus area. The serious outcome of this general tendency is expressed in negligence of the possible reconstructive potentiality of the accumulated intellectual sources in the humanities of all kinds. Furthermore, the so-called negligence of the potential power of intellectual/spiritual sources of the humanities is especially related to the objective necessity and desirability of mankind for acquiring the truly workable scientific-operative tools obtained in historical, psychological, religious, literary, artistic, ethical realms. We human beings cannot be so much blindly pushed forward by the uniquely-correct pan-materialist driving force to make human life formulated so universally one-dimensional in future. In fact, humanity-scholars/thinkers are so much enwrapped into non-realistic, non-positive, non-experiential and quasi-artistic-directed ways of reasoning and imagination. The artistic or mechanic-scientific alternative theories could be the means for physical profits and psychological comfort but have nothing to do with the genuinely qualified human sciences. For the sake of really attaining the intellectual/spiritual praxis, however, besides the intelligibility, another necessity will be the revival of humanist ethics that should be triggered by the minority of the humanity-theorists. Nevertheless, as the consequence of all-round institutionalization, thinkers or scholars in the humanities, in contrast with earlier generations before the WW II, are losing or sharply decreasing their original/natural sensibility/instincts about good/evil, true/false despite their having acquiring much more knowledge. This paper is intended to stop here only for outlining a line of questioning concerned.