Yoshimi has attempted to defuse my argument concerning the identification of network abstraction with empiricist abstraction - thus entailing psychologism - by claiming that the argument does not generalize from the example of simple feed-forward networks. I show that the particular details of networks are logically irrelevant to the nature of the abstractive process they employ. This is ultimately because deep artificial neural networks (ANNs) and dynamical systems theory applied to the mind (DST) are both associationisms - that is, empiricist (...) theories that derive the principles of thought from the causal history of the organism/system. On this basis, I put forward a new aspect of the old argument by noting that ANNs & DST are the causal bases of the phenomena of passive synthesis, whereas the language of thought hypothesis (LOT) and the symbolic computational theory of mind (CTM) are the causal bases of the phenomena of active synthesis. If the phenomena of active synthesis are not distinct in kind from and are thus reducible to those of passive synthesis, psychologism results. Yoshimi’s program, insofar as it denies this fundamental phenomenological distinction, is revealed to be the true anti-pluralist program, by essentially denying the causal efficacy of the mechanistic foundations of active synthesis by referring phenomenology exclusively to associationism for its causal foundation. (shrink)

Moral Internalism is the claim that it is a priori that moral beliefs are reasons for action. At least three conceptions of 'reason' may be disambiguated: psychological, epistemological, and purely ethical. The first two conceptions of Internalism are false on conceptual, and indeed empirical, grounds. On a purely ethical conception of 'reasons', the claim is true but is an Externalist claim. Positive arguments for Internalism — from phenomenology, connection and oddness — are found wanting. Three possible responses to the stock (...) Externalist objections are uncovered and overturned. In so doing a close relation between Internalism and Behaviourism is revealed, and some stock anti-behaviouristic arguments are co-opted for Externalism. The likely dependence of Internalism on an Atomistic Associationism is uncovered and criticised. Internalism is seen as being ultimately a type of Ethical Determinism. Finally, a sketch of an Anti-Associative Externalism is given whereby the notion of self determination of action is put forward as an account of moral motivation fit to resist both the internalist and the belief-desire psychology premises of the stock non-cognitivist argument. (shrink)

L’opinion est souvent exprimée que Bradley fut un des tout premiers critiques du psychologisme. Dans cet article, j’examine cette thèse en me penchant principalement sur ses Principles of Logic . Je définis le psychologisme au sens étroit comme une thèse portant sur les fondements de la logique, et le psychologisme au sens large comme une thèse plus générale en théorie de la connaissance pour montrer que Bradley a rejeté les deux, même s’il n’avait pas grand chose à dire sur la (...) version étroite. Sa critique de l’autre version est basée sur une distinction entre contenu psychologique et contenu logique, et sur sa défense de la thèse de l’idéalité du contenu logique, avant Frege et Husserl. Cependant, il tient encore à l’idée que le contenu logique provient de la perception. Après une brève présentation de ses critiques de la psychologie associationniste, je montre qu’il fait face à de véritables difficultés en essayant d’éviter de retomber dans le psychologisme en faisant appel à la distinction entre universel abstrait et universel concret. Je termine avec quelques remarques sur la place de Bradley dans l’histoire de la psychologie britannique.One often hears the opinion voiced that Bradley was an early critique of psychologism. In this paper, I investigate that claim, focussing on his Principles of Logic . I define psychologism in the narrow sense as a thesis pertaining to the foundations of logic, and psychologism in the wide sense as a more general thesis concerning the theory of knowledge, and show that Bradley rejected both, although he had little to say on the narrow version. His criticism of the wider version is based on his distinguishing between psychological and logical content and on his defence of the ideality of logical content, before Frege and Husserl. Nevertheless, he still hung to the idea that the latter harks back to ordinary perception. I then review briefly his criticisms of associationism in psychology, to show that he faced some difficulties in trying to avoid lapsing back into psychologism, with an appeal to a distinction between abstract and concrete universals. I conclude with some remarks on the palace of Bradley in the history of British psychology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. Associationist psychologists of the late 19th-century premised their research on a fundamentally Humean picture of the mind. So the very idea of mental science was called into question when T. H. Green, a founder of British idealism, wrote an influential attack on Hume’s Treatise. I first analyze Green’s interpretation and criticism of Hume, situating his reading with respect to more recent Hume scholarship. I focus on Green’s argument that Hume cannot consistently admit real ideas of spatial relations. I then (...) argue that William James’s early work on spatial perception attempted to vindicate the new science of mind by showing how to avoid the problems Green had exposed in Hume’s empiricism. James’s solution involved rejecting a basic Humean assumption—that perceptual experience is fundamentally composed of so-called minima sensibilia, or psychological atoms. The claim that there are no psychological atoms is interesting because James supported it with experimental data rather than (as commentators typically suppose) with introspective description or a priori argument. James claimed to be the real descendant of British empiricism on grounds that his anti-atomistic model of perception fortified what Green had perhaps most wanted to demolish—the prospect of using empirical, scientific methods in the study of mind. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXII, Number 1, April 1996, pp. 23-48 Fantastick Associations and Addictive General Rules: A Fundamental Difference between Hutcheson and Hume MICHAEL B. GILL The belief that God created human beings for some moral purpose underlies nearly all the moral philosophy written in Great Britain in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. David Hume attacks this theological conception of human nature on all fronts. It is out (...) of these attacks that Hume develops his own "science of man" based solely on "experience and observation."1 Francis Hutcheson is often taken to be the most important positive influence on Hume. And there can be no doubt that Hume does take on board several crucial Hutchesonian elements. But Hutcheson's moral theory, like that of most of his contemporaries, is grounded in a theological conception of human nature to which Hume is adamantly opposed.2 In this paper I will examine how Hume's disagreements with Hutcheson embody the anti-theological purpose that defines Hume's work as a whole. I will look, in particular, at Hume's and Hutcheson's different positions on the principles of association. I hope to show how Hume's use of these principles in the Treatise advances his larger goal of placing "the science of man" on "a foundation almost entirely new" (T xvi). I will proceed, first, by explaining Hutcheson's conception of human nature and his use of the principles of association; second, by sketching in broad outline how Hume's accounts of the origins of justice and natural virtue undermine crucial components of Hutcheson's conception of human nature; and third, by elucidating in more detail an aspect of Hume's associationism that is particularly revealing of his distance from Hutcheson. Michael B. Gill is at the Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, 1360 Liberal Arts and Education Building, West Lafayette IN 47907 USA. email: [email protected]. 24 Michael B. Gill I. Hutcheson and Association Hutcheson discusses the mind's tendency to associate in all of his writings, but his most extensive treatment of the matter comes in his Essay on the Passions.3 Hutcheson begins the Essay by telling us that something is good if and only if the perception of it "Causes, or Occasions" a pleasurable feeling, and that something is evil if and only if the perception of it causes or occasions a painful feeling (EP 2). Crucially, Hutcheson denies that all of our pleasures and pains are of the same type (EP 1-8).4 He holds, rather, that there are at least five distinct types of pleasures and pains and that each of them grounds a different irreducible type of good and evil. There are, first, the pleasures and pains caused by things we perceive through the external senses of taste, touch, smell, etc.; things that cause such pleasures are called naturally good, while things that cause such pains are called naturally evil. Second, there are the "Pleasant Perceptions, arising from regular, harmonious, uniform Objects" (EP 5); the things that cause these pleasures are called beautiful.5 Third, there are the pleasures and pains we feel upon perceiving the happiness or misery of other human beings; the things that cause these pleasures are called public goods while those that cause the corresponding pains are called public evils. Fourth, there are pleasures and pains, usually called approval and disapproval, that we feel upon perceiving the actions of others; the actions that cause approval are called virtuous or morally good, while those that cause disapproval are called vicious or morally evil. Finally, there are the pleasures and pains we feel upon perceiving others' moral perceptions of our own actions; the pleasure of perceiving others' approval of one's actions is called the feeling of honor, while the pain of perceiving others' disapproval is called the feeling of shame. For Hutcheson, then, natural goodness, beauty, the public good, virtue and honor are all defined by our pleasures and pains. He does not think, however, that these are defined by just any of our actual or occurrent pleasures and pains. He holds, rather, that they are defined by the pleasures and pains we feel under certain privileged... (shrink)

In this article I attempt to reveal some continuities between the anti-psychoanalytic stance adopted by Gilles Deleuze in his later work and Henri Bergson's early philosophy. On account of these continuities I hope to provide a glimpse into what I believe is a century-old tangent of philosophical resistance to the methods and theories of Freudian psychoanalysis. In order to achieve this, I start with a brief meditation on the challenges and benefits of cross-generational inheritance and collaboration in philosophy. The (...) purpose of this is twofold – to explore some general conditions for such collaboration and to tease out some of the implications of these conditions for the substantive argument my specific reading of Bergson via Deleuze occasions. I then expound on Bergson's theory of duration and some of the uses to which Deleuze puts it in the latter part of his career. In this I outline several fecund similarities between Bergson's critique of associationism and Deleuze's attack on Freud. Finally, I attempt a partial evaluation of Freudian psychoanalysis from the joint, albeit naturally disjointed, perspective of my primary sources. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: First Origins: Visual Space The Space Common to Vision and Touch, the Time Common to All the Senses Association by Cause and Effect: A World in Mind Sense‐Divide Transcendent Space and Time References Further Reading.

There are two roles that association played in 18th–19th century associationism. The first dominates modern understanding of the history of the concept: association is a causal link posited to explain why ideas come in the sequence they do. The second has been ignored: association is merely regularity in the trains of thought, and the target of explanation. The view of association as regularity arose in several forms throughout the tradition, but Thomas Brown (1778–1820) makes the distinction explicit. He argues (...) that there is no associative link, and association is mere sequence. I trace this view of association through the tradition, and consider its implications: Brown's views, in particular, motivate a rethinking of the associationist tradition in psychology. Associationism was a project united by a shared explanandum phenomenon, rather than a theory united by a shared theoretical posit. (shrink)

Although best known as a philosopher and political theorist, John Stuart Mill made important contributions to psychology as well. In this he followed his father, James Mill, whose two‐volume Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829) relied upon and updated the “associationist” research program initiated by John Locke and further developed by Dr. David Hartley and David Hume, among others. The Mills pere et fils shared an abiding interest in how human character is formed (and too often deformed) (...) along associationist lines. The elder Mill couched this in “educational” terms, and his son in “ethological” ones. J.S. Mill's new science of Ethology, or character‐formation differed in important respects from his father's theory. The most significant of these was that James Mill held that an individual can play no part in the formation of his own character, while his son disagreed vehemently. Here I trace the sources and implications of this disagreement. (shrink)

It is often argued that if one holds a liberal political philosophy about individual rights against the state and the community, then one cannot consistently say that a state that violates those principles is owed the right of noninterference. How could the rights of the collective trump the rights of individuals in a liberal view? I believe that this debate calls for more reflection, on the relation between liberalism and individualism. I will sketch a conception of liberalism in which there (...) is nothing awkward about saying that associations, as such, have some moral rights to noninterference. If liberal associationism is compelling in general terms then, if states can be shown to be associations in the relevant respects, then liberalism itself will supply the moral basis for a right of that kind, held by a state or people as such, to nonintervention. (shrink)

Association dominated theorizing about the mind in the English-speaking world from the early eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth and remained an important concept into the twenty-first. This endurance across centuries and intellectual traditions means that it has manifested in many different ways in different views of mind. This article traces associationist themes as they developed over the years by presenting the views of central historical figures in each era, focusing specifically on their conception of the associative relation and how it (...) operates in the mind. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 23 Emotions are pivotal in the manifestation and functioning of character traits. Traits such as virtues and vices involve emotions in diverse but connected ways. Some virtues are exemplified, in important part, by feeling emotions. Others are exemplified in managing, bypassing, or even eliminating emotions. And one virtue at least is exemplified in _not_-feeling a certain range of emotions. Emotions are a kind of perceptual state, namely _construal_, involving concern or caring about something, in which the (...) elements of a situation are organized and understood in terms of their significance or import. Emotional understanding can be morally right or wrong. As such construals, emotions can be morally excellent or perverse. Emotions thus have a logic or grammar that is crucial to their entering into, or being set upon by, or simply not occurring because of, virtues. The virtuous person is attuned, implicitly or reflectively, to this grammar, and that attunement constitutes one of the major dimensions of practical wisdom. An associationist psychology attempts to reduce the conceptual and intentional richness of emotions to mere associations or correlations of pleasant or unpleasant “affect” with various things. Such a psychology is fundamentally unfit to represent practical wisdom, and thus the moral life. We sketch an account of the generation and degeneration of character traits using the above conceptual framework and contrasting it with an associationist framework. (shrink)

F. H. Bradley, while not alone in securing idealism its standing in British thought for several generations of philosophers, was by far the ablest exponent of the position. He was by far the ablest critic, too, of the “school of experience,” the empiricist philosophers. In particular, he criticized the doctrines of the associationist psychology of Hume, Hartley, and the Mills. This criticism was metaphysically based, arguing that the psychology was inadequate because of its “atomism,” that is, because it presupposed an (...) inadequate account of relations. Bradley proposed an alternative account of relations that led to a very different view of such psychological phenomena as inference. Since there were many controversies internal to introspective psychology concerning the status of relations, Bradley’s views can be seen as part of a movement that eventually forced the science to deal more adequately with relational facts. Nonetheless, Bradley’s metaphysics was decidedly antiempiricist, and was in the end antagonistic to the idea that an empirical science could provide any ultimate sort of explanation of human being. In that respect, Bradley’s critique stood apart from those that were internal to the science. (shrink)

Associationism can be broadly defined as a school of thought in philosophy and psychology that holds that mental activity can be accounted for by processes that combine simple elements or ideas. More than a century ago, scientific psychology started taking measurements of word associations, and only a few years later, word associations became a major research tool in psychiatry. With the advent of neurobiology and the discovery of the neuron, the term association came to denote physical connections between cells (...) or parts of the brain. The resulting ambiguity made the concept highly fruitful and at the same time introduced the risk of committing categorical mistakes and of engaging in unfounded speculation, since little was known about the actual functioning of neurons. In modern cognitive neuroscience, computational models provide the critically needed link between the psychological and the biological approaches. The concept of association, with its biological, psychological, and computational connotations, provides the framework needed for further experimental research. Its potential for contributing to our understanding of psychopathology can hardly be overestimated. (shrink)

This article compares early nineteenth-century English and Scottish theories of the mind and the way that it develops to findings in today's developmental psychology and neuroscience through a close observation of the work of Elizabeth Hamilton. Hamilton was a Scottish writer and philosopher who produced three pedagogical works in her lifetime, consisting of her carefully formulated philosophy of mind and practical suggestions to caretakers and educators. Although Hamilton has received relatively little attention in modern philosophical literature, her understanding of the (...) mind and the way it develops—based on her nuanced understanding of associationism and Scottish faculty psychology—is overwhelmingly supported by empirical findings today. In addition to utilizing Hamilton's work for the sake of understanding early nineteenth-century philosophy of mind, I argue that a large portion of Hamilton's work should be used to inform future research programs, early caregiving guides, and educational methods. (shrink)

The ability to predict is the most importantability of the brain. Somehow, the cortex isable to extract regularities from theenvironment and use those regularities as abasis for prediction. This is a most remarkableskill, considering that behaviourallysignificant environmental regularities are noteasy to discern: they operate not only betweenpairs of simple environmental conditions, astraditional associationism has assumed, butamong complex functions of conditions that areorders of complexity removed from raw sensoryinputs. We propose that the brain's basicmechanism for discovering such complexregularities is implemented (...) in the dendritictrees of individual pyramidal cells in thecerebral cortex. Pyramidal cells have 5–8principal dendrites, each of which is capableof learning nonlinear input-to-outputtransfer functions. We propose that eachdendrite is trained, in learning its transferfunction, by all the other principal dendritesof the same cell. These dendrites teach eachother to respond to their separate inputs with matching outputs. Exposed to differentbut related information about the sensoryenvironment, principal dendrites of the samecell tune to functions over environmentalconditions that, while different, are correlated . As a result, the cell as awhole tunes to the source of the regularitiesdiscovered by the cooperating dendrites,creating a new representation. When organizedinto feed-forward/feedback layers, pyramidalcells can build their discoveries on thediscoveries of other cells, graduallyuncovering nature's hidden order. Theresulting associative network is powerfulenough to meet a troubling traditionalobjection to associationism: that it is toosimple an architecture to implement rationalprocesses. (shrink)

Despite its long period of dominance, the details of associationism as developed by the British Empiricists in the 18th and 19th centuries are often ignored or forgotten today. Perhaps as a result, modern understandings of Empiricist associationism are often oversimplified. In fact, there is no single core view that can be viewed as definitional, or even weaker, as characteristic, of the tradition. The actual views of associationists in this tradition are much more diverse than any such view would (...) allow, even on fundamental aspects of the concept of association. This paper presents some of the most striking theoretical diversity and most significant discussions within the Empiricist associationist tradition. Recognizing this diversity, Empiricist associationism is best viewed as a project with shared questions and methods rather than a shared substantive theory of mind. This discussion can inform our understanding of the historical tradition, and also inform our current use of association and associationism. The concept of association is more flexible than it is often treated, and even its basic nature and function remain up for debate. (shrink)

Summary John Stuart Mill's classic tale of disillusionment from a ‘narrow creed’, an overt as much as a covert theme of his Autobiography (London, 1873), has for many years served as a guide to the search for the causes and sources of his ‘enlargement-of-the-utilitarian-creed’ project. As a result, in analyses of Mill's mature views, Samuel Taylor Coleridge—and friends—commonly take centre stage in terms of influence, whereas John's father—James Mill—is reduced either to a supernumerary or a villain in the last act (...) of John's intellectual development. However, students of Mill's works should not take at face value the story presented in Autobiography. Mill's own emphasis on the role of his ‘new influences’ has led scholars to disregard the role of his ‘old influences’ in his attempt to create a broader theory of living—one which takes into account both the intellectual and the emotional capacities of individuals. A close look at key aspects of John Stuart Mill's ‘enlargement project’ suggests that James Mill may have played a more positive role than is usually acknowledged. A way into the intellectual affinity of the two Mills is the person they both kept returning to for guidance and inspiration throughout their lives: Plato. (shrink)

It seems that eudaimonistic reconstructions of John Stuart Mill's conception of happiness have fallen prey to what they thought Mill should have done with regard to the role of pleasure in his notion of happiness. Insisting that utility and eudaimonia make conflicting claims, something which mirrors Mill's ‘conflicting loyalties’, they downgrade pleasure to just one of the ingredients of happiness. However, a closer look at Mill's intellectual development suggests otherwise. By focusing on Mill's radical background, this paper argues that pleasure (...) retains a central role in his conception of happiness – even from a eudaimonistic point of view. (shrink)

James Mill'sHistory of British India(1817) made a rather strange claim: first-hand experience of India was not vital in writing a history – potentially, it led to false ideas about its subject-matter: eyewitnesses are susceptible to bias. The historian was thus to perform his task as a judge: sifting through various testimonies to obtain a ‘more perfect’ conception of the whole than those who witnessed its various parts. Although strange, Mill's claim does not bewilder his readers: after all, Mill was a (...) ‘militant’ exponent of theorizing utilitarianism. I argue that such a reading of Mill's method is injudiciously restrictive. Not only did Mill draw on well-known methodological concerns in contemporary historiographical practice, not necessarily linked with Jeremy Bentham or the Scottish theoretical historiography, but he also seemed to adopt the vocabulary of forensic rhetoric, making his claim that his was a ‘judging’ history more literal than it has been supposed. (shrink)

The article views the development of the Tartu–Moscow semiotic school from the analysis of texts to the study of spatial entities (semiosphere being most well known of them). It comes to light that ‘culture’ and ‘space’ have been such notions in Tartu–Moscow School to which, for instance, the ‘semiosphere’ does not add much. There are studied possibilities to join Uexküll’s and Lotman’s basic concepts (as certain grounds of Estonian semiotics) with Tartu–Moscow School’s treatment of culture and space through the notion (...) of ‘semiotic subject’. Such an approach allows to see transdisciplinarity, which has come to issue only during the last decade, already in the first conceptions of Tartu–Moscow School where transdisciplinarity revealed itself in the symbiotic use of ‘culture’ and ‘space’. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill considered his A System of Logic , first published in 1843, the methodological foundation and intellectual groundwork of his later works in ethical, social, and political theory. Yet no book has attempted in the past to engage with the most important aspects of Mill's Logic . This volume brings together leading scholars to elucidate the key themes of this influential work, looking at such topics as his philosophy of language and mathematics, his view on logic, induction and (...) deduction, free will, argumentation, ethology and psychology, as well as his account of normativity, kinds of pleasure, philosophical and political method and the "Art of Life.". (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 20, Issue 1, Page 204-207, January 2012.

The rise and fall of the historian of British India -- A classical education -- History, philosophy, and history -- Induction and deduction -- Rational persuasion -- Good government.

This book explores various connections of John Stuart Mill's thought to ancient Greek philosophy primarily in relation to his conception of happiness. It argues that a better understanding of Mill's background in ancient Greek thought and his reading(s) of Plato's dialogues leads to innovative interpretations of his moral and political thought.

This chapter argues that two distinct, yet connected, contexts – Mill's “mental crisis” and his task as a “Logician” – led to the formation of two arguments on the value of art. On one hand, Mill argued that aesthetic cultivation was important as an end in itself. Excellence was to be pursued disinterestedly as part of a beautiful life. On the other, Mill argued aesthetic cultivation was important as a means to the utilitarian end – strengthening the social sympathies made (...) social happiness attainable. The first argument highlights what Mill thought was missing from the theory of his utilitarian predecessors, while the second brought Mill closer to this tradition, rather than moving him further away from it. (shrink)

Contemporary sociosemiotics is a way to transcend borderlines between trends inside semiotics, and also other disciplines. Whereas semiotics has been considered as an interdisciplinary field of research par excellence, sociosemiotics can point directions at transdisciplinary research. The present article will try to conjoin the structural and the processual views on culture and society, binding them together with the notion of signification. The signification of space will illustrate the dynamic between both cultures and metacultures, and cultural mainstreams and subcultures. This paper (...) pays attention to the practice of sociocultural semiotisation of space and territorialisation by diverse examples and different sociocultural levels that imply semiotic cooperation between several members of groups that can be characterised as socii. We analyse territorialisation by graffiti, by furnishing spatial environment through artistic manners, by shaping the semiotic essence of cities through naming, renaming and translating street names, by pinning and structuring territories with monuments, by landmarking and mapping cultural space through individualisation of cities. We will see how principles of semiotisation of space are valid on different levels and how these principles form a transdisciplinary object of study as ‘semiotisation of space’, and how space can be regarded as a genuinely transdisciplinary research object. Individual, culture, and society are connected in such an object both as constituents and as a background of study. (shrink)

The article analyses the position of sociosemiotics in the paradigm of contemporary semiotics. Principles of studying sociocultural phenomena are discussed so as they have been set for analysing the inner mechanisms of sign systems in the semiology of F. de Saussure on the one hand, and for studying sign systems and semiotic units as related to referential reality in the semiotics of C. S. Peirce on the other hand. Three main issues are touched upon to define the scope of sociosemiotics: (...) the general methodology of sociosemiotics. its particular methods, and possible objects of analysis. The relevance of the features of objects in different humanitarian disciplines (cultural unit, historical fact, social fact, institutional fact, social process, etc.) is surveyed to define the object of study in sociosemiotics. Also, the article comments on the description of social organisations via cultural processes and on relations between an individual and society as controllable by social action models. (shrink)

Contemporary sociosemiotics is a way to transcend borderlines between trends inside semiotics, and also other disciplines. Whereas semiotics has been considered as an interdisciplinary field of research par excellence, sociosemiotics can point directions at transdisciplinary research. The present article will try toconjoin the structural and the processual views on culture and society, binding them together with the notion of signification. The signification of space willillustrate the dynamic between both cultures and metacultures, and cultural mainstreams and subcultures. This paper pays attention (...) to the practice of sociocultural semiotisation of space and territorialisation by diverse examples and different sociocultural levels that imply semiotic cooperation between several members of groups that can be characterised as socii. We analyse territorialisation by graffiti, by furnishing spatial environment through artistic manners, by shaping the semiotic essence of cities through naming, renaming and translating street names, by pinning and structuring territories with monuments, by landmarking and mapping cultural space through individualisation of cities. We will see how principles of semiotisation of space are valid on different levels (individual and social, formal and informal, democratic and hegemonic, cultural and subcultural) and how these principles form a transdisciplinary object of study as ‘semiotisation of space’, and how space can be regarded as a genuinely transdisciplinary research object. Individual, culture, and society are connected in such an object both as constituents and as a background of study. (shrink)