2023 Vol. 14 №4

The Mobius strip of the pragmasemantics of sense: from culture through subjectivity to nothingness and back

DOI

10.5922/2225-5346-2023-4-1

Pages

8-30

Abstract

The author endeavors to systematically present sense formation through the lens of the pragmasemantic approach. It enables the demonstration of how the primary factors of sense formation, socio-cultural practices and personal agency interact. Their relationship is non-linear: subjectivity results from the assimilation of socio-cultural experiences and the accom­panying narrative communication. Self-consciousness of the Self arises from the socialization of the individual through reflexive self-description. Thus, it engenders a "strange loop" (as described by Hofstadter), in which the inner becomes entwined with the outer, and the social intertwines with the individual. In this way, the possessor of self-consciousness gains a broader worldview extending beyond physical existence. This expanded perspective not only facilitates responses to situationality but also enhances the potential to proactively pre-adapt to one's environment. Selfhood is a flexible entity, receptive to new content, capable of self-modification, and open to change. The primary identity of the self-aware individual is the self-sufficient personality without any specific characteristics. Human existence is marked by absence, lack, loss, and an aspiration for change. It resembles an emptiness that defies classifi­cation, a drifting surplus that connects the unconnected. In this context, the article places particular emphasis on the apophatic nature of sense formation. Pauses, intervals, breaks, and gaps give rise to signs within the backdrop of non-existence. Subjectivity functions as a ‘user of voids’, serving as a metacontext, a source, means, and outcome of sense formation. It exists as a gap within being, an inherent incompleteness ready for completion and replenishment. In this regard, personal agency manifests as a universal interface, potentially facilitating infinite interconnections across contexts. This interface facilitates interactions between the tangible reality we inhabit and any conceivable alternative worlds. It enables transitions from physical reality to the realm of imagination and vice versa, or even simultaneous consideration of both.

Reference

Asmolov, A. G., Shekhter, E. D. and Chernorizov, A. M., 2018. Preadaptatsiya k neopredelennosti: nepredskazuemye marshruty evolyutsii [Pre-Adaptation to Uncertainty: Unpredictable Evolutionary Routes]. Moscow, 212 p. (in Russ.).

Badiou, A., 2007. Being and Event. New York: Continuum, 526 p.

Bakhtin, M. M., 1986. To the philosophy of action. In: Filosofiya i sotsiologiya tekh­niki. Ezhegodnik. 1984—1985 [Philosophy and sociology of technology. Yearbook. 1984—1985]. Moscow, pp. 80—160 (in Russ.).

Bakhtin, М. М., 1979. Estetika slovesnogo tvorchestva [Aesthetics of verbal creativi­ty]. Moscow, 424 p. (in Russ.).

Berdyaev, N. A., 1989. Filosofiya svobody. Smysl tvorchestva [Philosophy of free­dom. The meaning of creativity]. Moscow, 608 p. (in Russ.).

Brodsky, I. N., 1973. Otritsatel'nye vyskazyvaniya [Negative statements]. Lenin­grad, 104 p. (in Russ.).

Da Vinci, L., 2010. Izbrannye proizvedeniya Leonardo da Vinci [Selected works Leo­nardo da Vinci]. Vol. I. Moscow: Art. Lebedev Studio Publishing House, 444 p. (in Russ.).

Damasio, A., 2010. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York, 384 p.

Epstein, M. N., 2004. Znak probela. O budushchem gumanitarnykh nauk [Gap sign. On the future of the humanities]. Moscow, 864 p. (in Russ.).

Fomin, I. V. and Ilyin, M. V., 2019. Social Semiotics: Paths Towards Integrating Social and Semiotic Knowledge. Sotsiologicheskiy Zhurnal [Sociological Journal], 25 (4), pp. 123—141, https://doi.org/123-141 10.19181/socjour.2019.25.4.6822 (in Russ.).

Frege, G., 1891. Function und Begriff. Vortrag gehalten in der Sitzung vom 9. Januar 1891 der Jenaischen Gesellschaft für Medicin und Naturwissenschaft. Jena, 1891.

Frege, G., 1892a. Über Begriff und Gegenstand. Vierteljahresschrift für wissen­schaft­liche Philosophie, Bd. XVI, pp. 192—205.

Frege, G., 1892b. Über Sinn und Bedeutung. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philo­so­phische Kritik, Bd. 100, pp. 25—50.

Frege, G., 1918—1919. Der Gedanke: Eine logische Untersuchung. Beiträge zur Phi­losophie des Deutschen Idealismus, Bd. I. Erfurt, pp. 58—77.

Galloway, A. R., Thacker, E. and Wark, M., 2014. Excommunication. Three inquiries in media and mediation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 216 p.

Goffman, E., 2004. Analiz freimov: Esse ob organizatsii povsednevnogo opyta [Frames Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Everyday Experience]. Moscow (in Russ.).

Heidegger, M., 2015. Bytie i vremya [Being and time]. Moscow (in Russ.).

Henrich, D., 2018. Myshlenie i samobytie. Chteniya o sub"ektivnosti [Thinking and being. Readings about subjectivity]. Moscow (in Russ.).

Hofstadter, D., 2022. Ya — strannaya petlya [I am a strange loop]. Moscow, 512 p. (in Russ.).

Ilyin, M. V., 2020. Logonomic Systems: Reflection, Meaningfulness and Verbali­za­tion of Action. In: Sotsial'naya semiotika: tochki rosta [Social semiotics: points of growth]. St. Petersburg, pp. 30—32 (in Russ.).

Kiyashchenko, L. P., ed., 2022. Chelovek kak otkrytaya tselostnost' [Man as open in­teg­rity]. Novosibirsk, 420 p. (in Russ.).

Kurennoy, V., 2018. Semanticheskii treugol'nik Gotloba Frege [The Semantic Triang­le of Gottlob Frege]. Available at: https://postnauka.ru/wtf/154781 [Accessed 1 Feb­ruary 2023] (in Russ.).

Latour, В., 2014. Peresborka sotsial'nogo: Vvedenie v aktorno-setevuyu teoriyu [Reas­sembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory]. Moscow (in Russ.).

Losev, A. F., 1999. Filosofiya imeni / Samoe samo: Sochineniya [Philosophy of the name / The most self: Essays]. Moscow, 1024 p. (in Russ.).

Lotman, Yu. M., 2000. Semiosfera. Kul'tura i vzryv. Vnutri myslyashchikh mirov. Stat'i. Issledovaniya. Zametki [The semiosphere. Culture and explosion. Inside the thin­king worlds. Articles. Researches. Notes]. St. Petersburg, 704 p. (in Russ.).

Magun, A., 2013. Negative Revolution. Modern Political Subject and Its Fate after the Cold War. London; New-York: Bloomsberry, 288 p.

Magun, A. V., 2020. Iskus nebytiya: Entsiklopediya dialekticheskikh nauk. Tom 1. Ot­ritsatel'naya estetika [Temptation of Non-Being: Encyclopedia of Dialectical Sciences. Volume 1. Negative aesthetics]. St. Petersburg, 462 p. (in Russ.).

Nalimov, V. V., 1974. Veroyatnostnaya model' yazyka. O sootnoshenii estestvennykh i iskusstvennykh yazykov [Probabilistic model of the language. On the relationship bet­ween natural and artificial languages]. Moscow, 272 p. (in Russ.).

Nalimov, V. V., 2007. Spontannost' soznaniya: Veroyatnostnaya teoriya smyslov i smys­lovaya arkhitektonika lichnosti [Spontaneity of Consciousness: Probabilistic Theory of Meanings and Semantic Architectonics of Personality]. Moscow, 198 p. (in Russ.).

Nevvazhay, I. D., 2023. Sense of sign and sense of meaning in epistemology. Tomsk State University Journal of Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science, 71, pp. 29—38, https://doi.org/10.17223/1998863Х/71/4 (in Russ.).

North, D. C., Wallis, J. J. and Weingast, B. R., 2011. Nasilie i sotsial'nye poryadki. Kontseptual'nye ramki dlya interpretatsii pis'mennoi istorii chelovechestva [Violence and Social Orders. A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History]. Moscow, 480 p. (in Russ.).

Pavlova, V. D. and Chupahin, N. P., 2014. Philosophy of meaning to philosophy of culture. Vestnik Novosibirskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta [Novo­si­birsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin], 5(21), pp. 50—55, https://doi.org/ 10.15293/2226-3365.1405 (in Russ.).

Saussure, F. de, 1999. Kurs obshchei lingvistiki [Course of general linguistics]. Eka­te­rinburg (in Russ.).

Shuripa, S., 2021. Deistvie i smysl v iskusstve vtoroi poloviny XX veka [Action and Meaning in the Art of the Second Half of the 20th Century]. St. Petersburg; Moscow (in Russ.).

Sokolov, E. V., 1972. Kul'tura i lichnost' [Culture and personality]. Leningrad, 228 p. (in Russ.).

Tulchinskii, G. L., 2018. The problem of meaning in Social Semiotics: deep semio­tics as a conceptual extension of Social Semiotics. Slovo. ru: Baltic accent, 9 (4), pp. 15—26, https://doi.org/10.5922/2225-5346-2018-4-2 (in Russ.).

Tulchinskii, G. L., 2019a. Extensions of the Semiotic Analysis Capabilities: the Sources and Content of the "Deep Semiotics" Concept. Voprosy filosofii [Problems of Philosophy], 11, pp. 115—125, https://doi.org/10.31857/S004287440007358-8 (in Russ.).

Tulchinskii, G. L., 2019b. Telo svobody: otvetstvennost' i voploshchenie smysla [The Bo­dy of Freedom: Responsibility and Embodiment of Meaning]. St. Petersburg, 470 p. (in Russ.).

Tulchinskii, G. L., 2022a. Apophatic and Institutionalization: Pragma-Semantic Ana­lysis. The Political Conceptology: Journal of Metadisciplinary Research, 3, pp. 29—48, https://doi.org/10.18522/2218-5518.2022.3.2948 (in Russ.).

Tulchinskii, G. L., 2022b. From Slinin to Carroll and Back: Apophaticism and Nonsense as Preliminaries for Logical Analysis. Logiko-filosofskie studii [Logical and philosophical studies], 20 (2), pp. 23—53 https://doi.org/10.52119/LPHS.2022.32. 65.012 (in Russ.).

Tulmin, S., 1984. Chelovecheskoe ponimanie [Human understanding]. Moscow, 328 p. (in Russ.).

Zolyan, S. T., 2021. On pragma-semantics of expressives. Between words and ac­tions. In: A. Haselow and S. Hancil, eds. Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface. Ams­terdam: J. Benjamins Publ., pp. 245—271.

Zolyan, S. T. and Tulchinskii, G. L., eds., 2022. Mezhdu mirom i yazykom: tekst i smysl v kommunikativnom kontekste [Between Language and World: Meaning and Text Within a Communicative Space]. Kaliningrad (in Russ.).

Zolyan, S. T., 2023a. Pragmatics as a Self-Generation of a Subject-on-Its Own. Vo­prosy filosofii [Problems of Philosophy], 7, pp. 93—103, https://doi.org/10.21146/ 0042-8744-2023-7-93-103 (in Russ.).

Zolyan, S. T., 2023b. “I” as a Subject of Self- and Other-Reference: A Linguistic Perspective. Proceedings of the V. V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute, 2, pp. 26—39, https://doi.org/10.31912/pvrli-2023.2.2 (in Russ.).