Lotman, Leibniz, and the semiospheric monad: Lost pages from the archives

Semiotica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (224) ◽  
pp. 313-336
Author(s):  
Pietro Restaneo
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
Political Sciences ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Intellectual Journey

AbstractThroughout 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.

The English Crisis of 1297 in the Light of French Experience

1979 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles T. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Good Deal ◽  
The Political ◽  
English History ◽  
French Experience ◽  
Political Principle ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Remarkable Agreement ◽  
Edward I

Among the familiar sights crowding the landscape of English history from the dooms of Ine to that crown plucked from a hawthorn bush at Bosworth, none is more deeply cherished than the crisis of 1297 and the “Confirmation of the Charters” to which it gave rise. For, despite all the sharp differences over detail that the documentation for this crisis has engendered, scholars have shown remarkable agreement in seeing it as the one defeat suffered by Edward I in a long and notably successful reign. And to that defeat they have attributed great constitutional significance. Stubbs set the pattern, calling the “result singularly in harmony with what seems from history and experience to be the natural direction of English progress,” and Wilkinson is only one among the many who have recently elaborated on that theme:The crisis of 1297 … placed a definite check on the tendencies which Edward I had shown, to ignore the deep principles of the constitution under stress of the necessities which confronted the nation … It was a landmark in the advance of the knights … toward political maturity. It helped to establish the tradition of co-operation and political alliance between the knights and the magnates, on which a good deal of the political future of England was to depend …. What the opposition achieved, in 1297, was a great vindication of the ancient political principle of government by consent ….

Multiple readings of the same Golden Age

1999 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-139
Author(s):  
Margarita Diaz-Andreu
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
Easy Task ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Firm Basis ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Sophisticated Analysis

The increasingly voluminous literature on nationalism and archaeology published in recent years is providing archaeologists with a firm basis to self-analyse the connection of their endeavours to the socio-political context of which they are imbued. Yet, the work undertaken is not beyond criticism, as the authors make clear in their introduction. Most studies, including this one, approach the topic adopting a historiographical perspective. Yet, trying to summarise two hundred years of politics and archaeology in a few thousand words is not an easy task. It makes it necessary to simplify usually very complex processes into seemingly neat sequences of events. In addition, writing for an archaeological audience does not make things easier. Most archaeologists have an understandable lack of knowledge on the complexities of the political aspect of the argument, a problem aggravated in the case of discussions of countries other than the one most of the readers are more familiar with. A detailed analysis of the intricate political context is simply unattainable and although references to other analytical works are often provided, it is difficult for authors to avoid giving the impression of adopting an objectifying position and a positivistic approach. Despite Hamilakis and Yalouri's awareness of this problem (p.115), on occasion their account falls precisely into the latter category (especially in the section ‘Imagining the nation in modern Greece’). As someone who has often been faced with this problem in my various publications on the relationship between archaeology and nationalism in Spain, I am still convinced of the validity of offering general overviews, despite the risks entailed. It is only after producing an intelligible outline, as they in fact have done, that it is possible to undertake a deeper and more sophisticated analysis of more concrete issues related to the connection between archaeology and nationalism.

Land and Politics in Mexico

1975 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Adie
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Economic Unit ◽  
Agrarian Question ◽  
Communal Land ◽  
The Many

In the many volumes written on the “agrarian question” in Mexico, probably no subject has received as much attention as the ejido, village communal land. Whether polemical or objective, most of these works have been concerned with the ejido primarily in economic terms. Questions have been raised about its importance as an economic unit, government action to improve its output, and its reform or even abolition for economic reasons. Related studies have been concerned with the ejido in terms of social justice, that is, the extent to which and the ways in which the ejidatarios, members of the ejido, have benefitted from the revolution. A few studies have been sociological or anthropological in nature, examining the ejido in terms of how it reinforces or breaks down traditional social and cultural patterns. While utilizing the data presented in these various studies, this note is concerned with the political aspect of the ejido or more specifically, how the ejido is a device which, both alone and in conjunction with a subculture of poverty, allows political control to be exercised over a vast peasant population engaged for the most part in primitive agriculture while urban Mexico proceeds with industrialization.In the early 1920s George McCutcheon McBride insisted in his major study of Mexican land tenure patterns that the Indians had to be kept on the land.

scholarly journals Are There “Sources of Resilience” When the Separation of Powers Breaks Down?

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Arjun Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The People ◽  
Legislative Branch ◽  
Parliamentary Systems ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

Jacob Levy describes three variants of the separation of powers in the 31st Annual McDonald Lecture in Constitutional Studies, only one of which is germane to this reflection. The first variant he describes is based solely on the independence of the judiciary from both the executive and legislative branches of governments; consequently, this variant encompasses both presidential and parliamentary systems under its conceptual ambit. Another variant, which Levy attributes to Montesquieu, envisages the separation of powers between executive, judicial, and legislative branches as a way of allowing for the “pooled”1 rule of “the one” (i.e. monarch), “the few” (i.e. aristocrats), and “the many” (i.e. the people). Levy also describes a distinctly American variant of the separation of powers undergirded by a system of checks and balances. This variant was designed to ensure “mutual monitoring between executive and legislative”2 and it vests the legislative branch with the power to impeach the executive in order to “maintain effective limits on the political power and the political ambition of the president.”3

Toward the Absence of Time

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Rodríguez Matos
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Modernity ◽  
The Us ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Political Time ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

This chapter focuses on the concept of time at the heart of political modernity, particularly as it is embodied in various phases of the Cuban Revolution. It sets out a way of understanding a perhaps unexpected continuity in the concept of politics underwriting the Revolutionary State across different moments in its history. The chapter shows to what extent the opposition of the one and the many, the one hegemonic time of Capitalist modernity and the multiple peripheral temporalities that confront and fracture it, only serves to occlude the metaphysical structure of modern political time as a whole. The chapter is concerned, on the one hand, with the retroactive changes that obtain in our image of politics once we take into account recent developments such as the period that follows the fall of the USSR and the contemporary moment of “normalizing” relations between the US and Cuba. On the other hand, the chapter is concerned with the various theoretical models available to think the political temporalities at issue.

Diversity: Religions and the Study of Religion

2004 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 199-218
Author(s):  
Gerhard Van Den Heever
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
The Way

AbstractIn this essay an overview of the theoretical issues pertaining to the collection of essays assembled is given. Addressing the issue of dizversity in religions and in the study of religion the argument is made that religions as lived phenomena constitute discursive formations in which diversity as a problem is an index of encounter. However it is especially the way this strategy of reducing the many to the one in the history of theorising religion that comes in view. In this context, the political nature of religion as discourse and the discourse of the study of religion is discussed with particular reference to the history of Christianisation of South Africa, religion in education, and the history of theorising religion.

scholarly journals Can philosophy be autonomous in the XXI century?

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Nadezda Gonotskaya
Keyword(s):  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Organic Part ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Existential Choice ◽  
The One ◽  
Intellectual Environment

This article discusses the image of philosophy in modern world in the context of synthesis of the various intellectual and cultural traditions. The author explores the correlation between philosophy and politics, knowledge and power as a certain discursive practice that in an organic part of Western European culture; demonstrates the limits on establishing dialogue between philosophical traditions, schools and strands of thought. Leaning on the ideas of Kant and Foucault in viewing the phenomenon of Enlightenment, the author analyzes the role and place of a philosopher in the political and intellectual environment. The procedure of double sample realized by the philosopher holds the risk of losing its position on the pedestal taken by intellectualism and serve ideology instead, since orientation towards socially-pragmatic actions inevitably requires involvement into a political game. It demands conscious demarcation of the two types of decisions made: on the one hand, it is an existential choice pertinent to the held by philosopher intellectual position; while on the other – a socially-pragmatic, associated with interval choices, not affecting the ultimate grounds of existence. Due to the fact that preservation of the autonomy of philosophical territory in the era of globalization is an acute problem, there is a need for extremely cautious attitude to any attempts of shifting traditions and cultures, which usually assign primary role to the “philosophical reason”.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Gamberini
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
State Building ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
The Middle Ages

The introduction gives a critical rereading of the historiographical debate regarding the processes of state building at the end of the Middle Ages, highlighting its limitations in the lack of interest shown in the ideal reasons for the political conflict. This then gives rise to the interpretative proposal that forms the basis of the present work, which aims to shed light on the many conflicts that, in relation to legitimacy of power, tore medieval society apart. With this in mind, the introduction focuses on an analysis of the sources that are potentially useful for the study of these particular aspects, on the risks underlying their use, and on the expected results. The last part discusses the structure of the work and justifies the decision to divide it into two, clearly divided parts, dedicated to the communal age on the one hand and the post-communal era on the other.

IV. Unity and Diversity in India and Indonesia

Itinerario ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.C. Heesterman
Keyword(s):  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cosmic Order ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
Rational Mind ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

When we intone the words ‘Unity in Diversity’, we know we are faced with a problem. At best these words express an aspiration rather than a reality — otherwise it would hardly be worthwhile to utter them. But most of all they seem to be an incantation meant to exorcize the threat of both disruptive diversity and oppressive unity. It is, in other words, a mantra that owes its expressiveness to the neatly concise formulation of an unresolved paradox. It is concerned with the cosmogonic conundrum of the One-and-the-Many that has exercised the mythopoeic imagination of the Vedic seers and their likes as well as the rational mind of present-day physicists. Our mantra, then, evokes the riddle of the cosmic order which must encompass its opposite, disorder, so as to be truly universal. It is not surprising, therefore, that we should encounter the same paradox on the more mundane level of the political order. The manyfold diversities undermine the integrity of the whole. Unity, in its turn, threatens to extinguish diversity and to replace it with deadening sameness. Between them, unity and diversity provide for an unpredictable dynamic, and it is a fitting tribute to the dangers involved that our mantra has been enshrined in its Indonesian form in the Republic's armorial motto: Bhinneka Tunggal Ika.

The Political Machine in the Late Bronze Age

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam T. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
Joint Operation ◽  
Political Machine ◽  
Charismatic Authority ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Active Commitment

In the Late Bronze Age, the polities in the South Caucasus developed a new assemblage directed toward transforming charismatic authority into formal sovereignty. This chapter examines the assembling of this political machine, which drew the civilization and war machines into an extensive apparatus of rule, one that resolved the paradox at the heart of the joint operation of both. This novel political machine did not supersede the war and civilization machines. Rather, the political machine cloaked their contradictions, allowing the relation of the one to the many to persist as a “mystery” of sovereignty. The political machine not only provided the instruments of judicial ordering and bureaucratic regulation but it also transformed the polity itself into an object of devotion, securing not simply the surrender of subjects but their active commitment to the reproduction of sovereignty.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document